#TripleX (15 page)

Back inside the room, Angelisa tried to give me a makeover, but neither of us could lift our arms higher than our midsection. I think it was the first time she’d ever walked out of a place without a stitch of makeup on. We looked harsh. Seriously, all we needed was a wind machine and some snakes, and we’d give Medusa some competition. Actually, she looked like Medusa. I looked like the Heat Miser on crack.

We made our way to the lobby to ask the front desk clerk if there were any bars nearby. “There any places to go out drinking here? In walking distance?”

Cue in Idiotic Hotel Clerk #1. Again. “There any places ta go out drinkin’ heyah? In walkin’ distance?”

“Son of a bitch. Look, we’re just looking for a place to get a couple of beers,” I said, clenching my teeth.

“Coupla beers!”

Ang turned to me wide-eyed. “Why the Hell is he repeating everything you say?”

“Cause I’m from New York, and he’s a dick,” I explained, matter-of-factly.

“Cuz I’m from New Yawk an hesa dick.”

I shoved my face next to his. “Do you want to see the inside of my trunk? If you don’t fit, I could quickly rearrange it so you could.”

“Do-ya-wanna-see-da-inside-of-my-trunk?” Clerky McMimic sang.

Cue in Idiotic Hotel Clerk #2. “I knew it was true. You guys, New Yawkers have anger issues.”

“Ugh forget about it!” I snapped, storming out of the lobby. “Ang, you talk to them!”

“Fuhgeddaboutit! You-talk-ta-dem!”

Angelisa somehow got directions to the nearest bar within walking distance. The nearest bar teetered on a fine line between being a standing health code violation and being condemned. Sticky floors. Loudly buzzing neon signs. Reeking of beer and something strange and primal. It gave off a well-worn, faded kind of feeling that was unique and unapologetic. A handful of regulars sat drinking beers and playing either pool or darts. As long as we saw no bugs, everything would be fine.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Angelisa whispered into my ear as we took two stools by the bar. “Think it’s safe?”

“Possibly, just don’t do anything wild in there—like sit on the seat, bare-assed. There’s a good chance you’d come out pregnant… or something worse,” I laughed.

I watched her walk through the middle of the bar and cautiously open the restroom door and cringe. I wondered for a split second if I’d ever see her again.

I sat on the stool and stared at the creepy velvet paintings that hung on the walls. Every one of them was crooked, giving the whole place an off-kilter sensation.

Ang’s phone started buzzing loudly on the bar, vibrating uncontrollably. I continued to stare at the paintings. It was getting creepier and creepier. I scanned my eyes across the hanging glasses above the bar. None of them matched. Lipstick stains blemished the majority of the “clean” ones.

Ang’s phone rang again.

And again.

And again.

It rang so many times that people began looking over at me questioningly. I rolled my eyes and snapped her phone up.

Answering it without reading the caller ID, I shouted, “Hello,” into the phone.

“Who the Hell is this?” A voice snapped.

“Christine. Who the Hell is this?” I snapped right back.

“Jake.”
Oh shit it’s her brother
. Why the heck didn’t I look at her caller ID? Time to play blonde.

“Jake who?” I asked innocently.

“Jake Ryan.”

“Wait… what?
Jake Ryan
,” I asked in awe.

“Yes. Jake Ryan. Where is Angelisa?” he said.

“She’s in the bathroom, which isn’t as important as the fact that you are Jake Ryan—like the guy from the John Hughes movie,
Sixteen Candles
?”

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Finally, I said, “I could seriously hear your eyes rolling at me. That’s impolite. Jake Ryan was the star of all of my adolescent junior high fantasies. Say, ‘Happy Birthday, Samantha. Make a wish’.”

“Listen. I’m standing out front of my sister’s house and no one is answering the door… and my car is gone,” Jake sighed.

“Come on, just once, say, ‘Happy Birthday, Samantha. Make a wish’.” I begged.

“No… look, my car, it’s gone and in its place is a hideous silver minivan,” he explained, losing patience with me.

“Yeah, it’s hideous, isn’t it?” I agreed.

“What?” he asked, impatiently.

“It is totally hideous. I told my ex ‘No way’ to the mini van. But no, he said that I had to get a minivan. A minivan! It aged me twenty years.” I sighed theatrically and overdramatically. “Definitely not as nice as a Jaguar”

“Where is my car?” he growled.

“That was
your
Jag?” I asked, coyly.

“Yes!”

“Are you trying to compensate for something? Something small perhaps?” I prodded.

“Fuck. You.”

I gasped out a laugh. “If I were a prostitute, do you know how much I’d have to charge you for that?” I joked, setting off my own laughing fit.

Continuing, I said, “I mean, we could have driven the three thousand or so miles from Ohio to Vegas in a more subtle, silver-colored, old lady van, but truthfully, we thought the Jag was so much better!”

“Did you just say Vegas?” he asked, his temper flaring.

“I might have, yeah, Mr. Thirty-Mill. I think I did,” I sang, triumphantly. Angelisa was going to kill me, but this was way too fun.

“My sister stole my Jag?”

“Borrowed it. You could use my van in the meantime,” I offered with fake sweetness.

“I don’t want your van!” he bellowed.

“It has seat warmers!” I persuaded.

“It’s the middle of the summer!”

“Eh, they don’t work anyway. Well, I have a trunk full of goodies!” I tempted, laughing.

“I’m positive it’s all melted!” He yelled. “You left all the doors unlocked, and the keys in the ignition! So I checked inside!”

“That was your sister, she leaves keys in ignitions constantly, I’ve learned. Have you heard my playlist?” I asked, teasing him.

“Incidentally yes. It’s pretty decent—better than Ang’s.” He chuckled. “But I need my car back!”

From my barstool, I noticed Ang making her way back from the bathroom. “Look Jake Ryan, Ang and I are just going through a little mid-life crisis here, and your car was an innocent victim. Try to understand where your sister is coming from, and I’ll try to stop her from smashing more cupcakes into the seats.”

“What!” he roared into the phone.

“Jake Ryan, I have to go,” I whispered into the phone.

“Wait! Where are you going?”

“‘
I have a dance to go to - at school. It’s a very important dance… uhhh we’re being graded on it… for Gym.’”
I pressed end before he could say anything else. I knew how pathetic it was that I could quote lines from
Sixteen Candles
, but truthfully it was Ang’s brother. It wasn’t like he was a real guy, or anything.

Ang slid her bottom up onto the stool next to me and smiled.

“So what happened? Fall in?” I asked, jokingly.

I looked closer at her and narrowed my eyes. She had put on a full face of makeup. She shrugged, “I always try to look my best.” She looked around and winked “Think we could get one of these guys to buy us a drink? I feel dead sexy after that yoga hell.”

“I just feel dead. And I lost all knowledge of how to get a guy to buy me drinks right around the time I had my second kid,” I announced.

“I have a tip for that ladies,” a voice interrupted from behind the bar. Angelisa and I swiveled around on our barstools at the same time, meeting the eyes of an Amazon bartender of a woman. She winked down at us and smiled, “Just mention your vagina.”

The moment I stopped my side of the story the judge leans over her little desk enrapt. Her eyes dart back and forth between Ang and me. I could tell her butt was at the edge of her seat. “So what did you do?”

Twitter: What happens in Indiana should be posted all over the Internet. #VaginaCheers #BodySurfing #BladesofSanta #LesbianLove

No sooner had the Amazonian bartender mentioned the word “vagina,” but Christine was on her barstool screaming.

“Gimme a ‘V’,” she bellowed, as all eyes turned to her.

“V,” mumbled a few drunkards from the back.

Yelling she said, “Yeah, you gals are right. These men here all like dick. They ain’t into no vagina.” I’d never heard her use incorrect grammar, and it made me laugh. She was relating to the clientele—rather well, I might add. “Now, let’s try this again, boys—that is if you really are men.”

Climbing up onto the actual bar, her stool wobbled. I grabbed it and held her other hand to help balance her. “If you like wet, hot vagina, gimme a V.”

Every man in the joint stood up and bellowed “V,” thrusting their fists in the air for emphasis. Chris’ eyes widened in surprise. She finished the chant with every dude screaming letters and confirming their love of the woman’s hot box. Then, to all of our surprise, the men just started chanting “Vagina! Vagina!” over and over again, closing in on Christine while I was being swallowed up by their appraising words and glances. They surrounded her, boxing me out. The intense, belly-twitching laughter hurt my torn and tattered, yoga-destroyed abs. I dodged myself out of the way, watching in full hilarity as the scene unfolded in front of me.

With every guy on his feet, cheering beneath her, Christine shrugged her shoulders, bent her knees, and sprung face-first into the air. Instinctively, all arms and hands went up into the air, catching her and guiding her as she surfed through the grungy, old man crowd of waves.

The rest of the evening was spent with the two of us, engulfed in a pool of bearded, toothless men, explaining to them how to specifically and perfectly please their women. Neither Christine, nor I, dropped one cent on alcohol. Every drink was bought for us as each man tried desperately to get our attention and our expertise on how exactly to spice up his marriage.

Christine even went to the car and gave four of the guys copies of her dirtiest book and told them to make sure they read and memorized everything that happened, starting on page 246, and they were guaranteed to have happy, healthy, and satisfied wives.

“Why? What happens on page 246?” the judge interrupts, eyes wide and curious.

“Oh, that’s when Kade owns—I mean really owns—Samantha,” Christine says, as I nod in agreement.

“Yep, that’s a good one all right,” I confirm.

“Now, you both said that you’re authors. What kind of authors are you exactly?” the judge eyes us suspiciously, taking careful notes.

“Ummm, the kind where you keep our books next to your bed, ya know, just in case the hubby just isn’t getting it done, if you know what I’m saying—”

“So you write smut.”

“Uh, no! Smut is such an ugly, derogatory word. Ang and I write steamy romances and erotica,” Christine announces, proudly. “Rather well, I might add.” Christine winks at me. I smile confidently, nodding my head eagerly.

“Well, I’m going to need the titles of your books—all of them,” the judge states. Clearing her voice, she adds, “You know, to corroborate your story, of course.”

“Yeah, we’ve heard that before,” Christine mumbles under her breath. “Anyway, Ang, go on.”

After we closed the bar and helped our new best friend, Amazonia, sweep and lock up, we said our “goodbyes” and left her with an armful of new steamy reads. Walking back to the hotel, we had our first official argument of the trip.

“No Ang, we are not going anywhere,” Christine declared, as we approached my brother’s car in the hotel’s lot. “We both have had too much to drink—which is why we went to some dive bar within
walking
distance.” At least, that’s what I thought she said; it all came out as a slurred, angry mess.

“We have had one banana today. That’s it. Nothing else. That is not a diet. That is pure stupidity,” I complained, fighting the urge to beat her ass. “One taco won’t kill us.”

“Yes it will. One taco leads to six burritos,” she argued. “We’re going in and going to bed.”

“You suck! I hate you,” I groaned, trying to get to the door of the Jag. “You’re not the boss of me.” Holy crap, I just morphed into Evan. Shit. But really, she wasn’t the boss of me.

“I swear to Christ, if you get in that car, I will call the cops and tell them about a drunk driver in a Jag with Ohio plates,” Christine threatened.

“You wouldn’t,” I glared at her.

“Try me!” she promised. “Now get your ass into that hotel.” I stared at her and suddenly realized that I was kind of afraid of her.

Yeah, I’d spent months and months talking to her on the phone and emailing her, but I didn’t really know her from Adam. Actually, I didn’t know any Adams. I bet Adam would let me get in the car and get some nachos with extra cheese. Nachos are so good—especially with hot, spicy salsa. Adam is a way better friend than this psychopath is. She tried to kill me today at that yoga class. She probably paid that Yoga Nazi to make it harder than it usually is. I bet she brought me here on this trip to kill me. Authors are so competitive. She wants to take me out of the running—so she can make best sellers’ lists and I don’t. I bet she wants to take me out in the middle of the desert and drop me with her glock. Glock. I like the word glock. Glock. I wonder if Adam has a glock?