Page 157 of The Wedding

Jamie got up, picking an empty plastic cup off the coffee table so she could fill it with water. Etta started snoring.Okay, Ms. Adorable. She was missing a cat, though.

“Shit!”

Jamie was halfway to the kitchen when she heard a thump in the bedroom. A heavy thump. The kind that made people stop in their tracks and contemplate whether or not they had heard someone die.

Damnit. Jamie put her empty cup down and went to the bedroom, knocking softly on the door. “Ms. Coleman?” she asked, both wantingto wake Etta up and let her sleep. “Are you okay in there? I heard a thump.”

“Don’t bother yourself!”

Grunts and mumbles commenced. Jamie may not have been great at charades, but she definitely knew the sounds of someone struggling to get up off the floor.

She tested the doorknob. Anne Coleman was apparently not a woman who locked her bedroom door at night.

Sure enough, she found her future mother-in-law on the floor beside her bed, attempting to hoist herself up without much success. Jamie rushed to her side, turning on a bedroom light.

“Are you okay?” Nothing sent more fear into a young person’s heart than seeing someone who could be their parent falling to the ground. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“What makes you think I can’t get up?” Anne smacked her wrist, sending Jamie two steps back as she finally made it up onto her bed. She immediately pulled her blanket on top of her body, sputtering that it was indecent for Jamie to see her like this. “Do you think I’m stupid or something?”

“No, I… I don’t think anything like that.” Jamie stayed a respectful distance away.It doesn’t look like she needs any help, but how was I supposed to know that?

“Good! Now, do you think you could leave me alone?”

“Sure.” Jamie turned away, hoping Anne wasn’t embarrassed to see her in a cotton T-shirt and sleep shorts.

“Last thing I need is my daughter’s training wheels flying off in my direction…”

Jamie stopped in the doorway. “Excuse me?”

Anne waved her off.

I don’t fucking think so.Jamie approached her again, too bothered to toss her hair out of her face. “What did you call me?”

“What business of it is yours?”

“What bus… I’m going to be your daughter-in-law, and you’re calling me your daughter’s training wheels!”

Anne had no idea she had become the straw that finally broke this camel’s back.

“Excuse me, but maybe you should give your daughter the benefit of a doubt when it comes to choosing the woman she wants to marry. I don’t know what kind of girls she was dating the last time you took any kind of vested interest in her life, but I’ve met a lot of her more recent exes, and they’re some of the smartest chicks you’ve ever met in your life!”

Anne didn’t say anything, although her eyes furrowed and her cheeks froze in place. Jamie turned to leave, but thought of something else to say.

“It’s fine if you don’t like me, but you don’t get to make those kinds of judgments until you at least try to get to know me! For fuck’s sake, everyone keeps treating me like I’m some sort of gold-digging child, when all I want to do is marry the brilliant woman I love! Not that I think she got any of her brilliance from you, since God knows Etta never says anything nice about her childhood!”

“Now hold on!” Anne was up, blanket flinging back and hair going wild. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I was not a bad mother! Who the hell are you to judge me, Missy!”

Missy?Missy?

“Wow.” Jamie didn’t know whether to laugh or chew this woman out. “Now I know why Etta never brought me down to meet you before. She conveniently forgot to tell me that on top of being an ass, you’re also condescending as hell.”

“Well, maybe I don’t take too kindly to having some girl I don’t even know come in here and tell me what’s what!”

“Some girl? That’s it. I’ve had it.” Jamie approached the bed as if her ass were suddenly lit on fire. “I am not somegirl. I am your daughter’s fiancée,and in six weeks I will be her wife! I hate to break it to you, but I am not some fling she is having fun with until she settles down. I am the wild oats sown!”

“I… well…”

“Shut up!” Anne sat back in her bed again, although her face remained absolutelyhell no. “I take enough abuse as it is from the people she has to make money off of! I will not stand for it in my own family! Because, if you haven’t gotten the memo by now, Mrs. Coleman… Iamyour family, and last I heard, you ain’t got much left!”