Chapter 16 Winnie
WINNIE
“Um, what the hell is this? This doesn’t seem like a harmless stalker.” Carolina waves the cardstock at me.
“He was here again?” I croak, blearily trying to sit up.
“Again? He’s been in here watching you sleep?” Carolina demands, standing over me on the couch. “Fidget!” my friend snaps at the border collie. “What the hell?”
The dog snorts and snuffles under the couch, back legs splayed.
“Ugh. I need to stop sleeping here. My back—” I twist, popping my spine. Kathy is sprawled out on my actual bed with the expensive mattress from the UK.
“You need to call the police about this.” Carolina taps the cardstock angrily.
“Did he leave any snacks or candy? Maybe a bottle of water, some Advil, coffee?”
“You know, for someone who claims she doesn’t want anything to do with her blond billionaire she’s been internet stalking—”
“The technical term is ‘creeping on’—”
“So much that she turns down a date—”
“It was just a joke because he’s an asshole—”
“She sure is happy to overdrink and flirt—”
“Not flirting!”
“And wear her best low-cut dresses around him.”
“I didn’t purchase any of these dresses, and they were unhappy accidents.”
“Once is an accident. Twice is a pattern of behavior.” Carolina’s eyes narrow. “At the very least, if you give him a chance, he’ll scare off Mr. Tall Dark and Creepy.”
“Give me that.” I snatch the note from her. “You’re passing judgment about a man you don’t even—oh.”
“Yeah, oh.”
Nice tits. I want to add them to my collection.
My stomach roils, and it’s not from all the expensive wine and rich pasta I had last night—not to mention the late-night pastries.
“What do you think he means by ‘add them to his collection’?” I gulp. “Like he’s going to take a photo? Or maybe it’s a metaphor?”
“No, I think that he is literally, not metaphorically, going to cut your tits off, stuff them with newspaper, and mount them on his wall. Can we please call the police?”
“You girls are a black mark on this family,” Gran hollers from the hallway.
Panicking, I crumple up the note and stuff it between the cushions right as the doors to the bedroom burst open. When I had this house redone, it had seemed romantic to have tall, narrow French doors leading to my bedroom. Now I just want a thick metal door with a padlock. Ugly and grandma-proof.
“You all went out with rich men, and not a single one of you stayed the night with a cock wrapped in a hundred-dollar bill. Gran is having conniptions. It’s like you’re not even trying.”
“Frances!” My mom hurries in after her. “They’re good girls. Of course they aren’t staying at strange men’s houses.”
“I thought you wanted grandchildren. Whose side are you on? They’re almost forty—they’re not teenagers anymore.
Cut the apron strings.” Gran turns on us.
“Your mom’s such a helicopter parent. You didn’t get enough practice dating in your twenties.
Now here we are—we’re going to have to take drastic measures. ”
“I’m too old to be out drinking all night. I’ve done it more in a week than I have in the last five years.” I groan. “And I like sleeping in my own bed. Well, my own house, at least.”
The couch lurches as Fidget tries to extricate her cone from under the seat. She bangs into the coffee table then jumps up on the bed to collapse with a sigh next to my sister.
“You’re setting a bad example for Kathy,” my mom chides as she starts picking up the clothes on the floor.
“You’re setting a bad example for us all.” Gran shakes her head.
My phone dings.
“That better be a man,” Gran warns.
“Oh, is it Nick?”
“Who is Nick, Mom?”
“It’s the checkout boy. I gave him your phone number and told him that you’re on the older side but you’re still looking for love and to give you a call.”
“Mom, no! You can’t just give my number out to random strangers.”
“I’m just trying to help, sweetie.”
“Help is not needed.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Anyways, it is a man, but it’s another online date for Kathy. Plan C.”
“Hell no.” Gran slaps the phone out of my hand. “None of this online bullshit. Your generation just wants to do everything on your phone. You’re not going to get laid on your phone. You girls want boyfriends?”
“No, I just want Kathy to have a—”
“We’re doing it the old-fashioned way,” she steamrolls over me. “Tried-and-true.”
“We are too old to be shopping at this store.”
“My pastry addiction is too out of control to be shopping here.”
Kathy’s right at home. The slinky scraps of shiny fabric were made for her body type.
“Who wears these types of dresses?” I grump. “Mine has a hole in it. Poor construction.”
“I think that’s how it’s supposed to be?” Carolina whispers to me as we browse the racks of trendy clothes at the Nasty Gal boutique.
“I don’t even think they make my size.”
“We’re size inclusive,” the saleswoman chirps.
I stretch out one dress. The fabric expands unnervingly. “I guess technically it could fit?”
“Try these on.” Gran dumps a handful of the dresses in my arms. “And these shoes too.”
“Gran, I’m in my late thirties.”
“We have a lot of women your age come to shop in here. They wear the dresses to swingers parties.” The sales associate giggles and adds earrings to our pile. “Pineapples, whoo!”
“Go try this one on.” Gran stacks more cheap fabric onto the pile.
“That looks like a sweater for a dog.”
“You won’t be in those dresses that long. Chop-chop.”
In the mirror in the poorly lit dressing room, I stare at my reflection. My boob is about to pop out of one of the random holes in the stretchy gold fabric. The chunky heels pinch my toes, and the straps that crisscross the back of the dress dig, itchy, into my back.
“This is so not my color.”
“This is not my fabric.”
“I mean, it’s like it’s made out of badly recycled plastic bags.”
Carolina and I step out of the dressing rooms.
“This is why I didn’t participate in the club scene in college,” I groan. “I’m having flashbacks to that time we tried to go to a frat party.”
We both shudder.
“Isn’t it fun that you can’t outrun your trauma?”
The dressing room across from us opens, and Kathy steps out looking like she’s on a runway.
“It’s unfair that she makes those look good.” Carolina sighs.
Kathy looks like—well, she looks like a model. The sales associates coo over her and ask her if she ever considered a career on the catwalk. This is why I don’t go shopping, and why I especially don’t go shopping with my sister.
“It doesn’t matter, girls. Just get through the door.” Gran claps at us.
“Door to what?” I’m suspicious.
“I told you—in-person fucking.”
“We’re not going to a swingers party, Gran, are we?”
It’s Saturday night. The Seattle hockey team just got done playing, apparently, judging by all the fans clogging the streets.
Did they win? Who cares. I hate sports fans.
Kathy sighs wistfully. She’s like that main character in a Hallmark movie, small-town girl in the big city looking for love as all the lights glitter on her skin.
I scratch at my face. “Don’t pop that zit,” Carolina warns.
We lurch as Gran swings my parents’ old Volvo into an illegal U-turn and screeches to a halt in front of a swanky hotel near the stadium. Several tipsy hockey fans jump into a planter to escape the car.
Drunken men in Orcas jerseys wolf-whistle as we climb out unsteadily onto the sidewalk.
“We still got it!” Gran pumps a fist.
“We’re too old for you.” Carolina giggles at a couple of twenty-year-old guys with the long, floppy hockey hair.
“I like older women,” the kid brays.
“How long do we have to stay here?” I gripe.
Carolina links her arm in mine. “It’s a swanky hotel party. Let’s just enjoy ourselves.”
“Yeah, that means there’s not going to be food.” I look longingly at the hotel bar. “We could order some apps, have a nice drink instead.”
“I like that idea.” Kathy grabs onto me.
“We’re making these sacrifices for you,” Carolina reminds her.
“We’re going to party, girls!” Gran whoops, herding us into the elevator. “I don’t want you to come back home unless you’re dripping with cum.”
“Good lord.”
“We are going to a swingers party, aren’t we?” I demand, “Oh my god, Gran!”
“Hold on to your panties. You’re spending too much time with your mom.” My grandmother knocks on the hotel room door. On the other side, we can hear pounding music.
“They’re going to get a noise complaint,” I hiss.
“Killjoy.” Gran kicks me.
The door cracks open, pulsing light illuminating the bouncer-slash-security-guard. “What kind of party is this?”
Gran does some sort of complicated handshake with the doorman. “We’re in. This is where I leave you girls.” She bows. “Make me proud.” She thumps her chest, and we’re ushered inside.
There are pretty, skinny models and influencers dancing on the tables in the living area of the suite. They’re wearing skimpy dresses like ours but seem a lot more confident. The only man is the mildly-annoyed-looking security guard.
He dodges a drink from one drunk girl twerking to the pounding hip-hop music.
“Oh my gawd,” one of the girls drawls and peers at Kathy. “Oh my god, Gossie. Goss.” She pats at her friend. “Isn’t that, um, what’s-her-name, Knox’s ex?”
“Oh my god.” Kathy claps her hands to her mouth. “I can’t be here.”
“Kath—”
“Yeah. Kathy.” The girl stumbles and almost falls off the table.
“Why didn’t you marry him?” Her friend wrinkles her nose. “I mean, you had it all, but you couldn’t seal the deal.”
My sister slowly backs away from the two girls.
“Kathy, man up.”
“I’m sorry,” my sister whimpers.
“If you leave, you lose your place in line.” The bouncer looks up. Kathy hugs herself.
“Kathy, don’t you dare run away. I’m only here because of you,” I hiss. I try to grab her, but she flees to the door.
“I didn’t know I’d have to be uncomfortable,” she cries as she dodges me.
“You need to find a rich boyfriend.” I chase her around the room. “You brought our parents to live in my house. This is the least you can do. I’m wearing a thong, for God’s sake. Talk to me about uncomfortable.”
Kathy flings the door open, then she’s gone.
“I’ll go get her.” Carolina rushes out after her to disappear in the hotel hallway.
“You have to sign this NDA.” The guard shoves papers at me, seemingly oblivious to the half-naked girls dancing around.
“Sign it for what? What’s going on here?”
“You want in or not?”
“Okay. Just so you know, these aren’t legally enforceable in Washington state, so…” I sign with a fake name.
As I’m inspecting all the weirdly expensive but tacky collection of liquor in the wet bar, a huge, naked man with a hockey tattoo on his chest swaggers into the room. All the girls scream when they see him and rush to him.
Behind him, a girl who looks, well, fucked, staggers out, clutching a bottle of Jack and her shoes. “Oh my god,” she moans, “that was amazing.” She’s clutching a seafoam-green-and-blue Seattle jersey to herself, giggling as he slaps her butt when she walks past.
He flexes his biceps to more screams from the women flocking around him. I’m feeling deeply uncomfortable. Where the hell is Carolina?
Think about your parents. This guy is a hot, rich hockey player. It’s perfect. And Kathy will fit right in.
I have my spiel prepped. I can pitch with no sleep, with nothing but a hundred-dollar bill and a screenshot of a spreadsheet.
“Damn.” He grabs a blender bottle of protein-shake slop out of the minifridge and chugs it down.
What in the hell?
“Who’s next?” the hockey player roars.
“Me! Me! Me!” The girls crowd around, mewling.
Where the hell is Kathy?
The hockey player turns to me and jumps his pec muscles. He pushes through the crush of the scantily clad girls.
“Line up.”
The girls drunkenly form a wavy line.
The naked hockey player pops a beer and slowly heads down the line. “I like to fuck my girls when she’s wearing my jersey.”
“Wait, so you’re running a reverse train? Like a reverse gang bang?” I frown.
“I’m the Orcas’ star forward. I can do what I want.” More muscle flexing. “I get paid eight million dollars a year.”
“Fascinating.” I step out of line. “Tell me, are you looking for a wife, mother of your children, or shit, stay-at-home girlfriend for the next six to eight months?”
He comes over to me. “You want to get your ass eaten?”
He throws his jersey at me. There’s sticky cum on it.
Gross. I drop it.
“I want to ride you like a puck bunny.”
“That analogy doesn’t make any sense.” I wave Kathy’s photo at him. “So, you’re not interested? We might have to come back at a later time, though. Maybe when you’re sober and have a dictionary handy.”
He pours beer into the protein shake container and chugs it.
“Yeah, I’m just gonna go. I think the hotel bar’s still serving food.”
“You’re not leaving until you let me fuck you like an orca.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. There’s protein shake staining the scraggly hockey-player beard.
“Again, I’m getting real furry vibes here.” I back away from him. He grabs my arm.
I’m a baker. I knead bread and manhandle sourdough. Big hockey player hyped up on steroids? I’m no match.
“Not me! It’s not for me!” I shriek as he drags me into the bedroom.
He slams the door. There’s yelling from the other room, the girls all sad they didn’t get picked.
“Look, I have a hot sister.”
“You want to do two girls at once?” he says while admiring himself in the mirror.
“No, thank you. Me and my sister are not that close. Look, I was really just trying to find a rich guy.”
He peers at me drunkenly.
“But honestly, I’d rather eat nothing but kale the rest of my life than have you as a brother-in-law.” I reach for the door.
“You’re not going anywhere.” He slams his thick, meaty hand on the door.
I let out a little scream and whirl around to face him.
I am not scared, I tell myself. Do not be scared. This is fine. We will be fine. And then we will kill Kathy, who will not be fine.
The hockey player grabs the front of my dress, leaning in. His mouth gapes like his fishy namesake.
The smell of overpriced vodka mixed with protein shake is nauseating. I fumble at the door handle, trying not to breathe in the smell of his breath.
Locked.
Crap.
“You’re not leaving here. I’m a winner. I’m a hockey star. I get who I want, when I want.”
“There are lots of other nice-looking girls out there who really want you.”
“I’m sick of skinny chicks. I need an ass I can grab.” He grabs his dick, half hard.
“I’ve actually decided that I’m going to be celibate for autumn.”
“Celibate means sex, right?”
I scream as he grabs the dress—the thin material ripping—and throws me onto the dirty bedspread.
Never wearing heels again. My feet scramble for purchase. I smell his breath, the sticky dampness of his beard on my neck—
Then the door splinters.
I gasp when I get clear air.
The hockey player has his hands up, like he’s about to fight the shadowy figure in the doorway…