Best Friends & Other Liars Page 8

  Greetings Divorcees!

  Here is your schedule for this evening’s festivities.

  Six thirty pm, Cocktails in the Green Room with Mr. Adam Steinberg and Mr. George Peters. Table four.

  I nearly drop the paper. Oh crap! They’re setting us up on blind dates?

  I should mention that blind dates have never worked out for me. Ever. Why? Consider the fact that most of them are set up by well-meaning friends who have this other friend that they love and can’t understand why he’s single. Yeah, because they’re not dating the guy.

  I’ve been set up on a date with a guy who announced at dinner (while he cleaned his steak knife on his tie) that he liked to draw a little blood during foreplay because it aroused him. I was set up with another guy (by my mother’s sister for God’s sakes) who announced if I wasn’t willing to raise my children as Wiccan, he saw no point in continuing the date further. We split the bill and I skedaddled out of there. Another date saw me staring at my nails the entire time because the guy was screaming obscenities in the phone during dinner. Turns out his mother hadn’t folded his laundry the way he liked it and he was reaming her out for it. So, me plus blind dates...not the best track record.

  I hurriedly skim the rest of tonight’s agenda and see that we are also scheduled for dinner with four different gentleman and two other women, and after dinner cocktails with another two gentlemen. What the hell is this? Speed dating on a boat? I shudder as I remember my one experience with speed dating.

  Maria (from accounting) had broken up with her fiancé because he had a secret girlfriend. After she got over the urge to smash every single piece of stereo equipment he had left at her house (this was a while back—I’m pretty sure the guy has an iPhone now), she decided that she was going to stick it to him and find herself a new fiancé as soon as possible. This is where her speed dating idea came in. She signed us both up, claiming she couldn’t go by herself because it was too dangerous. (Oh great, put me in danger, too!)

  We arrived at the church hall where the event was taking place, and went inside to find rows of tables set up with the women sitting on one side of the table. The men, meanwhile, had numbers pinned to their chests and were stalking around the room like jungle cats, sizing up their competition. We were told the women would remain seated while the men moved from station to station. (How chivalrous!)

  There was a stern looking man standing at the front of the room with a buzzer at his hand. Each “dating” round would last three minutes, and you were supposed to share as much information as possible to determine whether the person would be someone you’d potentially like to date. If you were interested, you wrote their number on your card and handed it in to the moderator who would then give you that guy’s phone number.

  Maria had explained this whole concept on the way over. She described it as liberating because it gave all the power to the woman to decide if there would be a date or not. I agreed it was a good set-up and less likely to make us feel uncomfortable. What I didn’t anticipate was the “sharing” the men would do.

  One of the guys told me how he always expected the woman to pick up the tab. “After all, this ain’t 1955 and you dames wanted women’s lib”. His words, not mine. Ding! Moving on!

  Another asked if I liked animals. I said yes, and he was excited because he wanted to introduce me to his cats. All twenty-seven of them. Ding! Next!

  One of the final winners of the night seemed like a decent guy who was taking care of his grandmother. Until he mentioned he was only taking care of her because he had his eye on her condo in Florida and couldn’t wait till she died.

  Needless to say, neither Maria nor I gave these weirdos a second glance. We burst through the doors of the church hall that night thankful that we didn’t actually have to go on a date with any of them.

  So what happens when you hate your date so much you want to run away from them, but you can’t because you’re ON A BOAT? Your only way out is to jump overboard!

  “Crap,” I mutter glancing back toward our cabin. Violet is going to kill me.

  There’s only one way to solve this. I’m going to have to get her very, very drunk. And oh, I’m not going to tell her that these are dates. If she asks, I can tell her I meet these guys last night at the “meet and greet”. Even though the only people I ended up talking to were Kendall and Francine. Actually, I only talked to Kendall. Francine was kind of mopey and left about an hour after it started to go back to her cabin to read. Her and Vi would make a great pair.

  I wedge the paper between my bikini strap and boob, and head back to the room to get ready for our dates. Or, our not dates.

  Ugh...this is starting to get complicated.

  VIOLET

  “So what do you ladies do?” The guy who looks like a used car salesman leans across the high top table and grins salaciously at us. His comb-over flops slightly to the left, almost covering the crop of age spots scattered across his forehead.

  His friend, an equally creepy man, tries to elbow him out of the way as he says, “I’m in stock and bonds.” Then he waggles a beefy finger at us and adds, “And not in a kinky way.”

  Both men crack up and start laughing like that was the funniest joke they’ve ever heard in their sixty plus years on this earth. Leah and I blankly stare at them. I have no idea what was so funny about that statement.

  Normally, I don’t mind talking to older men—in fact, I enjoy it most of the time. My job is talking to older men. But these guys aren’t the sweet old men I am used to chatting with at my job.

  How did it come to pass that Leah and I are sitting with these absolute idiots?

  After spending a fabulously relaxing day by the pool and being entertained, I seriously just wanted to chill out in the room with a book (and maybe a glass of wine) before dinner. And I wanted to throw on a nice top and some khakis to go to said dinner.

  However, Leah came charging out of the bathroom in a cocktail dress and told me to “get off my butt and get ready”. I was not interested in getting all dressed up for dinner, but Leah insisted that it was the rule, and our dinner time was promptly at eight. And our cocktail hour was six-thirty. What kind of vacation is it if you have to get all dressed up to eat some dry chicken in a dining room with two hundred strangers at a set time?

  Leah scoffed at me and started pouring out some contraband wine into plastic cups just then, telling me that drinking before dinner would loosen me up. What if I didn’t want to be loose? And where did she get that wine? They had searched all bags for “illegal” alcohol when we boarded the ship. For someone who cared about dinner rules, she didn’t mind breaking other rules.

  But anyway, I squeezed into the little black dress that Leah shoved at me (it barely fit across my midsection) and managed to put my hair up into a French twist or something like it. Leah wouldn’t let me out of the bathroom until she did my make-up, so that took another twenty minutes. The last time I wore makeup (other than the occasional blush and sweep of mascara) was seriously sometime around the last century mark.

  I have to admit, Leah did a pretty decent job on me. Instead of a tired, almost forty-year-old mom of three teenagers, I looked like I was in my early thirties. With two kids maybe. And a husband who appreciated me and thought I deserved a vacation. Or at least one who occasionally did the dishes. I blink back tears, the alcohol already making me emotional.

  Darn it! Here I go, off on a tangent again. Stop thinking about Richard!

  I dab at my eyes with my napkin and some of the eyeliner Leah caked on my lids comes off. I stare at the black streak on the white linen napkin and wonder if I’ve smeared my eye make-up. Neither of the lecherous men we are with seem to notice, so it probably doesn’t look too bad. Although these guys appear to be so infatuated with Leah, I don’t think they would care if I was actually Barbra Streisand dressed up like a unicorn.

  Earlier, when we walked into the cocktail lounge called “The Green Room”, Leah had immediately scanned the room like she was looking
for someone. In fact, she stood on tip-toe, practically leaping out of her brand new Manolo Blahniks. I swear I don’t know how she affords half the clothes in her closet. She makes good money but her rent is astronomical because she had to live in Hoboken. Heaven forbid she live in Middletown where she grew up, like the rest of us.

  “What are you looking for?” I had asked, as she bounced up and down in her shoes, nearly knocking into a waiter carrying a tray of martinis. A draft had swept through the room right at that moment and I rubbed my chilled hands together. That’s when I realized I had forgotten to put my ring back on after I took it off in the cab yesterday.

  “Darn. Leah, I don’t have my wedding ring on.”

  “So what?” she said, still looking around the room.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked again.

  “A free table,” she muttered.

  “Well, get a table. I’ll be right back. I’m going to get my ring.”

  She whirled around, eyes wide. “What for?”

  “Because it’s my ring and I’m married?”

  “Who cares?”

  “Well, I don’t want anyone here to think I’m single and—” I started to turn around to go back to the room and I swear she grabbed me by the scruff of my neck like I was one of the cats.

  “You took it off yesterday because you were mad at Richard. Don’t forget that. Come on,” she said, releasing her grip on my neck and seizing my hand. “There’s a free table over there.”

  There was indeed a table, one with a placard that read Table Four. It was not free, however. At least, not in the way I would consider free. Seated at the table were two men we came to learn were George and Adam, aka. Dirty Old Man Number One and Dirty Old Man Number Two.

  They have shamelessly spent the last half hour trying to catch a glimpse down the front of Leah’s dress, and at the same time sneak a peek up her dress each time she crosses and uncrosses her legs.

  I want to kick her under the table to warn her since she seems oblivious to their leering. You would think someone with as much experience with men would have more of a clue than pitiful old me—I’ve only been on dates with three men other than Richard in my lifetime. And...I only had sex with one of them.

  Yup, that’s right. I went to college a virgin, a fact I was proud of, but one that made Leah groan and roll her eyes in disgust. At least I didn’t spend half of my time at college at the clinic making sure I didn’t have an STD like she did. Not that she actually had an STD...she just spent a lot of time at the clinic double checking.

  I can’t imagine why in the world Leah doesn’t get up and move to one of the other tables, or even the bar which seems deserted. It’s like she’s determined to sit here with these guys and their boring chatter as some sort of penance for a sin committed. She’s engaging with them, bobbing her head up and down like she’s actually interested, while I try to completely tune out the conversation. I take a sip of my drink and gaze around the room looking for some other entertainment.

  “So, Leah,” the balder of the two men says—I think it’s George. He clasps her hands and gazes confidently into her eyes like he’s Richard Dawson and is about to offer her money if she can just tell him the number one answer of a hundred people surveyed when asked what body part they wash first in the shower.

  “What exactly do you do at Martin and Short?”

  I nearly choke on the cherry stem in my Cosmo. Martin and Short is the firm Leah tells guys she works at when she wants them to buzz off. She actually started doing this in college when we went out to a bar after watching Father of the Bride on video. It’s code for, “I want to get the hell out of here”. I must have completely zoned out because I missed her telling George about her “job”. Leah glances up at me as George strokes her hand and purrs, “Are you a lawyer?”

  Leah opens her mouth and I know she’s going to explain that she’s a paralegal, which is also a total lie. But her theory is that she doesn’t want anyone thinking she’s a lawyer because she can’t fake it that much. And she says that being a paralegal is boring enough that the guy usually doesn’t ask any more questions about her job after that.

  Before she can open her mouth, I find myself answering for her. “Yes! She’s close to making partner!”

  Leah’s eyes widen and she lets out a little squeak. I chew my lip nervously. I don’t know why I did that, but I feel a surge of annoyance for Leah right now—namely because I wanted to read in my room until dinner time, and she dragged me down here to watch her get petted by these creeps. I mean, I was practically ignored for the last half hour while they fawned over her. Not that I wanted to be petted, of course. Included in the boring as anything conversation would have been nice, though.

  “I’ve never met a female lawyer who made partner,” George observes, still not even looking at me.

  Yeah, because in your day most women were barefoot and pregnant, baking pies in the kitchen, and fixing your drinks for when you came home and wanted to relax in your recliner with the evening news and the paper.

  “Why don’t you tell George and Adam all about it, Leah?” I say as I slide off my chair. “Anybody want a drink from the bar?”

  “Uh, yeah,” George says without taking his eyes off of Leah. “I’ll have a martini. Dirty.”

  “Same,” Adam announces while grasping Leah’s other hand.

  I bet you will, I tell myself with a chuckle as I abandon Leah—who is sending me a pleading gaze—her face almost stricken with fear.

  Don’t worry, I’m not going to leave her long. Just long enough to make her as uncomfortable as I’ve been this entire evening. It’s about time someone gave Leah a taste of her own medicine.

  I weave through the awkwardly arranged high-top tables and head for the bar on the opposite end of the room.

  “I’ll have a Cosmo,” I tell the bartender when I reach the bar. He doesn’t even turn his head toward me since he is carefully tracking a perky blonde with double Ds as she bounces past the bar.

  Am I completely invisible tonight?

  I watch the scene unfold in front of me. The bartender is nearly drooling when the blonde turns her head. She sees him looking and promptly drops her wristlet. Watching him closely, she leans over, her bosoms almost tumbling out of her dress. She slowly stands up and winks at him with a sultry smile. Then, she proceeds to insert her pointer finger in her mouth and suck on it, winking at him again before turning and flouncing off in the opposite direction, her butt cheeks jiggling in the skin tight wrap dress she’s wearing.

  The bartender is drying a glass while he watches, his tongue hanging out of his head. He grips the fragile glass so tightly that it shatters in his hand.

  Startled, he curses under his breath and bends down to pick up the shards that are now at his feet.

  I lean over the bar and say, “I’ll take that Cosmo whenever you’re done cleaning up.”

  “Sure,” he says, rising to his feet and blushing, offering me a weak smile, obviously embarrassed to be caught out. He tosses the glass in the garbage and then quietly mixes me a drink, adding extra vodka. I wonder if it’s to shut me up or completely make me forget about his indiscretion by getting me drunker quicker.

  “Thanks,” I say as he slides the drink across the counter. I glance back at our table and see Leah squirming in her seat. She’s looking for me, but I think her vision is so bad that she can’t see me halfway across the room.

  I plan on getting the dirty old men their dirty martinis, but only after I finish my Cosmo. They can wait. I lean on my elbow and continue to watch Leah and the men.

  “That your friend with those old dudes?” the bartender asks, jerking his thumb in the direction of Leah.

  I nod silently as I witness Leah pretend to laugh at, and pull her hand away from, George. Adam snatches it up.

  “Sucks to be her,” the bartender says, now drying another glass. I hope this one doesn’t shatter in his hand or he’s going to get his pay docked for sure. “She looks like she is
absolutely miserable with those geezers.”

  “Well, that’s kind of rude,” I chastise. “Who says that one of those guys isn’t her...husband?” I can barely insinuate it without shuddering.

  The bartender leans one elbow on the bar, glass and dish towel still in hand. “Well, she wouldn’t be on this cruise now would she?” He cocks his eyebrow at me.

  Why not? I think. Do only unmarried people go on cruises? No, that’s impossible. There are cruises for families and singles and couples. I shake my head. Clearly this guy thinks he knows something about Leah and he’s a virtual stranger. Whatever.

  “I’m also going to need two dirty martinis for those...men,” I tell the bartender.

  He pushes off the bar. “Coming right up.” He quickly sets to work getting the drinks made as I continue to watch my friend ward of the advances of Waldorf and Statler from The Muppet Show. She’s pretending to laugh again, but I can almost feel her desperation and I take pity on her.

  After all, she brought me on this cruise, and here I am getting mad because two old guys find her more attractive than me. I mean, who cares? Despite the fact that it’s the way it’s always been with Leah and me, why am I mad? Do I really want to have to pretend to flirt with them?

  Besides, Leah’s the one that’s single. I have no right to get upset. She must be sending out a “single” vibe that men pick up on, that’s all. It’s not like she’s more attractive than me, right?

  I glance down at my barely sexy attire and recall my horrified expression in the mirror as Leah applied my make-up.

  Okay, she definitely is more attractive. And more interesting. Even with her made up lawyer job she can hold their attention longer than I do when I tell people that I’m a speech therapist. Seriously, I decide if people get pudding or applesauce on their tray based on a swallow test. How boring is that?

  And Leah should be more interesting. After all, she’s the one who needs to find a husband to settle down with. I already have—