“I have the nose of a fine wine connoisseur,” she said in haughty voice, sticking her chin in the air and her chest out with pride. We both laughed at the truth of the declaration. Nine times out of ten she could identify my mystery mixes by smell alone.
“So how did Logan take it when you told him you were meeting him at The Fields instead of riding with him?”
I shrugged, trying to feign indifference, but the truth was he’d been pissed as all get out. He always got annoyed when I made weekend plans with Sunny instead of him, but this time he practically jumped through the phone when I told him. If he wasn’t being such a douche, I might have agreed to go with him instead, but I didn’t want to reward his childish behavior, so I held my ground and said I’d meet him there.
Sunny pulled the vodka out of the pantry and passed it to me so I could make us each a screwdriver. No doubt someone would bring a keg to The Fields, but we always pre-gamed in case. Plus, we never knew what kind of crappy beer we would get.
The doorbell let out a loud gong, sending Miss Violet Beauregard into another panicked fit as Sunny ran to let Jenny and Amber in. I added two more glasses to my line-up on the counter and filled them each with a fifty-fifty mix of juice and vodka.
“Howdy, bitch!” yelled Jenny, waving her cast in the air as she joined me in the kitchen. I noticed it was bare that night—no scarves or jewels decorating the surface, just the blue hospital-grade sling and the white bandaged surface of the cast. Amber followed closely behind in a cloud of perfume, swinging her hips and raising her arms in the air like music was blasting.
Jenny sidled up next to me, backing away from the half-crazed dog that snarled and yipped at her from the protection of Sunny’s arms.
“I think that dog might be retarded,” she attempted to whisper to me, but in usual Jenny form her “whisper” was audible from a mile away. Sunny scowled at us and kissed the writhing creature on the head.
“Stop talking shit about my dog. She’s not retarded, she’s just excitable.” She gave us both a dark look even though Jenny was the one who doled out the insult. “Don’t you worry, Miss Violet Beauregard. The big bullies won’t hurt you. Nobody’s going to hurt my sweet girl. No they won’t. I won’t let them. Why don’t you go through your doggy door and play in the backyard, hmm? That’s a good girl. Who’s my sweet girl? Who’s my sweet, sweet girl?” She tossed a few dog biscuits through the flap in back door, then gently set the animal down so it could yip its way into the back yard. The dog’s lazy eye wobbled in my direction one final time before she slipped through the door.
“Where’s my drink?” Amber yelled, skirting past Sunny so she could grind against my backside like I was her date. It was obviously a question, but pretty much everything Amber said sounded like a question. Her voice tipped up at the end of every sentence, as though she was contemplating a riddle rather than making a statement. Like: “I’m having a really good day? The grass is green? My name is Amber? You have two legs and I have a face?”
“If you keep humping me like that you’re going to have to buy me a drink,” I said before turning to the rest of the group. “Start your livers, ladies!” I handed the drinks out as we all gathered in a circle and Sunny lead us in our standard pre-game toast.
“Here’s to the king!” she said.
“What king?” I asked.
“Fuh-king!” We all said in unison, clinking our glasses and sloshing some of the orange mixture onto the floor. Sunny hit play on her iPod, and we started dancing around the kitchen, swinging our hips and screaming song lyrics while we emptied our glasses. It was our customary start to any evening.
Jenny and Amber were already dressed in the standard uniform: black skirt and slinky top. Jenny, as usual, had crammed herself into a skirt and top two sizes too small, making her look like a Christmas ham shoved into a Ziploc sandwich bag. It’s not that Jenny was big per se, but her stocky frame and mound of brown curly hair made her look bigger than she really was. Her penchant for tight fitting, too-small clothes only exacerbated everything, forcing her to wobble and jiggle her way through a room as her limbs struggled against the constricting fabric.
Amber was Jenny’s exact opposite, so tall and willowy that a strong breeze could probably knock her over. She wore her long dark hair straight down her back, and her wide-set doe eyes made her look constantly surprised and/or perplexed. Sunny used to call her “the seashell,” swearing that if you pressed your ear against Amber’s ear you could hear the ocean. I used to think it was funny, too, until I found Amber crying in the parking lot after failing yet another test.
I was surprised Jenny and Amber weren’t totally pissed that it was almost nine o’clock and Sunny had yet to select her outfit, but they followed happily when she invited us all upstairs to help. I grumbled as I trailed behind them, mumbling my concerns about the time because Logan was waiting. Plus, I didn’t give a rat’s ass about Sunny’s ensemble for the evening, especially since I knew who the outfit was for. But I tried not to think about that given my vow to be cool about everything. Relax.
“I couldn’t pick which one I wanted, so I bought all three,” she said about the dresses laid across her bed. “Somebody left me high and dry to shop by myself yesterday, and I couldn’t decide on my own.” She gave me a pointed look.
“You should have called me,” cooed Jenny as she plopped down onto the massive stack of black and lavender pillows at the top of Sunny’s bed. “I totally would have joined. Next time Taylor ditches you should give me a call.”
Jenny flicked her eyes to where I was seated on the floor. I shifted my attention to my freshly painted nails, scratching at a place on my thumb where I’d painted outside the lines and onto my skin.