I Like You Just the Way I Am Read online

  The front door swung open, and I was suddenly face-to-face with my husband and an uptight, Aryan Youth–looking business acquaintance named Judd who kind of reminded me of the villain from the The Karate Kid.

  Perhaps it was the surprise of seeing a near-stranger when I had XXX-rated plans in mind; perhaps it was my bouncing down the stairs; or perhaps my vagina was just that fucking big, but at that moment, my body decided it was time to purge the balls. I stood there, speechless, watching my pussy turn into a gumball machine.

  Bap … Bap.

  The metal balls hit the hardwood and rolled into the kitchen, only to find my innocent housekeeper, Lita.

  “What the fuck!” Judd screamed like he’d just witnessed a home birth.

  My husband’s jaw hung open in horror as I charged after the orbs and ducked into the kitchen.

  “Feels like maybe this is a bad time…,” I could hear Judd whisper to Jason as I scampered after my miscarried Ben Wa babies.

  By the time I got to the kitchen, Lita already had one in hand.

  “Oh! You can just throw those in the sink,” I said, trying to play it cool.

  I shamefully slunk back upstairs and waited for my husband to come ask me what the fuck was going on. I didn’t see him until three hours later, when he eventually walked in, holding the balls.

  “Lita was under the impression that these could go in the dishwasher,” he said, smiling at me the way people smile at dogs and old people.

  “Are you mad?”

  “Mmm. No,” he said.

  “Can I whip you?”

  “No.”

  Then he got in bed next to me and pulled me close. “You know what’s hotter than you dressed as a scary dominatrix doing vagina parlor tricks for my friends?”

  “What?” I asked coyly.

  “Everything,” he sighed, and then kissed me on the mouth intensely.

  * * *

  It was another phase, come and gone, and yet again, my husband managed to survive. The Ben Wa balls went the way of the stripper pole (to my maid’s daughters), and our sex life returned to once a week. Sure, there’s the rare night that I turn over in bed and wish I were staring at anybody else. But I think that’s normal. And let’s be real, would anybody else be able to shit my initials? I think not.

  11.

  Nobody Wants to Be Your Fucking Bridesmaid

  Well, some girls do. But those are also usually the friends you keep around because they aren’t as cute as you, have no significant other, and would brush your hair with their teeth if asked. I am not that girl, especially for my sister. It’s not just because I’m cuter than her, it’s also because I don’t plan events.

  When women ask you to be in their weddings, they might as well just say, “give me a check for a thousand dollars and all your attention for the next six months.” But they don’t. Instead, they try to spin it, making you feel like a giant honor is being bestowed upon you. When the reality is, it’s all leading up to you looking pregnant on Facebook in a fucked-up empire waist dress from J.Crew bridal.

  My sister, Amanda, asked me to be her maid of honor less because she wanted to and more because she’d been mine. She knew getting into it that I wasn’t good with booking reservations, sending invitations, or talking numbers with anyone who knows how to add or subtract. But she asked anyway, probably because she knew that if anything went awry, she could fall back on her girlfriend Sheri.

  Sheri was the girl who’d give Amanda a cat bath with her tongue if called upon to do so. They met five years prior, when they were both assistants at a modeling agency, and became fast friends, bonding primarily over the fact that they both loved Amanda. If Amanda needed a ride to the airport, Sheri was there. If Amanda needed someone to watch her do jury duty, Sheri took three days off work. I always appreciated Sheri’s involvement because it often meant less work for me.

  Unlike me, Amanda was a traditional bride. She insisted on having an engagement party, a bridal shower, a bachelorette party, pre-wedding drinks, and a post-wedding brunch.

  “Sheri is eager to get started on either my bachelorette or my shower. Which one do you want to throw?” Amanda asked one night over the phone.

  To be honest, I wasn’t particularly interested in throwing either. Both seemed like a clusterfuck to plan, and both events meant being on group e-mails with Sheri. An e-mail exchange with Sheri is like Chinese handcuffs, or maybe a Turkish prison: Once you are in, you are never getting out. She goes off topic and has to have the last word, even if that last word is just a series of emojis winking at each other. If I didn’t choose, however, I’d find myself in a worse position: getting phone calls from Sheri. In haste, I opted for the bachelorette because I didn’t really know what a bridal shower was, and at a bachelorette I could at least get away with pinning a dick on Sheri.

  * * *

  A month went by, and I did little more than buy edible penis necklaces and a heat lamp for the backyard. Then one night I got a crazed text from Sheri.

  “Change of plans. I’ve convinced Amanda to do Vegas for the bachelorette! I’ll hook you up with rooms at Planet Hollywood!”

  Before I could respond, a flash mob of emojis exploded on my screen. What I assume was supposed to be five girls flying to Las Vegas looked instead like three Arabs and two tap-dancing twins crashing into the World Trade Center.

  “I have work events every weekend this month, so I won’t be able to go, but you guys are gonna rock it out! Woot, Woot,” she wrote, followed by a champagne flute ejaculating onto a girl who just stabbed herself in the head with a pair of scissors.

  After some consideration, I decided Vegas wouldn’t be any less annoying than throwing a bash at my house. I was going to be stuck entertaining my sister regardless. In Vegas, I could escape to my own hotel room when she started referring to her vagina as her “hoo-hoo.”

  Since I was hosting, I insisted we invite my best friend, Simone, and my sister-in-law Veronica. Always looking for any excuse to pour herself into a bandage dress, Simone jumped at the opportunity. Veronica wasn’t planning on flying to L.A. to hang out with “a bunch of uptight cunts whose parents paid for college,” but as soon as she heard I was taking the cunts to Vegas, she too was in.

  Amanda asked six girls, three of whom accepted: Ruthie, Roxy, and Garabaldo.

  Garabaldo obviously wasn’t her first name; it was Maxine, but she went by Garabaldo because people refused to call her anything else. Garabaldo was short and voluptuous with a huge personality that was eclipsed only by the size of her earrings. She liked doing things in excess—drinking, eating, talking. She was Amanda’s freshman-year dormmate at Cal State Long Beach and the type of hot mess who instead of sleeping in her bed usually just passed out on a pile of hangers and shoes.

  Ruthie and Roxy were sisters. They lived across the hall from Amanda and me when we tried living together for a year. They were homebodies, partly because their third roommate was a three-foot-tall homegrown cannabis plant. Ruthie was blond like Amanda, with big Texas hair made bigger by Jessica Simpson clip-ins. Roxy was five years older. She was the type of girl you’d expect to meet on a beach in Thailand, carving Jerry Garcia’s face into a log of driftwood.

  Amanda decided to drive out with Ruthie and Roxy, which sounded like a fucking nightmare to Simone and me. We booked flights on Southwest and told the caravan to call us when they hit the Strip. Garabaldo was already in Vegas for a family graduation, and Veronica was flying in from Jersey that afternoon.

  When we got to the hotel, the front desk clerk informed me that we had only one room reserved. Reluctantly, I called Sheri.

  “Fuck. Everyone said just get one suite. Weren’t you on that group e-mail? I think you might have me accidentally blocked,” she said.

  I pretended I couldn’t hear her inside the casino and hung up.

  Simone and I contemplated springing for our own room but then decided against it—because we were cheap and because we didn’t want anyone else to benefit from our generosit
y.

  The “suite” was a half-remodeled two-bedroom with kitchenette. In its previous incarnation, it was part of the Aladdin hotel—in diametric opposition to the Freddy Krueger claw and Basic Instinct poster now mounted above the “flying carpet” sofa. The hotel’s remodel started in 2003 and was being done piecemeal. And though the lobby and public spaces were completely renovated, most of the guest rooms still made you feel like you’d been abducted by an autograph collector from Marrakech.

  Before we could settle in, there was a knock at the door.

  It was the rest of our group. Amanda, Roxy, and Ruthie marched in and started scoping out the beds. Behind them trailed Garabaldo, dragging three coffin-sized Louis Vuitton–esque trunks.

  “How did you miss Garabaldo, Jenny?” Amanda said. “She was sitting in the lobby, waiting for you guys.”

  The truth was, it was hard to recognize Garabaldo. She’d lost nearly forty pounds since the last time I saw her.

  “I guess I do look a little different.” She laughed, lunging toward me and smearing neon orange lipstick across my cheek. Giant tugboats dangled from her earlobes, slapping her shoulders whenever she turned too fast. Even with the weight loss, Garabaldo still managed to look like a rich widow from Boca Raton on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

  “Um, there are only three beds in this suite!” Ruthie shouted from the other room.

  Quickly, as if they were playing a game of musical chairs, Amanda, Ruthie, and Roxy threw their bags on top of a bed. Lucky for me, Simone was already topless and reading an Us Weekly in one of them.

  “Sorry, already occupied. Jenny? You’re my plus-one,” she said, not looking up but patting the spot beside her like she was summoning a lapdog.

  Ruthie grimaced and walked into the other room to share a bed with her sister.

  Before Garabaldo could saddle up next to Amanda, she was banished to the pullout in the living room.

  “I kick and thrash around all night. It’s best I don’t have anyone next to me,” Amanda said, taking Garabaldo’s things off the nightstand and handing them back to her.

  Once Garabaldo was ousted, the girls closed their bedroom door to smoke weed. The party hadn’t even started, and lines in the sand were already being drawn. We were like three separate tribes on Survivor: Amanda and the sisters versus me and Simone versus Garabaldo and whatever dead bodies she was hiding in her luggage.

  “I’m already bored and Garabaldo weirds me the fuck out,” Simone whispered as she popped a Percocet and a Tic Tac.

  “Look, once Veronica arrives, the whole dynamic is going to shift. She loves everybody and everybody loves her.” I texted Veronica and told her to meet us at the Mandalay Bay pool.

  The little research I’d done indicated that the cabanas at Mandalay were the best in town. Upon arriving, we quickly learned why.

  * * *

  “WHAT. THE. FUCK. Everybody is fucking naked!” Ruthie covered her face appalled as we approached the pool at the Mandalay. A lubed-up Latino escorted us to our cabana and took our drink order.

  “Two White Russians, and do you guys serve fries?” Roxy asked through bloodshot eyes.

  “What’s a White Russian?” Garabaldo said.

  “The best drink ever! Bring three. And onion rings,” Ruthie said.

  The thought of someone devouring a basket of onion rings and washing it down with a cream-based beverage paralyzed me with fear for a good five seconds. I ordered a water with lemon. Under normal circumstances, I love watching people around me get fat. But at a topless pool, it just seemed inhumane.

  Simone strutted off to the bathroom in six-inch heels and a bikini that screamed “cum on my face.” When she returned, her tits were out and flapping in the wind.

  “Am I the only one who’s gonna follow the rules here?”

  Ruthie and Roxy stared out from under their beach towel blankets in disgust.

  “These are great!” Garabaldo hollered, slamming back her first White Russian.

  Three hours and twelve White Russians later, Ruthie and Roxy were passed out; Simone was in the hot tub with three Australian dudes playing a game of “guess where my implant incisions are”; and Amanda was wandering around, asking if anyone had seen Garabaldo.

  “Hey, bitches!” a voice called out from behind. It was Veronica.

  “I just walked past a wasted chick floating in the deep end with only one eye open. Do you think I should tell someone?” she asked.

  Just then, the lubed Latino returned.

  “I’ll take a rum and Coke.” Veronica lit a menthol and took her shoes off.

  “I’m sorry, but we are going to have to ask your friend to leave,” he said to us.

  “I don’t think you can smoke—,” I started.

  “Not that friend, the one sleeping in the pool. She’s a liability.”

  On the other side of the pool, Amanda hung off the diving board, trying to prod Garabaldo awake with a net. Garabaldo giggled, half-conscious, bobbing up and down like a buoy. Her face was underwater now, save for one open eye blinking up at us like a crocodile.

  “That fucking mess is with us?” Veronica asked, ashing her menthol on a tray of finished drinks being carted by.

  Once we fished Garabaldo out of the pool, we hailed a cab and headed back to our hotel. “I think she needs her stomach pumped,” Ruthie said, trying to hold Garabaldo steady as we walked through the lobby. Her wet body slipped through our hands and slid across the marble floor as we made our way back to our suite. It was as though we were carrying an adult seal wearing eyeshadow.

  Amanda was annoyed and already bitching about how none of this would be happening if Sheri had planned her bachelorette.

  “My friends aren’t comfortable being nude in public, Jenny! No wonder Garabaldo got wasted. She probably didn’t know how else to deal with the pressures of being a whore.”

  “Look, we’re gonna go out to a nice dinner, maybe a club, do some gambling.” I tried to calm her down.

  “Having a bachelorette party is all about being a whore!” Veronica barked through a cloud of menthol smoke. “In Jersey, you’d all be covered in dick by now.”

  “Umm, I don’t think cigarettes are allowed in the elevator,” Amanda coughed, furiously pressing the button for our floor.

  “What the—! Jesus! Fuck! Are you kidding me?” Veronica shouted, reading a text off her phone.

  Simone shot me a look and mimed blowing her brains out.

  “What is it?” Amanda asked.

  “My fucking landlord is trying to get me evicted because of my cat! He’s a Persian so he’s extremely vocal.”

  “Your landlord?” Roxy asked.

  “My cat. My cat is Persian. My landlord is just some chink asshole.” She stomped her feet, causing the elevator cables to bounce.

  The doors opened, and two Asian businessmen stepped in. There were now nine people in the elevator. Three of whom were wet and two of whom I hoped didn’t hear the word “chink.” I debated jumping out, but we had over fifteen flights to go.

  As soon as the elevator started moving, the men realized they made a mistake—their intention was to go downstairs, not up. They exchanged a few unintelligible words under their breath and waited patiently as we continued to ascend.

  With barely enough room to flex her arm, Veronica scrolled through her phone and called her landlord.

  “Hi! What the fuck are you even talking about? Speak English! No, he’s not there alone! He has a sitter, and why the fuck are you peering through my windows anyway? Call the police! I dare you! Do it! I hope they arrest your illegal ass you stupid fucking asshole motherfucking chink!”

  The Asian men turned around in horror.

  “It’s a Jersey thing. They’ll all be friends again in twenty to thirty minutes,” I said, mortified.

  Then, Garabaldo opened her mouth and heaved up a thick layer of onion rings, White Russians, and diet pills all over Amanda.

  “Jenny!” Amanda screamed.

  “What am
I doing?”

  Before Amanda could blame me for Garabaldo’s intoxication, her digestive tract, and her lifelong battle with her weight, the doors opened on our floor.

  Desperate for air, we trampled over the Asian businessmen and ran to our suite.

  Roxy and Ruthie rolled a joint while Amanda jumped in the shower with entitlement, leaving Garabaldo and her vomit-encrusted body to rot on the sofa. Veronica stayed in the hallway, smoking and waiting for her catsitter to call her back.

  “Where would you rank this on worst vacations of your life…?” Simone said, trailing off as she noticed Garabaldo dog-crawl from the couch to the kitchenette in search of a snack.

  Everyone was miserable. The weekend was unraveling around us, and there was only one thing that could save it: male strippers. I Googled “stripper police officers” because, let’s be honest, firemen all have mustaches. Simone picked out the ones she’d consider getting fingered by and placed an order.

  Once Amanda was out of the shower, she asked Ruthie and Roxy to throw Garabaldo in and hose her down. The girls obliged. I peered into the hallway to check on Veronica, who seemed to be cooling off. She spoke to her sitter and all was well. She also pointed out that in the heat of her rage, she punched the fire extinguisher by the elevator and that if anything was broken, I’d need to pay for it. The crew assembled in the living room, and I laid out the plan.

  “We are going to dinner, doing a few craps tables, then coming back to the room for other surprises which will be divulged when the time is right,” I said. I was beaming with pride.

  “It better not be strippers,” Amanda smiled, clearly hoping it was strippers.

  * * *

  Dinner was uneventful—aside from the fact that we all donned penis necklaces—and it only helped to underscore the fact that our group shared zero common interests. Garabaldo was conscious again and already nursing her second post-throw-up White Russian.

  “These are totally my drink now!” She laughed as one of her false eyelashes crept down her face, giving her a stroke victim’s gaze.

  “So, who wants to know details about my future husband’s pee-pee?” Amanda said, dead sober.