Step-daughter of the Bride?

Wild night last night. The only rememberance of the night before was the splitting open of my head this morning. I walked into work with my sunglasses on carrying the biggest coffee Tim Hortons could find me. Boss looked me over and asked cautiously,

"Whats with the glasses?"

I mouthed hangover at her.

She did not look impressed. "It's 2 o'clock on a saturday. Not a great day for it either." and turned back to the customers she was wringing in. The store was a disaster. Clothes everywhere, children running around screaming, and changerooms with bitchy customers standing in front of them, looking for someone to kill.

"I'll man changerooms." Boss muttered something incoherant and I grabbed a key and pissed off.

After many long hours (ok, 2 hours) of helping angry people try on teenager clothes, my Da showed up at work. This usually only means one of two things:

1) Bad news, someones died
2)He brought me a coffee because he was in the neighbourhood.

Now since my Da is never in the neighbourhood of where I work, and he was holding no coffee that I could see, I could only assume the worst.

"Hi." He said.

"Hi." I said.

He started fidgeting with his hands, "How're you?"

"Goo-" I started.

"That's great, hows your day been" Staring somewhere over my shoulder. "Great," I said, "The store caught fire for the first part, but Luckily we were able to put it out."

"Good, good." He said, "Listen I have some news." I held my breath, o god, someones died.

"Tuesday," He grinned, "I'm going to ask (Da's Fiance) to marry me." He looked at me expectantly.

First thought: Jaysus I need a drink.

Second thought: oh, shite, say something

Da's smile started to falter, say something! anything!

"Ahh,...Aren't you a little old to be getting remarried?" golden, you gobshite.

He, thankfully, laughed. "Yeah! And i'm fecking nervous!" He grinned like a fool again.

I didn't have the heart to tell him that I hated the woman. She was nothing but rude to me the few times i've seen her, and I do mean few. Still not convinced?

1) They've been together for 3 odd years, and i've seen her maybe 10 times.

2)She had Minor surgery about a year ago, and when I asked her, concerned, if she was ok, she snapped "Mind your own business!" after shooting my Da a look.

3)My family went to an Irish wedding for my Uncle last summer. This was a wedding that she, like my Stepda, was a guest to. My Uncle tells me at the reception that him and his new bride had to switch the tables around last minute, because my Da's Fiance didn't want to sit at the same table as my mother. So me, my Ma, my Stepda, my boyfriend at the time and my brother all sat at one table, with the wedding photographer, and my Da and his woman sat accross the room at another, with various extended family. I made it very clear that I was not pleased, that was just plain rude, as if my Uncle didn't have enough on his plate that day. She walked up to me at the reception and said, "Irish, don't you look lovely" and tried at a smile. I stared her down until she stopped smiling, turned, and walked away, leaving my poor boyfriend to make small talk with my Da.

So you can sense why I wouldn't want her as a permanent fixture, amoung other reasons like my Da buying a house with her and 'forgetting' to tell me, only admitting when I answered the phone from the realtor, or maybe the fact that he spends more time at her house then he does with me or my brother combined. But anyways.

Later that day, when I went to pick up my brother, My Da gave me my own sparkily ring, a flower made of tiny diamonds with a dark blue saphire in the middle, for my middle finger. He said to consider it a consolation prize.