Lies and Weddings(107)
“Then good riddance to Maxxie! Augie’s much better off without him,” Rufus said.
“The press hasn’t gotten wind of the situation yet, so we need to go into full damage-control mode…”
“I think you’re overreacting, Mum. Why would the press even care?”
“Hiyah! The press will be all over this! Prince Maximillian of Liechtenburg runs off with a cougar billionairess, Kitty something-or-other, in the middle of his honeymoon with Lady Augusta Gresham? I can already see the headlines. We need to preempt this with a bigger headline. You need to announce your engagement to Martha Dung at once!”
Rufus let out a guffaw. “That’s not going to happen, Mother.”
“Why not? She loves it here. I took her riding around the estate. She loves our cheese farm.”
“Martha loves cheese, it doesn’t mean she wants to marry me.”
“She rented out Boxall Park next door and she’s throwing a ball in my honor there! How many more signs do you need that the girl is ready for you to get down on bended knee? You need to go to her at once! Go, go, open the center drawer of my bureau and you will find a ring in there. A magnificent cabochon emerald engagement ring from Faraone Mennella.”
Throwing up his hands in frustration and summoning his courage, Rufus continued, “It’s time you realized something, Mother. The only woman I will ever marry is Eden Tong.”
Arabella dismissed his statement with a contemptuous scoff. “No you’re not!”
“Tell me, what is it about Eden that you so object to?”
“She’s a lying little rat.”
“Eden is the most truthful person I know and you owe her an apology for all your deluded accusations.”
Even beneath her stiffening beauty mask, Arabella was rolling her eyes. “She’s also Chinese.”
“Oh, and Martha isn’t?”
“Hiyah, there is the right kind and the wrong kind of Chinese!”
“Please enlighten me, what is the right kind of Chinese?”
“Martha Dung is the right kind. She has an aristocratic bearing, she’s not too dark, she’s not too short, and she is well educated.”
“Eden Tong is beautiful, she’s fairer and taller than Martha, and she graduated from Cambridge with honors—not that any of that matters a whit to me.”
“Martha Dung has the ability to save our lives—”
“That’s a funny one! If you had a heart attack this minute, who would you rather have trying to save your life—Dr. Eden Tong, practicing NHS physician, or Martha Dung, cheese lover?”
“Don’t be cheeky with me! You know very well what I mean—Eden may know CPR, but Martha can save our resorts, our home, and your future with her billions!”
“There! I wanted to hear you say it. Martha’s the right kind of Chinese to you only because of her money!”
“What’s wrong with that? Do you not require money to live and breathe?”
“I do, but I’m perfectly content to live off what I make for myself. You know I’d happily live in my surf shack forever!”
“That surf shack cost me five million dollars! Do you have any idea how much it takes to afford your hippie artist life? Do you know what we spend on property taxes for Puako Beach Road? Putting in that new septic system? And you won’t even let me Airbnb it when you’re not there! When was the last time you sold one of your damn pictures? All you Gresham men are good for nothing. Everyone thinks I won the jackpot the day I married your father. Ha! If only they knew the truth. I’ve spent decades working myself to the bone trying to restore the family coffers, only to have my own son mock me and accuse me of being money hungry when all I am trying to do is ensure that he has a future!”
Rufus sighed, softening a bit. “Has it ever occurred to you that it’s maybe not a future I want? Do you really want to know why I spend so much time in Hawaii? Whenever I’m here, I feel this tremendous guilt for everything that’s been given to me. I’m in line to inherit this vast piece of land from ancestors who spilled oceans of blood to possess it, I’m part of this patriarchy that keeps the power in the hands of the very few. And I’ve done fuck all to deserve any of it!”
“Hiyah, listen to you! You don’t appreciate your privilege because you’ve never had to struggle a single day in your life. You have no idea what I’ve been through, the things I had to do to survive—sharing a rat hole in Paris with twelve other models, being harassed every day by pervert photographers, how much I had to fight as a Chinese woman to gain a single grain of respect in a world that you stride through so comfortably. You don’t see any of it precisely because I set it all up for you! If you weren’t born the half-British Viscount St. Ives with that jawline of yours, you would understand my pain. You would experience the racism I encounter every single day when I step out the door, and you would have some gratitude for the life I’ve fought so hard to give you. I don’t regret a single thing I’ve done and I’m not going to apologize to anyone.”
“Mother, I know how hard you work, and I am grateful for all you have done. Truly I am. But you didn’t raise me to take advantage of anyone under false pretenses, especially when there’s another woman I want to marry.”
“Obstinate child! I would have thought all that Eden nonsense would be over by now. I mean, you had plenty of time to sleep with her and get her out of your system during your Thelma & Louise road trip.”