A Life More Complete(65)

“Only if it’s The Wild Geese. It’ll be like a tribute to our childhood,” I say and Rachel agrees but Maizey declines out of respect for her sobriety.

Back when the three of us lived with our mother we’d steal bottles of The Wild Geese out of her hiding place behind the toilet tank and drink shot after shot on the roof outside my bedroom window. Probably not our smartest move considering we could have easily fallen off given our drunkenness, but we managed. We’d fill the bottle with apple juice and stash it back where we found it.

“Of course. I had the bar stock it special for tonight,” Rachel says. “That shit’s expensive. No wonder she was mad that we filled it with apple juice after we drank it dry.” All three of us laugh, which is pretty much how we spent our high school days, laughing and drinking. It was the one time when I wasn’t in charge and it felt good to go back to that time. Tonight’s going to be about my sisters and me. “We need to find our dates,” Maizey says.

“Don’t worry. They’re by the bar with Paul,” replies Rachel.

We make our way to the tent and then to the bar. I spot Tyler and he smiles at me a bit too smugly. And then I hear him say, “Have you guys ever seen the three of them together?” I know exactly what he’s talking about and by the looks on Paul and Kevin’s faces they see it, too. Rachel and I are polar opposites. Her with her blonde hair and blue eyes, she looks like she should be playing beach volleyball and sunning herself on lounge chair. She tans instantly and when she does her eyes appear bluer and her hair blonder. We’re the same height, but that’s where it stops. While my hair turns copper in the sun and my skin stays somewhere between pale and a slight tan no matter how much bake myself. My green eyes are as bright as hers are blue. My nose, no matter how much sun I didn’t get would still be smattered with freckles and Rachel’s nose, perfectly flawless. As much as we differed in looks, our features are dead on the same. That’s what creates the strange looks we get. Our eyes are the same shape, our noses, perfect ski slopes, profiles matching exactly, and the shape of our face long and narrow with a bottom lip that looks too full sometimes. The strangest part of all is Maizey. She is a combination of the two of us. Dark hair, but blue eyes, tan skin but freckles; she is a rare mixture of the two of us and it’s fitting since she is the last.

Tyler winks at me and says, “Watch out for the little one, she’s trouble.” He walks over and pulls Maizey into his embrace. He whispers something into her ear and she laughs her endearing child-like laugh that hasn’t changed since we were kids.

“I was only trouble because I was always trying to keep up with you guys. Maybe if you hadn’t tried to ditch me all the time I would’ve behaved myself.” She shoves Tyler slightly as she moves away from him.

“Maybe we were trying to tell you something,” he jokes shoving her back. Tyler and Maizey always had a great relationship. She put him on a pedestal and no matter what happened she would defend him to the end. He was her first real crush and he was also one of the only men in her life that she trusted. He never turned his back on her the entire time we were in high school. He treated me like shit, but never her. Their friendship was endearing and cute in the way that all high school bonds are. They seem to have picked up right where they left off and the look on her husband’s face screams annoyance. At one point during the night he pulls her aside and from the looks of it chastises her for her behavior. Rachel, Tyler and I drink shot after shot dedicating them to Rachel’s marriage and sisters, eventually changing to random things like, cars that smell like wet dog and The Taste of Chicago. Tyler requests “Jessie’s Girl” and we pretty much dance till we pass out, not sure if it’s from exhaustion or the sheer amount of alcohol that is filling our bodies.

Rachel hired several buses to shuttle people from the reception back to their hotels, which turns out to be for the best considering most of the guests are drunk and there’s no possibility of getting back without driving. We board the bus and I kiss Rachel and Maizey good-bye. I tell them we’ll meet for breakfast, for some reason, I guess it’s unclear to us exactly how drunk we are. It will become painfully clear early the next morning.





---Chapter 19---





I wake the next morning with the sudden urge to vomit. Scrambling through twisted sheets attempting to release myself from their stifling grip as I tumble toward the bathroom. Wearing only a t-shirt that I can’t recall changing into, I lunge over the toilet and purge what feels like everything from my stomach. My eyes watering, my throat burning with acidic stomach bile and rotten alcohol as my body continues to heave with such force that my stomach muscles ache.