swing pink feather boas around like spastic Vegas showgirl outcasts before the image is permanently imprinted in your cerebral cortex. Right next to the part that stores vital information like your name, your age, and the number of fat grams in a pint of Chunky Monkey ice cream.
I wove through the crowd, found Grace, and grabbed her by the arm as she stood with Bobby on the edge of the makeshift dance floor, singing along with the music. “You didn’t tell me this place was going to be like a Girls Gone Wild episode.”
“What, the bachelorette parties? It’s a beach destination in the dead of summer. You can’t go anywhere and not run into bachelorette parties. What’s the big deal?”
“This isn’t exactly helping to take my mind off of things. How am I supposed to be perky and pleasant when I’m standing in the middle of a bridal carnival? Is the entire summer going to be like this?”
“I sure as hell hope so,” Bobby said as he adjusted the collar on his striped shirt and smoothed his dark hair out of his eyes. “I love bachelorette parties. Girls who are secretly jealous that their friend is getting married before they do are the easiest scores on earth. You guys are on your own tonight, there are lonely hearts everywhere. It’s time I find one to help cheer up.” Bobby darted away from us, very much a single guy on the singles circuit. I wished I could be more like Bobby, but I actually cared what people thought about me. I felt deflated.
“I’m going to sit down over there,” I said, pointing to a cluster of small cocktail tables dotting the periphery of the bar. I collapsed in one of the metal chairs and took out my lip gloss. There was an exceedingly large group of girls gathered around the table next to me, squealing and laughing and doing exactly what girls were supposed to be doing on a Saturday night in summer: getting drunk. I glanced in their direction and realized with horror that they weren’t just a large, rowdy group of girls. They were members of one of the bachelorette parties—one with a T-shirt-wearing ensemble cast and a very drunk, boa-clad bride. Apparently, no place was safe.
I placed the bride’s age somewhere around twenty-five by virtue of her wearing purple nail polish with sequins attached to each thumb and extremely pink lip gloss thick enough to make her hair stick to it like flypaper. I reapplied my lip gloss and figured, if you can’t join ’em, eavesdrop on ’em.
“Okay, ladies!” the maid of honor said as she clanked her fork on her nearly empty champagne flute. I wasn’t using woman’s intuition or my razor-sharp detective skills to deduce that she was the maid of honor. I simply read it off her T-shirt. Apparently, being a maid of honor now warranted your own T-shirt, like you were the most special of the nonbrides in the group. I wondered if this little tradition would snowball until the entire wedding party was wearing T-shirts denoting their place in the wedding caste system. I felt bad for the girl who got stuck wearing the shirt that said OBLIGATORY BRIDESMAID SO AS TO AVOID PISSING OFF FUTURE IN-LAWS. It was only a matter of time before the bridal T-shirt people stopped being polite and just put the truth out there like Letterman. And Joan Rivers. And Taylor Swift after some guy pisses her off.
“It’s time to play the question game!” the maid of honor sang as the rest of the girls clapped and oohed and aahed. The maid of honor turned to the bride, sitting on her throne at the head of the table, her blinking, battery-operated tiara lights making her look like a malfunctioning Christmas tree ornament. “We emailed Connor a bunch of questions about you, and I have the answers right here!” she said as she waved a sheet of paper in the air. “Every time you answer a question wrong, you have to drink!”
Everyone oohed and aahed and clapped again, like drinking was some kind of exotic punishment that no one had ever heard of. The maid of
I wove through the crowd, found Grace, and grabbed her by the arm as she stood with Bobby on the edge of the makeshift dance floor, singing along with the music. “You didn’t tell me this place was going to be like a Girls Gone Wild episode.”
“What, the bachelorette parties? It’s a beach destination in the dead of summer. You can’t go anywhere and not run into bachelorette parties. What’s the big deal?”
“This isn’t exactly helping to take my mind off of things. How am I supposed to be perky and pleasant when I’m standing in the middle of a bridal carnival? Is the entire summer going to be like this?”
“I sure as hell hope so,” Bobby said as he adjusted the collar on his striped shirt and smoothed his dark hair out of his eyes. “I love bachelorette parties. Girls who are secretly jealous that their friend is getting married before they do are the easiest scores on earth. You guys are on your own tonight, there are lonely hearts everywhere. It’s time I find one to help cheer up.” Bobby darted away from us, very much a single guy on the singles circuit. I wished I could be more like Bobby, but I actually cared what people thought about me. I felt deflated.
“I’m going to sit down over there,” I said, pointing to a cluster of small cocktail tables dotting the periphery of the bar. I collapsed in one of the metal chairs and took out my lip gloss. There was an exceedingly large group of girls gathered around the table next to me, squealing and laughing and doing exactly what girls were supposed to be doing on a Saturday night in summer: getting drunk. I glanced in their direction and realized with horror that they weren’t just a large, rowdy group of girls. They were members of one of the bachelorette parties—one with a T-shirt-wearing ensemble cast and a very drunk, boa-clad bride. Apparently, no place was safe.
I placed the bride’s age somewhere around twenty-five by virtue of her wearing purple nail polish with sequins attached to each thumb and extremely pink lip gloss thick enough to make her hair stick to it like flypaper. I reapplied my lip gloss and figured, if you can’t join ’em, eavesdrop on ’em.
“Okay, ladies!” the maid of honor said as she clanked her fork on her nearly empty champagne flute. I wasn’t using woman’s intuition or my razor-sharp detective skills to deduce that she was the maid of honor. I simply read it off her T-shirt. Apparently, being a maid of honor now warranted your own T-shirt, like you were the most special of the nonbrides in the group. I wondered if this little tradition would snowball until the entire wedding party was wearing T-shirts denoting their place in the wedding caste system. I felt bad for the girl who got stuck wearing the shirt that said OBLIGATORY BRIDESMAID SO AS TO AVOID PISSING OFF FUTURE IN-LAWS. It was only a matter of time before the bridal T-shirt people stopped being polite and just put the truth out there like Letterman. And Joan Rivers. And Taylor Swift after some guy pisses her off.
“It’s time to play the question game!” the maid of honor sang as the rest of the girls clapped and oohed and aahed. The maid of honor turned to the bride, sitting on her throne at the head of the table, her blinking, battery-operated tiara lights making her look like a malfunctioning Christmas tree ornament. “We emailed Connor a bunch of questions about you, and I have the answers right here!” she said as she waved a sheet of paper in the air. “Every time you answer a question wrong, you have to drink!”
Everyone oohed and aahed and clapped again, like drinking was some kind of exotic punishment that no one had ever heard of. The maid of
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