Chapter 8

Dinner with Isabella was inevitable. Dinner between Nadia and Isabella did not have to be inevitable.

Yet Eva couldn't avoid it, no matter what she did or how she conspired ways for Nadia to be "too busy" during dinner on Saturday night. When Isabella wanted everyone with the last name Warren at her dinner, that's what she got.

Technically, Warren was Nadia's last name. Well, it's Gaines-Warren, because that's what we negotiated. Eva often forgot her wife changed her name at all. Professionally, casually, and beyond, she was still Nadia Gaines. The only people who seriously took her as "Gaines-Warren" were the DMV and IRS. And Isabella, who desired to preside over her queenly court. She may have disliked Nadia, if not for only her low-class birth, but how she represented Eva's homosexuality. Yet she had to check in with her at least once. Isabella required hateful fuel for Christmas.

Isabella had made reservations at the finest dining establishment in Malibu, the kind of place that boasted higher prices than they did fine views. Eva was required to put on her whole face, which included hair product and enough makeup to keep her mother from commenting on baggy eyelids and the hint of a pimple popping out of Eva's nose. She donned the nicest outfit she packed: a matching pinstripe vest and trousers with a white dinner jacket to appease the ma?tre d' until they were seated. Nadia was doomed to a conservative cocktail dress and high heels. Her hair was freshly washed and her makeup daring but not ostentatious. Anywhere else, and they would have looked the absolute sight.

Before Isabella Warren, however, they were too this and not enough that.

"You have all this money now," Eva overheard her mother say to Nadia upon returning from the restroom, "and this is the best dress you can get to fit your body?"

Nadia's poker face could be better. Don't give her an inch, Nads. Surely, Nadia knew this. As much as Eva preferred her wife not to drink all of the white wine delivered to the table, sometimes that was the only way to shut oneself up while in the presence of Isabella.

"That's a Bishop Takes Rook original," Eva blasely said while leaning back in her chair and swinging one leg over the other. "The latest fashion at every garden party on the Eastern Seaboard."

"It doesn't flatter her bosom."

"I think her bosom looks great."

"What's a bosom?"

Isabella was mildly scandalized to remember that her young granddaughter also sat at the table. In her Sunday best and with Mary Janes swinging in the air, Abigail's patience was tested as she sat through this frumpy dinner with her grandmother and Aunties Eva and Nadia. It was bad enough she had to eat from the adult menu – Isabella's insistence – but most kids Abigail's age wouldn't make it ten minutes sitting in that scratchy dress with absolutely no mental stimulation to speak of.

This will be fun.

"It's her chest," Eva candidly said.

"Eva!" Isabella hissed. "Manners. You're over thirty. You know what that means."

"What? You know Henry doesn't believe in withholding information from his daughter's curious mind. Nothing wrong with the word bosom."

She said it with such panache that Abigail giggled. "Bosom!" she repeated.

"Do not talk like that at Winchester Academy, sweetheart." Isabella caught her granddaughter's attention with a furious snap of her finger. Eva suffered a full-body recoil as she was transported back to her childhood, dressed like a babydoll and suffering with a ton of weight on the top of her blond head. Mary Janes included. The feminization of her early childhood directly resulted in her rebellion around eleven years old, when the worlds of pop media and sexual attraction first rang in young Evangeline's head. After that, everyone called me Eva. Only Mom called me Evangeline.

Yet the snapped fingers, the barked orders, and the criticisms layering every conversation hit Eva the hardest, and she refused to see the same thing repeat for her niece. Let alone her own children one day.

"Your Auntie Nadia is very pretty tonight, isn't she?" Eva reached over and lightly pinched Abigail's arm. She giggled again, this time almost knocking her fork off the table.

"Yeah! I love your hair, Aunt Nadia."

While Isabella stewed in discomfort, Nadia accepted the compliment and in turn, said she enjoyed the crystal barrettes in Abigail's hair.

"I used to have clasps like those," Eva said. "Did I ever tell you I used to have hair as long as yours?"

"No way. I can't imagine it."

"It was lovely hair," Isabella cut in. "The day you cut it off, a piece of my soul died."

No need to be so dramatic, Mother. "Long hair gets in the way. More power to the women who can deal with it."

"Sometimes I truly wonder if you're a woman at all."

At least I've taken the heat off the rest of my family! That was Eva in the presence of her mother. Professional martyr until the end!

"I'm woman enough to appreciate and love the other women around me," Eva said. "Unfortunately, not man enough to bring on the next generation of Warrens you so desperately desire, Mother."

"Must you speak like this in front of your niece? She's seven, for God's sake."

"Abigail knows where babies come from. Besides, most of this conversation still flies right over her head."

Isabella was on the verge of shock as she stared down her granddaughter. "Who told you where babies come from?"

Abigail put down her glass of water because the poor thing was far too young to use alcohol as a crutch for this dinner. "Dad."

"Your father?"

"And Mom. They told me together."

"Of course they did."

Eva laughed. "What's wrong with a kid her age knowing her mother gave birth to her? We all came from someone's womb." Eva lowered her voice as she leaned down to her niece's ear. "I came from that one if you can believe it."

"What are you saying to her!"

Yet between Abigail's wails of laughter and the waiter arriving with their appetizers, the conversation was cut off like Eva's hair twenty years ago.

Nadia kept quiet for most of the dinner. She ate the kind of keto-friendly dinner that suggested she knew Isabella would criticize anything else. When asked a direct question by anyone, including Eva, she kept her answers short and polite. In the grand realm of Warren dinner manners, nobody competed with Nadia, who was trained on Isabella's disdain, and by watching Monica, who had perfected blending in with rich people to a level that left most of the wealthy shocked to learn of her humble origins.

Eva knew that if she occasionally put an elbow on the table or slouched in her seat – which she was wont to do at her height, anyway – she could deflect the heat from her wife, who could be the most perfect woman on paper but still fall short in every other aspect before Isabella's judgmental eyes. Still the most perfect woman in the world to me. Eva was sure to send her the occasional smile as they ate the rest of their food and Isabella fussed over her granddaughter's table manners. Anything to keep her from turning out like me. Maybe Eva wasn't such a terrible role model after all.

Yet no truce truly lasted in this family.

"Evangeline tells me something interesting," Isabella said directly to Nadia as they cut into their dinners. "Am I to believe that you two are considering children soon?"

Nadia finished chewing her bite, all while her eyes flung a dagger in Eva's direction. Before Eva had the chance to think of something to change the subject, Nadia had no choice but to respond. "We have discussed it."

"How delightful. I've maintained that it's a good idea to have the cousins close in age, but I suppose Abigail might already be ten years old by the time you two… never mind. Then again…" Isabella stared directly at her daughter. "Henry is over ten years older than you. It was never a problem in our family."

He's got that hot receding hairline from your side of the family already, yup. Eva didn't dare say that. Nor would she ever say it in front of her brother, who had the money and resources to fix that hairline. Heaven forbid he and the wife not be the most dapper couple everywhere they go. How they created such a silly munchkin like the one sitting next to Eva was anyone's guess.

"How old are you again?" Isabella asked Nadia. "I want to say thirty-five. You really should get started before age catches up to you. I already had Eva by the time I was your age."

Nadia cleared her throat. "I'm thirty-two."

"Does it truly make a difference? You still have so little time. Best to get started sometime in the next year. The Lord only knows what happens between now and then." Isabella nodded in the only kind of approval she would ever give Nadia. "At least those hips are forever."

Nadia's fork clattered against her plate. She recovered gracefully, but Eva hated to see her wife so rattled.

"These things don't happen overnight, Mother," she said.

"Of course not. It took a year of trying before you lazily came along. Why do you think I push you to start soon? There is utterly no romance in doing it the way you two have to, but I'm sure it will take if you put genuine effort into it."

What is she even on about? "For one thing," Eva said through clenched teeth, careful to not be too clear in front of her young and impressionable niece, "it will be done at home, not in some sterile doctor's office."

"Eva," Nadia whispered. "Please."

Right. Nobody wanted to talk about this, let alone right now.

"I know all the best ways to prepare a slightly older body for having a baby, regardless of how it gets there." Isabella crossed her silverware on her plate before placing her hands in her lap. "There's a wonderful doctor back east who knows all the most natural ways if you're willing to look past the Pagan woo-woo. Herbs and vitamins, I say. Plenty of professional massages, the right diet, and the occasional colon cleanse make for a healthy baby."

"My wife is not a horse, Mother."

"Did you know…" Isabella continued, completely ignoring the warning in Eva's voice, "that having a baby with the help of science also opens up many wonderful opportunities to decide exactly what you will have?"

"Mom," Eva snapped. "Don't start. Not at the dinner table." More like not in front of my wife and my niece. Nadia didn't need this hurting her feelings, and Abigail required no further pollution of her brain. This is what Henry was worried about. Casual bigotry in 3… 2…

"Obviously you can select the gender these days," Isabella said, louder, as if she could drown out a lick of sense from this dinner table. "Screening for awful diseases of the brain and soul has also been around since I was a young mother, but did you know that you can also select a baby's eye color now? The beautiful blue eyes of this family do not have to potentially die out because of… outside influence."

"I didn't realize green eyes are awful," Nadia said.

"Oh, darling, don't take it personally. We truly lucked out that our Abigail looks like your standard-issue Warren." Isabella peered at the top of her granddaughter's head. "See? Still blond, like my children."

"With the perfect, doll-like blue eyes you love, Mother." Eva knew this conversation had to stop before her niece internalized a level of self-hatred that even Eva did not have growing up. Heaven forbid her hair gets darker as she gets older. Or maybe Abigail would be shorter like her mother, and not tall like a "proper Warren." She could also get fat at fifteen, Mom. Who knows what the future has in store?

"There's a geneticist in New York I can put you two in touch with."

"Tell me exactly what's wrong with having a kid who looks like my wife." Eva knew the answer, but she wanted to hear her mother explicitly say it. "You know. Red hair. A body type that's anything but reed-like. Would you die if I had a kid with freckles?"

"Now this is inappropriate," Isabella said.

"I don't know, Mom, you're the one spouting Eugenics."

Isabella gasped. Nadia slumped in her chair, her eyes glazed over.

"What's Oojenicks?" Abigail asked.

Eva reached her niece before Isabella had the chance. "Something you'll have to talk to your father about. He can explain it with more tact than I can."

"What has gotten into you?" Isabella hissed. "Why must you ruin every dinner we have together? I swear to Heaven, Eva, from the moment you were born, you… you…"

"What, Mother? What have I been conspiring to do since the moment you conceived your perfect genetic specimen of a daughter."

Isabella's nostrils flared like a bull ready to charge. "Obviously not perfect, since you're making another woman and your brother do the work for you. Trust me, Evangeline, if I could have screened out your biggest blunder, I most certainly would have!"

The silence befalling the table didn't surprise Eva, but she was still disgusted. Her mother had made it clear multiple times that a perfect world would have allowed her to have the perfectly feminine, chronically heterosexual daughter of her dreams.

"I know, Mother," Eva croaked into the silence. "You treat my wife like a broodmare, but you've always treated me like a bartering cow. God forbid you live long enough to try the same shit with my niece."

"What are you…"

"Who are you talking to, huh?" Eva's plate and utensils clattered when her knees hit the bottom of the dining table. She talked through the pain ringing through her legs. "Some British duke or Scandinavian royal? Does someone have a teenage boy out there who is perfect for Abigail? Are you going to get her married off before she potentially embarrasses you by being an individual with her own personality?"

Isabella's scowl was fraught with warning. Eva knew she had once again pushed things too far with her mother, but how could she fight it? This woman makes me homicidal. It would be one thing if they were a personality clash or even intergenerational fury… but Isabella and her daughter Evangeline lived on completely different planes of existence. Isabella inhabited a world that had welcomed her with open arms when she was young but rapidly changed and left her behind to retire as a bitter woman whose only chance at relevancy was genetically engineering the next generation of Warren stock. She was still so angry about Henry – her golden, perfect, do-nothing-wrong Henry – marrying someone like Monica that lashing out at perpetual fuck-up Eva was the natural course of Isabella's life. I'm the punching bag. Come at me, Mother. I've got no love to lose with you.

"I don't wanna get married," Abigail weakly said. "I wanna go to school."

Isabella got up with a huff. She motioned for Abigail to follow her, but her granddaughter's reluctance only made Isabella angrier. "Come along. Your aunties can't behave themselves, so that's it for dinner."

"Leave Nadia out of this," Eva said. "Like you usually do."

Abigail gave her aunt a pitiful look that hit her right in the heart. I'm sorry… Eva should have kept her mouth shut. Abigail could have gone another year without knowing what kind of monster lurked in her grandmother's body.

"You two will do as you want." Isabella pulled on her sweater and continued to motion for Abigail to get up. "I see no need to expose Abigail to any of this."

"Where are we going?" Abigail asked. "Back to the hotel?"

"Yes, sweetheart. We should start packing for your return home. You start school in a few days, don't you?"

"I don't have to get married right now, do I?"

Nadia covered her mouth and closed her eyes. Eva's death grip on her cloth napkin couldn't abate the disgust percolating in her esophagus.

"Of course not, sweetheart! You're still such a little girl. It's much more important to play and go to school."

The only reason Eva didn't stop them was because she had to begrudgingly admit that was better than anything she was offered by that same woman. She would have told me I had to go to school so I'd be smart enough to marry someone worthy of a Warren daughter. Everything young, childlike Eva did was for the betterment of her marriage prospects. That's all she had ever existed as from the moment her brother was well enough to continue the family line on his own.

Abigail waved goodbye to her aunts. Both Eva and Nadia put on a friendly smile for her while Eva promised to see her again the next day.

Once they were alone, Nadia grunted in catastrophic frustration.

"That could've gone better," Eva had to admit.

"Why did you push her buttons like that?" When the waiter swooped in to clean up plates, he politely informed Eva that the tab had already been cared for. Another way for her to wiggle into my life. "You should've let her burn, Eva. We only had to suffer with her for a couple of hours then be rid of her until Christmas."

"I couldn't stand the way she was talking about you, let alone our unborn children!"

"I know." Nadia calmed herself down with a sigh. "I know."

"She was saying that awful shit in front of Abigail. My mother's a bigot, we all know this, but that doesn't mean Abigail should be exposed to her treating us like that and… taking it. I did that for years. I fought back for even more years." Eva's fist lightly pounded the table. "It would be one thing if everything was directed at me, but once she starts implying shit about you, I can't take it."

Nadia gently scooted back her chair and stood up. "I can defend myself when necessary," she said. "Your mother doesn't frighten me. Not to the point that you should see me sitting in silence as tolerating her behavior toward me. I appreciate you standing up for me, Eva…" Nadia looked away as she attempted to spit out her words. "But you give her too much fuel to use."

Eva reached out and touched Nadia's arm as she walked by. "Are you going back to the room?"

A heavy heart hung between them. "I don't know. I think I might need a hard drink." Nadia took a step. "Or some pot. Maybe that."

Eva let her go. Their private dining room faded into silence.