Page 19 of Forecasting the Forward

Becca sighs. “He said he thought the dog would like it. It wasn’t even a park they went to. It was just the park closest to the vet’s office. The entire debacle was so bizarre.”

“Wow. My bad dates pale in comparison,” I comment.

“Oh please, make me feel better. Tell me a good one,” Becca says with a laugh. I’m tempted to make one up on the spot just to keep her happy, and to keep her hand enclosed in mine, but then I remember the worst date I’ve ever had.

“In college, we did a lot of group dates. Some of the guys weren’t as outgoing as me, and they liked the group concept better. I was cool with it, because I can have fun anywhere. Didn’t matter to me if it was me and a girl or fifteen of us hanging out.”

“You, extroverted? Shocking,” Becca says dryly, making me squeeze her hand.

“I know. I’m as surprised as you. One night, there were five guys and seven girls. We’d driven over to Lake Michiganwith a ton of beer. I honestly can’t remember how we got the beer, because we were all underage, but Ann Arbor is a big sports town, so we probably just got it without being carded. By dinnertime, we were all pretty toasted. One of the girls suggested truth or dare, and brought out a couple bottles of whiskey.”

Becca’s face screws up in disgust. “Twenty-year-olds drinking straight whiskey? And after all that beer? This is going to end badly.”

“You are correct. Anyway, it started off with stupid dares, but everyone had to take a shot of whiskey, no matter if they chose truth or dare. After a couple rounds, we all got a little more … daring.”

“Is there any online evidence of this night? If I Google your name and Michigan, am I going to find a picture of your bare ass or something?” Becca asks.

“No.” I pause. “At least I don’t think so. But if you want to see my bare ass, I’m more than happy to show it to you.” I reach for my belt dramatically, but Becca bats my hand away. “Damn. I do enjoy a good mooning.”

“In this city, you will make it onto the news if you show your butt on a major downtown road,” Becca says. She’s probably right. I’ve been on the news, and on trashy websites, for much smaller offenses.

“Well, the girl next to me dared me to strip down with her, then go stand on a couple of old wooden pilings from a broken pier and sing some stupid song she liked, but don’t ask me what song, because I didn’t even know what it was then. So off we go, dropping clothes along the way. About twenty feet from the pilings, I realize I really don’t feel well. I’m not even looking at her. I’m thinking about how the two pilings we’re supposed to climb onto have morphed into six, and they seem to be swaying.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yeah. Somehow I climb up on the stupid thing, but she can’t get up on hers. She wants up on mine. These damn things were like six inches across, and I have big feet. I tell her I’ll help her up onto hers. I reach down and grab her arm, hauling her up and basically tossing her over to the other piling. I still don’t know how she managed to land on it, but she did.”

“I doubt I could do that sober,” Becca murmurs. “So then you sang?”

“Nope. I took one look at her and projectile vomited all over her.”

“You didn’t!” Becca shouts, then slaps a hand over her mouth. “That is not where I thought the story was going!”

“What did you think I would say?”

“I guess that one of you fell and injured something, so a trip to the hospital ended the evening. I never thought you’d vomit on her.”

“It’s not like I did it on purpose,” I say, defending myself. “Does it make you feel better to know that she then puked on me?”

“Actually, it does.”

“You’ll probably also enjoy knowing that everyone forced us to sit in the back of a pickup truck for the ride home, because even with the lake there and attempting to wash off the puke, we both still stunk.”

“That’s really not that bad of a thing.”

“Do you know how far Ann Arbor is from Lake Michigan?” I ask.

“Isn’t Ann Arbor pretty close to Detroit?” Becca asks.

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you go to Lake Erie? That would have been so much closer.”

“I’m aware of that. I suggested it. The girl I puked on was the one who complained about how ‘disgusting’ the beaches near uswere, and suggested we traipse two and a half hours across the state to go to Lake Michigan.”

“I’m not sure which one of us had the worst date. Me or her,” Becca says with a breathy laugh.

“Hey! What about me?” I ask with fake anger.

---