“It’s the one thing Bitchette didn’t steal from your wedding. I had a kick a-s-s bachelorette party planned and when the s-h-i-t hit the fan six months ago, I pivoted to an anti-bachelorette party. So turn that car around and get your cute a-s-s back here.”
Rasha loved a good party but she seemed particularly invested in tonight’s festivities. Which meant one thing. “You got strippers, didn’t you?”
Rasha was silent, giving Liv her answer.
“I told you I didn’t want strippers.”
“You also said that you were going to marry George Michael when we were in middle school, and in high school you said you wanted to join the Peace Corps, you say a lot of things.”
Rasha was the yin to Liv’s yang. She was the storm to her calm. She was the wild to her tame. In school, no one had understood their relationship. Liv was a quiet bookworm who was the textbook definition of a wallflower. Rasha was bold, confident, and Regina George popular without being Regina George mean. At least not to anyone who didn’t deserve it.
“You need to see a p-e-n-i-s, one that’s not the J word’s.” Rasha refused to say Liv’s ex’s name aloud. She said that it was like Candyman, and she feared that if she spoke it three times he would appear. Instead, she used the first letter like it was a curse word. “When is the last time you saw a man’s d-i-c-k that wasn’t attached to that d-i-c-k?”
“Last week,” Liv replied.
“Last week?” Rasha did not seem convinced.
“Yep. I watched Gone Girl and Ben Affleck has a full nude shot.”
“I mean p-e-n-i-s in real life.”
A long time. Too long. Even before she and Jordan had broken up, it had been a while. Thankfully, before she had to admit just how long, her phone vibrated.
Liv glanced down and saw that her grandfather’s nurse was calling. “Rash, I gotta call you back. Anna is calling.”
“Come home!” her bestie pleaded as Liv clicked over and answered the call.
“Hey Anna, how’s Gran—”
“Everything’s fine!” Anna cut her off.
Liv’s stomach dropped. She knew something was wrong. She could hear the tension in the caretaker’s voice.
“What happened?”
“Your grandad is resting now.”
“Okay.” Liv tried to remain calm as she looked for an exit. There was no way that she was going to turn the car around for an anti-bachelorette party, but if her grandad needed her, she’d drive over the median to get to him.
“Well, I had to leave for a few hours. Javier collapsed on the job site and was taken to the hospital.”
“Oh no, is he okay?”
Javier was Anna’s husband of forty years. They’d just celebrated their anniversary the weekend before. Liv had gone to the party with her grandad and the two had stayed much longer than she’d expected because he was having a good day. On a bad day, they wouldn’t have been able to attend at all.
“Yes, it was just exhaustion. He worked so hard on the house renovations for the party and he overdid it. They ran a lot of tests and released him.”
Javier was one of the hardest working people Liv had ever met. He’d worked three jobs to put all four of his and Anna’s kids through school. And even though he was in his late sixties, he still worked construction full time. He’d completely renovated their kitchen, bathroom, and backyard so it would be ready for the anniversary party.
“Your mother stayed with him while I was gone.”
Liv’s mother, Meredith St. Claire, was a last resort sort of person. Even though she lived in the guest house which was in the backyard and was, for all intents and purposes, a responsible adult, she was only ever called upon if there was absolutely no one else. It was better than leaving him alone, but only slightly.
“What about Mary?”
Mary Mathers lived next door to Grandad and had helped out by staying with him an hour here or there over the past year.
“Mary’s granddaughter surprised her this weekend. They were at the spa.”