2: 2

At dusk, I let myself into the wedding apartment with my key.

Four women sat in the living room, the floor covered with sunflower-seed shells.

Virginia had her feet up on the leather chaise my mother had bought, showing off photos of the property deed to a few of her old friends.

"The deed is only in Roland's name."

"Sure, the bride's side put in a little money, but there's no man in her house. What would they know about property rights?"

"Once they're married, her salary and her mother's little stand both go under Roland's control."

One of the women stroked the arm of the sofa.

"This furniture wasn't cheap, was it?"

"Her mother bought it. Twelve pieces, over a hundred thousand."

"Once the wedding's done, I'm moving back to my own place."

"As for that old woman who fries breakfast pastries, I won't even let her through the door."

Out in the hall, a soup thermos knocked against the wall.

When I turned, my mother was standing in the doorway, a pot of homemade soup in her hands.

She glanced down at her own apron and took half a step back.

Virginia stood up.

"So the bride's mother is here?"

"Wipe your soles clean before you come in."

"This isn't that greasy market of yours."

My mother fished a red envelope out of her pocket.

"Ms. Lambert, Evie's young, she speaks too bluntly."

"Please bear with us. Take this money, put it toward something for the wedding."

Virginia reached out to take it.

I took the envelope first and pulled my mother behind me.

"Mom, we're going home."

"Evie, the wedding's only a few days off, don't do this because of me—"

"It's not because of you."

I dialed the moving company.

"You can come up now."

Virginia blocked the door.

"What moving company?"

"The one that moves furniture."

Once the four workers were inside, I took out the twelve purchase receipts and payment records.

"The chaise, the master bed, the two nightstands, the living room sofa, the coffee table, the dining table, the six dining chairs, and the entryway cabinet. Take all of it."

Virginia threw her arms wide in front of the sofa.

"This is my son's wedding apartment. Who dares touch anything?"

I held the receipts up in front of her face.

"Purchaser: Eleanor Fox. The payment card is hers too."

"No marriage yet, no completed gift. All of this belongs to my mother."

"Bullshit! Once it's in my house, it's mine."

"Then let the police decide."

I keyed in the emergency number.

The old friends got to their feet.

"Virginia, maybe you two should talk it over first. Don't really bring the police into it."

"Talk over what?"

"She's about to be my daughter-in-law. What's she going to do, turn the world upside down?"

I looked at the workers.

"Move it. If anyone gets in the way, I'll handle the police."

Two of the workers stepped to either side of the sofa.

Virginia was still sitting there when the sofa lifted off the floor.

She scrambled off, one slipper dropping loose.

"Evelyn, you touch that and I'll have Roland call off the engagement!"

"It's already off."

"He hasn't agreed to it. It's not your place to call it off."

The workers carried the sofa out the door, then took the chaise.

A few black shoe prints were still on the seat cushion. My mother reached out with a tissue to wipe them, and I caught her hand.

"Leave them."

She curled the tissue into her palm.

"Roland said his back was bad, so I bought this for the two of you."

"Take it home. It's yours now."

The furniture went out piece by piece.

After the dining table came out, the master bed was taken apart.

In under an hour, all that was left in the apartment were two plastic stools.

Virginia called Roland.

"Son, get back here now!"

"This jinx has cleaned out our whole place, and she's bullying me too!"

I steadied my mother and walked her out.

Just as the elevator doors were closing, Roland burst out of the stairwell.

He glanced at the empty apartment and threw up a hand to stop the elevator.

"Evelyn, come out."

"If you have something to say, say it here."

"Tomorrow at noon, the Goldbrook Grill."

"We'll settle the wedding once and for all."

"If you don't show, you can forget ever setting foot in this apartment again."

I pressed the close button.

"Fine."

"That's a good time to settle the accounts on this place too."

3: 3

The next day at noon, I pushed open the door of the private room at the Goldbrook Grill.

Besides Roland and Virginia, two of Roland's subordinates were at the table, along with Miles Lawrence's wife.

Roland pointed at an empty chair.

"Sit."

"There are outsiders here today, so you can't turn around later and say we bullied you."

I didn't sit.

"What are we discussing?"

Virginia took a document out of her bag and slapped it down on the lazy Susan.

The title read: A Declaration That the Bride's Mother Shall Never Cohabit and Shall Return the Betrothal Gifts.

She pushed a pen across to me.

"Sign it, bring the furniture back, and apologize to me."

"Then we'll call it over."

I flipped to the last page.

It also stated that after marriage my salary would be handed over to the husband to manage, and the bride's mother could not claim any of the couple's joint property on grounds of retirement, medical care, or anything else.

Roland rapped his knuckles on the table.

"Evelyn, my colleagues are all here."

"You guarantee your mother never sets one foot in the apartment again, and on the wedding day I'll still come to bring you to the ceremony."

Miles Lawrence's wife glanced at me.

"Young lady, once you're married, your husband's family has to come first."

"A mother from a single-parent home tends to lean on her daughter. Roland's just spelling things out early, heading off trouble before it starts."

"Do you know who paid the down payment on this apartment?"

She paused, caught off guard.

Roland cut in at once.

"Both our families put in for it together."

"The deed's in my name because it was easier to run the loan through my connections."

I took the receipt from the Housing Finance Office out of my bag and laid it beside the document.

"Yesterday afternoon, I terminated my registration as co-guarantor on the pre-marital property loan."

"Starting next month, I'm no longer paying Roland's mortgage."

Roland picked up the receipt and read it through twice.

"Who told you to do that?"

"It's my account. I did it myself."

He slapped the receipt back down on the table.

"The mortgage is eight thousand six hundred a month. You don't pay it, and you plan to live on air after the wedding?"

"It's your apartment. You pay for it yourself."

The two subordinates exchanged a look and said nothing.

Virginia held the declaration up in front of my face.

"You sign first."

"Once you're married, that account of yours has to come out anyway."

"Who drafted this declaration?"

"I had someone write it up. Every line is proper."

"You demand my mother never come through the door, but I keep paying your son's mortgage. You call that proper?"

Roland stood up.

"I'm leaving you some face. Don't throw it back in mine."

I picked up the declaration.

Sophomore year, that winter, he went out to the windy corner to help my mother pack up her stand, and said the smell of cooking smoke on her was the warmest thing he knew.

Yesterday, he had someone write that same kitchen-grease smell into the reason she couldn't come through the door.

I set the declaration back on the table.

"Do you have any other conditions?"

Virginia ticked them off on her fingers.

"You hand over your salary after the wedding, and cook at my place twice a week."

"When your mother's sick or old someday, you don't touch Roland's money."

"When you have a child, it takes the Head name, and she doesn't come help with the confinement either."

Miles Lawrence's wife frowned.

"Handing over the whole salary really isn't necessary, is it?"

Virginia lifted her chin.

"A daughter-in-law in the Head family keeps to the Head family's rules."

I put the receipt away.

Roland clamped a hand down on the document folder.

"You think cutting off the guarantee is going to scare me?"

"The wedding's only five days off. You call it off now, and who's ever going to want you?"

I pulled the folder back.

"That's not your concern."

"You come dragging along a burden of a mother who sells breakfast, and you've still got the nerve to put on airs with me?"

The room went quiet.

I looked at him.

"Say that again."

"Was I wrong?"

"That reek of poverty on your mother, what family wants to touch that?"

"You wreck this marriage, and I'd like to see who dares marry a shrew like you the day after."

I picked up the declaration and tore it down the middle.

I ripped the rest into shreds and dropped them into the bowl in front of Virginia.

"On the wedding day, come stand at the entrance of the Fortune Hall and watch."

4: 4

"You'd tear up my declaration?"

I pulled the bank statements and transfer receipts from the file folder and set them in front of Roland.

"Four hundred thousand down. Three hundred fifty of it wired from my mother's account to you."

"The other fifty thousand was mine."

"After the purchase, twenty-one months of mortgage payments were pulled from my housing fund and my paycheck."

Roland shoved the statements aside.

"The deed's in my name."

"That's exactly why I'm here to settle up."

I laid the loan IOU he'd written in his own hand on top of everything else.

"This IOU says plainly: three hundred fifty thousand advanced toward the apartment, with ownership shares to be registered after the wedding."

"The wedding's off now. So either you sell the apartment and pay me back, or you're in court next Monday."

"I'll file an asset-preservation petition before the case even opens."

Roland picked up the IOU, and his face changed.

"I only wrote that to keep your mother happy back then. It doesn't count."

"That's your signature and your thumbprint."

"Evelyn, you're really going to sue me?"

"Yes."

Virginia snatched the IOU away.

"A mother buying her son-in-law an apartment—that's the natural order of things."

"And she still has the nerve to want it back? Has she fallen straight into a pit of money?"

"She's not your in-law yet, and Roland isn't her son-in-law."

"The wedding invitations are already out. You say it's off and that makes it off?"

"There's no Roland on any marriage certificate."

Roland jabbed a finger at my face.

"Don't think knowing some guy with a run-down grocery store lets you ride over my head."

"Your mother can fry breakfast pastries her whole life and she'll never get into our circle."

"She doesn't need to get in."

"She just has to sit down at my wedding in a padded coat with the cuffs worn through, and my whole department will laugh at me."

Five years ago, fresh out of school, he ran a high fever.

My mother walked an hour in that same coat to bring him chicken soup and medicine.

That night he held her hand and called her Mama a dozen times.

I squared all the documents back into a neat stack.

"Roland, from this moment on, there is nothing between us."

"You walk out that door, and on the wedding day you can guard an empty hall."

The door of the private room opened from the outside.

Lucius Delgado walked in.

He had a red gift list in his hand.

He crossed to my side and set the list on the table.

"It won't be empty."

Roland looked him up and down.

"So you're the actor?"

Lucius ignored the question and looked only at me.

"Mama Fox is waiting for you downstairs."

"She was worried, so she asked me to come up and check."

I nodded.

Virginia opened the gift list, and her voice cut off for a moment.

Gold jewelry, the gown, the reception, the wedding car procession, the marital home—every line spelled out the brand, the receipt, and who it belonged to.

The last line read clearly: all gift money and gifts belonged to me alone.

Lucius set down another document, a photocopy of a business license.

"This is proof of actual controlling interest in six company-owned supermarkets."

"It isn't a bride price. I just want Evelyn to know I can carry a household, and that I'm willing to look after Mama Fox."

Roland grabbed the photocopy.

"You make up a fake certificate and think you can bluff people?"

One of his subordinates glanced at the company name and spoke quietly.

"Supervisor Head, that company's on our supplier list."

"All six stores are company-owned. Director Lawrence had me pull their annual contracts just last month."

Roland whipped his head around and glared at him.

"Shut up."

Lucius drew the photocopy back out of his hand.

"On the wedding day, sixteen cars will be at the corner of Old Market Street."

"I'll pick up Mama Fox first, then Evelyn."

"The center seat at the head table stays reserved for Mama Fox."

Roland sneered.

"Sixteen cars can't come cheap."

"How much did Evelyn pay you?"

"The three-thousand groom's deposit at the hotel, I paid that."

"The cars and the gift list are on me too."

"What are you after with her?"

Lucius looked at him.

"She and Mama Fox don't deserve to be treated the way you treat them."

Roland raised his arm and pointed at the door.

"Cut the act in front of me."

"On the wedding day, I'll expose the two of you right in front of Director Lawrence."

"I'd love to see who a small-time grocer can actually get to show up."

Lucius didn't look at him again. He picked up my file folder.

"Let's go. Mama Fox is still waiting."

As I reached the door, Roland smashed his glass on the floor.

"Evelyn, if you dare leave with him today, you can crawl back begging later and I still won't turn around!"

I didn't stop.

Lucius pulled the door open for me.

"The cars and the guests are all arranged."

"The chief engineer of the supply division and the director of the Inspection and Acceptance Office just confirmed. They're coming to the wedding."

The door closed behind us.

On the wedding day, Roland would see with his own eyes exactly who the actor he kept talking about really was.