On the Rocks (36 page)

“You are the whitest white man I’ve ever met. What makes you think you can dance?”

“I watch
Dancing with the Stars.
”

“Part of your being well rounded again?”

“I repeat: Renaissance man.”

I watched Bobby weave his way through the crowd and start dancing with the woman in the red Lycra dress. Bobby couldn’t dance, but that wasn’t really what I noticed. I noticed that he didn’t care. He was out there having fun, not concerned with who was watching, or what he looked like, or where the night was going. And it made me feel like dancin’.

I wove through the crowd on the dance floor and saw Grace in her bright yellow sundress out of the corner of my eye, still talking to a bunch of Navy guys who were more than happy to supply her with an endless stream of cocktails. She smiled when she saw me and immediately reached into her clutch and pulled out her cell phone.

“Here,” she screamed so I could hear her over the music, already so buzzed her eyes were starting to glaze over. “Take this.”

I took the phone from her and threw it in my bag. “Okay. Why?”

“Because I don’t trust myself to not drunk-dial Johnny later, and if I do that I’ll have to kill myself. I’m being proactive here. Don’t give it back to me no matter what I say, promise?”

I was impressed she had the foresight to keep herself from doing something stupid in her drunken stupor. Why hadn’t I thought of that back in the day? It would have cut the number of death threats I had sent Ben by at least half. “You got it. I won’t return this to you tonight under any circumstances.”

“Perfect. Come on, let’s dance!”

I joined Grace and the Navy guys on the dance floor and happily accepted a tequila shot from one of the sailors. I made eye contact with Bobby as I held my shot glass up in the air, and he smiled as he nodded approvingly. For the next two hours, I danced like the whitest white girl on the planet, one who had never seen a single episode of
Dancing with the Stars
and couldn’t have cared less. I may have looked like a complete idiot, but fast music and alcohol will make you worry about that, well, not at all. We stayed on the dance floor until last call, swaying and jumping and sliding and covered with sweat, and when the lights came on, Grace was nowhere to be found.

“We lost her!” I yelled to the boys as people filed out of the bar and into the street by the piers.

“Gracie dancie!” Wolf sang as he grabbed me and spun me around.

“She’s a big girl. She’ll be fine,” Bobby said. “You looked good out there!”

“You think so?” I asked, continuing to dance toward home.

“No! Not at all, but you looked like you were having fun, so who cares.”

“I was. I don’t think I’m going to be able to walk tomorrow, my feet are so sore.”

“Another benefit of being at the beach. Shoes are optional.”

“You’re a genius,” I yelled as I twirled on the sidewalk.

I took my shoes off as we walked home in a drunken haze, singing and laughing, enjoying the perfect night air and one another. When we got back to the house, we sat on the porch with more beer, a bag of Tostitos, a jar of salsa, and a pack of cigarettes for Bobby. We stayed there for a few more hours, having so much fun that none of us wanted the night to end—so much fun that none of us thought twice about the fact that Grace never came home at all.

Chapter 23

It Doesn’t Count if You Have to Blow Them Up or Pay Them by the Hour

I
WOKE THE NEXT MORNING
still in my clothes, lying on top of the covers on my bed. I reached for my bag on the nightstand, checking to make sure my credit cards and driver’s license made it home with me. I found both my cell phone and Grace’s and tried desperately to remember how I had gotten home. No dice.

I begrudgingly dragged myself out of bed and outside to the porch, where Bobby was drinking coffee and reading an article on his iPad. I had no idea why he was here so early, but I was happy to see him. I was hoping he could piece together the night for me.

“Hey,” I said quietly as I sat down next to him and threw both cell phones on the table. My queasy stomach and pounding head made it hard to even blink my eyes. I was too old to be hungover like this. One of the other side effects of getting older was that hangovers seemed to get exponentially worse.

Bobby slid his iPad out of the way and pushed his coffee mug across the table. I took a sip and immediately felt my stomach lurch. Adding caffeine to the copious amounts of alcohol no doubt still sloshing around in my stomach was probably not a good idea, but my headache couldn’t have cared less if the coffee came from the head of the Colombian drug cartel—it wasn’t turning it down. “How are you feeling?” he asked, his sunglasses making it impossible to determine if he was actually looking at me or not.

“Okay,” I said as I continued to drink his too-strong coffee. “I don’t remember getting home last night, to be honest. What did we do to ourselves?”

“Yeah, you were pretty blitzed by the end there, not that I was sober at that point either. I think we might have overdone it a little.”

“We’re old,” I said sheepishly. “I can’t drink the way I used to.”

“Speak for yourself. I feel great.”

“Seriously?”

“No, I actually feel like shit. My headache woke me up. I came over here because Wolf was listening to European techno music and I couldn’t stand it. But a little hangover is a small price to pay for a great night out.”

“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” I said as I rested my head on the table. “Where’s Grace?” I asked, hoping to turn the conversation away from me and my drunken activities from the night before.

“Haven’t seen her. We lost her in the bar last night. I called her before we left, but then your bag started ringing and I realized you had her cell. There was nothing else I could do.”

“So we just left her there?”

“Or she left us. I looked all over for her, but I couldn’t find her anywhere, and she looked like Big Bird in that bright yellow dress. I think I would’ve spotted her if she was there. Don’t worry, I’m sure she’s fine.”

I sighed. I was sure she was too, but I didn’t like the idea of her not having her phone on her. Newport wasn’t exactly a high-crime town, but still, there are some things that a drunk girl shouldn’t be without. A cell phone topped that list. Pepper spray was right below it, provided you weren’t well versed in how to use nunchucks.

“Well, I’m relieved I made it home in one piece and managed not to lose a shoe or my bag or something. Though I’m not sure why I slept in my clothes.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Huh?”

“I put you into bed last night. You were hysterical. You couldn’t walk a straight line, and you kept singing ‘Anchors Away’ to a bunch of the sailors on the sidewalk. You can’t sing, by the way.”

“The least of my problems,” I moaned.

“No arguments there. Anyway, I figured it was better to leave you in your clothes. I have a rule: I don’t undress drunk girls for any reason.”

“You, my friend, are one of the last true gentlemen.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“I’m sorry. I appreciate it.” Then small flashes of the night before started to play through my mind. There was a dance floor incident. There were shots. There was a woman in a red dress that had gone out of style sometime around the
Flashdance
era. Slowly, pieces of the puzzle seemed to fall into place. Grace was doing shots with a bunch of sailors, and then she was gone.

“No problem,” he said. “What are friends for?”

We sat in silence for a few minutes as he returned his focus to his iPad. I checked my watch—it was 11:00
A.M
. I was starting to get worried about Grace. I stood to stretch my arms over my head, leaned over the railing of the deck, and immediately cracked up laughing, which I wished I could stop because it exacerbated my headache. But there was no way to not laugh at what I was looking at.

“Let me guess, it’s Grace in her Big Bird dress?” Bobby said.

“How did you know?” I asked as I stared out at the street at the disheveled, wrinkled girl in a yellow dress who looked an awful lot like Grace—or at least what I imagine Grace would look like after waking up under a tree somewhere. She walked slowly, her sandals dangling from one hand.

“Because she got busted on the Walk of Shame site! Her picture was posted ten minutes ago!” Bobby laughed as he showed me his iPad. Grace’s embarrassing picture was front and center for everyone in Newport to see. This was so not good.

As Grace approached the house, Bobby stood and started applauding. She staggered up the stairs to the deck and collapsed in one of the chairs. “Next time I tell you to take my phone, don’t do it,” she said as she picked up her cell and checked for messages. “You have no idea how badly I needed that thing this morning, and I was completely incommunicado. I just walked two miles home. Never again. My feet are destroyed.”

“What happened?” I asked her as Bobby went inside and poured her some coffee. He returned and placed the mug in front of her and leaned against the railing.

“You look like hell, Grace,” he said with a smirk. “If it’s any consolation, you look worse in person than you did in the picture I saw on the Walk of Shame site!”

“Are you kidding me? Someone took a picture of me walking home this morning and posted it already? I didn’t see anyone. What does he use, a telephoto lens?”

“Yup. If I had seen it earlier, I’d have come looking for you. Sorry,” Bobby said.

“I swear to God I will find out who is behind this stupid website and I will kill him. I will murder him with my own fucking hands! It should be illegal!”

“How do you figure that? He didn’t take a picture of you in the shower. You were walking down the street.”

“But everyone will think that I, you know, I . . .” Grace yelled.

“Forget the stupid website. It’ll be on to the next victim by tomorrow. What happened?” I asked again. “Are you okay?”

“Theoretically, yeah. I ended up back at some guy’s house. One of the ones I was talking to in the bar. They were having a late-night party, so I figured, why not, right? I’m single now. That’s what single girls in their thirties do. They go to house parties and hook up with random dudes.”

“Not
all
single girls in their thirties. Abby doesn’t, though not for lack of effort,” Bobby said.

“Thanks for that,” I said as I shielded my eyes from the sun.

“I don’t know what happened,” Grace continued. “One minute we were playing cups on the back deck, and the next thing I know I woke up in a bed all by myself, and the whole house was empty. He left me there. The guy just got up and went to the beach or wherever with his buddies and left me asleep in a strange house.”

“Maybe he thought you needed some beauty rest,” I offered, trying to make her feel better.

“Maybe he took one look at you this morning and realized he’d rather gnaw his own arm off than have to do the awkward morning-after conversation, so he just ditched and said a prayer you’d find your way out,” Bobby offered as an alternative suggestion.

Grace and I stared at him, shocked once again at his utterly blunt and heinous assessment of the situation. I crossed lawyers off the list of professions I’d ever entertain the notion of dating. They have absolutely no bedside manner, and worse, you’re all but guaranteed to never win an argument.

“The worst part,” Grace continued, “is that I really had to pee, but was so humiliated that I ran out before I used the bathroom. I ended up copping a squat in the bushes on the way home, and I used leaves as toilet paper, and now I’m worried I just gave myself poison ivy in places no girl should ever have poison ivy.”

“That’s not good,” I said as Bobby burst out laughing. “That sure as hell won’t help your new single social life.”

“Look at me! I break up with Johnny, and this is what I have to deal with? I refuse to do this. I won’t be like you, Abby, running around trying to date anything in pants to avoid being alone. I can’t. It’s simply not an option.”

“Whoa, what did you just say?” I was sure she didn’t mean for that to come out the way it did. Why would my best friend say that I was pathetic? She wouldn’t.
Would she?

“I’m going to call him. I’m going to force him to make a choice. It’s me or her, he can’t have both. And he has to decide now.”

“I’m confused,” I said. “He already made his decision. And you already broke up with him. Quite dramatically, I might add.” I wondered if I had been hallucinating when we had that conversation.

“I’m going to take it back. I’ll apologize, and everything will be fine,” she said, irrationally panicked.

“Grace, you’re just upset,” I said, trying to talk her out of making an epically bad decision. I knew this look of desperation. I’d been there. And if you’re allowed to act on that emotion, regret always follows.

“I know,” Grace said in a small voice, tears welling in her eyes. “Rationally, I know. But the heart wants what the heart wants.”

Grace’s phone buzzed. She snatched it off the table.

“Thank God, it’s him,” Grace said. I grabbed her free hand and stared into her eyes.

“What happened to you being done with this? Grace, please just tell him to go kill himself and get on with your life before you waste another two years.”

“We work together,” she said. “I can’t just pretend he doesn’t exist.”

“I
can’t stand to watch you do this to yourself anymore. Turn it off,” I said as I reached over and took the phone from her hand. “Bobby, help me out here. Say something.”

“I want no part of this. Pretend I’m not here,” he said, apparently deciding for the first time since I met him that silence was golden. As usual, his timing was perfect.

“Give me my phone, Abby,” she hissed, not appreciating my take-charge attitude.

“Why? I thought you wanted me to take your phone from you to keep you from talking to him. That was just a few hours ago. Is that all you have in you? A few hours before you go running back?” I was aiming for tough love. I missed.