Cate stopped on the way home to get a bottle of wine, and opened it as soon as she got into her apartment. She poured some into a glass and took a sip before she even took off her jacket. No matter how many times she’d tried to make sense of it, she couldn’t. “Bridget and Jim,” she repeated aloud. “Bridget and Jim.”
Final y, after a couple glasses of wine, she picked up the phone and cal ed her friend Julia. “You won’t believe this,” Cate said. “I had lunch with Bridget today—I know, I know, she’s a crazy person. But listen to what she told me. She’s obsessed with Jim and total y stalking him. Yes, that Jim. I know, she’s nuts.” Cate took another sip of wine and smiled. “I think she’s breaking him down,” she said. “You know how she is. I know, I know. You almost feel sorry for him. Poor bastard.”
R iding backwards on a train makes me sick,” Lauren said. Everyone ignored her. They were sitting in a four-person seat on the Long Island Rail Road, facing each other with their knees touching. “I’m serious, you guys, I might throw up. I always get motion sick when I ride backwards.”
“You feel sick because you drank about forty-five vodka tonics last night,” Mary said. She leaned forward and sniffed. “You smel like you just took a shot. I’m serious. I can smel liquor on your breath.”
“Please stop it,” Lauren said, closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the seat. “Could someone please just switch with me?”
“Fine, I wil ,” Isabel a said.
They stood up and grasped elbows, turning until they were on opposite sides. Lauren knocked Mary’s coffee when she sat down and Mary swore at her. They were al annoyed. They were on their way to Long Island for a wedding shower and they were al annoyed.
“This isn’t helping,” Lauren said, and leaned forward to rest her head in her lap. “I hate Long Island.”
“No kidding,” Isabel a said.
Their friend Kristi was engaged. They were al happy for her. They were al bridesmaids. They were al sick of celebrating it.
Kristi was real y embracing her role as a bride-to-be. She never said things like “Let’s talk about something besides the wedding,” or, “You don’t have to buy me a present for every party.” She wanted al of the attention and she wanted al of the presents. This was her time, she kept reminding them, like it was something she’d earned.
This was Kristi’s sixth shower. First, her mother’s side of the family had thrown her a “Time of Day” shower. They were al given a time of day, and had to buy a present that went along with it. Isabel a got two a.m. “What am I supposed to get them for two a.m.?” Isabel a asked everyone. She agonized over it, ignored Lauren’s suggestion to buy them handcuffs, and final y bought sheets.
Kristi’s second shower was thrown by her father’s side of the family. (Her father’s side had been excluded from the first shower, because of some family drama that none of the bridesmaids cared about.) They traveled to Rhode Island to sit in a tiny living room and listen to Kristi’s aunt complain about not being invited to the other shower. “She could have had my invitation,” Mary whispered to Isabel a.
Kristi’s third shower was thrown by her fiancé’s groomsmen. It was a couples’ shower to stock the bar, and everyone was supposed to bring a bottle of liquor and glasses. “What kind of groomsmen throw a shower?” Lauren asked. “Are they gay? I’ve never heard of such a thing. And you know what? I’m not going. I’m not in a couple, and I need the liquor more than she does.” Lauren ended up going to the party and drinking almost the whole bottle of liquor she’d brought. “I need it more,” she kept saying.
The fourth shower was thrown by Kristi’s friends from work, and she insisted that they al go. “I need my bridesmaids there,” she said. “Why?”
Lauren asked. “To wipe her ass?” The fifth shower happened because Kristi kept saying, “No one can believe that my bridesmaids haven’t thrown me a shower.” They had a brunch at Mary’s apartment to shut her up. “Is it just bagels?” she asked when she saw the food. When she opened up the present they got her, she said, “Who is this from? Oh, al of you. Is there another part? No, just this? Okay.”
Now they were on their way to Long Island for Kristi’s sixth shower and their patience was wearing thin. “My mother’s bridge group wants to throw me a shower,” Kristi said when she told them about this shower. “I just couldn’t say no!”
The thing was, Kristi wasn’t their first friend to get married. They had stood up in weddings of friends from home, friends from col ege, friends from work. Every time they were sure that they were done, someone else got engaged. And al that meant was that they would continue to spend their weekends at wedding showers.
They were good bridesmaids at the showers. They trekked out to Long Island and the suburbs of New Jersey wearing pastel dresses and carrying presents. They cheered for stainless-steel pots and flowered serving trays. They gathered ribbons and crafted large bouquets out of paper plates, while taking notes on who gave the bride the toaster and who gave her The Cupcake Cookbook. They gasped in mock horror when ribbons were broken—“That’s six babies now,” they’d warn with smiles and raised eyebrows. When margarita glasses were unwrapped, one of them always said, “We’l be over to put those to good use,” and the older women at the shower would laugh. They organized games to play, wound up timers, and put together quizzes titled “How Wel Do You Know the Bride?”
As the weddings increased, it was harder to be pleasant. After they’d attended five showers, the novelty wore off. By the time it got to fifteen, they were tired of cleaning up wrapping paper. And when they had attended over twenty showers, they were flat-out exhausted. Who on earth needed an ice-cream maker? Why did anyone want a deep fryer? And where were the happy couples (who lived in tiny Manhattan apartments) going to store twenty-four wine glasses and a bread maker?
The train pul ed into the station, and they al got up and left in silence. They stood in the sun for a moment. “It’s real y nice out today,” Mary said.
Lauren ran to a garbage can on the platform and threw up. “Yes,” Isabel a said. “It’s beautiful out.”
As Kristi unwrapped mixers and place mats, Lauren and Isabel a snuck out to the patio to have a cigarette. “I bet she gets pregnant right away,”
Lauren said. She was sipping her third mimosa, and was in much better shape already.
“Why?” Isabel a asked.
“Because then she’l have a reason for everyone to give her more presents. We’l have to throw her a baby shower too, and talk about her being pregnant, and then we’l have to babysit the little fucker.”
“That’s lovely,” Isabel a said. She peeked through the sliding glass doors to see if anyone missed them. Mary had been grabbed and chosen to write down al of the gifts, and she was looking around the room for them. She seemed pissed and Isabel a felt bad, but better her than them. Their friend Abby was constructing a bouquet out of the ribbons Kristi threw at her as she tore into the packages. Abby worked with her head down, like a child in a sweatshop. Kristi had debated whether or not to even make Abby a bridesmaid in the first place. “I mean, I know she’d be honored,” Kristi said. “But maybe it would be too much, since she just cal ed off her own wedding not long ago. I don’t want her to be a downer.” Abby had shown up at every shower and party, and been a good sport. And now, here she was threading ribbons through a paper plate. She glanced up and saw Isabel a through the glass door. Her eyes looked wounded, like she believed that Kristi was getting married just to punish her. Abby gave Isabel a a smal smile and kept her fingers moving, twisting and tying to make that stupid ribbon hat. Isabel a tried to smile back and then had to turn away.
“This is getting ridiculous,” Lauren said. She was cranky. “This is my fifth wedding this year. And I’m done with it. What I don’t get is why there have to be so many showers just for one person. And why do they have to have themes? Why? Just to make it more annoying than it already is?”
Isabel a shushed her and then glanced inside to ma
ke sure no one had heard. The theme for this shower was “My Favorite Things.” They had al received invitations that read: “Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes, snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes! Please come and celebrate with our bride-to-be, Kristi Kearney. Bring her one of your favorite things!”
“I should have brought her cigarettes,” Lauren said thoughtful y. She took one more drag and then stamped her cigarette out on the ground. “They are one of my favorite things. Thank God I have them today. Kristi’s being a nightmare, huh?”
Isabel a didn’t have anything to say. Kristi wasn’t a bad person, she didn’t think. But she was acting like one. “Maybe she’s just stressed,” Isabel a said. They had been talking about Kristi for months now. If the wedding didn’t come soon, they were going to have to stop being friends with her.
On the eve of Kristi’s engagement party, Todd’s great-aunt died. There was talk of rescheduling, and Kristi came to see them, crying. “I’ve just real y been looking forward to this,” she said. “How could they do this to me?”
“But someone died,” Lauren said.
“I just think we stil could have it. I mean, it’s a party for me,” Kristi said. She put her head in her hands and they al looked at each other. Then they al kept drinking.
The party ended up happening. And later, Kristi would say that it was a shame that the aunt’s death had put such a damper on it. “I just felt like I couldn’t real y be as happy as I wanted to be, you know? Like I had to dial it back to be appropriate. It was real y unfair.”
“Do you think she needs to be on medication?” Mary asked later. No one laughed.
They kept waiting for it to stop, waiting for Kristi to realize that she was acting like a beast. But she never did. At her bachelorette party, she cried when one of their friends announced that she was pregnant. “I just real y wanted this night to be about me,” she wailed.
When Lauren hired a woman to come to the party and sel sex toys, Kristi turned to her and said, “This seems like something you would want more than I would. I mean, I have Todd now and we’re getting married, so I don’t real y need a vibrator. But it’s fun for the single girls, I guess.”
“Last night I added up al the money I spent on weddings this year,” Lauren said in a dreamy voice. “It was over five thousand dol ars. I could have gone on a trip to Belize and then bought a new wardrobe.”
“I realized yesterday that my credit card bil is never going to be paid in ful . Never,” Isabel a said.
They weren’t real y talking to each other. It was the same conversation they’d been having since the weddings started. They finished their cigarettes in silence.
“We should go back in there before Mary never forgives us,” Isabel a said.
“Fine,” Lauren said, and drank the rest of her mimosa in one gulp.
The food at the showers was always the same: ladylike salads, teeny sandwiches, cut-up fruit, white wine and mimosas, mini cakes for dessert.
Lauren piled an alarming amount of mini sandwiches on her plate. “I would kil you for a cheeseburger,” she whispered to Mary.
“I might just kil you for fun,” Mary said. “How could you leave me in there alone? I had to write down al the presents by myself. And they kept asking me if I was dating anyone. Then, one woman who was hard of hearing said, ‘What? Who are you dating?’ And I had to yel loudly across the room, ‘I’m not dating anyone!’ ”
“Shut up.”
“Swear to God, it happened.”
One of the bridge friends clinked her glass with a spoon until the room quieted down. “Welcome, everyone! I just wanted to say a few words about our lovely bride-to-be, Kristi!” Everyone in the room clapped.
“Why are they clapping for her?” Lauren asked. “She didn’t do anything.” Mary and Isabel a both shushed her and she just rol ed her eyes. The woman talked about Kristi and how she had watched her grow up. Lauren shoved a whole sandwich in her mouth and chewed while the bridge lady spoke. When Mary gave her a look, she swal owed and said, “What? I’m hungry.”
“Our theme for today is ‘My Favorite Things,’ ” the woman continued. “I hope that everyone is ready to explain the special meaning behind her gift for Kristi!” Then the woman started singing, “Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes,” and she raised her arms for everyone to join. Al of the women in the room chimed in, “Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes!” They kept singing and started swaying back and forth. Abby was standing unfortunately close to the woman who’d started the singing, and the woman wrapped her arm around Abby’s shoulders, forced her to move in time with the music, and looked at her with an encouraging smile until Abby started to sing along with her. A few of the women were snapping their fingers. Lauren looked at Isabel a and Mary and said, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, right?”
They struggled through the lunch and chatted with al of the women. They cleaned up bal s of wrapping paper and stray ribbons, helped clear the plates and glasses, and then carried al of the presents to the car while Kristi thanked her guests. Abby told them that she had an appointment in the city that she had to get back for. “Go,” they al told her. They almost pushed her out the door. “Get out while you can.”
Mary arranged the presents in the back of the car. “It’s almost over, right?” she muttered to herself. “Please tel me this is almost over.”
Kristi asked them to help drive the presents back to her parents’ house, so that they could unload. Then she insisted that they al come inside so that she could show them pictures of what the centerpieces were going to look like. They sat on the couch and tried to admire the pictures. Lauren leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Isabel a was sure she was sleeping.
“So, we should probably try to get the next train,” Mary said, as though it had just occurred to her.
“You guys aren’t staying?” Kristi said. “I thought we could al have dinner and hang out.”
“Oh, I guess we didn’t realize that,” Mary said. “We were planning to get back to the city tonight.”
“It’s just that it’s my shower,” Kristi said. She sounded wounded, like she had just told them it was her last day on this earth and they were leaving anyway. Isabel a could see Lauren and Mary start to panic.
“I know you two have stuff to get back for, but I could stay,” Isabel a said. She hoped the other two appreciated her self-sacrifice. Mary perked up right away.
“We real y do wish that we could stay, but it just doesn’t seem like it wil work out,” Mary said. Isabel a wondered if she was the only person who could hear the joy in Mary’s voice.
“Could you stay over?” Kristi asked Isabel a. “I have a fitting tomorrow and you could come along.”
“Sure,” Isabel a said. “That would be fun.”
Kristi showed Isabel a a tape of the band they had chosen, and then they sorted through some of the shower presents, and discussed whether Kristi should have the band announce the wedding party or not. Final y, they got ready for bed in the room where Kristi had grown up. Isabel a lay in one of the twin beds and looked at a picture of Fred Savage that was stil taped to the bedside table.
“Iz, are you awake?”
“Uh-huh,” Isabel a said.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Do you think Lauren is acting weird to me?”
“Not real y. Weird how?”
“It just doesn’t seem like she’s happy for me,” Kristi said.
“She’s happy for you,” Isabel a answered.
“I don’t know. She seems a little distant. I guess maybe it’s just hard for her to understand.” Isabel a didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to be in this conversation.
“I mean, Abby’s not real y into the whole bridesmaid thing, but she has her reasons,” Kristi said. “But what I don’t get is why Lauren’s being a pain.”
“Lauren seems fine to me,” Isabel a said.
“It’s just, you k
now, sometimes I worry about her,” Kristi said.
“Why?”
“I just feel like she’s lonely, you know. Like she’s not meeting any guys and it seems like the way she’s going, she won’t.”
Isabel a was quiet for a few moments. She didn’t know how to answer.
“Wel , the thing is that you don’t meet someone until you do.” Isabel a started off talking slowly. “And the older we get, the harder it is. And maybe not al of us wil meet someone.”
“Wel , you can’t think like that,” Kristi said. “Look at you and Harrison. You found each other.”
“But who knows what wil happen? And what if it ends and I don’t meet anyone else? What if Lauren never meets anyone else? Is that the end of the world? People live, you know.”
In col ege, Kristi’s boyfriend cheated on her almost every week and Lauren was always the first one to comfort her. One time, she planned a bar crawl just to cheer Kristi up. Isabel a could stil remember the way they rode their bikes from bar to bar, with Lauren and Kristi leading the way, swerving and laughing. Isabel a was always jealous of Kristi and Lauren in col ege. They were so close that sometimes they seemed like one person instead of two.
“Wel , I’m just glad that you have someone,” Kristi said. “It makes me happy when my friends can final y understand how great it is to have someone, you know?”
“Yeah,” Isabel a said. “I do.”
When Kristi got married, she and her husband stood under a chuppah. “We’re not having a traditional Jewish wedding,” Kristi told them a mil ion times. “We’l have a priest do the ceremony. But I don’t want Todd to feel completely left out, so we’re having a rabbi up there too.”
The rabbi explained how the chuppah represented the new home the couple was starting. Then she had the family drape a cloth over their necks.
“With this cloth, we are creating a chuppah within a chuppah,” the rabbi said. “This is to symbolize that Kristi and Todd wil be bound to each other in a way that is special only to them.” Kristi and Todd stood with their shoulders touching, wrapped in the cloth. It reminded Isabel a of the way that Lauren and Kristi used to huddle together, whispering and laughing at jokes that only they understood. “A chuppah within a chuppah,” the rabbi said again. Lauren sighed and rol ed her eyes at Isabel a. Isabel a tried to smile, but for the first time that day she felt like crying. She watched Lauren fidget in her bridesmaid dress, and watched Kristi and Todd smiling together, their faces almost touching. “A chuppah within a chuppah,” she thought. Isabel a felt tears come to her eyes, but just as she was about to cry, Todd smashed the glass with his foot and everyone yel ed, “Mazel tov!”
Girls in White Dresses Page 14
