Did everyone get that? We need a separate portion of hot food and salad for our table,” Rodion told the cafe manager, where his wedding with Anna was soon to take place.
“Yes, you will have a hot dish and a salad from the fitness menu,” nodded the manager.
“Right. No mayonnaise, nothing fatty or fried… just boiled vegetables, arugula salad, broccoli, and steamed chicken patty.”
“And the same for you?” the manager clarified.
“What?! Do you think I should eat this grass? No, I’m a man, not a rabbit.”
“So for you, a roast with a cheese crust and fried potatoes, capital city salad with mayonnaise, and julienne?”
“Yes. And also a medium-rare steak with barbecue sauce.”
“We don’t have that in the budget… Only one hot dish is provided for the guests…”
“For the guests, maybe, but not for them. This is just for me. So that I definitely have enough to eat.”
“And for the bride?”
“She’s not allowed. Let her eat the diet food,” Rodion cut off and reconfirmed: “did you all get that?”
“Yes.”
Assured that everything was under control, Rodion headed home. He needed to make sure that his bride, Anna, didn’t eat too much at night. He hurried, knowing he would catch his bride in the act of something outrageous!
“What is this?!” he roared as soon as he crossed the threshold of the apartment. “Anna! Come here!”
The bride nearly choked on a piece of pizza. She hoped that her future husband would come later, and she could hide it… Unfortunately, the girl left the box in the hallway—it was too tempting to eat sooner. She had just bitten off a piece… And was caught red-handed.
“Give it here now!” Rodion approached the bride and literally pulled the appetizing dough with cheese out of her hands.
But Anna didn’t want to give up. They nearly fought over the piece of pizza!
“You’re mocking me. I just wanted to eat!”
“You can eat boiled carrots! Or apples. And you… you wanted to gorge yourself! No, I don’t understand, you see for yourself that your figure has changed, that the dress made to your measurements won’t fit! And what? Need to gobble pizza? Get fat until you burst at the seams?”
“You ate both the soup and the main course, nothing was left for me, I don’t have time to cook with study and work!” Anna gritted her teeth.
She was hurt. Several times she nearly burst out. But at the last moment, she calmed herself by thinking that Rodion loved her and cared about her health and beauty.
In fact, there might have been a problem with weight: over the last two months, Anna had gained weight. And everything would have been fine if not for a small detail… At one of the fittings, she didn’t fit into her wedding dress! This incident happened in front of her future husband and mother-in-law. Anna had never felt such shame.
Lydia Vasilievna caused such a stir that Anna wanted to sink through the floor.
“Did you tailor our dress?!” Lydia Vasilievna yelled at the seamstress.
“No… Everything was done according to the measurements taken…”
“Who taught you to sew? Incompetents! Hands grow out of the wrong place!”
“I will measure everything again now and show you the previous data, they are recorded,” the seamstress replied, blushing. “Look. It was like this, it became like this. It’s not the dress that got smaller, but your daughter-in-law got bigger.”
“Anna?! What does this mean?” Lydia Vasilievna shifted the focus to the daughter-in-law.
“I don’t know…” Anna was flustered. She felt suffocated, wanting to leave and end this circus quickly.
“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Rodion mimicked. “Who stuffed themselves last night? And wasn’t it you who invited me to a fast food cafe on the weekend? You! There’s the result!”
“You eat fast food?!” Lydia Vasilievna clutched her heart. “That’s it, you’re on a diet from today! You’re getting your hormones tested tomorrow! I want my son to have a healthy bride who will give him healthy children! This is not up for discussion. You need to lose weight and fit into the dress! And you…” she looked at the seamstress, “leave it as is. Let her strive for the dress, not the dress strive for her excess weight.”
The seamstress was surprised, but did not argue. But two weeks later, when it was time to pick up the dress before the wedding, Anna discovered she didn’t fit into jeans that used to be too big for her.
This time she acted smarter—she went to pick up the dress alone.
“Please, alter the dress… otherwise, I’ll go under the wedding canopy without it… or not go at all,” Anna asked.
“I’m not sure I can make it in time,” the seamstress doubted.
“I’ll pay extra. And not a word to my husband… and his mother,” Anna put her finger to her lips. She noted that if it weren’t for the mother-in-law, her husband would not have reacted this way to the changes in her appearance. He was fine with everything until Lydia Vasilievna interfered.
“This will be our little secret,” nodded the seamstress.
But no matter how Anna hid her figure, Rodion found out about the trick with the dress and caused a huge scandal on the eve of the wedding.
“You started our life together with deception, Anna! I don’t know how to take this.”
“Sorry… I’ve gained weight… from stress. I promise I’ll get back to normal.”
“You’ll be sitting on water! I don’t want you to get fat,” Rodion said sternly. He was slender, very careful about himself and his body, and wanted to instill the same attitude in Anna. Anna nodded, although it was very unpleasant for her.
Rodion then lost his temper. He literally watched her mouth.
“This you can, this you cannot. Put this!” he “sorted” it out. Anna tried, walked around half-starved… And from time to time couldn’t stand it and broke down. Like that evening before the wedding, when she passed a pizzeria and desperately wanted a slice of hot, juicy “Hawaiian.”
How tasty that pizza seemed to her… she squinted, and the next moment Rodion burst into the apartment and snatched a piece of pizza, scolding his wife.
“You’re mocking me. I just wanted to eat!” Anna gritted.
“You can eat boiled carrots! Or apples. And you… you wanted to gorge yourself! No, I don’t understand, you see for yourself that your figure has changed, that the dress made to your measurements won’t fit! And what? Need to gobble pizza? Get fat until you burst at the seams?”
Anna rolled her eyes.
“Get ready. We have a run for dinner.”
“No. I’m tired and want to rest,” Anna resisted.
They argued for quite a while, in the end, both stayed home. And soon the day of their wedding arrived.
“You don’t need to have breakfast. It’s not necessary,” Rodion ordered, spreading chocolate paste on a bun.
“But how is that? I’ll faint if I don’t eat. We’re on our feet all day, lunch, or rather, dinner, will be at the restaurant, at 4 PM!”
“Fine, take an apple. Or non-fat cottage cheese…” Rodion “relented,” but Anna did her own thing, taking advantage of her husband being distracted by a phone call. She quickly made herself a sandwich and hurriedly ate it, washing it down with tea. She also managed to “snag” a piece of fried fish that Rodion’s mother was cooking so her son wouldn’t starve while his wife was on a diet.
It felt easier, she felt stronger. Anna drank nothing but water—Rodion wouldn’t allow her to drink sweet sodas. He himself indulged heartily during the photo session. And if at first Anna hoped that the groom would cheer up and become a bit kinder, she was mistaken.
“Photograph her so she looks thin. So that the sides don’t stick out, and the hips don’t look like a basket!” Rodion directed, watching how his wife tried to pose. “And in the photo editing software, remove the excess!”
“Maybe they’ll just swap my head onto another body?” Anna angrily asked.
“They will, if you get any fatter!”
“And if you continue to insult me, your head will be swapped with an organ that’s more developed than your brain,” Anna said and walked to the car. “Let’s go to the cafe,” she told the driver.
At the banquet, the situation was no better: when a waiter accidentally brought the wrong hot dish, the mother-in-law scolded him:
“What? I told you not to feed the bride! She’s on a diet!”
“We have an agreed-upon menu,” the confused waiter said.
“Call the manager!” Rodion and Lydia Vasilievna complained so loudly that they drowned out the MC and began to draw the attention of the guests.
“Leave the waiter alone. I won’t eat mayonnaise and cheese on top of a piece, I’ll only eat the meat,” Anna tried to calm her husband, taking the plate, but the mother-in-law didn’t allow her to do this: she snatched it away, couldn’t hold it, and the plate crashed to the floor with a clatter. The pieces scattered across the floor, and the fatty meat, which should not have reached the bride’s mouth, “sprinkled” her snow-white wedding dress.
For a moment, the whole hall froze. Even the MC didn’t immediately figure out how to attract the guests’ attention to himself.
“So, at our wedding, the mother-in-law decided to hold a contest from American movies, called ‘throw a piece of meat at another,’ but we won’t be conducting it for safety reasons, let’s better sit down at the table and taste the hot dish…”
The guests exchanged glances and went to their seats, while Anna’s mother, Tamara Evgenievna, rushed to the bride and groom. But Anna stepped over the shards and ran out of the hall. She didn’t know if she wanted to continue this wedding. Her plan hadn’t gone as expected, and her beloved Rodion had revealed another side.
“What’s going on here?! Rodion? Did you get anything mixed up?! Maybe you need to be taught how to treat a wife?!” the mother-in-law was red like an enraged bull. The mother-in-law had somehow vanished, as if it wasn’t because of her that this incident occurred.
“And what of her? So… she gained weight…”
“She’s pregnant, you fool! Anna was preparing a surprise for you, waiting for your wedding to announce at the end that you’re going to be a father! And you…” the mother-in-law roared and ran after her daughter.
“Pregnant?! How?” Rodion froze. He couldn’t have guessed, thought that his wife was just gaining weight like on yeast… and Anna herself was silent, enduring his treatment. She wanted to make him a surprise at the wedding. The realization struck poor Rodion like a current. He leaped over the pile of shards, nearly slipping in a puddle of mayonnaise from the fallen hot dish, and hurried after his wife.
“Son, where are you going? Maybe you shouldn’t follow her? After a hysterical one…” his mother tried to stop him.
“Mom, I’ll figure it out without you.”
Rodion found Anna on the street. She was sitting on a bench and crying, and her mother-in-law was trying to comfort her. Tamara Evgenievna, it’s me. Please leave us… — Rodion spoke in a completely different voice.
“Let her talk in front of you,” Anna clung to her mother’s hand.
“Alright…” Rodion sighed. “Please forgive me… I was wrong. Very wrong.” He knelt down in front of his wife. “I didn’t think that your belly—that it… that… I love you any way you are. Just, please, always tell me everything from now on, so I know,” he mumbled, looking bewildered, and Anna smiled through tears.
“Do you promise you won’t blame me anymore?”
“Yes.”
“Even if I become fat and clumsy?”
“I know what pregnancy is, Anya. I have a younger brother, seventeen years younger! I remember what mom was like, how big her belly was… So you should have just told me right away that I was going to be a dad. Damn, is it true?!” Rodion seemed to still not believe it.
“True.”
Tamara Evgenievna discreetly and as inconspicuously as possible left. She met her co-mother-in-law, Lydia Vasilievna, who had been eavesdropping, and wagged her finger at her.
“Let’s go, grandma. Let the young ones figure it out without us.”
“I don’t want to be a grandmother! I’m still young!” Lydia Vasilievna sighed sadly.
“Whether you want to or not… You will be.”
Rodion and Anna were left alone, and he hugged his wife.
“Sorry.”
“I forgive you.”
Anna forgave her husband, and since then he never blamed her again. The mother-in-law also resigned herself to the fact of her daughter-in-law’s pregnancy. Long-awaited happiness arrived in their family.