I tried to make whatever concessions and conciliatory gestures I could, but I caught myself deferring to Donna more and more because, frankly, she was right. There were certain parameters I was not free to wiggle around, or at least, not during what was essentially my rookie year. After two full days of push-pull, Lacey retreated to the couch, giving only one-word answers and perfunctory smiles. Then she bailed and never returned. I tried tempting her with outings that had nothing at all to do with me or the wedding, but Lacey found conflicts with them all. By May, our conversations were just laundry lists of items she’d bought, restaurants she’d gone to, or men who were secretly in love with her, and she never, ever asked me anything. Not about how I was doing, or how Nick was, and not even razzing me about my thickening hair. Lacey was as finely attuned to my scalp as musicians are to their instruments, and she was the one person I’d counted on to tease me about the six hours I would spend letting Kira fuse bundles of a vegetarian Indian girl’s hair to my own inferior head. It was tedious and weird—before they were trimmed, they came down to my elbows, making me look like a cut-rate reality-TV star—but I didn’t want to bring it up for fear of looking like I was all me, me, me.
And yet, even without its emotional stalwarts, Team Bex was bigger than ever. Marj drafted a phalanx of expert strangers who diagnosed me as a Neanderthal hunchback with Clydesdale tendencies, and began shepherding my way through Duchessing for Dummies. No longer could I clomp from point A to point B. I had to glide, each leg crossing slightly in front of the other, my foot going heel-sole-toe at exactly the right smooth pace. I was taught to don and doff coats without them hitting the floor; to use only my left hand to hold drinks at official events so that my right would never be damp or clammy for handshakes; and accordingly, that I’d be better off never taking an hors d’oeuvre, lest I be forced to shovel it into my mouth. Before sitting, I learned to bump the chair ever so gently with my calves to be sure of where it was without glancing behind me. I must only cross my ankles, never my legs, and when getting up from that position, it is a discreet ballet of scooting to the edge of the chair and then standing quickly while uncrossing things. I am not uncoordinated, but that tripped me up six times the first day. In flats. Marj made my instructor sign a second confidentiality agreement on the spot, and then suggested some off-hours practicing. It’s a wonder it took me as long as it did to hire Cilla permanently, because her suggestion to bring Lady Bollocks into my Duchess for Dummies training was a masterstroke. There was a reason Bea was so successful in Thoroughbred competitions that rewarded obedience.
“No, Bex,” groaned Bea on a hot May afternoon. “You look like you’re sitting on the loo.”
I tried again.
“Rebecca, we cannot literally glue your knees together,” she scolded me.
“They barely came apart,” I protested. “It was a sliver.”
“A sliver is all they need.”
I groaned, smacking the car, then ducking back into it. “This is way harder than it looks. Ow.” I had forgotten to, per my crib sheet, place a gentle hand on the doorframe so as not to crack one’s head.
Barnes had implied that the only transgression that would rain down greater hellfire than a photo of my underwear would be getting pregnant, especially now that there was at least one paparazzo on Crotch Patrol trying to nab the upskirt shot that would set him up for life, and an entire website called The American’t dedicated to shots of me embarrassing myself. And so, in the privacy of the Larchmont-Kent-Smythe manor’s gated driveway, I practiced Remedial Vehicular Entrance and Egress with the dedication I once applied to practicing fastballs.
“Brilliant. Does that one come with a complimentary Pap test swab?” Bea crabbed after my umpteenth try.
“It could not have been that bad,” I said, sinking back into her parents’ Bentley. “There is no way I’ve spent my entire life flashing people every time I’ve gotten out of a car.”
“Believe whatever you like. Go again,” she said. “Oh yes, marvelous. Now you’ll go down in history as the American who can’t keep her bits to herself.”
“When will people stop caring that I’m American?” I grumbled, sliding back into the car.
“When you give them something else to talk about,” Bea said blithely. “Which had better not be your cervix. Come on, go again.”
“Can I at least have a glass of water first?” I fanned myself.
She checked her watch. “It has to be quick. I have a date with my mount in an hour.”
“You can just call her Gemma.” I couldn’t resist.
“I assume that is your concussion talking.”
“I’m just teasing, Bea,” I said. “Cheer up.”
“I will do no such thing,” Bea said, stomping toward the front door, her riding boots aggravating the gravel into crunching protest.
All complaining aside, there was something perversely soothing about Bea cracking the whip on me, as if she believed I was perfectly capable of being correct the first time and was simply pretending to be inept. But that it took so much work to make me presentable in the first place felt like another item on The Firm’s long list of my flaws, right above “pre-cellulite on the upper rear thighs”—never mind that the only person who ever saw my upper rear thighs had already agreed to marry me—and “inability to distinguish fish fork and oyster fork.”
“What’s got you frowning?” Bea asked, steering me into a seat in her parents’ rustic country kitchen, and passing me a depressingly sensible snack of fruit, crudité, and raw almonds.
“That,” I said, nodding to my plate. “I was hoping for scones.”
“No cheating,” Bea said. “There will be no royal muffin top, and you cannot get spots.”
“Fine.” I grudgingly bit into a carrot. “I’m doing all right, I think. I hate that Eleanor made me quit the Soane. I miss it. My boss actually cried. I think I’m the only person who listened when she explained why ecru tissue paper is better than eggshell.”
“I did warn you that being with Nick is a job in and of itself,” Bea said.
“Yes, Bea, you were right, as always,” I said, and she very nearly smiled. “Honestly, I don’t begrudge it, but it’s a real mindfuck to give up a job that made me feel like me in order to take a job that’s all about making me into someone else.” I scrunched up my face. “And I miss having somewhere to go that isn’t my living room, or Marj’s office.”
“Wrinkles,” Bea said, smacking me on the hand.
“I am allowed to have facial expressions!”
“Debatable,” she said. “When is Nick back?”
“Next month,” I said. “Finally. I can’t wait.”
“Excellent. Then Joss can push off back to Fulham and stop trying to guilt you into letting her design something for you.”
“Yeah, I don’t know what I’m going to do about her,” I said. “I got home the other day and found her wearing my clothes. She said she was studying them. Do I just give in? I’m worried she’s losing it.”
“Stop talking nonsense,” Bea said. “You cannot give everyone the pleasure of your patronage, Bex.”
“It’s stressing me out, though,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt her.”
Bea leaned back in her seat. “Why isn’t Lacey helping you with this? The least she could do is take Joss off your hands.”
“They barely know each other. And it’s been weeks since we really talked,” I said glumly. “If she even knows I quit working, it’s because she read it in the Mail. Sometimes I think she’s avoiding me.”
I’d called Lacey the minute I’d taken that large, sobering step away from what I still thought of as my real life, but I’d hung up on her voice mail, and the window to tell her unprompted slammed shut. She’d have to ask. And she hadn’t.
“Snap out of it,” Bea said, poking me with her nail. “You have too much on your plate to worry about Lacey.”