Excerpt from Engaged to a Stranger
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PrologueAs a little girl, I was fascinated by the story of Cinderella.
How did she go from rock bottom to a life upgrade that included the adoration of an entire kingdom and the love of a smoking hot prince? Deep down, I knew it was only a fairy tale, but it gave me hope. At night, I would close my eyes and imagine myself in that major Cinderella moment, the one that changed her life. I remember telling my best friend, Jessica about this when we were both seven years old. It was one of those rare Saturdays Mother took off from work to spend a day with me. On the weekends, Jessica and I were inseparable. So, that Saturday Mother took both of us to Belle Maison, a plantation in Donaldsonville, Louisiana. The sprawling mansion had become a tourist attraction, event venue, and restaurant. It also featured a tea service that everyone who was anyone in Louisiana got dressed up for and sampled from time to time. On our way to the tea service, Mother let me and Jessica take a peek at the plantation’s grand ballroom, which was where wedding receptions and other major events were held. |
“It looks like the staff is preparing for an event. So, you’ll have to hurry and take a quick look,” Mother warned as we stepped into the room, the heels of our shoes tapping against the impeccable marble floors.
Awed, Jessica and I looked up at the high ceiling where an oversized chandelier was dripping with diamonds.
“Whoa,” Jessica muttered, and her one-word response to the stunning visuals summed up my feelings entirely.
A slew of Belle Maison workers bustled about, each clad in crisp white shirts and black slacks as they scurried from one task to the next. Some were setting up tables, others cleaned windows and doorknobs, while still others walked around with tape measure, preparing for the set-up of furniture and items that had yet to make an entrance.
I blinked, and in my imagination, the workers were gone.
Their presence was replaced by a well-dressed quartet that played a waltz and dozens of men and women on the dance floor, their movements as elegant as their clothing.
Standing just off to the side was the man of the hour, Prince Charming.
And I was no longer a seven-year-old in a floral dress from Target.
I’d been transformed into Cinderella.
Sighing dramatically, I nudged Jessica and said, “This has to be the ballroom where Cinderella met Prince Charming.”
“Yeah,” Jessica replied, her eyes beaming. “It looks exactly like it.”
“Can’t you just see it?” I pointed to the entrance we’d used. “She walks through there and everyone in the ballroom stops what they’re doing to stare at her. And then she looks at the prince and he looks at her and-”
“Oh, please,” Mother’s bitter laugh shattered our fairy tale.
The dry cackle plucked us from the realms of fantasy and replanted us in the withering garden that is reality.
We turned to Mother as she arched a perfectly drawn dark eyebrow and said, “Fairy tales about love are garbage. Now, tell me ladies, what kinds of creatures feed on garbage?”
Jessica and I exchanged a glance.
“Ladies?” Mother urged.
“Um, I guess, uh,” Jessica hesitantly replied, “like, rats maybe?”
“Yes, rats.” Mother smiled at my best friend in a way that made me protectively slide my hand into Jessica’s and give hers a comforting squeeze. Even then, I recognized that my mother could be a little scary. “Are you a rat, Jessica?”
“She’s not a rat,” I quickly said.
“Correct. You are refined young ladies,” Mother nodded. “And refined young ladies do not feed on garbage. They feed on truth, which is what helps them to blossom. So, if fairy tales about love, like the story of Cinderella, are lies, do we want to feed on them?”
“No,” Jessica said.
Startled by Jessica’s response, I glanced at my friend’s expression and realized she was only telling Mother what she wanted to hear.
Relieved, I knew Jessica still loved our favorite movie as much as I did and that we’d most likely still find ourselves watching it before we went to sleep that night.
I returned my attention to Mother, and she was staring at me expectantly.
“Margaret, do we feed on fairy tales about love?” she demanded.
Gulping, I quickly said, “No, ma’am.”
“Very good. Now, I’m going to tell you a true story, ladies,” Mother ushered us out of the ballroom and began leading us towards Belle Maison’s parlor, which was where the tea service was held.
“Are you familiar with the true tale of Adelaide LeBlanc?”
I shook my head and so did Jessica.
Mother slowed her stride and as we sauntered down a narrow hallway with walls that were painted a soft blue. She lifted a hand, and grazed the wall on her right as we moved along. “It’s a true story that happened right here in this home. Adelaide touched these walls with her own hands, and she walked these hallways just like you girls are right now. She grew up here.”
“Wow,” Jessica softly said. “She grew up here?”
Intrigued, I asked, “So, she was rich? Like a princess?”
“Yes,” Mother’s expression was stern as she glanced at us. “But being as rich as a princess means nothing when one is not intelligent. Adelaide learned that the hard way.”
“What happened to her?” I asked.
“Adelaide fell in love with a man when she was only 20 years old,” Mother said. “He was very good-looking and wealthy. But 20 is too young to fall in love, that was Adelaide’s first mistake. She should have waited until she was older. Because guess what happened?”
I folded my arms across my chest, already disliking the direction this true story was taking. It sounded suspiciously like the things my mother would say when she was angry with my father and ranting about “the mistakes she’d made in her youthful ignorance.”
“What happened?” Jessica asked.
“This handsome man,” Mother said, coming to a halt at the end of the hallway, where the parlor’s entrance was just ahead.
We stopped with her and looked up at her as she continued with her depressing non-fairy tale, “He was the jealous type. Meaning, he didn’t like Adelaide having any friends other than him. He also didn’t want her to get an education. He wanted to keep her all to himself. Does that sound normal to you, girls?”
Jessica and I shook our heads.
Honestly, I only shook mine because if I didn’t, the story would drag on for even longer.
“But Adelaide ignored the warning signs, and when this handsome ‘Prince Charming’ asked her to marry him, she said yes,” Mother continued. “The wedding was going to be the finest event south Louisiana had ever seen. It would’ve happened here, in that Grand Ballroom you girls were just in. The mayor and the governor were planning to attend. But it was a good thing their carriages were late because something horrible happened on the wedding day.”
I’ll admit, I was a bit hooked at this point.
“Horrible?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, my dear,” Mother said, looking into my eyes. “That men cannot be trusted.”
Confused, I asked, “The man she was going to marry, he did something bad?”
“Very bad,” Mother said. “On the day of the wedding, while Adelaide LeBlanc was in her room, being helped into her beautiful white wedding dress, her intended discovered that another man who’d been in love with Adelaide had been invited to their wedding. This sent him into a jealous rage.”
“Jealous rage?” Jessica repeated.
I’d never heard the phrase before either, but I could easily guess what it meant.
“Yes, darling,” Mother said. “He lost his mind, got a gun, and walked into the wedding venue. Then he opened fire and killed everyone in sight before turning the gun on himself.”
I gasped and Jessica covered her open mouth with her hand as tears formed in her eyes.
Mother pointed to Jessica and said, “That’s exactly how Adelaide reacted when she walked into the venue and saw the remains of the bloodbath.”
“They were all dead?” I cried.
Mother frowned and glanced around, “Lower your voice, Margaret. And yes, they were all dead. After such an atrocity, do you think Adelaide was ever the same? Or do you think her capacity to enjoy life was interrupted? What do you think?”
I glanced at Jessica, and she was wiping tears from her eyes.
I slung one of my arms around her shoulder and fed Mother the answer I figured would get her to end the terrible story, “She shouldn’t have trusted the man.”
Mother nodded, “Correct. The man ruined her life. Adelaide was never the same after that, and for the rest of her short life, she sat in Belle Maison’s drawing-room wearing her silk white wedding dress. Day after day, she sat there waiting for her groom to return to her. She died, insane and unreachable when she was only 23.”
Silence sifted between the three of us as guests trickled down the hallway and into the parlor.
Mother smiled down at us and clasped her hands together. “Now ladies, once again, what is the moral of that true tale I just shared with you?”
“Never trust a man,” I repeated.
“Ever,” Jessica whispered.
Mother gave us a thumbs up, “Excellent. Remembering that can save your lives, ladies.”
We just stared at her, horrified.
*****
Sixteen years later, I am once again horrified.
I’m now 23 years old, the same age Adelaide LeBlanc was when she passed away, “insane and unreachable.”
Over the years, I’ve decided that my mother is traumatized and bitter, a state which inaccurately informs her perception of all men as inherently untrustworthy.
That said, I also think she was right about one thing.
Fairy tales about love are garbage.
I believed them and now, here I am, in Belle Maison with my fiancé as he shoves a Glock 19 into my right rib cage and shouts to a room full of guests, “Stand down, or I’ll shoot her.”
My heart is beating so fast it feels like it’s trying to punch its way out of my chest, and I can barely breathe.
I stare at the man who claimed, only days ago, that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.
It dawns on me that Adelaide LeBlanc and I are likely to go down in history with a similar fate.
Awed, Jessica and I looked up at the high ceiling where an oversized chandelier was dripping with diamonds.
“Whoa,” Jessica muttered, and her one-word response to the stunning visuals summed up my feelings entirely.
A slew of Belle Maison workers bustled about, each clad in crisp white shirts and black slacks as they scurried from one task to the next. Some were setting up tables, others cleaned windows and doorknobs, while still others walked around with tape measure, preparing for the set-up of furniture and items that had yet to make an entrance.
I blinked, and in my imagination, the workers were gone.
Their presence was replaced by a well-dressed quartet that played a waltz and dozens of men and women on the dance floor, their movements as elegant as their clothing.
Standing just off to the side was the man of the hour, Prince Charming.
And I was no longer a seven-year-old in a floral dress from Target.
I’d been transformed into Cinderella.
Sighing dramatically, I nudged Jessica and said, “This has to be the ballroom where Cinderella met Prince Charming.”
“Yeah,” Jessica replied, her eyes beaming. “It looks exactly like it.”
“Can’t you just see it?” I pointed to the entrance we’d used. “She walks through there and everyone in the ballroom stops what they’re doing to stare at her. And then she looks at the prince and he looks at her and-”
“Oh, please,” Mother’s bitter laugh shattered our fairy tale.
The dry cackle plucked us from the realms of fantasy and replanted us in the withering garden that is reality.
We turned to Mother as she arched a perfectly drawn dark eyebrow and said, “Fairy tales about love are garbage. Now, tell me ladies, what kinds of creatures feed on garbage?”
Jessica and I exchanged a glance.
“Ladies?” Mother urged.
“Um, I guess, uh,” Jessica hesitantly replied, “like, rats maybe?”
“Yes, rats.” Mother smiled at my best friend in a way that made me protectively slide my hand into Jessica’s and give hers a comforting squeeze. Even then, I recognized that my mother could be a little scary. “Are you a rat, Jessica?”
“She’s not a rat,” I quickly said.
“Correct. You are refined young ladies,” Mother nodded. “And refined young ladies do not feed on garbage. They feed on truth, which is what helps them to blossom. So, if fairy tales about love, like the story of Cinderella, are lies, do we want to feed on them?”
“No,” Jessica said.
Startled by Jessica’s response, I glanced at my friend’s expression and realized she was only telling Mother what she wanted to hear.
Relieved, I knew Jessica still loved our favorite movie as much as I did and that we’d most likely still find ourselves watching it before we went to sleep that night.
I returned my attention to Mother, and she was staring at me expectantly.
“Margaret, do we feed on fairy tales about love?” she demanded.
Gulping, I quickly said, “No, ma’am.”
“Very good. Now, I’m going to tell you a true story, ladies,” Mother ushered us out of the ballroom and began leading us towards Belle Maison’s parlor, which was where the tea service was held.
“Are you familiar with the true tale of Adelaide LeBlanc?”
I shook my head and so did Jessica.
Mother slowed her stride and as we sauntered down a narrow hallway with walls that were painted a soft blue. She lifted a hand, and grazed the wall on her right as we moved along. “It’s a true story that happened right here in this home. Adelaide touched these walls with her own hands, and she walked these hallways just like you girls are right now. She grew up here.”
“Wow,” Jessica softly said. “She grew up here?”
Intrigued, I asked, “So, she was rich? Like a princess?”
“Yes,” Mother’s expression was stern as she glanced at us. “But being as rich as a princess means nothing when one is not intelligent. Adelaide learned that the hard way.”
“What happened to her?” I asked.
“Adelaide fell in love with a man when she was only 20 years old,” Mother said. “He was very good-looking and wealthy. But 20 is too young to fall in love, that was Adelaide’s first mistake. She should have waited until she was older. Because guess what happened?”
I folded my arms across my chest, already disliking the direction this true story was taking. It sounded suspiciously like the things my mother would say when she was angry with my father and ranting about “the mistakes she’d made in her youthful ignorance.”
“What happened?” Jessica asked.
“This handsome man,” Mother said, coming to a halt at the end of the hallway, where the parlor’s entrance was just ahead.
We stopped with her and looked up at her as she continued with her depressing non-fairy tale, “He was the jealous type. Meaning, he didn’t like Adelaide having any friends other than him. He also didn’t want her to get an education. He wanted to keep her all to himself. Does that sound normal to you, girls?”
Jessica and I shook our heads.
Honestly, I only shook mine because if I didn’t, the story would drag on for even longer.
“But Adelaide ignored the warning signs, and when this handsome ‘Prince Charming’ asked her to marry him, she said yes,” Mother continued. “The wedding was going to be the finest event south Louisiana had ever seen. It would’ve happened here, in that Grand Ballroom you girls were just in. The mayor and the governor were planning to attend. But it was a good thing their carriages were late because something horrible happened on the wedding day.”
I’ll admit, I was a bit hooked at this point.
“Horrible?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, my dear,” Mother said, looking into my eyes. “That men cannot be trusted.”
Confused, I asked, “The man she was going to marry, he did something bad?”
“Very bad,” Mother said. “On the day of the wedding, while Adelaide LeBlanc was in her room, being helped into her beautiful white wedding dress, her intended discovered that another man who’d been in love with Adelaide had been invited to their wedding. This sent him into a jealous rage.”
“Jealous rage?” Jessica repeated.
I’d never heard the phrase before either, but I could easily guess what it meant.
“Yes, darling,” Mother said. “He lost his mind, got a gun, and walked into the wedding venue. Then he opened fire and killed everyone in sight before turning the gun on himself.”
I gasped and Jessica covered her open mouth with her hand as tears formed in her eyes.
Mother pointed to Jessica and said, “That’s exactly how Adelaide reacted when she walked into the venue and saw the remains of the bloodbath.”
“They were all dead?” I cried.
Mother frowned and glanced around, “Lower your voice, Margaret. And yes, they were all dead. After such an atrocity, do you think Adelaide was ever the same? Or do you think her capacity to enjoy life was interrupted? What do you think?”
I glanced at Jessica, and she was wiping tears from her eyes.
I slung one of my arms around her shoulder and fed Mother the answer I figured would get her to end the terrible story, “She shouldn’t have trusted the man.”
Mother nodded, “Correct. The man ruined her life. Adelaide was never the same after that, and for the rest of her short life, she sat in Belle Maison’s drawing-room wearing her silk white wedding dress. Day after day, she sat there waiting for her groom to return to her. She died, insane and unreachable when she was only 23.”
Silence sifted between the three of us as guests trickled down the hallway and into the parlor.
Mother smiled down at us and clasped her hands together. “Now ladies, once again, what is the moral of that true tale I just shared with you?”
“Never trust a man,” I repeated.
“Ever,” Jessica whispered.
Mother gave us a thumbs up, “Excellent. Remembering that can save your lives, ladies.”
We just stared at her, horrified.
*****
Sixteen years later, I am once again horrified.
I’m now 23 years old, the same age Adelaide LeBlanc was when she passed away, “insane and unreachable.”
Over the years, I’ve decided that my mother is traumatized and bitter, a state which inaccurately informs her perception of all men as inherently untrustworthy.
That said, I also think she was right about one thing.
Fairy tales about love are garbage.
I believed them and now, here I am, in Belle Maison with my fiancé as he shoves a Glock 19 into my right rib cage and shouts to a room full of guests, “Stand down, or I’ll shoot her.”
My heart is beating so fast it feels like it’s trying to punch its way out of my chest, and I can barely breathe.
I stare at the man who claimed, only days ago, that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.
It dawns on me that Adelaide LeBlanc and I are likely to go down in history with a similar fate.