My eyes shot open to the sound of the loud banging at the door. I rubbed my sore neck from falling asleep on the kitchen counter next to the foil dish where a pie used to reside. I pushed myself out of my chair, stumbling over to the front door and squinting through the peephole. Nothing. No one was there. I grabbed the umbrella from its hook beside the door and held it tight behind my back ready to clobber someone if needed as I creaked open the front door. I craned my neck around the edge of the door, scanning the area for the source of the banging. My eyes had slipped right over it the first time, but the second time I caught it, a glass bottle sticking out of my bush of hydrangeas. “Some drunkard must have thrown it at my door,” I thought. I set the umbrella down and leaned over to pick it up, but as I tugged on it a hand reached out of the bush pulled it back. I screamed and fell over backwards, clawing at the wood planks of the porch and scooting backwards. Roaring laughter lifted up from the bushes as Elliot, my fiancé, popped his head up out of the bush. I sighed only half relieved that it hadn’t been an ax murderer.

He pulled me to my feet and slinked his long, bony arms around my waist as he moved his face up close to my own. He slurring his words due to his obvious intoxication, “I’m sorry, Annie, did I give you a fright?” I c***ed my head away from him, letting out a cough at the stench of his alcohol soaked breath. He continued, “That was quite funny actually, watching you fall to the ground, screaming and crying. You look like you’ve been hit by a bus by the way. I didn’t know that your hair could stand straight up like that.” My lips curled into a forced, soft smile and I pried his hands off my waist, muttering, “It’s three o’clock in the morning, dear. I was sleeping, so that’s why I don’t exactly look my best.” I brought him inside by supporting him on my shoulder and laid him down for the night, tucking him into my bed and pulling the covers up to the tip of his chin as my father had done for me when I was a little girl.
That night as I dreamed, I remembered the soft crackle of the autumn leaves beneath our feet as we trudged up Stony Mountain so many years ago, which in all honestly was more like a large hill. From when I was six years old my father would take me there every fall break to experience life as our ancestors did, in his words.  We made camp at its peak, throwing down a thick, plaid blanket, lying on our backs, connecting the stars in the inky ocean sky, and making up our own constellations. We didn’t believe in using the already existing ones, instead we had a special game where we tried to connect the stars to find the big pineapple in the sky.
We would fumble around with the rods and latches for a while as we tried to assemble the tent, but eventually we’d give up and just enjoy the twinkling night sky. “Annie, do you know what each of those stars up there are?” My father looked down at me, taking my hand. “They’re each of the little diamonds that make up your crown in another world where you’re the queen. For some reason, we’re all in this crazy world, but that doesn’t mean you’re any less a queen. And no one pushes the queen around.” He kissed me on the crown of my head and I fell asleep to the sound of his voice telling me stories about my kingdom in this fictional other world, my castle made of glass, my flowing gown of silk and lace, and my adoring subjects; he was the most loving of them all.
The next morning I tore Elliot from bed after his drunken night, and we met my mother across town for a cake tasting at a place that she claimed was just to die for. I sat across from my mother, Elliot, and what seemed like hundreds of little cakes. “Maybe you should sit out this round,” the plump baker in the puffy white hat hypocritically grunted at me as she squinted her eyes and pulled the cake away. I shot back, “Why is that, Helga? This is cake for my wedding. I can eat all the cake that I want to.” My mother sighed pulling the cake even farther away as she flashed a deprecatory smile, “Maybe she’s right, pumpkin. You have to fit into a wedding dress in a few weeks and at the rate you’re going that may not happen.”
Elliot was on the loveseat next to my mother fixated on his phone. They were really quite the pair; maybe they should be getting married. Sometimes they were both such narcissistic and egocentric maniacs. Elliot hadn’t even touched the cake samples; maybe that’s why he was so skinny. That’s probably why my mother liked him so much. I shifted in my seat trying to look past my mother’s insensitivity. “Well then if we’re done tasting cakes, I’d like to get the one with pineapple.”
A pang of disapproval shot across my mother’s face, as she exclaimed, “No Absolutely not. Pineapple cake? The reception is at night, pumpkin. Pineapple at nighttime? Maybe something like the Astoria red velvet torte . Now I know you and your father had some sort of silly, little inside joke about pineapples or something, but this is too much. Perhaps we might have had it if this was an afternoon brunch, but not at night. What do you think, Elliot?”
His eyes shifted up for less than a second before returning to his phone and to snapping colorful birds across the screen to knock down a pig fortress. “Hmm? Um, cake? I suppose I’ll have… I’ll have whatever you have, Mom.” Then he looked up again, making eye contact with her to really sell it. “I trust you’ll choose what’s best.” That was exactly the answer that my mother loved, and she showed it by outstretching her arms and giving him a big hug. “Oh, I knew I liked you, Elliot. Maybe Annie will learn a thing or two from you about being cooperative.” I rolled my eyes slumping back in my chair. “Red velvet it is then.”
Unlike my father, my mother wasn’t much of an outdoors-girl; she preferred her water filtered and her sheets made of Egyptian cotton. The only thing she didn’t drink straight from her Brita  was vodka. There was a time when she and my father used to love each other. When I was a little girl, we would have a tea party every Sunday afternoon with as many of my stuffed animals as I could fit at the table. They would tell me stories of their house on the beach where they lived before I was born and I would spin stories of the marvelous things I would accomplish when I grew up. Those were some of the last memories I have of my mother’s laughter and approval. One Sunday brunch, my mother announced that I would have to make room at the table because in a couple months I would have a little brother or sister to join us. I was ecstatic and our table topics quickly turned to the new baby, suggesting names and discussing all the adventures I’d have with him or her. One night, I woke up to the sound of my mother’s sobs and ran over to her room, peaking my head in, but I was brushed out the door by my father and told to go back to sleep. I went to stay with my grandmother for the weekend, but when I returned things were different.
They announced that the baby wasn’t going to make it to our house, but we would be just fine on our own. However, they were wrong. Things were not just fine, and some nights I could even hear my mother and father shouting through the thin, white walls as they never had before. Sunday brunches became few and far between, and their business trips grew longer and more frequent. I saw less and less of them in love. They never laughed anymore, never joked, never kissed, never even looked at each other anymore. I forgot what love looked like, but for some reason they never got a divorce. It was like they were trying to torture themselves. Or me. Whenever my mother was in town, my father conveniently had a meeting in Brussels, and whenever he was home, Mother had a runway event in Bulgaria. Even if Elliot were a decent person, I’m not sure I would have known how to love him.
When I needed him the most at the age of fourteen and at the peak of my insecurities, my father died and my mother became even more elusive than before. I started believing that sometimes she might even hate me. I was always told that I had inherited my father’s eyes, but now I knew it. She even began looking at me the same way she had looked at him, with disdain and the slightest hint of guilt. 
After the cake tasting I followed my mother out of the bakery and stopped her. “Mother, I want to talk about Dad,” I began. She pulled three chalk white pills from her purse and popped them in her mouth, washing them down with some water. “Who, Todd? He’s gone, pumpkin. There’s really no other way to put it. There’s no use in dwelling on it. Now I don’t have time to talk. I have two hours to be packed and on a plane to Milan. You really must excuse me, but if you want to have a drawn-out emotional talk with me I need you to plan ahead or maybe schedule a lunch. And for heavens sake, that reminds me, did you stop eating all that bread like I told you to? Bread is carbs and carbs are fat. You’re getting married in less than a month! Do you want to be chubby forever, honey? You know, it would be nice if you could actually fit into one of my designs for a change. I work so hard and it just goes unappreciated in this family. S***, well look at the time, you’ve kept me long enough and better yet made me late. I have to go now, but I’ll see you and Elliot next week at Thanksgiving dinner. And wear something nice. Something that makes you look suitable enough for me to be able to introduce you to my friends. Send my love to Elliot and don’t f*** that up because this marriage is an important connection for the both of us! Tootles, I must be going. See you then.” With that, she walked off as fast as she could. That was how most of our conversations went. She did all the talking and I just listened. Her word was always final and there was no changing that. Like my marriage to Elliot, if it was part of her plan, it was happening. 

The smell of turkey and yams wafted through the air as Elliot and I arrived at my mother’s house. My mother greeted Elliot with a kiss on either cheek and a quick hug, shooing me into the kitchen to get him a drink. The rest of my mother’s friends practically tore him apart with questions and remarks about how handsome he was and how he reminded them of some celebrity, but they couldn’t quite put their finger on who. Almost feeling sorry for Elliot, I chuckled as I saw him squirm in his seat as the one sitting beside him got especially handsy, patting his upper thigh as she was laughing at something he had said. I was ignored, as usual, but not unhappily. It was amazing the amount of alcohol these women had consumed, especially considering their age. The amount of intoxicated people who were drinking just for the sake of being drunk at this party brought back memories of high school, but instead of whatever cheap alcohol your friend’s older sibling could afford, there was just single malt whisky and vodka.
My mother approached me with a few of her friends, introducing me and making a subtle joke about my weight, which aroused a few snickers from her friends. I didn’t think they were in any position to criticize, considering they had probably been nipped and tucked so many times that they were practically CGI. One of them prodded me to get my attention as though she had already forgotten my name. “You must feel like a very lucky girl, landing a catch like Elliot.”
I almost rolled my eyes, but I stopped myself as I saw my mother’s own eyes narrow on me, watching for me to say the wrong thing. I opened my mouth to say something, but Elliot swooped in behind me interjecting coyly, “Oh stop now, you two. I’m the real lucky one.” I tried not to wince as he planted a wet kiss on my forehead. All my mother’s friends were taken aback by his charm with “ooh’s” and “aw’s”.  My mother came up behind me, tugging at my arm and nodding at the kitchen.
She shut the door behind her, so her friends wouldn’t hear. “Will you at least try to be social? Just look at Elliot. All my friends adore him. I mean at least he doesn’t look at them as if they were beneath him or roll his eyes whenever they speak to him like you’re doing. You look like a hermit, sitting alone in the corner of the room.” 
I stroke back saying, “How can you be friends with these people? They’re so vapid and dense that if you put them in a pool, I’m sure they’d sink straight to the bottom.”
My mother’s eyes widened and she gasped as she took me by the shoulders and sternly said, “Do not disrespect me, young lady. I have had enough with you. I’m not sure why you’re so set on ruining a perfectly good holiday, but you can go upstairs until you decide to start acting like a civilized person.”
I laughed to myself, replying, “With pleasure.”
The issue with my mother was that if you didn’t fit into her perfect little box, then she would hide you under wraps, hoping that one day the problem would just take care of itself, the problem being you. My father hadn’t fit into her perfect little box or her world either. I strode up the back staircase and down the hall. On the way to my old room, I noticed someone was in my mother’s room, or more specifically on her bed. I decided to investigate, looking through the crack between the door and the hinges. Lo and behold it was my fiancé, with the woman he was sitting with before draped over his shirtless torso, kissing him. I was more disgusted than anything else, as I rushed to my old room and closed the door behind me.
Just a few weeks later, I stood in my dressing room in a gown that matched the snow surrounding the church. The sight of myself in a wedding dress in the tall mirror had me sweating stains in the underarms of it. My mother would murder me if she found out. On top of that, I could barely breathe, and I couldn’t tell whether it was from the tightness of the dress or the anxiety. However, I had to hand it to my mother, the wedding was planned perfectly. Everything was flawless from the soft, pink and white flowers to the white flurries of snow falling around the church. The only problem was the groom.
Even though it was suffocating me, even the dress was beautiful; the delicate lace on the dress fell gracefully over the silk, and I sat admiring it for a moment, letting the whole situation just melt away into background noise. The dress was exactly like the one my father had described in the stories of my fairytale kingdom that he had told me so many years ago under that starry night sky. He’d told me I was the queen and no one pushed the queen around, but I didn’t really feel like one. I would have given anything to have my father there with me, holding my hand and walking me down the aisle. He would make the whole situation just float away and be gone. He would’ve put an end to this marriage before it even had the chance to begin. Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes as I wondered if my father would truly be proud to see me this way, in the palm of my mother’s hand, doing only as she pleased. All I wanted was to make my father proud.
Next thing I knew, I was banging open Elliot’s dressing room door. “Why are you marrying me? It seems like you couldn’t care less about me, and frankly you’re an --- to me, so why are you putting the both of us through this?”
Elliot stood mouth agape with his bow tie slung around his neck. “I didn’t know you had that in you, but technically I’m not putting us through anything. My father said it would be a good way to solidify his company’s new alliance with your mother’s business, but no one is forcing you to marry me. You’re doing this for the same reason I am. The money.”
I plopped down on the sofa across from him. “So if you’re doing this for the money, are you just going to continue cheating on me for the rest of our marriage? And don’t deny it. I know about your fling with my mother’s floozy, and not to mention old, friend Sylvia at Thanksgiving.” Elliot turned around to face his mirror and began knotting his bow tie as he replied, “Are you really making this an issue now? Let’s just enjoy the beautiful wedding your mother put together and talk about that later, okay honey?”
I pushed myself off the couch, marching angrily up to him, “Of course it’s an issue! If you were really interested in this alliance with my mother, you would try harder not to screw it up. I don’t want a loveless marriage and I’m beginning to forget why I’m even doing this. In fact, I’m not doing this. ” I pulled the silver ring off my thick finger and held it out for him. He grabbed my wrist, pressing his pointy thumb into my vein. His grip was surprisingly strong for his delicate frame. He took the ring from my palm and jammed it back onto my finger with his clammy hands. Staring me down he said, “Think about what you’re doing. Are you really trying to back out on this marriage? You and your mother need this more than my father and I do. There are other alliances that can be made. Just think about how much s*** your mother will give you if you mess this up. And she will invariably blame you. I’m going to be at the end of that aisle in fifteen minutes, and remember who will look like the real bad guy if you leave me there looking like an idiot.” He threw my hand down and stormed out of the dressing room, slamming the door behind him.
I sat back down on the sofa, massaging my bruised wrist. I didn’t know what to think. Everything Elliot had said was true; my mother’s business did need this more than his father’s did, but what had she really done for me other than berate me and tear me down? This wedding may have seemed like a way of her reconciling with me and making up the last ten years or so to me on the surface, but in reality she was doing this for herself. I looked at the fruit basket on the dresser and saw the spiny pineapples poking out, remembering my father. I felt beaten down and broken inside. I’d been stepped on and pushed around for long enough, but no one pushes the queen around.
I felt like I didn’t even have control over my body. I was so overcome by aggravation with how others had treated me and how people felt like they could force me to do things for their own personal benefit. My legs rushed me out of the room and through the swinging door into the kitchen. I strode over to the back exit ready to leave this place and never come back, but then I turned around and saw the towering five-tiered, red velvet cake resting on the counter top. I didn’t even have to think about it. Before I knew it, I had grabbed the cake and a fork and was making a hasty escape towards the vintage white Buick. I set the cake down beside me in the front seat, kicked the door shut, and reversed out of the parking lot as fast as possible. The car spun around and sped off towards the highway as the paper “Just Married” sign flapped in the wind on the trunk of the car. I took a forkful of cake and stuffed it in my mouth as I sped down the highway. I guess I can have my cake and eat it, too.