Chapter Ten
Ten
The disco-cowgirl dress code allowed plenty of room for interpretation.
Chrissy struts into the hotel lobby in a pink sequin dress, black knee-high stiletto boots, and a rhinestone-studded cowboy hat.
She is a moment, and I am…feeling some regret.
Not about the bell-bottoms or the red bandanna tied around my neck.
But maybe I shouldn’t have committed to this stick-on handlebar mustache.
I knew the mustache was a risk, but in my head, it was also an enormous hit. Hilarious pictures. A well-crafted memory, compliments of exemplary bridesmaid Alice Pierce.
Instead, Chrissy looks momentarily confused before adjusting the bandanna around my neck and resticking my mustache where the heat has caused it to peel up. “The mustache is…such a fun choice!” she says, underwhelmed, if not a little confused.
Gin’s reaction is better; when she stumbles into the lobby in a cow-print vest over a sparkly, strappy white dress, she staggers back, points, and shouts, “MUSTACHE!” with an explosive laugh. I’m extremely pleased with myself but a little concerned about the lag in Gin’s eyes.
“She was loving that mini bar,” Chrissy murmurs.
“Should we grab you some water before we go?” I suggest.
Gin grips my shoulder for stability, adjusting the strap of her silver kitten heels. “I’ll drink water at…What’s the restaurant? The Blue Lagoon?”
“Lagoon 42,” a voice behind us says, and we turn to face Renee, by far the chicest disco cowgirl among us.
Her blond hair cascades in loose waves from beneath a black cowgirl hat, and she has the boots to match, plus heaps of rhinestone jewelry that hang like fringe around her neck and wrists.
Of course, she’s dressed in her signature red, a vest with matching trouser shorts that graze her knees.
The outfit is a knockout, and it registers in my throat.
Because it’s also very…well…gay. I have no clear read on Renee’s sexuality, and her Siblings or dating?
picture remains a mystery. But this outfit?
That’s a Kinsey six, and Renee herself is a perfect ten.
Our Uber arrives, and we give Gin the front seat, squeezing three bridesmaids across in the back. I’m stuck in the middle, battling for space with Chrissy’s extra-long supermodel limbs. A thought zips past.
“Chrissy. Weird question. Are you a model? Like, for your job?”
She revs up her Weedwacker laugh and swats a hand. “Oh, you’re way too nice to me, Ali Pal.”
Another dead end in my pursuit of what this woman does for work.
Lagoon 42 is a big wooden building surrounded by both real and artificial palm trees. Inside, the lights are dim and blue (like lagoon water, I suppose?), and Gin stumbles twice on the way to our reserved table…or rather, our reserved bar top.
“Sorry, gals,” the hostess says. “We overbooked. Lotta bachelorette parties tonight.”
There’s no sympathy in the tick of Renee’s jaw, but Gin is unfazed.
She claims a barstool and unfolds a menu, perfectly tipsy and content, and hey, if the bride’s happy, we’re all happy.
We fill in the surrounding seats: Chrissy on Gin’s left, Renee on her right, and me on the far end, shouting to be heard over the thudding club beats.
“Should we all do a round of water first?!?” I yell. Gin’s eyelids look droopy, and if she doesn’t slow down, we’ll be carrying her out of Lagoon 42 in approximately 42 minutes.
“A round of water,” Renee repeats to the bartender, who nods and hands the first glass to Gin. The bride pouts and flicks her straw, but the protest ends there.
“I get it, I geeeeeet it,” Gin drawls. “Safety first.”
“Safety first,” Chrissy repeats, then frowns, thinks, and asks, “What’s second?”
Without missing a beat, Gin says, “Teamwork.”
“Teamwork!” I agree. “It’s a good thing you’ve got a good team, huh?!”
Gin can’t hear me. She leans all the way forward and captures her straw in her lips like a snapping turtle, and I don’t mean to laugh, but I do. This she somehow hears.
“Don’t laugh at me.” Gin frowns around her straw.
“No, no, I’m not laughing at you,” I lie. “I just…I saw another bride go into the bathroom, and she looked like she was gonna throw up.”
Gin’s gaze swings from Chrissy to Renee. “What did she say? I can’t hear her.”
The bartender returns, and everyone orders their first round of fruity cocktails, plus a heinously overpriced mocktail for me.
Anyone charging more than seven dollars for grenadine and seltzer is running a scam, and the owner of Lagoon 42 must be a Nigerian prince with an overactive email.
I toss a few appetizers onto our order. If I learned anything in college, it was not to let Virginia Bennett drink on an empty stomach.
The bartender knows a drunk bride when he sees one; he makes Gin’s drink last, serving it just as our calamari and brie bites arrive. Safety first, I think. Then teamwork.
“Cheers!” Gin sings, splashing at least a quarter of her coconut martini onto the bar. Chrissy’s pink drink matches both her dress and her sunburn, and she drains it in one solid swig.
“Daa-ha-haaaam.” Gin laughs, then follows suit, tipping her head back and emptying her glass down her throat.
“Chug, chug, chug!” Chrissy pounds on the bar as she chants. “Renee, you too, girl!”
Renee twists her gold thumb ring, then mutters, “Ah, what the hell,” plucks the straw from her copper mug, and goes bottoms up on her cherry mule.
She breaks to cough halfway through, but on the second go, I hear the crush of ice against her teeth, and Chrissy and Gin let out a victory cry.
I contribute a “Woo!” for good measure, triggering a domino effect throughout the dining room.
On the far end of the bar, a bride in a white WIFE LIFE crop top climbs onto her stool and swings a costume-store veil overhead like a lasso while her friends echo my “Woo!” and shake their asses from the safety of the floor.
Chrissy’s jaw drops. “Are they trying to…out-fun us?”
The answer, of course, is yes. Knowingly or not, every bachelorette party in this restaurant has opted in to a competition to see who can have the best time.
As the woos die down from the far end of the bar, a cluster of women in matching black bodycon dresses pound their fists on their table.
Among them, a leader in all white emerges, taking a knee and thereby flashing the bar as she gulps down something shimmery and pink.
Not to be outdone, a group of women in neon wigs kicks off a sing-along of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” which is, notably, not the song that’s currently playing.
I have a hard time believing I would enjoy this even if I were drunk, but Gin is having the time of her life.
“Another coconut martini, puh-lease.” The bride nudges her glass toward our bartender, and her eyes droop down to his silver name tag. “Thankyous’much, Shawn.”
“You’re very welcome…” Shawn stretches his eyebrows and leans in toward Gin, waiting for her to fill in the blank with her own name, but she doesn’t catch his drift. Instead, she blinks back at him, her heavy eyelids never fully lifting.
“These are so good.” Gin taps one opalescent fingernail against the rim of the glass. “Actually, Shawn.” She pauses, clearly satisfied with herself. “Shawn the bartender. Can you make me two?”
Shawn laughs before whisking her empty martini glass away, but he doesn’t bother with her question.
Gin doesn’t mind; in fact, she forgets about Shawn and her coconut martinis altogether when she spies the big purple flower decorating the calamari plate.
She tucks it behind her ear, a single splash of color against her all-white ensemble.
“Gorgina!” Chrissy laughs, snapping photos from all angles as Gin rotates through six or seven poses, pursing her lips then framing her face with her hands. Chrissy’s jaw drops again when she swipes through her options. “Um, hello? I’m sending these to Rishi immediately.”
“Tell him I looooove him,” Gin slurs. “Oh, and send him the one from the pool, too! The one where my boobs look soooo good.” She grabs her boobs through her dress and smooshes them together just as Shawn the bartender sets a single coconut martini in front of her.
Instead of blushing and slouching away like sober Gin would do, our bride howls in laughter, still holding her own rack.
Shawn slinks away without a word, and we all burst into laughter, even me.
“Oh my God.” Chrissy smacks Gin’s thigh. “I haven’t seen you this drunk since…” She pauses, then giggles to herself. “Well, not since your ho phase after you and Alice broke up.”
My eyes go wide. “What’s this about a ho phase?”
“Oh my God,” Gin squeals and kicks her legs.
“We are noooot talking about this. Not on my bachelorette!” She pauses and feigns sobriety quite unconvincingly as she announces, “I was never a ho. I was always a perfect angelic bride.” She makes a little halo with her fingers and holds it over her head, smiling up at the ceiling.
“Great impression,” I deadpan. “Now tell me about the ho phase.”
“I was not a ho!” Gin insists.
“You were kind of a ho,” Renee mutters into her drink. “You were with a different girl every week.”
“Nuh-uh,” Gin whines, then bites her bottom lip and shyly adds, “Some of them were guys.”
“Virginia Angelie Bennett.” I click my tongue against the roof of my mouth, tutting and shaking my head. “I can’t believe you kept this from me. You said Rishi was the only guy you’d been with.”
“I meant, like, been with.” Gin makes a circle with one hand and jabs her pointer finger in and out of it, a fourth-grade representation of how hetero sex works.
“Ew, stop that.” Renee swats away Gin’s demonstration. “I don’t want to think about Rishi’s penis.”
A devilish spark flashes through Gin’s eyes as she reaches for her phone. “Do you wanna see it?”
In unison, all three of us bark, “No!”