Girls in White Dresses - JENNIFER CLOSE [57]
Their friend Kristi was engaged. They were all happy for her. They were all bridesmaids. They were all sick of celebrating it.
Kristi was really 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 all of the attention and she wanted all 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 all given a time of day, and had to buy a present that went along with it. Isabella got two a.m. “What am I supposed to get them for two a.m.?” Isabella asked everyone. She agonized over it, ignored Lauren’s suggestion to buy them handcuffs, and finally 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 Isabella.
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 all 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, all 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 college, friends from work. Every time they were sure that they were done, someone else got engaged. And all 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’ll 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 Well 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