by Anthology
“And don’t forget to look inside of yours.”
“Do I have to?” I asked as I let out a squeaking giggle. “That means I have to take it off.”
The jeweler chuckled and said, “But only for a couple of weeks. Isn’t your wedding around the corner?”
“Yes—” sniff, sniff “—it’s two weeks from Saturday.”
He patted my arm again and said, “See, there! You’ll be able to wear it forever then.”
I pulled the glittery masterpiece off my finger and turned it just so, allowing me to read the engraved words. I looked once, then twice. Squinting, I dipped my nose as close to the ring as possible. “Um, is there a mistake?”
“I don’t believe so, miss.”
“It says, You’re my dude, J.”
“Let me pull the paperwork.” He hastened to the back of the store as I kept staring at those stupid words. When he returned, it was easy to see by his discomfort that there hadn’t been any error.
The paper he set in front of me had two instructions. The first was mine and the other was Josh’s. It was correct.
“Miss, most men aren’t as romantic as women are. We see it all the time.”
“I suppose so.” Disappointment bloomed in my chest. How imaginative does one have to be to add something a little sentimental and meaningful besides, You’re my dude, J? At least I could take comfort in knowing I had written something much more expressive.
The man put the rings in the boxes, and I thanked him and left. At least Josh hadn’t spared any expense at all when it came to purchasing the rings. I had a killer engagement rock. And the wedding band to match was badass.
My next stop was the photographer’s. He had an idea he wanted to run by me. When I got there, he was waiting and showed me how he thought it would be great if he could “stage” the wedding. We were planning to get married outdoors on the beach, and he wanted to do a scene to make it look like the west coast of California instead of Tybee Island, Georgia, which was where my parents had a beach house.
“Why do you want to do this?” I asked him.
“I have these magnificent pieces of scenery we can bring in for the back drop to make it look mountainous—you know, exactly like the Big Sur coastline.” He was bouncing all around in excitement.
Was the guy on crack? “Why would you want to turn a perfectly lovely beach into something that it isn’t?”
His jittery bouncing halted, and he tilted his head to the ceiling of his studio, searching for the answer there. It made me question the wisdom of putting the memories of our special day in his hands.
“Are you sure you have this under control?” I asked.
Oh, brother, that really did it.
“Lena, I am the best wedding photographer in Savannah. I showed you my credentials before you hired me. Rest assured, you will be pleased with my photos.”
My hand came up as a peace gesture. “Okay. Cool. So, let’s just stay with the local beach then. You know I grew up on it and would like to have it as the backdrop.”
He flipped his blond ponytail back and begrudgingly agreed. Jeez, what a diva. I couldn’t wait to tell Josh and my parents about this.
On the way to Josh’s, I called one of my besties, Brigid. She’d have some choice words to say.
“He wanted to do what?” Brigid screamed in my ear. I had to turn down the volume in my car. Her voice reverberated so loud it was an echo about to split my head open.
“Down, girl.”
“What the fuck is wrong with that dude? Our beach is the best!”
“Okay, let’s not take it to the extreme. We are sort of partial since we grew up here, but that’s the point of wanting to get married on it, right? I thought I made that clear to him.”
“Your mom is going to flip, especially since she’s footing the bill.”
Laughing, I added, “Yeah, and Dad too.”
“What did Josh say?”
“I’m on the way there right now.”
“Cool. Have a good laugh for me.”
We ended the call about the time I pulled into Josh’s driveway. His car was parked out front, so I let myself in. Music was blaring, which was weird, and there was a bottle of vodka on the counter, which was even weirder. Josh wasn’t a heavy drinker, especially this time of day.
“Josh?”
No answer. Hmm. I hadn’t told him I was coming over, but that wasn’t unusual. I came over a lot without calling first. We were getting married in a couple of weeks. He was planning on moving in with me next weekend. I lived in the heart of downtown Savannah, which would be closer for him to work too.
Packed boxes were piled in corners, an indication of his upcoming move. I looked in the kitchen to see more of the same. Then I heard footsteps.
“Josh?”
Turning to say hi, it wasn’t Josh, but his friend, Jeremy. Jeremy was going to be his best man in our wedding.
“Oh, hey, Jeremy. I didn’t see your car outside.”
“Uh, Lena. Hi. Josh didn’t say you were coming.”
“Oh, I didn’t tell him. Josh had me pick up our rings, and I had to meet with the photographer, so I decided to stop by on my way home.”
Jeremy kept glancing over his shoulder.
“Hey, where’s your shirt?” I slapped him on the chest. Then I thought that was a little strange he was walking around Josh’s without a shirt and shoes.
“Oh, I, er, spilled some, um, red Gatorade on it.”
“Hate when that happens.”
I moved by him to go upstairs, where I figured Josh was, but his arm landed on my shoulder.
“Lena, I wouldn’t go up there if I were you.”
“Why, is Josh puking?” I pointed to that bottle of vodka and I figured maybe he was throwing up from drinking too much. Whenever I saw someone throw up, I was a goner.
“Not exactly,” Jeremy said, guilt dripping off his face.
“What is it then?” A smile creeped across my mouth, turning the corners up. “Does he have a surprise for me? Oh, my God. He didn’t get that painting I’ve been wanting, did he?” And I tore off down the hall, up the steps, with Jeremy on my heels, calling out, “Lena, stop.”
I was never good at listening, especially when surprises were involved. But I really should have this time. It was no oil painting, although oil was involved. Only it was on Josh’s dick by not one, but two women. And apparently Jeremy had been a part of the foursome too.
When the door burst open, Josh thought it was Jeremy, and he said, “‘Bout time, dude. Pass me that vodka and get your dick back in this head game.”
“Yeah, this isn’t Jeremy and how about getting your dick out of that bitch’s mouth.”
“Fuck! Lena! This isn’t what you think.”
“Just so I’m clear. You’re in bed with not one but two women and I’m not one of them. Your dick is stuffed down one of their throats, and the other is sucking your nipples and God only knows what else, and that isn’t what I think? I have to clue you into something, Josh. I wasn’t born without a brain.”
“But, but, baby, it’s not like they mean anything.”
“You are kidding, right? You did not waste your breath on those stupid words, did you?”
“But they don’t,” he whined.
“Should’ve thought about that before you and your former best man jumped in the sack with them. You know those boxes that are downstairs?” I leaned in a little and yelled, “I think you need to unpack them ’cause your ass isn’t going anywhere. Expect a hefty bill from my mother for all the deposits she paid for the wedding crap. Have a great life, asshole.”
And I left, hearing him call out my name. Fuck that. If he was doing this kind of shit a couple of weeks before the wedding, I was sure he had done it throughout our relationship, and he sure as hell would do it after were married. I didn’t want someone like that. He and his You’re My Dude could go straight on down to hell.
Then a bark of laughter popped out of me as I got into my car. I
had the fucking rings in my hand bag, and they were worth a pretty penny.
My autopilot took me directly to my parents’ house where I poured out my heart. Of course, Mom called in my gang of Brigid, Amie, Callie, and Shay. They all showed up with every kind of liquid warm and fuzzy to sooth my aching heart. It was hard to believe only a couple of hours before, I had teared up when I tried on my wedding band. The rat bastard.
“Hey, you’ll get through this. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but you’ll make it,” Amie said. And I knew she was right, but at that point, my heart was scattered in too many pieces to even imagine it.
Josh and I had been together for ages—or so it had seemed. We had dated for a year and half after being friends for a couple of years. I always thought the friends-to-lovers thing was a good idea. I mean, you were supposed to know all their faults and idiosyncrasies such as if he were a manwhore—and he was. But he’d sworn those days were a behind him and that he was ready to settle down, grow roots, and bear the fruit of a family. Now that I thought of it, he sounded like he wanted to be a tree or something. And I was going to be doing the bearing—not him. Jeez, I should’ve seen the signs. But I had been blinded by love. He did all the right things. Wined and dined me, bought me flowers, took me on lavish trips, bought me jewelry—and at least I had that going for me.
“Hey, you! Where’d you go on us?” Brigid asked. “You have this dazed look on your face.”
“Aw, it’s nothing.”
“You’re not thinking about that fucktard, are you?” She pushed me for an answer. Brigid knew me well.
“Okay, yeah, I was. You know something? You never really know someone, do you?”
“You know us,” Amie chimed in.
“Yeah, but you guys are family.”
“Cluster hug time,” Callie yelled. And in one instant, I was crushed by nearly a dozen boobs in my face, due to the fact that I was sitting on a bar stool at the counter and they were all standing.
“I can’t breathe,” I screeched into someone’s pillowy chest.
“Did she say something?” I heard.
“Yeah, I think she said she wanted more squeeze.”
And they squished me even harder.
Then I heard my mom yell from somewhere in the distance, “Do I need to get my husband out of here? You girls aren’t gonna take your shirts off and have a hooter show or something, are you?”
I heard Amie yell, “No, ma’am, but we might shoot the moon a time or two.”
“Time to leave, Fred,” Mom yelled back. “I don’t want the old man here to have a heart attack.”
“Better to be safe, I guess.”
That was Brigid, and where she was concerned, anything went. The next thing I knew, a shot of tequila was shoved in my hand, and while I still gasped for air from my boob hug, someone stuck their salt covered flesh into my mouth and followed it up with that burning liquid gold. They didn’t even give me time to swallow it properly before another one landed in my hand, along with a slab of lime.
“Y’all are trying to kill me.”
“Not really. Just get you good and hammered. You may as well call in sick right now. Tell John you got the poops because you’ll most likely have it for realz tomorrow.” Brigid tells it like it is.
“No sugarcoating from you, is there?”
Her hand holding the tequila bottle flew through the air, leaving a liquor shower everywhere. “No need. Only salt. And a little lime.”
Someone turned on the music, and the dancing started. This was going to be one drunkass night.
Chapter Two
Not only did I have the poops, I was also throwing up like crazy. A long moan ripped out of me, and I wondered who let the cat in the house. Then I realized it was me, sounding like a tomcat trying to hump a female in heat.
Staggering to the kitchen, I stumbled into the refrigerator, head first, and cursed every one of my friends.
“Need some help?” Shay asked.
“I’m going to murder every one of you bitches. Slowly, and painfully. And when I’m finished, I’m going to start all over again.” I pulled out a bottle of water and slowly sipped it. It trickled down my hot esophagus, and I prayed to every hangover god there was that it would stay there. “Oh, my God. I’ve never felt this bad before. What the hell did y’all do to me last night?”
Britt giggled. “We made you dance. On the counter. Naked. With a lampshade on your head.”
“Fuck every one of you.”
Brigid ran into the room and yelled, “She’s up! Look, everyone, the Dancing Queen is up!”
My head cleaved in two, and I fell face-first on the couch. I heard Callie say, “Is she dead? She looks dead.”
“You idiot. She’s not dead. She’s hungover,” Brigid said with a laugh.
With my face smushed in the sofa cushions, I said, “This is so not funny. If I poop my pants and throw up at the same time, you’re all cleaning it up.”
Shay screamed, “Ewwww. I’m leaving.”
“Me too,” Callie said.
I knew that would get some of them out of here. I needed peace and quiet. Sleep. Darkness. And an entire month to recover from this fucktrastrophe of drinking.
After it was quiet, I flipped on my back to see Brigid staring at me.
“Are you okay, Leelee? I mean about Josh. I know we had a little throw down last night, but do you want to talk about it one-on-one?”
“Ugh. Yeah, but maybe when I’m not about to vom all over hell and half of Georgia.”
After I said that, she jumped up and said, “Okies, gotta go, babes. Talk later.” And she was out the door.
Mom came in a few minutes after that to check in on me. She made me some tea and gave me some soda crackers to nibble on. “Honey, I know you don’t want to eat, but you need some glucose in your body, and these will help. Tiny bites. Okay?”
She was right, as usual. By early afternoon I was much better, but decided to stay at my parents’. We discussed the fiasco, and Josh called for the two thousandth time. I finally talked to him and made it plain that there was no chance of reconciliation. His dick was made for wandering, and that wasn’t up to my standards. He could write my parents a check for a certain sum Mom, Dad, and I had agreed upon. At first, he was snarly about it, but when my dad jerked the phone out of my hand and threatened to be at his house in twenty minutes to discuss it with him personally, he relented. Josh had always respected my parents, and I was damn sure he was embarrassed about getting caught. Too fucking bad. He should’ve thought about that before he invited those women up. And a foursome? Ick, just ick.
Dad ended the call and looked at me. “Honey, you were supposed to go on that great honeymoon. Why don’t you take a friend and go anyway?”
“I don’t know, Dad. Everywhere I’d look, I’d probably be thinking—that should be Josh and me.”
“Maybe you could change the destination to somewhere else. You were supposed to go to one of those couple’s places. Why don’t you go to a single’s resort instead? You never know. You might meet someone.”
“Dad, that’s the last thing I want to do. I think I might save it for later and maybe go skiing or something this winter.”
Mom watched our interchange, and she finally stepped in. “Look, sweetheart, it’s October. Wait a couple of months until the chill is in the air, and then decide. But if I were you, I’d go ahead and cancel and maybe book something for March. You know how busy the spring gets.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I’ll call the travel agent right away.”
The agent told me they had an opening in March at a fabulous resort in the Dominican Republic. I went ahead and grabbed it. Because of where Josh and I were staying, the switch gave me a reservation at a luxury resort with a two-bedroom villa. The pictures were amazing, so I decided to invite some of the girls. The villa accommodated four. Shay couldn’t go. That left Brigid, Callie, Amie, and me. When I told them, their faces were all I needed to see to know I had made the ri
ght decision.
The winter we had was particularly cold, even for Savannah. It was the first one in decades where we had snow flurries for Christmas. It didn’t amount to anything, but when you looked up at the sky, you could see the tiny white flakes. Josh called over the holidays, wishing me and my family a merry Christmas. My mood went to shit. If it hadn’t been for him and his rotten dick, we would’ve been married by now. I had imagined us putting up a tree and decorating it together, buying presents for our families, and then having our special Christmas together. And…that didn’t happen. On to a better life. And that hadn’t happened either. Yet.
Amie dropped by late on Christmas Day and had some homemade eggnog with us. Amie has always come by, ever since we were kids. And every time she tasted my dad’s homemade eggnog, she wrinkled her nose and pretended she loved it. It made me laugh every time. His eggnog was the worst, but Mom and I didn’t have the heart to tell him.
“What?” she asked.
“Still not a fan, huh?”
“Nope. But I’ll get this down. I promise.”
“Here.” I grabbed the moose-eared cup out of her hand, and guzzled what was left.
“I can’t believe you can drink that,” she said.
“Don’t be. I was weaned on this stuff.”
Amie nudged me with her elbow. “You doing all right?”
“Pretty okay.”
“If this is any consolation, you look fabulous.” Amie was my girl.
I half-hugged her. She was always trying to make me feel better about things. “Thanks. But you’d tell me that if I only had one tooth in my head and grease streaks all over my cheeks.”
“Probably, on account of you’d still look great.”
We visited with my parents for a little bit, and she left because she had to go see one of her crazy aunts. She loved to visit her, though, since she always told all kinds of sex stories.
When the holidays finally ended—and they seemed to stretch out for a month—I’d never been so happy for work to resume.
The months scooted by at a snail’s pace, and finally March arrived and the warm weather followed. Along with it, the time for our trip came too. The girls and I packed our bags, and Dad dropped us off at the airport, our hats and sunglasses in hand. We were ready to have some fun.
