Chapter Five
Five
Forty-eight questions on a bachelorette party questionnaire is, at minimum, forty too many.
I haven’t filled out anything this long since Gin made me take that damn enneagram quiz, but at least that was multiple choice and didn’t require a reflection on my personal travel style.
Do I have a personal travel style? And does Renee have a vendetta against multiple-choice questions?
If the devil is in the details, Renee Roberts got her MBA in hell.
All attempts to fill out the questionnaire on my couch have ended in giving up or dozing off, so on Monday, I arrive an hour early for my shift at Gentle Giant, beating even Aidan to the studio for some deliberate survey time.
At the desk, I speed through a series of questions regarding budget, dates, and dietary restrictions.
When my fingers leap to key in a snarky response to a question about my “ideal bachelorette party vibe,” I listen for Gin’s voice in my head, calling us her family, and it smooths back my hackles.
I’ll fill out a thousand surveys without an ounce of snark if that’s what it takes to keep this family intact.
I refill my coffee around the halfway point—question twenty-four—where I’ve gotten stumped every time.
“Let’s talk destination! Where do you think Gin would want to celebrate with her girls?
” It’s the wording that throws me off, mostly.
Renee isn’t asking where we’d like to go or how far we’re willing to travel; she’s asking us to read Gin’s mind when she could instead ask the bride herself.
But after many failed survey attempts and much consideration, I’ve landed on the right answer.
Gin Bennett’s perfect bachelorette destination.
I type in “the Outpost,” then key the backspace and replace it with “Galena.”
Personal connections aside, Galena is a Midwestern mecca for a girls’ trip—the wineries, the walking tours, the cute little boutiques with fancy candles and novelty tea towels with Dolly Parton puns printed on them?
It’s darling. Sprinkle on a little spring break nostalgia and I can’t imagine a better place to host Gin’s bachelorette.
The rest of the survey feels almost too specific to be useful, but I push through to number forty-eight, the final question and by far my favorite: “Any song suggestions for the bachelorette party playlist?” I mine my memory for the soundtrack of our Dunlap days, discarding all the musical theater that floats to the surface.
“Girls Just Want to Have Fun” is an instant add, plus every Shania Twain track I can name.
The memories are vivid—a rainy day crafting at the Outpost, thunder booming behind the stylings of Shania while Gin, Chrissy, and I sipped wine and played fast and loose with half-closed bottles of paint.
It’s a squarely happy memory from when my drinking was still fun and made me do silly things like finger paint pink hearts on Gin’s thighs.
It wasn’t so cute later on when I drank for survival more than having a good time.
My fingers prickle, the memory as tangible as the coffee I wash it down with.
I could create another soundtrack, a darker one, full of songs that stir up less flattering memories.
“September” by Earth, Wind I’m just a thudding pulse, beading with sweat.
“That’s my old band,” I choke out, then take the phone from Aidan’s hands, chewing my cheek.
Why is he showing me this? And why can’t I look away?
“I thought so.” Aidan takes a long swig of his energy drink. I can smell it from here—peaches and batteries. “Cold Sweat, right?”
I nod, still staring at the photo. I’ve intentionally avoided Cold Sweat updates for the sake of my own sanity, so this is my first good look at the bassist who replaced me.
He’s a carbon copy of both the drummer and the rhythm guitarist. Gauged ears.
Cropped, bleached mullet. Only the lead singer, Solas, stands out, the way I used to. It’s his band now.
“Yo, earth to Alice.”
I didn’t realize Aidan had still been talking. “Sorry, what?”
“I said—it’s crazy, dude,” he says. “They just booked the studio.”
My composure disintegrates. “Wait. Are you serious?”
Panic skitters through me like a rat down an alley, memories of missed lobby calls and arriving two hours late to studio sessions, still drunk from the night before, too wasted to lay down a bass line.
Screaming at Solas. Getting screamed at right back.
We both deserved it. We were assholes back then.
“Wh-when are they booked?”
“In a couple weeks,” Aidan says. “They’re cutting a few demos before…” He scratches his stubble, thinking. “They’re touring with somebody later this summer. I don’t remember.”
But Google remembers. Cold Sweat is booked on a summer-long tour opening for a major pop-punk group, including a concert in Chicago this August being advertised as their hometown show.
It has its own specific line of merch and everything, shirts and koozies that say I broke a Cold Sweat in Chicago.
Jealousy scratches at the base of my skull, shredding my common sense.
That could have been me, I think, but it’s not really true.
There is no alternate reality where I’m still playing in Cold Sweat.
They’re better off without me, and I’m better off, too.
It stings, though, how their version of better looks so much more impressive.
“June thirtieth,” Aidan reads from the studio schedule. “That’s when they’re coming in.”
I swipe out of the Cold Sweat website and open my calendar. June 30. A Monday. “Can I go ahead and request that day off?”
Aidan gives me a thumbs-up and slurps his can of peach-flavored battery acid.
“Just get your shift covered,” he reminds me.
And I need the reminder, considering the only other time I’ve taken off work was the month after Dad died.
By the time Aidan’s thoroughly caffeinated and ready for setup, I’ve already texted every other assistant about covering the shift.
My loss is their gain. It should be a great session, so long as I’m not there.
Thursday night is the Great Bridesmaid Summit, as I’ve taken to calling it in my Notes-app texts to Dad.
I haven’t gone much of anywhere aside from the studio for the last year, and there’s a nostalgia—albeit a grimy one—about taking the Red Line.
The train shudders down the track like a rattlesnake with a belly full of commuters, and I get off just a few blocks from Chrissy’s apartment, right where Chicago’s gay nightlife butts up against Cubs baseball.
This, I have often thought, is the true crossroads of America, and it somehow makes sense that it’s where Chrissy lives.
Her building is a classic greystone three-flat with an arched doorway tucked behind a wrought iron gate.
It could very well be the same apartment she moved into out of college, but that was too many years and beers ago to be sure.
I’m scouring my email for the gate code when, behind me, someone clears their throat, and I’m instantly annoyed on a cellular level.
Renee looks fresh from the office in a distractingly well-fitting pencil skirt and a red satin blouse tied in a bow around her neck.
She tosses me a bored “Hello,” then motions for me to step aside.
I do, and she punches in the code with the ease of a regular visitor, letting the gate swing back to hit me square in the gut.
A sound like a squeaky dog toy flies out of me.
“Sorry,” Renee says, sounding very not sorry.
I grind my teeth and concentrate on Gin’s voice in my head. You can at least try. You guys are my family. If Renee got the same speech, I’ve yet to see evidence.