A Total Waste of Makeup (29 page)

The server leaves, and the two of us begin to eat our food in silence. Several minutes pass, and all I can hear are the forks clinking against the plates.

I decide to tread carefully in these dangerous waters. “I know maybe I haven’t been as happy for you as I should be,” I say tentatively. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m just a little jealous.”

“Thank you,” she says, finishing her glass of champagne and pouring herself another. “It’s not you, it’s me. I’m just mad at Hunter.”

“Men aren’t very into weddings.”

“It’s not that,” she says, and I know to be quiet and let her talk. “It’s that the only reason I’m having this fucking bachelorette party is because he’s out with his boys this weekend having a bachelor party.”

Again, I am tempted to speak. To try to say something comforting, maybe give a good bit of advice. But I learned long ago:

When a friend is in pain, usually all you need to do is shut up and listen.

The hard part about that, of course, is training yourself to shut up.

“Do you know who Shaquille O’Neal is?” Andy asks me.

“Some Irish guy?” I guess. “I think Kate’s mentioned him. Is he the mayor of Boston, maybe?”

Andy looks stunned.

“I’m kidding,” I say. “He’s a basketball player.”

“And he’s an asshole,” Andy informs me.

“Oh,” I say, not sure where this is going. “Is he throwing Hunter’s bachelor party?”

Andy sighs out loud. “No! A couple of years ago, when he was on the Lakers, they were playing in the playoffs. After one of his games, he’s being interviewed, and he keeps calling one of the opposing team members
she. She
did this, and
she
played like that. It was supposed to be this huge insult, and he thought he was being so damned clever, you could see it by the way he was smiling. And at some point, since none of the reporters were laughing, he said, ‘And you heard me right, I said
she
.’ Like that was the most clever insult someone could come up with—to call an opponent a woman. That is the worst thing someone could be called—a woman.

“Now, mind you, if this same fuckhead had called the man ‘white’ as an insult, it would have been a top story on the news that night, or at least on ESPN. That’s what happened with that Rocker guy in Atlanta when he made those racist comments about New York. Everyone demanded apologies. But not one reporter, not even one of the women, asked for an apology from O’Neal. Not one.”

I nod, listening. Andy continues, “So apparently, in this day and age, it’s not okay to be racist, but it is okay to be sexist. It’s not okay to degrade blacks or Hispanics, but it’s perfectly acceptable to degrade women. Yeah, we’ve come a long way, baby.”

Bile could be coming from Andy’s mouth, she’s so angry. But I must be missing something. “Okay, so the guy’s an ignorant ball player. What’s that got to do with you?”

Andy’s lips purse as she stares out the window. She takes another sip of champagne. “Every woman I talked with thought Shaquille O’Neal’s actions were disgusting. And yet not one man I talked with did. They all cited ‘tradition.’ Men traditionally insult their opponents by calling them women. It’s appalling, it’s disgusting, but hey, they’ve been doing it for years, so how can we girls get so upset?”

Andy downs the rest of her champagne. “And now I’m faced with the next insulting, degrading tradition: the bachelor party. Where future grooms routinely watch women strip for them, dance for them, and maybe even have sex with them, because these poor guys have, quote, ‘only got a few more nights of freedom.’”

Shutting up isn’t too hard now—because I honestly don’t know what to say. She has a valid point. I have heard of some pretty crazy bachelor parties, and it is weird that no woman ever puts her foot down to say, “Oh, hell no!”

But I also wonder why Andy’s marrying a man she doesn’t trust.

Twenty-Four

If such a thing as a bachelor party still exists in your lifetime, and your fiancé is such a dolt that he insists on having one, let him. But have your bachelorette party the same weekend.

That afternoon, Dawn, Kate, Andy, and I trudged our way through the pyramids of Egypt, the streets of New York, and Le Boulevard de Paris. And we even got to play with a lion cub at the MGM Grand!

I had a good time, but there was one trend that worried me. Andy had the “wandering eye,” so to speak, and seemed to be flirting with an awful lot of guys.

I mean, on the one hand, everyone flirts, particularly at a bachelorette weekend. There’s no harm in it. But, on the other hand, something was off. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but my sister wasn’t acting like herself.

Late that afternoon, we dressed up in our sexiest togs (and, in my case, my awesome Jimmy Choo sparkle shoes) and headed down to Red Square, a bar in Mandalay Bay with a Russian theme, known for having over one hundred different kinds of vodka, not to mention a bar made of ice.

Yes—real ice—they have a freezer within the bar that keeps the ice block frozen, so you can set your drink on it. It’s like a skating rink for martinis. It’s my favorite place in Vegas.

As our group of ten women take up all the available chairs at the bar, the bartender, a good-looking man wearing a black turtleneck, black pants, and the nametag
CHRIS
, walks up to us. “Ladies, what can I get for you this evening?”

“I want a Red Square martini,” my we-all-thought-she-was-pregnant sister says to the bartender.

“What?” her friend Jody, a beautiful redhead who’d be even prettier if she didn’t talk so much, turns to look at Andy in shock. “You want a
what
?!”

“A Red Square martini,” Andy says innocently. “They have these blue cheese–stuffed olives in them…” Her voice trails off as she looks around. All of her friends are staring at her.

“Wouldn’t you rather have a nice glass of water?” Jody asks. “Or juice?”

“I’m not pregnant!” Andy shouts, making some of the other customers at the bar turn to stare.

Deciding to make a joke of it, Andy smiles and waves her arms up in the air with a theatrical flourish. “So, everybody drink!”

The girls all laugh in relief, and everyone gets different kinds of martinis, all made with various brands of vodka.

As the girls who are still standing huddle around those of us in chairs, we talk about the wedding, men, babies, the wedding, jobs, the male strip show we’re going to see tonight, who of the single women plans to get laid tonight, and the wedding.

“I want to get laid tonight!” Andy announces after her second martini.

“No!” Jody insists. “Hunter can’t come tonight.”

Andy is much more cheerful now, but she starts up again with her anti–bachelor party rhetoric. “How come none of you guys are saying ‘Last weekend of freedom!’ I’ll bet that’s what my future husband’s friends are saying.”

“Please,” Dawn deadpans, “women’s lib does not mean imitating men’s worst qualities just so we can lower ourselves and be equal to them.”

“Besides,” I say sternly, “we wouldn’t want you to do something you’d regret in the morning.”

“And yet, you’ll let me get married next weekend,” Andy jokes.

But it’s a bitter joke.

Jill, a blond friend of Andy’s, leans into us. “Oh my God, don’t look. But I think Drew Stanton is in the lobby.”

Every girl looks, although the rest of them with more interest than Kate, Dawn, and me.

Drew, dressed in a light blue button-up shirt and gray pants, but no jacket or tie, walks in with Jordan, looking incredibly hot in a tan shirt and khaki pants. I notice several heads turn to acknowledge Drew and whisper about him, but no one bothers him.

Drew walks right up to Dawn and kisses her on the cheek. “Hello, darling.”

She turns to kiss him on the lips, “Hi, sweetie.”

Jordan comes up to me, but doesn’t kiss me. “Hi,” he says awkwardly.

I respond back with a seventh grade, self-conscious, “Hi.”

“You look very nice tonight,” Jordan says, and I feel like we’re in an episode of
The Brady Bunch.
Tonight’s episode: Jan’s awkward date.

Drew leans into the three of us and whispers to Dawn, “So, is that deal we made still on?”

She kisses him on the cheek and says sweetly, “It is. Now get out.”

“Excellent,” Drew whispers back. “Ladies,” he announces in his grand ‘I can project to the back row’ theater voice, “finish your drinks. You have two limousines waiting outside to take you wherever you may wish to go. Compliments of yours truly. We would love to meet everyone back here for a drink—say, around one-ish?”

The girls all scream in approval and gulp up their drinks.

Kate looks over at Jordan, asking him the question she knows I want answered. “So, what are you boys up to tonight?”

“I have no idea,” Jordan says.

“No asking questions,” Drew says, putting his arm around Dawn’s waist.

She gives him a kiss on the cheek, then tells us, “The deal is, the guys can do whatever they want tonight, and we can do whatever we want tonight.” She turns to Drew and smiles. “Only one rule applies: the women you two came to see get the last dance of the evening.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Drew says with just a touch of smarm.

I like how she slipped that in—you
two
.

Drew raises one arm and yells, “Tallyho!” and, like a pack of dogs in a foxhunt, all the foxy ladies gulp the rest of their drinks and, with Andy leading the pack, get up to start their hunt for single men.

The five of us follow Andy’s friends out. We walk through the massive lobby, and out to the front of the hotel, where indeed, our limousines await us. The first limousine quickly fills up with Andy and six of her already drunken friends. One of Andy’s friends opens the top, stands up, and screams, “Whoooooo,” like she’s in a
Girls Gone Wild
video.

Kate, Dawn, and I cringe. “Let’s take the second limo,” Kate suggests.

“You read my mind,” Dawn agrees.

Jordan and Drew walk us to the limousine. Kate immediately gets in. I, on the other hand, stand there like an idiot, trying to think of something clever to say to Jordan before I leave. Something that will have him thinking about me all evening.

I can’t think of a thing.

Drew wraps his arms around Dawn’s waist playfully and gives her a big hug. “Now, you be good for me tonight.”

Dawn smiles. “All right. But when I’m bad, I’m more fun.”

They begin to French-kiss as Jordan and I look on awkwardly. I feel like we’re the prom couple driving in the front of the car, while the other prom couple’s having sex in the back.

Jordan doesn’t even try to kiss me. Instead, we both stare at each other awkwardly while they take forever…

And ever…

Finally, Kate gets out, pounds on the top of the limousine, and screams, “People are waiting! Off you go! Chop, chop!”

They abruptly stop, and laugh.

“Okay, fine,” Drew says. He kisses Dawn once on the hand, then walks toward his limousine ahead of us. “Jordan, kiss Charlie good-bye, so we can get out of here.”

Jordan freezes. “Um…”

You’d think he was a deer staring at a Mack truck coming at him at fifty-five miles per hour.

Very nice. Since it’s never gonna happen, I roll my eyes and get into the car.

Dawn follows, the limousine driver closes the door, and I look through the window to see Jordan still staring at me in contemplation.

“Open the window,” Kate orders me.

“No,” I insist. “This has gotten embarrassing. And I’m not that desperate.”

“Please”—Dawn smirks as she hits the button to open the window—“you are totally that desperate.”

I smack her hand off the Down button, and hit the button to close the window back up. “Yes, I am. But I don’t want him to know that.”

As the car drives off, I watch Jordan still standing there, his hands in his pockets, watching us go.

I can’t help myself. “Driver, stop!” I yell.

We stop. And, with Kate, Dawn, and Andy’s friends watching, I roll down the window. “Hey!” I yell to Jordan.

Confused, he jogs up to me. “Yeah?”

“Drew’s right. Kiss me good-bye.”

Jordan smiles sheepishly, then leans through the window to kiss me. The women in the car cheer, whoop, and applaud.

When we break away, I can’t help but feel giddy. “I’ll see you at one?”

“I’m counting the minutes,” Jordan says, giving me one more kiss, then tapping the roof of the limo twice to alert the driver to go.

And we’re off!

We spend the next hour cruising the strip, sipping champagne, and listening to the other girls’ problems with men, which included such golden oldies as, “Well, I’m dating this guy who’s still technically married…”

A man who claims he is “still technically married” is married. Get the hell away from him.

Or the famous “We’ve been dating for four years, but he says he’s still not ready for marriage. What does that mean?” (It means he doesn’t want to get married. Or not to you, anyway.)

Or the even more classic, “We had a great time, and he said he’d call me. But that was two weeks ago. Do you think I should call him?” (I won’t even dignify that with a response.)

Oh yeah, and there was that one glorious minute where the girls chatted about how gorgeous Jordan was.

Over the course of the next several hours, we did the standard bachelorette party agenda: male strip club, bridal scavenger hunt, and several clubs where Andy, wearing a cheap bridal veil, flirted with every man in the room.

That wouldn’t have been so bad. But once we got to Ghostbar, the nightclub on the top floor of the Palms Hotel, things got out of hand.

I had high hopes when I walked in: floor-to-ceiling windows with breathtaking views of Las Vegas, space-age silver furniture, a full bar. But within ten minutes of our group getting in, I saw a good-looking boy (yes, I mean, boy—he looks all of twenty-two) start dancing with Andy, and the two quickly became inseparable.

Uh-oh.

After a while, Andy’s new friend takes Andy by the hand, and they both walk up to me. “This is my sister Charlie,” Andy drunkenly slurs, nearly falling on me. “And my friends Kate and Dawn. Guys, this is my new friend John.”