Six months earlier
Charlene
“Come on, Charlene. Why do you always have to be so boring?”
I stared at my sister-in-law and wondered if hurting her, at least a little, wouldn’t actually be legal after all. I was pretty certain no judge in his right mind would blame me if he, or she, spent five minutes in the woman’s presence.
“I think I’ll –”
“Do not say you’ll go back to the cabin and sleep. We’re going bar-hopping, and you’re coming.”
Bar-hopping? Sure, we were fiftyish, all of us, but using that ridiculous term was… well, ridiculous.
“I –”
“Let’s go.”
We walked out of the small, overpriced restaurant where the steaks we’d ordered had been overcooked, and into the bar next door. I sighed with relief when I saw that we didn’t raise the average age with the twenty years I’d feared we would. The crowd was mixed, and some were younger than us, but some looked considerably older too. It was a nice place, with music playing but not so loud you couldn’t talk. There were comfortable chairs around low tables, and the atmosphere was relaxed.
Marianne led the way, and her three girlfriends followed eagerly. I trailed behind and wished I didn’t feel exactly as dull as she’d accused me of being. I wasn’t, and I didn’t particularly want to go back to the cabin, but I didn’t want to be in that bar, or at least, not with them. I’d never had a close relationship with my loud and thoroughly obnoxious sister-in-law, and I did not like her friends. We all lived in the same suburb, though, so we spent time together, whenever I couldn’t come up with an excuse to bail out of their get-togethers. Unfortunately, my husband, Bob, had told me about Marianne’s invite to go skiing for the weekend in a way which had given me no choice but to smile and tell him how lovely it would be.
I loved skiing so in a way it hadn’t been a lie. I’d grown up in a small town in the mountains and had skied since I learned how to walk, but these days I rarely got the chance. The first years Bob and I were dating, we went every weekend, but over the years he started making excuses for why we had to stay at home instead, so we did. I wondered if I’d ever get him off the couch long enough to put on a pair of skis again, or if it would be too much of an effort.
“Ohh, shots!” Marianne squealed, and I cringed when heads swiveled our way to look at the group of women in front of me.
I should perhaps have made an effort with my own appearance, but I’d been too tired. It also looked perfectly ridiculous to be dressed up in way too expensive ski-clothes and with flawless makeup when you were relaxing after a day in the slopes, so I’d brushed my hair and considered myself done.
The women didn’t notice how people were watching us, or perhaps they didn’t care, and they giggled as they ordered, “Suck me slow,” “Tongue me,” and, “Deepthroat.” To top it all off, Marianne winked at the twenty-something bartender man-boy and said, “One Big O, and I promise you, make it good, and I’ll come back for more.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes but to give him credit, he didn’t bat an eyelid and just nodded once. Then he turned to me and raised his brows.
“Tequila, straight up,” I said.
“Good choice,” he muttered and gave me a grin.
We downed our shots, and I turned around to look for somewhere to sit because my whole body ached after two days in the slopes. The others had spent most of that time on the terrace at the base, but I’d skied from when the lifts opened until I was so tired I was afraid I’d fall and hurt myself. I’d realized immediately how seriously out of shape I was, and since the button at the waist of my ski-pants kept popping open, I knew I carried quite a few unnecessary pounds as well. Standing at the side of a double black diamond slope, out of breath to the point where it felt as if I was sucking in air through a straw, I vowed to join a gym the second we were back home.
“Come,” Marianne ordered. “There’s a table over there.”
Miraculously, a group by the door had started gathering up their things. Marianne marched over, pushed an older couple out of the way and reached the table with a loud, “Great. We’ll take this table.”
I winced and immediately tried to make amends for her rudeness.
“Marianne, I think that couple was trying to –”
“Sit down, Charlene,” she hissed, and they all sat down, watching me expectantly.
There were two free chairs at the end of the table, and I turned toward the couple who were watching with surprise, and considerable annoyance.
“I’m sorry. If you want to sit at the end, I’ll be happy to stand,” I offered.
I wouldn’t, but it would at least give me a good excuse to leave sooner rather than later.
“Thanks,” the man said, and winked at me. “Old farts like us have no need to fake politeness so we’ll just go ahead and take you up on that offer.”
I grinned at them as they sat and moved to lean on the wall next to the table. Loud, rowdy laughter echoed suddenly, and when I turned, my breath hitched. In a corner at the other side of the bar were five men, drinking beer and apparently enjoying themselves. They were all good looking in a rough, outdoorsy way, but the reason I stopped breathing was the man who had said something to make the others hoot with laughter.
His face was full of laughter too, and I couldn’t see the color of his eyes clearly, but they were pale, and surrounded by lines which seemed to have been carved out by laughter or perhaps squinting against the sun. Or laughing in the sun? He’d clearly won the genetic lottery because he looked like he was around my age, and his a little too long, brown hair was sprinkled with gray, but it was still thick and unruly in a way that made it curl around his ears and by the neck. His short beard was grayer, and surrounded lips I had a sudden and beyond inappropriate desire to let my tongue slide over. The others at the table were in flannel shirts, but he wore a tight, black tee with faded jeans and it showed off a fantastic body. He wasn’t beautiful, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he was hot. His sharp features and the way his nose looked like it had been broken at least once also made him seem… dangerous?
The thought made me feel almost as ridiculous as my sister-in-law had been when she ordered her shot, so I shook my head a little and focused on my friends instead of standing there, staring at an attractive man like a lovesick fool.
I declined another shot and settled for a beer with the excuse that I’d get up early the next day to do some skiing before we started the drive home. That got me sour looks and a few snippy comments, but I just smiled and took the opportunity to sit while they made their way to the bar and back.
Three shots later, I still nursed my beer and watched the group of women in front of me as they laughed and shouted jokes which weren’t all that funny to each other. I suddenly felt uncomfortable just standing there like an idiot. I didn’t want to be like the women in front of me, but I felt left out, a little bit lonely and a lot like the boring woman they’d accused me of being. I wasn’t that woman, I thought. Or maybe I was?
“I’ll go to the restrooms,” I murmured and started weaving my way through the crowd without waiting for them to reply.
I did my business and was washing my hands, cursing my cowardice for not leaving and trying to gather the courage to go back to the cabin when I suddenly heard voices outside the bathroom door.
“Time to start looking for a fuck,” a man said.
“Nothing here worth looking at,” a deep, gravelly voice stated.
The door was slightly ajar, so I saw the gravelly voice’s shoulder and the black t-shirt covering it. Of course, I thought. Someone like him could be choosy.
“A fuck’s a fuck, and the barracudas by the door would be easy pickings,” the first voice said, and I clamped my lips together in surprise.
“A skank is a skank, doesn’t matter the price of her clothes. I’d rather go for young skank than aging skank if I ever get that desperate.”
Ouch.
“The blondie looked sweet,” the first voice said.
I raised my head and looked into the mirror in front of me. My pale blonde curls were cut in a utilitarian jaw-length bob, the same way it had been for years.
“Mousey?” the man in the black tee snorted. “No thanks.”
“Mousey?”
“Granny-hair, well beyond chubby, fading into the wall she was leaning on?”
As I watched myself in the mirror, my eyes started burning.
“It’s not like she’s fat,” the first man protested.
“I like a soft body as much as the next guy, Joke, but there are limits to everything.”
My mouth fell open.
They chuckled, and then the gravelly voice said, “You go hit up grandma Myrtle if you want, but the rest of us are leaving. Logan’s is a better place to find pussy.”
I swallowed and felt a surprising surge of anger deep in my belly. They could go to hell, I decided, opened the door and marched past the men without looking at them. When I reached the table, I told my friends I was tired and dug out my jacket.
As I shrugged into it, Marianne whined in an unattractive slur, “You are so totally boring, Charlene. No wonder Bob –” She cut herself off, but when I glanced over at her, she went on, “No wonder Bob insisted on you coming with us this weekend.”
“Oh God, look who finally noticed us,” one of Marianne’s friends breathed.
Since her voice had been more a squeak than a whisper, I turned with the others, suspecting that I knew what I’d see.
I wasn’t wrong.
The men who had been outside the restrooms were walking toward us, and the women at the table immediately straightened, pushing their chests forward in a way that was way too obvious and looked rather stupid. Barracudas, they’d said. Aging skanks.
Oh, God. Mousey. Grandma Myrtle.
Without another word, I turned and fled.