The music was already blaring. I covered my eyes as my sister lifted her skirt and flashed the bar.
Oh sweet Mary and Joseph-
Now was not the time of the month for her to be expressing herself!
The tampon string was just the fuse that would blow this party from drunken fun to jail time.
I grabbed Lindsey and dove over her skirt before the world saw everything she was giving away for the wedding.
"Okay, we're leaving for the cabin now. We need our rest, right?" I shook Lindsey to gain her attention. She toppled onto the bar. "The cabin's gonna be just as fun. We'll get to work on the wedding dances."
"Dances!" Lindsey slouched a bit. "Can't wait to nae nae."
I could. Oh, Lord, what I wouldn't do to avoid the rest of the weekend. But we only had six weeks until the wedding, and Lindsey's choreographed dance routines didn't learn themselves.
The only thing that horrified me more than an unplanned pregnancy was shimmying onto the dance floor with my fellow bridesmaids just to reveal that I was the only black woman in the tristate area with no rhythm. At least it was only my closest friends and the entirety of my family that would witness this disaster.
And Nate.
Of course Nate would see me awkward, jerky, and combusting in shame. Then again … it wouldn't be much different from when I usually spoke to him, except this time I was expected to shake my booty.
I couldn't even hand jive, and Lindsey sure as hell expected more than the twist. I was boned.
"Time to go!" I helped Lindsey to her feet. "Know what's better than dancing? Sobriety!"
"And curvy cocks."
"Of course." I handed Lindsey to the other bridesmaids, and they helped me out the door. "I'm sure genital deformities are just as fun as getting a big cup of coffee and sitting quietly!"
Our limo returned the party to Mom's house, but I'd borrowed Dad's SUV to haul all seven of us to the Washington's cabin for Lindsey's bridal-dance boot-camp. Not that I didn't trust a limo to off-road it along the cabin's dirt path, but I wasn't getting stranded without four wheel drive anywhere Lindsey couldn't access Pinterest.
"Road trip!" Lindsey's excitement was short-lived. She tripped trying to hop into the SUV, and her butt sprawled onto the gravel.
Her howl woke the neighborhood. Worse, it woke Mom.
"Oh no! My hand!" Lindsey shrieked. "I hurt my hand!"
The bridesmaids tumbled out of the SUV, spilling onto the driveway in a pile of tiaras, feather boas, and vodka. I raced to my sister, avoiding a slap as she thrust her hands towards me.
I groaned. She had a little scrape over her fingers. It rubbed raw where the engagement ring rested, but Lindsey screamed like she amputated it with a bayonet on a World War I battlefield.
Mom's front door opened.
This wasn't going to be good.
Our larger-than-life mother raced outside in a robe and nothing else. I loved my mom for taking pride in the natural endowment the Lord saw fit to give her, but those ta-tas thundered every which way but symmetrically as she raced to Lindsey.
"Oh Jesus have mercy. Look at your hands!" Mom tied her robe closed, but not everything tucked inside.
My sister and I stared in shared horror at our mother's heaving bosom.
When and why did she get a tattoo of a snake wearing a helmet?
And why was it curled so obscenely around Mom's nipple?
Lindsey yelped first. Oh god. The tattoo wasn't a snake.
It wasn't a snake at all …
"Mandy, how could you?" Mom snapped at me.
I couldn't look away from the slithery penis tattoo curled to engulf what was once a chocolate chip before two babies flattened it into a pancake.
"What did I do?" I covered my eyes.
"Why didn't you help your sister into the car?"
"Because she's twenty-eight years old?"
"You have a responsibility to her! She's tipsy!"
She wasn't tipsy, she was one shot away from black-out. I knew better than to correct Mom. The last thing she needed to hear was stories about her daughter, a Vice officer, and a very crude rendition of Let It Go in reference to her bladder.
"Mom, what about my pictures?" Lindsey hiccupped. "I'm supposed to take pictures with my ring on Monday!"
It was one in the morning, and the baby drained every last bit of energy from me. I was sick, hungry, tired, and my head hurt. God forbid we saved two hundred dollars by not commissioning pictures specifically for her engagement ring.
"Now you don't have to shove your hand in strangers' faces." I grabbed a bottle of water from the hatch and poured it over my sister's hands. She was barely scratched and would live … unless a weekend with her finally broke me. I herded the drunken bridesmaids into the SUV. "Get in the car, Linds. We have an hour and a half trip."
"How dare you?" Lindsey appealed to Mom. "Did you hear her?"
"Mandy, show some compassion," Mom scolded. "And after Lindsey stood up for you this week!"
I shouldn't have asked. "Now what did I do?"
"You cut your hair without asking Lindsey!"
"Without … " I tugged on my shorter locks. Here I thought I'd look cute, something to take my mind off of the wedding, Nate, and the baby. Instead I caused some sort of inter-family drama for a twenty dollar cut. "Why would I ask Lindsey?"
Lindsey stomped a foot. "For the wedding, freakface!"
Too much. "Get in the car."
"You didn't even ask if you could cut off what … seven inches of hair?"
"Four. It's no big deal."
"It is a big deal!" Lindsey sniffled. "You have no respect for me, for this wedding, for the beauty we're trying to create. You are the worst sister. Just once I want you to think of me first!"
Right. Because keeping the secret of my lifetime to spare the family any drama during the wedding wasn't enough. If she only knew how much I needed her, how I wished my big sister would tell me everything was okay and that we'd get through it.
But I didn't fight her. We had two days planned at the cabin, and the bridesmaids couldn't remember why they were drinking. I had to drive, and I had to get us there in one piece.
"I'm sorry, Lindsey."
"That's all I wanted!" My sister wrapped me in a tight hug. "You do care about me."
"Of course I do."
"And you know how much I love you!"
Oh man.
I knew I was wrong to doubt her. Stress and the spotlight just went to her head.
"I love you too, Linds."
"And this will work out for the best." She brushed away tears. "With your new haircut, I'll definitely be the prettiest at the altar."
Son of a-
I grunted. "Get in the damn car."
Lindsey obeyed, squeezing in the back with her friends Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, also known as her college roommates Carmen and Amy. They rooted through the first-aid kit and applied whatever medication they could find to Lindsey's scrape.
That was how we lost our only tube of calamine lotion. Nothing bad could possibly come from that.
I had about two hours until I got them to the cabin, tossed them in beds, and had a few minutes of sober quiet.
Of course it didn't work that way.
I pulled off the highway an hour later as Dad's check engine light flicked on.
Lindsey mumbled from the back seat. "Why are you slowing down? What's wrong?"
I knew as much about cars as I did pregnancy-and I learned too late what would happen if I let Nate's dipstick check my lubrication.
"Um … " The car clunked. That probably wasn't good. "I think it's breaking down."
Lindsey's supersonic scream awakened the passed out bridesmaids. I doubted her shrieking would push the SUV the remaining twenty miles to the cabin.
"What do you mean we're breaking down? We're in the middle of nowhere! There could be bears outside!"
"Bears?"
"Or murderers!"
I eased off the highway. "Maybe they'll kill the bears."
"Haha. You're always so funny. Well I'll be the one laughing when you're skinned alive first!"
"Jesus, Lindsey. You're a friendly drunk, but you're a monster with a hangover."
"Don't start, Rapunzel. This is your fault."
"How can you be mad at me?"
"I'm mad because every single time you have some responsibility for the wedding, we end up with indigo invitations or no flowers or broken down on the side of the road!" Lindsey kicked her bridesmaids to free herself from the mass of purses, luggage, and bottles. She crawled into the passenger seat and grimaced as her skirt hiked up to just under her bra. "Save the apologies for the cabin. I don't want to hear them now."
"Good, cause I wasn't giving you any!"
"Don't make me call Mom."
"Go on. Call her." I bluffed. "We're in our twenties. Even she'll tell you to grow up."
"You grow up."
Lindsey stole my water and chugged it. She made a face, grabbed for the car door, and barely opened it in time to throw up.