Much has transpired. My birthday came and went quickly, without a hitch, but there is far more left to say, which has not gone hitchless. Last Thursday was the first day of Spring, and the day Gina was to be married. I was not there. My bridesmaid dress still hangs over Vincent’s chair, a pile of pink satin, unworn, unloved. The tags are still on, and yet it is my loss and mine alone because these kinds of things are not returnable. It has been nearly a week and yet my eyes are still red from crying and my spirit has long since been broken. It’s barely three pm, and yet here I am, halfway through a bottle of Jim Beam, like my first night here. But begin at the beginning, that’s what I say.
March 9th, 2008. Vincent picked me up early, as we had plans to hit the flea market, and thrift stores, if we had time. He hadn’t purchased anything for me, as he said we were going to find my gift out and about that day. It seemed a fine plan, one that was bound to end in Chinese food and excessive drinking, perhaps some surrealist writing games. I had spent the night with Drew the night before so my actual birthday I could spend the entire day with Vincent. Drew’s become rather jealous of Vincent, although he alludes to his spending time with other women himself and he knows to a great extent that my love for Vincent is platonic and nothing but. But men are biologically built to spread their seeds to several, while women are expected to accept it from only one. My acceptance of seeds is my affair, in any case. I was starting to tire of Drew’s mood swings and his belittling of our alleged relationship, but when I spent time with him it was hard to not smile. As the days passed, I found it easier to spend less and less time with him. Which I didn’t know to consider a victory or a severe loss.
I had become better friends with Rabbit, much to Vincent’s disappointment. He and Camille had ‘taken a break’ since he hadn’t left with her the night I kicked her out a couple of weeks ago. His days were more empty now, and so he tried to see as much of me as possible. And most days were full of Vincent. Some contained James, some contained Rabbit. But I was careful to not cross any lines with him. We were friends; we drank, we got into trouble together, got kicked out of bars, stole taxicabs. His girlfriend hadn’t made her presence known again since that day we drank all the wine and became obnoxious together. I suspected she felt something between us, but there was nothing for her to be afraid of. Soon enough, his single days would be over, and I would go back to my normal life. Or perhaps I would meet someone new.
I craved that. I knew it was unhealthy. But leopards can’t change their spots, as they say.
By the end of the day out with Vincent, I ended up with a Morrissey CD, a book of Ginsberg poetry, and a loud neon green trenchcoat that I fell in love with upon my first glance. It was almost new; I could scarcely believe my luck. I thanked Vincent for my newly found treasures, cradled them to my breast like a starving infant.
We ended up in Palo Alto, with warm and welcoming smiles all around at Jing Jing’s. It was the perfect place to spend my birthday. The Szechwan shrimp exploded on my tongue with the heat of a book of matches, but the flavor was familiar and good, and so my heart sang. We ate and drank plenty, and Vincent tipped far more than he should have. I suspected that he had had a bit of a crush on the tiny, proper-looking waitress.
The night ended as pleasantly as it started, to the tune of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass on my turntable, empty wine bottles and lined pages of poetry surrounding us both.
Days passed, and it grew closer and closer to the wedding day. I had accomplished the myriad of tasks on the list Gina had given me, which had put me in the hole about four hundred dollars and used up much of my free time. But I was happy to do it; she had been my best friend for most of my life and I figured if I ever got married she might do me the same honor. I had drunkenly asked her not to get married one night; spilled my guts to her about how little I thought of Seth, told her of the nights he had drunkenly come on to me which I ignored and didn’t tell her for fear of her not believing me, considering me envious instead. The news fell on her face like heavy weights. I felt wretched almost instantly, but felt it would be my conscience compromised had I kept it all inside.
The very next day, she told him everything that I said to her that night. The wedding was on, pinks and greens all around, and nothing more was said.
The bridesmaids on her side were a curious bunch. I was, of course, to be the maid of honor, which showed by my lustrous magenta gown, in contrast to the others’ pale green dresses. One of the girls was Gina’s stepsister, a 15-year-old, while the others were all cousins of Seth’s. Which was not going to allow for a very successful bachelorette party.
Early on, I had gotten the phone numbers of the three women who would actually be able to come out and drink and party, as they all lived a few hours away. I had thought that St. Patrick’s Day, three days before the actual wedding, would serve for the perfect day as it was one of those days it seemed that the entire universe would be out drinking and causing mischief at pubs, bars and clubs. Much to my disappointment, none of them would be able to make it even on the weekend for any kind of bachelorette activity. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t want to approach her; how lame is it for the maid of honor to ASK the bride-to-be what she wants to do for her bachelorette party? I did what I wanted to do even less—I asked Seth.
He suggested that since nothing scandalous or group-wise would be feasible, that I take the opportunity to have a girls’ night, the kind we had in middle school, high school, when we would stay up with the moon and sleep with the sun, the kind we would never have again. I envisioned bowls full of ice cream and chocolate syrup, oreos and chopped up butterfingers. I thought about the rum we would steal, how we would throw it in the blender with the ice cream and candy and tell our parents we were just making milkshakes, and how good the power tasted.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t that bad of an idea. So I spent another two hundred-some odd dollars and got us a hotel room in Santa Clara, one that had a free reception for two hours in the hotel’s bar (which really meant an unlimited amount of free drinks and various junk food). I packed up my DVD player and some movies that had meant marvelous much to us in our youth such as Grease, The Breakfast Club and the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I took my shoebox full of our back and forth letters and notes, and a few of my diaries from days gone by. I packed a few bottles of cheap Chardonnay, some orange juice and a flask sized bottle of adequate vodka for screwdrivers.
I also gathered toiletries, a change of clothes, and a bathing suit as I had been aware of the indoor pool and spa (open till midnight!) we could definitely take advantage of after the reception was over.
My overnight bag and tote were both stuffed, and I was ready to close the years of single friendship we had collected with a bang.
It didn’t take us long to get to Santa Clara. We left early and sped. She took the top down and I could smell the spring coming around the corner. I felt free, younger than I had in a long time, remembering when boys didn’t matter unless they were a stranger on the freeway you were flirting with, and you were flirting with them only because you could.
We checked in and entered our spacious room. It was more like a tiny apartment, a living room area with a pull-out couch, chairs, a dining table, a television set and a small refrigerator. A small hallway connected the living area from a small bathroom and a large bedroom, with an oversized mirror above a king-sized bed and on the closet. The bedroom also contained a TV, this one concealed in an armoire across the room.
The place was perfect for our evening. I began unpacking; putting the wine, vodka and orange juice in the fridge, the DVD player on the table next to the television. We got comfortable, opened some Chardonnay, redressed for the evening. We made our way to the lobby and grabbed two seats at the bar.
The bartender was a tall Asian fellow, well-dressed, no nametag. We introduced ourselves candidly, as young women tend to, offered our hands to the gentleman. We figured we were going to have to get acquainted with him. He was going to be concocting our beverages for two hours or so; it seemed the only thing that made sense.
We started off with a sex on the beach. It was not a drink I would ever choose as it was quite sweet and on the weaker side, but Gina was different than I, and I didn’t want to alienate her. I also wanted to stay on the same level with her, as the night was just beginning.
The two hours that proceeded were full of drinking and laughing, a split Cobb salad, a handful of businessmen that had come over to flirt, to offer to buy drinks (the well cocktails were free, but call liquors had not been), to help us figure out what the wedding song should be.
By the time seven-thirty rolled around (the time the reception was officially over), Tim the bartender, had enjoyed our company so much that he discreetly let us know he would offer us free drinks for another half hour. She had the first wedding dance song narrowed down to Stand by Me, Someone to Watch Over Me, Earth Angel, and I Will Follow You into the Dark (a choice I thought was quite inappropriate given her situation with Chad dying in Iraq).
We were getting fairly drunk, but the promise of poolside pleasures that awaited us kept us chipper and fresh. I mentioned that I had brought some old letters, diaries and photographs and she seemed exuberant at that realization. She threw her tiny arms around my neck, declared her love. Although the bachelorette party wasn’t going the way one normally would, what with male strippers and a limousine full of dumb drunk girls wearing scandalous clothing, it was obvious she was enjoying herself. And what mattered almost as much was that I was enjoying her.
For the first time in a few years, it was just her and I. No boyfriends, no cancelled plans because of boyfriends, no forced double dates. She wasn’t concerned about where he was (although knowing Seth, I would have been, given it was a bachelor party and his integrity seemed easily compromised). She was just having fun. I forgot what it was like to have Gina all to myself. I forgot what Gina was really like. The liquor was softening my vision and I saw a pink haze around her, and tears welled up in my eyes thinking that this Gina would never exist after this night. She would walk down the aisle three days later, and move across the country where he had a job offer. She would get a job utilizing her nursing degree and start trying to get pregnant. She would learn how to cook. She would become obsessed with redesigning the kitchen and the bathroom because they weren’t ‘baby-friendly’ colors. There would be a lot of yellow and green.
And the closest thing I would have to Gina would be if I had the money to visit, when the baby would finally fall asleep and maybe she would sip a margarita with me at the kitchen table, spit-up on her shoulder, eyes on the baby monitor. Seth would gain weight and get wrapped up in work or booze, or other women. And Gina’s parents had divorced, and it had harshly affected her childhood so she vowed to never end her own marriage. So she would stay, loveless, faithful; perhaps she would go to church even more often that she would normally to keep her sanity. If you could even call it that.
I considered it might have been the alcohol. I excused myself to relieve my bladder and my stinging eyes. I collected myself and made my way back to the bar, tipping the bartender, mentioning the pool. Her eyes lit up and we linked arms and said goodbye to the friends we’d made. The goodbye felt final, although I didn’t know any of their names or jobs or any small details you would remember of someone’s life. We made our way back to our room to change.
The events that occurred in the next few hours didn’t seem to mean much at the time; they were fleeting, unimportant; at the very least, not as crucial as the impact that came just the next day. I say this only now because there is much lost in translation—the way that people communicate has always been something that varies from person to person, but one would expect that both parties understand the circumstances that they both experience. As things are, this simply cannot be so.
We drank another screwdriver together in the pool and hot tub area, laughing, making fun of the young boys attempting to flirt with us. We finally made our way back up to the room around a quarter to eleven, when I started attempting to hook up the DVD player so we could watch Grease while we went through all the things that I brought. I became furious almost immediately. There were no hookups for any kind of unit other than a computer. I rang the front desk. They confirmed my angry suspicions. They tried to explain by babbling about the cable connection, but that wasn’t going to help me.
I was upset. I didn’t know what to do. I was willing to bet I would never watch any of these movies with Gina ever again, and I hadn’t in years as it was. She was dancing around the living room in her bathing suit, not seeming to care, talking about chocolate cake and the ice cream concoctions we used to make. “I want chocolate!” she exclaimed, sprawling her arms and legs over the couch.
I rang room service. I read in the guide that room service had to be ordered before eleven. I noted the time. Five minutes till. It rang and rang and rang. No chocolate. No movies. I was again furious. I knew neither of us were in any shape to leave the hotel.
Gina stopped dancing and started brainstorming with me. “If only we had a laptop,” she said, motioning to the refrigerator, hinting at another drink.
“Not yet,” I laughed, still irritated at the present status of things. Then it came to me. Rabbit. He had a laptop, and he had pretty much made it obvious that holidays were spent with the girlfriend and her family, who really didn’t drink. He was the only one that I knew that wouldn’t be drunk at eleven on St. Patrick’s Day.
“How about Rabbit?” She loved the idea.
“Yeah, call him! Tell him to bring chocolate!”
I knew this would work. Rabbit loved getting out of the house. He loved to drink. And he was pretty good friends with the both of us at the moment. I decided we would ask him the favor, give him a drink or two, and send him on his way. It was a bachelorette party, after all. He wasn’t going to be dancing for us, that was for sure.
Rabbit was quick to accept our proposition. He was swinging by the grocery store to grab some brownie or cake from the bakery and then he would be on his way, laptop in hand.
The plan finally seemed to materialize. We had a glass of wine to celebrate. He entered, set up the laptop, offered the chocolate goodness to Gina, who didn’t seem to mind at all that silverware, plastic or otherwise, was neglected. I laughed at her chocolate teeth, frosting bubbling up over her lips while she laid back in the recliner, still in her bathing suit.
“This was a great idea.” I was pretty sure that’s what she said.
We started going through some of the notes while Rabbit poured himself a glass of wine. We discovered one about a crank call that we had made back in sixth grade, to a boy who lived around the corner that had a crush on Gina.
Suddenly, she wanted to crank call someone. Rabbit chimed in. “Yeah, you should call some guy you used to date and tell him you’re at your bachelorette party and you just want to see him one more time before you get married.”
We both laughed. “Then what?” she asked, her eyes wide, her mouth wider.
“Then you tell him where you’re at,” he continued. “But tell him you’re in the room across the way.”
She threw her head back and giggled maniacally. It was a trademark move of Gina’s, one that often took place around Rabbit. For some reason, it rubbed me the wrong way. I didn’t like that I felt that way. I felt like I was becoming jealous, but none of it made any sense. I changed the subject.
“What do you want to watch first?”
“I want to crank call someone!”
Rabbit nodded. “Do it. It’ll be hilarious. You’ll see him through the peephole looking like an asshole either way.”
He of course, meant, if nobody was in the room or someone else was.
There was nobody to call and I told her so. Chad was dead and her other big ex was happily married, oddly enough to a girl that looked a lot like Gina. It would never work.
“Frank?” she asked, putting the cake down.
Frank was not the best idea, but it would provide some entertainment. He was a mutual friend; one that she had casually dated that relentlessly chased her, before and afterwards. His pursuit was for the most part, physical, so I was sure the idea would entice him. He was just dumb enough to fall for it, but I knew he would be furious and I didn’t know if he knew where she lived now or would do anything about it afterwards.
But suddenly, that was the plan. I stopped worrying about things; I had another glass of wine, took a bite of Gina’s crumbly brown mess she had leftover. My mind traveled to wherever Seth was, blonde, gargantuan-breasted strippers or hookers with their asses waving in front of him, the tears of joy running down his face. He was having fun. What was wrong with our fucking with some dumb ex of Gina’s?
“Fuck it,” I said, and threw her cell phone to her.
It was getting late and she was giggling but she went through with it. She gave him the address and he let her know he would be there in twenty minutes. She was laughing like an evil sprite, the kind of laugh you have when you know you are going to turn a man down, when you know you are going to screw someone over. I never really saw her like that before. It was creepy. I wondered if it was Seth’s influence from the past few years, or the lack of mine. I tried to sweep the worry away.
Rabbit poured himself a screwdriver, got comfortable. “You gotta leave after this, ok?” I said, kicking him in the leg. “We’ve got stuff to do!” I wasn’t ready to give up my girl’s night. But there was always time for a prank.
Soon enough, he was there, knocking on the door across the way. All our heads bobbed against the door, fighting for peephole privileges. I was the first one to see him.
His hair was more orange than usual. His hair went back and forth from really bleached blonde to just sort of bleached blonde to orange blonde to light brown. He was always trying to change his appearance; he claimed that he was always doing what was ‘seasonal.’ In most senses of the word, he was a schmuck; the frat boy that only wasn’t because he didn’t go to school.
He was wearing a black button up shirt and khakis. His knock, which I saw as light and casual, became loud enough to hear through the door when Gina’s eye was up to the glass. She giggled and it was loud and I put my hand over her mouth.
It was clear he was becoming frustrated. I saw him delve into his pocket and retrieve his phone. All of a sudden, her phone began flashing and playing music—very, very loudly. For a moment, Gina seemed to forget exactly what was taking place, or did not know it was her phone that was telling on her. Immediately thereafter, she leapt upon it, lying on the couch, turning the music off, laughing again. I was certain we were found out, but Rabbit assured me from the door that he was still knocking on the door across the way.
The knock seemed to last forever, and it didn’t seem as funny anymore. It was desperate, pathetic. By then she had silenced her phone and sat at the table, arms crossed, chewing her lip. “I feel bad,” she then said, realization washing over her face.
I laughed. “Oh come to your senses,” I told her, shaking my head. “This was exactly what was supposed to happen. You’ll probably never have to see him again.”
She stood up. “I want to let him in.”
I stood up, and Rabbit was at my side. “We are not letting him in. That was not the deal.”
“What deal?” she asked angrily. “It was my call to call him and it will be my call to invite him in. It’s MY party.”
I stood in her way, blocking the door. Rabbit was between us. I had an ominous sense of dread building within me, and I felt nauseous. Why was Gina acting this way? She was a passive person, never putting her foot down for anything, especially something foolish.
She pushed me. I didn’t know if the alcohol was finally getting her to a point of aggression or she was just passionate about the moment at hand but I wasn’t budging. She sat down on the floor, listening to the knock grow louder and louder.
“Jolie,” she breathed. “I feel bad. I just want to talk to him. Tell him I’m sorry. And then he’ll go, okay?”
I shook my head. “What’s done is done.”
“Like hell,” she said and pushed me aside with all her might, opening the door (with my weight on it) just enough for him to notice. The door closed swiftly thereafter, but by then, the jig was up.
I moved away. “Don’t do it; this is stupid.”
But she didn’t listen. The door was open and he was inside, hugging me, telling me I looked good but his words hit my ears like I was underwater. I was furious at Gina for changing the entire way the night was going. Her party, her rules. I angrily watched him wipe chocolate out of the corner of her mouth while she laughed. “I’m so sorry about that,” she gushed, flirting. “Thanks for coming, we have to catch up!”
Rabbit introduced himself while Gina whispered in my ear. “Don’t worry, I’m just gonna fuck with his head.”
I didn’t say a word. She ran into the bedroom and jumped onto the bed. “Frank!” He followed her. I followed close behind, making sure the door was open and they were only talking. I walked out into the living room, eyes on the tiny hallway, concerned, quiet.
“What a fucking idiot,” I said to Rabbit as he swilled down the end of his screwdriver. He nodded and said little else. Neither of us knew what to make of this situation. It was so completely not the Gina that I was best friends with. It didn’t make any sense. I had seen her far more drunk and far less foolish and bitchy. I didn’t know if it was the whole Bridezilla thing that often took place, but she was becoming very self-consumed. I wondered if only traces of my Gina were still in there.
I walked down the hallway and made a right into the bathroom. I finished up and washed my hands, probably no longer than a two minute bathroom visit, and by the time I opened the door and re-entered the hallway, the bedroom door was closed and I could hear Gina moaning loudly.
“WHAT THE FUCK?!?” I screamed, trying the knob, pounding on the locked door. Rabbit came quickly, assisting me. Frank opened the door, fully clothed, and I peered inside the room, seeing Gina wrapped up topless in the comforter.
“Get out,” I said, pointing to the door. He said nothing and did as he was told. Rabbit sneered something about kicking his ass but Frank was silent, closing the door behind him.
Gina was still giggling. She got up and walked around the hotel room, breasts hanging out haphazardly, the comforter barely covering her bottom half. “That was a bad idea,” she said, sitting on the floor. “I’m glad you kicked him out.”
I didn’t know what to say. She was getting married in three days. I sat down with her and Rabbit asked her the obvious question. Which was good because I was tired of asking. “Why the hell did you do that?”
She shrugged. “I just wanted to get some.” She said it very matter-of-factly, fleeting. As if it were having a cigarette or seeing a movie. My mind started to put pieces together, things we had experienced together, things she had told me in the past few months and years. I remembered one of my exes confiding in me that she had made out with him at a party that she had come to with her groom-to-be.
The fact that she had acquired herpes through “a dirty barbell” she purchased at a head shop for her clitoral hood piercing. The fact that she tried to get me to have a threesome with the two of them once. This was a side of her I had never seen. A side I never knew existed. I was ashamed. I was disgusted. And even though Seth was probably being rather naughty himself, I thought Gina would at least be remorseful about it.
I helped her dress and we got into bed. Rabbit put the movie back on and we watched it, saying very little. She fell asleep within the hour and Rabbit and I soon followed.
She awoke around six thirty in the morning, panicked. “What if he has something?” she queried. “He didn’t have a condom!”
I was incredulous then. “But YOU have something.”
“Yeah but he didn’t use a condom, he deserves what he gets.”
“So wouldn’t that apply to you as well?”
“Well, I was drunk. And besides, it’s not the girl’s job to have the condom.”
My eyes were wider than I’d ever remembered them being. Rabbit by then had woken up and we both witnessed her phone call to Frank, waking him, just to make sure “he didn’t have any diseases.” She hung up, relieved, without telling him about hers.
She turned over, smiling, and went back to sleep.
I looked at Rabbit and he looked at me. He got out of bed, put his shoes on, shrugged and walked out. “I’ll call you later,” he said to me, and I nodded, with disdain.
When we finally rose around ten, she seemed bummed out. Finally. Pangs of guilt were setting in. She admitted that it had been a mistake, and that she had regretted the decision. Feeling that she had finally come to her senses, I offered my realistic and yet fucked-up advice. “Don’t tell him. It will only cause unnecessary harm.”
Her eyes searched my face for an explanation. I was happy to oblige. “You don’t really even care about Frank; you were just being a dumb drunk girl at a bachelorette party. If you tell him, not only will your wedding be tainted, but so will your honeymoon. If you decide to tell him, wait until after the honeymoon.”
She sighed and nodded.
“What do you think HE did last night anyways?” I didn’t want to say it, but it was true. Men had bad reputations for taking advantage of the final night of freedom, and Seth was someone who would take it all the way. I was certain of it.
We packed and she called Seth to set up lunch plans. I was too tired; I craved the comfort of my own bed and I had a shift later that afternoon. We parted ways, and I didn’t feel bad about it at all. As a matter of fact, I felt relieved that soon Gina would be across the country and that the girl that I knew and loved would be buried within me forever. Seth could have the new one. I didn’t recognize her.
I went home, slid under my comforter and tried to forget the events of the night previously. I thought about Rabbit and what he must have been thinking about marriage since he was getting married soon enough. It must have been disheartening for him. I wondered if he knew the Gina that had shown up last night and still seemed to linger in the morning, once the booze had worn off.
I awoke to the ringing of my phone. It took me a moment to answer but when I did, what I heard was unmistakable. Gina was crying.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, still groggy from sleep.
“Um, I don’t know how to tell you this…”
I knew what happened. She told him. Already! I shook my head, expecting to hear that the wedding was off, that she was miserable; maybe I could talk to Seth? What I never expected to hear in a hundred million years was:
“I’m sorry, but you can’t come to the wedding.”
I heard Seth shouting in the background. It was like some kind of nightmare. I let it out. “What the fuck?”
“Yeah, I told him, and I’m sorry, he won’t marry me unless I do this…” She was whimpering. “He thought you would look out for me.”
He grabbed the phone from her, screamed at me for my irresponsibility. MY irresponsibility. I was beyond shocked. “Why am I responsible for her actions?”
It didn’t matter. Evidently it was all my fault. I had done all I could to keep Frank from coming into that hotel room but because it was HER party and HER call he got to, and because SHE wanted some it was my fault, and because SHE decided to tell him it was my fault. I had done nothing but the blame was mine.
Tears slid down my face like rivers. She got back on the phone and she just kept saying she was sorry. She said she would send me a check for all the money I spent. In the background he was screaming “No you are not!”
“There’s another thing,” she started. “I’m filing a police report.”
No fucking way. “For WHAT, exactly?”
She stopped crying. “For rape.”
The thirteen minutes that followed that sentence all seemed to crash onto each other like waves onto suicide cliffs. I spoke to Seth, Gina and her father. I was forbidden to come to the wedding or else the police would be involved. I had to cease all contact with her forever or else they would push for an accessory to rape charge. Her father had been a cop and lawyer back in his glory days and although now in retirement, he still knew how to intimidate a girl who really knew she had done nothing wrong.
My back had run into her knife. The Mormon that wasn’t had done something stupid and was forced to blame it on her best friend in the entire world to save her marriage. I had been the scapegoat throughout all of high school; the reason she would get in trouble for staying out late, or drinking too much, or going out on dates; and I accepted the title then because all it meant then was that I wasn’t on her parent’s favorites list. To be honest, I had never wanted their blind faith form of respect. They lived in another world and this was how they did things. She got drunk and fucked some idiot and what it meant to them was that her best friend in the entire world, the one she had known her whole life, had aided her rape.
It didn’t make any sense. I said it many times. It didn’t matter. Soon enough the dial tone was singing in my ear and the last thing she said to me was sorry, again. But nothing would ever make up for the betrayal that I had spent twenty years and hundreds of dollars paying for.
