2: 2
2.
The words were barely out of my mouth before Xavier whipped around to look at me, his face full of disbelief.
"Ebony, what did you just say?" he asked.
"I said let's return the gifts."
I pulled out my phone and swiped at the screen, nodding as I spoke.
"Xavier, I always do as I'm told. You mustn't be angry with me."
"I'll call a courier right now to come pick everything up."
Xavier put his hand over my screen and hesitated. "You really don't have to return them."
Xavier and his mother were exactly the same. High-minded on the surface, greedy underneath, dying for something but forcing themselves to act like they couldn't care less.
I wasn't about to go running to put these things back in their hands.
I brushed his hand aside and said firmly, "No. I didn't think it through. Today is your mother's special day. How could I let these things steal her thunder?"
"And besides," I put on a shy, bashful look, "your mother only likes girls who are thrifty and frugal. I can't go turning myself into the kind of girl she dislikes."
Xavier glanced at me, then at Darlene, who was starting to panic. He'd hoisted himself with his own words, and for a moment he had no idea what to say.
In the end it was Darlene who cracked first. The instant my courier call went through, she rushed over and hung it up.
"You can't return them!"
"Huh?" I said.
Darlene let out a heavy breath. "I said you can't return them."
I looked troubled. "But I bought these in a hurry, and none of them suit your taste. Let me send them back and prepare something better for you next time."
Darlene's eyes started darting around, like she was genuinely turning my words over in her head.
From where she stood, I was her son's little lapdog, and whatever I bought "next time" could only be more, not less.
But how could Darlene bear to let a duck that was already in hand fly away?
"Next time" was some vague someday, but "this time" was sitting right there in her living room, in perfect condition.
Darlene cleared her throat. "Once a gift's been brought to the door, there's no sense sending it back. Word gets around and people will think I'm hard on people."
I blinked, still looking troubled. "But I bought these in such a hurry. What if you don't like them?"
Darlene put on a magnanimous air. "It's the thought that counts. There's no good or bad in that."
"Ebony, you're a guest. Naturally I'm happy with whatever you bring. Just don't go spending so much next time you come."
"Otherwise people who don't know better will think the Simmons family is greedy."
I quickly stepped forward, all smiles, and took Darlene's hand.
"I could tell just from your face that you're kind and merciful, like a saint. You'd never hold it against me for not knowing the proper way to give a gift on my first visit."
"No wonder Xavier turned out so wonderful. He learned it all from you!"
Darlene raised her eyebrows, pleased with herself.
A few words from me and Darlene didn't know which way was up anymore. Her face softened toward me quite a bit.
She even sat me down and let me have a sip of tea.
Then someone nearby said how pretty I was, that just having me sit in the room made the whole place look better.
They teased that they couldn't understand how a girl this pretty had fallen for Xavier.
Darlene's smile froze on her face.
In her eyes, her son was the finest man in all the world, and on top of that he had a rich young heiress like me, foolish and loaded with money, chasing after him and refusing to give up.
Darlene even thought I wasn't good enough for her son, that I was blocking better women from coming after him.
Her nose practically pointed at the sky.
"Good enough, not good enough, what does it matter? My son is the first college student our whole town ever produced, and the moment he graduated he stayed on to work in the big city."
"My son has a limitless future ahead of him. The girls lining up for him would trample my doorstep flat."
She looked me up and down, taking in my elegant clothes, and shook her head.
"Those girls all dolled up in fancy outfits, what good are they? Not steady, not settled, not one bit."
"If you ask me, a man should marry a girl who can work, so he's never short of three meals a day."
Xavier agreed completely with Darlene, and he put on his airs again, chiming in with a sneer in his voice.
"Ebony's been a pampered heiress since she was little. What would she know about work?"
"Besides spending money, what else can she do?"
The look Darlene turned on me carried a few more shades of disdain.
It had been like this in my last life too. Darlene found fault with me at every turn, and I argued back that I could work, that I wasn't lazy or good only for eating.
The result was that a guest who'd traveled a long way with expensive gifts got put to slaughtering a chicken and cooking dinner.
And now it was the same. Darlene spoke with exaggerated dismay.
"Can't do any kind of work at all?"
"Isn't that just useless?"
"Once you're married, how will you look after a man?"
Right on cue, the chicken in the coop let out a squawk, and Darlene said, "Look at the state of you. You'll be marrying into my family one day anyway, so I'll do you the favor today of letting you start your training by killing that chicken."
