On the Rocks(95)

“No problem,” he said. “What are friends for?”

We sat in silence for a few minutes as he returned his focus to his iPad. I checked my watch—it was 11:00 A.M. I was starting to get worried about Grace. I stood to stretch my arms over my head, leaned over the railing of the deck, and immediately cracked up laughing, which I wished I could stop because it exacerbated my headache. But there was no way to not laugh at what I was looking at.

“Let me guess, it’s Grace in her Big Bird dress?” Bobby said.

“How did you know?” I asked as I stared out at the street at the disheveled, wrinkled girl in a yellow dress who looked an awful lot like Grace—or at least what I imagine Grace would look like after waking up under a tree somewhere. She walked slowly, her sandals dangling from one hand.

“Because she got busted on the Walk of Shame site! Her picture was posted ten minutes ago!” Bobby laughed as he showed me his iPad. Grace’s embarrassing picture was front and center for everyone in Newport to see. This was so not good.

As Grace approached the house, Bobby stood and started applauding. She staggered up the stairs to the deck and collapsed in one of the chairs. “Next time I tell you to take my phone, don’t do it,” she said as she picked up her cell and checked for messages. “You have no idea how badly I needed that thing this morning, and I was completely incommunicado. I just walked two miles home. Never again. My feet are destroyed.”

“What happened?” I asked her as Bobby went inside and poured her some coffee. He returned and placed the mug in front of her and leaned against the railing.

“You look like hell, Grace,” he said with a smirk. “If it’s any consolation, you look worse in person than you did in the picture I saw on the Walk of Shame site!”

“Are you kidding me? Someone took a picture of me walking home this morning and posted it already? I didn’t see anyone. What does he use, a telephoto lens?”

“Yup. If I had seen it earlier, I’d have come looking for you. Sorry,” Bobby said.

“I swear to God I will find out who is behind this stupid website and I will kill him. I will murder him with my own f*cking hands! It should be illegal!”

“How do you figure that? He didn’t take a picture of you in the shower. You were walking down the street.”

“But everyone will think that I, you know, I . . .” Grace yelled.

“Forget the stupid website. It’ll be on to the next victim by tomorrow. What happened?” I asked again. “Are you okay?”

“Theoretically, yeah. I ended up back at some guy’s house. One of the ones I was talking to in the bar. They were having a late-night party, so I figured, why not, right? I’m single now. That’s what single girls in their thirties do. They go to house parties and hook up with random dudes.”

“Not all single girls in their thirties. Abby doesn’t, though not for lack of effort,” Bobby said.

“Thanks for that,” I said as I shielded my eyes from the sun.

“I don’t know what happened,” Grace continued. “One minute we were playing cups on the back deck, and the next thing I know I woke up in a bed all by myself, and the whole house was empty. He left me there. The guy just got up and went to the beach or wherever with his buddies and left me asleep in a strange house.”

“Maybe he thought you needed some beauty rest,” I offered, trying to make her feel better.

“Maybe he took one look at you this morning and realized he’d rather gnaw his own arm off than have to do the awkward morning-after conversation, so he just ditched and said a prayer you’d find your way out,” Bobby offered as an alternative suggestion.

Grace and I stared at him, shocked once again at his utterly blunt and heinous assessment of the situation. I crossed lawyers off the list of professions I’d ever entertain the notion of dating. They have absolutely no bedside manner, and worse, you’re all but guaranteed to never win an argument.

“The worst part,” Grace continued, “is that I really had to pee, but was so humiliated that I ran out before I used the bathroom. I ended up copping a squat in the bushes on the way home, and I used leaves as toilet paper, and now I’m worried I just gave myself poison ivy in places no girl should ever have poison ivy.”

“That’s not good,” I said as Bobby burst out laughing. “That sure as hell won’t help your new single social life.”

“Look at me! I break up with Johnny, and this is what I have to deal with? I refuse to do this. I won’t be like you, Abby, running around trying to date anything in pants to avoid being alone. I can’t. It’s simply not an option.”

“Whoa, what did you just say?” I was sure she didn’t mean for that to come out the way it did. Why would my best friend say that I was pathetic? She wouldn’t. Would she?

“I’m going to call him. I’m going to force him to make a choice. It’s me or her, he can’t have both. And he has to decide now.”

“I’m confused,” I said. “He already made his decision. And you already broke up with him. Quite dramatically, I might add.” I wondered if I had been hallucinating when we had that conversation.

“I’m going to take it back. I’ll apologize, and everything will be fine,” she said, irrationally panicked.