Chapter 21AbiI can already hear them in my apartment and I’m still down the hall, my suitcase bumping along behind me. “Oops, shit,” I bark out as the hard side case twists in my hand and the corner bumps into the wall, leaving a black mark on the pristine white paint.
“Perfect. Abso-fucking-lutely perfect,” I bitch aloud, not caring about Mrs. Miller’s kids overhearing my curses or anyone thinking I’ve lost my marbles for talking to myself. Especially when the rebound makes the wheel run up on my heel. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I repeat, hopping on one foot and rubbing at the pain.
I knock on my own door, not willing to dig my keys out when everyone’s helped themselves to my place anyway. The door swings open, and Violet dramatically waves an arm through the air as though she’s a Price Is Right girl and I’ve won access to my own apartment. She doesn’t look like a game show girl, though, in sweatpants and one of Ross’s oversized gym shirts. She does look freshly showered, at least. “Come in! We’ve been waiting for you. We’re ready to hear everything!”
“No cheating!” Archie calls out from somewhere inside.
“Cheating?” I ask.
Violet rolls her eyes, “At Aruba Bingo. Archie’s idea. Game is . . . you don’t know the words, but you have to tell us all about the wedding, your trip, Lorenzo, the works, and we have pennies to mark our cards. Winner gets to take home a bottle of wine . . . if there’s any left.”
I smile. I swear I do. But Violet’s eyes go dark and her jaw clenches.
“That son of a bitch!” she hisses. “I’ll kill him for you, don’t you worry about a thing, girl. I’ll send his body back to Italy in pieces and Aunt Sofia will handle things on that end. She knows people.” She makes it sound like that’s a perfectly normal thing to do.
“No, no,” I argue weakly. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” If I say it enough, it’ll have to be true, right?
She huffs out a laugh of disbelief then points at me with a short, manicured nail. “Keep on believing that, Abs. Good girl.”
She shoves me inside the apartment, taking my suitcase from me. It disappears, and I can’t care to see if she puts it in my bedroom or the bathroom or . . . hell, the kitchen, for all I know. As long as she’s not destroying more walls, it’s probably for the best that she manages it instead of me.
Archie and Courtney are poised in the living room, cards in front of them, pennies in one hand and wine glasses in the other.
“Let’s go, girl! I have faith that I’ve got the winning card!” Archie says with a jerk of his chin toward the glitter-accented paper in front of him.
Glitter is the herpes of crafting materials. Once you’ve got it, there’s no un-getting it. My apartment’s done for. It’ll be perpetually covered in gold glitter for the rest of the time I live here no matter how many times I vacuum. I should move out now and forfeit my security deposit.
I flop to the couch, half falling on Courtney who lets out a whoop of surprise and almost spills her filled-to-the-brim wineglass, which would be a double tragedy because she’s wearing cute jeans and sitting on my white couch. “Hey! Watch it!”
I steal her wine glass, upend it, and chug it down in one go like I’m a sorority girl with a curfew and a crush on the quarterback of the football team. I hold it up, barely a spot of red in the bottom. “Again.”
Courtney and Archie meet eyes over my head, worry and shock in both, I imagine. Violet swoops in from wherever she took my suitcase.
“One more, and then you’re cut off,” Violet declares as she grabs my glass, refills it, and then gives it back. I look at her wryly as she gets Courtney a fresh glass too.
“Okay, hit us with it,” Courtney demands, “so we know what we’re dealing with.” She’s a planner, always has been and always will be. By the time I get this story out, she’ll have it analyzed from every angle, thought of at least three different ways to handle it, mentally argued the pros and cons of each with herself, and then . . . she’ll tell me what I need to do. Usually, it drives me nuts. Right now, I would love for someone to tell me what the fuck just happened and why I feel like I left something vital in Aruba.
Like a foot. Or a hand. Or . . . my heart?
“Dream gig in paradise, you know that part. But the wedding planner was a total pain in the ass. Nothing was good enough and she kept calling me ‘flower girl’ and ‘Miss Andrews’.” I imitate Meredith’s snooty manner.