Page 67 of Beauty and the Beach
I’m notone to judge, but Phoenix’s mom is a piece of work.
It’s immediately clear that she doesn’t like me, based on the twitch of her lips into a subtle sneer and the side eye she keeps employing. Even after I go change out of my pajamas into a perfectly respectable set of cropped black pants and a boat-neck top, her gaze follows me like she’s a lion and I’m a gazelle.
So. That’s pleasant.
Phoenix just takes it in stride; he’s obviously a master at dealing with these women, because not once does he lose his temper, not even when his mom keeps calling meHolland Blakelyinstead ofHolland Park.He corrects her coolly and moves on.
I just try to remember what he told me before we visited Mavis in her absurdly big hospital suite:Don’t try to be friendly. Stand up straight, don’t fidget.
I can be an ice queen. So that’s exactly what I do; when he sits back in his desk chair after our embrace, I stand by his side and smile with serene detachment while he and the Butterfield women play verbal volleyball.
Never thought I would be playing the part of a silent wife, seen and not heard, but that’s how I feel safest in this situation—I don’t particularly want to deal with the Butterfield women. He told me they were wolves; I trust him to know best how to handle them.
When his mother turns a toothy smile on me and asks how I met her son, though, I don’t bother holding my tongue. I can answer this one safely, and maybe even in a way that will support our story.
“Phoenix was best friends with my brother in college,” I tell her. “We’ve known each other for years.”
His mother’s heavily lined eyes pop wide. “Have you two been dating for that long?”
“Oh, no,” I say with an airy laugh. “We haven’t been dating the whole time we’ve known each other. We were on and off for a long time.” The lie has my voice going high-pitched; I clear my throat and go on. “But we had our very first kiss…” I trail off, thinking, and in the corner of my eye I see Phoenix look over at me so fast he’ll have a crick in his neck. “I guess it would have been eight or nine years ago,” I say.
I finally give in and look at him; his eyes are wide, and I can clearly hear the thought he’s projecting:I can’t believe you went there.
Oh, yeah,I think with a little smirk.I went there.
The kiss we have literally not talked about in years—not once since the crash. We haven’t acknowledged it. It seems very on-brand for us that we’re bringing it up now, in front of his mother and grandmother.
“And,” I announce, because I’m not done yet, “he called me by another girl’s name afterward.”
His mother gasps, looking scandalized, and her hand flies to her chest. “That’squiteenough,” she says to me. “He would never do something so?—”
“I assure you, I did,” Phoenix breaks in. He’s rubbing his temples, and he shoots me a look.
Silence falls for one awkward second; Mavis looks back and forth between Phoenix and me with sharp, all-seeing eyes, but Phoenix’s mother doesn’t bother. She rallies immediately.
“Well,” she says with a sniff. “Perhaps you just weren’t very memorable, dear.”
“My wife,” Phoenix says, “has always been memorable.”
My wife.The words ring in my ears, play in my mind, again and again and again. He’s said them before, so why do I have goosebumps?
His mother is not so afflicted; she just gives a little twitch of her shoulders, and then she busies herself with the shiny bangle bracelet she’s wearing.
“Tell me,” Mavis says, using her cane to thump against the floor, and my eyes jump to her. “How do the two of youget along? Do you argue?” She directs her question at Phoenix, but she raises her eyebrows at me, too.
“Of course we do,” Phoenix answers easily. “All couples argue sometimes.”
“Bertrand and I never did,” Mavis says.
I guess Bertrand was Phoenix’s grandpa?
“I can only assume that’s because he was scared of you,” Phoenix says with a little dip of his head.
Mavis’s thin lips curl into a smile, not entirely pleasant. “That he was,” she says. “He knew his place.” But as her gaze comes to land on me, her smile vanishes, and her eyes narrow. “Do you know yours?” she says to me.
Do I know myplace?Is she serious?
She is; I can see it plainly. She’s serious.
