WHO: Rowan, Valerie and Adam WHAT: Meeting the family WHERE: Bellevue Square shopping center WHEN: Backdated to last Wednesday WARNINGS: Other than the usual overabundance of exclamations, italics, and high pitched voices from Rowan, none at all.
Rowan was flying high on her victory in court from that morning. Granted, it was a small one but it was still a win for her corner and she was going to enjoy it. As soon as she was out of the courthouse she was texting Kayla about the outcome and telling Valerie she was still on for some shopping. Then she sent another to Adam to tell him when and where to meet them.
When the time came for their little get together, Rowan was patiently waiting for them at Bellevue Square. As far as malls went it had enough upscale stores to help them find a ring for the newest member of their family, as well as some fine dining to suit them for food if they needed. She was waiting for them at the Starbucks, trying to hide her excitement and failing miserably, doubly so with the afternoon espresso humming through her veins.
She really, really, really hoped this went well. Adam had seemed off in their conversations and yeah, the whole thing was really sudden. But Valerie seemed very nice and Orrie really needed to make some changes in his life. She wanted this to work out for them. Besides, Rowan just loved weddings.
When you were secretly as old as Valerie was it was easy to fall behind the times. She put constant effort into watching television to try to keep her speech from sounding to antiquated, and she forced herself to listen to the awful music that was popular these days. Her apartment had more fashion magazines than books, and the only thing she had a hard time giving up was her perfume. She’d found some recent Chanel equivalents that some people deemed to smell too ‘old lady,’ and she was going to have to subside soon and put on some of these horrific pink sugar celebrity scents soon.
Valerie was dressed for shopping with style, the heels relatively low and the sundress adjusted for Seattle with a pair of leggings and a snug jacket. She came armed with a purse, the cellphone that she’d had to read the manual to understand properly, and the credit card Orin had given her ‘for expenses.’ Valerie liked fine things but she had also lived through the depression, so she didn’t buy things she didn’t want or like. She was what you might call a ‘choosy but opulent’ shopper. She looked forward to the afternoon because she didn’t anticipate Rowan would have the brains to grill her on anything.
It was a serious misjudgment on her part, as she would soon learn.
Grilling is such a harsh word and Rowan would never call what she was about to do grilling. She just had a few questions! And if those lead to more questions and those lead to gentle prods for certain declarations of love then so be it! Rowan was harmless.
And pretty observant, if she did say so herself. She had been politely watching everyone who entered the Starbucks, keeping an eye out for a woman who seemed to be looking for someone. The stylish blond who walked in wasn’t Orrie’s usual type, but then again he had never married any of his usual types before. But she had the inquisitive look about her that Rowan had been searching for and it wouldn’t hurt to see.
“Valerie?” she called out. She stood up from her tiny table and smoothed out the wrinkles of her outfit in the same motion. Charcoal skirt and matching jacket with a white blouse and stylish black heels, Rowan looked every part of the conservative lawyer. If one disregarded the pink nails, magenta headband, the pink leather accordion briefcase, of course. “Valerie Anna?” she repeated, just to be sure, as she made her way over to the woman.
Rowan was every inch the kind of professional, stylish young woman that Valerie expected, if perhaps with a slight emphasis on the ‘young’ part. She moved forward ably to meet the other woman, an honest smile on her face. Valerie wasn’t naturally scheming, and she didn’t lie or obscure for the sake of it. Generally her actions were dictated by necessity, and she didn’t need anything from Rowan except her general approval, which she felt she had simply by being “the fiancée.”
“Rowan?” She came around the table with a smile and the faint whiff of her antique perfume and skipped the handshake in favor of a hug. “Hello!”
Adam left work because he was bored. An annoyed. More out of annoyance than boredom, because if he had to spend another minute talking with the eggheads in his boardroom, he’d pull his hair out. So he was strolling through downtown in Armani, at ease with his surroundings. On a whim, he turned into the nearest shopping center, figuring he’d pick up cheap and easy food on his way. There was a Starbucks there, and he decided he could grab a cup of coffee, too.
As he stepped inside, his attention was arrested by pink. Brows lifting, he made a quick study of Rowan, who was dressed a bit more conservatively than she usually was. But her personality peeked through with pink slashing across the drab colors of her work clothes. And she was entertaining a lithe blonde. A calculating expression crossed his face before vanishing, replaced with mere curiosity.
“Rowan,” he exclaimed, his voice light and bright. He approached the table with arms spread, clearly expecting a hug. “Who’s your friend? Introduce me.”
Rowan liked hugs and she was immensely pleased that the formalities were being shaken off for something more familiar. Brownie point for Valerie. When she pulled away there was the slightest of inquisitive looks, a gentle furrow and curious smile. “Gorgeous perfume. I don’t recognize it though. What is it?” She almost continued on to a long list of what it could be or seemed like, and what Rowan thought of those scents, but she heard her name being called out.
“Adam!” The surprise was mostly genuine, if only because she hadn’t seen his approach like she had imagined she would. She gently slipped from Valerie and turned her to brother giving him a hug of his own. “Shopping instead of working? I think you’ve been spending too much time with me,” she ribbed gently before turning a hand to her new friend. “Valerie Anna, meet my brother, Adam Morgenstern. Adam, this is Valerie.” For Val, the words were as warm and welcoming as she could make them. And for Adam, her introduction took on a touch of warning that he would recognize. Be nice.
“It’s vintage--” but the perfume would have to wait, as both woman turned to meet the other. Valerie knew that this was Orin’s family, all the family he had, and she was unsurprised that they were interested in her. Unless she missed her guess, Orin didn’t get it into his head to get married all that often. Her previous husband had family that had disapproved of her on every level, and because she had not liked him very much, that hadn’t bothered her a great deal. Valerie had no desire to burn any bridges, but she was surprised by a small thread of worry that wound its way through her thoughts at Adam Morgenstern’s appearance. If they hated her, might not Orin decide to hate her too? He wasn’t in love with her.
She didn’t know whether to use Adam or Morgenstern, so she skillfully avoided it. “Hello. It’s so nice to meet you.” She smiled, but with a touch more uncertainty than she had at Rowan. Adam, for one, had to be smarter than Rowan, and (unless Valerie completely overestimated him) probably a lot smarter than she herself. She held out a slim, undecorated hand.
Rowan’s warning didn’t go unheeded, but it did go unacknowledged. Adam gave her a friendly squeeze before releasing her from the hug and turned his attention to Valerie. A pretty woman, he thought, in the way that women in paintings were pretty: lovely, but somehow unreal. With a warm smile, he took her hand, folding it in both of his. Gallantry was never overrated, and so he brought the back of her hand to his lips before releasing her, to. “Valerie, it’s a pleasure,” he said, clearly unconcerned with whether or not first or last names would be more acceptable.
“Have you two ordered your coffee yet?” he asked, glancing first at the bare table and then the baristas as the counter. They didn’t look particularly busy, so he guessed not. Sliding his hands into his pocket and giving both his sister and Valerie affable expressions, he asked, “What do you want? I’ll order yours with mine.”
Rowan managed to choke back the noise she could’ve made but her lips were scrunched up, her hand rising to hide her smile behind her hand. She loved hand kissing but just watching her brother do it was still sort of hilarious.
“No, no coffee at all!” Lies! But Ro was naturally energetic so it wasn’t a stretch to imagine that she hadn’t had anything to drink yet. “I’ll just take a cappuccino for now. Valerie? Would you like something? A quick coffee break won’t take us too off our shopping trip and you can tell us all how you and Orrie got together!” Wouldn’t that be fun?
Valerie came from a time where women had just started shaking hands, and it usually got a scandalous reaction. She knew that no one did it now, except for a rare few, and of those few she hadn't thought that anyone would be able to do it with actual grace. The tension slid out of her shoulders visibly at the gesture, reassured by the effort put forth by Adam, in thirty seconds, four times the effort any of her last husband's relatives had put forth. She bestowed a brilliant, toothpaste commercial smile at Adam. "A caramel latte, extra caramel, please?"
She smiled an equally brilliant but less white smile at Rowan. "We met... at a coffee shop, like this. Only one of those open twenty-four hours. I think he was trying to sober up." Her eyes danced. She liked this story, whether or not it was true.
With a nod, Adam stepped away to procure their coffee. A few minutes later, he was back at the table, setting the coffees in front of their respective owners. Settling into a chair himself, he lifted a brow as he inhaled the scent of his macchiato. “So you’re Orrie’s fiancée.” He smile was still pleasant, his body language open and interested. He didn’t hate Valerie, it was too soon to determine whether or not he cared for her at all, but he rather hated what she stood for, all of Orin’s hypocrisy. It was unfortunate, because she had done nothing to garner the sour reaction he withheld. Orin judged and judged and judged, but he was okay for him to do those things he was critical about.
Laughing, he shook his head. “Orin would be in one of those places. I’m surprised you even bothered with him,” he said, giving her an affable grin. “I would have let him drown in his drink.” Which was probably more likely what had happened. He couldn’t tell what the lie was, not directly, but he knew she was lying with the same certainty he knew the sky was blue. Giving Rowan a smile, he turned back to Valerie. “However did you come to like him enough to marry him?”
Valerie decided to say whatever came to mind, and as a result said more in truth than she really intended. "He gets under your skin that way," she said, adding a dreamy tone more for Rowan's benefit than anything, "like the Frankie song." She blinked and then laughed a little self-consciously. Don't tell him I said that."
Rowan tossed was one quick and wary glance at her brother. She had seen that smile of his before, at meetings with people hedging numbers, at publicity events with people trying to brown nose. What unspoken truth made Adam smile like that had her inwardly fretting and sliding her heel closer to his foot, just in case.
Thankfully Valerie provided a suitable distraction and she was immediately cooing. “Aw! Don’t worry, we won’t. Orrie’s ego doesn’t need any help from us,” she added with a teasing smirk. “And how was the proposal? I know it was sudden. I mean, we’re just getting the ring now, but that must mean it was totally spontaneous and sweet and amazing?” Rowan was practically radiating hope for a romantic story.
“The proposal was... was a little sudden.” All truth. A sunny smile. “But it was very sweet, yes. He came over when I was baking and it was strangely...” Domestic? “Warm.” It had been warm up to the point where he actually proposed, anyway.
Oh, yes, Adam thought. Orin got under people’s skin with relative ease. Extracting him was the hard part. He was impossible not to love, at least on some fundamental level, and when you wanted to hate him as passionately as Adam did, that started to become a problem. No, Orin’s ego didn’t need more stroking from them. It needed a swift kick in the ass. He took a sip of his coffee to distract himself from projecting his issues onto Valerie, reminding himself that she wasn’t at fault, and he couldn’t loathe her for his cousin’s inadequacies.
“Really, only just purchasing a ring?” he asked, an expression of mild surprise on his face. “He didn’t have one all picked out for you?” That was strange. Orin was impulsive, but not like that. Not with women. Any engagement, especially from a man who so vociferously despised matrimony, had to have some thought behind it. No man would approach an engagement without a ring. She was hedging. If she was hedging, she was hiding something, and it left Adam wondering if maybe he should spare a little of his dislike for her. He wasn’t an innately positive person; he didn’t think the best of people. He usually assumed the worst. But for Orin, and to spare his toes from Ro’s fiery wrath, he was trying.
“No,” Valerie said, sighing a little, as if to say, That’s Orin for you. “He didn’t.” Valerie wasn’t so much of an amateur to absently touch her hair with anxiety, but she adjusted her grip on the purse. She looked up into Adam’s eyes to see what he was thinking, not that there was anything to see. “I don’t think he planned on proposing... right then.”
Rowan spared Adam’s toes but gently, pointedly, nudged him with her foot, a subtle reminder that she was there and she was armed, or footed as the case may be. “Orrie can be spontaneous,” she reminded him. Granted, proposing wasn’t exactly his style, spontaneous or not, but maybe this was a sign of a brand new Orrie! A more mature Orrie!
“I think it’s so sweet,” she sighed back to Valerie, her annoyance at her brother not dampening her mood completely. She was still bursting at the seams with caffeine and optimism. “I’m so glad he’s finally settling down. Things have been hectic with him lately so maybe this is a good sign. Do you two have a date in mind for the big day?”
No, he likely hadn’t planned on proposing. Adam inclined his head with a pleasant smile, deciding to back away from that burgeoning argument. Ro’s nudge certainly helped remind him he was in a coffee house with a future in-law, technically, not in a board room dictating to idiots. Ironically, their usually wasn’t much of a difference. He had to smother that laugh, and didn’t entirely succeed, making him look a little foolish when he choked on another sip of his coffee. “Mm, yes, when’s the big day?” he asked, turning his attention back to Valerie.
Valerie scented doubt, and she honestly didn't blame Adam, but it didn't help her story. It was like daydreaming, or watching clouds, and someone walks past and blocks the sunlight. You can recover, but it is difficult to get into the swing of things again. "It's not set yet. I'm hoping for a fine summer wedding, but I suppose there's not enough sunshine here." She smiled a little weakly, and looked at Rowan for help.
Adam’s attitude was the dark lining on her bright cloud of a day and she made sure the sidelong look she gave him said as much. But she was all sunny smiles when she heard the unspoken question in Valerie’s voice. “Oh it’s not so bad. Seattle tends to be stereotypically be gloomy and cloudy but it has been known to have sunny days. We just need to find the right one for you two. Alternatively you could just go have a destination wedding. Something small and sunny. With friends and relatives still in attendance, of course.” Rowan would throw out a million wedding suggestions but eloping without proper familial witnesses wasn’t one of them. “Will any of your relatives be coming in? I know it’s late notice but I bet they’d love to see you on your happy day.”
“No... no, I don’t have any family. On this side of the portal.” It seemed wise to explain her lack of record before her last marriage as a world-crossing, though as far as Valerie was concerned she’d never been to Musings. Hopefully no one would ask her too many direct questions about ‘over there.’ She only had her mother’s stories to go on for that, and her mother had been neither particularly sane nor born in this century.
Valerie brightened again. She was not naturally poor-spirited and it would take more than Adam’s directionless disapproval to keep her down for very long. “I don’t have a Maid of Honor yet.” She gave Rowan a hopeful beam.
A summer wedding. He had to admit it would be nice, even if it would still be cloudy, as Ro suggested. A sunny day in Seattle was as rare as snow in the Amazon. “Not to worry,” he said to Val, a grin tugging at his lips. “Our family is large enough to make it look like you’ve some family here. And, obviously, you’ll be able to fill the section with your friends, too.” Though if she was asking Rowan to be her Maid of Honor... No, he was likely over thinking it. Valerie’s suggestion could easily be a peace offering as much as a sign of a lack of friends. “And mother will be delighted, of course. She’s always viewed Orin as a son and will be thrilled to have another daughter.”
Valerie didn’t know what to think about that. Her previous marriages hadn’t wanted her to have anything to do with family. She blinked quickly, overcome, though probably not in the way most brides were. It appeared she had bit off a little bit more than she could chew, just at the moment. She hadn’t known that Orin was planning on lying to his entire family about his marriage, and that family was going to know him a lot better than she did. She made a mental note to give him a piece of her mind.
It was a good thing that Rowan wasn’t holding her cup at the exact moment Valerie hinted she could be Maid of Honor. It would’ve easily ended up everywhere. “Oh gosh, mom will be thrilled. I mean she’s got enough daughters but the woman had like a million children. Clearly the more the merrier is the motto around here. And I would love to be Maid of Honor!” She tried to keep her pitch from rising but she was failing miserably. At least her volume had remained even. She was showing some restraint.
“And don’t you worry. Adam’s right. Our family is bound to spill over some to fill seats. And of course friends, and co-workers! It’s a wedding so everyone should be in attendance to celebrate. Though I hope yours are way more interesting that Orrie’s. His everyday staff is pretty awesome but the board? Ugh.” She rolled her eyes and took another long sip of her coffee, her mind abuzz with all the things they would need to go through down the list. Rowan really hoped Valerie wasn’t planning a small, simple wedding. Those adjectives really didn’t apply when it came to Monarch or Morgenstern events.
Adam watched the expressions on Valerie’s face change with only the smallest hint of actual interest. He had acquired the talent to observe without being ostentatious years ago, enjoying the act of people watching and accruing as little attention as possible. So he put it to good use, studying the shifts playing across her face without looking like he gave a damn at all. This whole meeting had been highly instructive in that regard, and feeling as though he had dampened it enough, he polished off the remains of his coffee and set the cup down with a definitive thunk.
“Well, if Ro’s going to start talking to you about the guest list, that’s my cue to leave.” He gave Valerie a very obvious, very conspiratorial wink, one Ro would probably punch him for later. “I hate guest lists. Too many people to please and not enough time to figure out how to make them all happy.” Not that he was unable to please people at events he orchestrated. No one had ever left a Morgenstern party upset with the seating. That, no doubt, was his mother’s influence. “Enjoy the rest of your shopping ladies, and Valerie?” He turned that winning smile on her. “Do yourself a favor and buy a ridiculously expensive ring. Minimum of five figures.” Inclining his head to them both, he took his coffee cup and stepped away from the table, making his way back to work.
Valerie had her hand flat over the top of her cup just in case Rowan gave in to the excitement. She had no objection to a large wedding, having expected it, and she understood that Orin was a public figure to be made much of. It was just the personal family aspect she hadn’t anticipated. She was actually rather looking forward to the silver and the crystal dinnerware, and as long as she and Orin didn’t hate each other, the whole thing sounded rather pleasant in a fairytale kind of way.
She nodded a friendly farewell to Adam right before he turned, but she sat looking after him for a little while before turning her attention back to her Maid of Honor. “I don’t think he liked me very much,” she confided, a little worriedly.
Rowan frowned at Adam’s retreating figure before she turned back to Valerie. She wasn’t one for lying. Having a sibling who could automatically tell when fibs were being said broke of her of that habit very quickly. But she was all about letting people know gently.
“It’s not that…” she mused, for it didn’t seem like it, not really. Adam had been pleasantly enough with Valerie but not nearly as attentive as he could have been. He held back and the reason why was probably what colored his current behavior. “It’s just… Orrie’s been teasing Adam about his girlfriend and I think marriage was a sore point. Now that O’s getting married…” She trailed off because as much as she liked Valerie, it was still a very personal issue between family. Valerie was close but not there yet.
“He’ll come around,” she was nothing but confident as she said it. Adam would come around or she’d make him come around. “And he’s right. We still have shopping to get to and you should totally get a nice ring. He said you could pick out whatever you like best, right?”
Valerie absently sipped at the sweet coffee as she listened. “I suppose that makes sense.” This whole thing would be a lot easier if she wasn’t fighting Orin’s family every step of the way, and in the spirit of her fantasy, she wanted to make as many friends as possible while minimizing enemies. “That sounds like him. Sometimes he doesn’t realize that words hurt.” As she spoke, she sounded distracted, but she came back down to earth with a little thud.
She smiled at Rowan and got to her feet, purse in one hand, coffee in the other. “Yes. You’ll find I have really strange style, I like antiques and, you know, vintage. New things that look vintage. Gold seems warmer than platinum, don’t you think?”
“That’s not strange at all!” Rowan slipped the long strap of her briefcase over her shoulder and picked up her coffee before urging her out and towards the rest of the mall. “And it suits you. I dunno how to describe it but it does. And we can do a gorgeous vintage theme for wedding too. Dresses, invitations, decorations, everything. It’ll be perfect. I promise. Maid of honor’s honor,” she laughed and looked left and right at the stores around them. “Ready to get yourself a rock?”