Lies and Weddings(7)
“I’m sorry to hear that. But the good news is, you’ll be safe from the molten lava and your blood pressure is only slightly elevated, which is to be expected considering the circumstances.”
“I think the circumstances are going to be the end of me. Ooi! Ooi! See? Still spinning. I can’t even sit up,” Arabella moaned, sinking against her pillows again.
“What medications did you take last night?”
“Only Ambien, melatonin, Cipralex, and Zoloft. And I added two baby aspirin when I was feeling symptoms of the stroke.”[*6]
Skip Notes
*1 The Guardian.
*2 Dailymail.co.uk.
*3 Although “cottage” could be rather misleading for the spacious four-bedroom house with a thatched roof that was decomposing so perfectly, Thomas was constantly finding DIY influencers taking selfies by the garden gate.
*4 Though Arabella was raised speaking the Queen’s English in what was then the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong and spoke with the poshest of accents, whenever she came into contact with other Asians—particularly family members and service people—her accent would take on the inflections and sentence structuring that were peculiar to upper-crust Hong Kongers. Linguistic experts call this phenomenon code-switching, while others might call it snobby tai tai syndrome.
*5 Dr. Tong’s British accent did not code-switch and always remained the same. He always sounded a bit like Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock.
*6 Let’s be clear, the signs of an actual stroke may include these sudden symptoms: facial drooping on one side of the face, arm weakness, and speech difficulty. Unless there is a kindly doctor next door whom your butler can quickly summon, please call your emergency medical service immediately if you experience these symptoms.
IV
Lady Beatrice Gresham
GRESHAMSBURY HALL ? THE SAME MORNING
Eden lounged on the Jorge Zalszupin daybed in Bea’s suite, trying to find a comfortable position on the emaciated cushion. The problem with Brazilian modernist furniture, Eden felt, was that it looked great in photo shoots but really killed your back. Bea’s bedroom used to be a cozy haven decorated with Oka hand-me-downs and mountains of throw pillows, but when Elle Decor came calling a year ago to do a feature, Bea and her mother had transformed her rooms into a painfully chic showcase of museum-quality torture devices all upholstered in the drabbest Belgian linen.
Bea (Greshamsbury Nursery School/Mount House/Cheltenham/Aiglon/Georgetown) emerged from her dressing room and twirled around in a ruffled confection by Giambattista Valli. With her five-foot-nine-inch frame and her startlingly auburn hair cascading down to her waist, she looked good in almost everything she put on.[*1] “Be honest. It reads as white, doesn’t it?”
“It does look rather white,” Eden admitted.
“Giamba promised it’d be the most ravishing shade of celadon, so what the bloody hell is this? And it will look even whiter outdoors against the Pacific Ocean, won’t it? What do I do now? I can’t wear this, I can’t wear the pink Valentino anymore, because—you are sworn to secrecy—that’s who Augie’s wearing, and I can’t do the black Gaultier or Mummy will have a fit. God, I wish I’d asked Viktor & Rolf to design me something. I had a feeling I would need more backups for the wedding-day look.”
“Augie’s wearing Valentino?” Eden remarked, thinking it was rather out of character for Bea’s elder sister, who usually eschewed designer brands and had talked for years about getting married in a dress that was “a replica of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s but made out of organic hemp.”
“You don’t know the half of it—Augie and Mummy have been at each other’s throats for months now. First there was the row over the engagement ring that Mummy detested.”
“What? I love Augie’s moonstone ring! Didn’t her friend Bliss Lau design it specially for her?” Eden asked.
“She did, but Mummy felt that Maxxie was being a cheapskate and Augie needed a proper diamond from Harry Collins.[*2] Then Augie wanted to ask another friend from Hawaii to design a wedding dress in keeping with local traditions, but Mummy threatened to cut her off if she did that. She said, ‘You are marrying into the noble house of Liechtenburg, so you will be compared to all royal brides. You can’t wear some tropical muumuu! Whether you like it or not, you must wear Valentino like Rosario, Marie-Chantal, Máxima, Sibilla, and Madeleine[*3] did or we will be absolutely disgraced.’?”
Eden sighed sympathetically. “Poor Augie! Imagine not being allowed to wear what she wants to her own wedding. All she ever wanted was a dreamy beach wedding where she could be barefoot on the sand.”
There was a brief knock on the door, and Hemsworth entered with a covered breakfast tray and placed it on the bed next to Eden. He removed the silver dome to reveal a plate piled high with chocolate croissants. “Margaret heard you were here, so she wanted to send this up.”
Eden gasped in delight. “Oh, I’ve been craving Margaret’s pain au chocolat. Please thank her for me.”
“Margaret loves you more than me,” Bea said as she eyed the pastries enviously.
“That’s because I’m the only one around here who eats carbs,” Eden said as she took a bite of her chocolate croissant, still warm from the oven. “You really ought to try one.”