Lick. Shoot. Make a weird coughing noise. Blink back tears. Fumble for the lime. And, finally, suck.
Sipping might have been the right move after all, but I would throw myself off this balcony and drag my broken body into the ocean before I’d admit that. My only consolation is that Nikki seems to have had as hard a time as I did.
Willow winces at us, rubbing her belly. “I don’t think I could throw back a shot like that, even if I wasn’t pregnant.” She sighs. “Didn’t I used to be cool, once? Now I’m just a circus tent,” she says, gesturing down at her patterned sundress.
“Youarecool,” Nikki insists, running a hand through Willow’s dark brunette waves. “I don’t know anyone else who can pull off a red lip the way you can.” It’s true. Willow has that chic, effortless Parisian vibe mastered. Of course, it helps that she is, in fact, French, and grew up summering at her aunt’s château in Provence.
“You’re stunning,” Sybil adds. “And on top of that, you’re a badass goddess, growing human life inside you. What’s cooler than that?”
“Totally,” I say, reaching over to rub her hand reassuringly. “You’re still the epitome of chic. Nothing like a circus tent.” Then I move my hand to her belly. “Just maybe don’t wear stripes for the next three months.”
Willow lets out a laugh and swats my hand away. She looks longingly at two men leaning over the rail of the deck and smoking. “I just want a cigarette.”
“Willow!” My wineglass clinks against the table. “I thought you quit.”
“I did quit. For a while.” At my incredulous look, she adds, “I’m obviously not smoking while I’m pregnant, Emma.”
“You shouldn’t smokeever,” I say firmly.
“What am I supposed to do after I have sex, Emma? Just lie there?”
“You should go to the bathroom so you don’t get a UTI,” Nikki says sagely.
I make eye contact with Finn and raise an eyebrow as if to say,Still glad you crashed our girls’ night?But to his credit, Finn does not seem fazed by our talk of post-sex self-care.
“You could always try vaping,” Sybil suggests.
“Vaping is for children.” Willow waves away Sybil’s suggestion and takes a long sip of her mocktail, making a face as she sets it back on the table. She places a hand on her stomach and rubs absentmindedly.
“I will say one thing in the pro column for pregnancy,” Willow says, as if the thought just occurred to her. “More-intense orgasms.”
“Oh my god, Willow,” I groan as Finn lets out a choked noise. Looking over, I expect him to be blushing, but he just looks amused.
“I’m just saying, Emma! As the first to embark on this journey, I want to give you three all the facts. Don’t you want to know?”
Nikki nods seriously. “Yes, tell me everything. I hate surprises.”
Finn leans forward with both elbows on his knees, his empty tequila glass dangling from his hands. His eyes crinkle with curiosity. “I’mdefinitelyall ears.”
Willow brightens and opens her mouth to respond—
“Time for the Newlywed Game!” I interrupt, willing away the shrillness in my voice.
The game is relatively simple. There’s a series of questions to see how well the couple knows each other. If Sybil guesses Jamie’s answer correctly, the three of us—four since it looks like we’re stuck with Finn—take a drink. If Sybil guesses Jamie’s answer incorrectly, then she has to drink. I sent Jamie the questions early last week, and he sent me back a video with all his answers.
I prop my phone up against Nikki’s still-mostly-full bottle of Whispering Angel so everyone can see, and press play. The floor-to-ceiling windows of Jamie’s corner office come into frame as he sets his phone up against his desktop computer.
Jamie smiles at the camera and settles back into his chair. “First question I have is: When Sybil says, ‘They’re playing our song,’ what song is she referring to?”
Sybil answers before I can reach my phone to pause it: “‘Heart Beats Slow’ by Angus and Julia Stone.”
“Angus and Julia Stone’s ‘Heart Beats Slow,’” Jamie says, nearly in unison, so we all drink.
“You guys are so meant for each other,” Willow coos.
We make it through five more questions, and each time Sybil rattles off Jamie’s exact answer to the trivia question. The four of us throw back swig after swig, while Sybil’s undrunk cocktail threatens to slosh onto her white romper with every cross and uncross of her legs and frustrated flip of her hair. Each time the liquid comes right to the edge of the glass, but never spills over. By this point, I would be a sticky mess of rosewater-infused gin, but the universe always seems to keep Sybil from suffering anything too dire. I can’t begrudge her though. If I were the universe, I’d go out of my way to make Sybil’s life easier too. She makes everything sparklier. Since she left New Yorkfor LA, the city has lost some of its shine. There’s no one to force me away from answering work emails or to suggest sneaking up to rooftops. But right now, Sybil’s looking decidedly less than sparkly. I should have thought through this game a bit more—with everyaww-inducing perfect answer, we all get tipsier while Sybil remains sober. No wonder she almost seems like shewantsJamie to get a question wrong.
Jamie’s voice buzzes out of the speaker of my phone against the table. “Okay, here’s the last one: What is Sybil’s guilty pleasure TV show?”
