All the Good Parts by Loretta Nyhan

Author:Loretta Nyhan [Nyhan, Loretta]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781503937383
Amazon: 1503937380
Goodreads: 29542914
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2016-09-19T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

The Carver-Wittelsteins’ couples baby shower had valet parking.

“Bet they didn’t expect anyone to show up on bikes,” Carly said, waving at someone in the house. She made a show of dismounting, obviously getting off on how ridiculous we looked. I hadn’t changed after my visit with Jerry, and Carly, dressed in a stretchy red wrap dress and gray high-heeled boots, had halted the valets in their tracks as she pedaled hard up the Carver-Wittelsteins’ gravel driveway. She’d insisted we leave the car at home because, according to her, their wine cellar was legendary, and we were both due to get “absolutely stinking pissed drunk.”

I didn’t quite know why she thought I deserved a good boozing, but I understood why she felt entitled. Her argument with Maura—loud, teary, and vicious in that cutting, take-no-prisoners way mothers can spar with their daughters—jolted me from a comatose sleep around midnight. Carly screamed that Maura had missed curfew, and Maura screamed right back, insisting Carly hadn’t set one. It went on for too long, both of them repeating words like “trust” and “common sense” over and over, as if the other person weren’t listening. Which could have been the truth.

Carly needed to make a new set of rules going forward, but she didn’t know how to write them, and Maura sensed her confusion. It wouldn’t take long before she exploited it, and Carly knew it.

We passed our bikes to the eager valets. “We’ll take good care of these, ladies,” said the older one as he glanced at Carly appreciatively.

She beamed at him and retrieved a brightly wrapped box from her basket before he wheeled her bike into an achingly clean three-car garage. I felt self-conscious as I followed her up a column of massive stone steps, then doubly so as the heavily pregnant Mrs. Sophia Carver-Wittelstein opened her door and looked at me with questioning eyes.

“Donal couldn’t come,” Carly explained. “This is my sister.”

Sophia smiled weakly. “What happened to Donal?”

“He couldn’t make it,” Carly explained. “You didn’t specify what kind of couple on the invitation, so I thought Leona would be a good substitute. She’s willing to participate fully.”

Participate?

Looking troubled, Sophia took the gift from Carly’s hands and balanced it on her enormous belly. “I guess that’s okay,” she said while stepping back to let us in. “Welcome to my home, Leona.”

Built of marble, granite, and metal, the Carver-Wittelsteins’ home was an Italianate homage to suburban architectural overreach. They believed in largesse as a general decorating philosophy, and this extended to the shower decorations—official-looking banners and flags, all in pink. Soft pink, moneyed pink, good-mannered pink, the kind that didn’t hurt the eye or call attention to its girlishness. The banners hanging from the fireplace bore flags scripted with the letter F or K.

“What’s that all about?” I whispered.

“They’re naming her either Faith or Karma,” Carly said while taking in the decor. “What a choice. One’s a crapshoot, the other’s a bitch.”

“Karma is nice, but I kind of like Faith,” I told her, feeling that someone should defend the girl destined to crawl around on all that cold marble.

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