“First thing,” Olivia says. “We should change the meeting location to The Grill. It’s nicer and at least there’s a sea view. We’d be out in the fresh air. This place stinks.”
Sam throws her hand up in the air. “First thing, you don’t get to make changes. And second thing, why were you here with Ron Jeremy if you hate it so much?”
“Who’s Ron Jeremy?”
“Never fucking mind.” Sam takes another gulp of her beer, scowling.
“My date’s name is Cal,” Olivia sniffs. “But I’m sick of men. I’m going to become a lesbian.”
“You can’t become a lesbian,” I reason. “You either are or you aren’t.”
“Well, considering I’ve had sex with a woman, obviously I can become one.”
“No, I’m just that good,” Sam responds.
Pointedly ignoring her, Olivia continues. “Men are just big, smelly pigs and I’m tired of them.”
“Some women are pigs, too,” I say to the background noise of Sam making grunting pig noises. “Becoming a lesbian doesn’t make your chances in love any better than they do as a straight woman.”
“Well, maybe. I still want to join your club. What do you do? Try to find ways to alleviate the loneliness? Encourage each other to emotional growth? Analyze your past relationship mistakes so that you can do better in the next one?”
Looking at her blankly, I stutter for a second. “Uh, kind of like that. Except that we mostly just sit around here and talk about our sucky love lives.”
“Well you and Sam do that anyway. I would have thought that having Roxanne here would class the group up a bit.”
Olivia’s date ambles up to the table. “I paid the damn bill,” he says in a nasally voice.
“Good for you,” Olivia replies. “It’s the least you can do after spilling your drink on me.”
“We thought you spilled it on yourself,” I say.
“I’m not a complete buffoon,” she says.
“Well, come on, then,” porn star guy says. “I’ll drive you home.”
“She’s fine,” Roxanne says, putting her arm protectively around Olivia. “We’ll make sure she gets home safely.”
“Whatever. I’m sure you’ll have an awesome night with two dykes and an old lady.”
Standing, Sam flexes her muscles. She stands about three inches taller than the guy and he turns around without another word. As he slams the door on his way out, Sam looks at Olivia incredulously. “How the hell did he even get a date with you?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, there is a dearth of eligible men on this island. I’m running out of choices.”
“According to Susannah, all of the good ones are married or gay,” I say.
Sam nods. “She’s dated her fair share of married men and convicts.”
“She didn’t know he was married,” Olivia snaps.
“All right. We’ve agreed to table the changing of the club’s name to next week,” Roxanne says. “But tonight, we are welcoming our new member, Olivia.”
Disgusted, Sam takes another sip of her beer.
“Another motion has been made to move the meetings to The Grill instead of here,” Roxanne says. “Shall we take a vote?”
Sam pokes me and we both look at the dance floor. Our favorite local drunk guy is moving around the dance floor by himself. It looks as if he is trying to do a cross between the robot and some kind of disco move. As we watch, he jumps up and down, screaming the lyrics of the song. Everyone in the bar turns to watch as his movements get wilder and wilder until finally, on a particularly exuberant jump, he spins around in the air and slams right into a bar table, knocking it to the ground and falling over it. The drinkers at the next table start applauding. Sam and I look at each other.
“We’re staying here,” we say together.
Rolling her eyes, Olivia signals to the waitress who pretends not to see her. “The service really sucks here. And the clientele is kind of trashy.”
“Well, we’re kind of trashy,” Sam replies.
“It wouldn’t kill us to go somewhere else,” Roxanne says. “It doesn’t have to be The Grill. We could go to that little park off of Forest Road. No one is ever there and they have picnic tables and everything.”
“That sounds absolutely lovely,” Sam chimes, clasping her hands together. “We can have a little picnic and I’ll make tea cakes and finger sandwiches.”
“Excellent,” Roxanne says, firmly. “So it’s agreed.”
Olivia stands up. “I have to go to the girl’s room. One bad thing about the park is there’s no bathroom.”