Getting Real (Getting Some #3)(15)
But the sewing machine also turned into an unexpected money maker. Once word got around that I had sewing skills, I was tailoring clothes, making custom curtains and Halloween costumes for the neighbors.
I remember sitting beside my mom on one of those endless, rough nights as the steady hum of the sewing machine seemed to soothe her. Not lulling her to sleep—in the end, she was never able to sink into a full sleep—but the sound settled her into a quiet calm that I was grateful for.
Sewing is also I how I found one of my friend groups in Lakeside: Lainey Burrows’s sewing circle.
Lainey Burrows is a social media influencer with a blog called Life With Lainey. The whole reason she moved to Lakeside was to renovate and redecorate a lake house for Facebook. That’s how she met her fiancé, Dean Walker—who was her teenage son’s math teacher at Lakeside High School.
Dean and Lainey are getting married in two weeks in their backyard, beside their lake. She’s doing all the decorating and planning herself and showing her followers how she’s doing it without breaking the bank. The sewing circle sewed the little pink and silver roses on all the table linens.
Lainey put together all the festivities for her bachelorette party too, here at the local bar, Chubby’s.
“Hey, Vi!” Effie, one of the nurses from Labor and Delivery, pushes through the crowd, greeting me with a hug and a shout above the music. “How are you doing?”
Effie’s about my age and in the sewing circle too. She was one of Lainey’s nurses when she gave birth to her and Dean’s daughter, Ava, last year. It was a natural delivery—God bless Lainey’s little masochistic heart.
“I’m good. This place looks amazing!”
Silver ribbons hang down from rose-colored balloons that cover the ceiling, and a huge Congratulations, Lainey banner is draped above the shaded windows. The movie Father of the Bride plays with subtitles from all four of the big-screen corner televisions and “It’s Raining Men” pours from the speakers—even though there aren’t actually any men, raining or otherwise. Lainey and Dean agreed to separate stripper-free parties. Outside, four chauffeur-driven, white stretch limos wait to drive the soon-to-be-plastered guests home.
“Gurl, you haven’t seen the half of it! Lainey went all out! Come on, I’ll show you.”
After doing a lap of the large room, I can tell Effie told no lies. It’s the ultimate girls’ night extravaganza.
There’s a neck masseuse in one corner and two manicurists doing mani-pedis in cushioned, throne-like chairs in the other. There’s a straight-out-of-Candy-Land candy table, and trays of cupcakes and vegetable platters within reaching distance no matter where you’re standing. The cupcakes are white with pink wrappers, and pink chocolate penises stick up from them like birthday candles. The carrots, cucumbers, and zucchinis on the vegetable platters have been carved into bite-sized penises too. There’s Never Have I Ever bingo cards with homemade fruity-scented body scrubs for prizes, a Truth or Dare champagne fountain, and a Wheel of Fortune-Teller shot glass table near the back door.
Two hours later I’m convinced Lainey should quit Influencing and become an event planner—she’d conquer the industry in her very first year.
When Effie and a few of the other girls head off to the bathroom, I walk up to the shot glass table. Small glasses filled with every color of the rainbow pack the table in front of a tall, elegant woman in a black dress and jade scarf. Long, sparkling emeralds dangle from her ears. Behind her is a big wheel—like one of the games on the boardwalk—sectioned off by large words: MONEY, HEALTH, LOVE, ADVENTURE.
“Would you like to spin the wheel of fortune?” she asks with a red-lipped smile.
“Sure, why not?”
She gives the wheel a turn and it spins dizzyingly fast before ticking down to a standstill.
Landing dead center on LOVE.
And like his penis before him, one handsome face pops directly into my brain.
The woman claps her hands. “Love! Glorious love.” She plucks a shot glass from the table. “Drink this, then say the name of your dearest love, loud and strong, and you will have a lifetime of joy and happiness.”
I don’t put any stock in this hokey, mumbo-jumbo, mystical stuff—but it’s a party. Where else can you let go, have fun, and let yourself believe in the patently unbelievable?
I peer into the cloudy-liquid-filled shot glass.
“What is it?”
For my twenty-first birthday some college friends bought me almost an entire bottle worth of tequila shots. I was sick for days and haven’t been able to touch the stuff since.
The North remembers—and so does my stomach.
The lady shields her mouth with her hand and says, “Vodka with a dash of lemon.”
Vodka works.
I lift the glass, then down the contents. After the liquid scorches a path of fire down my throat, I close my eyes and declare in a loud, clear, fearless voice, “Connor.”
Mere moments after the two syllables slip past my lips, a wind-chime pleasant voice pipes up from behind my shoulder.
“Connor who?”
A voice I realize with growing Michael Myers in the background level horror belongs to Callie Daniels. The woman married to Connor’s brother, Garrett. They both teach at the high school. They’re like the prom king and queen of the whole town.
Ermahgerd!