Up & Out - Ariella Papa [111]
“Who is Tommy?” Jill asks me.
“He is Beth’s brother,” Kathy says, drunkenly pointing to me and then to Beth. “And Rebecca’s ex.”
She lets the ex ring out for a while, playing with the sound in her mouth, and then she rests her head in her hands, almost slumping over her seared scallops.
“That’s got to be a strain on a friendship,” Brandy says jokingly. Brandy is a nice person and I’m sure she doesn’t mean to start anything. But Beth gets up to go to the bathroom, placing her napkin in the plate she barely touched.
“It is,” I say.
“There are worse things,” Lauryn says loudly to Brandy, but really for Beth to hear. Beth ignores her and heads toward the bathroom.
“You’re not mad, are you, Rebecca?” Kathy asks. Her mouth is almost a squiggle. She is too drunk to get a handle on her emotions.
“Of course not,” I say. “It’s your wedding.”
Considering I just stood up the closest thing I’ve had to a wedding date prospect, I order another bottle of wine. I am going to drink until all of this is easier to deal with.
Lauryn sleeps through the first bus she planned on taking. We passed out together in my bed. When I wake up she is throwing her stuff in a bag, cursing under her breath.
“Hey,” I say, rubbing my eyes. “What’s up?”
“Sorry,” she says. Her mascara is caked on her eyelashes and her teeth are gray from wine. “I think I’m going to miss this one, too.”
“Are you feeling okay?” It’s only a few blocks to the Port Authority. She could probably get there if she hustled.
“No, I feel hungover.” She looks at the clock and shakes her head. She crawls back into bed. “Fuck it! I’m going to miss it.”
It’s close to two when finally we wake up. Lauryn checks the schedule and finds she has three more hours to the next possible bus. She flops back in the bed and rubs her head.
“Is there a hot guy to bring me water and coffee?” I get up and give her a big glass of water and the bottle of Aleve. We each take two.
I never met Ben, of course. We stayed out until 5:00 a.m. After dessert two of the work friends and one of the cousins went home. We moved to the bar atop the Marriott where all the tourists oohed and aahed at the view of the city and Dina gloated as if the whole night had been her idea. I foolishly drank a warm liquored cocoa with whipped cream that bloated me. Beth took off after the first round, leaving Lauryn and I to count our exchanges with her on one hand. Kathy practically clung to Beth on the way out. She drunkenly told Beth how pretty she was and how much she loved her. Beth nodded and for a moment I thought she was going to cry.
“You’re soooo special to me,” Kathy whined. “I just miss my girlfriends.”
It was a really weird scene. I had another round of something stronger that Brandy ordered for me. I think it was a mojito. All of the various liquors began to mix in my stomach. That didn’t stop me from going to O’Flaherty’s with Lauryn, Brandy, Jessica and one of Kathy’s cousins after Dina threw up in the bathroom and Kathy passed out into her cosmopolitan.
We had a great time with the three women we didn’t really know. I wished that Kathy could have seen us all hanging out and I wished that Beth hadn’t acted so weird or that Brandy hadn’t asked “what was up with that girl?” And I wished that Lauryn and I could have done something more than shrug.
When we got home, there was a message on my cell from Tommy saying that he and the nanny had taken a late-night jitney to the Hamptons on Friday and he would be staying until Sunday night.
“I can’t wait to see them at the wedding,” I said to Lauryn as my room spun behind her. I felt too drunk to be alone. I was lonely in spite of Lauryn, who passed out immediately. Then I called information to try to get the number to Ben’s pub, but remembered it didn’t have a name yet.
I calculated that I started the night with $260, but ended it with six. I think at some point I used my credit card to buy a round of drinks at O’Flaherty’s. That’s about twenty-nine plates of