by Elise Sax
“Now let’s get you dressed,” Lucy told me, as she marched up the driveway in her peach stiletto heels.
“I’m dressed.”
Lucy laughed. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard, darlin’. We’re going to really get you dressed. And by that, I mean we’re going to get you dressed in not much of anything.”
“What does that mean?”
Lucy knew where I hid my nice clothes, but most of them were too tight and showed too much skin.
“That’s what we want, darlin’,” Lucy insisted in my bedroom. “A lot of skin. This is your last night of freedom. Last night to get crazy and let loose. Shake that thang and hoochie coochie your moochie. You understand what I’m sayin’, darlin’?”
“Are you drunk?”
Lucy stuck her hand out and put her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “Little bit,” she explained. “There’s a shit-ton of champagne in the limo.”
Spencer was still at work, which was a good thing because I didn’t want him to see me dressed like a two-dollar hooker. Not that he would have been upset about me going out on the town in a dress so short that I needed a bikini wax and cut so low that my bra showed, but he probably wouldn’t have let me out of the house without throwing me into bed and doing the dirty deed, which would have made me miss the party altogether.
Grandma wasn’t in the house, either. She had said something about going jet skiing. Or maybe it was a movie. Anyway, she was gone, which I was still trying to get used to. She had been a shut-in since I was a little girl, and now she was out and about every hour of the day and night. I was happy for her, but it was a big change in the house.
The limousine was more impressive inside than it was outside. There was a lot of booze inside and no shortage of psychedelic lighting. Lucy urged me to start drinking, but I didn’t want to get drunk before we picked up Bridget.
Bridget was a brand-new mother, and she took her new job very seriously. In fact, I think Eisenhower had a more lackadaisical attitude about D-Day then Bridget had about raising an infant. She had brought in a professional babyproofer to her townhouse, and now every sharp edge was coated in a super safe padded, stain resistant, non-toxic, farm-to-table material. The first time I visited, she made me scrub my hands up to my elbows with surgical soap that she had pilfered from the hospital where she gave birth.
The time after that, she insisted that I not speak to baby Jonathan in a baby talk voice because it would stifle his development and prevent his brain from growing. Now, I was terrified to be near her baby, in case I made his brain stop growing. I mean, it had happened before. There were all kinds of brains out there that I had stunted, and I didn’t want baby Jonathan to be the next victim.
We skipped out of the limousine, and I adjusted my boob in my itty-bitty dress. It was a losing battle. The boob had a mind of its own. I wished that I could get it to stop growing like I did with brains, because it was popping out every two seconds, but adopting my grandmother’s junk food eating habits had given me a bigger cup size.
Lucy took a bottle of champagne from the limo and waved it in front of Bridget’s face when she opened the door. Bridget was wearing her regular hoot owl glasses, but she was obviously ready to party because she had on a double coat of blue eyeshadow. She was wearing her shortest dress, and I was surprised that she was happily anxious to get the party going. I guessed that was normal after being stuck inside for a month with a little person who couldn’t talk.
“Oh, good. Booze,” Bridget said, focusing on the champagne. “I have inverted nipples. So, I had to stop breastfeeding. I’m going to get shit-faced and three sheets to the wind. I’m going to bring down the house. I’m going to raise the roof. I’m going to blow the doors off the hinges.”
I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t know which was bigger news, that she had inverted nipples or that she wanted to do construction work.
Bridget waved us into the townhouse. “Come on in. I’m just giving the rundown to Jackson.”
“Who’s Jackson?” I asked.
“Who cares, darlin’?” Lucy said. “The good news is that Bridget has inverted nipples.”
Upstairs, a woman was sitting at the dining room table, going through a stack of papers. She was a big, muscular woman in a starched white nurse’s uniform. She had a thick black unibrow, which was a good thing because it distracted from her mustache.
“How far did you get?” Bridget asked Jackson. “Did you get to Addendum Part Three, Section C, Line 4, yet?”
“I think so,” Jackson said scratching at her mustache. “That’s the part about gender stereotypes, right?”
Bridget shook her head, obviously annoyed. “No, no, no. That’s Addendum Part Two.” Bridget slapped the back of her left hand on her right palm. “Pay attention, Jackson. This is serious. You’re going to take care of my baby for probably the entire night.”
“I thought we were not allowed to call him ‘your baby’ because that implies possession and ownership and would squash his identity, whatever that turns out to be,” she said holding up the paper and pointing to a line.
Boy, parenting is a bitch.
I didn’t know how people did it. It was so complicated. I didn’t know that term papers were involved. I had to hand it to Bridget. She had organized the hell out of her first babysitting experience. She must’ve written seventy-five single-spaced pages of instructions in a ten-point font.
If infancy was this complicated, I didn’t know what she was going do once baby Jonathan got to high school.
The baby cried in the other room, and the baby monitor on the table picked up the sound. Bridget did a little, panicked hop and ran into the baby’s room to get Jonathan.
Through the monitor, I could hear her talk to her child about the history of the Teamsters Union in America as she diapered him, apologizing for crossing the boundary limits on his privacy.
Then, she walked back into the dining room with baby Jonathan in her arms. I tickled him under his chin and cooed at him. “Look at that sweet little babykins,” I gushed. “What a sweetie pie. Mommy’s cutie patootie lovey, little man, pooka pooka babykins. You’re going to be such a good little boy when you grow up.”
I felt Bridget glare at me. Uh oh. Faced with baby Jonathan’s cuteness, I had forgotten the rules. I clamped my mouth closed. “I’m sorry, Bridget. He’s just so cute. I don’t know what came over me. It won’t happen again.”
“It certainly won’t happen with me,” Lucy said, popping open the champagne bottle. “I don’t care how cute he is. You won’t get me to talk like that to anyone, no matter how much he’s paying me.” Lucy had been a high-priced call girl until she married the love of her life, Harry, who was a nice guy with a dubious career. “Sure, I’ll be there to give him scholarship money for college, and he can call me when he gets a girl in trouble, but I’m not doing baby talk.”
Bridget stomped her foot on her carpet. “Between the two of you, you’ve uttered at least twenty-three gender stereotypes in front of my baby. Uh…I mean, Jonathan Donovan, who is an individual and a person with his own power and abilities and self-worth, not ‘my baby.’”
Oh, yeah. Parenting is a bitch.
Bridget had a last-minute crisis before we left. She burst into tears, worried that Jonathan would be traumatized by abandoning him to go to a bachelorette party. But the crisis ended pretty quickly when Lucy waved the bottle of champagne at her, again.
Bridget stuffed a bunch of gizmos and gadgets into her purse and was finally ready to go. “It’s an emergency beacon and video spying equipment,” she explained to Lucy in a whisper as we walked downstairs so that Jackson couldn’t hear.
“Is that all? Lucy asked. “I’m not a mother, so I don’t know these things, but isn’t an emergency beacon and spying equipment going to extremes? Maybe a little over the top for a babysitter?”
Bridget pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose. “What’re you talking about? I didn’t get the automatic T
aser option. That would have dropped Jackson to her knees if she got out of line. Boy, did I want the Taser option, but I’ve been a card-carrying member of the ACLU for twenty years, and I didn’t think they would approve. Damn it, now I think I should have gotten the Taser option. Screw the ACLU. What if Jackson gets out of line?”
I put my arm around Bridget’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “You’re a great mom, Bridget. Really the best.”
As much as Bridget had agonized and prepared for the outing, it took her about five minutes and a half a glass of champagne in the limo to all but forget that she had ever given birth.
“Yeehaw!” she shouted. “Let’s get this party started!”
Lucy had planned for a pretty straightforward bachelorette party with just us three, best friends. First on the agenda was a ride through Cannes and its environs in the limo, while we drank a big chunk of the rapper’s stock of alcoholic beverages. By my second glass of champagne, I was slurring my words and telling my best friends how much I loved them. I did love them, but the alcohol was making me tell them over and over. I also might’ve told them that I had stolen bubble gum from the pharmacy and written three bad checks since I had moved to Cannes. But like best friends, they pretended they didn’t hear about my indiscretions.
“Look at us,” Bridget said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand after taking another sip of champagne. “We’re all grown-ups, now. You and Lucy married, and me the mother of a child. I don’t think we’re doing too bad.”
Lucy raised her glass. “Here’s to not being too bad. Wait a minute. What am I saying? Tonight, it’s all about being too bad. Lots of too bad. Gobs and gobs of too bad. Let’s show Elvis how to do bad.”
“Don’t you mean Michael Jackson?” I asked.
“Oh, darlin’, I always mean Elvis.”
The limo took us through town and up further into the mountains and through the orchards and back down into the Historic District until it parked at the Bar None.
“We’re going to get more shminks?” I asked, trying to focus on the Bar None sign through the limo’s window. My eyes were at half-mast and I was having trouble making a fist, but I was more than happy to drink even more.
“They have nachos, too,” Bridget pointed out. “I’ve been eating only organic whole food for the past month while I was breastfeeding and trying to get my nipples to stop inverting. I hope to God that nachos aren’t organic.”
“I heard the bar makes the cheese out of pork fat and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos dust,” I pointed out.
Bridget slapped her hands together. “Perfect.”
Lucy had arranged for us to have a private room in the back of Bar None, which had a large round table and chairs. It was also the stockroom. Two orders of nachos, one order of chili cheese fries, one order of onion rings, and several margarita specials later, we were technically shitfaced.
“Do you have any she-crets to a shappy marriage?” I asked Lucy, trying to keep my head up.
“Sure thing, darlin’. Lots of money, separate bathrooms, and Viagra.”
I didn’t have any of those things, but I didn’t panic because Spencer was his own Viagra machine, and our bathroom in our new custom-made house was bigger than my bedroom. So, I figured we could avoid each other in there, even if we used it at the same time.
“I don’t believe in the paternalistic institution of marriage,” Bridget said. She propped her head up with her elbow on the table. “But I think you and Spencer make a dreamy couple. You’re so pretty together. And he loves you. He always looks at you like you’re the steak special with an onion glaze and white truffle fries on the side!”
I perked up. “Is that true?”
“Oh darlin’, oh my God, yes,” Lucy said. “If he was a dog, you would be his rawhide bone. He can’t wait to get to it and can’t stop chewing.”
I nodded, and my eyes welled up with tears. “That’s so beautiful,” I gushed. “I’m his rawhide bone, and he can’t wait to chew me. That’s poetry. That’s like really nice poetry. Better than Dr. Seuss. I love you, guys.” I got up and stumbled around the table, planting kisses on my friends. “This has been the nicest shime I’ve ever had,” I said and hiccoughed.
“Me, too,” Bridget said. Her eyes filled up with tears, and she wiped at them, smearing blue eyeshadow down her cheeks. “Female bonding is the best kind of bonding. My God, did I just say that? I meant that mother-son bonding is the best kind of bonding. Female bonding is the second-best kind of bonding.”
I slapped Bridget’s back. “We knew what you meant.”
Lucy seemed soberer than Bridget and me, even though she had drunk more. The alcohol didn’t even make her blotchy, whereas I looked like I got run over by a truck when I drank just one drink.
She smoothed her hair and smiled. “You two talk like this party’s over. But we’re just getting started. I got a big surprise for you. Hold onto your hats for a big package.”
“A big package? I asked.
“Get it?” Lucy said. “Big package.”
Bridget giggled. “Big package. Ha! Big package. Wait a minute. No, I don’t get it.”
“A stripper, honey.” Lucy slapped a thick wad of five dollar bills on the table. “A gorgeous, hot body, oh Lordy, look at that, slap my mama, kind of stripper. We’re going to make it rain in his big package.”
“A stripper?” I asked, finally catching on.
As if on cue, the stripper walked into our private room. I wasn’t sure that Lucy was right about his big package. Ditto the hot body, oh Lordy, look at that, and slap my mama. Actually, I didn’t want to look to see if he was a big package. In fact, I wanted to pretend that I wasn’t there and that he had never walked into the room because I knew him.
“Oh, hello there, Underwear Girl,” our stripper said, greeting me.
“Fred, is that you?” I asked. I had been hoping that I was so drunk that my eyes were playing tricks on me, but they weren’t playing. It was Fred Lytton.
“I’m making extra money for my honeymoon with Julie,” he explained. “We’re going to the monster truck rally in Fresno.”
“That sounds great,” I said, diplomatically.
Fred was my first match, and he was Spencer’s desk sergeant. He was tall and lanky. Actually, he was a string bean with no discernable muscle mass. A telephone pole with arms. I didn’t want to see him strip. I didn’t want to see him strip more than I didn’t want to see my accountant or an Adam Sandler movie.
If I was surprised that Fred was our stripper, Lucy was outraged. She slapped the table in anger. “Fred, what’re you doing here? Where’s Dapper Don? I hired Dapper Don Big Shlong for this shindig. I want my Big Shlong right this second!”
Fred put a 1980’s boom box on the table and started working his shirt buttons. He didn’t seem concerned that Lucy didn’t want him there. “Dapper Don got a standing erection,” he explained.
I shot margarita special out of my nose. “He got a what?” I croaked.
“I mean, ovation. He got a standing ovation.” Fred looked up at the ceiling for a moment. “No, that’s not it. Not a standing ovation. The clap. Yes, that’s it. The clap. The doctor said he has to stay in bed until the antibiotics start to work.”
Fred pushed the button on the tape machine, and I Will Survive started to play. Fred was a nice guy, but he didn’t have rhythm and very little hand-eye coordination. He was having a terrible time unbuttoning his shirt, and I hoped beyond hope that he would never be able to get his clothes off.
“I think I’m going to close my eyes for a moment,” Bridget said. “I’ll open them when the song is done or when he’s finished. Can someone tell me when he’s finished?”
“As far as I’m concerned, he’s finished now,” Lucy said.
The powerful Southern belle popped up from her seat and marched around the table to Fred. She hit the tape player, but it just made the music louder. She grabbed Fred’s hands, ostensibly to stop him from stripping, but Fred misunderstood what she was
doing and started to dance with her. At least I thought he was trying to dance with her. It had very little resemblance to dancing. It was more like professional wrestling. He turned her around, knocking her off balance, and she lunged for him in order not to fall, and as if by magic, Fred’s hand got caught in Lucy’s bra and Lucy’s hand got wedged in Fred’s sleeve, which he had been trying to remove.
The rest was fuzzy because I had reached maximum alcohol to nachos ratio and my brain was fighting with my digestive system to see which one was going to shut down or explode first.
“This is much easier than I thought it would be,” Fred said. “Beginner’s luck, I guess.”
“Fred, get your hand out of my brassiere,” Lucy growled.
“Oh, I thought that was part of the routine.”
“How about chopping off your hand? You think that’s part of the routine, too? Can we make that part of the routine?”
Fred seemed to think about that for a minute, but he couldn’t come up with an answer. My brain and digestive system finally let me focus on the situation, of Fred’s hand in Lucy’s bra, of his shirt clutched in her hand, and his bony chest on display.
“Can’t we all just get along?” I asked.
Gloria Gaynor finished singing, and the tape shut off. Lucy managed to extricate herself from Fred, just as he managed to strip down to his I love Easter boxer shorts and a killer farmer’s tan.
“Ta da!” he announced and took a seat at the table.
“Oh, for the love of Pete,” Lucy grumbled.
“Is it over?” Bridget asked, cracking an eye open.
“Yes,” Fred said. “Taking off my clothes was a lot easier than I expected. I thought it would be awkward.”
Bridget opened her eyes and got an eyeful of Fred’s bare chest, as he sat at the table. “I thought it was over,” she complained.
“Make it rain,” I ordered, and slapped the stack of five dollar bills on the table in front of Fred. His eyes grew enormous.
