I'd barely stepped into the banquet hall when I heard the jeering.
"Some nobody from the sticks, actually thinking she can marry up."
"Right? She can't even do her makeup without making it look like a bad omen."
"I think she did it on purpose. She knew Mrs. Harding would never agree to her terms, so she wore corpse makeup to curse her."
The more Marina Harding listened, the angrier she got, and she ordered her bodyguards to pin my mother down.
The moment I saw it, I broke into a run.
But I was still a step too late. Glass after glass of wine had already been thrown in my mother's face.
The alcohol stung her eyes so badly she didn't dare open them.
"Stop it!"
At the sound of my voice, my mother kept her eyes shut and reached out, groping through the mess for me.
"Pat? Pat?"
Something twisted in my chest. I rushed in front of her and caught her by the arms.
"Mom, what happened to your face?"
"Didn't Sean Delgado say he was just going to do your makeup? How did it turn into corpse makeup?"
She froze.
"They really made me look like a bad omen?"
"I didn't know! I really didn't know it would be corpse makeup!"
"It was that man, Sean Delgado. He had a makeup artist do it for me."
The words were barely out of her mouth when a furious shout cut across the room.
"You old crone, what nonsense are you spewing?"
"I never hired anyone to do your makeup. If I remember right, we're only meeting for the first time right now!"
I met the sly look in his eyes, and I understood.
Sean had set my mother up, and now he was denying all of it.
Rage surged up in me. I let go of my mother and grabbed Sean by the collar.
"You dare say you didn't hire a makeup artist to do my mother's face?"
"I didn't!"
Sean flatly swore he'd never met us.
Sarah Harding came storming over.
"That's enough. Let Sean go."
"You people are the ones in the wrong, and now you want to push the blame onto someone else."
"Since you have so little respect for me, don't expect any from me either."
I knew she was misunderstanding both me and my mother, and I quickly opened my mouth to explain.
I didn't expect a woman to walk over and look straight at my mother.
"Ma'am, you still haven't paid me for the makeup!"
"Honestly, coming to a birthday banquet and having me do corpse makeup on you. I'm a mortician!"
The words dropped, and for a few seconds the whole room went silent.
Then someone spoke up, righteous with outrage.
"What? Hiring a mortician who works at the crematorium to do corpse makeup and show up to Mrs. Harding's birthday? That's just vicious!"
"And she still won't admit it. Not only that, she wouldn't even pay for the makeup, so the mortician exposed her secret right on the spot."
My mother had no way to defend herself, and I tried again to explain to Sarah and her mother.
But they'd already stopped listening to me.
"Patrick Dickerson, I'm so disappointed in you."
"If you didn't want to marry me, you could have just said so! Why humiliate my mother like this?"
"It's not like that, it really isn't, it was this man—"
Before my mother could finish, Sean slapped her to the floor.
"You point at me again, I dare you!"
"I'll break your fingers!"
She'd hit my mother. There was no way I'd stand by and watch.
I lunged at him and drove a fist into Sean.
But it only whipped up everyone's fury, and they all turned and started cursing my mother and me.
Cursing us for coming to ruin things. Cursing us for being vicious.
Facing all that filth, my mother suddenly turned guilty and started apologizing to me.
"Son!"
"I dragged you into this. If I hadn't gone and gotten made up, I wouldn't have wrecked their banquet, and you and Sarah could have gotten engaged without a problem."
"If I'd known it would end like this, I never should have come!"
I pulled out a tissue and wiped her face clean, the makeup gone.
I didn't say a single word of complaint to her, because she'd been set up by Sean too.
Sarah walked over and grabbed my hand, speaking in a voice only the two of us could hear.
"If you still want to marry me, you'd better tell everyone she's just your family's housemaid."
