Marina, don’t bother ironing that blue dress of yours for the anniversary. I’ve thought it over: we’ll just sit with our own people. Blood relatives.”
A drop of caustic degreaser slowly crawled down the kitchen tile, collecting yellow grime. I turned off the water and dried my hands thoroughly on a towel. There was a little more than a day left before the banquet for Rimma Eduardovna’s sixty-fifth birthday.
“I don’t understand. What do you mean, ‘blood relatives’?”
A heavy, condescending sigh came through the receiver.
“Marina, don’t play dumb. My sister came from Saratov, and my nephew Nikita dragged along some new woman. There are barely enough seats at the restaurant. And you always sit there with a sour face after dealing with your trucks. Rest at home. Vadik will understand.”
Vadik—my lawful husband—was at that very moment diligently scrubbing his sneakers with a brush in the hallway, pretending he had suddenly gone deaf.
The outrageous part was not even that I had been thrown off the guest list. The real punchline was that the banquet at the Imperial—with stuffed sterlet, lingonberry sauce, and live music—was being paid for entirely by me.
My husband, a landscape designer with eternal “temporary difficulties,” had looked at me pitifully a month earlier.
“Marinush, it’s Mom’s big date. Let’s do it nicely? It’s the off-season for me right now, but I’ll pay everything back from my next project.”
Back then, I silently took out the card for my logistics company and transferred an eighty-thousand-ruble deposit to the restaurant administrator. The remaining amount—about another seventy thousand—was supposed to be paid at the end of the evening. Rimma Eduardovna knew this perfectly well. She herself had pointed at the menu, choosing tartlets with red caviar.
And now I had become “not blood.”
“Vadim!” I barked into the hallway after my mother-in-law hung up. “Your mother just kicked me out. What are you going to do?”
The sneakers dropped to the floor. My husband hesitated, avoiding my eyes.
“Marina, Mom has high blood pressure, age-related quirks. Let’s not make a scandal, okay? Nikita really hasn’t visited in a hundred years. They need to catch up in a small circle. What, do you mind or something? I’ll order you some rolls at home, you can sit and watch a movie.”
I looked at his hunched back. You know, when women are young, they cry over things like this and pack their suitcases. By the age of forty-five, dry arithmetic kicks in.
“All right, Vadik. Celebrate.”
The next morning, while my husband was sleeping, I found the chat with the banquet manager in my phone. I dialed the number.
“Imperial, listening.”
“Denis, hello. This is Marina, the reservation for Saturday, Rimma Eduardovna’s anniversary.”
“Yes, Marina, everything is in progress! The cooks are already cutting the fish and preparing the salads.”
“We’re canceling. Remove the reservation.”
Denis choked on air at the other end.
“What do you mean, canceling?! We’ve made purchases! Fish, alcohol! By law, the deposit is non-refundable, and we’ll withhold a penalty according to the contract!”
“Go ahead,” I replied calmly. “Deduct your thirty percent for the products and the trouble. Return the rest to the card.”
“And the guests? You have twenty people!”
“The guests will come. Set the table for them, but warn them right away: if they want to celebrate, they can open a new bill and order everything from scratch. From their own wallets. My deposit is gone.”
Two hours later, fifty-six thousand rubles landed back on my card. I mentally entered the twenty-four-thousand-ruble penalty under the category “tax on stupidity,” made myself coffee, and went to the mall—to buy that very blue dress, just because I wanted it.
On Saturday evening, I poured myself a glass of dry wine and sat down to watch a series.
At 8:40 p.m., my phone went into hysterics. Vadim’s crimson, sweaty face stared at me from the screen. Some restaurant pop music was blaring in the background.
“Marina, have you completely lost your mind?!” my husband shouted over the music. “The admin is standing here with security! What cancellation?! We sat down at the table, and they’re telling us to pay upfront from the menu because there’s no prepayment!”
“That’s right. Your mother clearly said the celebration was only for blood relatives. Strangers don’t sponsor strangers’ banquets.”
“You set us up! Mom is drinking valerian! They’re demanding one hundred and fifty grand from us. They brought out that damned fish, and Nikita doesn’t even have money for a taxi! Transfer the money right now!”
Rimma Eduardovna pushed herself into the frame. All her condescending tone had evaporated, and her face was covered in red blotches.
“You mercenary bitch! You decided to disgrace your own mother in front of the relatives?! You pauper, attaching yourself to our family!”
“To your family?” I smirked, looking at the screen. “But I’m not blood. Take out a payday loan, Vadik. Or let the Saratov relatives chip in. Enjoy your meal.”
I ended the call and blocked both numbers.
A couple of days later, Vadim came with duffel bags to collect his things. It turned out that that evening, his aunt had to drain her credit card completely, and my husband had to borrow money from his boss with interest in order to pay for the prepared table. Now, to them, I am enemy number one—the woman who destroyed their “bright family celebration.”
And I look at the returned fifty-six thousand and think: as it turns out, the ticket out of that toxic circus was surprisingly cheap. Vadim is still texting me from unknown numbers, saying I’m a traitor and that I don’t know how to forgive his mother’s feminine weaknesses.
Would you have swallowed that insult for the sake of “saving the marriage”?