~ 5 ~
Daniel helped me up the walk. Julie and Ice met us at the door, both putting their arms around me like I’d faceplant on the threshold. I felt better since I’d puked, but the world still tilted dangerously, so they might not be wrong.
Then Ice had me sitting on the couch, shining a little light in my eyes.
“Ow!” I batted it away.
“Dilated, but not excessively,” she said. She had her robe on, and had her waist-length thick, dark hair twisted back. That’s right—no classes for her on Thursdays, so she used it for an at-home study day. “How’s your vision?”
“I can see that you should have brushed your hair today.”
“Sounds like her judgement is spot on,” Julie said, putting a warm mug in my hands and wrapping her fingers around mine to hold it there. “Drink this.”
“What is it?”
“Broth. It will feel good. Drink it.”
“You need the salt,” Ice advised. “It’s really a good thing that you vomited—that will help clear your system better than anything.”
“All part of my master plan,” I muttered.
“And here.” She held out a hand with several pills. “Before you ask—some ibuprofen and Vitamin C. Trust me.”
Not really wanting to, I obediently took the pills and drank the warm soup. It did feel good on my empty stomach. Julie’s special bone broth. “Thank you,” I whispered at the mug.
“You’re going to have a hell of a headache,” Julie replied. “I can’t believe it. You, of all people, having drinks with some strange guy.”
“Cut her some slack,” Ice said, putting a cool cloth on the back of my neck. Wow, did that feel better. “Amy says she and Charley had a knock-down, drag-out last night.”
“They did—what about? You didn’t tell me!”
“You were working,” I replied, looking around for Daniel, not wanting him to hear that part at all.
“He’s gone,” Ice said. “Said he had to get back to the office.”
Of course he did. “I can’t believe you guys got Daniel Holt to bring me home.”
“We were worried about you, honey.” Julie smoothed my hair back from my forehead. “I know you and Charley haven’t been right since the Dawn Diva Meltdown, but this isn’t like you.”
What was like me? “I had a big fight with my mother, too,” I said miserably. “She’s dating someone named George.”
They were quiet and I could just imagine the looks they exchanged over my head.
“I’m calling a girls’ night,” Ice announced. “Amy’s on her way home and I don’t have a practical.”
“And Steve says yes to switching shifts with me,” Julie said, “so I’m golden.”
“You guys,” I said, “you don’t have to do this. And I really don’t want to go out.”
“Silly!” Julie knelt on the floor, unzipped my boots and pulled them off, then snagged the furry throw and tossed it over me. “Girls night in. I’m making chicken stew with dumplings, since I thawed out the broth anyway. And I want to test out this recipe for pumpkin espresso tiramisu for next week.”
“Pumpkin espresso… what?” I was still way too drunk, though the broth and cool cloth helped an amazing amount.
“Is that even a thing?” Ice raised her perfectly groomed brows at me and shook her head.
“It is a thing,” Julie said without missing a beat. She knew from experience that we’d eat whatever she made us, especially if it was sweet, no matter how we made fun of it. One time she made a ‘Chocolate Lavender Teatime Pie,’ which sounded horrible to me. But it had a chocolate cookie crust and a filling of bittersweet chocolate, lavender and Earl Grey tea. I still dream about it. “I know it’s not an actual pie, but it looks amazing and suitably Thanksgiving-ish. Besides, the espresso will help Marcia when she crashes.”
“I’m feeling better.” They both ignored me.
“Charley can’t make it. She’s got a show, but she’ll try to get here after,” Ice added, tossing her phone down again. “But she says she’s glad you’re okay.”
I’d be in bed long before that, with her hours, and I was just as glad not to have to face her. She’d sent Daniel to get me. Unreal. But maybe she wasn’t so mad at me after all.
* * *
“Well, of course you’ll have Thanksgiving with us,” Ice said, much later, after we’d stuffed ourselves, then devoured Julie’s pie, and they’d gotten the whole story out of me.
I had a headache, which Ice informed me—completely without remorse—was the hangover hitting, and that she’d given me a good dose of ibuprofren and it wouldn’t do me any good to further tax my liver by piling on more. Her one consoling remark was that I’d be glad they kept me awake, because I should be fine for work in the morning.
For the first time I felt real sympathy for Charley for all those times she’d overindulged and Ice “took care of her” the next morning.
Work. How was I going to face my boss? And Daniel. He’d helped me puke in a garbage can and given me his handkerchief to wipe my face.
And what had Damien thought when he came back and I was gone? If he’d come back. And, if he had, he probably didn’t think much of anything. He’d bought this random girl a couple of drinks to make up for knocking her over, flirted a little, and was most likely relieved he didn’t have to deal with her when she eventually hurled.
“Definitely on Thanksgiving. It will be so fun to have you here.” Julie did a couch shimmy. “You can be my sous chef.”
“Oh, thank God,” Amy said.
“I thought I was your sous chef,” Ice protested.
“You were being all bitchy about it, how you’re in med school and that’s a full-time commitment and it’s not like having a job where you can just screw around when you’re not working and blah de blah—” Julie broke off with a squeal when Ice tossed a throw pillow at her face.
“We’ll see,” I said, because they were all looking at me.
“Did I mention Daniel has a Viking fridge?” Julie pressed.
“Three times,” Amy said, and Ice held up four fingers.
“Well, it has plenty of staging room,” Julie explained.
“I don’t even know what that means,” Ice mused.
“And he has a built-in wine fridge, too!”
“Why do you care about a wine fridge?” Amy waved her hands in the air. “We can bring win and we’ll only be there for a few hours.”
“You might. I’ll be there all day Thursday, most of Wednesday, and for a while on Tuesday. It’s likely fully stocked with something lovely for the cook to drink while cooking.”
“Can we not talk about drinking?” I asked. Wow, did my head hurt. At least my stomach had settled. I’d probably eaten 3,000 calories, but right then I just couldn’t care.
“Have some more tea.” Amy snagged the pot from the warmer she’d set up on the coffee table and poured. “Herbal. It’ll help.”
“Sure,” Julie said, her cheer undaunted. “Let’s talk about which guy Ice has decided to bring.”
“Haven’t,” Ice replied. “Next topic.”
“Brad said he’d love to come,” Amy said brightly.
“Yay,” I said.
“Whee,” Ice said at the same time, in the same tone.
“Why don’t you guys like him?” Amy demanded, scowling.
“I like him,” Julie offered.
“You like everyone.”
“True.”
“We like him fine, Amy.” Ice patted her knee. “It’s just…”
“He was on the short list for Chicago’s most eligible bachelor, you know,” Amy pointed out. “He’s a major catch.”
We exchanged looks. “I mean,” I picked my way through the words, “do you think he’s the One?”
“You know, Marcia, you can date a guy and enjoy being with him without worrying about whether he’s your one true love.”
“As long as he continues to maintain his point score,” Ice noted.
“Not true,” Amy objected. “The Rules don’t cover behavior after round four. From then on, it’s a different ball game. Different criteria to consider.”
“I disagree.” Julie got up and returned with the laminated copy of the Rules that we kept behind our stockpile of feminine supplies, on the premise that no guy who spent the night would ever look there. It wasn’t exactly a Rule that we didn’t talk about the Rules, but one of Charley’s main beefs with me was that I had told Daniel about them so he could manipulate them in his favor, which she considered a fundamental betrayal. “No sex with any man who has not advanced to round four, which requires maintaining a score of 4.0 or better following round 3,” Julie read. “That means he has to maintain a score of 4.0 or better going forward.”
“But that’s just to have sex with him,” Amy argued.
“No.” Julie tapped the sheet. “I think the Rules clearly state that round four is simply the final stage, not an endpoint. ‘Requires maintaining’ implies an ongoing state.”
“Forever?” Amy sounded aghast. “Like until death do us part? No way a marriage can withstand that kind of expectation.”
“I expect it.” Julie brandished the sheet. “Ice—you and Charley drafted these. Weigh in here.”
“Hmm.” Ice had the thick fall of hair over her shoulder, idly combing her fingers through a tangle in it as she thought. “In point of fact, Charley made up the first version, and it was considerably less complicated—and applied only to who we had sex with, which were almost always one-night stands.” She gave us a wry smile. “We were eighteen and off the leash for the first time. We were all about having fun and weren’t thinking about the long term then.”
I had been, I realized. Dating and meeting guys had never been fun for me. I’d only done it so I could find my future husband. Which had turned out to be a singularly unsuccessful approach.
Ice cut her gaze to me. “What do you think, Marcia?”
“Me?”
“Yes. You take the Rules more seriously than any of us—and of all of us, your focus is most on the long-term commitment.”
“Maybe it shouldn’t be. That hasn’t worked out so well for me.”
“Are you still upset about Gabriel?” Amy made a sympathetic face. “Did you check the Missed Connections? He knows you like them—maybe he left you one.”
Julie had straightened. “Gabriel? I thought his name was Damien.”
“There’s both,” Amy said, “A Gabriel and a Damien.”
“Two high-score meets in two days?” Ice held up a hand to high five me. “You’re on a hot streak, girl.”
“You can put your hand down. Gabriel was this actor Charley lined up for her revenge—”
“Thus the knock-down, drag-out,” Amy inserted.
“Yeah, I was upset, but it wasn’t that bad.”
“Totally that bad,” Amy stage whispered to Julie.
“And,” I said over her, “Damien wasn’t a high score. I just—went with him for the drink on impulse. I forgot to count the points.”
They didn’t say anything, and I caught them exchanging over-the-top looks like shocked Victorian ladies might.
“How unlike you,” Ice remarked, smoothing her face into a fake-serious expression.
“Oh, stop. All of you. I didn’t have sex with him, or even kiss him, really…” though there’d been that moment when he’d brushed his lips against my temple. And the way he’d touched my knee.
“What’s that face?” Julie demanded. “Something happened.”
“You have to do the points.” Amy folded her arms.
“No.” I put my mug down and untangled from the blanket. “And I’m going to bed. Leave the dishes. I’ll do them in the morning. I accept whatever penalty you guys decide on.”
“How come you don’t want to figure the points?” Ice studied me with a too-knowing expression in her dark eyes.
“Because. Look—you guys keep asking why I got drunk with a strange guy. It’s because he wasn’t my type. He was so not the One, not that guy who’d suggest espresso and pastries at The Last Crumb.” I pointed at Amy who held up her hands in innocence. “He bought me whiskey and said inappropriate things. I can just imagine the fit my mother would have if she saw him.”
“Maybe you should take him to lunch with you to meet George then,” Julie suggested, then opened her eyes wide when I glared at her. “Why not? It might help defuse the tension.”
“Besides the fact that I got puking sick from two drinks with him, ditched him, and was only with him in the first place because he thought I was some pitiful matron he’d injured, not because a guy like him would be actually interested in me? Can’t think of a single reason.”
“Don’t forget that he’s completely inappropriate,” Ice said.
“And completely inappropriate,” Amy added.
Julie just smiled.