3: 3
3
I didn't sleep all night. I sorted out the bills, the property payment receipts, the online account records, and sent everything to my best friend's lawyer boyfriend.
By dawn, Raymond and the rest came trooping into the living room, exhausted but thrilled, arms full of shopping bags.
I scrolled through the payment alerts on my phone. In a single night, Raymond had run up a hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars on my linked account.
Yvette didn't hold back. She kicked off her heels, collapsed onto the couch, and yelled at the top of her voice,
"Melanie, we were up all night. Hurry and get breakfast ready. I want to eat and then get my beauty sleep."
I stood in the living room, staring at the boxes piled everywhere.
A hundred and twenty-eight thousand.
Raymond hadn't just charged a lavish dinner to the card I'd loaded. He'd used my mobile payment account to buy them a hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars' worth of gifts.
Seeing me, he came straight over, cheap iodine and gauze in his hands.
"Mel, I was too rash yesterday. I'm sorry."
"See, I went out and bought iodine and gauze just for you. Let me bandage it."
He touched the cut on my forehead, his eyes full of tender guilt.
If the sting on my forehead weren't there to remind me, I might have forgotten that the man who beat me yesterday was him, the one who listened to his childhood sweetheart egg him on was him.
Just then my phone rang. Mom was video-calling.
I turned my face away on instinct, out of the frame, not wanting to worry her.
On the screen, Mom was cheerfully asking about the wedding arrangements.
"Mel, be sure to book the very best hotel. You only get married once in your life. Don't give anyone a reason to laugh at you."
"Oh, and the bedding, I ordered you a ten-piece silk set from a good brand. I'll send the pictures in a bit, you pick the pattern."
I just kept my face turned aside and murmured back, mm-hmm.
Beside me, Raymond leaned into the call, his voice sweet and fawning.
"Mom, Mel and I are doing great, don't worry. After the wedding I'll treat her right, I promise."
"You and Dad take care of yourselves too, don't fret so much. Oh, and my godmother and my brother have already come up from back home to help us with the wedding, so you can relax, we'll make it a lively affair."
At that, Katherine Vance stepped forward too, putting on a doting act.
"Mrs. Swanson, the two of them are young, I worried they might not think of everything, so I came all this way to help run the wedding. Please, put your mind at ease."
She held an old brass ring up to the camera and said to me,
"Mel, look, this is my family heirloom. Raymond may be my godson, but he's dearer to me than my own son. This heirloom, I'm passing it to you."
Cecil and Minnie Vance came straight over to me as well and pulled two sets of old red pajamas out of a bag.
"Melanie, honey, I sewed these cotton pajamas myself. Don't turn your nose up at them now."
Then Yvette squeezed in and shoved a four-piece set into my arms.
"You're marrying my brother, so don't go calling me cheap. I picked out this wedding bedding for you specially, went all the way to the department store for it. It cost me a good few hundred."
I said nothing and tugged out one corner of the set. Cheap, glaring pink.
On the screen, my parents looked at the cheap ring and the pink things, and their faces changed too.
Raymond jumped in at once to smooth it over, brazening it out.
"Pink is so pretty. Bright red is tacky and old-fashioned. New-style weddings are what's trending now. Yvette really did think of everything."
Yvette arched a smug eyebrow and said,
"Sir, ma'am, you're older, your ideas are dated, you don't follow the trends. Everyone getting married uses pink now. Who still uses bright red? It just looks dreary."
I didn't want my parents worrying, so I grabbed the phone and hung up. The instant I turned, I heard Mom's alarmed cry,
"Yvette, what happened to your forehead? Is someone hurting you?"
