Page 26 of One More Chance
“I’m not his keeper, his shzoo keeper,” she slurred.
“Oh no, Lauren, how many glasses of beer have you had?”
“Jusht a couple.” Lauren swayed in the chair and smiled. “Come on, you stick in the mud. Loosen up and have some fun.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Lauren.”
“What do you mean?” she asked and poured both of them another glass of beer. The expensive craft beer was long gone, and Charlotte found herself enjoying the watery domestic beer.
“Freddie.”
“Oh, he’s a sweet guy, but he’s not for me,” Lauren replied, sipping her beer.
Charlotte eased back into her chair. Lauren had made one rash decision in her life, and while it had resulted in a beautiful daughter, that one night had changed the trajectory of her life. She smiled at her drunken sister, Lauren was no dummy and even in an inebriated state, she still managed to be responsible.
Charlotte leaned in close to Lauren. “Don’t look over there. But those four blonde women...”
Lauren immediately whirled around to look.
Charlotte grabbed her arm, “I said, don’t look. Do you recognize any of them?”
“How am I supposed to recognize any of them if I can’t look?”
She had a point. “Be subtle.”
Lauren turned slowly as if perusing the room and looked back at her sister. For a drunk, she was surprisingly adept at keeping things low key. “No.”
“You don’t think that’s Stacy?”
Lauren did a double take and then gasped. “Oh, my god. She looks haggard.”
“It took me a minute to see it too.” Clearly, small-town life had been hard on all the women. They were all sausaged into low cut shirts, love handles spilling over their skin-tight jeans. Their tanning bed skin looked like it belonged to women twenty years older.
“Do you think that they know who we are?” Lauren asked.
“Guaranteed.”
“Shit. I wonder if she’s still a bitch,” Lauren said, her eyes darted back to the table.
“Looks like we’re going to find out,” Charlotte said under breath.
