Always Happy Hour: Stories(56)

She rubbed the tanner in thoroughly, gently, not just on and around the bruise, but over my entire body. “Maybe this’ll hide it some,” she said. “It’ll be fine.” I hated self-tanner, the way it smelled, the way my ankles or knees always looked wrong. I thought of a crime show I’d watched in which a man claimed his wife had an allergic reaction to a self-tanner and it had killed her. It was so preposterous that many people believed it, at least until they’d gotten all of the test results back.

We waddled around with our arms flapping, legs spread, and then I slipped my dress back on and she began to take pictures of herself. She was always taking pictures of herself and posting them to her Instagram. Most of them appeared to have been taken by someone else and I often wondered who was behind the camera, if she had a tripod she set up. She looked sexy in these photos, hair falling in her eyes, lots of skin. I hardly ever posted new photos or took them or even agreed to be in them because all of the personas I put on felt wrong. I didn’t feel sporty or nerdy or sexy. I wasn’t pretty or ugly enough, fat or thin enough. Eventually I wouldn’t need to construct any persona at all. I would just be old.

She went to her room to get ready. I tried to read one of the books she’d mailed me months ago. She was always passing along her favorite books, telling me what movies to watch and music to download, but recently I didn’t want to read or listen to or watch things I hadn’t read or listened to or watched before.

The book had an unattractive cover of a lady in a big coat holding a bird. I turned it over and read the blurbs again. I read the author bio for the third or fourth time and stared at her picture. It was a picture she’d used for decades.

“Are you ready?” she asked. She looked amazing and effortless, but I knew she had carefully planned this outfit, perfectly casual yet nice enough to wear to a fancy restaurant. It was all a performance and it was all for me. I was wearing an unfamiliar bra that dug into my side fat and the slutty dress. I’d forgotten to pack my knockoff Spanx so I had to stand up as straight as possible and suck in my stomach but my makeup looked pretty good. My boyfriend said he liked natural women, but it wasn’t really what he liked—it was only what he wanted to like. Perhaps it made him seem like a nicer guy to himself.

We went down to the hotel bar and took the last two stools, opened the enormous drink menu between us. We had to hold it right next to the candle to read it.

“Let’s order something tropical,” she said. “Pineapple or mango.”

“I’ll have whatever you’re having.” I wondered how many times I’d said this in my life, but people were always ordering things I wanted. It was better this way.

Our drinks came. We toasted Miami and told each other “We’re in Miami.” This was also part of it—we would remind each other where we were and how beautiful and exciting it was, how nice it was to be away from home, even though nothing ever seemed exciting or beautiful when we were together. I wished we were in Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, no one expected you to gamble with them; you could slip away to the bathroom and be lost for hours.

I dipped my fingers into the wax while she watched, horrified. I blew on them and then lifted each one off, carefully, lined a little wax family up on the bar. It reminded me of the sticker people and pets you saw on the backs of vans and SUVs.

“I want to go to DASH and see Kourtney,” she said. “She’s my favorite.”

“You have a favorite?”

“You don’t?”

“No.”

“Come on,” she said.

“I guess Khloe seems like the most fun?” I very much doubted that we would be seeing any of the Kardashians. If they ever were in the store, it was probably closed.

“We have to buy something there—maybe we’ll find you a skirt.”

“I’m not crazy about skirts. You have to have something to go with it. You have to have like an outfit.”

I always bought stuff on these trips because Shelly didn’t like to be the only one buying things. On our last trip, I’d paid eighty dollars for an oversized tank top with a studded star on the front.

“The men are all looking at you,” I said, craning my neck around. Perhaps if she thought she was the most beautiful woman in the bar she’d be in a better mood.

“They’re looking at us. They probably think we’re lesbians.” She pretended to whisper something in my ear and then tossed her hair and laughed.

She had dated women, had been in love with women, but said she was never sexually attracted to the ones she knew well or considered friends. And she would never end up in a long-term relationship with a woman. Women were for fun—they weren’t actual prospects—who would take out the trash and do the taxes and whatever?

“This drink is really strong,” she said. “I think I’ll get a glass of wine.” I’d finished mine so I started drinking hers. She gave me a squinty-eyed look and said, “I still might drink it.”

She didn’t want me to have the things she wasn’t going to use; she would rather throw them away. My sister had a rich friend who took all her old clothes to Goodwill, often with the tags still attached, rather than give them to her friends. What if she saw my sister wearing a shirt she’d bought and decided she wanted it back? She would realize it was cute and she ought to wear it, that she had made a mistake. My sister also went on trips with her rich friend, but she paid her own way.