A Bump in the Road (9 page)

“You know, if you ever want something new to read, Clare’s a great writer.”

“Oh, really?”

“Her Web site is hilarious. You should really check it out. It’s really popular, too. How many hits do you get every day?”

“I don’t know. It’s never the same.”

“How many on average?”

“Something like twenty thousand.”

“See, Aunt Marianne? Twenty thousand people read it every day.”

“You know me, I don’t have time to check my e-mail. I’m just so busy, busy. You know who is also very popular?”

“Who?” Carrie asked, rolling her eyes slightly at me.

“My friend Sally’s daughter Amanda. She writes columns for our church bulletin. She is such a good writer. You should call her sometime and get some writing tips.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said, not looking up from my magazine.

“Are you girls sure you don’t want to go antiquing with us?”

“Positive,” Carrie said.

As soon as Marianne was gone I said, “Thanks for trying.”

“No problem. Don’t let her get under your skin. It’s not worth it. She’ll be in the nuthouse in a few years anyway.”

“I’m so glad you’re here. Jake doesn’t understand why his mother makes me want to drink myself to death sometimes.” As soon as I said it, I got very sad again when I realized I’m going to spend the next nine months dealing with my mother-in-law without the aid of any intoxicants.

“No problem. I feel your pain. Marianne asked me last week after my photography exhibition why I take pictures of boring things like the sky and clouds instead of babies dressed as flowers like that Anne Geddes.”

“Nice. So what are we doing tonight? We should probably make plans so we don’t get roped into corn husking or something of the sort.”

“I already know what we’re doing tonight and it doesn’t involve any cranapple martinis this time,” Carrie said, and smiled at me. She flung her magazine on the ground and laid her head back.

“Oh, uh. Good. I mean, what?” I said, suddenly uncomfortable.

“We’re going to this bar about five minutes up the road. Patrick and I passed it on the way here. It’s practically in the middle of a cornfield. It’s one of those places without a name or address, just neon beer signs in the window.”

“Huh? You want to go to some weird bar?”

“Of course! It will be a blast. We can get drunk off of two-dollar beers with all of the alky locals.”

“Oh, um, yeah.” I shifted in my chair and thought,
How the hell am I going to get out of this one?

She opened her eyes, assuming my hesitation meant ambivalence. “Fine, stay here and sing campfire songs with the mosquitoes while the three of us hang out in the air-conditioning.”

“I’ll probably have to be designated driver since it’s my turn.” Yes! I found a loophole!

“Whatever. That’s fine. Too bad for you, though.”

“Yeah, gee, too bad,” I said. Looking back, I’m surprised she didn’t bust me right there with how horribly I delivered the line. I should’ve just snapped my fingers and added an “Aw shucks.”

But Carrie just looked down at her hand and said, “My ring is amazing.”

We left to go out around nine last night. Despite my fears the entire place would stare and the music would stop with a loud
riiipppp
when we walked in the door, no one even looked up when we entered. In fact, there were only two other people there, and they looked too hammered to even lift their heads up.

“What do you want?” Jake asked.

“Diet Coke.”

He signaled to the bartender.

“A Diet Coke and a Bud Light bottle.”

The bartender shook his head and wiped the sweat dripping off his forehead. “No glass in here. Cans only.”

Jake looked at me and shrugged.

“A can is fine,” he said to the bartender.

“What are you guys getting?” I asked Carrie and Patrick.

“Three vodka shots please,” Carrie said to the bartender.

An hour later, they were all pretty buzzed. By ten thirty, the bar became as packed as a gun show in Alabama. Someone unplugged the jukebox and a DJ started playing.

The DJ got on the microphone. “All right fel-las! It’s Saturday night and you know why you’re here, dontcha?”

A loud cheer erupted from all of the men. I swear I heard a “Yee-haw.”

“It’s time for our world-famous THONG CONTEST!”

I prayed,
Oh, God, please, please tell me I heard that wrong
.

No, I didn’t.

In fact, the DJ passed around a hat for donations to give to the lucky winner, and asked for volunteers.

I practically had to sit on Carrie so she didn’t run up to be a contestant, although she would’ve won hands-down. The four girls who volunteered looked like they were straight out of a
Jerry Springer
panel. And not one of them came in under three hundred pounds.

The DJ started the music and Sisqó’s “Thong Song” came on.

“Contestants, show your stuff!!” he shouted, pumping his fist in the air.

“Those chicks could be wearing shorts and they’d qualify as thongs in those asses!” Carrie hissed at me.

All four girls started simultaneously wiggling around on the dance floor, unbuttoning their Jordache jeans and lifting up their T-shirts. One girl decided she
had
to be crowned “thong bitch” (as she told her friend), and went for the gold and took all of her clothes off. I realized I’d hit a new low as I sat there, drinking my Diet Coke, watching a naked fat chick hump a peanut-shell-covered floor.

Carrie, of course, egged the girl on. “Go for it, girl!
Aw-huh
, that’s right! Work that shit!”

Naked Fat Girl won the contest and she was presented with the money in the hat, which totaled fourteen dollars.

“Can you believe that girl did a porn show for fourteen bucks?” I asked Jake.

“Clare, that girl would’ve done that for a quarter,” he answered.

“I wonder what she would’ve done if you gave her a Snickers?” Carrie asked.

Twenty minutes after the porn show, the DJ put on the song “Black Betty.”

“You know what to do!” he shouted.

I thought:
No, what? No, seriously, what?
Please
don’t take your clothes off, portly biker man. Everybody, keep your clothes on. I am
sober,
people. Please don’t do this to me
.

Everyone except us jumped on the bar and started line-dancing, or at least, I think it was supposed to be a line-dance but it really just looked like a bunch of drunks hopping around on one foot. We all sat at our table and obligingly clapped along and cheered when it was finished, thinking the show was over. Oh, no, the DJ played that song every half hour, which made it somewhat difficult to get a drink
since we were afraid to put our fingers on the bar, lest they get separated from our hands by the heel of a cowboy boot.

Eight thousand cans of Bud Light and a few more shots later, it was time to leave. We did realize at some point that the “no glass ever” rule was one we’d recommend they keep since we witnessed three fights by the end of the night. One I think was over cigarettes or something. All I know is the skinny guy beat the shit out of the fat guy and made his girlfriend cry.

Oh, and the thong contest winner had sex with some guy in the bathroom while I was peeing but I was too exhausted to care.

We made our way back to the campground. Carrie and Patrick immediately went to their cabin to pass out while Jake and I decided to stay up for one more beer. Fueled by the massive quantity of alcohol Jake consumed and the fact we couldn’t fool around in the cabin, we started making out. The klassy surroundings inspired us and we wound up doing it in our car. Yep, I have become a broad who goes camping, watches naked chicks compete in thong contests, and gets it on in the backseat of a used Ford Taurus.

I am officially pregnant white trash.

The camping weekend thankfully behind me, I posted pictures from the hillbilly bar on my blog. The overwhelming favorite is the one of the thong contest winner licking Jake’s face. Wifey1025 said she’s jealous.

I’m moving from one extreme demographic to the other today and attending the first Gala meeting with the entire committee at one of their estates. I’ve tried to dress up, wearing my best suit and shoes, and twisted my hair into a knot. I pray they stare at my chipped manicure instead of my eyebrows, which I forgot to pluck last night.

2:30
P.M.

The meeting did not go well at all. After I arrived twenty minutes late due to extremely poor Internet map directions, I tried to quickly smooth my frizzed updo into submission but it was to no avail; strange wiry hairs kept poking out of the sides, giving me a Medusa-like appearance.

I booked it to the front door of the gaudiest house I’d ever seen. Easily ten thousand square feet of real estate, giant round pillars evoking a Taj Mahal feeling, accessorized with two seven-foot-tall Adonis statues. I tried not to stare at Adonis’s giant marble penis as I rang the doorbell.

A woman in a maid’s uniform answered the door and silently led me through the gold-embossed foyer to an opulent living room, where ten Women’s Board ladies sat.

“. . . and then we will have Asian lanterns—” Carolyn looked at me with disgust and abruptly stopped while all of the other nine perfectly coiffed heads turned to stare at me. “Clare. So good of you to make it. Thanks for coming.” She shot me a look of death.

My eyes spastically darted around the room as I desperately searched for a place to sit until Jessica smiled and waved me over to share the ottoman she perched on. “Thanks,” I whispered to her, and she gave me an amused smile.

Carolyn’s ice-blue eyes narrowed as she waved me away with a dismissive motion of her pale white hand. “This, ladies, is Clare Finnegan. She’s from Signature Events and will be helping us to make this event a great success.” She smiled tightly at me. “Assuming, of course, she arrives on time.”

The other ladies tittered as I turned three shades of crimson.

Carolyn continued about the importance of the Gala and I began to steal glances around the ornate room at the other women. Each was attractive, some with obvious nip-and-tuck work and some naturally pretty in a pinched, constipated, WASPy sort of way. Nearly every woman was dressed in a Chanel or St. John tweed jacket in a shade of pink.

As I pretended to take notes on what Carolyn blabbered about, I passed the time by mentally assessing what each woman’s outfit cost. I wondered if anyone would chase after me if I ripped Betsy Fallon’s shoes off her feet and made a run for it, since I’m pretty sure alligator Manolo Blahniks are worth more than what I made last month.

I snapped back to reality when Jessica stood up and passed out packets containing the invitation list.

“Everybody, if you could look through the packet and let us know if there is anyone you’d like to add to the invite list.” She flicked her long dark hair over her shoulder.

“Clare, you’ll be assisting us by personally delivering the VIP invitations.” Betsy Fallon’s nasal voice stabbed through the room.

I gritted my teeth and gave my usual reply of smiling a bit too brightly and chirping, “Great!” while mentally envisioning running out of the house with the Tiffany lamp in my arms.

Afterward, we all retired to the dining room for a lunch of “Salade Niçoise,” which pretty much just looked like canned tuna atop a bunch of lettuce. Some of the women took pity on me and tried to be friendly by asking me where I got my suit, but quickly lost interest when I told them I got it on the sale rack at J.Crew.

Halfway through the cold pear soup, I became temporarily blinded in my right eye from Stephanie Cohen waving her left hand with what had to be a twelve-carat diamond on her finger. The freaking thing looked like an ice cube. I glanced down at my own ring, which suddenly looked very, very tiny.

I drifted off again during their conversation about the best boarding schools (“definitely in the northeast”) and began to wonder what it would be like to have as much money as these women. God, what would it be like to have summers in St. Tropez, winters in Telluride, country club memberships, BMWs, and a beach house on Hilton Head Island? Seeing as how I’m “in the family way” now, I have no idea how Jake and I are going to afford day care
and
running water, let alone private schools, college tuition, an emergency fund for when our dear child rams our new car into a telephone pole, a new
iPod when he/she gets his/hers stolen at school, sports gear, field trip money . . . We seriously need to win the lottery. (Although I don’t think obsessively playing the state lottery will do anything for my new “pregnant white trash” status.)