Page 2 of Playboy For Hire

I spent the rest of the cocktail hour listening to all of Ashley’s grievances about Carina. I spent most of dinner trying to make her drink water and eat some solid food to balance out all the alcohol. Ashley loudly announced to our table how at least now that Carina had married boring, dorky, pathetic, bad-breath, balding Richard, they could all finally stop pretending to care about their relationship.

“I’ve heard male baldness actually correlates with higher testosterone levels,” I said, trying to diffuse some of the tension. The rest of our table was looking at Ashley with varying degrees of confusion, pity, and outright dislike. “So maybe it’s not such a bad trait.”

“Oh, please. If Richard had higher testosterone levels, he wouldn’t have settled for someone as fat as my sister.”

That statement was met with complete silence. Even I didn’t know how to rescue her. But Ashley just rolled her eyes. “Whoops, sorry. I forgot, we’re supposed to just say she’s ‘curvy.’”

She added air quotes and invested the word with heavy scorn. I sighed. You couldn’t expect to like all your clients, but it had been a while since I’d disliked one quite this much.

“I think your sister looks beautiful,” I told her.

She made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat. “Oh, come on, you don’t have to pretend.”

In the background, the maid of honor—Carina’s best friend from high school—was giving a toast.

“...knew from that first night when you told me how ruthless he was at Settlers of Catan that you were already head over heels for him. But it wasn’t until I saw you two in action, playing Ticket to Ride that I—”

“Oh, God, can you imagine actually seeing themin action?” Ashley groused. “Gross. He’s all spindly, I bet his dick isn’t even big enough to get inside her. Which is probably for the best, because her thighs would crush him to death.”

She stabbed her beef medallions angrily.

“...remember you calling to tell me you were going to a lecture on the Flemish brickwork in early rowhouse construction, and you never dreamed he’d propose—”

“I mean seriously, could she make them sound any more boring?” Ashley’s voice was loud enough that heads were turning at other tables. “I could do a better speech than this, and I don’t even like them. Carina should have madememaid of honor, but I guess you’re not supposed to upstage the bride at her own wedding.”

I was pretty sure I knew exactly why Ashley hadn’t been asked, and why Carina and Richard had opted not to have a wedding party beyond a best man and maid of honor. It was the same reason Ashley hadn’t been placed at one of the tables at the front, why we were sitting with some second cousins and Carina’s work friends. It wasn’t that Carina didn’t want Ashleyto upstage her. It was that Carina might strangle her if we were seated any closer.

I peered over at Ashley’s place setting.

“Your water glass is empty,” I said, relieved to have an excuse to stand up and get some distance. “I’ll go get you some more.”

“And another vodka soda,” she called out as I walked away.

I closed my eyes in frustration and resisted the urge to stage a public breakup, just to get out of here. She was a paying customer, and I didn’t want to do anything that would reflect poorly on the company. I just had to make it through a few more hours.

At the bar, I asked for two seltzers,novodka. I had a vain hope that she was drunk enough that she might not notice the lack of alcohol and actually drink some damn water. Her glass wasn’t empty because she’d drunk any of it. She’d just knocked it over while gesticulating wildly about how Carina and Richard looked like an elephant and a giraffe dancing together.

I turned and started back to our table, scanning for Ashley’s face. I hoped she might be eating some food, instead of just jabbing at it like it was a voodoo doll of Carina’s face. But Ashley wasn’t there.

My stomach dropped. Shit. Where was she?

She might have just gone to the bathroom, but somehow, I didn’t think I’d be getting off that lightly. No, she was probably making the rounds of other tables, sharing her opinions about the happy couple, or worse, making her way to Carina and Richard’s table, ready to—

An awful screech rang through the hall, followed by static, and I looked to the front of the room to see Ashley tromp up the small stage and wrench the mic out of the maid of honor’s grip.

“I’ll take that, thank you,” she said, though she was drunk enough that it came out more like, ‘L’taggit, sanku.’

Oh no. This was not good. This was very not good.

I hurried over to our table to set down the seltzers, then motioned at Ashley frantically to come back and join me. But she didn’t see me.

“G’deevnin, ladies and gentlemuh,” Ashley began. “‘N welcome to our sl’bratshun’v Carina n’ Rishar. Rishard. Rishdick. Ha. Rishdick s’good. S’why she’s marrenim anway. ‘Cause’es rish.”

You could have heard a pin drop in the hall. I was pretty sure I could hear the sound of my balls climbing back inside my body as my entire being tried to disappear. There was no good way for this to end.

“C’monnn,” Ashley complained into the microphone. “S’funny. Rishdick. Fishdick. Bet’s whatis dick looksh like anway. Lil shrimpy fishdick. Dis big.” She lifted her left hand and flicked her pinky finger up and down at the rest of the room.

No one said anything. I think we were all too shocked. The maid of honor was the closest person to Ashley, and could have made a grab for the mic, but she just stood there, eyes wide and horrified, hands laced together in fright.

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