But wait a minute. She hasn’t even met this so-called friend yet, and our mother is already calling her George’s future wife? “Do you know her name?”
“Lady Priscilla Fischer. Youngest daughter of a marquess.” Mother beams. “I did a little investigating. She’s a descendant of a German prince. I hear she’s distantly related to Prince Albert.”
Who’s been dead for over one hundred and fifty years. “Wouldn’t that make her a distant relative of ours?”
“No, darling, we’re related to the queen through Victoria,” Mother says with exasperation.
I don’t bother reminding her that Victoria and Albert were married and had children, despite the fact that they were first cousins. Nobility doesn’t talk about the sordid past, considering it’s loaded with various incestuous relationships. She knows this.
She just chooses not to acknowledge it.
“How about you? How are you doing? Still putting on that little charade with the American?” She waves a hand and I dutifully follow her into the sitting room, where a tray laden with a teapot, cups and various frosted cakes awaits us. “Would you like some tea? Perhaps a little snack?”
I join her on the settee, watching as she pours me a cup of tea and adds a dollop of milk. I’m dying for one of those sugary cakes, but she’ll probably make a remark about my overly abundant figure and how I should watch my weight.
I don’t want to hear it, so I don’t reach for a snack. I’ll sneak a cake later, from the kitchen.
“Well?” she asks once she’s handed me over the cup and I still haven’t answered. “Are you still involved in your little relationship with him?” Her nose wrinkles at the word relationship.
And now my nose is wrinkling, remembering how she called our relationship a charade only a moment ago. Only I would let something like that fly by and not even acknowledge it. She’s so cruel sometimes, and the saddest thing is that I’m used to her behavior.
“Yes, we are,” I say coolly, wishing for about the hundredth time that Cannon could come back to England and meet my parents in an official manner.
My mother sets her cup and saucer on the table in front of us with a loud clank. “Susanna, really. When are you going to stop pretending you could have something with this man and concentrate on your reality?”
Her words make me sit up straighter, automatically going on the defensive. “Cannon is my reality,” I insist, though I’m secretly starting to have more and more doubts as the days slip by and I don’t really talk to him.
Not that I can ever admit that to her. My mother would jump on that knowledge and convince me to end things with him by Sunday afternoon. She still wields that much power over me.
Does that make me weak?
When it comes to my mother, yes.
“He’s stringing you along. I don’t think he knows how to end this silly dalliance. He’s afraid he’ll hurt your feelings,” she says, like she has so much knowledge about Cannon and how he thinks.
“You don’t even know him,” I protest, and she silences me with a look.
“I know men like him. They’re all the same.” She sips from her cup, staring at me from over the rim of her fine bone china. My eyes are the same shade as hers, icy and cold when they want to be. “He wants to let you down easy.”
This is a familiar argument. One we’ve had before. Maybe I should say something different to distract her.
“Perhaps he’ll try to ghost me,” I tell her, and she frowns.
“What exactly does that mean?”
I love it when I can tell her something she doesn’t understand. Petty, yes, but oh so satisfying.
“When someone just stops calling you, texting you, seeing you, whatever. They just vanish from your life one day with no warning, no explanation. Like a ghost. Poof.” I snap my fingers for emphasis.
“Ah. That does make sense.” She nods, and I know she’s storing that info into her brain to pull out later. Maybe she’ll use it on George and surprise him that she even knows such a thing. “He could do that to you, darling. Just one day stop talking to you.”
I can’t imagine sweet, thoughtful Cannon ghosting me, but who knows? I only spent a few days with him. I have no idea who he really is, or what he thinks. Or truly what he wants. “I think he’d have the courtesy to tell me it’s not going to work out between us.”
“Courtesy.” Mom sniffs, like I said an unfamiliar word. “Who’s courteous anymore? No young people I know. You’re all too busy playing on your phones or chatting on social media, or acting like you know better than everyone else.”
Ah, my mother’s favorite thing is to act like she knows better than everyone else. I rarely do that to her, and she knows it. That’s why it’s always so easy for her to push me around and tell me what to do.
I’m about to say something, protest her generalizing my generation and whatnot, when my brother suddenly enters the sitting room, holding hands with a tall, beautiful woman who looks like a model.