Page 19 of Mistaken
“A pleasure,” she gave me a slight wink and a smile, “welcome to the family, Ella.”
Ooooo,I thought,Mama didn’t like that,enjoying Mrs. Morozov’s pinched expression. I like this girl; she looked about twelve or thirteen.
“And Ekaterina, just entering University this year.”
She couldn’t quite meet my eye, but Ekaterina still smiled, “Nice to make your acquaintance, Ella.”
“Mariya and Ekaterina, so nice to meet you both.” These two gave me hope. They looked like they might want to be friends, rather than murder me and dump me in a ditch, which I was pretty sure was their mother’s first choice.
“Well then,” Maksim smoothly broke the staring stalemate, “I must be off, I have a meeting in just a few minutes. Ladies, enjoy your afternoon. I trust you’ll help my beautiful fiancée find the perfect dress?”
That man could not sound less interested,I thought. Not that I could blame him, this whole nightmare could not be further removed from any modest wedding plans I’d had with my swine of a fiancé.
My former fiancé. The one Maksim had oh, so thoughtfully offered to murder as a wedding gift. This train of thought was not helping.
“Thank you, Maksim,” I smiled sweetly. Okay, it was more of a grimace but I was working on it.
He took my chin in his long fingers, kissing me slowly and then whispering, “Behave,” in his darkest tone.
There was an awkward little silence before Karida, the wedding planner said brightly, “Well, let’s begin! Would anyone like champagne while Ella tries on the first dress?”
“Um, not for me, thanks,” I said, eyeing the long rack of dresses. “I’m a terrible day-drinker.”
“I’m not!” Tania offers, and I head off to the dressing room as Mariya and Ekaterina start negotiating with their mother for a glass.
The first dress makes me look like a bridesmaid at a second-class hooker’s wedding in Vegas. The deep V-neckline made my girls spill out immediately.Hmmm,I thought,maybe Karida’s not quite over the idea that she should be Mrs. Maksim Morozov.
The second dress is a mini dress. Like something a stoner chick in the sixties would wear with white knee-high boots. Or maybe a wedding at Burning Man.
Really?Now I knew Karida was screwing with me. Dress number three was a pale lilac dress clearly made for Scarlett O’Hara because I looked like an escapee from a torrid antebellum romance novel.
“Ella,” Karida’s voice is a little strained, “everyone’s looking forward to seeing how you look.”
I look like an idiot, that’s how I look,I thought resentfully, but what the hell. Stomping out into the room, I step up on the platform, enjoying the appalled silence.
“Who selected these dresses?” Inessa Alyona Belyaev Morozov was not pleased.
“These were all based on Ella’s tastes,” Karida says quickly, throwing me under the bus.
There’s a snort from Tania. “Ella wouldn't be caught dead in that dress. She’d rise up from her grave and haunt whoever put her in it for eternity.”
Oddly, this seems to please Maksim’s mother and she pulls my best friend out into the boutique to look at other dresses. I’m about to change out of the minidress when I hear a familiar voice.
“Look, I just need a minute!” It’s Marla from work. She’s one of the few women who work in my department. We’re like a tiny island of estrogen in the raging sea of testosterone of our fellow lab rats, who aren’t nearly as funny as they think they are by putting boxes of tampons on our desks with a note that reads,‘That time of the month?’when we dare to disagree with their analysis.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but the store is closed for a private fitting, you’ll have to come back tomorrow-”
“My wedding is tomorrow!” she objected, “I just need the shoes that I ordered with my wedding dress, so please just- hey, Ella? Is that you? Oh, my god woman where have youbeen?”She ignores the clerk’s objections and bustles over for a hug. “What happened to you? Farid said you just resigned out of nowhere? No warning?”
“I… I had to, I’m getting married too, and it was really sudden, and I just...”
Her open, honest face scrunches up. “But… you worked your ass off for that position, you were so excited.”
I rub my forehead; I can feel a headache creeping up on me.
“I was, and I just-”
“Ma’am,” it’s that officious sales lady again, “I asked you to leave and come back tomorrow.”
