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Chapter Three

Amy

We tried to ditch our mother by claiming Shannon didn’t want a bachelorette party after all, but one of Shannon’s coworkers from her old mystery shopping job, Josh, is weak-willed and easy prey for Mom. She can sniff out the weakest link in any situation and turn them into a snitch in two seconds flat.

She’d have easily won a season of Survivor .

Josh cracked under interrogation pressure, and now here we are at the Boston piano bar Shannon asked for, getting blow jobs in a private room.

All of us, including Josh, who–unlike Mom–was invited.

Yes. We’re all getting blow jobs. In fact, I’m receiving one right now from our server, Chrissy, who smiles and says, “Just go slow and don’t chip a tooth.”

“That’s what Jason says whenever I give him one!” my mother–yes, my MOTHER–jokes as she takes a shot glass from Chrissy.

A blow job, I now know, is the vulgar name of a drink. It’s Kahlua and cream, served in a shot glass, and you drink it on your knees.

You lower yourself to the floor, hands behind your back, and open your mouth wide enough to cover the entire rim of the shot glass. Then you lift it up and tip it back in, swallowing in one gulp while still holding the glass between your lips.

If you gag, you “fail.”

I have no idea who invented this game, but my mother likes it waaaaay too much. I didn’t know a tongue could simultaneously wrap around the rim of a shot glass and touch the bottom of it.

“How many blow jobs you done, Pammy?” she slurs as she talks to Amanda’s mom, Pam. Pam is normally not the partying type, an actuary who is more prone to recite facts about the manufacturing process for Kahlua or liability issues around pasteurization points for the cream. She’s constantly quoting obscure statistics and determining the odds of horrible incidents happening to people. I love her because she appreciates a good spreadsheet just like I do. She has fibromyalgia and suffers from frequent flares, so she often cancels on social activities–understandably so.

But maybe a girls’ night out is good for her?

Amanda told me that Declan’s father’s company is picking up the tab, so the food and alcohol are top shelf. She had to invite enough Anterdec employees to justify it as a business expense, and someone had the great idea to bring in a bunch of male strippers from the O Spa.

You know, the “fourth place” here in Boston? The one designed for women? It’s not just a spa, it’s a home away from home. With, you know… strippers.

Strippers who double as massage therapists.

Andrew’s assistant is here as well, a woman about Shannon’s age named Gina. She reminds me of every sorority member I’ve ever met, but slightly less secure. And she’s going on and on about some guy named Louis.

Our party takes up two enormous tables in this private room, and the whole place is hopping. Whenever I run to the ladies’ room, I see throngs of people, all smiling and sweaty, their voices hoarse from joyful singing.

It’s so much fun.

A warm feeling spreads in my chest as I look at Shannon, my big sister suddenly so mature, an adult, marrying a man who will give her whatever she wants.

Literally.

What’s it like to be with someone so wealthy, he can send a helicopter for a date? Pay off your student loans with a text to an assistant? Meet with members of foreign governments with a single phone call?

Declan’s got deep, deep pockets, but he isn’t exactly brimming with charisma like Hamish.

Which makes their relationship all the more special. Shannon would marry Declan if he made minimum wage at a YMCA desk, you know? They’re so sickeningly in love.

I’m not jealous, not at all, but I’d love to find what they have.

“Is that Hamish?” Carol purrs as she catches me staring into space, my gaze catching the tall, muscled redhead she’s pointing to. For a moment, my heart stops, because if Hamish is here in a G-string, oiled up like a Thanksgiving turkey and grinding his hips like a pepper mill, I have blacked out from too much alcohol and entered nightmare hell.

Or heaven.

“He–he looks so much like him,” I choke out, turning to a bucket filled with chilled wine coolers. Grabbing one, I pop off the top and start drinking, the cool sweetness making me thirsty for more. My neck is tight and I stretch it out, turning left, then right. I set the cooler down and square my shoulders, willing them down and back, transferring power from my neck down into my lower back. A trainer at the gym I go to taught me these techniques for weightlifting, but they help for reducing stress, too.

Power moves wherever you place it, if you can learn to control it. The hard part is remembering that you can .

Being a bridesmaid means smiling constantly, until your cheekbones ache and your jaw pulls back, muscles twisting like a Mobius strip. But the alcohol is like a prescription for loosening me up. This little wine cooler is doing my sister a personal favor. I feel my neck loosen, blood rushing in to help soften everything, and I drink more, looking around, taking it all in as we celebrate Shannon’s new life.

“That’s Henry,” Mom cackles, suddenly sitting on the table, her ample ass spreading enough to hip check the Champagne bucket. “He’s mine.”

“Daddy is yours!” I snap, peering at the redhead. She’s right, though.

The guy is not Hamish.

Disappointment and relief flood through me at the same time, like turning on two separate taps of hot and cold water in my veins.

“But he looks like Hamish, doesn’t he?” Mom nudges my non-drinking elbow. “I meant it when I said you two would make adorable babies.”

“Shut up.”

“Don’t talk to your mother like that!” my oldest sister Carol insists as she turns to the server, pointing to the Champagne and holding up two fingers. “I’m the only one allowed to do that!”

Amanda invited Declan’s assistant, an elderly woman named Grace, who has worked for Anterdec for decades. She was Declan’s father’s assistant before he began the transition out of being CEO, and Declan’s inherited her. I admire her. Efficient and effective, she’s normally all business. Now in her seventies, she’s married to a woman who was an avid rugby player.

That’s all I know about her, and it’s from my color-coded wedding guest spreadsheet.

“Marie! Good to see you,” Grace says to Mom, her demeanor more relaxed than usual.

“Shannon’s got one hell of a party here, huh? I could use a different kind of eye candy myself, but a woman can admire the fine lines of a man without wanting to sleep with him, right?” Grace winks and the horrified look Mom and Josh share makes me giggle as she walks away.

“I don’t understand what she just said,” Josh whispers, as if Grace’s words were heresy.

“Me, either,” Mom confesses.

“I mean, who would be satisfied with just looking?” Josh is now watching Grace with deep speculation.

“A voyeur? Maybe that’s what getzeroff,” Mom slurs.

Josh finishes his drink like he’s on fire and needs to put his stomach out.

Shannon walks over and smiles at me, giving Mom a half-hearted look that reminds me of Carol when she was in high school and Mom forced her to bring me to the drive-in on one of her dates. Mom, who was staring after Grace, turns and gives me the stink eye, then pivots to Shannon.

Uh oh. Here we go.

“You invited Grace but tried to ditch me and Pam?” Mom says in a bitter tone.

“Grace isn’t my mother ,” Shannon replies with a growl.

“She could be your grandmother!” Mom barks.

“She works for Anterdec! She’s Declan’s longtime assistant and like a mother to him.”

“ I am like a mother to him! If you’re going to include Grace, you should have included me!”

“MOM!” Shannon bellows. So much for my happy, loose sister enjoying her premarital freedom. Tension has been building forever between Mom and Shannon, and I knew this day was coming, but I didn’t expect it to happen while two pianists play “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga. “You have taken my entire wedding and turned it into a giant clusterfuck!”

If my sister uses the F-word with you, you’re on the wrong side of history.

“I never wanted a Scottish-themed wedding! You took control! I didn’t care about Farmington Country Club!” Shannon screeches as the dueling pianists suddenly play louder but soften as Shannon resumes her shouting.

Mom’s very, very drunk, watching my sister through a squint, the kind of look you give someone who isn’t making a lick of sense.

Or when your eyeballs are floating.

“I have to dig tartan thongs out of my butt,” Shannon screams. “And put up with having a cat as a flower girl. With life-size spun sugar figures of Declan and me next to the wedding cake, and let me tell you, that artist must have been high, because my face looks like Amy Schumer after she face planted off a stage. Declan looks like Liberace. And the ice sculpture. And the ninety-minute video that takes our lives and turns it all into a weird time capsule but in all the photos everyone’s wearing red. The live-streaming video thing was way over the top, but did I complain? NO!”

All of us–Carol, Amanda, Josh, Pam, Grace, and a bunch of Shannon’s co-workers I can’t name–crowd around. It’s like a schoolyard fight, but there are no teachers with whistles and permanent records to threaten us with.

“All I wanted was one night that was mine! Mine! One tradition, one ritual that was mine ,” Shannon flings at Mom.

I’m taking major mental notes here. If I ever get married, I’m eloping. “Just mine, the way I wanted it to be, with friends I could let loose with and party. But no , Mom. You had to crash it. You tortured poor Josh and got him to crack.”

I look at Josh, who shrugs.

“You had to ruin this for me. I get one chance. One! I’ll only ever get married once, and now… now… I’m not going to worry about your hurt feelings because I didn’t invite you when you show no concern for my feelings!”

Mom’s crying now, a low-key sniffling that is real. A fake cryer when she needs to manipulate you, Mom can turn on waterworks like a hose. But this isn’t contrived.

Shannon is panting, her top glimmering in the dark lights of the club, her breasts turning into shiny waves.

“Are you done?” Mom asks, then sniffs.

“I am.”

Mom smiles, a sweet, wistful smile that shows no teeth. With tender care, she reaches out and pats Shannon on the cheek.

“It’s okay, Shannon,” she whispers. “I understand. I can tell you’re having your period, and this is just the flood of hormones talking.”

I close my eyes and count to ten.

Mom has the whole ditzy act down to a science. When I get married, I will not make the same mistakes Shannon’s making.

In fact, I’m not sure I’ll even tell Mom about my wedding.

Mom jaunts over to a stripper, a guy who is stretched out on his back along the length of a narrow table. About twenty green vodka-and-Jello jigglers are distributed along his shiny, nude skin.

Mom slurps one right off his upper thigh.

“HOW DOES SHE DO THAT?” Shannon screams.

Amanda’s mother, Pam, slides on over like cooked spaghetti come to life.

“’S’okay, Shannon, honey. Did you know that nine percent of brides don’t even have a bachelorette party? Learned that from a wedding insurance project,” she explains with a grin that reminds me she was young once, too.

And so was my mother.

“And,” she continues, pulling Shannon close but speaking loudly, “don’t let Declan pressure you into sex.”

“Huh?”

“Because anywhere from twenty-five to fifty percent of brides and grooms don’t even sleep together on their wedding night.”

“Oh, God,” Amanda moans. “My mom is super drunk if she’s actually talking about s-e-x!”

Pam continues. “Don’ be a stasist–satis–statisicle–a statistic, Shannon. Have sex with the man you love. ’S’okay to lose your virginity on your wedding night.”

“Pam, you're contradicting yourself. And also, I already lost my?—”

Amanda drags Shannon away before she can say another word, leaving me stuck with Mom and Pam, who are both eyeing me like I’m the home improvement project they’ve been dying to start.

“You planning to get married someday, Amy?” Pam asks me as she pulls the maraschino cherry out of her drink, peeling it off the little plastic sword with loose fingers. She drops it and it plunks on the table.

Pam stares at it like it’s covered in Ebola.

“I don’t know.”

Mom’s horrified gasp sounds like a banshee.

“You take that back!” she demands. “Of course you’ll get married!”

“Maybe I won’t, Mom. Not everyone finds the perfect partner.”

A loud snort, followed by a cough, makes us look at Pam.

“No shit,” she mutters. “I married a man who was a drunk, who lost our five-year-old at a Red Sox game, and who ended up in prison.”

I know the sad story, of course. But this is a bachelorette party, and Party Pooper Pam is really harshing on my fun.

A Garth Brooks song begins, and soon Mom and Pam are screaming about old friends and whiskey, and the drinks keep coming. Henry the stripper is in my line of sight over and over, though I’m not about to suck jigglers off his arms like I’m some kind of leech.

Also, he reminds me too much of Hamish.

Drawn irresistibly to the thought of that cocky bastard, if I give in to his near-twin, it’s like he wins. He gets me, he’s right. He’s right and he knows it, and I cannot let that happen.

If anything is worse than being attracted to someone you don’t want to be attracted to, it’s having them know you’re attracted to them against your own will.

It’s like being my own Benedict Arnold, only with my libido.

Somewhere in the corner of my peripheral vision, I swear I see a dog licking alcohol out of a man’s navel, so either 1) I’m super drunk, or 2) my sister’s friends are waaaay kinkier than I ever imagined. But instead of going over there, I decide to grab another wine cooler and drink half of it. Then I hold my hands up and dance.

Until the song winds down and the piano shifts to some old 1970s song that my mom and Pam know every word to. Something about a couple making out in a car with a dashboard light.

Old people and the music of their youth. How do they know every single word? Who has the brain space to remember every lyric? The rest of the crowd, who are my age, all have their phones out, reading along as they sing.

As civilized people do.

My body loosens, sliding into a liminal space that feels so good. So free. So warm and fine and connected to the music, the people, love infusing me with a grateful sense of a world filled with goodness and joy.

When I close my eyes, I think of Hamish and I’m instantly wet, instantly wanting. There's a tingly glow that wraps around me, imagining how he smells, what it would be like in his arms. Would it hurt to fantasize a little? The man is so physically open, with an always-casual, ever-happy way of carrying himself that makes me so envious.

I wish I could go through life so confident that people will want me. Will join me. Will let me enter into their world as I let them enter mine. He’s made it clear there’s a place for me in his bed, and he wants a place in me for his, well… you know.

Plunger.

A fantasy slams into me, his hands on my hips, his mouth on my neck, my fingertips wandering across the thick, strong terrain of his body, palms cupping his ass, moving to the thickness of him. It’s so beautiful inside my mind, my breath quickening, body swaying to a new slow love song that makes me move as if drawn by a magnet to the door, ready to find him, say yes to his come-ons, give in.

Give in to myself.

And then he starts licking my ankle.

“Wha...?” Startled, I look down to find Spritzy, Pam’s little teacup Chihuahua, giving me a tongue bath that scrambles my circuits.

“Sorry!” Pam says, dipping down to pick up her dog and stuff him inside her little doggie purse. “Spritzy’s having too much fun.” Pam’s completely plastered, her eyes unfocused in a hilarious way, like a compass being deviated by a magnet.

My heart hammers in my chest, pulses between my legs, and I swear I can smell Hamish on my skin.

“You look so transcendent right now, Amy,” Pam says, reaching for a lock of my hair, her smile so free and radiant. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this happy.”

“Really?”

But Pam’s face suddenly turns green, even in the darkness of the bar, and I instinctively step back as she bolts out the door. Mom gives me a look.

I point to Pam. Mom follows.

I look at my wine cooler and set it down.

The sensation of Hamish’s imaginary hands on me lingers, all the what-if’s swirling in my mind. All I have to do is find his hotel room, right? He’s an open offer.

And as much as that would normally turn me off, he’s so alluring. So mesmerizing.

So worth taking a chance.