Fed Up (17 page)

I spent most of Friday afternoon and evening at my parents’ house, and I was back there again at nine on Saturday morning to finish the preparations for Adrianna’s shower. I’d already finished some of the work: the table linens had been washed and ironed, the white dishes set out, the flowers arranged in vases. The candles were ready to be lit. Fortunately, an eleven o’clock shower meant brunch: it was much easier for three amateurs to do brunch food than it would’ve been to cook and serve lunch or dinner. Dad was going to be kicked out of the house when the guests started to arrive, but for now he was busy arranging a fruit platter.

“Why did I get stuck with the fruit platter when there are four boxes of perfectly delicious pastries I could be setting out?” My dad eyed the white cardboard boxes tied with red and white string.

“Jack, you cannot be trusted with the pastries. That’s why you’re in charge of cantaloupes and kiwis.” My mother walked across the kitchen with a tray of bagels, cream cheese, lox, red onions, and capers. “I’ll try to save you some tiramisu if you promise to stay away until after the girls have gone. Chloe, watch your father,” she instructed me as she disappeared into the dining room.

“Dad? What does Mom think she’s doing with that
thing
on her head?” I was referring to a silk-flower headpiece my mother wore.

“Ah, yes.” He cleared his throat. “That’s her latest craft project. She seems to believe that floral headwear is going to be the fashion hit of the year.” He spoke with amused resignation.

I shook my head in disbelief. “She looks like she’s going to a Maypole dance.” I’d have to make sure that she didn’t accessorize with that monstrosity on the day of Ade’s wedding. “Dad!” I yelled. “No!” I practically had to tackle my father, who had grabbed a pair of scissors and was on the verge of breaking into the pastry boxes.

“Oh, all right. Some help you are,” he teased. “I did my dumb fruit platter, so I’m going to get out of your hair and go to my yoga class. Did Mom tell you about it? It’s wonderful! Watch this.”

Dad raised his arms while teetering awkwardly on one foot. Even while he was striking a ridiculous pose, I had to admire how muscular my middle-aged father was. He still had a full head of hair, most of it gray, and with his fit build and those Paul Newman blue eyes of his, he was quite a handsome man.

I laughed. “Okay, Dad. Go work on your chakra or whatever, and we’ll see you later.”

Dad grabbed a gym bag and blew me a kiss. “I’m trusting you to snatch a few of those treats for me.”

“Hey, Dad?” I stopped him. “Thanks so much for everything you’re doing for Adrianna and Owen. Especially walking her down the aisle. It means a lot to her. And to me.”

“You got it, kiddo. We love those two. It will be an honor for me to stand in for her father.” He smiled and went out the back door.

I mixed up a yogurt dip for the fruit platter and then put puff pastry shells in the oven to bake. They’d eventually be filled with a sweet cream filling and topped with strawberries.

At about quarter of eleven, when I was finally finishing up, my mother answered the doorbell and let Robin and Nelson in. Ushering them into the kitchen, she said, “Chloe, your friends are here.”

Not friends, exactly.

“You’ll never believe it,” my mother exclaimed, “but Robin and I know each other!”

Nelson, hiding behind his camera, panned to my face.

I said, “Oh, really? How?”

“Robin produced a show on gardening at a house where your father and I had designed the landscape. Small world, isn’t it?”

“That was what? Two years ago?” Robin asked.

“I think so,” Mom agreed.

“Come on, Nelson,” Robin said. “Let’s get some footage of the rooms and the decorations.” She directed her cameraman to the dining room. Robin wore a bright floral dress, and an eighties-inspired wide white belt hugged her small waist. She stomped away with Nelson, and her skirt flounced decisively.

A few minutes later, at five before eleven, the doorbell rang again, and I welcomed Naomi, who’d supervised my school internship during the past year, into the living room. When Naomi engulfed me in her usual bear hug, I had to blow her long braids out of my mouth. Since I’d known her, Naomi had chosen a version of the Bo Derek hairstyle; her entire head of hip-length hair was braided into chunky strands.

Naomi barely knew Adrianna, but Adrianna had so few female friends that I’d had to pad the guest list. Including men wouldn’t have worked, since almost all of Adrianna’s male friends were ex-boyfriends. The women who disliked Adrianna were fools. They envied her looks and were put off by what they saw as her haughty manner. Little did they know what a loyal, generous person she really was. In any case, Naomi belonged at the shower and at the wedding because she’d written the letter of recommendation for me that was required by the commonwealth before issuing a Certificate of Solemnization. Attesting in writing to my “high standard of character,” as the instructions phrased it, had made Naomi feel intimately involved with everything about Adrianna and Owen’s wedding and procreation. Among other things, she’d mistakenly gained the impression that Adrianna and Owen were following her advice about what she called “alternative birthing” methods. Naomi, who was a big fan of the alternative, the natural, and the New Age in all its forms, had had a long conversation with Adrianna about the benefits of acupressure, hypnosis, water birth, and guided imagery during labor. It was typical of Naomi to have misinterpreted the gasps of horror that Adrianna emitted during the discussion as exclamations of enthusiasm. In reality, Naomi’s arguments in favor of drug-free birth had done nothing except fuel Ade’s desire for a super-strength epidural.

“What an exciting day!” Naomi was glowing with enthusiasm. “Wait until you see the gift bag I have for our mother-to-be! It’s full of aromatherapy oils that promote relaxation during labor. And all sorts of other goodies! In a bag made from natural hemp, I should add. Just like my dress.” Naomi spun around, sending her braids flying horizontally off her head while showing off her clay-colored pinafore. I ducked before I got smacked in the face but complimented her on her politically correct attire. “What a beautiful house!” she exclaimed after her three hundred sixty-degree spins.

My parents’ stucco house did look wonderful. In keeping with Adrianna’s fall theme, my mother and I had run red, orange, and brown ribbons along the traditional Spanish archways that ran between rooms on the first floor. Last year, my parents had refinished the wood floors in the large living room and had put in terra-cotta and decorative hand-painted tiles in the dining room to enhance the style of the house. The walls had been painted in soft earth colors, and at times I felt as if I were actually in New Mexico instead of in a Massachusetts suburb.

Adrianna arrived dressed entirely in hot pink, her nails painted to match her above-the-knee maternity dress and her chunky shoes. “I swear on my baby’s life that I’m going to kill my mother,” she hissed into my ear as I hugged her.

Adrianna was soon followed by her mother, Kitty, who appeared to be in deep mourning. She wore a black pantsuit with no accessories except a watch that she was already checking. Her badly tinted blonde hair hit her shoulders, where it rolled under in a perfect curl. Her expression suggested a combination of dissatisfaction and grief. Despite Kitty’s fune-real garb and air, it was hard to miss her incredible figure and easy to see where Adrianna had gotten her modelesque looks.

“Chloe, it’s lovely to see you. Where shall I put this?” Kitty held up a white gift bag.

“I’ll take it. It’s wonderful to see you, too.” Knowing that Kitty did not like to be touched, I leaned in and gave her air kisses. “I know my mother is eager to catch up with you. Why don’t you go find her in the kitchen?”

“Wonderful, darling.” Kitty brushed past me to seek out my mom.

I went to shut the door and nearly slammed it in Owen’s face. “Owen? What are you doing here?”

Poor Owen’s disheveled appearance made me suspect that Kitty had put him through the wringer since her arrival yesterday. No matter what, Owen was always incredibly handsome, but today his black hair was messy, and his fair skin had a sickly pallor.

“I drove Ade and Kitty here. I can’t leave Adrianna alone with that woman! Please let me stay.” His expression was pitiful.

“No, you can’t stay, dummy. This is a shower just for the girls. I promise I’ll mediate the Kitty situation. Ade will call you when it’s over.”

“But what if—”

“It’ll be fine,” I said as I shoved the groom-to-be out the door.

I introduced Robin and Nelson to Adrianna and then left the three of them to discuss the video.

Next to arrive were Owen’s mother, Eileen, his grandmother, Nana Sally, and his cousin Phoebe. Moments later, two women from Simmer showed up: Isabelle, a shy young cook whom Josh had taken under his wing, and Blythe, a waitress. My sister, Heather, who had let herself in the back door, deposited a gigantic box on the coffee table. Heather had curled her hair into a mass of Shirley Temple ringlets. As usual, Heather was vibrating with such energy that she made the rest of us look like slugs. The mother of a one-year-old and a five-year-old, Heather always looked as if she’d just emerged from fourteen hours of sleep followed by a trip to a spa.

“Give me a hug, Sis.” Heather wrapped me in her arms and held me tight. “So I hear that young Emilio caught your eye. Any chance you’re finally done with Josh?”

I pushed her away and glared at her. “Don’t start,” I warned her.

“Don’t get all pissy. I’m just asking.”

Unlike my parents, Heather was anything but a fan of Josh’s. Her idea of the perfect man for me was a money-maker who had gone to a four-year college and who worked a traditional job with regular hours.

“Well, stop asking,” I snarled. “And today is about Adrianna, anyway, not about me. Or Josh. So we are not getting into it now.”

She smiled sneakily. “But Emilio is hot, isn’t he?”

I couldn’t help grinning back. “Well, duh!”

I didn’t notice Nelson until he quickly turned his camera away. The exchange with Heather was a segment that would have to be edited out of the final video. I hoped, of course, that there would be few such segments. But at least the video would show that a satisfying number of people had attended the shower. Desperate for guests, I’d expanded the list by including a couple of my fellow students from social work school, Julie and Gretchen, who must have been bewildered about why they had been invited to a shower for someone they didn’t know, but who showed up nonetheless.

The guests helped themselves to plates of food from the dining room. My parents had sprung for champagne, which was poured, served, and sipped by most of the guests. Adrianna avoided it, of course, as did I, but Owen’s grandmother, Nana Sally, compensated for our abstemiousness by quickly drinking her first glass, refilling it, downing that one, and then getting yet another refill. “Mother, go easy!” I heard Eileen whisper.

Kitty sat down next to Eileen on the living room couch and nibbled on a shortbread cookie. I sighed, hoping that they’d manage to converse without bashing the wedding. In particular, I hoped that Eileen would refrain from voicing her belief that Adrianna had tricked Owen into marrying her by getting pregnant. Nelson and Robin stood a few yards from the couch with the camera focused on the two women. If my fears were realized, here was another segment that would have to be edited out. Alternatively, maybe Robin could replace the audio throughout the tape with music, thus obliterating forecasts of marital doom.

“Chloe?” Adrianna handed me a cup of tea. “Who are those girls over there?”

“Oh. Um, well . . .” I faltered. “That’s Gretchen and Julie. You remember them, don’t you?” Raising my cup of tea and taking a sip, I tried to act as casual as possible. In other words, I tried to avoid having Ade realize that she had never even seen either of them before. “They were so happy to hear about your wedding and the baby that I just had to invite them.”

“Uh-huh.” Ade looked at me doubtfully.

“Come on! Let’s open presents.”

I signaled to my mother, who joyously clapped her hands and addressed the entire group. “Everyone? Let’s all gather over here while our guest of honor opens her gifts.”

The older women sat on the couches, while most of the younger women seated themselves on the floor around the coffee table. I reserved a big, soft, upholstered chair for Adrianna.

“I’m never going to get out of this seat,” Ade said as she sank into the deep pillows.

“Open this one first,” I ordered, handing her my present.

Adrianna unwrapped my gift and looked totally boggled.

“It’s a BabyBjörn,” I had to explain. “You strap the baby to your body and voilà! Hands-free! Like a backpack for your front. I got the leather one so you’d be the most fashionable mommy out there.”

“This is so cool!” Ade beamed happily. “I really think I’m going to like this. I’m still learning about all this baby stuff. I’ve never even heard of this.”

Next she opened a box packed full of small baby items, gifts from my sister, Heather, who said, “I know these might not look exciting, but they’re all things you’ll use. See? Teethers, rattles, baby blankets, bottle brushes, one-sies, wipes. Seems boring, but they’ll be useful.” My niece, Lucy, was one, and my nephew, Walker, was five. Heather prided herself on having nearly every conceivable baby and child gadget ever invented.

“Wow, Heather. This is amazing.” Ade rooted through the gift box, her eyes wide with interest at all these never-before-seen infant supplies. “This is so thoughtful of you. Thank you.”

Adrianna had never been one to fawn over babies—worse, she’d actually seemed to dislike children—and her surprise pregnancy had thrown her for a good loop. Early on, I’d given her some books about pregnancy and about baby care, but I was far from sure that she’d read them. Owen was the one who’d hurled himself into stocking up on kid paraphernalia. Only as Ade opened the baby presents with little apparent recognition of everyday baby items did I understand how hard it was for her to come to terms with the prospect of motherhood. The gifts were, I thought, giving her the boost that she needed to get through to the end of her pregnancy; the fun stuff was a better choice than my books had been. Remarkably, Adrianna even looked interested in Naomi’s aromatherapy oils and in the big inflatable ball that Ade was supposed to sit on during major contraction time. Cousin Phoebe and Nana Sally jointly gave Ade a Baby Jogger stroller that looked as if it could be propelled over rock-strewn mountains without jostling the child, and Gretchen and Julie from my school were generous enough to give a stranger three adorable unisex baby outfits. Shy Isabelle and Blythe the waitress had put together a collection of board books for babies that would endure hours of the kid gumming and chewing the hard pages.