Chapter 17: The Shower

"We're not going," Bonnie said on Sunday at one-thirty, standing in my shop in her good coat with a gift bag in her hand.

"Then why are you holding a present?"

"It's a seam ripper. Gift-wrapped." She held up the bag. "In case."

We went.

The doorman on Ruston Way was awake this time.

He looked at me for a long second when I came through the lobby.

He remembered me dripping on his carpet in October.

"Sixth floor," he said. "Ma'am, there's forty of them up there."

There were forty-two.

Unit 6C had a pink and gold balloon arch over the door and a sign on an easel that said WELCOME TO BABY MEADE'S SHOWER.

Bonnie read it out loud, slowly, twice.

Inside it was all white couches and floor-to-ceiling windows over the bay, and women in cream sweaters holding pink drinks.

Some of them I knew.

Two had been my brides. One was the admin with the lanyard, without the lanyard, looking like she wished she'd stayed home.

The room went quiet in a ripple when they saw me.

Then Shayla came out of the kitchen.

She wore a white knit dress that clung to every inch of her.

One hand was on her stomach, and the Meade emerald was on the other.

"Edie!" She threw her arms out. "You came! Everybody, it's the seamstress. Isn't she brave?"

Nobody clapped.

"I brought you a seam ripper," Bonnie said, and held out the bag.

Shayla took it with two fingers and passed it to a bridesmaid without looking.

There was a cake on the dining table.

Three tiers, pale blue and pink, with a little sugar tugboat on top and BABY MEADE piped across the front in gold.

There was a gift table piled to the ceiling.

Shayla clinked a fork on her glass.

"I want to say something," she said. "Because everybody's heard rumors, and I'm done being quiet."

She was never quiet.

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