Friday's Appointments· Prince Rogers Nelson

Chapter 6: The Dinner

The weekend had come and so did Lances Mother, Gloria. I always had to work ten times harder when she came around, the house needed to be spotless, dinner needed to be perfectly cooked and served on brand new china plates, but she always managed to find an issue with all of those things somehow so I didn't put to much effort in. I changed into a nice black skirt and a purple top with matching purple heels, I prepared homemade Italian food and set out the best bottle of wine we had, I even as far as to light candles in the dinning room and put on a old jazz record in the living room. I hated doing all of this to please someone who didn't even like me, but I knew if I could make it as far as I already had, I could make it through one night.

Lance walked out of our room wearing his dress pants and a button down shirt with a tie. I was going to tell him the food was going to get all over his white shirt but I decided not to say anything, after all he was trying to impress his mother.

"That smells weird." He scrunched his face at the pot full of spaghetti. "What did you put in that?"

"It's the same recipe I always use, it's the one you like." He still did not seem pleased and even sniffed into the pot, gagging in disgust. "Jesus, can't you cook one decent thing?! I told you that when my Mother comes over, you better have a nice meal cooked! This smells like dog food!"

"But you've never complained abo-"

"Don't argue with me! Fix something else now before my mother gets here." That's when the taxi honked it horn. Lance immediately looked towards the living room window where the yellow taxi cab was sitting in our driveway and his mother was stepping out. He sighed and clinched his jaw before looking back at me. "Now all I have to welcome my mother with is food that isn't fit for a rat and a lazy wife."

"I'm not lazy." He ignored me and walked to the door, adjusting his tie and rushing out to help her inside. I wanted nothing more in that moment than to throw the food onto the ground and scream as loud as I could, just to let out some kind of emotion without being punished for it. But I had to settle with throwing the towel laying by the sink as hard as I could into the floor and rubbing my eyes until I could only see sharps and stars. I'm lazy. After I spend all day cleaning the house, cooking the food, making myself look presentable I'm still the lazy one? What did he do besides come home, throw his dirty clothes on the floor and drank a beer before passing out? With each passing day I got more and more on edge, the closer I came to letting go of all of it and starting new, but I was scared. I was scared of change, scared of him. What would he do if I left him? I wasn't about to find out. But holding onto to the marriage was becoming to much for me to handle. I was already close to pulling my hair out and that was before I even saw my mother in law, I knew it was going to be a long night.

I heard the front door open and immediately was met with the shrill and dry voice that belonged to Gloria. She was talking about how the grass needed to be cut and how she thought the color of our house was tacky and made us look poor. The usual comments I was used to from her, but there was always something she would say or do that would make me skin crawl. It was only a matter of time before I snapped. I put on a fake smile and turned to greet her as she entered the kitchen, of course her eyes were glancing over the room was her famous look of unapproval. After a second of her eyes following the room, she finally landed on me and what I was wearing. She gave a sharp smirk and outstretched her arms for a loose and uninvited hug, which I barely returned. "Hello, Sarah."

"Hey, Gloria. How was your trip?"

"I got here in a taxi if that answers your question." She shrugged her coat off of her shoulders with a flat chuckle and Lance was ready to take it off for her, even hanging it up on the coat rack by the door. Tell me how he treated his mother better than me. "So Lance told me you've prepared Italian food."