I tapped my palm against my forehead in faux aggravation with my silly memory. Emily, quite predictably, was wearing one of her flowing skirts, a fitted T-shirt over it and a belt wrapped around her waist. She was carrying a present wrapped in fabric.
“What’s that?”
“Cloth diapers,” she said, “wrapped in a reusable burlap sack.”
“How lovely,” I said, thinking of the sterling silver teething ring in the pink toile paper under my arm.
I was afraid I had misjudged the shower, my gift, and the attire, until we pulled up to the hostess, Kimberly’s, home. It was a large, two-story brick house with a circular driveway that held nearly all of the guests’ cars. A sprawling backyard connected with the enviably green golf course, and they blended so seamlessly I wondered if thegreenskeeper was also their yardman. The front door was decorated with the largest pink bow I had ever seen, a labyrinth of different shades and textures so fine that I was certain it had cost more than my gift. The front urns, instead of being filled with small boxwoods, were overflowing with long, pink stems of every variety imaginable. I tried not to be impressed. And we hadn’t even opened the door yet.
“Hello, lovely girls,” Kimberly said, opening the door, handing us each a glass of champagne with a satin ribbon tied around the stem and tiny pink cranberries floating in it.
She kissed us, and I noted that even her home smelled pampered. Instead of cooking smells or cleaning products floating in the air, it was a blend of restful relaxation, notes of flowers and chocolate, like even the house didn’t have to do anything but look and smell beautiful.
I looked around the high-priced baby shower, realizing that it was obviously given by a childless friend. I smirked at how totally inappropriate the theme was: exotic cheeses with wine pairings. I wondered if she didn’t realize that a pregnant woman could have neither. One look at her face, though, told me that this soiree was a stab, as understated as the linen tablecloths, at her friend for betraying her—and, by extension, nights of drinking on the patio until sunrise—for motherhood. I took a bite of my Blythedale Camembert and said to Emily, in a tone that she would understand, “This really is so lovely.”
Kimberly, in a Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress so tight I could see her belly button, came out from around the corner to refill my half-full champagne glass and, looking at Jill, the mother to be, said, “Oh, isn’t she just glowing?” Her mouth smiled, but her eyes looked as if another woman had just stolen the last size 6 Brian Atwood pump from the Barneys shoe department sale.
I smiled. “You know, she really does. She’s so tiny.”
“So,” Kimberly said, pushing the bra-strap-length platinum hair out of her face, “are you and Ben planning on having kids anytime soon?”
I shrugged, a gesture that revealed nothing, but obviously insinuated to Kimberly that we weren’t planning on it.
The light returned to Kimberly’s green, heavily lined eyes as she said, “Oh my gosh, me neither.” Then she added, “Hey, we should get together sometime, you know, for coffee.” She winked at me. “Or cocktails.”
Before we could set a firm date or time, Jill’s mom appeared at Kimberly’s side and asked, “Do you think Jill could have some water?”
“With all of this delicious wine around, why would anyone want water?”
Jill’s mom laughed, but I think Kimberly was only partly kidding. She was by far the most spoiled of the group with the least home training and as infertile as concrete, as I later learned. But she was looking for a new friend and so was I. She was feeling me out to see if I was worth investing her time and energy in, to see if I had a few good years left in me before I too would abandon her for life with baby. That had given me a little lift.
I spotted Mrs. Taylor out of the corner of my eye and raised the champagne glass to my face to hide my, “Oh, good Lord, no,” to Emily.
But we had been spotted. As Mrs. Taylor, cane and limp firmly in tow, lumbered over, Emily said, “Love you, shug, but you’re on your own,” before whirling in the other direction and waving toward basically anyone else in the room.
“Mrs. Taylor, you’re looking well,” I lied. In reality, she wasshoved into the largest size of St. John knit suit like a sausage into a casing, breathing heavily from the mere effort of walking across the room.
“Oh, Annabelle,” she said. “I do absolutely adore that dress.” She set her empty champagne glass on the perfectly coordinated and labeled cheese table, where it stuck out like a piece of licorice in the sugar jar. “Wherever did Ben find you?”
I didn’t respond because, though I couldn’t quite identify why yet, I felt like she was lining the trap with peanut butter, waiting for me to walk right in and take a bite.
But nothing could have prepared me for what she said next. “You know we all just always thought he would marry Laura Anne.”
I hope I didn’t look as stunned as I felt. I felt that familiar nausea return to the surface. I wanted to walk away, but I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of having caught me off guard. So I said, smiling politely, “Well, every past girlfriend made him the amazing man he is today.”
She opened her mouth to continue, but I put my finger up, saying, “Excuse me, I need to make sure I remembered to put the card with my gift.”
I felt my breath catch in my throat and, looking around at the smiling, straight-haired girls all around me, realized that I didn’t have a single real friend in the group. Any of them would have asked me about my weekend or what Ben and I were doing for Labor Day. But I couldn’t whisper to any of them about my encounter with Mrs. Taylor. Not one person in that room would laugh with me and say, “Oh, who cares about that anyway?” And now I knew why. They weren’t my friends. They were Laura Anne’s friends. And those two things, totally unbeknownst to me, were as at odds as detoxing and McDonald’s.
I went to stand around Jill and watch the gift opening. I tried to catch Emily’s eye, but she was bubbling over like the champagne in her glass about something or another to a friend on the couch. I tried to look interested in every pink baby blanket and monogrammed onesie, but the reality that my husband hadn’t told me about an ex who was as prominent in town as Cheerwine billboards was nagging me too much to enjoy myself.
I snuck out the door, knowing that I wouldn’t be missed, sensing Kimberly’s irritation from across the room that someone had thwarted her plans. Gift opening wasn’t a part of this non-baby baby shower agenda. I texted Emily,Had to jet, and took off the pumps that were sticking into the damp earth of the golf course. It couldn’t have been more than a half-mile walk home, but, instead of giving me time to cool off, it only gave me time to become increasingly agitated. How could he not have told me? How could he let me walk around this town thinking I was the only woman who had ever been a dot on the radar screen when everyone was saying behind my back that he should have married Laura Anne?
So I did what I always did. I picked up the phone.
“You are so old and so boring that I don’t possibly want to listen to anything you have to say,” Cameron said.
I smiled. “I just found out that my husband dated this girl that I’m always hearing about, and he didn’t even tell me. Can you believe that?”
