On the Rocks(97)

“And what will you have? A fridge full of Budweisers and a collection of porn?”

“I’m dating plenty of girls,” he replied.

“It doesn’t count if you have to blow them up or pay them by the hour,” Grace snapped.

Touché. Apparently no one was safe. Grace was intent on attacking Bobby too. There were no teams, it was every man for himself.

“Hey, you can criticize me all you want, but at least I’ve never gotten up in the morning and left some random chick passed out in a strange house by herself. That guy is either a moron or so not into you he’d risk you stealing his stuff.”

“So, is that why you wake them up and kick them out early? Because you’re worried they’re going to steal your boxers?” I asked.

“Is that so crazy? After hanging out with you two all summer, I don’t put anything past your kind anymore!” The vein in his neck was visibly pulsing, and a red flush was spreading to his earlobes. That was new.

No wonder none of us had managed to find a healthy relationship—we were all taking advice from equally demented human beings. What was even funnier was that from where I was standing, I was in the best shape of the three of us. It had been a long time since that was the case.

“Can we all please just calm down?” I pleaded, not only because I didn’t want to fight, but also because my head felt like it was about to explode. “All I’m trying to say here, Grace, is that you deserve better. I’m trying to help you.”

“You’re the last person on earth who should be offering to help. Look at yourself. It’s a joke what you’re doing. Finding a boyfriend has been your highest priority all summer! You think you’re completely worthless unless you’re in a relationship. Aren’t you a little worried that the big flashing desperate sign above your head is going to scare guys away?”

I had had enough, and I lost it. I took off my shoe and hurled it at her head. I wish I’d looked closely at where I was throwing, because maybe I would have seen Wolf walk up the stairs and been able to avoid cracking him in the face with a flying flip-flop. The shoe ricocheted off his cheek and landed on the deck with a thud. The whole summer I’d been wondering what it would take to wipe that perpetual smile off Wolf’s face.

Looked like I’d found it.

He stared at the three of us, red-faced and visibly shocked, and I was too afraid to speak. Poor Wolf was the only one who hadn’t done anything wrong, and he was the one who got physically assaulted. “Okay, I’m going to be going now,” he said as he turned, clomped down the steps, and all but took off down the street back to Bobby’s house.

“Nice one, Abby,” Bobby said.

I ignored him, figuring that I’d apologize to Wolf later. “Fine, Grace. Go running back because you had one bad night. That makes sense.”

“It’s my life, Abby. And if you have a problem with that, then you don’t have to be a part of it anymore.”

“Well, that’s dramatic,” I said. And I should know. No one is more dramatic than me.

“I mean it. I’m going to take a steaming hot shower, and then I’m out of here.” She turned and stormed into the house, while Bobby and I sat in uncomfortable silence. I suddenly felt like the walls were closing in on me, which was odd since we were outdoors.

Bobby spoke first. “Man, you girls can be mean. For the record, the way you guys are acting right now is a perfect example of why sometimes it’s fun to hang out with older women. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from you two this summer, it’s that girls our age are psychotic. Plain and simple.”

I’ll admit he had some fair points, and that I was probably in the wrong on this one, but I wasn’t ready to admit defeat yet. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Were you not just here for the argument that went down? You’re both nuts. If I had kept dancing with Melinda last night instead of hanging out with you, I could have avoided this enormous display of crazy.”

“Fuck you, Bobby.”

“So now you’re going to be bitchy to me too?” he asked.

“You started it when you insulted my knitting club, unprovoked I might add. I’m just saying that you looked ridiculous dancing with that woman. Just because you dance with Mrs. Robinson doesn’t make you Dustin Hoffman.”

“You know what?” Bobby said as he picked up his newspaper. “I don’t need this bullshit.” He sounded angry, frustrated, and worst of all, indifferent, all at the same time. Before I had a chance to respond, he was down the stairs and gone, leaving me alone on the deck.



TRUE TO GRACE’S WORD, half an hour later she stormed out of the house carrying all of her clothes in a huge ball. She threw them into the backseat of her car and left. She didn’t say a word to me, and I truly didn’t care, because I was mad at her too. Friends fight, that was fine, but you weren’t supposed to use their biggest weaknesses against them, and she had crossed the line the second she called me fat.

And desperate. But mostly fat.

I sat alone on the deck staring into space for the rest of the afternoon, trying to understand what had caused all of us to blow up on each other so suddenly. Maybe it was a summer’s worth of frustrations, maybe it was the heat, maybe we were all hungover and our nerves were shot.