Chapter Five
“OH MY GEE WHIZ, WOULD you take a look at this place,” said Kelly. She spun around to face Candice, a barely controlled grin making its way to the surface. “Did you do this?”
Candice grinned like the cheshire cat. “Of course I did. Who else would think to put you up in a gorgeous high roller suite during your bachlorette party, other than moi?”
I slapped her lightly on the arm. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I dropped my bag just inside the door.
“Oh nothing … other than the fact that if the planning had been left up to you, we’d probably be eating dinner at the Olive Garden right now and going home by ten.”
I shook my head at her. “You are so lucky you’re in heels right now.”
She put her fingers up in the shape of a cross. “Stay back. I don’t want you shaking my uterus around. I have plans tonight.”
I barked out a laugh. “Your what?”
She sniffed, lifting her chin a little. “My uterus. I’m due to start my period any day, but I want to try and hold it off for as long as I can. I don’t like having one night stands when I’m on the rag.”
I grimaced, trying to make my way through the quagmire that is her mind so I could figure out what she was actually thinking. “So your theory is that if I tackle you, I’ll … jiggle your uterus and start your period?”
“Exactly.” She smiled with self-pride.
I shook my head in disbelief. “You really should have gone to medical school. With theories like that, you would have been something else.”
“Andie, don’t make me take my scissors out.”
“That’s not a very good threat,” I said, wandering through the room, checking it out. “I’m due for a haircut.”
Candice may be a totally brainless twit sometimes, but she was a hell of a beautician. Top of her class in coloring and styling. After making her parents pay for a four-year fashion degree at UF, she’d blown off the job market to go to cosmetology school. They’d loved that one, but no one can say no to Candice when she’s on a mission. I really should visit her salon more, but I was always too busy. Boring ponytails had been my go-to hairdo for the past three years since graduating law school.
She quickly grabbed her bag off a nearby chair. “Go wet your hair. I’ve been dying to get my hands on that mess of yours for weeks. No, make that months. Years.”
Kelly laughed. “I just love how much she enjoys her job, don’t you?”
I shook my head as I walked to the bathroom. “I’m not going to say a word. I’ve seen how sharp her scissors are, and I like my ears the way they are.” I was happy to let Candice have her way with my hair. Why not enjoy a mini vacation and a mini spa treatment too while I’m at it? I never pampered myself like that at home. I was always too busy.
As I wet my hair, I realized this haircut wasn’t really about needing a trim. It was more symbolic than anything else. When I was finished and my hair was up in a towel, I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and re-read the text from Luke, trying to give myself some inspiration.
Have a nice life.
I shut the phone down and put it on the counter, staring at it like it was a snake. Deliverer of bad news. Traitor. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to center myself. It was time to cut some of the dead wood out of my life. Take control. Do things a little more boldly and powerfully for a change. I was a bulldog in the courtroom, never letting go until I had wrung every last argument out of an issue. Attorneys feared going up against me, even when they had rock solid cases. But when it came to my personal life, I was a mess. A lamb to every man’s inner lion. They chewed me up and spit me out, and like a total wienie, I just let them. Luke was just the latest in a string of really bad relationship decisions. Really, Kelly’s One-Ball would be a step up for me.
I took the towel off and ran a brush Kelly had brought through my wet hair, staring at my reflection as I considered this little impromptu vacation. I was on a girls’ night out, very far away from home. Maybe tonight with a new look I could walk out into the hot Las Vegas night and be a different girl. Even though it would only be for one night and a day, the idea held an almost magnetizing appeal. I was almost in a foreign land, where no one knew me. I could do whatever I wanted, and as long as I didn’t get arrested, I’d be home free, back in the office being a kickass lawyer on Monday.
And single. I’d be single, but that could change. I smiled tentatively at myself. I have options; I’m not some ugly spinster that has nothing but a life of solitude and loneliness to look forward to. I leaned in closer to the mirror, evaluating my assets: greenish-gray eyes, brown hair with natural highlights, high cheekbones, decent chin, perfect nose or so my grandmother had always told me - not too small and not too big. My boobs aren’t as big as Candice’s but they’re all mine, home grown. And I’d been told by most of my boyfriends that my best asset was behind me. I turned around, trying to get a look at it. My big, heart-shaped butt. I looked at my naked body in profile. Curvy is how I’d describe myself. I’d spent a lot of years when I was a teenager wishing I could be shaped more like a model with long legs and a well-muscled tummy, but lately I’d come to admire my more feminine silhouette. I nodded at my reflection and faced the mirror again. If a guy can’t appreciate what I have to offer, he can just keep on walkin’.
I had some time yet. I was only twenty-five. My plans were still on track, even if Luke wasn’t on board with them anymore. Junior partner by beginning of next year. Married by the year after. Babies a couple years after that. And then full partner at the firm. Bam. Done with all the hard stuff by thirty-five, and then smooth sailing from then on out.
I looked at my wet head in the mirror and shrugged, my hair several inches past my shoulders and grown-out bangs tickling my eyes. There are plenty of fish in the sea. There has to be one out there who’d want me and who’d find my lifeplan appealing. It was the perfect plan, I was sure of it. I’d carefully developed it and worked towards accomplishing it for over a decade. It was a life journey a million guys would love to be a part of. Now all I had to do was find the right guy. The one who would stick. I ignored the specters that tried to rise up out of my past to haunt me with the misery I’d worked so hard to leave behind. Not today, bad memories. Today, I am invincible and I will have fun.
I walked into the other room, noticing that Candice and Kelly were both out on the balcony with drinks in their hands. I joined them, my breath momentarily taken from me as the intense heat of the day hit me full force. It felt like walking into an open oven set at four hundred and fifty degrees. I took Candice’s drink from her hand. “Don’t drink and cut hair, that’s my motto.” I took a big swig of it and nearly gagged, the alcohol setting my throat on fire.
Kelly laughed before lifting her glass in my direction and taking a long sip of her own cocktail.
“Holy crap,” I said, my voice severely strained, “what was that? Lighter fluid? Did I just drink lighter fluid?” I breathed out several times loudly and held my hand up as a caution. “No one light a match. I’ll blow up or combust or something.”
Candice waved my concerns away. “That only happens if you hold in your gas. Come sit down.” She gestured to the chair in front of her.
My hand froze in the middle of putting the glass to my lips again. I pulled it away. “Uhhhh, what?”
Kelly was standing very still too, a confused expression coming over her face.
“You heard me,” said Candice, sounding very confident. “If you hold in your gas, if you don’t break wind, you can spontaneously combust.” She looked at us like we were the stupid ones. “It’s a medical fact, look it up.”
“Again. A reminder of how your talents were wasted by you not going into medicine.” I shook my head in sheer amazement. “Where did you learn this particular fact, may I ask?”
“Why are you asking?” asked Kelly, sighing. “You know you’re not going to like the answer.”
“If you must know, I saw it on Southpark,” said Candice, lifting her chin in the air.
“Southpark,” I deadpanned. I lifted up a finger and pantomimed cleaning out my ear. “We’re getting our scientific medical facts from Southpark episodes now?” Candice scared me often. This was one of those moments where I wondered how she got through a single day without getting herself run over by a car or a person on a bike. Or a toddler on a tricycle.
“Hey, say what you want, but they bring up a lot of real world situations on that show and deal with them in a way that gets people talking.” She pushed on my shoulder. “Now sit. I have magic to do here.” She lifted up a lock of my hair. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“Desperate?” I said, feeling like I’d just fallen down the rabbit hole. Thank God she was better with hair than she was with medical knowledge or I’d be seriously screwed. I took another big swig of the firewater.
“Yes, desperate. With a capital D. You just got dumped by a dick-for-brains, you’re in Vegas,” she looked at her watch, “and it’s eight o’clock and you’re still sober.” She put her fingers on the bottom of my glass and pushed it towards my face. “Drink up, sister of my heart. Relax and let Candice the Great make you beautiful. We’re going to help you find a new man tonight. A hot one!” She giggled a little too crazily.
I put my hand out, taking Kelly’s fingers in mine. “Pray for me, Kells.”
“Our father who art in heaven…,” she said, drowning out the rest of her sentence with swallows of her drink. Her eyes crossed as the liquid burned its way down her throat, but that didn’t stop her from going for more of it just seconds later.
I closed my eyes and drank the rest of my cocktail and the second round of it that Kelly put in my glass, listening to the snip, snip, snip of Candice’s scissors near my ears. I prayed I wouldn’t look like Pink by the time she was done because I so looked like a little man when I had short hair.
My mind strayed to thoughts of Luke, the motions of Candice moving my hair around making me totally relaxed and zoned out. The cocktail might also have had something to do with that feeling of floating, but I didn’t fight it.
Why had I continued dating that turd after he’d given me the liposuction gift certificate? And the cheating thing? A kiss isn’t that big a deal, but I’d been thinking for a while that there’d been more than a kiss for him to confess. I’d never pushed him to tell me more because I hadn’t wanted to know the truth. Why? Because the truth would have messed up my plans. My crazy plans. Was I so dead set on seeing them to fruition that I’d force any old guy into the mold? Apparently so. How depressing. I hadn’t even told Kelly and Candice everything there was to tell about Luke. About all the times he made comments about my hips. About how he was always trying to convince me to go blonde and get a boob job. They hated him enough without me giving them more fuel for the fire. I felt like crying, thinking about how much of myself I’d lost over the last three years. I’d forgotten what it meant to be strong and spontaneous and fearless. I’d let Luke mow me over so that he wouldn’t leave me. So that we could still get married and have kids. God, how pitiful can I possibly be?
I was jerked out of my reverie by Candice’s proclamation. “And I’m spent!” she said, putting her scissors down on the table next to my chair. “Behold. The new and improved Andie Marks. Party Girl is in the hizzy house.”
“Party palace,” said Kelly, lifting up her drink. Her arm swayed a little unsteadily. “Party girl is in the party palace. This is a palace.” Her arm swept the space in front of her as she spun, making it unclear whether she was referring to the hotel room or Las Vegas itself.
I stood, a little unsteady on my feet. “Whoa. Dizzy.”
“Get her another drink,” said Candice, handing my glass to Kelly.
“One more cocktail, coming right up!” Kelly banged past my chair and into the hotel room.
“She’d better slow down or she’s going to burn out before the fun really gets going,” I said, stepping into the room behind her. “Am I supposed to dry this or something?” I asked, reaching up to feel my still-wet head.
“I’ll blow it out for you, but you need to shower first. Get all that hair off you and then you can change into what you’re wearing tonight. I’ll finish with a quick blow and then we can go to dinner.”
I looked down at my jeans and flowy blouse. “I thought this was what I was wearing.”
Candice tsk-tsked at me. “No, no, no-no-no, you are not wearing that Bohemian get-up out for a night out on the town. No. A dress. A tight black one. And heels.”
“But I didn’t bring one.” I pouted, feeling like Cinderella surrounded by well-dressed step-sisters.
“Not to worry. I brought back-up,” said Candice. “I’ll put something together for you while you’re in the shower, don’t worry.”
I looked right at her chest. “I’m not going to fit into your clothes, Candice. Not unless I stuff an entire roll of toilet paper in my bra which I’m not going to do so don’t even try it.” I pointed a threatening finger at her and narrowed my gaze, just so she’d know how much I meant it. I wouldn’t put it past her to try and force me to stuff my bra. She’d done it before in college, and the wet t-shirt contest that had sprung up spontaneously at the party we’d been attending hadn’t ended well. I was scarred for life, in fact. I could never look at a wad of toilet paper again without seeing soggy boobs falling out of my t-shirt and landing on the ground at my feet.
“Just go shower and leave the details to me, okay?” Her smile was way too dangerous for comfort, but I suddenly realized I had to pee, so I left her standing there with her nefarious plans in favor of emptying my bladder.
“I’m not going to stuff my bra with toilet paper. I’m not,” I mumbled as I made my way to the toilet.