Chapter 13
By some miracle, the groomsmen didn’t give us any trouble getting organized this morning, and they all left early to deliver the welcome kits.
Most of the guests have already arrived, considering that, if you remember well, most of them are socialites and finance bros, not the kind of people who need to ask their boss for a week off, unlike me.
For those who haven’t arrived yet, we already have the hotel name and arrival date, so it was agreed that the groomsmen would ask the hotel to deliver the kit at check-in.
I left the other bridesmaids, along with Aunt Abby, arranging some of the gift bags that will be delivered on the day of the party, and I swear, if I have to say the word “gift bag” or “wedding favor” one more time after I get home, I’m going to throw myself in front of a taxi in the middle of Fifth Avenue.
Now I just hope everyone is doing their job properly and no one causes unnecessary stress for Mila today. Neither she nor Robbie have left the room yet, so I have the impression that it’s going to be a calm day, free of bride meltdowns, if everything continues as it is.
The Carnegies, Lianne and Gus, hired a chef specializing in Mexican cuisine to make lunch, and now they are quietly playing cards with Robbie’s family.
Uncle Henry is snoring on the couch next to them after staying up all night watching some rugby championship in Australia while finishing off all the cold beer at the house.
Jasper is far away, very far, and, if he does everything right, he won’t be back anytime soon.
At this moment, everything is fine. Everything is perfect and surprisingly well. I just hope it stays that way so I can finally have some time off. Time off that includes a pool, some good hours of sunbathing, and all the consolatory Mimosas I can have.
But I still can’t even smell alcohol, so I’m drinking orange juice in a fancy Champagne glass.
The sky is completely clear, the sun is shining bright and hot, but here, facing the vast infinity pool that seems to merge with the ocean, I can only feel the cool water breeze, and my skin burns in a way that is much more relaxing than, you know… painful.
Which is obviously a mistake, because it makes me stay in the sun much longer than I should, and when I realize what has happened, I immediately jump into the cold pool in a useless attempt to cool my skin.
But I know, you know, everyone knows that it’s already too late, and I’m officially sunburnt.
I’m going to be red as a shrimp in all the wedding photos. I can feel it already!
Well, that’s it! Maybe I don’t deserve a break. Maybe I’m already so doomed to chaos that, when I finally have a free moment, I end up ruining everything with second-degree sunburns. Just to keep up the tradition.
I give up on the chilly pool when lunch is ready and Mila finally appears in the living room, calm and smiling, so whatever bedroom service Robbie gave her, I can only thank him from the bottom of my heart.
The kitchen island has a hotel-worthy feast, full of colors, flavors, and textures that you only find in Mexican cuisine, and let me tell you, it doesn’t compare to anything I’ve ever eaten in New York. Or anywhere in the United States, for that matter.
I’m so amazed by the options that I don’t even know where to start.
To be honest, I don’t even know if I want to go back home.
Maybe I’ll stay here. Maybe I’ll marry Emilio, our chef for the day.
That’s it. Maybe I’ll marry Emilio, and he’ll spend the rest of his life cooking Mexican food for me, and everything will be perfect.
Or maybe, really just maybe, I’m sunstroke and delirious.
I start with a big glass of water, just in case, and go straight for the shrimp tacos. They go perfectly with the guacamole. That go even better with the nachos, and, I swear, I’ve never tasted a tomato sauce so good.
Is Emilio married?
Where’s Aunt Abby to say something inappropriate to him when I need it most?
I start laughing to myself, shooing away the absurd thoughts that keep popping up in my mind. Then I drink more water.
Emilio continues cooking for the rest of the afternoon until the groomsmen return home. Curiously, this is still before Uncle Henry wakes up. But eventually, that happens too. Toward late afternoon, just before we all start getting ready for the bachelor and bachelorette parties.
Jasper has taken on the task of planning Robbie’s party with the other groomsmen. I’m in charge of Mila’s bachelorette party.
I have no idea what the men have planned (strip club. I know Jasper Hassman! Of course, they planned a strip club), but I have a perfectly organized schedule, minute by minute, until midnight, when both parties will come together and we will meet at a nightclub downtown.
At six, the men leave the house, and we stay here on the pool deck with a team of hot bartenders in black boxers and bowties, making drinks, spitting fire, and juggling some of the expensive bottles that arrived from Paloma’s wine cellar this afternoon.
We will share stories about how we met Mila, and then we’ll have a competition called “Who Knwos Mila Best?” I spent five hours making a huge banner, all by hand, painting the letters, covering them with paint and glitter, only to realize later I made a mistake, so the competition is called “Who Knwos Mila Best?”, whether people like it or not.
At eight, Jack, the beefy police officer, will knock on our door, telling us to be quiet.
And then he’ll strip to the sounds of Rosalía.
At nine, Madame Ximena will arrive to read our fortune with tarot cards.
At eleven, the limousine will take everyone to the club.
After that… well, after that, I guess everyone will be too drunk for me to have any control of.
Except for me.
I won’t drink.
Not today. Not ever.
Especially if there’s a chance I cross paths with a stupid lawyer at some point in the night.
Especially if there’s a chance I’ll say something I shouldn’t and give myself away.
A sober body is a healthy body, it’s what I keep telling myself as the first bartender tosses a tequila bottle in the air and catches it with his flexed bicep.
Once all the women at the party are holding their drinks, including Mila’s 92-year-old grandmother, who is still staring at bartender-number-two’s abs with her jaw dropped, I stand up and turn on the penis-shaped microphone bought especially for the occasion, announcing the first activity of the night: “How You Met Mila!”
Well, at least I got this banner right!
“She came out of me!” Mrs. Carnegie blurts out before I even finish explaining the game.
“Well, of course, Mrs. Carnegie! You had to endure Mila’s craziness much longer than any of us. You obviously deserve a shot!” I shout, and all the women in the room shout along, raising their drinks in the air. “Bartender, please, Mrs. Carnegie wants a shot!”
Then bartender number three, arms and chest covered in tattoos, comes marching over with all the sexiness he can muster, holding a tequila bottle.
“You’ll need to tilt your head, close your eyes, and open your mouth, Mrs. Carnegie!” he says in a very suggestive tone, like a character from a romance novel, and the girls start screaming again.
“Oh, please!” she exclaims, waving her hand full of gold rings, her cheeks turning completely red. “Call me Lianne.”
“The salt is right here,” he says, at the same time he starts pouring the salt over the dragon tattoo that stretches from his shoulder to the middle of his chest. The entire room erupts in screams as Mrs. Carnegie licks the salt from his tattoo, and the bartender warns, “The lime is in my pocket, Lianne.”
After that, he holds her head, making sure to tilt her face upward with one hand, while pouring tequila into her mouth with the other.
My God, I love bachelorette parties!
Mrs. Carnegie swallows the shot with a completely wild expression and goes in search of the lime. Before she even finds it, Mila’s grandmother exclaims from the corner of the sofa, I want a shot too!”
The room fills with laughter.
“Oh, grandma wants a shot!” I continue as the host. “You’ll have your shot, grandma, but first, tell us how you met Mila.”
“Oh,” she says with a sweet little old-lady smile and a husky laugh. “She was wonderful! She cried, cried, cried… so Lianne asked me to hold her. The moment she landed in my arms, she stopped crying immediately.”
I let out a small, sweet smile, almost forgetting this isn’t a cute moment, and my only job tonight is to create a raunchy enough atmosphere for a bachelorette party and get all the women drunk, so I quickly say, “Grandma, you can take your shot!”
And, well, she seems to be in heaven after that.
Heaven of joy, not… heaven of the dead.
Stories keep coming as we continue the game. Brenda, Robbie’s mother, recounts the first time Mila went to their house in the Hamptons and had explosive diarrhea all weekend from some bad oysters.
Suzi starts talking about how angry she was when Mila joined her yoga class because she had been the hottest one there for years, but, after Mila joined, looking like a Disney princess, it wasn’t a fair competition anymore.
So Suzi hated her for an entire month until Mila accidentally set her up with the guy working at the smoothie shop across the street. After that, they became friends.
“The first time I saw Mila,” I start my part of the story “she invited me to get coffee just so I could leave the room, and her chauffeur could drop off all the luggage inside without me seeing it.”
Everyone laughs, probably thinking how typical that is for her.
“She was trying very hard not to let me know how much money she had, so she kept hiding things all week. Yeah, Mila, I know you bought sushi from that 2-Michelin-star restaurant in Times Square and ate it at three in the morning when you thought I was asleep. The room smelled like fish for weeks!”
My friend’s jaw drops, only now realizing what I knew from the start.