On the Rocks (22 page)

I fancy myself quite the problem-solver.

We started chatting as the sun began to set over the water, a sight that despite living on the Eastern Seaboard my entire life has never ceased to impress me. So far, Pete seemed like a guy with real potential, if for no other reason than he made me laugh. I realized that while throwing myself into the ocean might have been a bit extreme, allowing someone to physically knock me over on the beach wasn’t the worst way to meet a guy.

“So, do you have any interest in grabbing dinner next weekend? It’s the least I can do to apologize.”

“I thought this beer was your way of apologizing?” He was asking me out, I realized. And this time Bobby couldn’t claim that he was drunk and didn’t remember what I looked like.

“That was before I knew you. Now that I do, I think dinner is in order. How about we go to the Black Pearl next week? I’ll make a reservation and prove to you that I’m actually much more polite than our initial meeting would have you believe.”

“Okay. I’d like that,” I said with a stupid smile more appropriately found on fourteen-year-old girls.

“Great. Want to say eight o’clock?”

“Eight o’clock it is.” And just like that, I was booked.

We continued to make small talk until I felt a light tap at the back of my head and turned to find Bobby, grinning widely.

“Hey, I’m Bobby,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around this summer. Do you guys know each other?” he asked Pete, knowing full well that we didn’t know each other at all.

“Not exactly. I accidentally knocked her over. I figured the best way to make it up to her was to get her a drink,” Pete said, smiling politely at Bobby.

“Get out, you actually knocked her down?” he asked. “That’s great. I mean, I don’t know how many love stories begin with physical violence, but you never know.”

“It was an accident,” I said in Pete’s defense. I didn’t want this potentially good guy to be known as a violent offender before we even had dinner.

“Okay,” Pete said cheerfully. “I’m going to go find my friends. Abby, it was really great to meet you. I’ll see you next Saturday at eight, okay?”

“Great. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Nice to meet you,” he said to Bobby as he shook his hand before leaving.

“Hey, it was great to meet you, man. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

Pete waved as he walked away, and Bobby huddled next to me, like we were going to gossip like girlfriends.

“Guess who has a date?” I sang as I watched Pete disappear into the crowd. “One that I got all by myself.”

“I picked up on that! That’s great! Aww, see! I told you things would turn around. Our little girl is all grown up.”

“Thank you,” I said as I clinked my cup against his.

“One word of caution, though. He was a little furry. If that’s what his chest looks like, I don’t even want to know what is going on with the rest of him.”

“Oh, would you stop! He seems very nice!”

“Good, I hope he is. Come on, Wolf’s wondering where you’ve been. Let’s go find the crew.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said as Bobby wrapped his arm around my neck and escorted me back to the party.

A few hours and more than a few drinks later, we walked home singing Bob Marley songs in the kind of cheap-beer drunken haze I hadn’t felt in ages. It was the first time in a long time that Grace and I had both been genuinely happy. Neither one of us was being weighed down by relationship baggage. We were the girls we used to be: carefree and optimistic about the future. Bobby fell into step with me as Grace gushed to Wolf about Johnny finally being hers.

“I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you that this one has real potential. I want you to know that,” Bobby said. “His chest hair can keep you warm during our long Bostonian winters.”

“Very funny.”

“I thought so. Can I come to dinner with you? Where are you guys going? I’ll just sit at the bar, I won’t say a word, I promise.”

“Sorry, I don’t think I want a chaperone. Thanks for offering, though,” I said as I poked him in the ribs.

“Things are looking up for us, Abs,” Grace mused as she winked at me.

“It’s about time!” I answered. And that was the truth.

I spent the next hour before bed laughing with my friends on the deck, looking forward to a legitimate date with a nice, albeit hairy, guy and thoroughly enjoying the company I was keeping.

Chapter 14

Vodka Is Everyone’s Favorite Orphan

M
ONTHS HAD PASSED,
but I dreaded going back to Vera Wang the way I dreaded calling the pizza place down the street once they started to recognize my voice. I really shouldn’t have complained about Katie wanting me to do this one maid of honor task for her, especially since I hadn’t really done a single thing to help her plan her wedding. I figured as long as her fiancé showed up at the church, there wasn’t really anything for her to worry about. Katie took my disinterest to mean that I was jealous and resentful of her for getting married before me, which was partially true, but it wasn’t the only reason why I didn’t want to sit with her while she tasted thirty versions of chocolate cake. At the time, I had been busy. Really. I was. I had a lonely carton of Cherry Garcia in my freezer probably going through some epic separation anxiety.

The second week of July I walked down to Newbury Street and paused in front of the bridal salon.
Hello
,
old friend,
I thought as I peered in the window
. I never meant for things to end this way.
I was trying to be a good maid of honor, and more important, a good sister, so I made sure that I had left with enough time to stop by the lingerie store, aptly named “Intimacy,” and pick up Katie’s bridal underwear for her like she asked. I knew picking up my little sister’s bridal undies would be painful, but I was ready for it. I was prepared. What I was not prepared for was for the salesgirl to mistake me for the bride, stare at my rear end, inform me that the size small would most likely not fit, and suggest that I buy a full-coverage granny panty instead. There was nothing quite like the unique humiliation of having to explain that I was not the bride, but only the fatter, older, jilted sister of the bride, so the size small panty would be just fine for my size small sister and her size small ass. That was nothing short of excruciating.

I took a deep breath as I prepared to enter Vera Wang, when Grace called. I figured she was calling to reassure me that my return to Vera wouldn’t be as mentally torturous as I was expecting it to be. Not exactly.

“Thank God you called,” I said. “I need a pep talk before I go back into this store. I think I’m breaking out in hives or something.” I scratched at the skin on the back of my neck. I knew it was going to mess with my head being back in Vera Wang. I didn’t think it would mess with my skin too, but it felt like my neck was on fire.

“Abby, I need you to help me,” Grace said as she sobbed into the phone with such choking spasms I had a hard time understanding her. “You have no idea what just happened to me.”

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?” I froze as I waited for her to answer, terrified that she had been in some kind of accident or that someone had died. I glanced at my watch and realized I was already fifteen minutes late for Katie’s appointment. It didn’t matter. She’d have to wait.

“His wife just called me at the office,” she whispered, and I could hear the panic and the fear in her voice despite the fact that I could barely hear her at all.

“Oh my God. What did she say?” I said calmly, hoping somehow that this wasn’t as bad as I knew it was.

“She told me to stay away from her husband and called me a home-wrecker. She asked me if I knew he had a wife and kids at home and said only an evil woman would come between a man and his family.” Grace was hysterical.

“I don’t know what to say.” I didn’t. Neither of us had any experience with this type of situation. It was complicated, and Grace may not have made the best decisions where Johnny was concerned, but it crushed me to hear her this upset. We had known that if she had an affair with a married man, she was going to have to deal with the fallout, but deep down we were hoping it wouldn’t happen. I wanted to be with her, and I glanced at the bridal store and wished that I didn’t have to go inside. I would have stayed on that corner and talked to her forever if she wanted me to, the same way she had talked to me when I needed her. That’s what friends are for. The problem was, I had a sister in a wedding dress who needed me too. “What did you say?”

“Nothing. I listened to her scream at me, and then she hung up. What could I even say? I’ve never felt this bad in my life,” she wailed. “How did I end up here?”

Then I repeated the words she had said to me months ago. “I wish there was something I could say here to make you feel better. I know you’re a good person, but this sucks. Are you sure this is what you really want?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know that he told her he’s going to leave her, and that’s what you wanted, and I’m happy that he’s finally doing what he needs to do to be with you, but that’s not going to change the fact that this woman hates you and is going to make it her life’s mission to ruin you.”

“I love him. I know the timing was horrible and I did things I’m not proud of, and I have to live with that. But I love him and I want to be with him. Why does it have to be so goddamn hard? Why couldn’t I have fallen in love with someone who was single like normal people?”

“Because love isn’t rational, and sometimes you can’t choose it. It chooses you.” I glanced up at the store window again and realized that so many people associated bridal salons with the happiest times in their lives. I associated them with one of the worst in mine, and now in Grace’s too. It was clear that for some reason this store had very bad mojo. I decided I’d try to avoid walking by it going forward.

“I can’t believe this is happening.”

“How’d she get your number?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t even know how she found out about me.”

“She’s not stupid, Grace. When he told her he was leaving her, she probably went through his phone or something. Men rarely leave their wives unless there’s someone else for them to go to. They can’t be alone. Ben might have stayed with me as long as he did simply because he didn’t know how to work his washing machine. Eventually she had to find out about you if you guys are going to be together.”

“I was prepared for eventually. I wasn’t prepared for today.”

“I know, babe. I know. I think you need to get out of there. Can you go home?” I asked, checking my watch again and watching the minutes tick by.

“I already left. I’m on my way home now, except I walked the wrong way. I feel like I’m spinning in circles.”

“Go home, take a hot shower, and curl up on the couch. I’ll be over as soon as I can.”

“Don’t tell anyone, please. No one else understands the way you do. I’m so ashamed.”

“I won’t, I promise. Everything will be okay.” I tried to sound soothing. I don’t think it worked.

“Hurry up. I don’t want to be alone right now,” she cried, so desperately I actually winced.

“I will. Just sit tight, I’m coming.”

She hung up, and I threw my phone in my bag as I mentally switched gears and hurried into the salon. My heart broke for her, and I was nervous about leaving her alone when she was so hysterical, but there was no way I could miss Katie’s appointment. Grace had single-handedly nursed me back to sufficient mental health, and now when she needed me most I had to make her wait. Why did everything always happen at once?

I stared at the floor as I walked to the back of the room and met my mother, sitting in a chair, looking at herself in a compact mirror, fixing the makeup she probably applied with a spatula. My mother had apparently been doing some maintenance on herself in preparation for the wedding. She looked like a wax figure that escaped from Madame Tussauds.

“Hey,” I said as I slouched down next to her in my long black cotton dress, baseball hat, and dark sunglasses. I gave her a peck on her Restylane–filled cheek “How are you?”

My mother eyed me curiously. “Why do you look like you’re about to rob a bank or something?” she asked.

“I’m afraid the salesgirls will recognize me. I’m pretty sure I’m banned for life from this store. I probably could be arrested.”

“You could be arrested for walking around looking like a homeless person, that’s for sure. You would feel so much better about everything if you dressed nicely and got a new haircut or something. It’s been months, Abby. When are you going to start taking care of yourself again?”

“Not today, Mom. Definitely not today.” I sat on the chair that Grace had occupied eons ago, only I didn’t have the luxury of slugging champagne like she had. I was too embarrassed to even look at the salesladies, never mind ask for a cocktail. If I’d been smart I’d have packed a flask.

“Did you take my advice and look into ordering a juice cleanse?” my mother asked. “I don’t want to upset you by asking, but you never call home and tell me anything so you leave me no choice.”

I’m trying to save money
,
and long-distance calls to the underworld are pricey,
I thought.

“No. But I started running again. That should help,” I said. I heard my aunt Patrice in my head, reminding me that my mother was trying to help me, and tried very hard to keep my composure.

“Well, if you don’t want to do a cleanse, why don’t you do what I did and become vegan?”

“I don’t even know what that is.”
And I don’t care,
I thought.

“It’s simple, really. You eat mostly vegetables and soy products. You can’t consume anything that once had a mother and a father.”

“Lucky for you vodka is everyone’s favorite orphan,” I said flatly. Bye-bye, composure.

“What’s with the attitude?”

“Honestly, I’m trying to lose the weight, but you constantly reminding me that I’m fatter than usual isn’t helping. And really, who cares? No one will be looking at me.”

My mother shrugged, finally acquiescing. “Okay, suit yourself. We’ll just buy you some extra Spanx, maybe a full body shaper. I’m sure we’ll find something that’ll help.”