“Ride!”
As the other team kept shouting to figure out the rest of the words, Erin felt guilty. Well, dumb and guilty. The “Mustang Sally” lyrics made her think of Sally Ride, then of astronauts, then of Cassie. Like her brain was looking for any excuse.
On Wednesday, for their entire conversation, Cassie had said things that vindicated Erin—she was thinking of her, too, this whole time. Erin said things designed to hurt Cassie. That it was the right decision, that she’d had no choice, didn’t make it any easier.
“Mom, it’s your turn,” Parker said.
Erin looked up. Her daughter waved the bowl at her impatiently.
“I’m going to need another drink first. Let Mr. Turner go. I’ll be right back.”
Rachel and Melissa offered their glasses for refills as well. Erin collected them and headed to the kitchen as Jimmy began acting out the title of a book. Gin and tonic for Melissa, whiskey sodas for Rachel and herself. Alone in the kitchen, Erin thought about the hurt in Cassie’s voice as she had sworn and hung up the phone. She let her pour run almost as heavy as Rachel’s had been.
Erin was a people pleaser. Always had been. Her mother had certain expectations of her. Getting pregnant at twenty had not been one of them. When Erin made the final decision about the divorce, it didn’t matter that her mom had died two years prior—she knew exactly how the disappointment would have looked on her face. Conflict made Erin cringe. She was working in therapy on figuring out what she wanted to do, instead of just going along with those around her.
But it wasn’t conflict that kept Cassie in her head. It was more than Erin’s typical discomfort with saying no to someone. Cassie was under her skin.
That very first night, Erin had almost stopped Cassie—not while anything was happening, but after, while Cassie walked away from the car. They were on her daughter’s college campus, and Erin almost yelled for Cassie to come back, to the car, to her hotel room, to her. She’d fallen asleep that night regretting she hadn’t gotten the woman’s number. For the rest of the weekend or the next time she visited or both.
Cassie was a bad decision Erin wanted to make again and again.
Charades, at least, was a good distraction.
Erin was buzzed enough that she didn’t blush too hard acting out her clues for making a splash. It helped that she and Rachel seemed to share brain cells, and the other woman got splash from Erin flapping her arms like a goddamn bird.
The highlight of the night, though, was Jimmy’s last turn. He pulled a scrap of paper from the bowl, closed his eyes, and let out the most long-suffering sigh.
“You can always pass,” Adam suggested.
But Jimmy opened his eyes and held up two fingers.
“Two words,” his team said in unison.
He put two fingers up again.
“Second word,” the team said.
It didn’t take long to get the second word: dress.
Jimmy sighed heavily again, then grabbed his crotch.
A lot happened at once. Erin guessed Michael Jackson, Melissa went with groin, and Caleb muttered oh God as Parker squealed with laughter.
Jimmy grabbed his crotch again, more aggressively.
“Masturbation,” Rachel offered.
“Because that goes so well with dress,” Erin said.
“Says the person who guessed Michael Jackson.”
Jimmy made a fist except for his pointer finger, which pointed at the ground.
“Fingering!” Melissa shouted.
Parker laughed harder, Mae joining in. Noah buried his head in his hands. Jimmy did the same two moves again, grabbing his crotch then pointing toward the ground. Erin was both too buzzed and too focused on getting the clue to worry much about her team looking ridiculous.
“Penis,” she said.
Jimmy nodded quickly.
“Man,” Adam guessed.
“That’s cisnormative,” Parker and Caleb said in unison.
“Hand job!” Melissa said.
“Please kill me now,” Noah said.
Jimmy pointed to Erin and waved his hand, gesturing for her to keep going.
“Penis?” she said again.
He continued gesturing for more.
Rachel rattled off options. “Dick. Prick. Johnson.”
Jimmy reenacted his clue for the second word.
“Yeah, dress, we know,” Adam said.
“Dick dress,” Erin snickered to Rachel, who was beside her on the couch.
Rachel snapped her fingers like she’d gotten the answer and yelled, “Foreskin!”
At that, Parker fell off the couch.
Somewhere between the girls howling with laughter and the boys begging for the round to be over, Erin’s team figured out the answer was cocktail dress.
“Foreskin?!” Jimmy was incredulous. “Foreskin?!”
“Erin said dick dress! It made sense!” Rachel insisted.
“Can we please stop talking about foreskin?” Caleb groaned.
Melissa wiped tears from her eyes. “I’ve had too many children to laugh this hard without a bathroom break.”
Rachel poked Caleb in the side. “Is talking about your mom’s pelvic floor muscles better or worse than talking about foreskin?”
“Leave the boy alone and let’s go raid the fridge,” Erin said, suddenly desperately hungry.
Melissa joined them in the kitchen when she was done in the bathroom. They didn’t even bother with plates, just stacked full containers of leftovers in the microwave together.
When Erin was married, they’d visit Adam’s parents in upstate New York for Thanksgiving every other year. The last three years straight, Erin had spent the Saturday after the holiday in this home with these people. It was her favorite tradition, even if she had a kid in college now and was probably too old to be drunk in her friends’ kitchen at midnight eating leftover mashed potatoes.
She was too old for a lot of things, like being hung up on by someone she wasn’t allowed to have feelings for. Like being unable to get this woman out of her head. She was too old to not be an adult about the situation.
Erin looked up from her Tupperware full of potatoes to find Rachel and Melissa looking at her.
“Hmm?”
“What is with you tonight?” Rachel asked.
Erin furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”
“Your head is in the clouds. You couldn’t even get Dances with Wolves!”
Rachel had always been way too perceptive for her own good.
“Maybe that was because of your poor excuse for charades-ing a wolf.”
“Charades-ing?”
“Leave her alone,” Melissa said.
“Yeah!” Erin said, delighted.
But then Melissa continued, “She’s too drunk to make real words.”
“Wait a minute, you were supposed to be on my side.”
Maybe she was too drunk to make real words. She certainly was too drunk to drive home. Adam’s lip curled with disdain when Erin handed Parker the keys, but what was the point of having a kid who could drive if you weren’t going to use them as a DD sometimes? Parker didn’t mind.