“I’m hideous, I know it,” said Donna. “I’m old.”
“No, Mom….” Emma forced herself to respond. She was supposed to add specific compliments here, about Donna’s physique, low weight, outfit, or hair. Emma scanned her mother, creating favorable remarks. “Look at your dewy skin,” said Emma. “You look very thin, Mom, too.”
“Onlyyoulove me,” said Donna, placated. “You’ve always been the best one.”
Whenever Emma spoke with her mother, she felt disparate emotions concurrently: a craving for her mother’s praise; understanding that this need was super fucked-up; the desire for her mother to ask abouther;and the knowledge that this would never happen, because Donna had been diagnosed as a narcissist when she went to see a psychiatrist while Emma was in high school.
(Donna had fired the psychiatrist who diagnosed her, then asked him out to dinner, slept with him, and ghosted him. Emma could remember Dr. Mundell standing on their front lawn, crying. He moved to Billings soon afterward.)
“Look at your castle room!” said Donna, sitting down and making herself comfortable. “It’s so muchbiggerthan my castle room.”
“Where’s Noah?” said Emma.
“He said he’s too old to travel,” said Donna.
“Oh, Mom, that’s awful.”
“It is! I left Montana because you never had time for me and now I’m stuck in Arizona with an old man and you couldn’t care less!”
Now was the time for Emma to insist that her life was meaningless without Donna. She inhaled. “Mom,” she began.
“I thought we had our whole lives ahead of us, but now we’re washed up.”
“No…”
“I have a green dress for tonight,” continued Donna, as if Emma wasn’t there. “And, like Princess Diana, I am going to wear an emerald choker across my forehead! Well,faux emerald,of course, because Noah isn’t good with finances. And Emma, I am going to need that hundred dollars I sent you.”
“You mean the money you sent for the boys’ Christmas presents last year?”
“What do you think of Simon?” Donna went on. “Love the accent but he’s not nearly as good-looking as Cleo’s Danny, now ishe?” she said. “Not thathe’llbe around for long,” Donna added,darkly.
Donna took off her enormous white hat, set it on a side table, made her way to Emma’s king-sized bed, and climbed in. “Mmm, much more comfortable than mine,” she said. “Can we talk later about Noah?” said Donna, closing her eyes. “I need your advice, Emma. The spark between us…”
“Sure, Mom, later,” said Emma, though it had been repugnant for her to hear about her mother’s lover when she was a kid and it was repugnant now. “You know,” said Emma, “I could also use some advice. You know the company I’m working for? Sweet Nothings?”
Her mother did not answer, and Emma saw that Donna was asleep, or pretending to be. Her hands were folded over her bright dress.Emma had twisted her whole life into a string of lights to impress her mother: marriage, beautiful children, a bungalow on the good side of Missoula. But the object of Emma’s fixation was just an old lady whose hair was thinning so much that Emma could see her fragile scalp.
7
Sylvie
As the welcome reception wound down, Louisa Freck herded the Peacocks into the Great Hall. It was time, she proclaimed, for the “Dress as a Tudor Portrait” package, which included two ladies-in-waiting, a box of truffles, unlimited champagne and mead, three racks of costumes, and live owls who would arrive in time for the photographer.
Sylvie was so tired that her head felt as if it were a lead balloon. Brilliant chandeliers blazed overhead, daggers aimed at Sylvie’s aching eyes. As a lady-in-waiting named Ainsley began to dress her, Sylvie shivered in a white linen chemise. A second lady-in-waiting, whose name was Poppy, slipped a black hoop skirt over Sylvie’s head. “You might wonder,” commented Poppy, “if Anne Boleyn wore underpants.”
“Honestly, no, I hadn’t wondered—” started Sylvie.
Ainsley cut her off. “We don’t know!” she cried. “The Tudor Dynasty ended in 1603—none of the garments have survived. We only know what the Tudors wore from their portraits, and no one painted a portrait of their underpants!”
“So we assumeno,they did not wear underwear. But they did wear linen and silk chemises like the one Sylvie’s got on here,” said Poppy. “Poorer folk used rough hemp.”
“What kind of weirdo spends their time thinking about Tudor underwear?” said Donna.
“Perhaps historians,” said Louisa Freck, defensively. “Ainsley, Poppy, did you hear about the Austrian castle? They found a hidden vault underneath fifteenth-century floorboards! Guess what was in there?”
“Do tell,” said Ainsley.
“They found medieval bras, girls!”
