Lured into Lies by Melanie Martins
Chapter 17
Amsterdam, November 30, 2020
Petra Van Gatt
Sorry I can’t make it. I’m with Yara, still looking for the kids’ outfits for the wedding. See ya later, X.
I shouldn’t be surprised by Emma’s reply to my text message. Ever since we arrived, she’s spent most of her time away with Yara. Yet, as my Maid of Honor, I thought she’d at least be present to help me choose my wedding dress. Yes, she did sort out the outfits for the bridesmaids, and she did help me put aside some wedding dresses online so that I just had to come here to the shop and try them on, but still, I thought today she’d be with me, not with Yara. I feel tempted to type something rude and harsh, but instead I keep my temper in check and simply slip my iPhone back inside my pocket, ignoring her. Fuck, why on earth does she spend so much time with Yara in the first place? Are they truly sorting out the outfits for the kids or partying somewhere in Amsterdam? I mean, I hope they aren’t lying about it, because if that’s the case, we are gonna have a serious discussion once we meet again.
While Margaret and the sales consultant went to check the dresses Emma and I had selected online to try on, I remain with Julia, who rattles the hangers searching for more options.
“How am I supposed to tell your Mom I don’t want an eight hundred guests wedding?” I ask her in a last attempt to persuade Margaret to ditch the big reception.
“You don’t,” she answers back, her hands flickering through the hangers. “Although, if you find out how, let me know. It might be useful in the future.”
I heave a long sigh, knowing there wasn’t really a way out. “Why does she love big weddings though?”
Julia keeps herself focused on the dresses, barely paying attention to me. “Who knows…”
“But it doesn’t make sense to have two weddings. If we are getting officially married on the fifth at De Haar, then this second ceremony on Sunday simply doesn’t make any sense,” I insist, because it’s true. Everything we’ll do on Sunday is just for the sake of hosting a social gathering. Legally speaking, we’d already be married.
“Yep…” Her answers aren’t very helpful, but she finally stops what she is doing, takes a breath, and turns to me. “Look, here in the Netherlands, you need to be legally married before doing a religious ceremony,” she explains.
“But if I’m already married, then this ceremony in the cathedral doesn’t mean anything,” I keep insisting.
“Well, it does for her.” Julia takes a few dresses with her and puts them in the fitting room for me to try them on. “I know in the U.S you can marry at the church and it’s a valid marriage, but not here,” she repeats once more, as if I didn’t get it the first time.
“So we do everything again for the sake of a religious ceremony?”
Julia exhales loudly, probably tired of my insistence. “Gosh, Petra… You’re gonna have your small wedding on your birthday like you wanted, can’t you have a second one the next day at the cathedral?” she asks rhetorically. “Is it too much to ask? Mom has been nothing but supportive, can’t you do that for her?”
While I don’t respond, all I can think of is how we should’ve gotten married in the U.S—it would’ve been much simpler. As I come to think of it, maybe that’s why Margaret insisted on the Catholic wedding when I met her. At the time, I didn’t realize this would entail having two ceremonies. I droop my shoulders a bit at the revelation.
Looking above her shoulder, I see Margaret and the sales consultant returning from the storage room, accompanied by an assistant who holds three different dresses. Julia turns to follow my gaze and then goes to check the dresses the assistant is carrying.
“Let’s try the ones I selected first,” she instructs, handing me one of the dresses she picked in the store earlier.
I go inside the fitting area, close the curtain, and take off my clothes. Then the assistant asks if I need help with putting the dress on, to which I accept since I’ve got no idea how to even get started with it. As I take a closer look at the dress Julia picked for me, I realize it’s the precise opposite of the dresses I’d chosen online to try. While I prefer simple white dresses without trains, lace, or embroidery, this one is very elaborate, with volume and a long train, more difficult to wear, and most likely a nightmare to take off.
After ten minutes of help, the assistant pulls the curtain and helps me walk to the center of the room.
“Wow!” Everyone seems to be mesmerized with the dress. Yet, as I check myself in the mirror, I find it too big and too flamboyant.
“What’s wrong?” Julia asks me as she stands behind me, while Margaret remains sitting on the sofa. “You don’t like it?”
I observe myself once more, but I find no smile in it.
“I only see death and misery, Miss.” The voice of auntie Louise resonates through me like she is here, living through this dress, and it squeezes my heart, sending a cold chill all over my spine.
Then my mind starts wandering to a very dark place, and all I can see are the nightmares, the insecurities emerging to the surface, and the unknown that lies ahead of me.
“This relationship…” Louise is still here, haunting my every thought. “It won’t end well.” And for some reason I can’t help but repeat her words internally, even though I try to chase them at the same time.
“Petra?”
My eyes follow the voice and land on Margaret, who is still sitting behind me, her face laced with a mix of seriousness and curiosity. “You want to try something else?”
I do my best to focus on the dress that I’m wearing, on the present moment, and the fact I’m marrying the man I love. But this doesn’t help much to kill the fears that are silently tormenting me. And as much as I want to look at it differently, all I can see is death and misery.
Stop thinking about it,I tell myself. Louise and her premonition are all bullshit.
After checking the other dresses Julia selected more attentively, I finally say, “Maybe something a bit, um, simpler?”
“You want something simpler than this?” Julia asks, nearly in outrage. “This dress has nearly no lace, no details, the train is non-existent, there’s almost no volume…and you want simpler?”
No long train? No volume? Are we looking at the same dress? This dress is huge in every sense of the word, and the train is so big that someone could literally sleep on it. With a tone proper and sweet, I say, “I know, but this embroidery here looks a bit too much, and the train is really too big for my taste.”
Julia glares at me, her expression filled with annoyance, since that was her favorite dress in the whole store. “You know, you are supposed to make a statement with your dress when you walk down the aisle of the cathedral…”
“Oh, Julia, for God’s sake,” Margaret chides. “This is not your wedding.” My lips instantly twist into a smile at her words. Then Margaret raises from her seat and says, “Let’s find you some more options.” She and Julia leave the fitting room and go to talk to the sales consultant. Standing alone in front of the mirror, I look at myself once more, trying to get used to the idea that I’d be the center of attention as I walk down the aisle in a cathedral where nobility have been wed for centuries. I stare blankly into the mirror, finding myself lost in anxiety. The idea doesn’t excite me to say the least. After all, hundreds of strangers will be watching me, while commenting and whispering behind my back. People I know nothing about. Jeez, I feel tempted to tell Margaret how much I just want to do that small, intimate wedding on the fifth. But on the other hand, I know skipping the big ceremony would break her heart and create unnecessary conflicts between us. After all, she’s so looking forward for all that glitz and glamour that follows a big ceremony.
“What do you think of this one?” Margaret asks, interrupting my thoughts as the sales consultant holds another dress from the hanger. This dress is the opposite of everything Julia had selected and placed on the fitting room so far—it’s simple and elegant, made of satin, with a round neckline and long sleeves, and a short train.
“This looks like a regular white dress,” Julia comments.
I go and check the dress more closely, and rub my fingers around the fabric, quite liking it. “I can try it on.”
After changing and putting on the new dress, this one feels so light that I could literally jog in it. Looking at myself in the mirror, my lips curve up at what I’m seeing—it’s way more discreet than the other. Yet it’s elegant and minimalist, just not pompous. I form a chignon with my hair to check how it would look like, and it seems perfect to me.
Seeing Julia’s face through the mirror, I decide to come up with a compromise. “Well, I can wear this one for the small wedding and one with a long train at the cathedral.”
“That’s a wonderful idea.” Well, at least, Margaret seems delighted.
I go back to the fitting room to change and see the assistant following me. “Do you need help with taking it off?”
“This one is okay,” I tell her, given the fact there’s only one zip on the back.
After two hours in the store, I settled for the simple, short-train gown for the civil ceremony at Dee Haar and another dress also made of satin but with volume and a long train with a matching veil for the next day.
To my surprise, Margaret insisted on paying for it, and while I’m not well versed in the etiquette and protocols of who pays for what, I don’t know why she insisted so much when I declined her offer.
“There was no need, really,” I tell her as she stows her credit card back into her wallet.
“I know there wasn’t, but I wanted to do so.” Margaret gives me a quick pat on the back as we make our exit from the store. We then find the car parked at the curb, and the driver opens the rear door for me. Before I get in, though, Margaret says, “I’ll go with Julia and take care of some details. Don’t forget you have a dancing class after lunch at the petit salon.”
“Do I?” I ask, not recalling booking one in the first place.
“Well, yes. You don’t want to embarrass yourself with your first dance, do you?”
* * *
After lunch, Stuart and Clarissa escort me to the petit salon, yet they also go inside, their expressions filled with excitement as they put on some music. Then, to my surprise, Clarissa and Stuart put themselves in position like they are about to start dancing.
“Do you know how to waltz?” Stuart asks me as he holds Clarissa by the hand and the upper back.
“Um, not that much…” I start looking at the duo doing a few steps of dance following the rhythm of The Second Waltz, and I wonder if the lesson I’m about to get is from them. As I keep watching their dancing, I’m truly impressed how they have seemed to master such choreography all by themselves. “Wow,” I utter when Stuart twirls Clarissa elegantly and gets her back in perfect synchronicity. Their shoulders move smoothly, parallel with the floor, never up and down. And as I watch them flowing around the room, I wonder how they even know how to waltz like pros. The show is absolutely delightful, and the more I watch them, the more enchanted I am. How can they even find time to practice with Margaret always around? Once the dance is over, I clap steadily at them, and they slightly bow in return. “This was incredible. How do you guys even know how to dance like that?”
“It’s a hobby we share,” Stuart tells me. “Dancing is what we do in our free time.”
“That’s so impressive,” I say, truly amazed. “And where do you guys practice?”
“Here,” Clarissa answers. “Most of the time Margaret stays in her office or in the library, so we practice in here.”
“That was amazing,” I tell them. “Can you teach me some steps?”
“Sure, that’s what we are here for.” I leap off of the sofa and with a big smile, put myself in position. Stuart stands in front of me and holds my hand, before putting his other hand on my upper back. “So, this is the starting position. Do you know the box step? It’s the basic one.”
Nope.“Um, I think so.”
“Alright, let’s see.” Stuart steps forward with his left foot, and I step back with my right, and then he does the same with his right one. “One,” then he gives a step to the side, and I mirror his move before we close the gap between our legs. “Two-Three.” Now I’m the one who steps forward with my left foot, doing the same moves that he did first. “One…two-three… One…two-three…” As we keep repeating the box step, we increase the pace, and I find myself mastering the move like I had done it my whole life. “That’s the box step, pretty straightforward, right?”
“Do you think Alex knows how to waltz?” I ask him.
But before Stuart can reply, I see him looking over my shoulder, his lips twisting into a smirk.
“Maybe you should ask him directly.”
I turn immediately upon hearing the male voice behind me. “Oh my gosh!” Overwhelmed with emotion, I jump on my fiancé in excitement, embracing him tightly. “I can’t believe you’re here!” Oh gosh! But the smell of his cologne hits my nose, and it all seems very real!
Alex gasps at my arms clasping around his neck a bit too tightly, but he squeezes me just as much, even lifting me slightly from the ground. “I figured we should practice our first dance together.” We remain quietly hugging each other, letting only our heartbeats be heard. “I missed you,” he whispers. The warmth in his voice makes my heart flutter at a thousand miles an hour. And if this dancing lesson was already quite fun, now it’s gonna be even better.
“Weren’t you supposed to come back in a few days?” I ask him with a tease, still barely believing my eyes that my fiancé is actually here.
“Maybe, but staying in New York was pointless.”
“Alright, let’s get started.” Stuart steps aside, and we put ourselves in position. “Just the box step for now.” My heart is still racing, and I try to keep my posture straight, but it’s hard not to feel giddy with the man that now stands in front of me. “And one… two-three. One…two-three…” As Stuart’s voice fills the room, Alex guides me, and my feet starts swaying with him following his rhythm; my heart is thundering loudly inside my chest, and I find myself slightly lost in his piercing blue eyes.
“Are you very mad at me?” Alex asks me.
I squint my eyes in confusion. “Mad?”
“About the big wedding on the sixth? I know you hate that kind of stuff, but I—”
“It’s okay,” I tell him instead. “Your mom compared to mine is an angel, so I’ll take a Xanax, a deep breath, and forget there are eight hundred people in the cathedral looking at me.”
“Thank you,” he whispers, his eyes filled with gratitude. “I’ll make it up to you.” Alex keeps his tone just as low and leans in to kiss my forehead.
“That was great,” Stuart praises as we stop moving. “Now we’ll do the Waltz Forward Progressive step.”