Most Hated, page 14
“Okay, now that we’re all here,” announced Mariana, “I have a little surprise for everyone, if you could all follow me into the parlor, we can start!”
Start?
It took half an hour of stuttered film setup for us to actually follow her, and I regret to admit I had made it onto a second glass of champagne.
I couldn’t help myself. I would never get used to having all this good champagne on tap. My family used to get a nice bottle every big holiday, and we would savor it like it would light on fire if we drank too fast.
Once in the “parlor,” we were faced with a big table covered inP…erh. aps someone else might have guessed what was coming, but I did not.
“Sex Toy party!” screamed Mariana.
Please. People still do these? I knew it was her business, but I didn’t think … we would be faced with it.
There was a gasp of prudish shock from some of the other ladies that I didn’t know. Lexi squealed, “oh my god no way!”
Budgie laughed and picked up a bright red, translucent double-ended dildo that reminded me of sickly-sweet hospital Jell-O.
Nicole looked downright offended. Sabrina looked blank, which I guessed was her only alternative to pleasant. Well-trained in diplomacy and tact.
Behind the table, there were two girls in matching pink T-shirts with a heart logo. Employees of Mariana I gathered, from how the three interacted and huddled off camera. When one of them turned to close up a cardboard box, I saw that it was the business name and logo: Come Get Some.
The two girls got our attention by clapping—yes, clapping—and then the taller, thinner, uglier of the two said, “Hey ladies! Thank you all for showing up today, this is amazing to see everyone! Okay, first thing’s first, let’s all make a vow right here and now to be totally open! This is a judgment-free zone!”
She spoke in constant exclamation points, even without shouting.
“Right!” Agreed the other girl. “We’re all women trying to feel good, you know what I’m saying?”
She seemed too young to call herself a woman, and too immature to even notice that she was not sexually fulfilled without a little something extra. When I was twenty-one, which I assumed was around her age, I was still imitating porn and pretending everything felt shudderingly good. It wasn’t until Mick that I even had an orgasm. And even then, it took as much commitment, work, and as many learning curves as mastering trigonometry.
With a lurch, I had a vague memory of sharing that with Nicole at that awful bar.
Dammit.
If I said that, no doubt I said worse.
“But first let’s all start with a round of…”
The two of them turned to the server from the front hall, who had made her way in with a silver tray of glow-in-the dark pink shots.
“Wet Pussy shots!” the two of them exclaimed together. Mariana whooped with her arms in the air.
We all took one, and then the two girls—who were starting to remind me of the twins from The Shining—said, “to our pussies!”
When no one repeated it, they paused filming and told us we had to, for the toast.
“To our pussies!” we all said, but I made a sarcastic face when I said it, before miming a gag and then taking the shot.
Zoe paused filming for a second and approached Nicole. She showed her something on her phone and Nicole nodded. Once Zoe was out of the shot, we resumed. Nicole said, “You know Dahlia, you need to get more at peace with your body. After everything you told me the other night, it seems to me this party is perfect for you.”
She did not, it is important to note, whisper this.
“I—did I say something that makes you to think I’m not?”
“Wait, you didn’t black out did you?” Mariana piped up. “How collegiate-chic.”
“No, okay, I didn’t—I—why are you saying that?” I looked at Zoe who refused to make eye contact.
“If you want me to repeat it, it’s downright sad that you can’t get yourself to orgasm without a toy. A woman ought to know herself better than that, don’t you think?”
My whole body flushed a deep scarlet. Why did I tell her that?
It’s a job, she’s not your real friend, come up with something…
“Oh, maybe I could, but I can’t be bothered. Why reinvent the wheel? They made those things for a reason.”
I said it with a gesture at the front table.
It made everyone laugh, and Nicole gave a squint and a smile.
For the next three hours—three hours—we had to react as the girls demonstrated and talked about all manner of different ointments, creams, gels, and instruments of every shape, color, and kind.
The worst part was that most of the vibrators were called The Mariana followed by a roman numeral.
The last thing I wanted to think about when, well, you get the picture.
“This chocolate body paint is vegan for any vegans out there—or if you have a vegan partner!”
“This one has fifteen settings—whoa!”
“This one we love because it’s one hundred percent discreet. It looks like mascara, but—surprise! It’s a vibrator!”
“This one is called O, Baby! And it’s a tightener that I swear it’ll get your lady pocket tighter than it ever started out!”
A) Lady pocket was about the grossest thing I’d ever heard.
B) “Than it ever started out,” called to mind another inappropriate implication.
“This warming liquid is amazing on winter nights!”
“This cooling liquid is perfect for hot summer days and nights like this!”
Temperature didn’t feel like a real relevant problem to me.
“This one tickles!”
“These whips are also vegan leather…”
“These handcuffs are beyond and we have them in pink, black, and cheetah.”
It was endless, and we all had to laugh and squeal and rub things into our palms and wrists and feel things as they buzzed. Torture.
The big surprise for me was how much Sabrina played along. She wasn’t acting all aloof and disgusted but kind of curious. Budgie’s zingers were endless.
At the end the girls handed out forms we were supposed to fill out. It was a risk to put your name down on an order Mariana would certainly see. Nothing was so innocent that it wouldn’t be possible—and likely—for her to judge. She could say all she wanted that she was the most open-minded, she started this business because every woman blah blah blah, but there was no way.
I put down an order for an aphrodisiac pheromone perfume (that I had private hopes might work) and a pocket vibrator that seemed innocent enough but wouldn’t make me a puritan.
I was going down the list looking for anything else I could want, thinking how bizarre it was to throw a party where all your guests had to come buy something from you, when a man entered the room.
He was in a paisley button down and white, slim-cut pants. My immediate assumption was that he was gay.
“Girls, hello!”
What fresh hell…
“Sorry to crash ladies’ night, but I simply had to. Isn’t all this a hoot?” he said, feeling too familiar. “I hope my beautiful wife has shown you all a great time tonight, don’t forget to pick something out for your hubbies and boy toys!”
“What the…” I said out loud by accident. Only Sabrina heard me, and I could see from her tight cheekbones that she was resisting a smile. Budgie beside her had a look on her face that seemed, somehow to say, ah, another gay husband.
Afterward, we were all to mingle. While some of the women went up to the Shining Twins and asked them for details on products, I flew to the side of The Gay Husband, desperate to understand more about him.
Who was he, why was he her husband, did he think we didn’t know? Did he not know? Was I a bitch for naming him gay without knowing him?
Maybe.
He introduced himself to me by saying, “Hey, hi, hello! I’m George, look at you, what a great figure!”
Straight men don’t call it a figure.
“Thank you,” I said, taking another glass of champagne, and smiling at the girl serving it. “Your house is lovely.”
“Ugh, I know, mother decorated it. It’s such a perfect place for us, it makes me think of Paris in the twenties. I want to recline on a couch nude and have Picasso make a mess of me. You know what I mean?”
Wow, what even was this man?
“I say do it!” I said, leaning forward and then laughing. He cracked up.
“You’re a trip!” he said. “I like you! We could cause some mischief together,” and he gave me a wink and a side hug.
“How did you and Mariana meet?” I asked.
“I used to be in a band, and she used to come to our shows. That was about twenty years ago now.”
“A band? What kind of band?”
I thought of my own short-lived high school groupie days. Boys in skinny jeans with mediocre voices, when I earned street cred saying the lead singer was my boyfriend (and would be for a total of two weeks max).
“A cabaret band at this little jazz place down in the village. What a fun year that was.”
“A cabaret band, seriously? How cool,” I said, wanting someone else to be hearing the conversation.
“Yes, I’m having a bit of a fan moment with Budgie Verroye here, if I’m honest. It was my dream to work in theatre. Now I’m stuck in publishing, running one of the top fashion books in the world, but who cares when it’s not your dream?” He cracked up, and his voice reached pitches higher than mine could. “Got close though, working at that drag bar off 6th was heaven.”
Okay, I quit.
22
Zoe
Scheduling the group trip was a nightmare. Usually, the trip would be to a far-away lavish destination, but Nicole’s schedule didn’t line up with Budgie’s, and Mariana had a morning-show spot to film that further conflicted. Aleksandr needed to be close to the city for post-production he was doing on another project, so it was decided that since the Verroyes had a home in Nantucket and Nicole had committed to a luxe summer rental there, that would suffice. Close enough to buzz back to New York, but still a short plane trip away enough to allow for someone to get into trouble.
The first several hours of filming were spent on the walkthroughs of the compounds. The content felt like filming for HGTV, which was the last thing in the world she would ever, ever want to do. The best she could do was to force Budgie and Sabrina to point out different luxuries, but the most interesting edit she would get from that was to make them seem braggy and boastful of their wealth. Dull. People wanted to see the glam for sure, but it wasn’t the kind of barefaced manipulation she preferred. It was like playing checkers instead of chess.
And it had nothing to do with the fact that these women seemed over their beautiful digs, while the staff was relegated to the cheapest motels—literally Barnacle Bill’s Bed & Breakfast, which included no breakfast and barely a bed. More like a canvas bag of metal springs.
Mariana did a good job as usual. She made all sorts of faces behind their backs and tried to exchange a few words with everyone about Dahlia, who wasn’t being the bitch they’d hoped. Mariana had stepped into that role for sure. Dahlia was going to need to be something else. Zoe was thinking martyr, victim.
Oh, and maybe alcoholic. Former athlete—it would be perfect except for some reason she had the tolerance of a bootlegger unless they gave her a little something extra, like they had at Nicole’s bar.
Sabrina was also quite the lush, but it was far more depressing on her.
Nicole had rallied. She was, after all, how they got some of their biggest drama for the season. Not that they could use that until the end … they had to wait to use that.
Lexi was there as a trope and a joke. She was plugging her shit all day long. Paid sponsorship Lexi. Eye roll. She was in an athleisure phase, but give her time, soon she’ll have a sprinter van she got for free and be all hippied out in Joshua Tree.
The explosion with Sabrina and Lexi’s old Sugar Daddy had been solid too. It was good enough that Lexi’s “boyfriend” was a fat, ugly, rich, monster, but to find out he was a misogynist as well? It had been clutch to get him on board for the beach weekend. Didn’t think they were going to nab him.
Budgie was still comic relief. Her scenes at the theaters were good. They’d get that old, bored, Glee audience to watch for those. And all the desperate Broadway wannabes could hope for a clue as to what it was that the Great Budgie Verroye looked for. The audition scene they filmed with her had been great. She had been snarky and cruel, but in that likeable way that Budgie had. Which was perfect.
And Mick. Oh, Mick. He had unwittingly done his job beautifully. Dahlia hadn’t even begun to notice.
Aleksandr had finally texted one comment that indicated a modicum of approval.
Wow.
That was it. And Zoe knew she was on the right track.
23
Dahlia
The crew filmed me getting ready for Nicole’s dock party. Since Mariana had taken up residence in the guest house, I was in a room upstairs in the main building of Sabrina and Budgie’s incredibly bougie beach house. Their compound had better visuals than the hotel suite Mick and I were staying in. Budgie had described the property as a cottage, but … yeah, no. We had a beach house when I was a kid that served the opposite purpose. You had no choice but to call it a beach house, but anyone who visited would find that it was on a crappy beach and smelled like mildew and had bunkbeds for maximum sleeping capacity.
Mick and I had flown up and together listened to a funny podcast in the car to JFK; we were laughing, but we didn’t talk. That sort of summed up our lately.
Tonight, I poured everything in to trying to be beautiful.
We were told to dress beachy cocktail chic. I had bought a midi dress in a pale moss green color they called Delirium Green. It was feminine and sexy without showing off all the goods. The cut-out details flaunted my abs which looked phenomenal thanks to all those planks and star planks. I paired it with neutral heeled sandals and twist gold tone leather hoop earrings.
Sabrina shared her glam team with me and we went for simple and clean. My hair was styled long and loose and they used a technique I’d seen on Instagram to play up my lips. It worked—they appeared even pillowier than usual.
The whole look was working.
Perhaps I’d get a compliment on the internet for once.
As soon as I married Mick Irvine, the internet took to disassembling me into insult-able chunks.
She’s sooo not hot enough for him!
OMG he can do way way better than her.
She looks like a bitch.
She was clearly a gold digger … talk about jackpot. Classless.
Dahlia Irvine is a GOLD_DIGGING SKANK she ain’t even cute.
She’s had tons of work done.
She has money, why doesn’t she get some work done?
It was endless and all I had to do was exist. Well, exist and get the guy. They were shielded by the internet and its façade of anonymity. It’s not anonymous at all, in fact, given the right amount of time, wine and wrath, I could get to know them very well.
For example, Little Miss She was clearly a gold digger. Her name is Sara, and she is a single, living in Atlantic City, working as a server. In her Insta profile she describes herself as a dancer and a foodie (interesting combo). But that’s not all—she also notes that kindness is Key! With little emojis to match. Smile=Key emoji. When not posting photos of her thonged ass covered in sand in Cancun, she posts gym selfies with sideboob and thirst-trap captions. And it’s her fault I went through her Insta with a critical eye. She’s the asshole. Not me.
Mick matched my wardrobe mood. He was in a tan suit, white shirt with a Mandarin collar. He was wearing the sleek, shining chestnut loafers I bought him for his birthday.
He looked good. And all I wanted was to hug him, kiss him, and have him love me back. He still didn’t feel like the Mick I knew. He was distant, even when he laughed and joked with me.
You’d think I had cheated on him and he was trying to forgive me but couldn’t.
He kept telling me things were okay. He kept telling me I was worrying for nothing. Worse than that, I did not dare tell him I was worried about all the time he was spending with Regan. A lot of work stuff was changing with him, which would make sense for why they were together as much as they were. But still, something didn’t sit right. I was trying to say to myself that the discomfort came from the suspicion—and the suspicion could be wrong. But it didn’t matter, my instincts seemed to be kicking in.
And what do you do when you believe your man might be trying to leave you? Well, as easygoing and feminist as I’d like to be, as much as I’d like to say you don’t need to play games once you have committed your life to someone, I’m sorry I cannot say that. The truth is, you don’t act like a bitch, you don’t nag, you don’t call him out and scream at him until he admits it. You try to remind him why he loves you. You hope that you are still that amazing, transfixing, super fun girl he fell in love with, and he comes back to you, horrified and admits it because he can’t bare to know he’s hurting his sweet, sweet girl. And the best-case scenario is that you were wrong, and you needed to put a little pep back in your step.
Or? You nag him until he says, “Yes, okay, you figured it out.”
Neither gets you the guy. Not really. The only other option is that you be your awesome self, and he gets back to normal. Then of course, you never know for sure if he was cheating or not.
Ain’t love grand?
Moving on.
I had spent a whole lot of time smiling and being chill Dahlia with Mick right now. It was making me resent him for a whole rack of new reasons.
Once we were ready, we met Mariana, Sabrina, Budgie, and her friend Sam down on the dock. We would be taking the Duffy to Nicole’s rental property. I had never even heard of a Duffy but was curious.
It was an electric boat with a striped, fabric top, and a luxurious interior. The name on the rear read Watts of Fun. We all had to remove our shoes before boarding to protect the gleaming wood from scratches. Plastic flaps kept out the wind. It was outfitted with butter-soft leather (could it be real leather on a boat with open sides? It sure felt like it) and plush pillows. One out of place toss cushion read “What Happens on the Duffy Stays on the Duffy.” I didn’t suspect a lot happened on the Duffy, the cushion must have been a hostess gift.
