Lily White Lies(46)

We joined the women who had quietly waited for me to arrive and one by one, I welcomed them, thanked them for coming and apologized for the turn of events and the need to return gifts. Cory and Charlotte had to save me several times by casually dropping the name of the person in front of me. I felt a tap on the shoulder and turned to see whom it was.

“You never said you were coming!”

“Well, truth told, I wasn’t going to. It should really be for all you young girls but once your friend told me that she ordered vodka especially for me... well, I had to seem grateful. Besides, I had to see for myself exactly what a hunka-palooza was.” Gram held up her glass as if to toast and then turned, quickly becoming lost in the sea of women whom were anxiously waiting for the party to begin.

“May I have your attention?”

Cory waited for the noise to die down before speaking again.

“May I have your attention please?” When the hanger grew silent, she continued. “First, I would like to thank you all for coming. I know you were all expecting a bachelorette party and it still is... there just isn’t going to be a wedding. I am sorry about the gifts but anyone having trouble returning them can see me and I will take care of it.” The noise began to grow louder and Cory whistled in an attempt to regain the attention of her guests. “We will have plenty of time to mingle and catch up later, but for now, I would like to ask you all to join me outside on the grass next to the gazebos. Thank you.”

Many of the women began to whisper among themselves as they filed onto the grass. No one seemed to know what was going on with the exception of Cory and Charlotte and they weren’t giving anything away.

Once everyone had made their way to the grass, Cory began to speak again, much louder than the last time in order to be heard over the roar of the plane overhead.

“I’ve asked you all to bring an umbrella and I’m sure you found that an unusual request.” There was a lot of nodding and some murmuring between the women. She continued, “Well ladies, it’s time to find out why. I’d like to ask you to point them to the sky... because... IT’S GOING TO START RAINING MEN!”

With that, she lifted her umbrella and each woman followed the invisible line between her umbrella and the plane that circled directly above. Gasps and shrieks traveled throughout the crowd of women as someone jumped from the plane. The skydiver appeared to be directly over us and as they approached, I could see that it was a man and he wasn’t wearing much more than his parachute.

I took hold of Charlotte’s arm to steady myself, and laughed out the words, “He’s almost naked, isn’t he? Flying strippers?”

Charlotte laughed so hard, she doubled over. When she had regained control, she answered, “I promised no male strippers but I never said anything about nearly naked skydivers.”

We all laughed, and Cory confessed, “They aren’t really naked—not that that would have been a bad idea, but my father said there’s, like, some kind of law or something making it illegal.”

By this time, several more men had jumped from the plane and the women on the ground were going wild. The screams grew increasingly louder as the first diver landed on the pavement no more than twenty feet from us. He was wearing a parachute, a white muscle shirt and a neon green G-string that left little to the imagination.

Gram worked her way through the mass of excited women. Finally reaching us, she chided, “Do you think I could get your grandfather to dress like that?”

“Gram!”

We continued to watch as one after another, men in neon G-strings landed in roughly the same area. Each one was better looking than the last and I was wondering how many more divers it would take before Cory’s invited guests began a riot.

Things were getting pretty heated when divers in black G-strings and muscle shirts began to land on the airstrip in front of us. The screams coming from the women drowned out the sound of the plane circling above.

In all, eight neon and five black G-strings had landed before the plane flew out of sight. All thirteen men had disappeared into the hanger, leaving the women to ask in unison about their return.

“They will be back ladies, I promise. How about we all take our seats in the gazebos—it’s almost time for the meal.”

While women slowly made their way to their seats, I used the time to thank Cory and Charlotte for being Cory and Charlotte.

“You know, I had reservations... I mean, I didn’t think I’d really be in the mood for all this, but I have to tell you, this is great—unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like it and I just wanted to say thanks—for everything. If it weren’t for you guys, I’d probably be sitting at home, stuffing my face with Chinese take-out, crying in my lo mien... yada, yada.”