We Could Be Beautiful by Swan Huntley Page B

it.
    “I think the house is done, don’t you?”

    If it had been up to me, I could have kept finding things to fix and redo forever, but William was more logical than that. He understood endpoints.
    “Yes,” I said, “I think it’s almost done. I’m going to have Lucia reorganize some stuff in the hallway cabinets, but other than that, I think it looks good, don’t you?”
    “I do. Our belongings are officially integrated.” He raised his eyebrows twice.
    “It’s true.”
    “I love you.”
    Three times in one morning. I was giddy. “I love you, too.”
    At the end of our meal we ordered the chocolate mousse; it had become one of Our Things. William was talking about how the island of Malta was not a place worth visiting when the waiter brought the mousse to the table and set it down incredibly carefully, as if it were a thing that could break. I actually thought this waiter had a mental problem, or was going blind.
    Without asking, William spoon-fed me the first bite, and—what? What was this metal thing jabbing me in the mouth? My first thought was, Get the manager! But then, when I saw William’s face, I put it together pretty quickly. The metal thing had to be a ring. He hadn’t gone to the loo. He had gone to find the waiter to make this happen.
    Even just feeling it with my tongue I could tell the rock was huge, and when I spit it primly into my open palm (the sunlight seemed to make a spotlight just exactly there), I saw that it was. I licked the chocolate off and William dipped it in his seltzer—huge smile, those brilliant teeth; those teeth were mine now—and when it was clean, he got on his knee and said, with so many people watching, “Catherine West, will you be my wife?”

9
    T he definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, but if the person you are dealing with is not medically sane, does this definition apply?
    On Monday I went uptown to try again with my mother. I hoped again that today would be different. The biggest thing I had going for me was that my mother now adored Evelyn after months of hating Evelyn’s guts for allegedly stealing her comb. If she stonewalled me again, I planned to tell her that she had to stop. She had to make peace with my future husband. She had to accept this. She had to accept me and my choices and my life. I got worked up in the cab with a heated inner monologue: You have to accept my choices, Mom! I am an adult! Accept my choices! Accept this! Accept me, Mom! Fuck!
    My ring. It was huge. It was an ice cube. I’d moved all the other jewelry off my left hand to make room for its presence. I couldn’t stop looking at it.
    When Mom and I got to Da Castelli—a particularly arduous walk; she kept stopping to ask where we were—and sat down in our regular booth, I laid my palm flat on the table in front of her. “Mom, look.”
    She didn’t look down but straight at me instead. Was there distance in her eyes? Or was this how my mother had always looked? She seemed to float in and out of herself. She was there and then not there and then maybe there again. Her hair was tied back in a severe chignon like a schoolmarm’s today; her makeup was a little heavy. Were those fuchsia accents in her eye shadow? She wore a royal-blue silk blouse and a pearl necklace. She ran her fingers back and forth along the pearls.

    I flapped my sad hand on the table. “My ring, Mom, look at my ring.”
    She looked down, and tapped the diamond once. She said nothing to me, but when the waiter appeared with her prosecco (impressive—she hadn’t even ordered it yet), she said, “Thank you very much, kind sir,” which was a lot more than she usually said to waiters.
    “Mom, I’m getting married.”
    She looked at me like I was a moron. “Catherine, I am aware of that.”
    “You are?”
    “Of course I am.”
    My face twisted up in the mirror behind her. “Really?”
    “What do you take me for?” This was one of Mom’s