“We’re going to have a great time,” Holli promised. “Seriously, we’re going to have so much fun.”
* * * *
“I want to die.”
“No, you don’t,” I mumbled, barely able to lift my head from the gray upholstery of the semi-circle sofa. I refused to open my eyes. Holli had booked us the Real World suite at the Hard Rock Hotel, instead of the spa villa I had suggested, and the bright colors and outlandish decor was like an assault on my very, very hung-over senses. “I want to die.”
“You can both want to die,” Deja groaned from where she lay on the floor. I was pretty sure she slept there the night before.
“Okay, but I get to go first,” Holli insisted.
“Hey, guys!”
I forced myself to peel one eye open. Penny bopped into the room on a wave of energy and sickly-sweet shampoo scent. She gestured over her shoulder. “I made coffee!”
“How the hell are you conscious?” It wasn’t an observation. I was begging her to tell me, so I could do whatever it was she’d done.
“Yeah,” Holli added. “It’s only like… It’s only…”
“It’s eleven-thirty,” Penny said with a disbelieving scoff. “Come on, I thought you guys were party animals or something.”
Deja struggled to her feet, one arm across her stomach in a desperate half-hug. “Did you not see us partying?”
“Yeah, but I thought you would bounce back better. You’ve all got way more experience than I do.” She giggled.
“Oh, no.” Holli sat up at the other end of the couch and shielded her eyes with her hand. “Guys. She’s twenty-two.”
Holli, Deja, and I groaned in unison. Something weird seemed to have happened to Holli and me when we hit twenty-six. It was like someone had flipped the alcohol switch on our brains. I’d sensed it happening the last time we’d been in Vegas, but nothing like this. Deja, thirty-two and wiser, had mocked us when we’d gotten back and warned us that our partying days were nearly at an end.
Why she hadn’t taken her own advice the night before, I didn’t know, but I bet she regretted it.
“Look, you guys are going to be no fun at all tonight if you’re like this,” Penny scolded. “We need to get you guys some orange juice and ibuprofen.”
“We need to get us some B12 shots and massages.” I tilted my head back to look at her. “I don’t want to treat you like an assistant when we’re not at work, but you’re the only person in this room who isn’t suffering from alcohol poisoning.”
Not that she hadn’t tried. To our utter delight, Penny had drunk us under the table the night before. After we’d gotten back from Tao at four in the morning and barely made it to our beds, she’d stayed up, bowling on the mini lane in the suite.
“Yeah, sure thing,” she promised. “You want me to order some room service?”
“Tell them to send everything.” Holli flopped back and buried her face in throw pillows. Then, in a paraphrased imitation of Gary Oldman in The Professional, she reiterated loudly, “Everything!”
“Indoor voice!” Deja barked.
Though I’d initially been reluctant about Penny coming along, now, I couldn’t be more thankful that she had. The concierge hooked us up with a doctor who made hotel calls and got us our B12 shots—apparently not an unusual request to fulfill—and a big enough room service breakfast that even Holli was stuffed, and some gorgeous male massage therapists showed up to work our muscles with their big, strong hands. It was a shame they were totally legit.
When evening rolled around, our partying was definitely more subdued than our first night. We ended up in the suite’s hot tub at around one in the morning, drinking champagne and exchanging dirty anecdotes.
“Okay, so I was with this one chick,” Deja said, already dissolving into mortified laughter. “And it’s my very first time using a strap-on. And I am, like, not coordinated at all—”
“No, she is not,” Holli interjected.
“Anyway,” Deja rolled her eyes at her wife. “I get the thing on, and it’s really weird, you know? Just suddenly having this dick to account for. I’m trying to get into position, and I’m jabbing her thighs and accidentally slapping the damn thing everywhere, but I wanted her to think, you know, this chick knows what’s up, so I’m all, ‘Oh, baby, I’m going to make this so good for you, I’m gonna make you come so hard.’ And, then, I go to put it in and I totally missed the V and slipped it right into the A.”
“No!” I shrieked, covering my face.
“Guys do that all the time, though,” Holli reasoned, clearly trying to comfort Deja.
“I don’t know if that’s a pass. We’re women. We’re supposed to know where the V is.” I half-turned, reaching behind me to pour another class of Cristal. Cliché, yeah, but so was a Vegas bachelorette party.
Penny snorted. “See, this is the kind of thing that makes me glad I’ve never had sex.”
The rest of us fell so silent it was like we’d gone from bachelorette party to SAT testing room in an instant.
“What?” Penny asked, lifting one shoulder from the water in a shrug. “I’m a virgin.”
“How?” Holli blurted. “How can you be a virgin?”
“Because I’ve never had sex.” She looked each of us in the eyes in turn, her expression incredulous. “It’s not that weird. I’m only twenty-two.”
“Yeah, you’re twenty-two,” Holli repeated back to her. “I didn’t mean ‘how does the concept of virginity work?’ I’m asking how the hell you’ve survived this long without succumbing to the urging of your loins.” When we all turned our confusion on Holli, she sat up straighter, defensive. “Excuse me, but I’m reading a lot of early eighties historical romance lately, and it’s none of your business.”
I had to get this situation in hand, so as to avoid humiliating Penny with our disbelief. “Maybe Penny’s asexual.”
“What do you mean? She dated Brad,” Holli pointed out.
“You can be asexual and not be aromantic. But, no, I’m not asexual.” Penny didn’t seem uncomfortable or defensive. “I’m just waiting for the right person.”
“You’re saving yourself until marriage…?” Deja suggested for her.
Penny shook her head. “No, I wouldn’t say that. I was raised kind of conservative. And there’s this family legend…”
We all still stared at her.
With a sigh, she went on, “All the women in my family seem to have this thing where the first guy they have sex with is their true love. I’m not sure I’ve met him yet, and I don’t want to mess anything up.”
“Isn’t that a little superstitious?” Holli asked, and I forgot that she didn’t work with Penny every day.
“Yeah, superstitious is kind of my thing,” Penny explained apologetically. “I don’t mind that other people have sex, and I don’t think I should have to wait for a minister to say some words and give me permission. But I won’t do it until I know for sure that he’s the one. For now, guys just have to be content with making out and hand jobs.”
“Well, good for you,” Deja said, raising her half-empty glass in salute. “Wait for a guy who thinks you’re worth waiting for.”
“I swear that was on a poster in my Catholic youth group’s meeting space.” I laughed.
Penny laughed, too, and I was grateful that we hadn’t weirded her out with all our sex talk. She refilled her glass, as well. “I just want to find someone who makes me feel like I can trust them and like we have potential for a future. Somebody who wants the same things that I do and who doesn’t mind taking things slow until we get there.”
I had to admit I’d totally underestimated Penny. With her talk about signs in cookie fortunes and her constantly bubbly attitude, I’d branded her a little piece of fluff. Now, I was deeply ashamed for creating such a one-dimensional picture of her.
Something clicked in my mind. I was a horrible with set-ups. But I couldn’t resist them. “You know…I might know someone who would be perfect for you.”
Penny tilted her head. “Yeah? I’m not sure I’m ready for that, yet. Maybe he’ll still be available when I make up my mind.”
“He just might be.” I didn’t know how Ian’s divorce was going to go down—and I didn’t know when he’d be ready to get out there again, either—but imagining them as a couple made my heart flutter a little “awwww,” despite how much I liked Gena.
So, I’m a sucker for the May/December thing.
“Okay, it’s your turn, Sophie.” Deja nudged me with her arm. “What’s your most embarrassing sex moment?”
“No, no,” Holli interrupted. “As you are the bride, we wanna hear your most embarrassing sex moment with your intended. I know you and Neil are, like, sexual dynamos, but there has to be something that hasn’t gone as planned.”
“Well, there was the time that his daughter overheard me screaming, ‘fuck me harder,’ and we hadn’t even met yet.” My face still flamed red at the memory, even though Emma and I both found it more funny than uncomfortable now.
“Yeah, we knew about that already,” Deja said, giving me a thumbs down. “I told my strap-on anal violation story. You better bring it.”
I scanned my memory. As great at sex as Neil and I both were, we weren’t perfect. There were a number of potentially humiliating incidents. I settled on the most mortifying one. “I can’t believe I’m telling you guys this.”
Holli leaned forward and put on interested therapist face. “We’re all friends, Sophie. This is a safe space.”
I flipped her off. “All right. One time, we were doing it in the shower, and I was trying to do this whole soapy-hand-job-turned-sexy-blow-job thing, and I guess I didn’t rinse him off well enough, and soap went up my nose. But his dick was, like, down my throat, so I did this weird snort/gag combo, and it triggered my gag reflex, and I barfed all over him.”
“You barfed on Neil’s dick?” Deja covered her face, her eyes peeking out from between her fingers.
“More like around his dick. And out of my nose.” I cringed just remembering it. “And I aspirated some, which was extra super sexy. Thank god we were in the shower. Holli, you go,” I ordered. Holli always had the most interesting sex stories, because she’d had a lot of really interesting sex.
Her eyes lit up. “Okay, I’m gonna win this round. This guy I met in L.A. liked to have me dress up in a tiger mascot costume and take this huge dildo, it was like fifteen inches—”
“Nope!” Deja and I shouted, vetoing the story immediately.
“You guys have no imagination,” Holli grumbled and splashed some water in my general direction. I splashed back and inadvertently caught Penny in the crossfire.
“Everybody stop!” Deja shouted, jumping to her feet. “Let the woman who just got her hair relaxed on Tuesday get out of the tub.”
“I’m getting out, too,” Penny said, though she didn’t stand as confidently as Deja had. “The champagne and heat is getting to me.”
“Amateurs,” Holli scoffed.
When Deja and Penny left to get dried off and changed, Holli leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “So, are you ready to be a married woman?”
“Um, yeah.” My stomach sloshed a little. Not from the champagne. “I’m nervous.”
Holli made a face to go along with her “pfff” sound. “What’s there to be nervous about? You and Neil have practically been married since you moved to London with him.”
“It’s change. You know how much I dig change.” I rolled my eyes. “When you were about to marry Deja, weren’t you nervous?”
“No. Why would I be? I needed to get that hot piece of ass on lockdown before some other bitch swooped in on her.” Abandoning all pretense of using a glass, Holli grabbed one of the half-full champagne bottles from the lip of the tub and took a big swig before handing it to me.
I downed my glass to free up my hand for the bottle. “Once you’re married, though…it’s like getting closer to a cliff, isn’t it?”
“That’s romantic.”
“No, I mean…” What did I mean? “It’s more like a roller coaster. Being engaged is like waiting at the top of the first hill, and the wedding is that moment when you hear the brakes click. Once you hear that, you’re going over. There’s nowhere else to go.”
Holli frowned. “You know, this doesn’t sound like you’re that into the idea of getting married.”
“I want to be married,” I protested. “But once you go down that hill…you can’t go back up. When we get married, everything gets so much more serious, doesn’t it? And if I don’t like the change, there’s no way to undo it and go back. It’s not like you can say to your husband, ‘hey, I don’t care for being married, let’s go back to dating.’”
“No, you’re right. That’s kind of divorce territory, at that point,” she agreed.
“Exactly! So, what if we do this, and I don’t like being married? Everyone says, ‘oh, it’s so different from just living together, your whole life is going to change.’” I heard the panic creeping into my voice.
So did Holli. She moved through the water to sit beside me. “Can I tell you a secret, as a wife? Everyone says it’s completely different from living together, but it’s not. It’s a piece of paper you’re never going to think about ever again. I thought getting married to Deja was going to make some big change in our lives, too, and that we’d be thankful for it every day. And don’t get me wrong, I understand how lucky we are that we can even get married. But, most of the time, I don’t even think about the fact that we’re married. I just think, ‘wow, I’m with this person I love so much, it makes me happy and bonkers and terrified all at the same time.’ And that’s exactly how I felt about her the night before our wedding, and the week before our wedding, and the month before our wedding. The only thing that’s changed is that, if we break up now, it’s going to cost a lot of money.”
Sometimes, best friends are worth more than any therapy bill. “You know, for someone who thought jackalopes were real until you were twenty-three, you’re actually pretty smart.”
“I maintain that they could be real.”
I raised an eyebrow. “They’re rabbits. With antlers. How could they fit down their rabbit hole?”
“Their rabbit holes are extra big, because they dig them out with their antlers!” she argued. She went on, “You’re going to be fine. You’re the third most responsible person I know. You just don’t have any common sense. If you love Neil now, you’re still going to love him after the ceremony. You’ve just got some jitters.”
“Yeah. You’re probably right.” I leaned my head on her shoulder and sighed. “I should get out of here before I cook myself.”
“Good idea,” she agreed.
In the shower, a few moments later, I considered what Holli had said. I knew deep down that she must be right; getting married couldn’t possibly change a relationship that was already a lifetime commitment. But it seemed like everyone around me was breaking up.
Maybe instead of focusing on the negative, I should look to the positive examples of married couples around me. Like Holli and Deja, or Emma and Michael. If anyone could convince me that marriage wasn’t potential relationship death, it would be those four.
* * * *
With the wedding speeding toward us, I knew I had to get the whole tell-Emma-about-the-book thing out of the way, or it would drive Neil and me to the brink. I arranged to meet Emma at the apartment under the pretense of having Sunday brunch with her father and me, though Neil was at home in Sagaponack meeting with his therapist.
“I’ll kill him. I’ll divorce him then I’ll kill him,” Emma said without so much as a hello as she lugged Olivia’s car seat into the foyer of the apartment.
“Something wrong?” I asked, hurrying over to take the diaper bag from her and ease her burden.
“The idiot refused to come along with me today,” she huffed, sliding the car seat onto the big, round table in the center of the room. “Where’s Dad?”
I scrunched
up my face and held up my thumb and forefinger, millimeters apart. “I may have told you a teensy lie to get you here.”
“Okay…” She squinted at me as though trying to figure out the lie before I could tell her.
“You’ll understand once you’ve got the whole story. Just trust me.” My apologetic scrunchy face intensified. “And I also told Michael to let you come alone. Your dad asked me to talk to you about something important, and I thought it would be best if it was just the two of us.”
“Well, you’d better not have been lying about brunch, because I’m starving.” She pushed back the hood of the seat and unsnapped Olivia’s buckles.
I edged her slightly out of the way. “I’ll hold her while you eat.”
“I’m not eating yet,” Emma said.
“I’m going to pretend not to hear you and take technical grandma privileges.” I lifted Olivia gingerly. She was still so small, despite the weight she’d gained in the two weeks since she’d been born.
“You’re remarkably calm for someone who’s getting married on Saturday,” Emma observed. “I have to say, I was shocked to hear that you wanted to get together.”
“It’s your father who’s pulling his hair out. Which seems weird, because he’s at least done this before.” I cooed down at Olivia. Her big blue eyes blinked up at me. She seemed surprisingly critical, for a baby.
As we walked to the kitchen, Emma said, “You should have seen him before the first one. I was actually concerned that he might leave Elizabeth at the altar, he was so jumpy.” She considered a moment, holding the door open so Olivia and I could pass through. “Of course, with the way things worked out, maybe it would have been a good idea.”
“Nah. Your dad loved Elizabeth.” I had to grind the words out. Of all the partners from Neil’s past, Elizabeth was on the one I was most jealous of. She knew what it was like to be married to Neil, and that irrationally irked me. “I met her.”
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