The Hate Vow by Nicole French

Part Three

The Turn

Give me your lips now

That the danger is past, so

I’ll find you at last.

“Kiss”

—from the journal of Eric de Vries

Eighteen

Istood waiting outside Sashay, an appointment-only bridal shop on East Sixty-Eighth Street, checking my watch every so often while I waited for Skylar to arrive. It was the week before the “season” in the Hamptons kicked off, and Skylar and Brandon were coming with their kids for the weekend to attend the white party that was also doubling as an engagement party for me and Eric at the de Vries compound. I was under strict orders from Gemma, the wedding planner, to choose my dress today before we left, which of course meant that I had to have the approval of Celeste de Vries, Heather, Violet, and Nina. Skylar just wanted to come along for the ride.

The Crosby-Sterlings’ big black Mercedes turned the corner and pulled up alongside the curb. The back door opened, and Skylar popped out with a smile.

“Hey!” she greeted me.

“Red.” Brandon’s deep voice growled as he recaptured his wife’s hand, pulling her back toward the car. Skylar flushed under the bright blue stare of her husband, who barely glanced at me. “Oh, hey, Jane. Red, come back here and say goodbye properly.”

I tapped my bright red sandal on the sidewalk while Brandon demonstrated what a proper goodbye meant, only then releasing his wife, who was suddenly quite flushed.

“Need a fan?” I asked as the car zoomed away.

Skylar did, in fact, fan herself, but she shook her head with a sheepish grin. “No, I’m fine now.”

“Where are the kiddos?”

Skylar snorted. “At the hotel with Bubbe, probably watching too much TV.”

“So, seventh heaven, then.”

We approached the door to Sashay, and Skylar looked me up and down. “Look at you,” she said with overt perusal. “Someone’s been taking advantage of the local boutiques.”

“I suppose.”

I looked down at my clothes—the black, draping silk sundress I had actually made myself, but the fabric was the best I’d ever worked with. The shoes, though—those were legitimate splurges. Okay, so I had taken Eric up on his offer to continue sprucing up my wardrobe along with decorating our apartment and planning the wedding. He didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he seemed happy every time I brought home another shopping bag, especially when it included a little something for him.

“You two seem to be getting along very well,” Skylar remarked as we walked inside. She popped her eyebrows a few times.

“You look like a cartoon fox when you do that,” I said. “And it’s nothing, really. We’re just…friends. It’s nice.”

Yeah, friends who cook dinner together every day of the week. Who lounge around on the weekends, mooning at each other over cheap beer and cocktails. Friends who listen to each other get off through the walls after they say goodnight. Eric tried to be discreet—I’m sure he thought I had no idea what he was doing with those thirty-minute showers of his, but the man hits things when he comes. You try not feeling uncomfortable when you hear a rhinoceros groan right when the wall pounds next to your ear.

Uncomfortable? Try turned on, you junkie.

All right…so maybe it made me want to do the same thing. While my libido seemed to have come back full throttle, I still hadn’t gotten laid in over a month, and there was no reprieve in sight. Eric was right about Page Six. We had both been featured multiple times in the gossip column—there would be no side pieces in my immediate future, that was for sure. And the weird thing is, although I wanted to get some action, there was only one person whose action I wanted. The one person I had decided I couldn’t have.

I wondered sometimes if this was all part of some nefarious plan of Eric’s to get me back in bed. Masturbatory torture. Like some really fucked-up version of ASMR.

Well, it was working. I had never been so hard up.

“Sure,” Skylar said as we entered the showroom, where Celeste and Nina were enjoying champagne while they spoke with Gemma. Heather and Violet were nowhere in sight. Heather only came to the wedding planning occasionally, but it was pretty clear on those occasions that Celeste viewed her somewhat as an outsider since she had married again. She was no longer a de Vries, and subsequently, not of much importance.

Nina and Violet, on the other hand, were blood.

“Jane.”

Celeste beckoned from her plush chair when she saw me, her bright diamond wedding rings glinting under the chandelier.

If she didn’t have the oxygen tank carted around with her everywhere she went, you would never have convinced me that Celeste de Vries was ill anymore. Today she had on one of her gorgeous gray wigs, and I had yet to see her with anything less than an original Chanel suit, her brittle nails painted impeccable mother-of-pearl pink.

“Afternoon, Mrs. de Vries,” I greeted her with a polite nod. “Hi, Nina.”

Even after a month of attending teas and dinners together, Nina Gardner née de Vries was probably the stiffest person I had ever met. She shared her cousin’s coolness, but lacked his humor. Eric said she was two years younger, but she acted at least ten older because of her overall ice princess demeanor. I’d had at least three lunches with the woman, but it was clear from the beginning that she resented me for enabling her cousin to take away what she clearly thought belonged to her and her husband.

Well, maybe she was right. Even if, as Eric said, she had no idea that his inheritance was inextricably tied to the existence of hers.

“You remember Skylar, don’t you, Mrs. de Vries?” I asked.

Celeste looked Skylar over like she was a stray dog. “Mmm. Yes. The lawyer, aren’t you?”

Skylar nodded, doing her best to affect a genuine smile. It was kind of funny, because she was terrible at it. “Yes. And best friend.”

“And maid of honor,” I chimed in with an unnecessarily peppy tone.

“Will your husband be coming to the party this weekend?” Nina asked.

“Yes,” Skylar said. “We’ll both be there.”

Celeste gave a nod of approval. I wanted to roll my eyes. Skylar’s friendship was one of the few things I brought to the table in this world simply by virtue of her husband. The ladies who lunched weren’t very discreet about the fact that they would love to jump Brandon’s bones, and Celeste just liked the idea of associating with “good family,” even if they were “new money.”

“And when are you planning to change your hair color, Jane?” asked Celeste absently as she turned back to the pictures of wedding dresses Gemma had laid out on the table in front of her.

I touched the mostly pink locks I’d styled in haphazard waves over my shoulders. “Change it?”

Okay, granted, after two months, I was in need of a touch-up. My roots were starting to show, but the only reason I hadn’t gotten anything done was because I couldn’t make up my mind if I wanted to stay pink or go purple. Maybe even blue.

Nina made a noise that sounded a little like a snort.

Celeste just looked bored. “Well, of course, Jane. You can’t stand next to a maid of honor with hair like that and clash so dreadfully.”

Skylar and I considered each other as if for the first time.

“You know,” I said. “I literally had not thought about that. But she’s right.” Skylar’s hair was easily as bright as mine, only a mass of red and orange. We would look like Skittles next to each other in the church.

“Well, of course she’s right,” Nina put in. “Grandmother has impeccable taste.”

Celeste looked at her granddaughter as if she were an insect she’d like to squash, not someone who’d just complimented her. “Yes, well. The fact remains that you cannot stand in the church next to each other looking like this. Orange and pink! Whoever heard of such a thing.” She looked at Skylar. “Do you force your hair that shade as well?”

“Ah, no,” Skylar replied. “This is my natural color.”

“Is it? How…charming,” Celeste said stiffly before turning to me. “Jane, you cannot walk down the aisle with hair like this. Come now, you must see reason.”

It was hardly the first dig I’d gotten from Eric’s family about my hair in the last two months. Actually, picking on it was one of Celeste’s favorite pastimes.

Ah, Jane, she’d say whenever I entered a room. I see you are as…colorful…as ever.

Indeed, Celeste, I’d counter. I thought your beige apartment needed something to brighten it up.

Nina and Violet would always appear shocked, but I swore sometimes Celeste would hide a smile in her shriveled, painted lips. And then she’d turn to whatever it was we were planning that day and tell Garrett to bring me my tea.

The jasmine they served was excellent.

Before I could reply that blue would be perfectly complementary to Skylar’s bright orangey-red, Gemma bustled around the corner with the store owner, Marisa.

“Jane,” Gemma said, “Marisa and I have set up the final gowns in the back, if you’d like to come.”

I followed Marisa to the giant dressing room in the back, where a rack of couture wedding gowns had been set up. This wasn’t my first time at Sashay, but nothing had really worked so far. Today was the last day. It was fish or cut bait. Or, you know, whatever metaphor worked in this strange, fake wedding scenario I was living in.

Marisa helped me into the first dress on the rack—a sleeveless Badgley Mischka ball gown with about an acre of tulle expanding in either direction.

“Dear lord,” I said as I looked at myself in the mirror. “I am a shower puff.”

“Your waist is so small,” Marisa said. “It looks romantic. And will photograph like a dream.”

“Yes, I do think romance is largely determined by the number of hours it takes for a man to find his way under your skirt,” I said, ignoring the fact that no one would be looking under mine on my wedding day.

“I’m sorry?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. Let’s go put on the fashion show.”

We went back out to the front room, and I dutifully stepped onto the pedestal in front of the mirrors for everyone to admire the dress.

“Oh, Jane,” Skylar said as she stood up. Her mouth twitched, and I knew she was thinking of her experiences wedding dress shopping, when I made her try on every ugly gown in the place. “That’s…that’s a dress, Jane.”

“It’s stunning,” Nina added.

“A bit gauche, though,” Celeste added.

“Very gauche,” Nina parroted. “Absolutely. Let’s see the next one.”

I nodded, waddled back to the dressing room to try on the next one, a mermaid-cut Vera Wang.

“I hate it,” I announced as we walked back out. This was Nina’s favorite on the list, and her face fell.

“It’s absolutely en vogue,” she protested. “Half the brides I knew last year wore dresses just like it.”

“Well, then that wouldn’t make it en vogue, would it?” I countered.

Skylar snorted.

I turned to Celeste. “Mrs. de Vries, I know you see it. This dress is made for someone with curves, which I am not. I look like a deflated balloon in this thing, and even if Marisa does her magic and takes it in, I still can’t walk in it. Do you really want me to have to hop down the aisle at St. John’s because I can’t move my feet more than four inches at a time?”

Celeste looked horrified at the prospect of anyone hopping down the aisle at St. John’s. “Absolutely not,” she said. “Jane, you seem to know what works best on you. Show us the one you like.”

Nina’s mouth dropped, and I was smug. I had spent enough time now with Celeste de Vries to know that she hardly ever defaulted to anyone else’s judgment but her own. Point, Jane.

“It’s too bad your mom isn’t here,” Skylar remarked as I started to shimmy back to the dressing room. “Is she coming this weekend?

When I didn’t answer, she kept walking behind me.

“Jane. Jane!”

I scurried as fast as I could while wearing twenty pounds of leg-binding satin, but Skylar just followed me into the dressing room, where Marisa was waiting with the other dresses.

“No?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Let’s try the Monique Lhuillier. Celeste liked that one the best.”

Marisa nodded and started helping me out of the mermaid dress, forcing me to turn around to face my imperious best friend.

“Skylar, what is it?” I asked impatiently.

Her green eyes went big. “Don’t give me that attitude, missy—”

“Missy? Someone has been on mom duty for too long—”

Marisa snickered.

“Don’t change the subject,” Skylar said. “Is she coming or not?”

“For what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Your engagement party?”

I frowned at my hands as I stepped out of the dress. “Ah, that’s a no.”

“And why is that?”

I accepted the last gown from Marisa, then stepped into it as she held out the fabric for me. “Well, it would be a little weird to invite her to an engagement party when she doesn’t know I’m getting married.”

There was a gasp from behind me. I looked over, where Marisa was shaking her head.

“What?” Skylar demanded. “How is it you haven’t told your mother you are getting married in less than four months?”

I opened my mouth with a sharp retort, but found my bravado evaporated with my best friend. Well, of course. That’s what friends were for, right?

I turned back to the mirror and examined myself in the dress. It was a monstrosity, actually. A giant, sugar plum fairy, skirt the size of China, marshmallow of a dress.

I giggled. So did Marisa.

“Jane!”

“Oh my God, Pollyanna, calm down. I was laughing at this ridiculous dress, not you.” I turned back around. “Marisa, not this one. Not at all. Can I put on the Jenny Packham? That’s my favorite.”

Skylar smiled. “Okay, it is ridiculous. But, Jane, seriously. What gives?”

I sighed, then turned back so Marisa could help me unbutton the approximately fifteen hundred buttons running down my back. “I don’t know. We’ve talked a few times. I told her I was just staying with friends. That I was thinking about taking a job here.”

“Jane.” Skylar was smart—she let her tone speak for her.

I pushed the dress off and stepped out of it, then stood awkwardly in my underwear while Marisa hung it up. There was a knock on the door.

“Jane?” asked Gemma. “Celeste wants to know if everything is all right.”

“We have it,” Skylar called.

Marisa handed me the sleek white Jenny Packham, which I stepped into with about a thousand times more ease that any of the other dresses. The silk was like butter.

I just smiled. “Skylar and I have the rest of this, Marisa. Thank you, though.”

Marisa nodded and left me with my friend.

“I don’t want to lie to her, Sky,” I said quietly. “It’s weird, you know? It feels like a play or something. Just make believe. But I can’t do that with her.”

Skylar didn’t say anything, just stood patiently, waiting for me to continue.

I pulled the dress up and slipped my arms into the full-length sleeves. “My whole life, she was always straight with me, you know? She never hid anything about her life. Not the shitty little village she came from. Not the work she did to get out. Not how she met my dad. None of it.” I sighed. “Did you know she was a bastard child? My grandmother had some kind of illicit affair, apparently, and had my mother out of wedlock. It was one of the reasons why they were so poor. It was a big deal back then.” I sighed. “Apparently my grandma told my mother when she was practically on her deathbed. It was her shame that she carried her whole life. Before that, my mom thought her dad was just dead. I was maybe six, but my mom flew back to see her, and she told me right away. She said mothers and daughters shouldn’t have secrets, and that we never would.” I shrugged. “And we never did. Not until now.”

Skylar moved behind me to help zip up the back of the dress. “Do you really think she would be that disappointed?”

“That I’m marrying a billionaire heir? Ha. Yu Na would probably fall over from excitement.” I couldn’t quite make the joke work. “But she would know in a second that it was fake. She’d…Sky, what if she thinks I’m shaming her, huh?”

Skylar frowned as I turned around. This was the question I’d been carrying around for the last two months.

“So…I’m saying this as someone who thought this was a terrible idea from the start,” she began, tapping her lip. “But it’s not the same thing. Not at all. For one, you’re not being forced. You’re giving your full consent.”

I nodded. “That’s true.”

“And secondly, people get married for all sorts of reasons. You and Eric…well, I’m not going to pretend I like it, mostly because of how antagonistic the two of you are. But there is no rule that says you can’t get married to someone to help them out. And really, that’s what you’re doing.”

I gave a weak smile. “I appreciate that.” I wasn’t sure if I could accept all the altruism implied there, but it did make me feel better.

We both looked into the mirror where I stood in my dress. It was the one I’d fallen in love with from the start, kept on the rack every time despite all of the de Vries ladies’ demands. It was simple and elegant, a white column dress with a high neck and long sleeves, conservative enough for the church with only a V-shaped back that nearly reached the small of mine—its only hint of sex that was still very church appropriate. It came with a train that was puddled around my feet, but I could imagine it spilling behind me, a cascade of white on the church stairs.

“Oh, Janey,” Skylar murmured, then reached up to dab at her eyes. “You look…wow.”

“I know,” I said, staring at myself in the mirror. If I were thinking right, I would choose something else. Something that didn’t feel like the only dress I’d want to wear if I were getting married for real. Something that helped remind me this was just a charade.

But as I looked at myself in the mirror, saw for once not a quirky, funky person, but a real beauty, pink hair and all, I knew there was no way I’d be leaving this dress on the hanger.

“Just…Jane, I think you need to call your mom,” Skylar said. “How are you going to feel if your own mother misses your wedding?”

I looked in the mirror and saw guilt written all over my face. Skylar was right. Maybe I didn’t need to tell Yu Na everything about this arrangement, but I did need to tell her something.

When I turned back around, Skylar had already pulled my phone out of my purse. I dialed the number and held it gingerly to my ear.

“Eomma,” I said, my voice so much quieter than I ever thought it could be. I felt like a little girl again. “Eomma, I have news. I’m getting married.”