One Night in Monaco - Blair Babylon Page 0,49
fun places like the Buddha Bar!” Gen shouted, waving her hand at the laughing crowd and flashing lights surrounding them. “And go dancing at nightclubs! And meet lots of people and date lots of guys and live your life!”
“Oh my God, yes!” Roxanne yelled. “I’ve got a toddler now, and wow, your life changes so much when you have kids. The diapers, and the snot all over the place like an amoebic snot monster attacked your house, and the wailing and sobbing because she wants all her food to be in exactly one-inch cubes and bright blue.” Roxanne’s eyes widened, and she bit her lower lip as she turned back to her pregnant friend, Gen. “I mean, it’s great. I wouldn’t change anything for the world. Really. She’s my heart and my soul and my whole life. You’ll love being a mother.” Back to Dree, and she said in a lower voice, “But I wish I’d danced on a few more bars and played more beer pong and traveled more, first. Have you eaten? We have a table for supper.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t.” Dree couldn’t afford to eat supper at the Buddha Bar. Even her one drink had been too much of a splurge. “I’m on a tight budget. It was nice meeting you!”
“Come on!” Roxanne yelled, linking her arm with Dree’s. “Let me buy you supper, my newest, most-bestest friend. Gen and me, our husbands have too much money. I’ve wanted to meet new friends and take them out to supper and buy things for people like this my whole life!”
And so, in the spirit of granting Roxanne’s wish to take newly met friends out to supper at expensive restaurants, Dree went with them to the dining section and ate sushi with Roxanne, who also kept buying more drinks.
Lord, she prayed that Roxanne and Gen weren’t going to dine-and-dash and stick her with the bill. Dree didn’t have nearly enough money to pay for it.
Pregnant Gen, of course, stuck to properly cooked food and fruit spritzers and thus observed with clear eyes the fools that Roxanne and Dree were making of themselves.
After supper but while they were still drinking, Gen produced a pen from her purse and grabbed a paper napkin, and the three of them drew up an extensive bucket list for Dree that sounded an awful lot like Gen and Roxanne were reliving or reimagining their single lives.
After they wrote down things Dree should do in Paris, they listed other places Dree should travel to and things they should do there: Thailand, Brazil, Belize, South Africa, India, Mauritius, Peru, Morocco, London, Amsterdam, Monaco, and Nepal.
Nepal sounded good. It sounded pure, like you would never meet a guy who stole everything you owned from you there. All Dree’s possessions now fit in the one small duffel bag she’d left in the B&B. She was wearing her only nice dress, which had been in her locker at the hospital before she’d run.
Roxanne wove drunkenly in her seat, and she tapped Dree’s arm. “You and I should do shots.”
Dree flinched. “Oh, I couldn’t.” She couldn’t afford to.
Roxanne grabbed the waitress as she walked by. “Two tequila shots, the good stuff. Top shelf. No, make it four shots.”
Even though Dree’s liver was sturdy from nursing school and everything that had come after, she was getting tipsy. “I shouldn’t.”
“My treat!” Roxanne yelled over the crowd’s clamor. “Come on, let’s do shots! Shots! Shots! Shots!”
The four guys at the next table took up the chant, “Shots! Shots! Shots!” laughing their asses off the whole time.
Gen encouraged Dree to say yes while she laughed at her.
That should have tipped Dree off. Any time a sober person encourages you to drink more, there are only bad intentions behind it.
The waitress placed a tray with the four tiny drinks on the table between them.
Perfectly sober Gen was still laughing while Dree ogled the shot glasses in fear. Gen said, “Oh, Lord. It is so much fun to watch you two make utter idiots of yourselves. Why didn’t I take up sobriety as a hobby earlier? Go ahead. Bottoms up, y’all.”
Roxanne pointed to the shot glasses. “Yep, bottoms up, Dree.”
Dree said, “Geez, Roxanne. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to get some ass.”
Roxanne laughed. “Nope, way worse. I’m a working mother of a toddler, and I’m living vicariously through you. I expect a full report about your wonderful week and all the fantastic things you did in your life afterward. I’ll give you my