Thirty-Seven
Friends don’t let friends take home ugly men.
~ Bumper sticker seen in the parking lot of Highballs
Attalee’s rehearsal dinner was held at the Pick of the Chick restaurant, chosen because it was the site of her first date with Dooley. The wedding party plowed through overflowing baskets of fried chicken and vinegar fries. Guests raised their Mason jars filled with iced tea and toasted the bride and groom.
Attalee, who wore a red velvet dress with a lacy white collar, blushed like a maiden during the proceedings, and Dooley couldn’t keep his eyes off her.
“I’m the luckiest son-of-a-gun alive,” he said over and over, as he fingered the string of his bolero tie.
Rusty, who was Dooley’s best man, had been introduced to everyone present by a shy but obviously proud Mrs. Tobias. The Bottom Dollar Girls adored him from his first lopsided grin and firm handshake.
At eight-thirty on the dot, after everyone had finished eating, a black limousine slid into the parking lot of the Pick of the Chick, and the driver leaned on the horn. Attalee leapt up from the booth and said, “Here’s our ride, gals.”
“I feel a pounding headache coming on,” Birdie said, rubbing her temples.
Attalee jerked Birdie up from her seat by her elbow. “There’s champagne in the limo to take care of that.”
Timothy whispered into Elizabeth’s ear. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“You’ll probably be home long before me,” Elizabeth said, scooting out of the booth. “Call the babysitter if you’re going to be any later than midnight.”
Timothy and Rusty were taking Dooley to the Tuff Luck Tavern for his bachelor party.
“Don’t get too wild, Attalee,” Dooley warned with a wag of his finger. “You’ve got a wedding to attend tomorrow.”
“Don’t you fret, sugar booger. I’ll be just fine,” Attalee assured him after pecking his cheek. Then she raised her arms and danced an impromptu jig in the aisle of the restaurant. “Come on, ladies, let’s boogie!”
As Elizabeth, Birdie, Mavis, and Attalee approached the limo, they were greeted by the driver, whose muscles strained against his snug tuxedo.
“Ladies,” he said, removing his driving cap to reveal a tumble of shiny black hair. “I’m Hugh, your driver for this evening. Where’s our blushing bride?”
“Right here, handsome.” Attalee stepped forward. Hugh grinned and removed a white veil from a bag he was holding and placed it on Attalee’s head. Then he pinned a button to the front of her dress.
“Buy me a shot; I’m tying the knot,” Attalee said, reading the button’s message. “Yahoo! Time to par-tee!”
Hugh proceeded to hang plastic leis around the necks of the other women and place cardboard crowns on their heads. “Your chariot awaits,” he said, opening the door.
Birdie climbed in first, screamed, and immediately backed out of the limo. “There’s a naked man in there!”
“No, madam,” Hugh said calmly. “That’s just Paul the Pleasure Doll. He’s made of latex and won’t hurt a fly.”
Birdie held a trembling hand to her chest.
“What is he doing back there?”
“You gotta have a blow-up doll at a bachelorette party. Everyone knows that,” Attalee said, climbing inside the car.
“I don’t know if I’ll survive this evening,” Birdie said as she warily entered the limo behind Attalee.
“Girls Just Want to Have Fun” was playing on the limo’s stereo as they got settled inside, and Mrs. Tobias popped open a bottle of champagne and poured everyone a portion. Birdie downed hers quickly and held her glass out for a refill.
“What are those things on the crown of your veil?” Elizabeth asked Attalee, who was cuddled up in the corner of the car with Paul the Pleasure Doll.
Birdie, her paper crown askew, reached out to touch Attalee’s veil. “Hmmm,” she said, a puzzled look on her face. “They feel like rubber balloons, only thinner...” She snatched back her hand as if she’d touched hot coals. “Are they what I think they are?”
“You were real close when you said ‘rubber,’” Attalee cackled.
“Another glass of champagne, please,” Birdie said to Mrs. Tobias, who was holding the bottle.
Mavis, who was generally a teetotaler, nursed her drink. “Bachelorette party or not,” she said, “I’m glad we’re all together. Attalee’s getting married tomorrow, and now Mrs. Tobias is engaged. Things won’t be the same.”
“Why?” Elizabeth said, taking Mavis’s hand. “Nothing has to change between us. I want us to be close always.”
“Nothing’s changing with me,” Attalee said, wiping champagne from her lip with the back of her hand. “Marriage just means I’ll be finally getting a little liver for my pup.” She elbowed Birdie, who was sitting next to her. “If you know what I mean.”
“I fear that I do,” Birdie said.
“And I might be around more often,” Mrs. Tobias said, as she poured another round of champagne. “After we’re married, Rusty wants me to move from Augusta to Cayboo Creek. He’s always dreamed of building his own house there.”
“That would be wonderful.” Mavis grinned and lifted her glass. “To the Bottom Dollar Girls. Long may we live!”
“Hear! Hear!” Elizabeth said as they all clinked their champagne glasses together.
“Oh look.” Birdie handed her cell phone to Mavis. “How sweet! I got a text message from Morty. Morty’s the fellow I danced with at the reunion last night,” she explained to the others. “Read it. It’s so cute.”
“‘Hi, Bird. What’s the word?’” Mavis read the message in the window of the phone. “Sounds like Morty, all right.”
“I’ve got to send him something back.” Birdie stroked her chin in thought. “What’s rhymes with ‘Morty’?”
Mavis sighed. It seemed everyone was attached to a man except for her. Just before she’d left for Attalee’s rehearsal dinner, she’d checked her AOL mail, but the little cartoon mailbox was closed up as tight as a drum. Hank had been home for several days, and he still hadn’t bothered to email her. Clearly, their shared evening had meant more to Mavis than it had to him.
After a forty-minute drive in the limo to Columbia, South Carolina, and several glasses of champagne, Hugh parked in front of a nightclub called Highballs. The marquee read “One Nite Only! Hunk-O-Rama.”
“I knew it,” Birdie said, staring out the window. “This is one of those male strip joints with scantily dressed chipmunks.”
“You mean, Chippendales,” Elizabeth said with a hiccup and a giggle. “I’ve never done this before, but I’ve always wanted to.”
“Wait a minute, ladies.” Mrs. Tobias rummaged in her purse and withdrew an envelope filled with dollar bills. “We’ll all need some mad money. To tip the dancers.”
Birdie shook her head in disapproval, but still grabbed a handful of bills before she exited the limo. Elizabeth and Attalee also took some money and joined Birdie in the parking lot. Only Mavis and Mrs. Tobias remained inside the car.
“I’m curious,” Mavis said. “How do you know what goes on in strip clubs?”
“Keep this to yourself, but I planned this whole evening,” Mrs. Tobias said in a low voice. “Don’t misunderstand. I tried to coax Attalee into having a sweet little tea or a shower, but she insisted she wanted a wild bachelorette party.”
“You’re the one responsible for her condom veil and Paul the Pleasure Doll?” Mavis asked in disbelief.
“Guilty,” Mrs. Tobias said with a blush. “Everything’s included in one package and, believe me, this was the tamest one available.”
Attalee poked her head in the car. “Come on, slowpokes. You’re missing the party.”
Music thumped in their eardrums as they approached a warehouse-sized building, glowing with tubes of purple and pink
neon. Packs of giddy young women jostled to get inside, several wearing veils just like Attalee’s. The night air was filled with a mingling of perfumes and excited, high-pitched voices. Clearly, this was a favored venue for bachelorette parties.
The Bottom Dollar Girls inched their way toward the entrance, paid the cover charge to a bouncer, and were ushered into the nightclub. The interior of Highballs was decorated in the same colors as the garish neon lights outside. Thick carpeting and wall coverings served to mute the loud music blasting from the club’s sound system. Attalee’s party took a seat at a table near the stage. A bare-chested waiter, wearing only a glow-in-the-dark necklace and a loincloth, delivered a bottle of champagne to their table.
Within moments after the waiter popped the cork, the curtains of the stage slowly parted and an unseen master of ceremonies was heard over the microphone.
“Gals, it’s time to give a big Highball welcome to Hunk-O-Rama!”
Shrieks and whistles pierced the air, accompanied by bawdy calls of “take it off” and “show some skin.”
The music boomed, and yellow and pink spotlights whirled across the nightclub. Then, a siren wailed, and a group of uniformed men marched onstage: a firefighter, a policeman, an EMT, a highway patrolman, and a doctor.
“Gals, here they come! Hunk-O-Rama! Attention all damsels in distress. Who wants to be rescued?” shouted the emcee.
The crowd of women roared and screamed their answer. The emcee introduced each dancer by name: Sarge, Dante, Buck, Rod, Maximus, and Hot Chocolate. To the pulsating beat of the sixties song “Rescue Me,” the members of Hunk-O-Rama shimmied out of the confines of their uniforms until they were stripped down to satin G-strings.
“My goodness.” Birdie peeked at the stage through parted fingers. “They’re wearing dental floss.”
The dancers’ slick, overinflated muscles reminded Mavis of He-man action toys. The stripper named Maximus had left the stage and was gyrating only a few feet from their table.
“Here’s your chance, Attalee!” Mrs. Tobias shouted over the din. “You can spend some of that tip money.” She pointed at a group of women who were eagerly tucking bills into Maximus’s G-string.
With a trembling lower lip, Attalee turned to face her. “Can we go home now?” she asked.
“What?” Mrs. Tobias said. “We just got here.”
“Please?” Attalee pleaded. She looked on the verge of tears.
Mrs. Tobias patted her shoulder in sympathy. “Of course, dear. It’s your night. We’ll do whatever you want.” She picked up her pocketbook from the table. “Ladies, I think Attalee’s had enough,” she announced to the women.
“Thank goodness,” Mavis said, hopping up from her seat. Elizabeth nudged Birdie’s side. “Are you ready?”
Birdie was so transfixed by the spectacle onstage that it took Elizabeth a few tugs on her arm to bring her out of her spell.
“So soon?” she asked.
“Come on,” Elizabeth said, helping her up. The women gathered their coats and made their way out of the club. Attalee, Birdie, and Elizabeth walked several steps ahead of Mavis and Mrs. Tobias.
“Poor dear,” Mrs. Tobias said to Mavis at the limo. “I think Attalee got overwhelmed. Sometimes we forget how old she is.”
“It’s not like Attalee to cut an evening short,” Mavis said.
The women settled into the sumptuous seats of the limousine, and the driver aimed the nose of the car in the direction of Cayboo Creek. On the ride home, Attalee was uncharacteristically sullen and kept her face pressed against the window.
“Are you all right, dear?” Mrs. Tobias asked Attalee.
“She’s probably just in shock,” Birdie said. “I’ve never seen so many wiggling backsides in my entire life.”
“Or maybe she’s sleepy from all the champagne,” Mavis said with a yawn. “I know I’m ready to hit the hay.”
Attalee turned to face the others. Tears trailed down her careworn face.
“It’s Burl,” she said in a quavering voice. “That dancer, Dante, with the skimpy red-and-white-and-blue drawers, reminded me of him.”
Burl was Attalee’s late husband, who’d been hit by a bread truck over ten years ago. Mavis found it hard to imagine what the hard-bodied, raven-haired Dante would have in common with the bald, slack-bellied Burl.
“They both have that sexy little gap between their front teeth,” Attalee explained. “Remember how Burl used to whistle every time he talked?”
“Yes, dear,” Mavis said.
“Burl was my husband for almost fifty years,” Attalee said, scanning the faces of her friends. “And I’m replacing him with another man. It don’t seem fitting.”
“I see.” Mrs. Tobias handed Attalee a tissue. “Sounds like last-minute nerves to me.”
“What if me and Dooley aren’t right for each other? What if we end up fussing all the time?” Attalee honked into the tissue. “And what will he think when he finds out I wear a chin strap to bed every night?”
“You do?” Birdie said, leaning forward with interest. Mavis poked her in the ribs.
“Fiddle-faddle,” Mrs. Tobias said. “We girls all have our little beauty secrets. Men know it’s mostly an illusion. The important thing is, do you love Dooley?”
Attalee blinked away her tears. “I reckon I do.”
“Then don’t fret,” Mrs. Tobias said. “I read a saying in the latest issue of Reader’s Digest: ‘Leap and the net will appear.’ Life demands that we take risks, and if we somehow stumble, there will always be someone at the bottom to catch us.”
“Like me,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll be there to catch you anytime you need me, Attalee.”
“Me, too,” Mavis concurred.
“As will I,” Birdie chimed in.
“You see, Attalee,” Mrs. Tobias said. “You can’t make serious mistakes when you have friends who love you.”
The trip back to Cayboo Creek was mostly silent. The driver softly whistled “Good Night, Ladies” over the sounds of Birdie’s snores. Everyone was on the verge of slumber except Mavis. She was alert as a sentry as she kept replaying Mrs. Tobias’s last comments in her mind.
When the limo driver dropped her off at her home and the other women bade her drowsy good-byes, Mavis unlocked her front door and made a hasty beeline to her office. There she sat down at her computer and signed on to AOL. As she stared at the empty mailbox on the screen, she wondered if she’d made a mistake in not emailing Hank first. Was it possible that Hank was constantly checking his computer waiting to hear from her? At the reunion he had admitted being shy about approaching her in a romantic way. Perhaps his bashfulness had returned when he’d gotten back to California.
Leap and the net will appear. Mavis closed her eyes and pictured the smiling faces of the Bottom Dollar Girls. Even if Hank, for whatever reason, never responded to her email, her friends would be there to listen and to help ease her disappointment. Quickly, before she lost her nerve, she typed him a message:
Dear Hank,
Had a wonderful time at the reunion. Hope you had a smooth plane ride back to California.
Respectfully, Mavis Loomis
P.S. I can’t stop thinking about you.
Her hand shook as the cursor hovered over the send button. Leap, she urged herself, and she pressed down on the computer mouse. The message sailed out of her in-box through the pixels of cyberspace, headed for its gentle landing in Hank’s mailbox.
Mavis’s heart beat like a snare drum as she shut down her computer. Risk-taking was exhilarating! She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so alive. Now she’d just have to wait and see if her act of courage would pay off.
Thirty-Eight
Being over the hill is much better than being under it.
~ Sign outside the Senior Center
The next morning, Mavis assisted a hungove
r Birdie with the zipper of her bridesmaid dress in the small choir room just off the sanctuary of the Methodist Church.
“Shouldn’t Attalee be here by now?” said a bleary-eyed Birdie.
Elizabeth, who’d already donned her bright purple dress, had a look of dread in her eye as she studied her reflection in the mirror. “Am I retaining water, or is it this dress?”
“It’s all those bows and puckers,” said Mrs. Tobias, who was standing behind her. “They aren’t very flattering.”
“This dress reminds me of something Cher would wear if she’d guest-starred on Little House on the Prairie” Elizabeth said, frowning into the mirror. “Oh well, anything for our little bride. She is late, isn’t she?”
“Maybe her case of cold feet returned,” Birdie said, slipping into her dyed shoes.
“I’ll give her a call,” Mavis said. She headed for the door and almost bumped into Attalee.
“No need to call,” said a weak voice. “I’m here.”
They all turned toward the door to see her. Attalee appeared to sway on her feet in the entryway; her gray hair was a tangled nest, and her eyes were nearly swollen shut behind her glasses.
“You look how I feel,” Birdie said, rushing to her side. “But I didn’t think you drank nearly as much champagne as I did. Come along, and we’ll help you with your hair and makeup.”
“Ladies?” Rusty’s voice came from the hall. “Is everyone decent? I wanted to know if—”
“Come on in. You need to hear this, too,” Attalee said as she feebly gestured him inside.
“There you are,” said Rusty, wearing a powder-blue tux. “I have a question about the procession: Do I stand to the right or the—”
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