She looked from one pretty face to another. Girls with cupid lips and straight blond hair sat at tables next to their boyfriends, sweatshirted and careless. The band twanged on but the foot of floor space was nobody's excuse for a dance floor. She wandered downstairs, past the band, through the outdoor patio and back upstairs. Where was everybody?
She turned and saw her sister at the bar. She walked over and watched her sister lean over the bar, toward her new friend. She had agreed to meet him here with his friends tonight. Debbie had reluctantly agreed to accompany her sister.
"Can't he ask you for a date? You shouldn't be meeting him at a bar," she told her younger sister.
"I don't see what's wrong with it," said Nicole, another sister who was twenty years old, going on thirty, and returning to twenty, all at once.
It was Nicole's zebra-striped dress that Debbie was now wearing.
"Don't ruin it," Nicole warned. "Why are you being so careful?" she then asked, observing Debbie's hesitation to sit down.
She paced the floor, unable to sit on the couch for fear Nicole would see the tightness of the dress as it pulled across her hips. The attire in Newport was casual but Debbie insisted on wearing a dress.
"When in Rome, do as the Romans do," Sherri quipped.
They stood in line. Sherri had asked Debbie to pick up some lotion. Now she was putting it on her legs.
"Don't do that here. That's gross," Debbie reprimanded.
"It saves time. Driving is a waste of time when you could take the subway to work instead and read. Live a little."
This last infuriated Debbie. She wanted to punch her sister out, right here in the grocery store. No wonder I had no esteem when I lived at home, Debbie thought. It was a good thing Sherri went to get the car, leaving Debbie to smolder in line by herself. Ugh. She couldn't stand her.
"We're late. We were supposed to be there at six o'clock."
"What difference does it make if we're fifteen minutes late? It will get him going." Debbie said.
"Last time, he didn't think I was going to show up."
"You're meeting him at a bar in Rhode Island. It's like you're going after him. We're all the way in Connecticut."
Now she stared at her sister's face. Sherri smiled slowly and seductively at her "date." She leaned toward him. The three of them left the bar. His two friends had disappeared in the crowd. When, at last, the two sisters had met them at the outdoor deck, exactly one hour late, his friends, upon seeing her dress, had appeared crestfallen. Right away, Debbie knew there was nothing to talk about. She found the effort to force conversation among strangers infinitely tiring after being everything to everyone all week long at the office. They had a short discussion about hot drinking spots and hot drinks.
Sherri and her date suddenly swung their arms together, hand in hand.
Was it the vodka? It could be blamed on a full moon? Or, was it PMS? Job burnout? In the next second, something inside Debbie snapped.
...Uh-oh! But you're going to have to wait. Again! What was really going on here? In Debbie's pretty little head? Something between the sisters? What dynamic is really at work here? If you are able to read between the lines, you will see the real cause of Debbie's internal strife. Until next time, Denise.
