Eve Cantler is a Brooklyn-born writer and educator based in Washington, DC. Her work has appeared in Bethesda Magazine, WWPH Writes, and Best Small Fictions. She likes the feeling of pressing her wind-cold nose into her pocket-warm palm in winter, the taste of too much honey in her ginger tea, and standing at the edge of the ocean, letting the tide bury her feet in sand..

Hotdogs and Potato Chips

“Line each person up in order of who you’re closest with,” Marcia reads off the card. 

I wonder who will be last in line. I imagine the rest of the weekend unfolding like this: The Last Girl murders us each in turn until she is the First Girl, the Only Girl. I imagine Marcia in tears as The Last Girl grins, clutching a bloody knife in one hand and the decapitated head of her ultimate rival in the other. I imagine her telling Marcia it will be okay, she will take care of her. She is her closest friend now, after all.

“I’m not sure I want to do that one,” Marcia says, placing the card to the side. “You’re all my best friends. That’s the whole point.”

I frown slightly and take a sip of my wine. I would rather be strangled with a strand of Mardi Gras beads by a bloodthirsty bridesmaid than sit through the rest of this card “game.” It was Jenna’s idea, of course.

Just like it was Jenna’s idea that we all wear white and Marcia wears pink. I did not own anything white. I also did not go out and buy anything white, despite the many reminders Jenna sent in the group chat. So now I’m wearing an extra white top that Marcia’s cousin Chloe brought and a pair of Jenna’s white jeans. When I put on the jeans, I made a point of sticking my thumbs in the waistband and pulling outwards, emphasizing the space between flesh and fabric, as I asked if anyone had a belt. 

Even though Marcia is supposed to be the center of attention, Jenna is now holding court. She is holding a card with the instruction, “Go around the circle and tell us your favorite thing about the bride.” Instead of telling us her favorite thing about Marcia, she is telling us about an abortion she had when she was twenty-two.

Taking a pill to break up a small collection of cells in your uterus is neither transgressive nor interesting. When I get a cold, I take cold medicine, but you don’t hear me bragging about it. And you certainly don’t hear me saying that kicking a cold is my favorite thing about Marcia.

My favorite thing about Marcia is that when we were twelve, she threw a rock at Robby McIntyre. The rock hit him just above his eye and left him with a scar that cut right through his eyebrow. She got suspended for three days: two for throwing the rock, the third for refusing to apologize. I can’t remember what he’d done to warrant having a rock chucked at his face, but I know he deserved it.

In high school he would pick a girl at a party and keep giving her drinks until she could barely see straight, let alone get herself home. Then he’d offer to drive her. We didn’t really talk about what happened in his car. Partly because we couldn’t remember, partly because we didn’t have the vocabulary for it back then. He always said we wanted it and we knew better than to call a boy out for his lies.  

He got kicked out of college for pulling the same shit, only by then the girls he tried it on had grown up enough to use words like “consent” and “date rape.” The last I heard he was still living at home and he had a checkout job at some box store. I sometimes wonder if his female co-workers ever wake up with their clothes disheveled, not sure how they got home last night.

It will be my turn next. I don’t want to share the story about Robby McIntyre, or say anything else about Marcia, for that matter. The truth is that even though I’ve known Marcia since childhood, we’ve outgrown each other. We just happened to wind up in the same city. So instead of accepting defeat, we give in to the sunk cost fallacy of friendship, meeting up once a month to have the same benign conversation over bottomless mimosas.

Jenna is still talking. I’m starting to wonder if Marcia features in her story at all.

Glancing around the circle, I realize that I do not particularly like any of these women. The only exception is perhaps cousin Chloe. She’s a few years older than us and when we were kids she visited Marcia sometimes. I remember when we were ten and she was thirteen, we sat in Marcia’s backyard and Chloe taught us to tie cherry stems in a knot with our tongues. She said it would make us better kissers.

Jenna will not be able to talk forever, and when she is done, all of these mascaraed eyes will turn to me. It is time for action.

I tip my glass of wine forward, allowing the cheap merlot to spill onto Jenna’s white jeans.

When Jenna handed me the jeans, she warned me to protect them with my life. For a moment, I imagine it is blood from Jenna’s beheaded corpse splattered across the jeans. This thought makes me smile briefly, before I remember that I am surprised and horrified at what I’ve just done.

I leap up, pretending to be startled by my clumsiness. I turn toward the bathroom. I am still clutching my glass of wine as I lurch down the hall.

I can hear Jenna yelling something to me, but I have reached the bathroom and safely enclosed myself within its tiled walls. I don’t turn on the sink and I don’t attempt to clean the pants. Instead, I take them off and leave them in a crumpled pile on the floor.

I perch on the edge of the tub and take a sip of my wine.

I look up and notice a small window above the toilet.

I stand on the closed lid. The window opens, but not enough. The decorative soap dish next to the sink is made of carved stone. I use it to break the metal arms that limit the window’s movement. I lack the upper body strength to pull myself up on my own, so I step onto the back of the tank. This allows me to slide my torso through the open rectangle but leaves me balancing on the fulcrum of my hips, half in and half out.

Directly under the window is gravel, presumably to help with drainage around the base of the house. Just after the gravel is the beginning of a large grassy lawn. I pull myself forward slowly, aware that once my weight shifts too far, I’ll topple forwards. I need to do my best to reach the grass.

I fail and find myself falling straight toward the sharp stones. My hands hit first. Then, in a miraculous maneuver, I manage to tuck my head and neck, somersaulting the rest of my body onto the lawn. I say a silent thanks to my childhood gymnastics instructor as I rise.

I am not wearing shoes or pants. There are wine stains across my white top. My hands are cut up and bleeding. I begin to run across the lawn. I reach the road and must make a decision. I do not remember which direction leads to civilization. I turn right. The asphalt is hard against the soft soles of my feet.

After what feels like an eternity, I see headlights winking at me in the distance. I leap into the center of the road, waving my arms in large arcs. The car screeches to a halt and a confused and concerned couple emerges. They take in my clothes, the blood, the desperation in my eyes. They are certain I have escaped a serial killer or rapist.

I tell them it is so much worse than anything their imaginations can conjure up. I have been held captive in the confines of an over-priced rental house, forced to cough up even more money to help cover the bride’s portion. Yes, I nod grimly as I tell them, I am yet another victim of a bachelorette party.

They have a blanket in the trunk. They wrap it around me as they tell me in calm, sturdy voices that everything will be alright. They will get me to safety.

There’s a knock on the bathroom door. It feels like hands grabbing at my ankles, pulling me back through the window. I move cautiously towards the door. There’s another knock. I twist the lock and open the door just a crack. A hand slides forward, clutching a bottle of wine. I open the door farther. It’s Chloe.

She pushes past me. “Lock the door,” she commands. I lock it.

“You ruined my shirt,” she comments, as she twists the cap off the bottle. “I love my cousin,” she tells me, reaching for my glass. I hand it to her. “But I’ve never been closer to slitting my wrists.”

Chloe fills my glass nearly to the top, then hands it back. “Cheers,” she says, then takes a huge gulp straight from the bottle.

“The first time I met Jenna,” Chloe tells me, “was when Marcia brought her out to that summer house we rent on the beach most years. You’ve been, right?” I nod. “This bitch shows up for four days with three fucking bags of clothes, like big-ass suitcases, too. That was strike one.”

She takes another sip of wine. She’s already had most of it. 

“Then,” she continues, “this bitch goes and throws a hissy fit about the rooms. She says she has some sleep condition that means she can’t share a room with Marcia and she simply has to have her own bedroom. So my sister and I finally agree to trade with her just to shut her the fuck up and poor Marcia ends up sleeping on the floor, while Becca and I take the bed and little miss priss gets the other room all to herself. Strike two.”

Chloe chugs more wine. She is drinking it like it’s water and I have a brief vision of Chloe as reverse Jesus, turning the wine to water as it hits her lips.

“And then there’s the shit with Max.” Max is Chloe’s younger brother. “This fucking bitch has the audacity to go chasing after my baby brother right in front of me. Now I don’t give a shit if you wanna strut around in your little thong bikini with your tits hanging out, but you sure as shit don’t go shaking ‘em in my baby brother’s face right in fucking front of me.”

Chloe takes a deep breath. She’s been talking almost non-stop since she joined me in solitary confinement.

“Strike. Fucking. Three,” she tells me, clapping out these final syllables for emphasis. I notice her nails are long and sharp, like baby blue daggers.

I watch as Chloe tips the bottle of wine to her lips again. She keeps tipping until her head is all the way back and the bottle is perpendicular to the ceiling. She pulls it back from her lips and licks the last few droplets from the rim.

She sets the empty bottle on the ground and shoots me a conspiratorial grin. “Always be prepared,” she says as she opens the cabinet underneath the sink. Next to spare rolls of toilet paper are six more bottles of wine.

I swallow the rest of my glass in one long sip.

Chloe and I are drunk. There are now three empty bottles and we are halfway through a fourth. At some point in the past, near, far, who can say, there was a lot of knocking and shouting. Chloe and I hid in the bathtub and took turns pouring wine into each other’s mouths while we waited it out. As a result, we are both now very wine-stained.

I am infatuated with Chloe.

I have learned that she is married with two young children at home. She told her husband she would be coming to Marcia’s bachelorette this weekend, but she told Marcia that she needed to stay home with the kids. She booked a hotel room and bought a half dozen bottles of wine. Then Marcia’s mom called Chloe’s mom who called Chloe and said she could help with the kids for the weekend and Chloe’s plans came crumbling down.

I have also learned that Chloe is a CPA. I don’t know what a CPA is or what they do, but it has always seemed like a very boring job for very boring people and now I’m wondering if maybe I should be a CPA. Because Chloe is fun. And I want to be fun.

I am alone.

Chloe is passed out on the bathroom floor. I am between rounds of vomiting.

I am alone.

Chloe refers to all her female friends as “girlfriends.” Chloe and her girlfriends do wine nights, book clubs, neighborhood play groups. Chloe loves her girlfriends.

I don’t think I even like my friends.

Chloe’s kids wipe their boogers on her, take food off her plate, and pee everywhere except the toilet. She told me all of this like she was the luckiest person in the world.

I don’t think my friends like me.

I don’t know if anyone likes me.

I think I might be a selfish, unlikable person. 

I throw up again.

I think that’s the last of it.

I move to the bathroom door and press my ear to it. I don’t hear anything on the other side. I open the door slowly, pausing after every creak.

Finally, I step out of my self-imposed prison cell and tiptoe toward the kitchen. I am in desperate need of water and snacks.

I don’t know what time it is, but the house is quiet. They could all be out or they could all be asleep. I found a t-shirt with the words “Bride Tribe” scrawled across the front in cursive and I swapped it for the wine-soaked white shirt I’d been wearing. The shirt is surprisingly soft.

I found a bag of potato chips and a pack of hot dogs during my kitchen raid. I am alternating bites of refrigerator-cold hot dog with handfuls of crinkle-cut chips. It is a surprisingly good meal.

I should check on Chloe. I should get her off the bathroom floor and into a bed. I should get a pillow and a blanket and at least make her comfortable where she is. I should fill a glass of water and place it next to her. These are the things Chloe would do for me, probably. She is a mom, after all, and that’s what mothers do, right?

I eat another bite of hotdog and crumble more chips into my mouth. I am not a mom. The only instinct I have is for self-preservation. I know I should help Chloe, but I am drunk and tired and hungry and I don’t want to move ever again. I will live the rest of my life right here on this couch. I close my eyes.

When I try to open my eyes again, they are crusted shut. I wipe them and little flakes of dried gunk fall away. There is light trickling through the windows. It must be early morning. The open bag of potato chips is still next to me. I realize I am clutching a half-eaten hot dog in one hand.

“Oh, you’re up,” a voice next to me says.

I turn my head and see Marcia sitting on the other end of the couch. She is clutching her knees to her chest and her eyes are red and puffy.

“Do you remember the summer I got boobs?” she asks me.

I nod slowly. Marcia was one of the first girls in our group to hit puberty. I remember one afternoon that summer when it was pouring rain outside, so we were all holed up in her house. We spent the whole day alternating between watching movies and dressing up in her mom’s old clothes. While we were changing, Marcia showed us all her new bra. It was hot pink and had underwire and padding, the whole nine yards.

I was so jealous of her. Because of Marcia’s new boobs and new bra, I kissed Gavin Holbrook with tongue that summer. It was horrible. I remember thinking I’d rather have my dentist poking around with her metal instruments than have Gavin’s tongue doing that on the inside of my mouth. But I was the first one to kiss a boy and for a solid week everyone forgot about Marcia’s new boobs.

“That was the worst summer of my life,” she tells me. “It felt like all anyone did that summer was talk about my boobs. It was humiliating. Mammary Marcia. That’s what Felicity called me that whole summer. It’s not even fucking clever.”

I look down at the hot-dog half I’m holding. I really want to take another bite. 

“You were the only one who didn’t treat me any differently,” Marcia tells me. “You didn’t point or make comments in front of the boys or anything.”

I wonder if Marcia knows about Gavin, knows why I kissed him. Maybe this is an elaborate scheme to get a confession out of me? I decide to eat the rest of the hot dog.

“I think that maybe our friends were kind of shitty,” Marcia says. “I think that maybe I’m not very good at choosing friends.”

Marcia is about to break up with me. She’s upset because I spilled the wine, then locked myself in the bathroom during her bachelorette party. She probably saw Chloe on the bathroom floor. She knows I left her there. Marcia has finally realized that I am a bad friend, that I have always been a bad friend.

“Jenna is a fucking bitch,” Marcia says. I can see new tears tracing the tracks of the old ones down her cheeks.

I am unexpectedly relieved. I realize suddenly that I would be sad if our monthly brunches came to an end. I would miss the monotony of Marcia in my life.      

“I don’t know what I was thinking asking her to be my maid of honor. I don’t know what I was thinking even being friends with her for all these years. Can I have some?” Marcia gestures towards the package of open hot dogs. I hold it out to her. She grabs a now room-temperature hot dog and takes a big bite.

“No,” she says, still chewing. “No, the problem is that I do know why I kept her around all this time. She’s rich and I’m shallow. That’s all there is to it. You know all those vacations I went on with her? It’s only because she paid for basically everything. She would even pay to upgrade me to first class so she didn’t have to sit alone. I let her buy me. Oh god. I’m a horrible person.”

Marcia takes another big bite of hot dog. I shove some potato chips in my mouth and pass the bag to her. She copies me.

“God,” she says, showing me her half-masticated food. “This is actually a really good combination.”

Watching Marcia chew, I find myself asking a question I’ve somehow never thought to ask before: Is Marcia my best friend?

We have seen each other at least once a month, every month, for the last five years, since Marcia moved nearby to start working for that lobbying group. There is no one else I have spent as much time with. Not just in the last five years, but in my entire life.

“My favorite thing about you is that you threw that rock at Robby McIntyre,” I tell her.

She laughs, choking a little on hotdog and potato chip.

“My favorite thing about you is that you dumped wine on Jenna’s white pants,” she tells me.

I smile.

“Oh my god,” Chloe moans, emerging from the doorway and plopping down between me and Marcia on the couch. “I haven’t slept that well since I had Bella.”

Chloe turns to look at me and then to look at Marcia. “What are you eating?” she asks.

I hold up the half empty packages. 

“That’s fucking disgusting,” she says, pulling one of the hot dogs out of the package. She eats half of it in a single bite.