Blah blah blah, the shower was lovely and all, even if I looked like someone pieced me together from Goodwill.
And even bigger shocker—you know how my future sister-in-law doesn’t speak? I may have solved the mystery because her mother NEVER STOPS. Oh my. I felt like she was taking a medical history and worried that I was going to have to provide a urine sample. Maybe future sister-in-law never got a chance to speak growing up and doesn’t know how?
Gotta go, though—I’m extremely worried that if I take my eyes off my toothbrush, one of them will use that next.
To be fair, my mother had forgotten her makeup and was in hysterics, so I offered my services. And Amy had always stolen my clothes, so I was entirely prepared with an equally cute backup outfit, knowing she would take one of mine rather than wear her own clothes.
Madison was really happy that we made the effort to come to the shower—granted, we heard that through Jake, who wrapped me in a bear hug before giving me shit about taking time out of my busy schedule to do something for my family, and through her mother, who knew a shocking amount about me before I opened my mouth in an attempt to get a word in edgewise. Apparently Jake talked about me with some frequency, which made me feel like a jerk—I wasn’t sure some of my friends even knew his name.
But the whole truth didn’t play as well, and I felt like taking some creative license.
The blog was slowly picking up steam, thanks to my efforts at networking. I was up to fifty-eight followers and usually added one or two with each post now. But more importantly, I was excited about writing for the first time since college, when I was on the campus newspaper staff. The only writing I had done since then was for the foundation, and it was refreshing to write something that I so thoroughly enjoyed. And strangers on the internet were appreciating what I was writing, too, which was quite the ego boost.
Unfortunately, having an audience also wiped away any sense of decency that I had in mocking others. But, as I rationalized it to myself, with fifty-eight followers, the odds of the guilty parties ever seeing what I wrote about them were miniscule at best. And maybe if they weren’t being so toxic, I wouldn’t have written about them in the first place.
Plus the flat iron really was a point of contention. Amy swore she turned it off, yet it somehow stopped working between her using it before the bridal shower and that evening when I tried to touch up my hair before dinner. To stop the bickering, my mother finally snapped at us, “If it’s that big of a deal, I’ll buy you a new flat iron! Why can’t you two get along?”
Going to kill them, I texted Megan from the bed I was sharing with Amy after we shut out the light.
She didn’t reply. That was happening more and more frequently these days. Was it wedding stress or living with Tim or just us growing apart? I didn’t know.
Thank God for Alex. I copied my text to Megan and sent it to him.
Chicago is a good place for that, he said. What’d they do? I explained the clothes and flat iron debacles. Why didn’t you just say no?
I rolled my eyes. Doesn’t make a difference when I do.
Have you actually tried it? Or if they say to bring your flat iron so they don’t have to bring theirs, just don’t bring one.
Isn’t that totally passive-aggressive?
Says the girl who told me there’s always money to passive-aggressively troll someone? No, if you actually say the word “no” to them and then follow through, that’s the exact opposite of passive-aggressive.
But it’s my mom and sister.
Even better. They need tough love from someone who actually loves them.
Do I though?
Yes. Now go to bed and don’t add to Chicago’s murder stats.
Okay, okay. Good night.
“Who are you texting?” Amy whispered over our mother’s snores.
“A friend.”
“You smile like that for all your friends?”
“Yes,” I said defensively, setting my phone down.
“Oka-ay,” she murmured.
I waited a moment, listening to our mother’s half starts and then resumptions of the noise she was making.
“How are we going to sleep over that?”
“Right? How does Dad sleep every night?”
“He must be used to it by now.”
“Thank God Tyler doesn’t snore.”
We didn’t speak for another minute or two, and I thought about what Alex had said. “Hey Ames?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you please ask before you take my clothes? I don’t actually mind lending you stuff if you ask first. But today sucked.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, surprising me. “I was just trying your outfit on and then Mom said it was so much better than what I brought. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
I seldom saw my mother critique Amy in the same way she did me, but I thought back to my dad’s comment that she was hard on Amy in different ways. And I wondered if Amy saw how often she did it to me, or if we both thought we were the only one. How much of the tension between us is because of her?
And was she just doing what she had learned as a kid? My mother and her sister competed over absolutely everything. And my cousin, who was six months younger than me, was married, with her second baby on the way, which was probably part of why my mom was so upset that I was still single. It meant Anna was winning the Joan and Anna battle royale for sibling superiority. But Anna’s youngest was still single, so Amy’s impending wedding gave my mother a leg up, hence the current favoritism—at least as I saw it.
I wondered if it was something genetic and if I was destined to do the same thing to my eventual kids. My grandmother, as accepting as she was of me, picked my mother apart pretty regularly. And while my mother said she had learned to ignore her, I had seen her change her hairstyle after a comment from my grandma. Or remove an outfit from circulation entirely.
Maybe none of us had it easy.
But maybe being more aware of how we treated each other could help break the cycle.
“Thanks,” I told her, and I reached across the queen bed and squeezed her arm.
My last thought as I rolled over to go to sleep was to be relieved I hadn’t kissed Alex at his company benefit. I needed him too much.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The morning of Caryn’s shower was the first, and only, time I ever mentally thanked Caroline for anything. Because of the shower’s start time, I got to sleep gloriously late and wake up with a luxurious stretch and birds bringing me my breakfast.
Okay, maybe not the birds.
But I did sleep in and drink a cup of coffee out on the balcony, the first time it had been nice enough to do that all year. In the DC area, you tend to get about three days of true spring between winter, second winter, fake summer, monsoon season, third winter, and then swampy summer. And because it was shaping up to be one of the few true spring days, I used my free time to go for a run.
By the time I had eaten a light lunch and cleaned myself up, I felt ready to conquer the bridal shower, wicked bridesmaids of the west and all. I put on my first-ever piece of Lilly Pulitzer clothing (okay, so it was bought secondhand off Poshmark and was a few years old, but I couldn’t afford a new one and this was the only time I would ever actually wear it) and a pair of wedges and set off for the country club with my professionally wrapped gift in tow. I was even early—I knew Caroline was lying about not needing help setting up.
I gave my hair a last brush and touched up my lipstick before I handed the valet my keys and walked confidently inside.
A quick check of my watch told me it was two thirty, but there was already a sign in the lobby pointing to the Donaldson-Greene Bridal Shower. Perfect, I thought, bypassing the front desk.
The gift blocked much of my view. I had gone with a registry vase that was just barely out of my price range, and the box was enormous, especially festooned with the multiple bows and spiraling ribbons that belied a talent far beyond my wrapping abilities.