Syracuse? She’s impressed. “Only one year?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Then some things came up.”
Well, as Dru-Ann has learned with young athletes, “some things” could be grades, drugs, or sex. This kid is obviously a lady-killer so Dru-Ann is going to guess it was sex.
“Can I treat you to a round of shots?” he says.
“Yes, please!” Brooke says. It’s so warm in the bar that she gathers her hair in a bun on top of her head; she feels her cheeks flushing. She can’t believe she’s at the Box with Dru-Ann, who is so super-famous even Tatum’s son recognized her! Who cares about Electra Undergrove? (As she thinks this, she scans the crowd for Electra because if she is here, Brooke will have to leave.) “Should we do Sex on the Beach?”
“There’s only one acceptable shot,” Dru-Ann says.
“Tequila,” Caroline and Dylan say together, and Dru-Ann thinks, Maybe there is hope for this generation.
Dylan orders four shots of Patrón; they all clink glasses, and down the hatch it goes.
The band segues into “Kiss” by Prince. “I want to dance!” Brooke says. She looks to Dru-Ann.
“I’m not your babysitter, girlfriend,” Dru-Ann says. “Go find some hot guy and hit the floor.”
Brooke wants Dru-Ann to come with her. She isn’t quite intoxicated enough to forget that she’s a middle-aged suburban housewife. But she won’t be needy. She was at a bar not unlike this when she met Charlie; she’ll just channel her carefree twenty-five-year-old self and try to attract a person who is the polar opposite of Charlie. She heads into the pulsing crowd.
Dru-Ann says, “I could use another shot. You guys?”
“Bet,” they say, and Dru-Ann brandishes her credit card like the girl-boss she used to be.
One hour and an undisclosed number of tequila shots later, Dru-Ann, Caroline, and Dylan head out to the dance floor as well. They find Brooke—okay, wow—in the center of a circle of Chads. (Dru-Ann can’t remember what a group of Chads is called. It’s either a privilege or an inheritance.) These boys are wearing white pants, pastel polos, belts needlepointed for them by their rich, idle mothers, and loafers without socks. They’re sloshing their vodka sodas around, cheering on their new mascot, Brooke.
“MILF!” pink-shirt Chad cries out while lilac-shirt Chad twirls Brooke under his arm.
“I have to go save her,” Dru-Ann says to Caroline and Dylan. She taps Brooke on the shoulder, and when Brooke sees her, she shrieks and throws an arm around Dru-Ann’s neck.
“This! Is! My! Friend!”
“Hey, it’s Dru-Ann from Throw Like a Girl!” peach-shirt Chad says. He holds up his phone for a selfie, but Dru-Ann swats the phone away.
“No pictures.”
“Didn’t you get canceled?” seafoam-green-shirt Chad says.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Dru-Ann says. She assesses the group and thinks: They aren’t tall enough for basketball, broad enough for football or hockey, lean enough for lacrosse or soccer. They probably play sucky golf and worse tennis. “I’m going to borrow the MILF. See you boys.” She leads Brooke to a spot over by the fire-exit doors where there’s room to breathe.
“Those guys just started talking to me,” Brooke says. The one in the peach, Archie, noticed Brooke during the band’s break when the DJ played “Through the Storm” and Brooke belted out every word. (Both her kids listen to rap and hip-hop exclusively; Brooke has heard the song hundreds of times.) Archie seemed to think a mom who liked YoungBoy Never Broke Again was cool—or maybe just an oddity—and he introduced Brooke to his friends. That was fun, but she’d much rather have been dancing with Dru-Ann.
When the band plays “Watermelon Sugar,” Dylan grinds up behind Caroline. She raises her arm with her phone and snaps some pictures. These will drive Isaac crazy. The band segues into “Champagne Supernova” and Dylan puts his hands on Caroline’s hips and spins her around to face him. Then he leans down and kisses her. This time it goes much better—maybe because of the music or the crush of bodies around them or all the tequila. Caroline is making out with Dylan McKenzie and she’s enjoying it!
But a second later, there’s a shockingly cold, wet assault to the side of Caroline’s head. Someone’s drink runs down Caroline’s face and neck—it smells like rum and Coke—and stains her yellow top brown. Caroline wipes her eyes and sees—surprise, surprise—horrible, awful mean girl Aubrey Collins holding an empty plastic cup.
“Get away from him!” Aubrey screams.
“Aubrey, what the hell?” Dylan says. “I’m so sorry, Caroline.” He pulls a bar towel out of his back pocket and Caroline uses it to mop herself up.
“So the two of you are Instagram official, then?” Aubrey says, sneering at Caroline. “I saw your post. But I’m sorry to tell you, he’s my baby daddy—so, girl, bye.”
Oh my God, Caroline thinks. Is this happening again? The good thing is that now Caroline knows exactly what to do. She’s been thinking about it for years.
Caroline smiles and presses the gross bar towel into Aubrey’s hand. What happens at the Box, she thinks.
“He’s all yours, psycho,” Caroline says, and she heads out the side door—wet, sticky, and deeply satisfied.
39. Slice
The band plays one great song after another—the Violent Femmes, the Cure, Weezer—and the group of Chads keep Brooke’s and Dru-Ann’s drinks flowing. When the lights come up and the lead singer launches into “Closing Time,” Dru-Ann steers Brooke around the couples who are about to hook up and out the side door—where they run smack into a ridiculously long line of people waiting for cabs.
No, Dru-Ann thinks. This won’t do. She’ll call an UberXL. Hell, she’ll use Alto, the world’s most expensive rideshare app. Do they have Alto on Nantucket? No, it turns out, they do not. UberXL, then—but the nearest one is thirty-seven minutes away. They should have left the bar earlier. It’s past one now; at this rate, they won’t make it back to Hollis’s until two. Dru-Ann hits Confirm Ride because what else can she do, it’s too far to walk—then she sees the pizza parlor across the street, Sophie T’s, is open.
Yes! she thinks. She’s starving; the chicken and frites at Nautilus were a lifetime ago. “Follow me,” Dru-Ann says to Brooke. “We’re getting a slice.”
Soon Dru-Ann and Brooke are holding hot, delightfully floppy pieces of pepperoni pizza. They take their paper plates outside and sit on the curb with their legs stretched out into the parking lot.
It’s come to this, Dru-Ann thinks. “So what’s up with your hubby?” she says. “He’s in trouble?”
“He groped someone at work. The new twenty-three-year-old brand manager, Irish Fahey.”
“Cool name,” Dru-Ann says.
“She’s pressing charges for sexual misconduct. The sheriff came on Thursday to serve Charlie.”
“Did he have anything to say for himself?”
“He claims he was kidding around. What Charlie thinks is ‘funny’ is gross, inappropriate, and offensive.” Brooke takes a bite of pizza and executes an impressive cheese-pull.
“I’m well acquainted with a lot of Charlies,” Dru-Ann says.
“It’s not the first time this has happened,” Brooke says. “He groped a server at the Oak Room in Boston a couple years ago. That one settled out of court.”
“Jeez, Brooke.”
“I know. He sucks. And this time, he got fired.” Suddenly she starts to cry. “Fired! We have twins going into their senior years at Yale and Wesleyan—”
“You have twins? At Yale and Wesleyan?” How did Dru-Ann not know this? Brooke is proving to be a deep well.
“Will and Whitney are amazing but I don’t talk about them because I’m pretty sure that’s one of the reasons Electra kicked me out of the friend group.”
“Electra is the woman who showed up at dinner?”
Brooke nods and cries harder. “Everything is such a mess. I did show her the itinerary and I did write down rock and roll football in my calendar and now Hollis hates me.”
“Hollis doesn’t hate you.”
“But that’s why she didn’t come to the Box. She didn’t want to be with me.”
“Well, her loss,” Dru-Ann says. She sets her paper plate down. “You were a lot of fun tonight.”
Brooke turns to Dru-Ann; she has a smudge of orange pizza grease on her nose. “I was?”
“Yes,” Dru-Ann says. She takes her napkin and wipes the smudge away. “Yes, you were a very fun date.”
Brooke touches her nose and before Dru-Ann knows what’s happening, Brooke leans in and kisses her. At first, Dru-Ann thinks this is just Brooke’s usual over-the-top enthusiasm, but then she feels Brooke’s tongue dart between her lips. Oh, for Pete’s sake! Dru-Ann thinks. She gently puts her hands on Brooke’s shoulders and eases her away. This isn’t the first time a woman has tried to kiss Dru-Ann; apparently people hear sports agent and see Dru-Ann in her signature blazer and assume she’s gay.
“Brooke,” she says.