Page 85 of Absinthe Dreams
We ended up, the six of us, on the back patio with our glasses – Alina and Cor in one hammock, Velina and Jessie-Lou in the other. Sandy and I leaned back in folding zero-gravity lounge chairs I had stashed against one wall in the garage. I’d gotten them a year or two ago to take to Greek Fest on a Memorial Day weekend to enjoy the music and dancing on the main stage without having to lie in the grass. My mom had come down for it and spent the weekend with me, and it had been nice. It had also been the last time I’d seen her. With everything going on, I was feeling more and more overdue for a visit.
The hammocks swayed, the girls in them laughed, and we all tried to let the alcohol we’d consumed win and numb the pain.
“Jesus Christ…” a booted foot kicked an empty wine bottle, and I opened my eyes, then immediately squeezed them shut against the bright morning sun. Tiny angry gnomes with hammers pounded on the back side of my frontal bone, sending throbbing shockwaves through my head.
“You look like us when we’ve tied one on the next morning.” I shaded my eyes and looked up at Chainsaw, who had his hands on his hips and was shaking his head.
LaCroix and Hex stood nearby.
“Why didn’t you tie one on last night?” Velina asked as Saint’s head came up over the railing at the top of the spiral stairs.
“We were planning funerals of our own,” Hex said and Saint got out of the way to let Bennie up.
“Oof, baby.” Bennie went around to Sandy on the other side of the patio hammocks. Jessie-Lou’s hand was hanging over the edge of hers on that side, her fingers tangled with Sandy’s.
“Right.” Chainsaw held a hand down to me, and I took it. He hauled me up out of my chair. I protested loudly, but he held me in his arms upright and said, “Let’s get you cleaned up and some aspirin in you.”
“Mm,” I half-groaned and half-whined as he led me into the house through the double French doors that still stood wide open.
“You gotta be more careful than this, baby,” he chastised gently. “Anybody could have come up in here while y’all were passed out, out there.”
“Then let’s move,” I said. “Somewhere out closer to everyone else. A nice place at the edge of the swamp on stilts like we talked about.”
He chuckled and got the shower going, leaning me against the edge of the sink and said, “Sounds good to me. We can start looking.”
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Hell yeah,” he said.
“Some place big enough for us, that everybody can come visit?” I asked. “Hangout?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I like the sound of that.”
“Me too,” I murmured and scrubbed my face with my hands.
He got me into the shower and cleaned me up. I didn’t throw up, but boy did Iwant to.
The guys cleaned up our mess, got each of their ladies through a quick shower and their hangovers, and each left one by one until it was just me and Chainsaw left.
“Make any progress last night?” he asked. I nodded and filled him in on how the wake would be held at Landry’s and that we’d decided to split the difference for Cypress’s parents and have a short, blood-family only service in a chapel up the road first.
“Cy would hate that, but he would knuckle under for his mamma and his dad. It’s a good compromise,” he said.
“He was their son, and Jessie-Lou said much the same thing. After that, they’ll bring him to Landry’s. We can party that night, celebrate his life, do whatever, and the next morning will be the procession to his final resting place. He wants to be interred at his family’s plot near the swamp. We figured we would get a memorial urn for the club, but that nothing needed to be in it. Jessie said she isn’t above stealing a toe or finger bone to put in it when they open up his crypt after a year and a day to shove everything back or whatever.”
Chainsaw chuckled at that and said, “She fuckin’ would, too. Hell, if his skull was intact, she’d smuggle it right out of there and carve it up pretty for the chapel’s altar.”
“She said something like that,” I agreed, and I winced as his laughter boomed out of his chest and sent the gnomes in my head into an angry tantrum at having been disturbed. I gripped my head and groaned, whining about the hangover gnomes.
Chainsaw asked, “Thewhat?”
“Hangover gnomes!” I repeated a little louder than necessary over their incessant banging in my head.
“Okay, the hangover gnomes, I got it,” he said, and he was trying so hard not to laugh at me, but failing fucking miserably. “You lie here,” he said. “I’m gonna get you something that’ll get you hydrated.”
“Thank you,” I mumbled and buried my face into my pillow.
He came back a while later with an electrolyte drink he had likely found in my fridge. Even though I hadzerodesire to drink it, I got it down and promptly collapsed back onto my mattress to try and sleep it off.
