The Bachelorette Party - a group of friends gather for a snowy bachelorette party on New Year’s Eve, but simmering tensions soon lead to disaster and before the weekend is over, someone is dead.

ONE
• January 2 •

The quiet in the room is the most deafening sound I have ever heard, the way I’d imagine the swelling of an avalanche to ring in your ears, the rush of it taking you by surprise before it wipes you out. We all stare at her, lying on the floor, taking in her features and flaws in a more complete way than any of us ever had before, as if we’d all been bidden to memorize every detail of her for an eventual exam. Her cheeks are flushed, and a bit of foamy saliva leaks from her open mouth.

It’s shock, I know, that both compresses and magnifies our silence, and once it wears off we’ll be a huddle of basket cases, each one looking to the other for a reason, for a fix to the crisis that literally lays before us.

Arlen is the first of us to make a noise, and it’s entirely unexpected issuing from the cool, composed woman I’ve come to know in the last year or so. In the back of my mind I thought she’d be the first to speak, to whisper a hushed “what the fuck” under her breath before she composed herself and began cataloguing everything that needed to be done and what order it needed to be done in. But the wail that seeps from her mouth, slowly and tentatively at first, then becoming atomic in its density, is one that, prior to this exact moment, I would never have thought her capable of making. It’s bestial, unnerving on its own but when paired with the reason for its existence and volume, it’s terrifying.

At first glance nothing seems amiss. All the champagne flutes and wine glasses are littered around the coffee table, most of them still containing varying levels of alcohol. A haphazard pile of sandals and flats lay beside the front door in our collective effort to maintain the sparkling clean we arrived to; our first encounter with Mazza told us we’d better not leave any semblance of a mess lest we incur her undoubtedly self-righteous wrath. If not for the body and the blood, the scene would be something out of a romantic comedy starring Rachel McAdams and Adam Brody - the girls night that got a bit out of hand but a good time was had by all. The helium had gone out of the penis balloons and a rainbow of flaccid latex dicks lay smattered across the dark oak floor. Dicks all over the ground. The mark of a great night-before.

It was grotesque, all of these symbols of a fun night surrounding her body. Mocking her. Tainting her. She didn’t deserve that.

Arlen has gone from full-on screaming to silent yet heavy sobs, while the rest of us finally begin to comprehend what lay before us.

“What happened?”

TWO
• December 30 •

10:10 a.m.

The plane hasn’t even reached cruising altitude before I start deeply regretting my decision to even come to this thing. Frankly, the regret started before I boarded the plane. Before I left my apartment at the ungodly hour of 4:30 a.m. to make my flight. Before I started packing for this trip. If I’m being brutally honest with myself (something I despise doing), it started the moment I touched that ivory envelope on that unnecessarily heavy card stock. It was bragging card stock, every ounce of it screaming out Look at me! Do you feel how heavy I am?! My magnanimous heft laughs at that silly birthday card from your Aunt Ellen, those pitiful business cards you just ordered online. They all pale in the wake of my beatific weight!

I’d been expecting this. The wedding invitation arrived two months ago, so I knew that this particular invite would be making its way to me shortly - but that didn’t mean I wasn’t still trepidatious when it arrived. Not hands-shaking, breath-rattling, palm-sweating anxiety, all of which I know very well; just a mild apprehension that made the tips of my fingers twitch and itch. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get out of it. I could claim a work conflict but, knowing Paige, she’d contact every single person at the agency and ferret out my lackluster excuse. Even if it were actually true, she’d undoubtedly finesse her way into getting me out of it. And despite my reluctance, I want to be there for my friend. I want to celebrate this huge life event with a woman I’d known since we were fourteen years old and talking about how much we fucking loved Gwen Stefani’s pink wedding dress when she married Gavin Rossdale.

So now I’m in seat 14A. Shit, at least it’s a window seat. Not that I necessarily want to gaze out the window - the flight from San Francisco to Mammoth isn’t exactly riveting - but I can prop my head against the plane wall with my sweater-cum-pillow and try to make up for waking up at… I can’t even remember. 3:30? And getting any semblance of rest before I see the girls, before seeing May, will make the weekend that much more bearable. Or, at least it will make me a better actor. Thank God Daph will be there; I was so worried she’d beg off, citing the baby. Jesus Christ. The baby. Like The devil or The Manson Family. It’s Stella. Stella. Stella. Not the fucking baby. All of a sudden, at 30,000 feet, I find myself wishing that I had a baby, for the sole purpose of missing this weekend’s festivities. Hey, people have had children for far worse reasons throughout the history of mankind. I’m not saying I wouldn’t love it, just that I needed it for a certain purpose as well as you know, loving it and being proud of it and wasting all my money on feeding and rearing it.

But that’s almost literally insane, to begin wanting offspring on your way to a bachelorette party solely for the purpose of getting out of that same bachelorette party. A bachelorette party for one of my dearest friends at that. My trepidation had nothing to do with Paige. In fact, any fractal of excitement I feel going into this weekend centers around Paige and Daph, and Arlen was always a good time. And I was beyond thrilled for Paige and Derek, who’d been dating since senior year at Dartmouth and loved one another in a way that made a cynical bitch like me sick, even after all these years; theirs was the kind of compatibility that would make anyone gag if it weren’t so genuine.

No, this anxiety was mostly about spending an entire weekend orchestrated by May. The two of us had only been in each other’s company a handful of times over the ten years that have passed since graduation day. Paige knows to keep the two of us in separate boxes whenever possible, and the gauntlet of activities that lead up to the wedding day was not one of those times.

It was an instant and totally mutual dislike when Paige introduced me to her sophomore lab partner; May was the most obnoxiously loud Type A princess I’d ever encountered and I couldn’t comprehend why Paige, one of the most laid-back tree-huggers outside of Maine, wanted to be around her. After working hard to impress Paige’s existing social circle for a few weeks, an obvious and silent plea to be admitted as a Real Friend and not just the Lab Partner, May’s overextension and desperation changed, at least when it came to how she treated me. I hadn’t fallen for her carefully crafted false charm and she knew it. Soon after meeting that first time she took to sneering at me through chemically-whitened, gritted teeth whenever Paige and Daph weren’t paying attention.

And now she’s the Maid-Of-Honor-Zilla. A complete monster about planning and booking and scheduling and FYI, per my last email... Out of all of Paige’s closest friends, May being named the MOH makes the most sense and it was a selection the rest of us hadn’t really craved anyway. But holy shit was May a nightmare to deal with, even more so when she received her bridal party title and was suddenly the Queen of Spain. Barking orders. All caps emails about downloading some work-sharing app so she could more efficiently communicate her never-ending Pinterest-inspired ideas and “revelations”. That’s what she called them. Revelations. Oh my god you guys, I’ve just had a revelation. What if we do sparklers instead of throwing rice?! Oh so subtly charming Maggie when Maggie suggested we look at some more affordable options for the bridesmaid dresses. What a great idea, Maggie! Thanks for suggesting. We should definitely include some less desirable options on our fitting day. That’ll be such a perfect way to showcase how much more elevated Paige’s dress will be. Wonderful idea, Mags! Like Maggie was a peon for not wanting to shell out for a Vera Wang dress she’d never wear again.

We’d completed most of the pre-wedding rigamarole already - the engagement party, the dress fittings, the cake tasting - but this would be the first (and thankfully last) event fully orchestrated by May from start to finish. And it would last for seventy two hours. The cake tasting day had been only four hours of May and I pretending we didn’t want to suffocate one another in the buttercream frosting and I almost keyed her car when the day was over.

Seventy two hours. Three days of tastefully curated, precisely planned, carefully honed, good old fashioned fun.

That word. “Fun”. It bounces around in my head as the pilot announces our initial descent. In college, May’s idea of fun was drinking mimosas while we wrote term papers. While the rest of us were downing shots of what basically amounted to pure ethanol, she was drinking fucking mimosas. In hindsight, and as a thirty-something woman, the thought of sipping a mimosa while getting some work done sounds delightful, but at twenty-two, it was nearly sacrilegious. Who even has freshly squeezed orange juice in their mini-fridge at that age? She drank out of champagne flutes while the rest of us were still in a red solo cup phase. It sounds amazing now, but back then it was just one more thing that made her unbearable.

I’m sure this bachelorette party would be the adult version of mimosas and term papers. Demure, pretentious. The opposite of fun. When we were teenagers, Paige and I would giggle relentlessly as we talked about our dream bachelorette weekends. Paige was adamant, even then, that if there weren’t at least four different kinds of dicks-as-decor, the entire party would be a bust. Even in high school, neither of us having even seen a dick in real life, we knew that a dickless bachelorette was worthless.

****

I square my shoulders as best I can against the lumpy fabric of the airplane seat behind me, take my plastic cup of gin off the tray table and put it in the upright and locked position, downing the dregs of the spirit with as solemn of an oath as I’m capable of. I will make the best of this. I will be on my best behavior. I will make sure my friend Paige has a bachelorette party to remember. I will not murder, attack, or otherwise maim May.

THREE
• December 30 •

11:37 a.m.

“Biiiiiitttttcccchhhhh!!!”

Daphne’s customary greeting, yelled at full volume, causes a lot of confused sideways glances, narrowed eyes from parents with young children, and magnificent eye rolls for a pair of teen girls. I’d always hated the term of endearment, the way she said it like “beach”, but I was too glad to see her, too glad that becoming a parents hadn’t shut off her bad mouth valve. The last time I saw her was last year at her baby shower in Chicago when she was seven months along. Paige and I (May had been invited, but must have known it was just a courtesy invite since I’d most definitely be attending) arrived to find a 5’0”, heavily pregnant Daphne amongst a venue decorated, frankly, like a bachelorette party. Vulvas everywhere, vulvas as everything: vulva cupcakes, vulva balloons. A vulva gift bag full of condom, tampons, and mini bags of designer coffee, with a tag that read Since I won’t be needing any of these for a little while!

My point is that I shouldn’t be too surprised that motherhood hasn’t tamed her mouth.

“Yes bitch,” I reply, at a normal volume, knowing she’ll loath my nonchalance and will roll her eyes even harder than the Gen Z teens just had.

“Aaaaand, there it is. Always the coolest girl in school. How’ve you been girly? How was the flight?” She asks, even though we had spoken just this morning and text constantly.

“Good, good. Any flight that lands when and where it’s supposed to is a good flight. You? Did you end up having to pump on the plane?” I say, subconsciously recognizing that her chest is HUGE - it hadn’t been so evident when she was pregnant since her belly was so fucking massive (her words), but now that most of the baby weight had been shorn (through vigorous dieting, I assumed), it was incredibly hard to ignore.

“No, but I’ll probably have to when we get to the lodge. And stop staring at my tits, you’ll give me a complex,” she says, laughing. God I’ve missed her. “What time does their flight get in?”

Paige and May were flying in from Big Sur; they’d been down there checking the wedding venue for the final time - a beautiful ranch-style compound full of eucalyptus and soft afternoon light. I can’t express how glad I was at not having to fly in with May from San Francisco. A short flight, to be sure, but so many violent things can happen in forty-five minutes.

Maggie’s flight was getting in around the same time (she was flying in from Miami after visiting with her grandmother), and the three of them would meet us to get the rental car.

“Noon, I think. We’ve got some time to kill. Feel like catching up over lattes?”

“You read my mind, girly,” Daph says, softly touching my shoulder. However sarcastic and caustic we can get with one another, it’s all just a sign of affection, even if these more sincere moments are fewer and farther between.

****

We’re making our way through chocolate croissants when the bell to the front entrance tingles. All the way in the back, the two of us couldn’t see who had come in, but we heard the cry of the banshee as soon as the bell stopped sounding.

“Aaawww, what a quaint little establishment. I wish we had places this quiet in San Francisco!”

May had said it as a compliment; it was anything but. She loved shoving condescending words into otherwise innocuous sentences. “Little” means unpopular. “Quaint” means old as fuck. “Quiet” means if this place is so great why is nobody who’s anybody here? Words chosen very carefully to let everyone know that she was above them. What a cute little shop! I’d love to come here more often but I always end up at Sam’s in the end! Tee hee hee hee hee. As much as we loathed one another, I had to admit her condescension was always expertly done: so subtle you might only notice it’s there if you’re looking for it. She was raised by WASPS, and had used her childhood to carefully take in exactly how a white woman of means and opportunity should speak to people that were not white men and women of means and opportunity. She was even more adept at it than the generation that came before her, using her status as a millennial to “know better” - she has the appropriate amount of friends of color, a particularly selected lesbian couple as her best friends with kids, an intersex trainer. Most people look at May as this beacon of what it truly means to be a 21st century woman, an ally, but I know that deep down, it’s all for show.

A trio of women makes their way through the narrow cafe, essentially a cramped hallway full of mismatched table and mismatched upholstery. May leads the group, followed by Paige and a woman I’ve met a few times during the pre-wedding gauntlet; it’s clear by the tightening between her eyebrows that Maggie still isn’t used to May’s presence. I knew I liked her.

But I’m mainly focused on Paige, and the sight of her loosens the knot in my chest that I’ve had for the days leading up to this weekend. Sure, I didn’t want to come, but she looks so god damn happy - to see her friends, to be getting married, to be in Mammoth for New Year’s - that for the first time I’m immensely glad that I ignored that shitty little voice in my head (the one I usually listen to no matter what) and packed my bags. She’s wearing layers and despite the sweat beading at her temples - no doubt a combination of racing from the airport to the cafe and the too-high heat of the cramped building we’re in now - she looks fantastic. Sometimes in movies and tv shows you hear a woman say of her undeniably beautiful friend, “if I could hate one thing about her it was just how astonishingly beautiful she was.” Or some bullshit like that.

Women don’t really think that way. Shit. I shouldn’t generalize. Lots of women don’t feel that way. Personally, I love having beautiful friends; who doesn’t like to look at pretty things? And I’m firmly of the belief that all my friends are attractive - even May has a Patrician beauty that I’d love to ignore completely.

“Dude. I’m so fucking glad you decided to come.”

I hadn’t told anyone, especially not Paige, about my hesitation in coming, but she knows. And I know she’d know, which is part of the reason I came. In life you always end up having that friend that

“Wouldn’t miss it for a thousand Sour Patch Kids,” I said, bringing a smile to Paige’s face with the phrase. When we were kids, our shared love of Sour Patch Kids was one of the things that bound us together, back when something as superficial as a favorite candy could make two people love each other. I liked the classic, she preferred watermelon. But we both agreed, at some point, that no matter how deep our love for the candy could get, we would always love one another more. It was at that point we decided that we’d limit the phrase to a thousand Sour Patches, because a million was just a disgusting amount of sugar, let alone the damage that one million scratchy sour candies would do to the roof of your mouth.

“Aaww, I’m so glad you two still use that little phrase with each other!”

I ignored May completely. Besides, she was lying her ass off. Our inside joke had always rubbed her the wrong way, upset her that Paige and I had a past that she would never be a part of. Instead I turned to May, who had just finished giving Daph a perfunctory hug; she still wasn’t totally comfortable with all of us, but I admired her for trying. It seems incredibly hard to jump into an established friend-group by your lonesome, and she was doing a pretty good job at being charming and likable while not pushing it too far. Being yourself tends to pay off.

“Hey!” She says to me, quite genuinely, and I’m hit with another wave of relief that I made the journey today. By the time we hug, my reservations have fully dissipated and I’m wholly glad to be here, amongst these women that I love and like, and one woman that I’ve decided I can handle for a small amount of time. And Arlen will be meeting us at the cabin, giving me one more reason to be absolutely thrilled with my being here. I decide to be as good a friend as I can possibly be, and do what I know Paige is hoping I can muster the sanity to do.

“Hey May. Good to see you.”

She’s slightly thrown off by the lack of disdain in my voice, but receivers quickly, and it’s clear she’s doing her best as well, doing her best for Paige’s sake. At the very least we have that in common.

“You too, Kee. How was your flight?”

“Pretty good, all things considered. Nice and quick.”

Kee. For some reason I’ll never understand, May is the only one who has a nickname for me. Whether it’s pejorative or some weird term of endearment I don’t know, but she’s been calling me that since we met freshman year. Even though our relationship had never been anything but adversarial, for some reason I’ve always kind of liked that she calls me that. It breaks the ice a little more, and we give one another a perfunctory, taught smile before looking away from one another. I can see that it’s not just me who’s on her best behavior this weekend.

****

Picking up the rental car was quick and painless, as May had already booked a car. A Land Rover, super appropriate for the terrain, with just enough room for the four of us and our bags. Paige decides to drive, with May sitting shotgun with her phone in Maps mode.

We pile into the car after stashing our luggage in the back, Daph and I taking the back seat. The first couple of minutes of the drive are spent navigating our way out of the rental lot, and then we’re on the road. It shouldn’t take too long to get there, maybe twenty minutes. May and I haven’t been in an enclosed space together like this since senior year of college, when our late exams forced us to take the bus to the airport at winter break, after the rest of the girls had already left for home. We sat together, both agreeing (for once) that it would just be too weird not to, and rose the entire way in silence. It was one of our better interactions.

The drive takes us through the small town, kind of like a downtown Mammoth area, where we get glimpses of all the shops and restaurants. I’ve never been here before, and from the way Paige described this place I thought it was much more rustic, more… hillbilly? If that’s not too offensive of a term to use. I envisioned that the only vehicles around would be logging trucks and old Chevys, maybe one general store and a post office or something.

But it’s actually quite charming, quite more built up than I presumed it would be. There’s a movie theater, a Vons, even a Starbucks, all surrounded by cute little small businesses and what looks like a a gondola that probably goes from the village up to the slopes.

We spend the first few minutes of the drive in silence, just taking in our surroundings - the village, the surrounding mountains - with the only sound being May’s occasional directions. Turn left here, you’re going to make a right at the next light. Soon we find ourselves out of the town center, making our ay through what must be the beginnings of the residential and hospitality area, closer to the base of the mountains. Daph and Paige begin chit chatting, talking about the new baby, whether Paige is getting cold feet. If Paige can imagine ever getting a divorce (Daphne is nothing close to subtle or sensitive). It’s at this point that May joins the conversation, looking up from the directions on her phone.

“Jesus Daph, how can you even think to ask something like that? Of course they’ll never get divorced. I mean, Paige and Derek forevs. Right Paige?”

Paige is quiet for a beat, causing the group to look at her with barely concealed sidelong glances.

“Of course. Of course! Damn Daphne, I thought becoming a mother, not to mention a wife yourself, might soften you up a bit. But to answer your question directly, no, I can’t imagine ever divorcing him. Fuck, if I could imagine that right now I probably shouldn’t be getting married at all.”

“No one goes into a marriage expecting divorce, but it happens just as often as it doesn’t happen,” Daphne says, looking out the window with a bit of a faraway look in her eyes.

Paige, May and I are quiet for a moment before I pluck up the courage to say “Daph? Everything ok with you and Tom?”

“Oh my god, I’m not talking about myself! Tom and I are fine. Great even. My question wasn’t some veiled attempt to refer to the state of my own marriage. I just wanted to get under the bride-to-be’s skin a little.”

I can’t see her face, but I know May is rolling her eyes so hard they’re in danger of popping out of their sockets. I giggle, followed by Daph. She’s always been the pot-stirrer, pushing us all out of our comfort zones momentarily, even if only to get a laugh. But Paige, who would usually be laughing along with us while May was too elevated for such kind of “humor”, is still pretty quiet.

Paige makes another turn at May’s instruction, and says something so quietly that none of us can hear her.

“Huh?” Daph asks, absentmindedly.

“I got a note,” Paige says, a bit louder but still not very audible.

“A note? What do you mean? A note about what?” I ask. I typically wouldn’t sound so interested, but something in Paige’s voice says that there’s some real meaning in this note.

“It’s not a big deal, it just freaked me out. Probably a prank or something. Like a pre-wedding punking.”

“Number one, people don’t say ‘punk’ anymore. Ashton Kutcher ruined the word. Number two, details please?” Says Daphne, who I can sense has also noticed the unusual level of gravitas with a hint of trembling in Paige’s voice.

“I found this note in my mailbox last week. It said I shouldn’t marry Derek.”

“What??” May ejaculates, concern and shock lacing her voice as she turns her head towards Paige.

“Yeah. Super weird. It just said, he isn’t the man you think he is. He’s never loved you, not like he loves me, or some bullshit like that. Short and to the point, I guess.”

“That’s fucking nuts,” I mutter, utterly shocked that Paige not only received a note like this in the first place, but that she didn’t tell any of us, especially me. Paige is the most open book you’ll ever meet, and her concealment of this slightly sinister note is worrisome. Like she actually believes it or something.

“Where did it come from? Like what was the return address?” Daphne asks, also uncharacteristically serious.

“No idea. There was no address or return address. Just my name, like someone came and dropped it directly in my mailbox.”

“Okay that’s even creepier!” May says, the volume of her voice a clear indication that this conversation is stressing her out. To be honest, it’s stressing me out too. And I happen to agree with May on this count - the fact that someone came to Paige’s house to physically deliver such a fucked up letter is creepier than sending it via USPS.

“You’re right,” I say, trying to be as logical and comforting as possible. “It’s most definitely a prank. A shitty prank but a prank nonetheless. It’s probably some old girlfriend from high school who saw on Facebook that he’s getting married and decided to be a totally bitch about it.”

“Agreed. Just some asshole being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole,” Daphne says assuredly.

“I don’t know guys, it sounds really serious…” May begins, but Daphne intercedes.

“Don’t start May. There’s no way this is a legit thing. It’s just a jealous ex. No reason to give it more credence than it deserves.”

“But if Paige is so worried about it…” May starts, but this time Paige interrupts.

“I didn’t say I’m worried! I agree with them, it’s totally not a big deal and it’s definitely not something I want to be thinking about this weekend. We’re here to have my finally single hurrah, get as wasted as thirty-something professionals get, and celebrate a new year. Please May? Don’t worry about it. You planned this amazing weekend, I want you to enjoy it as much as I will.”

Paige has always known how to calm May down when she gets rattled, which in my opinion, happens way too often. But it works, and May switches quickly from worried mama bear to excited teenager.

“True! Okay. Okay! Yes, this weekend is going to be ah-mazing! We have so much to do! Party, eat good food, all the winter activities I have planned! I was thinking that after getting settled in today we could start with cocktails and…”

She’s still talking but I’ve made the conscious decision to zone out. I know just how much May has packed out schedule. I’m sure Paige would prefer a more relaxed weekend, just hanging out and drinking and eating, but she made May her Maid of Honor, so she must’ve known what she was getting herself into.

And I can’t ignore the tension in the car, despite May’s rattling on about all the “fun” we’re going to have skiing and tubing. I know that May’s prattling is another sign of her discomfort, and even though Paige granted her permission not to dwell on the note, May couldn’t stop thinking about it and what it might mean. To be honest, I’m sure we’re all in the same boat.