CHINA
We got back to the house hours ago, and it was the quietest fucking ride of my life. I couldn’t think of what to say. I didn’t want to just fill the dead air for once, and I felt bad for the attitude I gave Risen in the car. I’d texted the girls on the way, stating how we needed alcohol induced antics. Clearing my head of Risen, and his mention of how I didn’t know him at all, it shouldn’t be hard after a fifth of good ol’ Jim Beam.
He was right about one thing, though. I don’t know him, and I haven’t taken it upon myself to really try. I’ve avoided, giving him grief every time he was trying to save my ass, and I didn’t even consider him or his predicament.
The girls and I have been sitting around for a bit. Swallowing down drinks as fast as possible, they’re conversing about bullshit that matters to only us. For once, I find myself weakly involved. Normally, I’d be right in there, being silly alongside them, but today, after finding Harriet, and finding out I really am a princess, I’ve drank sullenly. Oh, I’m laughing and finding it funny, but I’m just not my usual self. I’m sorrowful.
“The hell you say!” Catty shouts.
“I’m telling you the truth! Really, it was freakin’ awesome!” Harlow is explaining a last-minute date and his prowess.
“Come on, it couldn’t have been that big,” I say.
“Like an elephant’s trunk, lover.” Harlow hangs her arm low by her crotch, swinging it back and forth.
A ruckus round of snorts and unladylike laughs contort our faces as we fall into the point of almost peeing our pants. It took dangerous amounts of alcohol to get us to this position, but it’s been totally necessary. I was so right. I needed this.
“He was hung, but zero talent.” Harlow sips at her pink homemade concoction, seriously disappointed with a wasted dick. At first, I matched her shot for shot, slamming down different liquids from my parents’ well-stocked bar. And I tried to keep up, but that was useless after five tries. When she started on the straight Fireball whiskey, I tapped out. Heading back to vodka mixes I could name, I’ve been downing them easily.
“So when you say no talent?” Cathryne asks, egging Harlow on.
“I’m telling you, it’s not hard to understand English, and I’m pretty sure I speak it well on a daily basis. How he couldn’t understand harder, deeper, No, not there. Then...Nothing. Right as I was on the edge, he quit. Bastard stopped and said fineto, princepessa.”
“What was his name, Harlow?” I ask with a sneaky grin.
“Gianpero.”
“Is there a chance the man couldn’t understand English, Har?”
She contemplates it for a second. “Possibly. I picked him up in a bar with the universal signal.” She makes a circle with her thumb and forefinger, then sticks her finger through the hole. “Any full-blooded man understands that language, right?”
Leaning forward on my knees, I ask her the same question we’re all wondering. “Where did you pick him up, Harlow?”
“At a bar?” she states, almost like another question. Scrunching up her face in a look of disdain for explaining her motives and moves, Harlow tosses her arms in the air. “Fine! It was during a FIFA match in Barcelona. It’s been a slow few weeks, so I went on a trip.”
“A trip? Why didn’t you take us?” Hallette almost screeches.
“Fuck, lady. My ears!”
“No wonder the poor boy didn’t understand you.” Laughing, I drop my head into her lap, lounging out along the couch. “He’s lucky he understood the gesture, never mind the words spilling from your mouth.”
“Harlow, stop picking up random speedballs at the bars. I told you to look at Cupid’s Arrow. The guys are pretty damn hot, and they’re not allowed on without a check of their bank account.” Cathryne pulls out her phone. Scrolling through her apps, she finds the one she wants to show. “Look at this one. Single, questionably white, but what a pair of eyes. I’d melt into those for hours.”
Each of us swing across the table, crowding around her on the couch while we look over her shoulder, inspecting the man she’s indicated.
“I think he has bad teeth. Looks like he needs braces. I don’t want kids with imperfections,” Hallette quips.
“That’s harsh, Hallette. You looking to marry a petri dish?”
Ignoring me, Hallee smiles, gazing at Cathryne’s phone. “Well, what about this one. He likes good food—”
“He’ll be fat in old age. Look at that chin.”
“I think he’s cute, Cathryne laughs as she shrugs her shoulders, flicking to the next picture. Passing through candidate after candidate, we drink, converse, and drink some more until one catches my attention.
“Oh, That’s nice.” Stealing the phone from her hand, I look over his profile. “Handsome, nice teeth, clean-cut, nice hair, but he’s missing something.” I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s there.
“He’s short?” Harlow clips off. I can’t disagree, but it’s still not it. There’s definitely something off about him.
“He has weird eyes. They don’t sit straight,” Hallee points out, rubbing her finger along the glossy picture.
Cathryne pulls the phone back and laughs. “That’s because he was hit in the head too many times. That’s Jason Mac.”
“And how, pre-tell, do you know that? There’s no names.”
“Because he’s dated everyone I know, with the exception of present company.”
“Excluding you?” We ask as a collective.
It’s sad we’re so in tune.
“Yes!”
“That was said a bit too fast. Are you sure, Catty?” She blushes and turns an ugly shade of red. It clashes with her prim and proper demeanor that is consistently portrayed, so we lovingly accept it.
“Let me see that.” Snatching the phone back, she flips through more pictures. “This one better have money.”
“He looks like he’s the brother of Inspector Gadget.”
Hallette sips her drink, hiccups, then sighs. “I think he looks like a tool.”
Rising off the couch to grab another drink, Har chirps, “No disagreements there.”
“He looks like a total coconut,” she says darkly.
“A coconut?”
“Yeah. By the time he grows up, he’ll have a bad hairstyle that resembles Donald Trump on a windy day.” Waving her hand on top, we all get the same picture of fifteen-inch hair waving in the wind. It causes us to all break into belly rolling laughs. It hurts.
Damn side splitting giggles hurt.
Gathering our composure again, we attack the men with a fervor. “This one looks like a porcupine,” Hallette’s squeak has upped an octave as she fake gags about the next guy in our list.
Now that each of us have had about ten drinks, we decided to up the ante about the guys on Cupid’s Arrow. It’s kind of like when Hallee and Har gave those with flaws at the courthouse points. Now, though, it’s based on quirks, missing appendages, haircuts, lack of hair, teeth in bad need of veneers, or that their bank account states they’re just above par to be a part of the inclusive app. To make it better, we streamed it to the TV in the lounge. Grading these lovely contestants is our new sport.
Spitting my drink through my nostrils, I laugh as I take in the next one. “God damn! That burns.” Now that I have the controller for the moment, we all check out ‘Doug.’ He has a hairlip smile, cross-eyed stare, and he’s in desperate need of an in-law apartment within his parents’ home, for life. We all confirm he’s a frontrunner for the worst.
“Regardless of coin, nothing could make us choose that gem.”
“He’d be dead on Game of Thrones.” Harlow and Hallee snort and giggles before falling to the floor in a heaping mess. “Cut off. You, Miss Townsend, are cut off.”
Hallette’s bottom lip protrudes, her grin fades, and her giggles subside. “Not nice, Harlot.” As she’s rising off the floor in mock harm, Cathryne jumps up and down like an excited child.
“He wouldn’t be dead. He’d be king!” Of which we all laugh because it’s true.
“Which means, he’d be dead soon,” Cassidy chimes in. She’s brought us in snacks. We’ve been weeding our way through the hand cut nachos, the lovely cheese and chip dip, and an assortment of veggies. Drinking, none of us think of things like figures, and how junk food will make us look in ten years. We’re still young, and it means shit. It damn well tastes good.
Pulling a chip up off the tray, Catty takes the phone back and scrolls. Passing by further mismatched and inappropriate men, we take our bets, placing wagers on the next one’s flaws before advancing. Whoever’s closest in their guess gets a bye. The rest of us drink a shot. At this rate, we’ll have Mom and Dad’s stash drained and dried up, but who’s here to care? They’re dead, and it’s mine to enjoy.
We’re so oblivious to the world around us that none of us even notice the uninvited guests that appear.
And that’s when today got worse.