Badly Done, Emma Lee

Did you know Queen Victoria set the white bridal gown trend? She wore a white satin gown for her big day because she thought the fabric showed off her lace trim and veil. Just like Meghan Trainor, old Vic was all ’bout that lace, ’bout that lace. The train of her gown was ten feet long and made entirely of Devonshire lace. Her shoes were white-satin ballerina slippers with laces that wrapped around her ankles—proving Audrey Hepburn wasn’t the first style icon to opt for flats, ladies. Victoria’s wedding slippers are on display in the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery in Northampton, England. My friend, Deidre Waites, writes a superinteresting, superhilarious blog about Queen Victoria. Check out We Are Not Amused, y’all.

I have mixed feelings for Queen Victoria. On the one hand, I dig that she was so hopelessly in love with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha that she defied convention, as well as parliamentary and public opinion, and asked him to marry her. You go, royal girl! Forget the haters, get down on one little knee and ask Albert for his hand in marriage. She was also interested in technology, encouraging advances in transportation, medicine, communication, and photography. If she were alive today, I think she would be a social media sensation, snapping selfies at her many palaces and starting trending topics, #MonarchyMonday. Victoria was also a romantic who tried her hand at matchmaking. What’s not to love about a romance-addicted queen with talent for making marvelous matches?

On the other hand, she was short-tempered, stubborn, spoiled, and downright callous about the Irish Situation. A nasty potato blight ravaged the potato crops throughout Europe. Potatoes were a staple of the Irish diet. Do you know what Queen Victoria did when she found out tens of thousands of Irish were starving to death? She sent two thousand pounds. Two thousand measly pounds! Her satin wedding dress with the ten-foot lace train probably cost more than two thousand pounds! Shame.

Then, when Prince Albert died, she went nuttier than a heaping helping of Tara’s pecan pie. She turned his rooms into a mausoleum and forced the servants to continue their morning ritual of delivering hot water to the prince’s bathroom. Pecan pie nutty, y’all.

And the way she treated her children, especially her oldest son, poor Bertie, I can’t even . . .

I have spent the evening reading Deidre’s blog and learning loads more about nineteenth-century history than I ever did in my World History classes. We Are Not Amused is written from Queen Victoria’s perspective, with snarky asides and hilarious advice on marriage, motherhood, and how to masterfully manipulate a prime minister.

It’s nearly nine thirty, or half nine as they say here in England, when I click out of Deidre’s blog. It’s probably too late to text a friend who isn’t a bona-fide bestie, but I can’t help myself.

Text to Deidre Waites:

I was right. You are wicked clever. Your blog is sooo smart and sooo funny. I can’t remember when I enjoyed reading about history.

Text from Deidre Waites:

You are too kind.

Text to Deidre Waites:

Girl, I am not being kind. You are a good writer. Have you considered turning your blog pieces into a book?

Text from Deidre Waites:

Thank you, but I doubt anyone would want to read it.

Oh, Deidre. Deidre! Ye of little faith and many doubts! This. This is why God has chosen me to be your Big, my dearly, doubting Little. He wants me to infect you with a bit of my highly contagious confidence.

Text to Deidre Waites:

I saw your comments section. It was jam-packed with comments from readers all over the globe. You have a serious following, Sister. Capitalize on it. Write a book from Queen Victoria’s perspective.

Text from Deidre Waites:

I would not know where to begin.

Text to Deidre Waites:

You begin with a title.

Text from Deidre Waites:

Ha. Ha.

Text to Deidre Waites:

What if you wrote a manual on how to raise children, like one of those What to Expect books, but in the queen’s voice? You could call it A Very Nasty Object because that is what Queen Victoria called her baby.

Text from Deidre Waites:

I love that idea! You are bloody brilliant.

Text to Deidre Waites:

Yes, I am. You’re welcome.

Text from Deidre Waites:

Good night, Emma Lee.

Text to Deidre Waites:

Good night, Your Majesty.

I click out of my text screen, enter the words monetize and blog into my search bar, and scroll though the hits until I find a Forbes article about ten wildly successful blogs that earn outlandish incomes. I send a copy of the article to Deidre, urging her to monetize her blog.

My daddy always said, Your head will rest squarely on your pillow, and you’ll sleep a whole lot easier, Emma darlin’, if the balance of your daily deeds includes more positive than negative. Tonight, my balance sheet is in the black, and it feels fab!

I wish I could call Daddy to tell him about my day. I know he would be mighty proud to hear I talked Lexi down from her emotional ledge and conquered my fear of death by AGA explosion. I know he would approve of my plan to befriend and empower Miss Deidre Waites. Still, it would be nice to tell Daddy about my day, to hear the reassuring puh-puh sound of him sucking on his pipe while he listened to my prattling.

I reckon I could tell Miss Isabella when I see her tomorrow. Miss Isabella! Shoot! I lift the massive leather book off the ottoman and flip to the table of contents. I got so caught up in Deidre’s blog, I plum forgot about my reading assignment.

I look at the clock: 9:42.

I might-could knock it out tonight. How long could it take to read one little old Jane Austen novel? An hour or two? Three, tops.

Let’s see. Emma starts on page 657 and ends on page 915. Sweet lawd! That’s over two hundred and fifty pages! Two hundred and fifty hardback pages, not teensy paperback pages. Two hundred and fifty hardback pages of teensy-tiny print.

I groan and close the book. I have a flashback to sophomore year statistics class, to reading the textbook (over and over) and feeling hopelessly lost in the gobbledygook terminology and theories of inferential statistics. Efficient estimators, root mean square errors, transposed conditional fallacy. Mwah-mwah-mwah. Charlie Brown teacher-speak. That’s what I hear in my head whenever I attempt sustained reading. Mwah-mwah-mwah.

I stare at the cover, at Jane Austen’s name stamped in swirly silver font, and feel a pang of guilt. My momma loved reading so much, she named her babies after her favorite novels. Manderley was named after the hero’s home in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, Tara was named after Scarlett O’Hara’s plantation in Gone with the Wind, and I was named after the heroine of Jane Austen’s Emma.

Manderley can recite huge passages from Rebecca.

Tara has watched Gone with the Wind so many times, she knows the entire movie word-for-word.

Me? I haven’t read Emma. Not one word.

Manderley would say my refusal to read Emma is a manifestation of the deep psychological distress I suffered from losing my momma while I was still in Pampers. Invisible wounds to the psyche and all. Sure. That.

Or—

Maybe it doesn’t go that deep. Maybe I don’t have the attention span to sit through 157,887 words (just Googled it, y’all)! Maybe I have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or dyslexia, or maybe I am just flighty.

Or—

I might-could have a few teensy-tiny blemishes on my psyche. Teensy. Tiny. Maybe I haven’t read my momma’s favorite books because it would be like giving her a voice. Right now, Momma is this mute ghost of a woman who inhabits a small room in the attic of my mind. She is a picture in the family photo album, a distant relative we remember on holidays. I know she existed because people tell me she did.

I have kept my momma at a distance because letting her in, gathering precious memories of her, and holding them close, would only remind me of what I lost, what I never really had.

Maybe I keep myself busy with a dizzying swirl of activity and fill my life with a dizzying number of friends because I am trying to keep my momma’s ghost in the attic. Ghosts do not haunt busy houses, do they? They haunt quiet houses, houses inhabited by sad, solitary people.