Steam started to rise from the pool, the way it does when the water is warming up just as the air is cooling down. It gave the whole yard an otherworldly look.
And then Sherri Griffin walked in.
Okay, we almost didn’t recognize Sherri. For one thing, she was blond! A bright, bright blond. Very well done, we decided, once she moved under the lights and we could get a good look at her. (Was it an Interlocks blond or a Shanti blond? We divided almost immediately into two camps.)
Then there was the way she walked into the party. Some of us were reminded of the scene inThe Devil Wears Pradawhen Andy is walking down the street in New York City with this badass attitude and all of these gorgeous clothes, sprung from her mousy demeanor. It was kind of like that. Others of us thought aboutGrease,when Sandy puts on that black number and the red shoes and struts her stuff and sings “You’re the One That I Want.” It was a total transformation. Total.
Then there was her dress. We were shocked by that too. Looking back we weren’t sure we’d ever gotten a good look at Sherri’s body. Even at barre class (that one time) she wore something shapeless. Nobody wore shapeless clothes to barre class, so hers stood out—that’s why we remembered. Not because we’re judging. But anyway, we had no idea that she’d been hiding a rocking body under those bad clothes all summer.Noidea.
(How was that possible? We live in a beach town. Had we never seen her in a bathing suit? Had she never been in the water? Hadn’t we met her for the first time at surf camp, way back in June? Wespent so much time quietly cataloguing each other’s bodies for pounds lost or gained, lines emerging or erased, eyebrows that needed more or less shaping—how had we missedthisbody?)
Okay, and seriously? That dress was to die for. Somebody said later it had come from Bobbles and Lace. Maybe it was the Portsmouth location—we were in the Bobbles in town all the time and we had never seen it there. The shoes, the earrings, all of it. It was so very completely un-Sherri that we didn’t know what to do. We just stared. Then one of us said, “Ohmygod, Sherri, you look amazing,” and soon the rest of us followed suit, the way you do. OMG. OMG. OMG.
Except for Melanie. She had nothing to say; she was nowhere to be found. Later we learned that she and her husband had been at the far end of the lawn, just out of reach of the lights, arguing to beat the band.
There was no band, by the way. Brooke always hired a really good DJ from Boston.
Did we mention that the rest of us, excepting Melanie, and Rebecca, who hadn’t yet arrived, were all standing near the bar when Sherri entered the party? The bartender Brooke hired was, dare we say it, easy on the eyes. She’d stocked the bar with some really good tequila. Like we told you in the beginning, it was the summer of tequila.
The bartender was making an Aperol tequila cocktail, which was a-mazing, even though some of us had never tried elderflower liqueur. We contemplated a round of shots before we got into the cocktails, and the bartender was kind enough to allow one of us to pick up a bottle from the bar while we thought about it. It was Roca Patron Silver, very good, though he was using a Blanco in the cocktail.
Yes, we decided. Yes. Summer was almost over; Brooke’s party came around only once a year; the night was gorgeous; the veryair felt full of longing and possibility. We all felt the need to make something happen. Or to let something happen. The DJ was playing something background-y and good vibe-y, something you didn’t specifically notice, nothing you’d dance to yet, but something that echoed the mood exactly. The bartender readied the shot glasses.
And then, like we said, Sherri Griffin walked in, and our mouths fell open. She walked toward us, smiling an unfamiliar smile. Even her walk was different. Not like she was impersonating a hot person, no. Like she hadbecomea hot person. Those of us who were blond may have attributed the change completely to her hair color, but the brunettes among us (there were a few) believed that there was more to it than that.
Sherri greeted us. She accepted our compliments. She watched some of us cast nervous glances at our husbands to see iftheywere looking at Sherri the waywewere looking at Sherri.
Then Sherri said seven words that changed everything that night.
“Pass the bottle,” said Sherri Griffin, without so much as a please or a thank-you. “And a shot glass.”
We all looked at each other like, “Whaaaaat?”
And then we passed the bottle.
And a shot glass.
Honestly, it wasn’t until a couple of days later, after the dust had settled, so to speak, that Brooke reminded us that Sherri hadn’t even been invited to the party.
70.
Sherri
“Pass the bottle,” she told the nearest mom, Monica or Jessica or Nicole. “And a shot glass.”
She didn’t need the lime or the salt; she didn’t need anything at all. She did one shot, then two, then a third, all the while looking Monica or Jessica or Nicole right in the eyes.
It felt good. She felt like herself again. She was reminded of what it felt like to have a roomful—in this case a yard full—of people’s attention on her.
Then she gave a businesslike nod, a nod that said,Time to get started here.And she got ready to say all of the things she’d been holding back since that first day of surf camp, all those weeks ago.
71.
The Squad
Okay, seriously? This new Sherri Griffin basically downed an entire bottle of tequila while we all watched. Maybe it wasn’t an entire bottle. But it was definitely more than one shot. Two or three or maybe four. And we were like, what the hell? First of all, save some for the rest of us! And second, was she going to fall down drunk right in front of us, or, and we seriously hoped not, throw up in the pool? (That happened at Brooke’s party in 2013, but we’re not naming names. We will say that the involved party did pay for the pool company to come out the next day and hand-clean the filter, which was no small expense.)
With each shot of tequila Sherri became more composed, more steady. Her back, already very straight (and visible) in that (we had to admit, fantastic) gold dress, got even straighter. Her eyes, which were heavily made up, opened wider. She seemed to grow taller before us, likeTheNutcrackerChristmas tree. And it became a truth universally acknowledged: Sherri Griffin could hold her liquor.
