Page 43 of Best Woman

I always thought it was bullshit in books when the main character said they could feel someone’s eyes on them. That’s not a thing, you can’t feel someone looking at you unless maybe the book you’re in is Lord of the Rings and the eye belongs to Sauron.

I guess that makes me fucking Frodo because I can feel every single eye in this room boring into me.

I’m shutting down, locking up. I’m a computer that has been left idle for too long and my screen saver is loading, a warning that in a few moments, the screen will go fully blank.

“Oh.” Mom looks at me, and then very quickly away.

“ Another daughter. I…uh. Well.” She lifts her champagne glass, and I see sweat beading on her brow.

Since she started menopause any minor shift in temperature can bring on a hot flash, and the room is buzzing with the kind of energy that makes heat rise.

“To Aiden and Rachel,” she says, plastering on a smile.

The crowd echoes her, though with less enthusiasm than they’d given Rachel’s dad and me.

It’s taking everything I have not to stand up and flee the room because honestly, that would only make things worse.

Then this would go from being an uncomfortable slipup for people to gossip about back in their hotel rooms later to the kind of scene we’ll still be talking about at the bris for Aiden and Rachel’s firstborn son.

Although I’m pretty sure I’m morally opposed to ritualized religious genital mutilation.

I know things are bad if I’m imagining a hypothetical circumcision rather than dealing with what just happened.

“Sweetie,” Mom says from across the table, but I ignore her.

Grandpa has the mic now and has launched into a story about a safari he and Grandma went on in the eighties—it’s getting fewer laughs than it did at my bar mitzvah, that’s cancel culture for you.

But he’s a good storyteller, and the room seems to have moved on.

They want to move on, no one wants to dwell on my mother making it clear that in her mind, she doesn’t have a daughter.

Because that’s what happened. Caught up in the moment, Mom forgot to pretend.

In that one moment of thoughtless honesty, she revealed the truth: no matter what she’s said, no matter how supportive she’s been, no matter how many times she’s called me Julia or reminded me to wear a bra, I’m not her daughter.

She might understand that I’ve decided I’m a woman, but in her eyes, I’ll never really be one.

“Jules,” Aiden says. He looks as horrified as Rachel, as shocked and upset as I know I should feel.

But instead, I’m calm, because if I’m going to be honest, I’m not surprised.

I’ve been waiting for this moment for four years.

It was all too good to be true. The other shoe has finally dropped and it’s one of those beige heels Mom forced on me at Bloomingdale’s, one of the few they even carried in such a large size .

Mom has spent four years pleading with me to wear lipstick and perfume and get blowouts because, to her, that is the closest I’ll come to being her daughter, at least on the surface, in a way she can understand.

If I look the part, it’ll be easier for her to pretend, to say the right things, to placate me.

Now Grandpa has the audience laughing, but our table is still silent.

Mom looks mortified, but I know that won’t last. She’s never been able to admit she’s wrong, and somehow she’ll find a way to make this someone else’s fault, my fault for misunderstanding, for making something out of nothing.

Of course I didn’t mean it like that, she’ll say, how could you even think that?

My jaw is clenched so hard I’m going to crack a tooth. I have to get out of here.

“Julia,” my mom says, exasperated, whatever shame she might have felt already starting to turn.

I ignore her and stand on stiff legs, ducking my head to avoid the heads that swivel my way.

I wish I wasn’t wearing such an obnoxious dress, wish I was in jeans and combat boots with greasy hair so eyes would slide off me.

Rachel starts to stand but I shake my head, sharp enough to make the headache building behind my eyes throb.

I weave through the tables, head down, watching my stupid expensive shoes clomp awkwardly across the marble floor, the heels far too loud.

I know I’m making a scene, I should have just stayed at the table and pretended everything was fine.

But I can’t be here right now, and I don’t understand how I ever thought I could be here at all.

These people have known me for too long, known a version of me I never really wanted to be and they’re never going to let me fucking forget it.

There’s a patio behind the ballroom that looks out on the country club’s golf course and it’s blessedly empty, and even the muggy Florida heat is a relief after the way what my mother said sucked all the air out of that room, punched it right out of my lungs.

I suck in a deep gasping breath and am horrified when it comes back out as a sob.

My eyes are burning with tears. I’m going to ruin my makeup—Daytona would be furious.

And that’s what I need, to talk to someone who knows me, who knows Julia, but then I realize I’ve left my bag and phone back at the table and I almost scream.

“Julia?”

It’s Kim.

“Please don’t ask me if I’m OK,” I say, forcing the words out through clenched teeth.

“I wasn’t going to,” she says from behind me. “You’re not. You shouldn’t be.”

She’s right, but it doesn’t feel good to hear her say it. Her saying it makes it real. The idea that she witnessed my utter humiliation burns inside me like kerosene.

“It’s fine,” I say. My hands are clenched tight enough that my nails, the nails my mother paid to have painted, might break the skin. “I just need a minute to cool off.”

Hands settle on my arms, light enough that it’s clear Kim is afraid to spook me. “Julia,” she says, soft and firm. “It’s not fine. It doesn’t have to be fine.”

It does, though, because I can’t make this about me.

There’s no space in this wedding for me to have a meltdown, to cause a scene.

Storming out here was bad enough. There’s nothing else to do but pull myself together, walk back inside, smile like nothing happened, and bury this down in the unmarked grave inside me.

It will haunt me forever, but there are enough restless ghosts there that at least this one won’t be lonely.

I lock the tomb of myself tight and turn around to face Kim. Her brows are knit in concern, her mouth drawn down into a frown. I want to collapse into her, fall apart, and let her pick up the pieces. I will never, ever let myself.

“It’s fine,” I say again, firmer this time. “It sucks, it really fucking sucks, but it is what it is. I just needed a minute, but it’s OK. Let’s go back inside, I don’t want to make a whole thing out of it.”

“Maybe you should make a thing out of it,” says Kim. “Or not, it’s your family, I’m not going to tell you what to do. But Jesus, don’t go back in there. Let’s go for a walk or something so you can cool down for a bit.”

Shaking my head, I shrug off her hands. “No, that would only make things worse. I can’t make this worse, this is my brother’s wedding .”

“I mean, things are already pretty fucking bad, sweetheart.” A tiny, shriveled part of me thrills at the endearment. “If you go back now, isn’t that just teaching them that what just happened is OK?”

Yes. “No. It’s just…what I have to do.” I have to prove them wrong, prove that my mother admitting to everyone we know, plus a legion of country club waiters, that she’ll never see me as a woman doesn’t devastate me, doesn’t mean she’s right .

It’s the same reason I can’t snipe at a customer service agent when they call me sir on the phone or be rude to a waiter when they tell me the men’s room is on the right.

The bigger deal I make of it, the more I draw attention to the very dissonance they’re pointing out.

But those are things I can shrug off, they’re simply a fundamental part of my daily reality. This is seismic, this is my world altering. Or rather, this is a truth long hidden finally come to light: I am not my mother’s daughter. I never was and I never will be. That is my new reality.

I wish I didn’t care. But I do.

“Julia.” She’s almost pleading. “Baby.”

“I’ll see you back inside,” I say, lifting my psychic shovel and preparing to bury the sad, pitying look in her eyes.

“Don’t do this,” she says, wrapping a hand around my wrist to stop me from walking away. “Don’t let them make you small.”

“Jules.” With perfect timing, Aiden chooses that exact moment to appear before us. “Are you OK?”

“Of course she isn’t,” Kim snaps. He looks taken aback but tries to draw me into a hug. I shake him off, too overstimulated as it is, but Kim catches my flinch and her eyes narrow. She faces Aiden down, bristling with anger.

“Maybe if you’d been more supportive, something like this wouldn’t have happened. You clearly set the tone in your family.”

No. Fuck. Not this, not now. Anything but this.

“What are you talking about?” He’s so confused.

“Let’s not do this, please,” I beg.

“No, Julia, I can’t keep my mouth shut after that.” All the empathy and compassion I’ve been nurturing are hardening; I can see the culmination of every lie I’ve told Kim. “I know about how badly you’ve treated her,” Kim said, “and it makes me sick.”

“Jules, what is she talking about?”

“Please, Kim, I didn’t—”

“She told me how you’ve never really accepted her, that you thought her womanhood was some phase. That you only made her best woman out of obligation. You could have been the one person in your family who stood up for her, and maybe what happened tonight never would have happened.”

She may as well have slapped him. No, I realize as he turns to me with horror on his face. I may as well have slapped him.