On the Rocks (7 page)

Good friends who have no problem interfering with your personal life are so hard to find.

“He’s right there. The guy leaning on the railing.”

I eyed the waifish man slugging a beer and smoking a cigarette over by the bar, flirting mercilessly with girls who walked by. He looked like he weighed about a hundred pounds, like I could carry him around in my beach bag. You could almost see his ribs through his button-down as he slugged his beer, and for a minute I wondered how he didn’t pull his bicep from the effort. I mean, I’m not a snob or anything, but Grace had talked this guy up so much I was expecting someone who looked like he fell off the pages of
GQ,
not a man-child who looked like he’d get blown over by a strong wind. He was cute the way puppies are cute. You wanted to pet him and muss his dark hair and then lock him away somewhere so he didn’t get in your way or eat your shoes.

“He’s a little thin, no?” I asked, still staring at him while he chatted up some younger girls at the bar.

“So what if he’s not built like a lumberjack? He’s still cute.”

“Sure he is. Kind of like those hairless cats like Dr. Evil had in
Austin Powers.
Some people find them cute too.”

“Stop finding flaws with everyone because you’re too afraid to move on. Maybe you guys will hit it off, who knows?”

“No way,” I said as I shook my finger in Grace’s face. “You can never hook up with a guy who weighs less than you. It throws the whole power structure off. Next thing you know you’ll be the one responsible for jumping car batteries and killing spiders. Plus, how is that good for a girl’s ego? You don’t want to be known as “the big one” in a relationship. No way. I’d rather die alone.”

“You will die alone if you keep up these ridiculous parameters you have put in place for potential boyfriends. Do I need to remind you of Ben’s flaws?”

“What parameters?” I asked defensively. “I just want a guy who’s employed. Even though I realize those guys are fewer and farther between these days.”

“And that he weighs more than you do,” she added.

“And that he does not need a green card,” I countered.

“Is that all?” Grace asked in a tone laced with skepticism.

“Well, there might be a few more small things, but nothing major.”

“Such as?”

“Well, I mean I don’t think I could date a guy who chews with his mouth open. I have no patience for guys with bad table manners. I won’t be able to handle anyone who eats like a Neanderthal. Oh, and he can’t be a Jets fan. God, I could never date a Jets fan,” I said as I feigned a shiver just thinking about the New England Patriots’ most hated rival. “And he needs to have good teeth. This day and age, there is no excuse for an overbite.” I didn’t care if Grace thought that was hypercritical. I like a nice smile. Sue me.

“That’s all, huh? Yeah, you’re right, that’s completely normal,” she said as she pushed her sunglasses up on her head.

“Oh, and he needs to not be a khaki folder. But I think that’s it.”

“What the hell is a khaki folder?” Grace asked in disbelief.

“You know, the guys who stop mid-hookup to make sure their khakis are folded and not getting wrinkled on the floor. Those guys have issues.” I stared at Grace for some kind of validation, but Grace was looking at me like I was some kind of alien life form. Apparently, I was on my own on this one.

“You have serious issues,” Grace said as she flagged down her man-orexic friend.

That was hard to argue with considering the list I’d just spewed out.

We approached the bar, and Grace, despite her size, was able to elbow guys who were three times bigger than her out of the way. She ordered us beers and waved enthusiastically for Bobby to come join us. He crushed the butt of his cigarette with his flip-flop and ambled over, a big smile on his face. I felt a thought creep into my head that wasn’t the kind of thought I should have been having if I wanted to make new friends and start to enjoy my life again: maybe this was a very big mistake.

Chapter 5

Damaged Goods

I
ALTERNATED BETWEEN
staring at Bobby and staring at my flip-flops, afraid that if I made eye contact with him, my nerves would show. He gave Grace a big hug and shook my hand when he introduced himself. As Grace handed me a lukewarm beer, I scanned the crowd for anyone interesting, but the bar seemed to be filled with guys who neglected the gym, their hairlines, and, in all likelihood, the girls they dated. I wondered if it was too late to look into houses on the Cape.

“Hey, you must be Abby,” he said as I shook his impossibly small man hand.

“I am. Nice to meet you, Bobby. Grace told me a lot about you.”

“You’re a kindergarten teacher, right?” he asked, as if my profession was somehow more important than my name.

“Yup.” I realized that I was more out of practice than I’d thought. I didn’t even know how to make small talk with guys. I was screwed.

“Single?” he asked.

“Yup.”

“Interested?”

“Nope.”

“Apparently, you share the verbal communication skills of the kids that you teach,” he quipped with a laugh.

“Only when talking to people who share their maturity level,” I shot back.

Well, this was off to a stellar start.

“Abby!” Grace said as she elbowed me in my side. She turned to Bobby with a smile. “You’ll have to forgive her. Abby is now one of those people whose initial instinct is to dislike everyone she meets until they prove they don’t want to somehow ruin her life. Be nice, Abby. He doesn’t bite.”

Nice. I could do that. It had been a while since I had tried to make friends of the opposite sex. Truth be told, it had been a while since I had really spoken to members of the opposite sex. I hoped it was like riding a bicycle—which I was never particularly good at now that I thought about it.

“Sorry,” I said, and I meant it. I didn’t want him to mistake my nervousness for bitchiness, and it was a very fine line.

“Ahh. I get it. So, who’s the guy?” he asked smoothly, as if it wasn’t an entirely too personal question to ask someone he’d just met.

“What makes you think it’s a guy? How do you know that I’m not just someone who likes to know people before I’m overly friendly to them? If more girls were like me, there’d be a lot less need for pepper spray in this world.”

“It’s always a guy. Do you want to tell me about him?” Bobby asked. He seemed genuine, but I’d come here to get away from Ben and the stigma of being his jilted fiancée, not to tell everyone I met about what happened. I might as well have stamped “damaged goods” across my own forehead.

“Not really. Why do you even want to know?”

“I’m just trying to get to know you. I don’t mean to pry, but since we’ll be hanging out all summer, we might as well cut to the chase, don’t you think? What’d this guy do to make you so defensive?”

“Why do you assume we’ll be hanging out all summer?”

“How many people do you know in Newport? Including me and Grace, who’s only here part-time?” It wasn’t a question so much as a challenge, like he was saying I simply had no choice but to be his friend or be alone. Little did he know that I was quite comfortable with being alone, so it wasn’t a hard choice at all.

“Two,” I admitted, hating to concede he had a point.

“Exactly. But okay, I get it. You like to keep your life private. I can respect that.”

“Thank you.” I sighed, feeling the tension leave my shoulders.

“Eventually you’ll fill me in. I’ll be patient.”

“That’s your way of respecting my privacy?”

Before he could answer, a very tall man made his way over to our group. He gently slapped Bobby on the back and said hello, betraying a thick European accent I couldn’t place. Then again, I’d never been to Europe, and my familiarity with accents was confined to what David Beckham sounded like in fast-food commercials, so that wasn’t all that surprising. He waved to Grace and me as he energetically introduced himself.

“Hi there, I’m Maximillian Wolfgang, but everyone calls me Wolf. It’s so nice to meet you guys.”

“Your name is Wolf?” I asked as I stared up at him. He was probably six-five, and standing next to Bobby, he looked like André the Giant. Thank God he was friendly because otherwise I’d have been terrified of him.

“Yah, I know it sounds a little strange, but it’s a common name where I’m from.”

“I’m Abby,” I said as I found myself relaxing a bit after Bobby’s forward introduction. I liked Wolf. I already could tell he would never probe into a girl’s personal life within a minute of meeting her. Kind of sad that that’s how low the bar was to impress me.

“So, Wolf, where are you from?” I asked, feeling comfortable talking to a guy for the first time in a long time.

“Munich, but I’ve been living here for about a year now. My dream is to one day get my citizenship and be proud to be an American,” he said, excited, the way I sound if I find a pair of boots on sale or read something scandalous in one of the gossip rags.

My priorities are apparently very screwed up.

“That’s great, congrats. I’ve actually never been to Germany,” I admitted, without confessing that I’d never even left the continental United States.

“Oh really? You should definitely go, it’s a ton of fun. I go back to the tents at Oktoberfest every year. You should check that out at some point! People get super-drunk, but it’s one of the best weekends in Europe, and all the girls wear dirndls. I’m sure you’d love it.”

“What’s a dirndl?” I asked, not entirely sure I wanted to hear the answer. Then again, Ben had said he wanted to travel, so maybe it wouldn’t kill me to learn a few things about foreign cultures, just to give Ben another reason to wish he’d never broken up with me.

“Traditional German garb,” Bobby informed me. “Think Heidi. Or the girl on the Swiss Miss box.”

Since we’d just met, I gave Wolf a pass on being sure that I would enjoy dressing up like one of the von Trapps or seeing a grown man of any kind wearing lederhosen. I figured if nothing else he had just informed me that my first trip to Europe would not be for Oktoberfest. I’d stick to countries where people wore normal clothes that actually fit and didn’t parade around half-naked in public.

Like the south of France or something.

“How did you and Bobby meet?” I asked Wolf.

“I’m a caddy at the Newport Country Club,” he answered. “Last summer Bobby was playing a round, and he kept losing his balls. I helped him find them, and I carried his bag. It was such a fun day for me. Most of the guys who play aren’t that nice to the caddies, but Bobby was super-cool! We’ve been friends ever since.”

“Wolf is a rare breed of Newport guy. He doesn’t own a pair of topsiders, and he knows how to read the greens on the ninth hole like a pro. He’s the man,” Bobby said.

“Yes. I’m the man!” Wolf echoed, somehow managing to sound charming and not pompous in the slightest.

“Okay then, if I decide to take up golf this summer, you’ll be my first call,” I said, knowing full well that I would not take up golf this summer, or any other summer for that matter.

“Okeydokey!” Wolf answered.

The four of us stood in an awkward circle trying to make small talk and pretending that we had a lot in common when in reality the only link we had to each other was through Grace, and she was spending most of her time texting on her cell phone while pretending to listen to the conversation. I had a feeling that the summer was going to end up like this: me with a bunch of strange guys and Grace glued to her phone so she could talk to her boyfriend. I’d just have to remember it was one of the reasons why I had agreed to get a job. Without one, I’d have way too much free time on my hands to think about the course of my life, and worse, I’d be idly making electronic small talk with Ben. I could think of no sane reason why I would want to do that.

When I finished my beer, I headed back to the bar for a refill and some quiet, which I quickly realized was impossible in a beach bar in Newport on Memorial Day weekend. As I stood and waited for the bartender to peel his eyes away from the fake blondes in bikinis with fake boobs, fake tans, fake nails, and fake personalities, I suddenly found myself confused. When did the East Coast turn into southern California? I was terrified that if I turned around I’d bump into one of thirty cameramen filming a completely unscripted version of
The Real Housewives of Rhode Island.
Then I’d have to figure out how to turn a bottle opener into a weapon I could use to put myself out of my misery once and for all just in case the Mayans were wrong and the world wasn’t about to end on its own.

Bobby sidled up next to me as I waited for my change. I had a distinct feeling that Bobby was one of those guys who liked to push girls’ buttons for no reason other than he liked to watch them squirm. He was probably the kid who poured salt on slugs to watch them die too. Hanging around a guy like that is never a good idea.

“Sorry, do you mind if I at least take your space at the bar since you didn’t bother to ask if I needed a drink before you ran over here?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“You didn’t? In that case, I hate to see how rude you can be when you’re actually trying,” he said with a smile. I stared at him, not entirely sure how to respond. “Relax, I’m just kidding.”

I sighed. I had gotten so used to having my guard up I had no idea how to take it down. “The truth is, these days, I could teach a course. I’m not entirely proud of that.”

“We’ve all been there. I think those of us who are in our thirties and still dating are all a little worse for wear, so don’t be too hard on yourself. That said, don’t be too hard on me either,” he joked.

“Fair enough. So you and Grace went to law school together?”

“Yup. Good ole NYU. We had a great time living in New York. I stayed there after graduation, got a job, lived downtown, and did the whole hipster thing for a while. Grace told me then that I should get out of the city before it ate me alive, but I was having way too much fun.”

“Why’d you leave?”