The Shower

“Welcome, Miss Knox. The ladies are expecting you. Just go straight up.”

“Thanks, Robert,” answered Luanne.

She loved the building’s entrance. Neither she nor Heath lived in doorman buildings, and she enjoyed the luxury of walking through the corridor to the elevator. Plus, having someone hand you a package upon arrival home seemed decadent.

Unlike the opulence of her betrothed family, Luanne’s family lived in a log cabin down a picturesque dirt road in Northern Maine. Luanne’s mother had thrown an Hour Shower in their hometown of Hadlock Harbor, Maine, a few weeks prior. The Turndot family and friends of the groom politely declined. FOMO presided, and Ruby and Bits Turndot, Luanne’s future sisters-in-law, offered to host a shower in New York. To keep conflict to a minimum, she reluctantly acquiesced. It would all be fine, she told herself. Nonetheless, the doorman entrance and Ruby and Bits’s “shabby chic, everything is chipped” décor sat in opposition, reinforcing her sentiments about the shower. She wanted to make a good impression as she entered the new family and, therefore, complimented the sisters’ taste each time she visited.

A few days before the shower, the sisters created a text chain for the three of them:

BITS: Luanne, this is so great you are letting us do this. Cannot wait. Loads of fun.

RUBY: What shall we wear?

LUANNE: I appreciate the familial welcome. Blue sundress. White wedge espadrilles.

Luanne awaited a reply.

Texts from the two sisters often left Luanne in a state of ambiguity about their actual interpretation. How could so much angst come from a few innocuous words, befuddled her. Heath told her she was paranoid if she asked for his input on responding and, therefore, she was often left dangling, and regardless of what she said, it would probably be wrong.

Luanne’s regret exacerbated as the day of the New York shower neared. When the sisters offered to host a second one, one for those who could not travel to Maine might attend, she knew yes was the only acceptable answer. Yet with less than three days to go, contrition overwhelmed any positive feelings about having let them guide the process.

Several months earlier, Luanne and Heath had spent hours in Bergdorf’s fine dining department examining, inspecting, debating, and finally choosing items they would cherish forever.

Ruby instructed Luanne to register at a few other places. Guests would appreciate more variety. Macy’s, Bed Bath & Beyond, Target, and Home Depot were suggested stores. Luanne waited before responding and considered showing the message to Heath, but to thwart his siding with Ruby and saying how lovely she was to be thinking of them, she texted back ‘great.’

After work, two weeks before the shower, Luanne chose towels, a shower curtain, and various everyday items like a blender and toaster oven at Macy’s. Heath and Home Depot did not fit together in one sentence, and the other two box stores of home goods seemed even less personal than Macy’s. Her whole life, Luanne dreamt of items coming in big-bowed boxes imprinted with a scroll-style B filled with porcelain from Haviland, Limoges, and Spode.

Luanne checked the Macy’s register on Friday afternoon, the day before the shower, and no items had been ordered. The shower gnawed at her, but she felt a gracious front maintained calm and peace between her and Heath. And her husband-to-be’s family.

Several years prior, like most of their college friends, Luanne and Heath moved to New York after graduation. Luanne’s high school friends remained in Maine. Heath’s circle either came from the tri-state area or was enamored with New York’s vibe. Excited about living in a city near his family, Luanne had no knowledge of his siblings and potential familial interactions before the move. She met them at graduation in a fleeting moment between their respective family and school events.

After a rotation of roommates, both Luanne and Heath settled on purchasing an apartment on the Upper West Side. They had saved, and with help from her parents, they made the downpayment. To her family, it appeared they lived the high life. To his parents, they asked why an apartment in Carnegie Hill had not been considered. Luanne's parents gave them a small amount to put toward the wedding; it covered the church and the limos. Heath's parents, on the other hand, paid for a rehearsal dinner at Momofuku Noodle Bar and a sit-down wedding dinner at La Grenouille for approximately 200 guests.

Luanne tried to keep it lowkey around her family, but with Heath working on Wall Street and her job as a buyer at Bloomingdale’s, they took weekend jaunts, rented ski houses in Vermont, and beach houses in the Hamptons for the summer, just like their friends. Her parents had requested to friend her on FaceBook, thus blowing any chance at keeping Luanne's whereabouts secret.

Luanne was certain that Ruby, who worked at a publishing house, and Bitsy, a curator at Sotheby’s, saw her as riding on Heath's coattails. Each time they met, Luanne felt like she wore a scarlet GD for ‘Gold Digger’ emblazoned on her forehead. Luanne, an only child—other than some close cousins—had nothing to compare familial interactions to and did not entirely comprehend the attitude of Heath’s sisters toward her. When invited to family dinners at places like Picholine, Café des Artistes, and Le Cirque, the answers from Ruby and Bits ricocheted with a resounding affirmative. But when Luanne attempted to befriend them by offering a glass of wine, a movie and hanging out with pizza, a negative response always came back.

The morning of the shower, Luanne swept her hair into a high ponytail and tied the bow at the back of her sundress. She draped a sweater over her shoulders, after which she placed two hostess gifts into a large LL Bean Tote to protect them on the ride to Ruby and Bits' apartment.

Three hours after entering the sisters apartment, she rode down in the elevator and made her way to the brass double doors. Luanne thanked Robert for holding the right side open.

When he asked if he might hail a cab for her, she politely declined. Heat ripples emanated from the street, and Luanne waved down the first taxi with an illuminated sign. After placing the empty tote beside her, she sank against the cool, pleather seat.

Her phone buzzed.  

HEATH: How’d it go? Need me to help carry loot?

LUANNE: No guests. No loot.

HEATH: Joke, right?

LUANNE: No guests. No loot.

HEATH: What do you mean?

LUANNE: In cab. Meet my apartment in 30.

HEATH: K

Tears rained silently inside Luanne until she climbed out of the cab and closed herself off from the refreshing air. The steaminess of the city stung, and she gasped. Unable to hold back any longer, tears streamed down her cheeks. She sniffled. Luanne knew that when Heath saw the red eyes and puffy face, he would understand what had happened. Alone in her three-floor walkup, her roommates away for the weekend left her time to get the bulk of the crying and sobbing over with. Thirty minutes did not go by quickly enough. Having given him a key, Luanne did not need to get up to buzz Heath in. Her roommates were okay with his being there as long he cooked in rotation and brought decent wine.

“What happened?”

With her toe, Luanne pushed the small piles of crumpled tissues off the glass coffee table. She launched into full-body heaving sobs. Although it was barely 4:00 PM, a half-empty wineglass sat next to the Kleenex box. A less than half-filled bottle sat on the other side of it. After about ten minutes of hugging, comforting, and wiping her nose and tears across Heath’s shoulder, Luanne took a double gulp of wine and inhaled a very wet sniffle, finally ready to answer his question.

“Got there,” she said between gulps of air and nose blows. “All looked good in your sisters’ type of decorating way.”

Heath released his arms from her shoulders, loosely enough for them to look at one another but not close enough for Luanne to use his shirt as a tissue again.

“My sisters were very gracious to invite my mother’s friends and family, plus a few of my friends, to your shower.” Heath sat back and folded his arms across his chest, still facing Luanne.

“Oh, they invited people. TWO DAYS AGO.” Luanne managed to get out without any gulps or hiccups. Their eyes locked as her voice raised.

Heath scratched his head.

“THE SHOWER—was me, Ruby, and Bits. No one else. No anything to bring home.” She reached for a Kleenex and gave a loud honk, after which she wiggled to the couch’s edge and stood up. From the table by the door, she picked up a small white bag with a gold bow that she had tossed on its side when she had gotten home. She removed the candle and frame from the bag and held them up for Heath to observe.

“Where are Margie and Janine?” Heath asked, looking around at the closed doors.

“Not invited. Remember, they came to the shower in Maine.”

“No one came?” Heath asked again. He furrowed his brow.

Luanne explained she arrived early as planned, having brought two hand-painted fruit bowls from Mackenzie-Childs as hostess gifts. The three women sat around the coffee table and waited. Each of the sister’s phones buzzed a couple of times shaking the stacks of teacups on the glass table. Canceled or can’t make it today, Bits and Ruby read. An hour after the party’s start time, the three of them ate dried-crust sandwiches and drank some Lipton's Yellow Label Tea.

Luanne returned home carrying fewer gifts than she had arrived with—a single Hallmark silver-plated picture frame in a box with dented corners—a joint gift.

Heath sat quietly, his arms still folded against his chest. Luanne went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. She returned with splotches on her shirt.

An hour later, Heath called Momofukos and La Grenouille to canceled the rehearsal and wedding dinners. Luanne pulled another glass from the cabinet, pushed the Kleenex box to the other side of the table, and poured the remaining wine for Heath.

First thing Monday morning, Luanne and Heath headed downtown to Town Hall. An hour later, they boarded a train out to The Hamptons.