On the Rocks (10 page)

“Can Wolf be my guidance counselor?” I asked.

“Okay!” Wolf shouted. “I’d like that! What’s a guidance counselor?”

“You can have both of us,” Bobby answered. “Come on, I’ll help you lose some of your inhibitions, which is exactly what you need. No offense, but you’re wound tighter than a mattress spring.”

“Just as long as it’s not in your bed,” Grace joked.

I licked salt from the potato chips off my index fingers and thought about their points. They were right. In fact, Wolf’s suggestion very well may have been the single best piece of dating advice I had ever heard, and that’s saying something. I watch a lot of
Dr. Phil.

“Okay, maybe you guys are right. I can do this. I’m smart, I’m cute, how hard could it be for me to get a few dates at the beach?”

“Don’t get cocky,” Bobby said. “Guys don’t like girls with attitudes.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Guys like girls with confidence,” I countered.

“Where’d you read that?” Bobby asked curiously.

“
Cosmo,
” I admitted, realizing how stupid that sounded.

“Stop reading
Cosmo.
They don’t know what they’re talking about either.”

“Who made you the authority on dating? You’re single too!” For some reason, I felt the need to point that out.

“This is
not
how you get me to be your wingman.”

“I didn’t ask you to be my wingman.” I felt the need to point that out too.

“Can you two please just get a room or something,” Grace said as she stood.

“Okay, Abby, you put your big girl panties on and do this all by yourself. If you change your mind, you know where to find me,” Bobby said, finally returning to the floor with the rest of us. Apparently, he was done holding dating court.

“Yeah, probably stealing beer from our fridge,” Grace joked.

“I overheard some girls in town talking about a ton of people going to 41 North tonight,” Bobby said, clearly forgetting that he had just told me to fly solo. I guess he
was
my wingman, no matter what either of us said. “Let’s start there. Your job is to talk to five different guys and let at least two of them buy you a drink.”

“I don’t know what 41 North is,” I said, though that wasn’t strange since I had only been in Newport for a day.

“It’s one of those places called a bar,” Bobby said sarcastically. “See, that’s where guys and girls our age go to meet each other. Do you need a dictionary before we release you on the social circuit? Oh wait, that would entail me helping you. Never mind. I can’t wait to see you on the dance floor. You
do
know the funky chicken is passé, right?”

I responded by sticking my tongue out at him. I guess I did employ the same communication skills as my students.

“Then it’s settled,” Grace said. “I’ll pick out your outfit. You blow-dry your hair and put on makeup and do all the things that girls do when they’re happy and single and ready to meet someone normal. It will be fun, and I’m not taking no for an answer.”

“Okay, I’m game. And Grace, you’ll be happy to know that I also decided I’m going to get a job. When I was jogging through town this morning, I saw a H
ELP
W
ANTED
sign in one of the store windows. I’m going to go up there later and see what the deal is.”

“Look at you!” Grace said as she applauded me. “A plan to start dating
and
a plan to get a job. You’ve done more to help yourself in the last hour than you have in the last six months!”

“I told you I was ready to make some changes. The extra cash won’t hurt either.”

“With this new attitude, finding a nice rebound guy will be like shooting fish in a barrel.”

“Americans shoot fish in barrels?” Wolf asked.

“No, it’s just an expression. It means that it’s easy,” Bobby answered, growing frustrated with Wolf’s completely reasonable questions.

“Why wouldn’t you say that it’s easy to shoot fish in the tank then?”

“I actually have no idea. Don’t ask me questions I don’t know the answer to, dude!” he said.

“That means don’t ask Bobby anything,” I quipped.

“Now can we finish this Scrabble game? Wolf, no more abbreviations. Deal?” Bobby said as he turned his attention back to his Scrabble letters.

“Okay,” Wolf said, still proud of himself for proving that BMW is in fact a marvel of German engineering. “Abby, I know a guy here I can set you up with. He’s super-nice, I think you’ll like him. Why don’t I give him a call? Maybe you can meet him for a drink or something.”

“A blind date? I don’t know how I feel about those,” I admitted.

“Stop it,” Bobby snapped. “Blind dates are awesome. You think Wolf is going to set you up with a freak? You should go. You need to explore as many avenues as you can.”

“What’s his story?” I asked Wolf. I figured I was fully within my rights to get some details on this guy before I agreed to meet him. Considering what guys were doing these days to vet girls before they dated them, a few simple questions seemed completely reasonable.

“What do you want to know? His name is Paul. He’s thirty-five and girls love him. He hasn’t had a real girlfriend in a while, but I think he wants one. I’ll call him and set it up. I want to help!”

“You know what? You’re right,” I said, realizing that I’d be stupid not to accept his help. Wolf was one of the nicest people I’d ever met. If he thought his friend was a good guy worth meeting, then I had no doubt he was. “Okay, Wolf, let’s do it. If you set it up, I’ll go.”

And just like that, I had a plan. I couldn’t focus on the rest of the game because I was too busy mentally running through the entire contents of my closet and trying to quell the excitement I was feeling. I was ready for the great dating project of 2012 to begin.

Chapter 7

If You Can’t Join ’Em, Eavesdrop on ’Em

A
FEW HOURS
later, after two more rounds of Scrabble, multiple rounds of drinks, and an hour-long nap, the four of us walked down Thames Street heading for the bars. For the first time I realized something horrid: I was old. Not
old
old, but bar scene old. I stared at some of the girls walking ahead of us, shrieking and laughing, already sufficiently drunk and speaking at a decibel level that alerted everyone within a three-block radius to that fact. At some point while I was dating Ben and staying blissfully unaware of what was happening on the social circuit, a change had occurred. Girls started leaving the house practically naked. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying anyone had to dress like the nuns I worked with, but let’s just say, if a normal person owns a dish towel larger than your skirt, you’re probably a bit scantily clad. If this had been Vegas, it wouldn’t have surprised me, but this was Rhode Island. How was I going to compete with half-naked twenty-three-year-olds who knew all the cool places to hang out and what style of jeans were in and what it meant to have a tumblr account?

When we arrived at 41 North, I immediately approached the bar and asked the bartender for a cocktail list. He was tan and muscular, his white uniform making him look like he belonged on an episode of
The Love Boat
instead of making watered-down cocktails that cost fifteen bucks a pop at a bar in Newport. But the recession was causing everyone to take a shot at reinvention, so really, who was I to judge? I ordered Dark ’n’ Stormys for Grace and myself, but when I turned around to hand her drink to her, she was scurrying off into the corner of the room.

“Where are you going?” I asked, almost panicked at the thought of being left alone at the bar.

“Sorry, I have to take a quick call from work. I’ll be right back,” she said casually.

“Please don’t leave me!” I joked, looking around at all the strangers and knowing that I was terrible at making small talk. I didn’t want to be the girl standing alone in the bar, hoping that someone would talk to her. I had thought that by the time I hit thirty I’d have outgrown the fear of being alone in a crowd, but apparently I was a late bloomer. “Who am I going to talk to?” I whined.

“I’ll be right back, and you’ll be just fine. Go mingle. You can talk to people, Abby. I have complete faith in you,” she said as she walked off.

“Sure. I’ll just mingle. Because I’m good at that.” I sipped my drink and glanced nervously around the room. Bobby wasted no time invading the dance floor with his ridiculously uncoordinated dance moves, and Wolf stood to the side saying “Guttentag” to every pretty girl who walked by. I took my drink and stood next to Wolf. While I watched people dance with each other, I couldn’t help but have the same thought I’d had on the walk over:
I’m getting old. When did that happen?

“You know what’s funny, Wolfie?” I asked with a sigh.

“The girl in the corner dancing with the wall?” he asked. We both turned to stare at the very intoxicated girl in a short spandex dress slow-dancing with the wall. That was one I hadn’t seen before.

“Yeah, but other than her. There was a time when I would’ve been leading the pack on that dance floor. I would’ve been the life of the party. Now all I can think about is what movie I’m missing on TV. I can’t compete with these kids and their miniature outfits.”

“Abby, I think you look very nice. Don’t worry about those other girls, just relax and have fun. There are plenty of people our age here,” he said, bobbing his head to the music, smiling at everyone who walked by.

“They’re staff,” I said with a sigh.

“Not just them. You’re prettier than those drunk kids anyway.”

“Thanks, Wolf.” I reached over and patted his arm, happy to have a genuinely nice guy as a friend.

“I mean it,” he said with a smile, instantly putting me at ease. “Any guy here would be lucky to have you.”

“Why aren’t you dating anyone? Haven’t you found any nice American girls to go out with?” I asked, hoping that I wasn’t intruding on his personal life the way I felt Bobby continually intruded on mine.

“Not yet, but I’m having fun looking.”

“That’s the attitude I should have,” I said. He was right. I needed to relax.

“Hey, can I ask you a question?” Wolf said.

“Sure.”

“What’s that over there?” he asked, pointing to the other side of the bar.

Oh God.

There were more than a few things I didn’t know about Newport nightlife. I didn’t know which bars were popular on which nights, I didn’t know which places had the good bands or the bartenders with the heavy pours, and I was fine with that. What I wasn’t fine with was no one bothering to tell me that Newport was apparently a hot spot for bachelor and bachelorette parties. I scanned the crowd and discovered you couldn’t swing a bat (which I had unfortunately neglected to throw in my clutch before leaving the house, though I won’t be making that mistake again) without smacking a girl wearing some kind of accessory letting the world know that she was about to be married. Stepping into the middle of the bachelorette party mecca of the Northeast wasn’t really how I’d envisioned the first night of my project going. I knew I’d remember this night forever, just not for the reasons I had hoped. You can only watch so many girls swing pink feather boas around like spastic Vegas showgirl outcasts before the image is permanently imprinted in your cerebral cortex. Right next to the part that stores vital information like your name, your age, and the number of fat grams in a pint of Chunky Monkey ice cream.

I wove through the crowd, found Grace, and grabbed her by the arm as she stood with Bobby on the edge of the makeshift dance floor, singing along with the music. “You didn’t tell me this place was going to be like a
Girls Gone Wild
episode.”

“What, the bachelorette parties? It’s a beach destination in the dead of summer. You can’t go anywhere and
not
run into bachelorette parties. What’s the big deal?”

“This isn’t exactly helping to take my mind off of things. How am I supposed to be perky and pleasant when I’m standing in the middle of a bridal carnival? Is the entire summer going to be like this?”

“I sure as hell hope so,” Bobby said as he adjusted the collar on his striped shirt and smoothed his dark hair out of his eyes. “I love bachelorette parties. Girls who are secretly jealous that their friend is getting married before they do are the easiest scores on earth. You guys are on your own tonight, there are lonely hearts everywhere. It’s time I find one to help cheer up.” Bobby darted away from us, very much a single guy on the singles circuit. I wished I could be more like Bobby, but I actually cared what people thought about me. I felt deflated.

“I’m going to sit down over there,” I said, pointing to a cluster of small cocktail tables dotting the periphery of the bar. I collapsed in one of the metal chairs and took out my lip gloss. There was an exceedingly large group of girls gathered around the table next to me, squealing and laughing and doing exactly what girls were supposed to be doing on a Saturday night in summer: getting drunk. I glanced in their direction and realized with horror that they weren’t just a large, rowdy group of girls. They were members of one of the bachelorette parties—one with a T-shirt-wearing ensemble cast and a very drunk, boa-clad bride. Apparently, no place was safe.

I placed the bride’s age somewhere around twenty-five by virtue of her wearing purple nail polish with sequins attached to each thumb and extremely pink lip gloss thick enough to make her hair stick to it like flypaper. I reapplied my lip gloss and figured, if you can’t join ’em, eavesdrop on ’em.

“Okay, ladies!” the maid of honor said as she clanked her fork on her nearly empty champagne flute. I wasn’t using woman’s intuition or my razor-sharp detective skills to deduce that she was the maid of honor. I simply read it off her T-shirt. Apparently, being a maid of honor now warranted your own T-shirt, like you were the most special of the nonbrides in the group. I wondered if this little tradition would snowball until the entire wedding party was wearing T-shirts denoting their place in the wedding caste system. I felt bad for the girl who got stuck wearing the shirt that said
OBLIGATORY BRIDESMAID SO AS TO AVOID PISSING OFF FUTURE IN-LAWS.
It was only a matter of time before the bridal T-shirt people stopped being polite and just put the truth out there like Letterman. And Joan Rivers. And Taylor Swift after some guy pisses her off.