It Takes Two

by Jenny Holiday

  Wendy was all over this idea. Simple math was on her side. She had the girls, and what Noah was forgetting was that two of his guys were married to—or about to be married to—two of her girls. They’d be able to flip either or both Jay and Cameron. So no problem. She had this in the bag.

  You’re on.

  Then for good measure, she added:

  Sucker.

  The driver behind her laid on the horn. The jam had broken up a bit so she hit the gas. A few minutes later, she was pulling in to the airport’s cell phone lot, where people picking up passengers could wait to be summoned. Her phone buzzed again and she fumbled for it, adrenaline surging, before she remembered that it would almost certainly not be Noah, but Gia. The person she was waiting for. Jeez.

  It wasn’t Gia, though; it was Cameron.

  Hey, can you do me a favor? Apparently I’m going to Vegas this weekend. Surprise bachelor party—Noah just sprang this on me. Jane is supposed to do an author visit on Friday morning at a school in Peterborough. I know she’ll say she doesn’t care, but I don’t want her to go alone. It’s a long drive. Any chance you can go with her?

  Holy shit. Noah was moving the party to Vegas. That bastard.

  Wendy thought she had pulled out all the stops on Jane’s party, renting out a historic branch of the library so their favorite book nerd could have the bash of her dreams. But, shit! There was no way her party, no matter how perfectly on-theme and Pinterest-ready it was, could compete with Las Vegas.

  Well, okay. This was a curveball, but it wasn’t time to award Noah the victory yet, not even remotely.

  It was time to fight dirty.

  She picked up her phone.

  No problem. I’m picking Gia up at the airport right now. We’ll get Elise and we’ll all go with Jane on Friday morning—start the bachelorette festivities early.

  She let her phone sit for a moment, waiting before sending the next text, so it would seem like a casual afterthought.

  So, you guys are going to Vegas? When?

  Jay and Hector and I are leaving tomorrow. Noah, who was the mastermind of all of this, can’t get off work Friday, so he’s going to fly in on Saturday and join us.

  Is he now? She tapped her fingernails on the phone before replying.

  Well, have fun.

  Will do. You too. Take care of my girl.

  Wendy thought about correcting him. Yes, Jane was Cameron’s girl, she would reluctantly acknowledge, but she was also Wendy’s girl. But before she could decide whether to say anything, a text from Gia arrived saying that she was outside the terminal.

  All right. Next step: get Gia on board. Wendy started the car, pulled around, and scanned the arrivals area until she found an effortlessly beautiful glamazon.

  “So,” she said as Gia got into the car. “Change of plans. We’re going to Vegas for the bachelorette.”

  “We’re what?” Gia paused half in and half out, her brow knitting between her striking amber eyes. Seeing Gia after a long stretch apart was sometimes a shock to the system. It shouldn’t be possible for a human being to be so pretty. Gia had literally just stepped off a plane from Tokyo, but instead of looking like she’d spent fifteen hours in a metal tube whose main feature was its ability to dehydrate and exhaust mere mortals, the six-foot beauty looked like she’d spent a refreshing morning twirling in the Alps while singing about her favorite things.

  “Okay, back up now.” Gia sat, made a rewinding motion with her hands, then leaned over to kiss Wendy on the cheek. “Hi!”

  Wendy grinned. “Hi.”

  Their group of four sorted into two pairs of best friends. Jane and Wendy of course went way back to childhood. They’d gone off to university together, signing up to be roommates, and had met Elise that first year. Gia was later to the scene, arriving as a freshman when the rest of them were seniors. Elise had been Gia’s resident assistant, and the two of them had formed a fast friendship.

  Because Wendy had only overlapped with Gia that one year at school, and because Gia had dropped out after her first year and begun a modeling career that had her jetting all over the world, Gia and Wendy weren’t particularly close aside from the foursome. But Wendy sometimes thought if they’d met as fully formed adults, she and Gia, with their penchant for travel and their shared outlooks on life, would be the most natural pairing.

  “Okay, now what’s this about Vegas?”

  “We need to take this party up a notch.”

  “Is this about the non-low-keyness of this supposedly low-key wedding?”

  Wendy barked a laugh. “You noticed that?”

  “Jane sent me a picture of the dress. That was not a low-key dress.”

  “Those were my words exactly. But that’s on you. You’re the one who got her all hyped up to go to that ridiculous salon.”

  “Don’t lay this shit on me, sister. Jane is going the path of Bridezilla Elise whether we like it or not.” Gia sighed. “If I didn’t love Jane so much, I’d be like…” She lifted both middle fingers.

  The lewd gesture gave Wendy a rush of the warm fuzzies. In fact, she was getting a little teary-eyed at the sight of her bold, fearless friend. Gia did what she wanted—lived large and made no apologies for it. That wasn’t all that common when you really thought about it.

  “Hey.” Gia laid a hand on Wendy’s arm. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Wendy reached into her bag. “Here. I got you a butter tart. I thought you’d be hungry after the flight.” Gia had a sweet tooth, and butter tarts were among her favorites. And if her mouth was full, she was less likely to object to Wendy’s Vegas plan.

  “Thanks. I actually ate on the plane, so I’ll save it for later.” She shot Wendy a quizzical look. “You sure you’re okay? I mean, I’m used to the sight of me bringing people to tears, but…”

  “I’m just glad you’re here. I could use a break from all this wedding crap. We’re the last women standing, you know?”

  “You know it.” Gia held up her hand for a fist bump. “No ball and chain for me, thank you very much.”

  “Hear hear,” said Wendy, getting her shit together—what a stupid little emotional moment that had been—and pulling away from the curb.

  “But seriously, I feel like something’s up,” Gia said. “Has Jane really gone off the deep end?”

  “No, no. She still thinks she’s doing the ‘low-key’ thing.” Wendy let go of the steering wheel with one hand and made air quotes. “So she can’t get too out of control because that will violate her image of herself and create a disturbance in the force. So she’s kind of at odds with herself.”

  “That’s tricky. In some ways Elise—God bless her—was easier because at least you knew what you were dealing with.”

  “I think you might be right.” Wendy merged into traffic. “An overt bridezilla at least makes her demands clear.”

  “Crystal clear.” Gia snorted. “Remember the felt?”

  “Ha! Yes!” Elise had gone on a last-minute tear before her wedding, forcing the bridesmaids to hand-make paper for place cards, and the process had involved putting felt into blenders. “Yeah, so I get the sense that Jane actually wants more than she’s saying—she wants us stuffing felt into blenders, or whatever her nerdy equivalent is—but she doesn’t want to want it, you know? She doesn’t want us to think she’s as bad as Elise was.”

  “So Jane secretly wants a bigger-deal bachelorette party?” Gia asked.

  “I think Jane secretly wants a bigger-deal everything, but she’s using this coded language. Like, for example, she keeps talking about how ‘fun’ it would be if the bridesmaids wore tartan dresses.”

  “You mean like Scottish plaid?”

  “Yup. Which, thank God, it’s too late to special-order.” Gia was a size-two knockout who would look good in a burlap sack so “little black dress versus bullshit tartan” probably wasn’t such a big deal for her, but Wendy would look like Little Miss Scotland in a plaid dress. If, you know, Little Miss Scotland was Ch
inese.

  “Wow,” said Gia.

  “Yeah. So anyway, I’m suddenly thinking that canapés at the library isn’t going to cut it.”

  “What are the boys doing?” Gia asked.

  “They’re ah, going to Vegas. I just found out. They surprised Cameron with the news today.”

  “Wendy, you sly girl!” Gia exclaimed. “You want to invade the boys’ party. Show them up.”

  “Well, actually…”

  Gia shifted in her seat to face Wendy. “Well, actually what?”

  “I may have made a bet with Jane’s brother over who could throw the best party.”

  Gia cracked up again. “Jane mentioned something about that. So is this Vegas thing about showing Jane a good time or winning your bet?”

  Wendy made a guilty face. “Both?”

  Gia banged on the dashboard. “Either way, I think it’s a great idea. I’m in!”

  “Really? I thought I was going to have to do a lot more convincing.”

  “Hell, a trip to Vegas and beating the boys? Sign me up.”

  “You think Elise will be into it, though?” Wendy asked.

  “Are you kidding me? Remember during her own wedding how obsessed she was with invading Jay’s bachelor party? What is this if not that on a grand scale?”

  Wendy chuckled. “The only problem is that we have fifteen people coming to the library party tomorrow night.”

  “So we still do that. She gets two parties. Is Noah throwing Cameron two parties?”

  That was a very good point. “I like the way you think.”

  Gia opened the calendar app on her phone. “Okay, how about this? Night at the library tomorrow as planned with the bigger group, then the four of us fly to Vegas Saturday.”

  “That’s perfect, because Noah isn’t flying in until Saturday anyway. Apparently he can’t get off work, so he’s going a day later than the other guys.”

  “Great. We’ll make it a surprise for Jane. We’ll time it so we arrive around the same time as Noah. He’ll shit his pants.”

  Wendy cackled. It was all so delightfully evil.

  “We stay two nights there, then we fly back Monday,” Gia went on. “Instead of spending the weekend listening to Jane subtly lament that the window has closed for tartan, we show her a not-low-key time. What would you call that? A high-key time?”

  A higher-key time than Noah was showing Cameron. An idea popped into Wendy’s head. “Maybe we could hire a male stripper?”

  Gia barked a laugh. “Yes! I think what our girl needs to take her bachelorette from low-key to high-key is a lap dance from a stripper dressed as Elvis!”

  “Or one dressed as a librarian—in keeping with the theme.”

  “Yes!” Gia pumped her fist. “I’m super into this for selfish reasons, too.”

  “And what would those be?”

  “I need to get laid.”

  “Huh?” The non sequitur gave Wendy pause. “You don’t need to go to Vegas to get laid. All you need to do is, like, make eye contact with a human male and crook your finger.”

  “You know I prefer things to be uncomplicated.”

  Wendy nodded. “One and done. Two and through.” That was Gia’s motto—she’d sleep with a guy once, twice in extreme cases. But that was it.

  Gia gave an unapologetic shrug. “Uncomplicated is easier in Vegas. No one is looking for lasting love in Vegas.”

  “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” Wendy said. Damn, she loved Gia. Although that phrase reminded her of another, less comfortable one, one that had so recently come from her own lips: What happens in New York stays in New York.

  Gia pulled out the butter tart and lifted it as if it were a drink. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Cheers to that.”

  Wendy thought back to that bar in New York, to Noah taunting her with his suggestive, borderline lewd talk. “Well, you know what? I need to get laid, too. Preferably by a big, hot stranger who’s not looking for lasting love.”

  “Yay!” Gia put away the butter tart and got her phone out. “I’ll call Elise.”

  “Hey, before you do that, where am I taking you?” Wendy was almost at the point where she needed to decide which branch of the highway system to get on. “Elise’s, I assume?”

  Gia sighed and let her phone drop to her lap. “Yep.”

  “Don’t sound so excited.”

  “Oh, you know, the aforementioned ball and chain thing. Third wheel and all that—not that they do it on purpose. I wish I could stay in a hotel, but Elise won’t have it. She says I live in hotels, so I’m not allowed to stay in one in Toronto.”

  “Why don’t you stay with me?” It was awkward to ask—Gia always stayed with Elise when she was in town—but Wendy found herself genuinely wanting Gia to say yes.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, we can work on the Vegas arrangements after dinner.” They had dinner planned with the Toronto crowd. It would be really nice to have Gia over at her place after that couples extravaganza. “We’ll do some shots after hanging with the marrieds.”

  “I would love that.” Gia rested her hand momentarily on Wendy’s forearm. “Thanks.”

  “Great.” Wendy smiled her first genuine smile in a long time as she chose the southern branch of the highway that would take them to her downtown condo. “We single ladies gotta stick together.”

  * * *

  Wendy surprised herself by actually having fun at dinner that night, which was at Elise’s house. The entire wedding party was in attendance: Elise and Jay, Jane and Cameron, Wendy, Gia, and Cameron’s friend Hector.

  Well, the entire wedding party was in attendance save for one person.

  “Do you think we should FaceTime my brother?” Jane exclaimed after dinner.

  “Nope.” Wendy was on her third post-dinner scotch, which probably explained why she had answered what was supposed to have been a rhetorical question—and answered it loudly enough for all eyes to swing to her. “I mean…these things are always awkward.”

  “What things?” Elise asked.

  “Oh, you know, FaceTiming is never the same as having someone with you in person,” Wendy said weakly, still sober enough—alas—to be aware of how lame she sounded.

  Luckily, Jane didn’t seem to register it and was already punching emphatically at her phone. “I’m totally doing it!”

  “Leave it to Jane to drunk dial her brother,” said Cameron with obvious affection in his voice as he slung an arm around her shoulder.

  “Hey!” Jane objected, trying—but not too hard—to shake off his arm. “I’m not— Noah! Hiiii!!”

  “Janie,” he said. “What are you doing?”

  Gah! His voice. Noah’s voice was always compelling, but right now it was all sleepy and gravelly, like Jane had woken him up. Wendy glanced at her watch. It was eleven.

  “Having dinner with all the wedding people and missing you! I want to see you!”

  Wendy shared a glance with Gia and then with Elise, who’d been brought on board and had enthusiastically endorsed the Vegas plan. Jane would be seeing her brother sooner than she realized.

  “What are you doing?” Jane leaned in closer to her phone. “Are you still at work?”

  “Guilty. I’ve got a trial starting Tuesday, and since I’m jetting off for Cameron’s party the day after tomorrow, I’ve got to finish prepping now. So that means late nights today and tomorrow.”

  “Well, I’m tempted to lecture you about work-life balance, but I suspect it will do no good! Say hi and bye to everyone.” She lifted her phone and started panning across the room. Wendy looked at her hands and willed the sofa she was sitting on to swallow her whole—it was big and fluffy, so it wasn’t that farfetched.

  “Wendy Lou Who.” She hadn’t been looking, but it didn’t matter. That damned voice shot straight to her core. They might as well have been back in that stupid hipster bar in New York, with him calmly informing her that he was a better prospect for fucking than any of the guys there. Jane stoppe
d moving the phone. Wendy could hardly keep not looking at Noah, so she forced herself to raise her eyes. And there he was, iPhone-size, in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and his tie loosened.

  “So I heard the cat is out of the bag about my party,” he said. “My amazing, classic Vegas party.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Wendy inspected her fingernails as she affected a noncommittal tone. In truth, she was practically bursting. Her evil plot made her so happy.

  “I really hope you ladies have fun at the library,” he taunted.

  “We will.” She beamed at him, refusing to take the bait, which she knew would only irritate him more.

  “Is this about that stupid bet?” Jane asked.

  “What bet?” Cameron asked.

  Jane turned to her fiancé. “These two are competing over who can throw the better bachelor or bachelorette party.”

  Cameron cracked up. “Oh, man. Sorry, Wendy, but I think Vegas beats the library.”

  Jane swatted him. “You don’t know that!” Wendy loved how loyal Jane was, even though she was clearly jealous of the guys’ destination shindig.

  “Aren’t these things subjective anyway?” Jay asked, trying to be diplomatic.

  “That’s why we’re all voting at the end,” Gia said.

  “Isn’t that just going to split us along gender lines?” Elise asked.

  Wendy held up her hands as everyone started talking. “Everybody just wait. All we ask is that you withhold judgment and vote honestly at the end.” Except Cameron, whom Wendy planned to pressure into voting for Jane’s team.

  From the phone, Noah guffawed. He couldn’t imagine a scenario in which she would top him. She’d show him. She swallowed a laugh and asked him, by way of deflection, “What are you working on?”

  “Aggregated cemetery desecration in the first degree.”

  Whoa. She’d only been asking to get him off the topic of the warring parties, but that was hella interesting. “Wow. You can go a whole career without seeing something like that.” She certainly had. “Does first degree require a prior conviction?”