Couldn't Be More Different
TWO
“Oh Deli,” Anna sat down on my bed next to me, patting my knee, “if it’ll make the situation better, would you like me to come with you tonight?”
I sat up, smiling wide, “Yes, absolutely yes! I don’t think I’d be able to survive the awkwardness. I need the moral support through this dinner and throughout this whole ordeal… ahem, I mean, marriage.” Anna shook her head and laughed.
“Oh, my gosh, this is so wild! I can’t believe my best mate is getting married, and only at twenty-two, to a complete and total stranger…I wonder if he’s fit; at least if he was fit, that’d compensate a little bit for this whole mess, eh?” She smirked and nudged my side with her elbow.
“But what if he doesn’t like me, or vice versa? What if we can’t stand each other? I mean, I’m moving in with the man! There’s no escaping it. We could always get a divorce…right?”
“Yeah, I agree. I mean, this is all moving too fast. You haven’t even met the bloke, and you’re already going to be sharing a bed with him. Why did your mother even arrange this whole thing to begin with? You never explained it to me,” Anna quirked a brow, playing with her long, red hair.
“She’s in it for the money. Those weren’t her exact words though, in fact, what she really said was ‘Delilah, you don’t know what kind of man you want, and even if you did, he’d be some poor lowlife who couldn’t appreciate the finest things in life’” I said, working out my best impersonation of my mother with my voice condescending, my nose stuck up in the air. I burst out laughing along with Anna, who was holding her side from laughing so hard.
But yeah, she doesn’t trust my judgement of others, especially of men. I think she’s friends with the man’s parents. She mentioned something about how his mother and my mother came to an agreement that her son and I should get married. For whatever reason, besides the money, I’m not sure,” I stood up and walked over to my shelf, fingering my collection of CDs and books, little trinkets and souvenirs I collected over the years. I couldn’t take all of it with me, at least not right away. Only until I settled in to the new house, could I move in the rest of my belongings. I looked to the very top shelf, and reached up for the picture frame I’d always kept there. Within the four panels of antique wood, the photo of my father was framed, my biological father. Not the father my mother married after her first husband passed away. She was a different person when he was still around, and then once he wasn’t, she married into money. She changed after that.
I walked towards my suitcase still sitting on my bed, unzipped it, and placed the frame on top of everything inside. I had room for at least one more thing.
