CLAIRE WAS GOING to kill Josh. Eviscerate him. Flay him alive. Cook him in a cauldron with his own juices.
This morning, she’d woken up before seven and texted him.
Good morning! Are you two up?
A simple, easygoing message. Nothing too demanding. She’d even prefaced the question with a jolly greeting, for god’s sake. He hadn’t responded for another hour, but that was okay. Eight o’clock was still plenty of time to get Ruby up and moving and home by nine so she could change into the dress Astrid had bought for her to wear at the brunch. It was lavender, all lace and satin, and Ruby positively hated it. Claire didn’t have the heart to tell Astrid. Two years ago, Ruby would’ve loved the dress, but now it seemed her daughter balked at anything other than jeans, dark colors, and Claire’s old nineties band T-shirts Ruby had found in a box in their attic six months ago. Claire had managed to convince Ruby to suck it up and be polite—the dress cost more than Claire’s own vintage outfit, after all, and Ruby truly loved Astrid—but Claire also knew that Ruby’s mood swung like a pendulum these days, and it would be better to get dressed at home rather than at Vivian’s.
Hence, her request that Josh have their daughter home by nine o’clock that morning.
But nine o’clock came and went.
Where are you? she’d texted him at 9:01.
On it! he’d texted back, but clearly, he wasn’t on it, because when the clock struck nine forty, Claire had to leave or risk being late, and one of the maids of honor could absolutely not be late to a wedding event in Astrid Parker’s world. Claire drove to Josh’s apartment and banged on the door at nine fifty. No one answered, and she was on the verge of a panic attack, because now she not only envisioned that eye twitch Astrid got whenever she was stressed, but her mom brain ran through a million horrifying scenarios, everything from a car accident to Josh kidnapping their daughter and taking off for Canada.
Where the fuck are you? she’d texted when she parked outside of Vivian’s, her hands shaking and tears swelling into her eyes. Maybe the fuck would get his attention. She hardly ever used the word, reserving it for times like this when she fantasized about hacking off a vital part of Josh’s anatomy.
On our way! he texted back. Claire wanted to wrap that happy exclamation point around his neck. Stopped for donuts! And then he’d had the gall to follow that up with a donut emoji and a green heart.
Now, she stood in the middle of Vivian’s extravagant ballroom, marble under her heels, eyes red and puffy, while Delilah Green captured it all on film.
Or maybe not. She hadn’t actually lifted the camera to her face since she’d spotted Claire, but she was standing awfully close while Claire unraveled, looking ridiculously hot in a black silk tank and sleek cream pants that made her already willowy frame even more elegant.
And those tattoos, Jesus. Claire’s eyes snagged on one in particular, lightning bolts and rain droplets falling from a gray cloud into an ocean-filled cup. A storm in a teacup.
She’d barely noticed any specific designs last night. She’d been too busy trying to act like she wasn’t an exhausted mom of an angsty preteen while she hit on Astrid’s estranged stepsister. And that Delilah had clearly known who she was . . . No, she couldn’t think about that right now. She needed to focus her energies on not committing homicide. She looked away from Delilah just as Vivian’s front door burst open behind her, Josh and Ruby spilling inside and laughing.
“Morning, ladies!” Josh called when he spotted them, pulling his aviator sunglasses down his nose, revealing those twinkling eyes.
Iris growled.
“Joshua,” Astrid said, folding her arms and glaring.
“I hear congrats are in order,” he said, but then he held his hands palms up and moved them up and down like a balance scale. “Or condolences to the groom. Either or.”
“Goodbye, Joshua,” Astrid said.
“What, I’m not invited?” he asked, presenting that panty-dropping grin that had gotten Claire into trouble in the first place.
Astrid said something back, because Astrid could never keep her mouth shut once Josh opened his, but Claire ignored them both. If she talked to Josh right now, she’d claw his face off. She’d learned not to engage with him when she was this mad. She always came out feeling like she was overreacting, like she didn’t know how to relax and whatever Josh had done was actually no big deal.
And lately, nothing pissed her off more.
Claire made her way to her daughter and wrapped her in a hug. “Hi, baby.”
“Hey, Mom.” Ruby was dressed in her usual black jeans and black T-shirt, this one featuring Bush’s album cover for Sixteen Stone.
“Have fun?”
“The funnest. We got donuts, and Dad let me have coffee.”
Claire ignored that last part. “Good, I’m glad. Let’s get changed, okay?” She held out the garment bag and smiled brightly.
Ruby took the bag, but her shoulders slumped. “Do I have to?”
“Honey, we talked about this.”
“I know, but . . . the dress itches. And I hate the color. It’s a little kid’s color.”
“It is not. I wear lavender all the time.”
“Yeah, but you’re my mom.”
She said mom like she might’ve said the word scorpion.
Claire forced a smile and took Ruby by the elbow, walking her over to the hallway that led to the bathrooms. “It’s just for today. I promise.”
“Dad said I didn’t have to wear it.”
Claire gritted her teeth. Kill him. Cook him on a spit. “Dad is not in charge right now. And this is for Aunt Astrid, okay? You love Aunt Astrid.”
“If Aunt Astrid really loved me, she’d let me be myself.”
Claire felt the color drain from her face. She could almost hear exactly how Josh would’ve said those words to Ruby, kindly, gently, like it was the most natural thing in the world to simply do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, consequences and other people be damned.
“Ruby, I . . .”
But she didn’t know what to say to that. Didn’t know how to combat it. All her mom wisdom flew right out of her head, and she felt a weight settle on her shoulders, that heavy feeling of being unable to win.
“Can I see it?”
Claire’s head snapped up to see Delilah Green standing about five feet away, leaning against the hall entryway with her head tilted at Ruby.
“See what?” Claire asked.
But Delilah wasn’t talking to Claire, apparently. She looked straight at Ruby and asked her question again, nodding toward the garment bag in her arms.
“I . . . I guess?” Ruby said. “Who are you?”
Delilah smiled and walked toward them. “Wicked stepsister.” Then she winked at Ruby, and Claire’s daughter actually broke out in a full-face smile, eyes crinkling and everything.
“Oh, I’ve heard about you,” Ruby said, still grinning.
“Ruby,” Claire said, but Delilah just laughed.
“Have you now?”
Ruby nodded. Claire couldn’t remember ever talking about Delilah around Ruby, but god knows what Iris had said at their house on one of their cocktail nights. After even one drink, she got even more loose-lipped than normal, and Ruby liked to lurk when she was supposed to be in bed. Claire had caught her more than once over the years, sprawled out on her stomach in the hallway just out of sight, her chin propped up on her hands, eyes wide and hungry like she was listening for secrets about buried treasure.
“What have you heard?” Delilah asked, tilting her head.
Ruby opened her mouth, and Claire saw it happen—the realization of whatever she had to relay to Delilah wasn’t necessarily kind. Pink spread over her daughter’s cheeks, and her throat bobbed in a hard swallow.
“Um . . .” Ruby said, and Claire knew she had to step in, do something, say anything. She wracked her brain for a distraction, but then, Delilah’s smile . . . fell.
An unpleasant sensation swooped through Claire’s belly, shame or guilt or embarrassment, she wasn’t sure. She was sure, however, that Delilah also realized that whatever Ruby had heard wasn’t flattering.
“Never mind,” Delilah said, waving a hand, then tugged on the garment bag in Ruby’s arms. “So show me this dress.”
Ruby exhaled heavily. So did Claire, if she was being honest. She definitely didn’t want a reprisal of Iris’s drunken—or in some cases, stone-cold sober—tirades about the Ghoul of Wisteria House. Not that anything that Iris said was necessarily untrue—Delilah had left Bright Falls and Astrid, despite their strange childhood together, and never looked back—but seeing Delilah’s teasing smile plummet, as though a heavy blanket settled on her in the middle of a sweltering summer . . . well, Claire hadn’t been prepared for that.
“It’s horrible,” Ruby said as she unzipped the bag. “Just look.”
Delilah reached out a hand, pulling the lace and satin into view. Claire couldn’t be sure, but it looked as though her fingers shook, just a little, as she touched the dress. Her brow furrowed, mouth dipping downward.
“God, it is,” she said.
Ruby burst out laughing, and just like that, any empathy Claire had vanished.
“Are you serious right now?” she said as quietly as she could. Really, she wanted to scream. She didn’t need this. She just needed Ruby in the dress.
“I wouldn’t lie about something so important,” Delilah said, meeting Claire’s eyes. There was no malice there, no sarcasm. Just . . . well, hell, Claire couldn’t tell what was there. Delilah held her gaze for a beat longer than felt natural, her full mouth tipping up at the corners, just barely. Freckles spilled over her nose and onto her cheeks. Claire hadn’t noticed them last night in Stella’s dim lighting. Now, though, she saw them plain as day, and had a ridiculous desire to trace a pattern with her finger.
Claire shook her head and stepped back. “Ruby, we need to get changed, okay?”
“Mom,” Ruby said, her voice a whine, and Claire felt even more blood rush to her cheeks. This was going to turn into a fight; she could feel it. A huge, tear-streaked fight, right here in Vivian’s, at Astrid’s first wedding event. She took a deep breath to calm her wobbling stomach, trying to think of what she could say to Ruby, the magic words to make this all fine, but her mind was blank.
Horrifyingly, her eyes started to sting, a swell just behind them. She was so tired. She was so, so tired of being the bad guy.
“Hey,” Delilah said. She took the dress fully out of the bag and draped it over her arm. “Let’s see what you and I can make of this. What do you say?”
She was looking right at Ruby again, Claire forgotten. Ruby’s arms dropped and her face brightened.
“Yeah?” Ruby asked. “Like what?”
“Well,” Delilah said, heading toward the bathroom, “I happen to have a lot of experience in remaking a piece of clothing I hate into something I sort of like, and I’m thinking you’ve got some ideas up your sleeves too.” Her eyes flicked down to Ruby’s nail polish—bright turquoise alternating with a deep plum—then up to her hair, which Claire hadn’t even noticed yet. Her daughter’s locks were long and loose on one side, but on the other, an expertly woven fishtail braid arched down to her shoulder. She didn’t even know Ruby could do a fishtail braid. And when she looked even closer, she spotted a silver-and-black-striped ribbon twisted through the plait.
“Maybe,” Ruby said, grinning, and then Delilah swept Ruby into the bathroom, the heavy oak door thunking shut behind them.
Claire stood there for a few long moments, trying to figure out what the hell just happened. She felt silly, slightly embarrassed, that she hadn’t thought of just asking Ruby what she would change about the dress. It was a dress. It was already made. Astrid bought it for her, and god knew, it probably cost more than all of Ruby’s other clothes combined, which were a blend of Target and Old Navy, cheap stuff that she’d just grow out of in a year. Claire loved clothes, loved finding unique pieces in thrift stores and vintage clothing shops that made her feel like herself, but she never really remade anything. She’d never even thought about it.
Still, underneath the need to do a massive face-palm, there was something else, something stronger.
Relief.
Delilah was actually going to get her daughter into the dress. There would be no public argument that ended with Ruby screaming that she hated her. Claire pressed her hands to her stomach, breathing into the new space she felt there.
“Claire?” Astrid came down the hall, her heels clicking on the marble floor. “Everything okay? We’re ready to start.”
Claire nodded and jutted her thumb toward the bathroom. “Ruby’s just getting changed.”
“Oh good. I really hope she likes the—”
But her voice was cut off when the bathroom door swung open. Ruby stepped out first, Delilah behind her. The dress had been completely transformed. Well, not completely. The bones were still there. Only the bones. The lace overlay was gone, leaving the satin slip underneath, sleeveless with a scooped neck and falling to just above Ruby’s knees. Instead of the matching lavender pumps that had been in the bag, Ruby wore her black combat boots, the ones Claire had gotten her for her birthday last April.
The effect was . . . perfect.
Ruby looked like herself, much more than Claire ever imagined she could in Vivian’s Tearoom. What’s more, she was smiling, and that was enough for Claire.
“What . . . How . . . When . . .” Astrid spluttered, her mouth hanging open. “What happened?”
“Delilah fixed my dress,” Ruby said proudly. She popped her hands on her hips and struck a pose. “Isn’t it amazing?”
“Yeah, sister, isn’t it amazing?” Delilah said, her mouth pursed like she was trying not to laugh.
“I . . . well . . .”
Claire saw Ruby’s smile start to dim.
“It is amazing,” she said, taking her daughter’s hands and holding out her arms out to get a better look at her. The smile brightened again. Claire twirled Ruby around once before leading her back into the main room, her daughter leaning against her happily.
She looked back over her shoulder, just once. Catching Delilah’s eye, she mouthed thank you at the exact moment Delilah lifted her camera and snapped a photo.
