You know the feeling you get when you drink so much beer and eat so much pizza that you bloat up like a big, fat, juicy tick that's threatening to pop but you just don't care because you're single, you've been inexplicably depressed lately and your best girlfriends have dragged you to Arizona for spring training camp in hopes that you'll attract some hunky, meat pie of a baseball player to take your mind off all that ails you?
Me too.
So when my best friend Skinner called and told me that she, Mar, Hulia and Chub-a-lub (her nickname for herself, not ours) were heading down to Scottsdale to take in a few pre-season baseball games, I was hesitant, to say the least. I mean, how much camaraderie, dancing, junk food, light beer and making out with younger men with asses so chiseled they can pick up an olive off a block of ice can one woman handle? I was about to find out.
By the time I pulled up to the hotel in a cab, they were pretty much 12 sheets to the wind. No sooner did I knock on the door than Skinner yanked it open. "Girlfriend! I love you!" she squealed. "It's about time you got your ass down here, we've been waiting to tear this town apart!"
I was scared.
The evening went pretty much as expected ... in a Girls Gone Wild spring-break video, that is. We danced, we drank too much, cursed like sailors and flirted like schoolgirls; then at the end of the evening we bid farewell to a bar full of sexy, young hopefuls and had the smiling cabbie take us to the drive-thru at Taco Bell.
As we dog-piled into the cab, I noticed a couple of would-be stowaways. "Ahem?" I said. "Who are you and where do you think you are going?"
"We're coming back to the hotel with you guys," answered the sloppy, drunk twentysomething as he leered at Chub-a-lub, who smiled her appreciation and slurred, "Yeah, he's comin' with me." And with that, she grabbed the drunk kid and stuck her tongue so far down his throat I was sure she was trying to dislodge something from his windpipe.
Poor Chub, it was hard not to feel sorry for her. I mean, aside from having what she called "really big bones," she is, for lack of a better term, fat. And because of this, she has a tendency to drink to excess and wallow in the "poor-me-I'm-so-fat-no-one-will-ever-pick-me-when-I'm-out-with-you-guys-oh-look-someone-is-picking-me-I-should-probably-have-sex-with-him-to-validate-myself" trap that can only be manifested by too much booze and low self-esteem—a trait that I myself shared right after my divorce.
"Come on girlfriend," said Skinner. "They are staying at the same hotel; we'll just eat and then we'll kick them to the curb."
Although I was uncomfortable, I felt outnumbered so I gave in. When we arrived back at the hotel, we went into the lobby area and feasted. It wasn't too bad, until Chub announced that she was going back to one of the boys' rooms. "I don't think so," I said protectively. "Why don't we just make this a fun girls' weekend and not bring stray ass into the picture." I sounded snarky and judgmental, like I was so much better than her because I wasn't going off for a cheap drunken lay.
"Back off, Sonja," retorted Chub. "Some of us came here to have a little fun."
"Well, why don't we just have fun with each other? What if we just go up to our room and get a movie and have a girls' slumber party?" I asked hopefully.
"Yeah," echoed Hulia. "That sounds totally fun!"
"Well, you go have your fun, and I'll go have mine," said Chub, not buying into the plan.
"If we don't respect ourselves as women, how can we expect anyone else to respect us? If you just fall into bed with anyone who makes eyes at you, how do you expect to find someone who will love you for the long haul?" I asked.
"Sonja, you're too deep sometimes, shut the hell up," said Skinner. I'd managed to piss her off as well.
"I'm just saying that some of us ..." I tried but everyone cut in with a small piece of whatever was left of their minds, the guys included. It was hard to differentiate what anyone was saying, anyone but Chub, that is.
"Some of us weren't raped," she said, directing her venomous words at me; no one else heard her and that was the point. I froze.
A wicked smile crossed her pencil-thin lips once she realized the impact her words had had on me. And with that, she got up and walked off with the lanky boy.
A wave of nausea washed over me. I was suddenly filled with fear of the "what-if's." What if he gets her in the room and starts kissing her? What if the kisses turn violent? What if she comes to her senses and begs him to stop? What if he overpowers her and covers her mouth with his hand, biting her and whispering in her ear all of the horrendous acts he was going to perform on her unwilling body? What if she is paralyzed with fear and no one comes to save her?
Tears welled up in my eyes as I was struck by the sudden realization that this had nothing to do with Chub. This was about me and about the fact that the date marking exactly one year since the night I was raped was just around the corner and I was nowhere near being healed.
Sonja is a writer who covers the ins and outs of relationships. Or is it the ups and downs?