Chapter Eight #2
“Imagine working somewhere where you’re constantly interacting with party people,” I offer. “Everyone is always having fun except for you. That might grate on the poor guy.”
“Well, he should cheer up,” Chrissy decides, “because Ginny is getting married and there are no bad vibes allowed.” She grabs our bride by the shoulders and shakes her as if to rattle away any bad vibes she might’ve caught from being scowled at.
Renee rejoins the group with two sets of key cards and a clear agenda as to who will be rooming together. She pockets one pink plastic card, then holds out the other set to Chrissy and me, but Gin grabs them first.
“Chrissy, do you wanna be roomies again?” Gin bounces her brows. “Like freshman year?”
“Okay, love that!”
Chrissy snatches the key cards and passes one to Gin, knocking Renee’s smile right off her lips.
It’s quick—just a fraction of a second that Renee’s face goes slack before she swallows and pins a smile back in place, passing the single remaining card to me.
My throat feels like it’s closing up, but I only smile back, because that’s what a good bridesmaid would do.
Per the instructions of the grump at the desk, we turn left at the neon cactus, twisting and weaving down a series of halls with dim overhead lighting that’s almost yellow against the concrete floors.
It’s the opposite of the rainbow lobby, proof that this renovated motel used to be something dingier.
We hang a left, a right, and then we’re back to our regularly scheduled color scheme, plus a smell that’s eerily familiar.
I pinpoint it instantly: It smells like our freshman dorm, like old buildings and industrial cleaning products and mixed drinks.
Unlike the dorms, each hotel door is painted a different candy-coated color, and Renee slows us all to a stop in front of two doors labeled 106 and 107—orange and pink, respectively. Lesbian colors. Nice.
“Should we meet up in twentyish minutes to go check out the pool?” Renee suggests.
I mush my lips together to keep from laughing. Renee is playing this off so casually, as if this twenty-minute break to unpack and refresh before pool time weren’t already outlined in our itinerary.
“Sounds perfect,” Gin says. “Just come knock when you’re ready.” She gives Chrissy a wink. “Our room can be the party room.”
“Honey, wherever you are is always the party room,” Chrissy gushes. “But sounds perf. See you guys soon.”
With our perf plan decided, we file into our rooms. To match our pink door, we’ve got a pink dresser, pink mirror, and a long hot-pink curtain half covering a sliding glass door overlooking a patio.
The carpet is Barney purple, and in the center of the room, a single queen-size bed with a pink headboard is dressed in the usual fluffy white hotel duvet. My stomach sours. A queen? Really?
Renee must be thinking the same thing. She marches straight to the room phone, punches a few numbers, and puts on her sweetest customer-service voice.
“Hi, I was calling to see whether you have rolling cots available? I don’t mind paying an extra fee.
” Based on her flattened expression, I’d guess it’s not good news.
“Uh-huh.” Renee sighs and rubs her temples.
“Well, thanks anyway.” She docks the phone and lets out a long, slow breath.
“I’m guessing there’s no—”
She waves me off. “Take whichever side, I guess.”
And I can’t help it. I’m feeling petty. “So you mean I should just do whatever I want to do?”
She blinks at me. “Um, yeah?”
“Cool. So how about I ask you for your thoughts on which side of the bed I should take, but then I’ll just go ahead and take whichever side I want.”
Her stare is one part pissed, two parts confused.
“I could send you a survey,” I go on. “Forty-eight questions about exactly how you think we should share this room for the next two days, and then I’ll still just do whatever I want, even if we agreed not to do it.”
Renee’s nostrils flare. “Oh come on. This is about the themes?”
My laugh is more of a cry of disbelief. “Yes, it’s about the themes, Renee.
And the…oh, what is it?” I page through the massive printed itinerary.
“Yes, right. ‘We know our Gin is an early riser, so let’s meet in the lobby at six so we can beat the heat before the sun rises! Please pack a canteen, CamelBak, or other bottled water.’ Blah blah blah.
” I march across the room and thrust my itinerary right up to Renee’s nose. “A SIX. MILE. HIKE.”
Renee doesn’t flinch. She speaks plainly. Sternly. Only in statements of fact. “Gin put me in charge of the bachelorette party. I collected input; then I planned the special weekend Gin deserves.”
“Is this?” I tug on my T-shirt, holding it taut. “Not already special? We have matching T-shirts. We’re in fucking Palm Springs.”
Renee rolls her eyes. “That’s baseline.”
“That’s absurd.”
“No, actually, it’s not,” she says. “It’s about what you’d expect for a bachelorette party, which you wouldn’t know because you’ve never even been to one.”
“Oh, right, Renee. You’re right, as usual. I’ve never been to a bachelorette party, so tell me: Is it normal to share a room with an enormous tw—”
“HEY, BITCHESSSS. Where the fugggarrrryooou!?” The headboard rattles with the repeated thuds of someone—Chrissy—pounding on our shared wall. My breath stills in my lungs. Thin walls. I would have loved to have known that sooner.
More pounding. “It’s been twenty minutes!” Chrissy shouts. “Let’s goooooo!”
“We’re almost ready!” Renee hollers, a bald-faced lie, but the thudding gets wobbly and more hollow…
and then it’s coming from the sliding glass door.
Renee draws open our hot-pink curtain to reveal a distant view of the pool and, up close and personal, both Chrissy’s and Gin’s asses smooshed up against the glass.
I’m not sure if what flies out of me is a laugh or a shout, but it’s loud, and it startles Renee almost as much as the two surprise butts on display.
She flips open the lock, and Gin and Chrissy squeal and sprint back toward their room, tugging up their bikini bottoms and splashing hard seltzer across the concrete.
“Slow down on the mini bar, party room!” Renee hollers, and when she slides the door shut again, it’s like the air in the room has changed.
We’ve been mooned; suddenly, nothing feels that serious.
This is a party, after all. We’re on vacation.
Not my idea of a vacation but a vacation all the same.
I snort a laugh at the four round ass-cheek prints left on the glass, and Renee rolls her eyes, but she cracks a smile.
When she sashays off to the bathroom to change, I think, Okay. Maybe we’ll actually survive this.
We put on our suits and meet our ass-print artists on their patio just ten minutes past schedule.
The heat has gotten worse, but the view almost makes up for it.
The sky is one seamless stretch of blue, interrupted only by mountains painted a shade of purple I’ve never seen outside a bruise.
“So pretty,” I mutter, ripping the tags off my new neon-green one-piece.
This is the first and likely last time I’ll ever wear it.
Past the sunny yellow gates, the Barbicide-blue water awaits, bookended by two amoeba-shaped hot tubs and bright-yellow umbrellas like daffodils springing up from the concrete.
Color upon color, and that’s without even acknowledging the hundred or so people milling and splashing about in a rainbow of suits.
The only place for my eyes to rest is on Gin’s all-white bikini.
Her flip-flops are highlighter yellow, though, a small commitment to today’s neon theme.
“Ready to hit it?” Gin asks.
“Maybe we should swing by the bar first,” Chrissy suggests, sliding on her pink heart-shaped sunglasses—we all got a pair in the goody bags Renee handed out at the airport.
“No need for the bar,” Renee says. “I had the hotel stock the cabana.”
“Of course you did, you master event planner.” Gin shimmies her shoulders while digging through her pool bag, fishing out her own sunglasses—they’re the same heart-shaped ones, only white. When she slides them on, Chrissy snaps a selfie of the two of them, then motions us all in for a group shot.
“Say Rishi!” Gin cues.
“Rishiiiiiiiiiiiii!”
Chrissy takes a few rapid-fire shots from different angles and continues to film as we walk in not-quite unison toward the pool, our flip-flops th-thwacking like grace notes.
Past the gate and the DJ spinning Madonna remixes, the bar is packed with girls ripping tequila shots, and gaggles of gay men in tiny trunks and fluorescent Speedos dance on any and every available surface, sipping from novelty cactus-shaped cups.
Neon Pool Party, it seems, was not a theme mandated by Renee; it’s the name of the event, printed on every highlighter-yellow koozie.
Ours is the only empty poolside tent, and we arrive just in time to stop a cabanaless freeloader from setting up in our spot. Who could blame him? Every pool chair and sun umbrella is spoken for. Five years ago, if I were in his shoes, I would have looted our mini fridge by now.
“No way! Hard kombucha?”
Gin wastes no time starting the party. I claim a seat on the hot-pink sectional and listen for the hiss and the snap of the can, bracing myself for the smell. Alcoholic or not, kombucha has always smelled like rotten wine to me.
“Ooh, grab me one!” Chrissy peels off her crocheted pool cover-up to reveal the teeniest neon-green bikini and a body likely built by some offshoot of Pilates. “This is, like, beyond cute, Renee. Thank you so much for booking this.”
“Of course.”