Cami tries. She really does try to defend me with grace and honor, to reason with the unreasonable. “One of the first things out of her mouth when I entered this room was how she felt bad for the guests, Melanie. It’s—”
My mother cuts her off, as if she didn’t hear her at all.
“What about me?”
And there it is.
I watch it in real-time, I think, the atom bomb inside of Cami imploding.
It’s funny since she was the only person who was able to endure my mother long enough to plan Melanie St. George’s extensive wedding. Multiple planners ditched after a short time with her unrealistic demands and self-centered thought process, but Cami was able to rise to the top and give her everything she wanted.
“What about you, Melanie?” she asks. I try and hold on to her tighter but she isn’t having it, stepping back and away from me, detaching with a gentleness I know she is forcing from the set of her jaw.
“Cam—”
“Exactly that. Do you know how embarrassing this is? My daughter got left at the altar by a Reed. We were so close and she couldn’t seal the deal.” Her eyes start to water, though I know from experience a tear will never fall; that’s the extent of the emotion she’ll show.
Emotion creates lines, and tears ruin makeup. But a gentle watering of the eyes . . . it’s just enough to look vulnerable and earn compassion.
“And now I’m going to be the laughingstock of everything. I can’t even believe it. I won’t be able to walk into Saks without people staring at me like I’m some, some loser. Some freak they should pity. I’ll be a pariah!”
“I don’t . . . I can’t . . .”
It’s not often Cami is at a loss for words, but it seems my mother was able to accomplish this feat.
“I told you, Olivia. I told you to stop nagging him, to let him be. Men like him, they don’t like that.”
“I know, Mom. I’m so sorry,” I say, keeping my eyes down.
She did. Multiple times.
Like when I called him from to bakery where we were getting the seven-tier wedding cake and he told me he had better things to do and to just pick a fucking cake.
According to my mother, it was wildly inappropriate I had even asked him to attend.
There was the time we had engagement photos, he was three hours late, and for some reason, my mom told me it had to have been my fault. I should have put it into his calendar myself, reminded him, told his assistant, and picked out his outfit for him.
There was also the time—
“You’re kidding, right?”
My business partner’s tone is cold, cruel, and measured.
This is Cami ready to fucking blow.
“What?” my mother asks, dabbing at the corner of her eyes with a custom embroidered handkerchief.
“I said, you’re kidding me, right?” Cami enunciates each word, like she’s speaking to a child.
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s just, it must be a joke if you’re telling your daughter just an hour after her fiancé left her at the altar it’s her fault or you are the one who deserves pity.”
Silence rings in the room and it’s heavy. I can’t breathe in it, like one of those days where it’s so humid, you can’t bear to be outside because it feels like you’re inhaling water.
“Camile, I know you don’t understand how all of”—she waves her hand at the luxury of the hotel room—“this works, considering your upbringing and all, but when you’re trying to keep a man like Bradley Reed on your line, you need to cater to him. And obviously, Olivia did not do this.”
Cami waits for a beat before she answers. I open my mouth to attempt to stop her, but it’s no use.
This fuse has been at risk for months. Years, even.
It was bound to happen. Might as well get all of the shitty experiences over at the same time.
“Olivia is your daughter, Melanie.”
“I know that, Camile.” Now my mother is speaking as if Cami is the child.
“She is your daughter who has done nothing her entire life but cater to others—to you, to those fucking evil twins, to your family, to Bradley fucking Reed—whether or not any of them deserve her kindness.”
“What are you trying to say? I don’t deserve Olivia’s kindness?”
“Jesus, you know what? Yes. I am saying that. You don’t deserve the kindness and attention and generosity Olivia is constantly giving you. You don’t deserve it because you don’t even recognize it, much less appreciate it. You just expect it.”
“I know you don’t have children of your own, but if you did, you’d understand that’s how it is as a parent.”
“No. It’s not. That’s not how a parent is supposed to act, expecting her child to further their own social career, to cater to them indefinitely. That’s fucked up, Melanie. It’s manipulative. And Olivia is good—so good, she has sacrificed her own wants and needs her entire life to keep you happy because it keeps her life easier to do that rather than to have you give her shit about not doing what you want her to do. She would probably let this shit go, let you dab at your eyes and whine about what an affront her being dumped on her wedding day is to you, but I won’t.”
“I’m not sure what this even has to do with—” Cami steamrolls right over her.
“Because personally, I’m tired of watching her bend over backward for everyone, for anyone, but especially for you. You’re selfish and rude and, honestly, probably jealous of your daughter, but that’s a conversation for you to have with your therapist. I’m done with you being rude to her in front of me. You can apologize to her and we can all commiserate for her, but if you want to sit there and make this a personal pity party, you can leave.” My mother’s mouth is open, and for once in her life, she seems to be in genuine shock.
“Well, I neve—”
“Yeah, no shit. Maybe if you had been talked to like this, you wouldn’t be such a cunt, but unfortunately for everyone who has to cross your path, you’ve never been told no. And you know what, the next time I see you, I’ll play the game. I’ll smile because it’s what Liv wants, but know this: I see right through you, and I’ll spend the rest of my days trying to undo the harm you’ve done to your daughter, harm her father tried his best to counteract, but there’s only so much he can do when every time you waltzed back into her life, you did nothing but tear her down.”
My heart beats fast, similar to how it felt right as I opened that text from Bradley.
And just like then, my stomach aches with a gentle sense of relief rushing through me, quickly followed by a healthy dose of guilt.
Relief because I don’t have to marry Bradley.
Relief because I would never say any of this to my mother, regardless of its truth, but Cami did. And she did it for me.
It beats and my stomach churns as I stare between my mother and Cami, trying to calculate five steps ahead to see how she’ll react.
Maybe she’ll have a moment of understanding.
Maybe this is what she needed, this moment to knock some sense into her, and we will always look back on this failed marriage as a bittersweet time in our lives where our relationship took a turn for the better.