The Engagement Party - Part One

“Oh, Addie! I’m just so happy for you!” Eleanor flung her arms around her sister’s neck, sloshing champagne onto the floor. Adelaide stoically placed a spindly arm round Eleanor’s waist, supporting her younger sibling in her drunken embrace. Eleanor’s perfume made her head swim. Her sister’s breathy congratulations rustled the curls beside her ear. She turned her face away and took another sip from her glass. Eleanor’s head had now sunk into her neck and she was murmuring into Adelaide’s collar bone. Adelaide gripped her sister more tightly and guided her to the chaise, setting her down in a slurring heap. Across the room, Henry had noticed his young wife slumped over on the brocade sofa. He downed his whisky and gently pushed through the party. He sat down by her side, pulling her up gently by her shoulders. Eleanor lifted up her porcelain face, her red lips smeared down her chin. She smiled through blurred eyes. “You came,” she whispered, smiling wider, and she folded over on his lap. Henry looked up to nod a thankful apology to the elder sister, but Adelaide was gone.

Adelaide picked up a glass from the tray as she headed for the stairs. She tipped back the crystal flute, letting the golden bubbles slide down her throat in one gulp. Setting down the glass at the top of the staircase, she straightened up to face the tight lipped frown of her mother.

“Now, Adelaide. Darling. Is that the best place to put that?” The eyebrows of her mother and her entourage shot up in disapproval. Adelaide rolled her eyes and bent down to pick up the glass again. The troupe of women sailed past her down the staircase, muttering in distaste at Katherine’s daughter’s “slovenly behaviour”. Adelaide heard her mother’s sighs of defeat at her eldest daughter’s incompetence, listening out for the obligatory “if only she had turned out more like Eleanor”. She wasn’t disappointed. She dropped the empty glass onto the thick carpet and went to her room.

Closing the door behind her, Adelaide sat down stiffly on the edge of her bed. The summer evening breeze blew through the open balcony doors. She shivered as the hem of her silk gown moved about her feet with the wind. She stood up and went over to the double glass doors. She pulled them shut with a sharp click. Behind her, the bedroom door opened and closed again.

“There you are...” Carl’s deep, Southern slur crept into her ear. She felt his arms slide around her waist. She froze and shut her eyes tightly. He kissed her ear, his breath stinging her cheek. Bourbon and stale smoke made her nostrils itch and her earlobe burned where his lips had been. He pulled her away from the doors and spun her round to face him. He kissed her fiercely, pushing his tongue between her lips. She held him stiffly and parted her lips obediently. This embrace was a metaphor for their whole relationship. Carl commanded and executed, always pushing, regardless of her. Adelaide would stand by, silent, submissive, allowing herself to be pushed and pulled in whatever way her fiancé desired.

But things were different once.

The previous summer, Adelaide had been forgotten. Eleanor and Henry’s wedding had taken over much of her parents’ schedules, particularly her mother’s. Katherine and her youngest daughter had spent the spring buying dresses and flowers, viewing churches, holding teas and third engagement parties, all in sparkling, florid anticipation for the Summer Wedding. Adelaide had been excluded from this. Her spring had been spent at college, and her return home in early June had been hardly noticed. Her bedroom remained untouched. The bedclothes still lay in a homely, rumpled fashion, just as she had left them the cold crisp morning in January her father had driven her to college. She set down her cases and went to the balcony, throwing open the double doors. The cool, yellow haze of an early summer sunset flooded into the bedroom. Shoes lay, discarded, on the floor at the foot of the bed. The walnut wardrobe doors were still open and empty boxes and cases lay strewn around it and on the bed. Adelaide perched on the bed, smoothing the cool sheet beside her. She lay back on her bed and gazed at the ceiling.

Carl pushed her back on the bed and she gazed up at the ceiling. The white cornicing disappeared from view as he bent over her and kissed her again, running his hand over her shoulders, under the straps of her silk dress. She closed her eyes again, her thin arms pinned by her sides, surrendering to the hands which crept up her legs and over her thighs, pushing aside the cold, liquid silk. Her stomach knotted uncomfortably. She clenched her fists, her blood red nails biting into her sweating palms.