The liquor store offered Megan three types of gin: botanical, citrus, and peppercorn. When the cashier asked her preference, she said, “Surprise me. And throw in one of those two-liter plastic bottles of club soda.”
She didn’t know what Tom was going to do today and she didn’t care. But Megan was going to get drunk in the bathtub.
While adding more hot water by turning the faucet with her toes, causing the bubbles to rise up to her ears, she tried to let the gin and soda iron out her thoughts until her mind was wrinkle-free. A place of refuge.
She didn’t want to think about how much Tom was to blame—for everything. For his invertebrate way of letting his family dictate his entire life and their entire life together. For the way he thought he was remaining a neutral party when what she really needed him to do was stick up for her family. Even once would’ve been nice. Donna might be a head case, but she’d always treated Tom well. And Brianna could be a pain, but she had her moments. Megan’s family wasn’t all bad, because, if they were, what did that make her?
Maybe if Tom had shown more respect for the Givenses, it might’ve been contagious and rubbed off on John and Carol.
The first time she’d met them was Thanksgiving of their sophomore year. They were babies, only nineteen, but their love felt bigger than their age, bigger than their experience (or lack thereof). Driving with Tom to his paternal grandmother’s house in Connecticut rather than flying home to be with her own family had felt brazen.
It hadn’t occurred to Megan to worry about what she wore to dinner—until she took in Carol’s and Emmeline’s pointed once-over. It also hadn’t occurred to her to refresh her mental résumé before sitting down to converse with John, not realizing that impressing the Prescotts was a full-time job.
Everyone had been polite to her in the most cursory way. She wondered if she’d imagined their disapproval. If her breeding had been East Coast wealth, for example, would they still have insisted she and Tom stay in separate rooms?
Tom did manage to sneak into her room every night. They slept together only once, worrying about the creaky bed, but spooning with Tom until the sun came up made the daytime hours more bearable.
Until the morning they were scheduled to drive back to Cambridge.
Megan had showered and blown out her hair and was coming down the stairs for breakfast when she overheard Tom talking to his parents in the library.
“You aren’t really serious about that girl, are you?” John asked. “She’s smart, but I’m afraid her background is too different. You know how important it is for children to have a father figure in the home.”
“What does Thomas know about serious relationships? He’s still a teenager,” Carol had scoffed.
“Well, son? Tell us if this is something we need to worry about.”
And then Megan heard Tom speak in a voice that didn’t even sound like his own. The Tom she knew was compassionate, optimistic. Jovial. This one sounded meek. “It’s not a big deal,” she heard the man she loved say. “We’re just having fun.”
But Tom was the first guy Megan had taken seriously. Every other boy she’d kissed had been a quick and playful diversion.
She knew Tom had never felt about anyone the way he felt about her. He’d told her that the first time they’d slept together and often ever since.
Why didn’t Tom’s parents approve of her? She wasn’t high-maintenance like her mother. She wasn’t a deserter like her father.
Sure, she didn’t have traditional parental role models, but she could rattle off countless names of successful, incredible people who’d grown up in homes that didn’t look like the Prescotts’. What kind of monster believed there was only one right way to be raised? One way to be worth something?
Of course, what kind of person spied on her boyfriend’s family from the hallway?
As much as she wanted to put John in his place, she’d swallowed the argument. Instead, she’d cleared her throat loudly enough to announce herself, plastered on a bright smile, and thanked the Prescotts profusely for their hospitality. They might have found fault with plenty of aspects of Megan’s life, but her manners were impeccable.
While she and Tom drove back to campus, they laughed about the stiffness of the weekend, full of relief to be back to a life where they could be themselves. She’d never mentioned the conversation she’d overheard or any of the other disparaging comments that followed over the years.
Every family was complicated. It didn’t seem fair to openly pick on Tom’s when her own was equally problematic.
She and Tom both put up with a lot. She supposed they’d had a tacit agreement—Tom trusted Megan to take point on dealing with Donna’s (and Brianna’s and Alistair’s) antics, and in turn, she’d let him deal with his family in his own way.
She sank further into the bathtub, sipping from a plastic cup she’d found by the sink. The ratio of gin to club soda was rapidly increasing. She chewed on the rim, her bottom lip flexing to tip more into her mouth, letting the cool gin swirl between her bottom teeth and onto her tongue. She was well on her way to full-fledged inebriation when she heard the beep of the key card unlocking the door.
“Megan Rose Givens,” Donna called. “Where in the fresh hell are you? I’ve been looking for you all morning.”
“In the bath.” Megan’s words were garbled as she still had the plastic cup between her teeth. She opted to ignore her mother’s sudden and inexplicable Southern drawl.
“I don’t want to see her naked,” she heard Brianna state matter-of-factly.
Megan arranged the bubbles over the bottom half of her body, then snatched a washcloth off the edge of the tub and placed it over her breasts.
In an instant, Donna was looming in the doorway, Brianna’s face peeking over her shoulder.
“This is a fine time for you to be luxuriating,” Donna snapped. “When I am in crisis.”
“Mom’s in crisis,” Brianna echoed dryly. “Why haven’t you been answering your phone? Why does no one in this family answer my texts?”
“Because you don’t seem to like any of us.” Megan topped up a cocktail that was basically straight gin at this point. She was glad the liquor-store employee had given her the botanical flavor. It was indeed refreshing.
“I like you sometimes.” Brianna glared at her before recoiling. “Ugh, rearrange your bubbles. I don’t need to know your preferred bikini-wax shape.”
“I don’t wax. I trim.” Megan was enjoying giving very few fucks. Maybe she’d give them all away. Or not have any left. Her ability to be coherent was getting blurry.
“Would you two stop bickering?” Donna bellowed. “You’re always making everything about the two of you when I have a very real and very disturbing problem.”
“Mom’s dress is too boobalicious,” Brianna said, popping two sticks of gum in her mouth at once. “And I reminded her there are minors at this establishment.”
“Mom’s dress is moot.”
“My dress is what?” Donna seemed to feel she’d been offended, though she wasn’t quite sure how. She was teetering from Southern to British.
“Moot.” Megan sat up, sloshing water over the sides of the clawfoot bathtub, her washcloth still sticking to her chest like a terrycloth bathing suit. “Irrelevant. There’s no wedding, ergo there’s no wedding rehearsal dinner.”
Donna spun toward Brianna. “I can’t talk to her when she’s drunk. She’s acting just like Husband Number Three. You deal with her.”
She marched out of the bathroom and, from the sounds of things, proceeded to flump herself onto Megan’s bed.
Brianna was grinning wickedly. She snapped her gum. “You and Mr. Perfect have a fight?”
“Several, actually. Over the course of many days. Or one day, if you want to get technical.”
“I can’t talk to her either. She’s bonkers,” Brianna hollered at their mother over her shoulder.
“Tell her to get her act together and help me find something to wear tonight,” Donna yelled back.
“You’re supposed to get your act together and help Mom,” Brianna unhelpfully repeated. “She also said you’re her least favorite child and she’s bequeathing everything in her will to me. You may not have heard her say that last bit. It was quiet.”
The last of the gin coupled with the unwelcome arrival of Donna and Brianna had turned Megan’s mildly bemused misery to anger. It happened so quickly, she almost didn’t register it.
“You know what?” She stood up, grabbed a towel, and wrapped it around herself as her washcloth top fell and she accidentally flashed her sister. “I don’t have to put up with you, I don’t have to solve Mom’s imagined crises, I don’t have to marry Tom, I don’t have to do a damn thing. Not today, not ever.”
Brianna took a step back. “Whoa. Bridezilla is rearing her freaky head.”
Brianna’s sass was covering up real unease. Even through her gin-soaked haze, Megan could see it. Megan had dedicated her entire existence to making everyone else comfortable, including her sister, whom she’d basically raised. Megan had been a pleaser since birth because she’d had to be. If she wasn’t actively trying to make everyone happy, her critics grew raucous. She’d always believed the world needed pleasers.
However, today was different. Today, making her sister feel uncomfortable was making Megan feel powerful. She pushed past Brianna, dripping wet and wondering vaguely if she’d grabbed a hand towel instead of a bath towel by mistake.
“Get the hell out of my room! Both of you. Today is about me and no one else.”
To Megan’s great pleasure, Brianna and Donna both scurried away. The door slammed behind them.
As she toweled off, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror.
Her face was flushed, her eyes wild.
She was unabashedly naked.
Suddenly, there was only one thing she wanted to do today.