“Hi, Mum. Thank you. I’m so busy recently with Soles,” Mum says, looking flustered. “But I do Pilates when I can.”
“Well done. You should keep it up,” she says, nodding.
Nana’s been here for five seconds, and she’s already off to the races. Libby and I exchange an exasperated look before I remember I’m angry at her.
My dad comes in the house, weighed down with Nana’s luggage.
She waves her hand in the general direction of the bedrooms. “Just put them upstairs, Matthew,” Nana says without looking at him.
Mum looks at my dad, a pleading expression on her face, and he sighs, carrying Nana’s trunks up the stairs wordlessly. He glances down at me as he turns the stairs toward one of the guest bedrooms. I roll my eyes at him, smiling in solidarity, and he nods in agreement.
Despite coming from a working-class background, my grandmother married way above her station. My grandfather was a banker in Leeds but fell in love with my grandmother the day he laid eyes on her behind the till at the local grocer’s. She spent the rest of her life trying to get my grandfather to make as much money as possible, insisting every decade or two that they upgrade their house and upgrade their life.
As a result, my mother was born into nice, comfortable, middle-class surroundings. Her childhood in Leeds wasn’t remotely what you could describe as entitled, but she never wanted for the basics, and they lived in a respectable town in a small but cute house.
The same striving that caused Nana to put years of pressure on my grandfather also led to pressure on my mum. When Mum met Dad, rather than being excited about her choice in mate, my grandmother was disappointed that he wasn’t grander. And so my father—from a well-off family in Berkshire, educated at St. Andrews, with a decent-paying job at BP—found himself in the strange position of forever having to defend his station to my grandmother, who was born above a fishmonger and didn’t finish secondary school.
There’s no love lost between Dad and Nana.
But my grandmother loves Libby and me fiercely, even if she’s too critical of my parents. I think she simply can’t help herself.
As Dad busies himself upstairs—he doesn’t come back down after finishing with my grandmother’s bags—we girls head into the kitchen with Nana.
“Do you want some tea, Mum?” my mother asks.
“Or how about something stronger?” I say, wiggling my eyebrows up and down. “Brandy?”
“That’s my girl,” she says, holding her hand out. A designer gold bracelet shimmers against the translucent skin on her bony wrist; I saw the same one last week in a magazine.
“Nana!” I gasp. “This is beautiful! When did you get this?”
“Oh, this?” she says, looking kittenish as she pulls it to her chest and looks at it lovingly. “My boyfriend surprised me with it yesterday. Isn’t he a dish?”
My mother looks suspicious. “He surprised you with it, or you nagged him until he bought it for you?”
Nana looks wounded.
My mother turns away, and I see another flash of frustration across her face.
Nana continues, “I may have suggested it to him, but Gary makes up his own mind.”
I shoot Mum a look that says, Be nice.
“Well,” says Mum, clearing her throat, “it’s a beautiful piece of jewelry. Gary sounds very lovely.”
Nana smiles. “Thank you, darling. Now, Charlotte, how is school treating you? Your mother says you’re running with quite a smart crowd now. Of course, I’d expected you would be. I told her from day one that sending you to Sussex Park was the right move. A girl like you—so beautiful, so outgoing, so sunny—you were bound to align yourself with the right people.”
“Thanks, Nana.”
“And Prince Edward! What a coup! My friends are dying to know everything. Cousin Betsy—you remember her, the tall one who never married? She insists I’m making it up. It’s remarkably insulting. I told her if she kept it up she wouldn’t be invited to the wedding.”
“Nana! We’re not getting married!” Now I wish Mum had already told Nana the news.
“No? Why on earth not?”
Libby opens her mouth to speak, but Mum cuts her off.
“They’re only seventeen, Mother. It’s just puppy love. In any case, I think you should know something—”
“Listen to me, my dears. If you play your cards right and always keep him guessing, you’ll see it through. Just don’t go to bed with him. Men won’t buy the cow if the milk is free.”
I can feel Libby’s eyes on me. I take another sip of wassail and avoid looking at her. Why should I be feeling awkward? She’s the one who should worry what Nana will say.
“Mother! That’s enough! They’ve only been dating for a few months. Stop filling their heads with this rubbish. It’s too much pressure. And nobody’s going to bed with anybody.”
“Um, Nana?” says Libby. “I have to tell you something.” She and Mum exchange nervous looks.
But Nana stands up, saying, “Let’s talk later, dears. I need to take a quick nap before dinner.”
“Okay,” Libby says, looking defeated.
Nana turns to me. “You haven’t gone to bed with him, have you?”
“Nana! No! We’re done talking about this!”
“Good girl.” She downs her brandy-spiked wassail and holds her glass out. “I’ll have a quick refill, thanks.”
INDIA: How’s home? You surviving?
ME: Barely. I’m still not speaking to Libby, and my grandmother is like a bull in a china shop
INDIA: At least you don’t have 4 rowdy brothers yelling over each other around the clock
ME: My nana versus your brothers: fight to the death
INDIA: Based on what I’ve heard about your gran, it sounds like an even match
INDIA: Have you told her?
ME: No.
ME: Libby just tried to.
INDIA: What happened?
ME: Mum panicked and changed the subject
INDIA: What’s the worst that can happen?
ME: My sister steals my ex and drives a permanent wedge between us, and my grandmother finds out and spends years moaning about how we lost a royal wedding, and nobody’s on my side and Wisteria turns into World War Three. Oh . . . wait a minute . . .
INDIA: Ha. Hang in there. Xxx
I put my phone on the dining table as I finish setting it. Our dining room just might be my favorite room in the house. The long mahogany table seats up to twenty, and when the lights are turned down and the candles are blazing—like now—the room feels like a medieval banquet hall. The walls are lined with hunting tableaus that my mother bought on Portobello Road, and I’ve done the table decorations based off something I found from my favorite home-decorating app, putting a long red-and-green runner down the table, lining it with pinecones, holly, garlands, and winter squash, and tall candleholders filled with berries and cinnamon twigs. I spent hours yesterday in the woods behind our house gathering the decorations, topped off with this morning’s trip into town for the candleholders, cinnamon, and squash.
I place a Christmas cracker in front of each place setting and then sigh, looking around the table. Everything looks perfect. Too bad I can’t enjoy it.