What the hell is going on around here?
29
CARMEN
My eyes screw shut as the stiff drink burns its way down my throat.
I shake some sense back into my head and cough into my wrist. “Whatwasthat?”
Maddie, whose face is still contorted across from me, answers, “Scarlett insists on us starting with a shot of that every time we have a girls’ night out.”
“Hey, nights out are about unwinding,” Scarlett answers with a grin. “You lightweights can switch to seltzers or whatever if you want, but a good night out needs the right start.”
I haven’t hung out with these girls too many times, but I already feel comfortable around them. I don’t know if it’s too early to really think of them as friends, but I do know that I’ve never been part of a group like this, a group I’m actually eager to let my guard down around. And after the best week of writing I’ve had in a long, long time, the idea of rewarding myself with a good time is appealing.
“You know what? Fuck it,” I say, making eye contact with Scarlett. “Let’s order another round.”
Scarlett flags over a waitress, and we place a new order. Scarlett and I both order the same shot. Jasmine and Harper get a lighter cocktail. Maddie, true to Scarlett’s prediction, orders a seltzer. The service is quick tonight, and soon we have our drinks.
“Lightweight,” Scarlett teases Maddie as she reaches for hers.
“Degenerate,” Maddie parries back.
Scarlett shrugs with a smile, like the truth of Maddie’s claim is water off her back. “To being ourselves,” she says, offering her glass up for a toast.
At my old college, when I’d go out with people like this, usually acquaintances in my and my ex’s shared social circle, myself is the last thing I ever felt like. But with these girls, it’s easy. It’s comfortable to just be me. They don’t expect anything else.
I just don’t know if they’ll continue to be so welcoming if what Jamie and I are doing gets too emotionally messy and I end up hurting him …
I quickly join the rest of the girls in clanking my glass against theirs and then downing my drink. Tonight is about relaxing and having fun, two things I’ve done far too little of in the last year, and I shouldn’t waste it worrying about potential disaster.
We talk for a while about Jasmine’s trip to Japan that she’s taking during spring break. She has an older cousin she’s close to who got a job with a company in Tokyo, who’s going to let her stay at her place for free. That sets off a conversation about what places in the world we all want to see. Harper talks about her trip to Paris earlier this year. The girls jump at the opportunity to bring me up to speed on Harper and Sebastian’s history, how they used to hate each other, and the role that Paris trip played in them falling in love.
Harper and Sebastian are both smart and witty, so I can’t stop thinking that I’d have loved to have a front row seat to someof the verbal sparring they used to engage in. It would probably inspire some dialogue for the main characters of my book.
Speaking of which, eventually the conversation turns to my writing.
“So we’re definitely going to be characters in one of your books, right, Carmen?” Jasmine asks.
Maddie gasps, excitement bursting onto her face. “Oh my gosh! I never even thought of that! Of course we’re going to be characters! Right?”
The twinge of embarrassment that always comes when I talk to people about my writing hits me. But I try to push it down. These girls have made me feel nothing but proud and confident in my journey as a writer. I should be eager to talk with them and joke around about it.
“Well, I will need a lot of victims if anyone actually reads my first book and wants me to continue the series.”
Maddie’s face lights up even brighter. “Oh! I want to be a murder victim!”
The other four of us double over laughing. Maddie being desperate to get murdered in a book is too much.
“What kind of murder?” Harper asks when we get our breath back. “Assassination? Crime of passion? Kidnapped and chopped up in a remote cabin?”
Maddie taps her index finger thoughtfully against her chin. “I like the sound of a crime of passion. Like, my husband’s jealousy over the way men look at me every time we go out together—because I’m so beautiful and glamorous—slowly drives him insane. He murders me because he’s convinced I’m having an affair.”
“Would you be having an affair?” Jasmine asks.
Maddie gasps, offended. “Of course not! I’d never cheat, not even on my insanely jealous, rich, possibly Mafia-boss fictional husband.”
“If you’re going to get murdered for it, you’d might as well get some hot sex out of the exchange,” Scarlett argues.
