Beach House Weekend with My Sisters

It was the middle of July, and I was at my parents for a Sunday dinner. Mom said, "I've talked with all the girls, and we're on for the Girls' Retreat the weekend after this."

I had to restrain myself from doing a fist pump. Mom and Dad would spend Thursday night through Monday morning with my three sisters at a beach house a few hours from here. Mom started the Girls' Retreat four years ago. It was a bonding time for her and my sisters, who were three, five, and seven years older than me. Every year, I couldn't go because I had to work as a lifeguard. So sad. I'd console myself by throwing a party every night at my parents while they were gone. My roommate refused to let me host parties in our apartment, so the Girls' Retreat was my one chance to invite all my friends over for a good time. It was my favorite weekend of the summer.

Dad said gruffly, "I'm not going this year."

"Honey, you have to go. We need a designated driver."

"Not going," said Dad firmly. "My knee is bothering me. The stairs at the beach house would be too much for me."

I had stayed at the beach house with my church's youth group. The house was raised up on stilts to protect it from hurricanes. You did have to climb quite a few steps to get in or out of the house.

"But Dad," I said pleadingly, "you can handle it for a weekend."

Dad glared at me like he was about to hit me upside the head with a two-by-four. He said slowly and loudly. "I'm...not...going." He added. "I never host poker night. This will be my chance to do so."

Shit! I had the parties all lined up. There were going to be babes over every night. I was hoping to get lucky with a cute friend of one of my fellow lifeguards. I started thinking about who could host the parties instead.

Mom sighed loudly. "We need you as a designated driver and to keep guys from getting too friendly with the girls at the bars."

"Take Craig," Dad suggested. "Now that he's twenty-one, he can go to the bars with you. He can be your designated driver and guy-shooer."

My eyes went wide at Dad's words. When Mom looked at me, I said, "I can't go. Got to work. Schedule is all set."

Mom didn't seem impressed by that excuse. "You swap shifts all the time with the other lifeguards. You'll have plenty of time to do so."

Alas, what she said was true. I thought about saying I needed the money from working for college, but then she'd point as I was just swapping shifts, I wouldn't lose out on hours. And what I earned during the summer was not much compared to what Mom and Dad contributed to my college expenses.

I had a feeling that this was all theater, that Mom and Dad had already decided before inviting me over for dinner that Dad wasn't going and that I was. I decided to try to get out of going with blunt honesty. "Mom, I don't like my sisters. They've always been annoying. Tracie moving out was the happiest day of my life. I got to move out of The Shed into the house."

"Your sisters aren't always annoying," said Mom angrily.

"You're right," I said sarcastically. "Sometimes, they're super-annoying. And then there are the special days where they are super-duper-annoying." Mom rolled her eyes. "They've always made fun of me. They've always ganged up on me. I was thrilled when Olivia went to college, I was just as thrilled when Meg went, and I was bouncing off the walls when Tracie went. The idea of spending a long weekend hearing them talk about girl stuff has zero appeal for me."

Dad laughed. "You'll love listening to them talk about celebrity gossip. And the latest shampoo they've tried. You'll have a great time, Craig." My dad guffawed some more. Suddenly, I realized that his bad knee was the least of Dad's reasons for not going.

In our house, it was very much Dad and me versus Mom and my sisters. Dad had always wanted a son. He had married one woman, had two daughters with her, divorced her, married Mom, and had three more daughters. Mom didn't want to have any more kids, but Dad kept begging her to try one more time for a son until she finally gave in. Once I was born, Dad was thrilled. He pretty much ignored my sisters to do things with me. He took me camping, fishing, and hunting. When I did well at swimming, he put me on a year-round swim team. He took me to the practices and the meets, which Mom and my sisters skipped. In the evenings, Dad and I watched sports together while Mom and my sisters put together puzzles and chatted. This was the first time I could think of where Dad was siding with Mom and my sisters instead of me.

"I don't want to go, Dad."

"Tough, Craig. You're twenty-one, you're a good driver, and your mother wants a man to drive her and your sisters to bars and places. Sometimes, you have to do things you don't want to do. I've done it for four years, and now it's your turn."

Dad said that with an air of finality that would brook no argument. There were times when Dad's word was law, and this was one of those times.

Mom said, "Great! I'll let the girls know you're driving. After dinner, start calling your fellow lifeguards to swap shifts."

I sighed and pushed my plate away. My dinner had lost its appeal.

* * * *

Thursday afternoon at the start of the Girls Retreat weekend, my sisters began arriving at our house. Tracie arrived first. Mom had to "remind" me to greet my sister when she did. When I came out to the kitchen, Tracie handed me a fortune cookie.

"Happy National Fortune Cookie Day!"

I grunted and went back to my room.

Meg arrived second. When I came out to greet her, she threw me a T-shirt.

"Put this on."

"What?" I held out the shirt. Meg was an elementary school art teacher and did craft stuff like making T-shirts all the time. The shirt said, Girls Retreat 2023 across the front in yellow letters. "Why do I have to wear this stupid shirt?"

"Because you do," said Dad with a smile. "It's a Girls Retreat thing." He was enjoying my misery.

Mom and Tracie came into the kitchen wearing the same shirt. I sighed and took off my shirt.

"Happy National Fortune Cookie Day!" said Tracie as she started handing one to Meg. But then she stumbled and almost crashed into Meg.

"Don't hurt yourself, Grace," said Dad sarcastically. I chuckled. Tracie was always tripping or knocking something over, and, when she did, Dad and I would call her 'Grace' as a joke.

Meg ignored us and said, "Royal blue with a yellow contrast is the color scheme this year." I had no idea what she was talking about. She, Mom, and Tracie huddled up to chat. I put on my new shirt and slipped off to my room.

When Tracie was two, Mom and Dad bought our current home. Upstairs were three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a game room. Downstairs was the master bedroom, the kitchen, yada, yada, yada. Shortly after I was born, Mom and Dad had an addition built. The front half of the addition was a bathroom that opened onto the pool, so people in wet swimsuits didn't have to go into the house to pee. Behind that bathroom was another bedroom which had been mine growing up. A spiral staircase in it connected to the game room, so the addition doubled as a second fire escape for the second floor. My sisters had made it clear many, many times that the game room was the only room I could go into on the second floor. I didn't like living in the addition bedroom, which I dubbed "The Shed", as it was stuffier than the rest of the house and tended to be hot in the summer and cold in the winter. When Tracie went off to college, I moved into Meg's old bedroom and still used it as "my room" whenever I was home.

* * * *

I opened the driver's door of the minivan and climbed in. To my surprise, Tracie got into the passenger seat.

"Happy National Lollipop Day!" said Tracie as she handed me a lollipop.

"I thought it was National Fortune Cookie Day?"

"A day can celebrate more than one food," said Olivia in her you're-so-fucking-stupid tone.

I grunted. I grunted a lot around my sisters.

I had been expecting Mom to sit up front. I'd much prefer her company to that of one of my sisters. Then Tracie revealed why she was sitting up front.

"I'm in charge of the music."

I realized my plan to listen to hard rock songs as I drove was out the window.

Tracie connected her phone to the car and started a Backstreet Boys song.Oh, God, I thought mournfully. At least my friends wouldn't see me listening to a boy band.

Tracie started singing along and was quickly joined by Olivia and Meg. All my sisters had good singing voices. Eventually, Mom joined in. She had sung in her high school choir and had encouraged her daughters to do the same. My dad had considered being in choir unmanly, so I hadn't. Consequently, I didn't have a good singing voice, and my sisters mocked me when I did sing.

My sisters continued singing away to songs that I didn't listen to. I wasn't sure how to respond. They were having a good time and were good singers, and their singing was far more entertaining than listening to streamed music, but I didn't feel a part of the good time everyone else was having. Mom and Dad had always come down hard on us kids whenever we fought, so I had learned to passive-aggressively express my displeasure with my sisters. I continued doing that. When a song I particularly didn't like would start, I'd sigh loudly. That only happened every three or four songs.

* * * *

After an hour on the road, we stopped at a fast-food place for dinner. As we gathered inside the door, Mom pulled me aside and said, "You order last and pay. You're the man on the trip." My Mom and sisters all ordered different kinds of salad. I ordered a bacon burger. As I was paying, the guy working the cash register pointed at my shirt, said, "Girls' Retreat," and chuckled. I ground my teeth.

The tables were all for four people. Mom and my sisters sat in a booth. I could have pulled up a chair and joined them, but instead sat by myself and played on my phone as I ate. Mom and my sisters ate slowly because they talked so much while they ate. I didn't mind - I was fine with a long break from their music.

My sisters were very similar in looks - pretty, above-average-height brunettes. Olivia was the tallest and thinnest, Meg was the shortest and curviest, with Tracie in between. They were all about the same height with the difference between Olivia and Meg about an inch. Olivia's hair was short and thin; Meg's hair went down to her shoulders and was curly; Tracie's hair was straight and went to the middle of her shoulder blades. Their faces were all pretty, but pretty in different ways. Olivia had the roundest face and usually looked serious; Tracie had a narrow face which was quite cute when she smiled (which she did a lot), and Meg was in-between. Mom was an older version of her daughters with a rounder face and hair dyed a dark blond.

Once my sisters were done eating, I climbed back into the minivan with a sigh. Tracie handed me another lollipop, and we headed off.

After an hour of driving, Olivia said suddenly, "We need to stop at the next gas station."

"Oh, yeah!" chimed in Tracie.

"It's only another hour to the beach house," I said.

Mom said from the back, "We're stopping at the next gas station." I thought back to Dad muttering darkly several times about Mom having a bladder the size of a pea.

This was going to be a long fucking weekend.

At the convenience store, Tracie was the first one out of the Women's Room. She came up to me and asked, "Doing okay so far?"

"I'm doing fine so far except for the music you're playing. Some of the songs make me want to gouge my eyes out." I gave Tracie an ironic smile. "But that would be bad for my driving."

Tracie seemed taken aback by that. Meg came out of the bathroom and said to me, "Thanks for coming this weekend. I really appreciate you making the trip. All of us do. Dad was a grouch the whole time the other weekends. A real wet blanket. When he wasn't driving, he was playing poker on his phone. We had fun despite him. You're not going to do that, are you?"

"No." I felt pressured to say that. Who'd say that they were planning on being a grouch? But I was feeling a lot like a grouch.

"Do you want anything to drink? Soda? Gatorade?"

"Arnold Palmer Tea." As a lifeguard, you learn to not drink soda or Gatorade. Soda makes you pee, and Gatorade is a bunch of crap you don't need unless you're a pro athlete.

"Okay." She opened the cooler and reached for my drink. I thought about my friends commenting about how smart my parents were to give their oldest daughter a name that begins with 'O', their middle daughter a name that begins with 'M', and their third daughter a name that begins with 'T'. That helped them remember my sisters' names and birth order.

"Any candy?" Meg asked.

"Starburst, I guess."

Meg smiled at me as she got the candy for me. "I'm the one who plans the retreat. I want everyone to have a good time."

Olivia came out of the bathroom, the three of them started talking to each other, and I was forgotten. I played on my phone while waiting ungraciously next to the cash register. Based on what Mom told me at the fast food place, I knew she'd want me to pay for everything again. Mom was the last one to pick out a snack. I paid for everything, took the bags, and followed my sisters out to the minivan with a frown on my face.

* * * *

We finally arrived at the beach house. Mom and my sisters grabbed all the light stuff. I got the ice chest full of food which had to be kept cold. Once that was in the kitchen, Mom sent me out to bring in the four six-packs of wine coolers. When I brought them into the kitchen, Mom was the only other one there. My sisters had dumped their stuff and left. Mom said, "Put the food into the refrigerator while we change," before starting to leave.

I said with a little bit of a whine to my voice, "I don't know where the groceries are supposed to go in the fridge."

Mom stopped for a moment. "Put them away as you see fit. There's no system here like we have at home. And once you're done with that, put the other groceries away into the pantry." She left.

I grumbled as I put away the groceries. What was so urgent that everyone else had to change as soon as they got to the beach house?

Olivia came into the kitchen...wearing the same Girls Retreat 2023 T-shirt and the same shorts she had worn in the minivan. She grabbed some groceries and walked over to the pantry. "You've got this put away all wrong."

I rolled my eyes and stepped back. As Olivia shuffled the groceries in the pantry around, I asked. "Weren't you going to change clothes?"

Olivia flashed me a quick smile. "I did." She resumed working in the pantry. Tracie came in wearing exactly what she had worn in the minivan. She opened the refrigerator and started moving groceries around. I shook my head, left the kitchen, and went into the living room, where I had left my bag of clothes and toiletries. As I picked them up, Meg was coming down the stairs. She too was dressed exactly as she had been in the minivan. I asked her, "Where am I sleeping?"

"The living room. This place has four bedrooms. Three bedrooms upstairs, one for each girl, and a master down here for Mom. You'll have to make do here." She smiled at me. "No boys upstairs, just like at home." She continued into the kitchen.

I said to her retreating form, "I live upstairs at home."

Meg called over her shoulder, "You're merely borrowing my bedroom!"

I scoped out the living room. It had a big, armless couch that was up against a wall. In front of it was a coffee table. I was facing the big couch and to my right was a smaller armless couch. Beyond it was the stairwell up to the second floor. To my left were a couple of chairs with arms. Beyond them were the kitchen, the toilet, and Mom's bedroom. Against the wall to the left of the big couch were two bean bag chairs that could be moved to the far side of the coffee table from the couch so a group of up to ten could all sit around the coffee table.

I heard Meg say to everyone in the kitchen, "Let's go!"

I dropped my bag by the big couch. There was no point unpacking, as I'd be living out of my bag. As the others headed toward the door, I followed them. "Where are we going?" I asked.

"A bar!" said Meg as she grabbed a big paper bag that was by the door. "About thirty minutes from here. Karaoke night! If we get there too late, we won't be able to get a table."

Mom got into the passenger seat this time. She provided directions as my sisters gabbed in the back. As we drove, Mom and my sisters sang over and over two ABBA songs, "Take A Chance On Me" and "Dancing Queen", working to get them down pat.

When we arrived at the bar, I asked Mom, "Do I have to go in?"

"Yes," she said firmly.

I thought momentarily about refusing to go in. I had agreed to be a designated driver, not a fifth wheel. But Dad had raised me to be protective of women. My sisters had never needed me to protect them, but I felt like they might need me to in this bar. I sighed and got out.

Inside the bar, we managed to get the last open table. Meg brought her paper bag in with her. When I asked what was in it, she told me, "Fun Stuff." She went over to a chalkboard which had a list of names on it and added "Swedish Bikini Singing Team" to the list.

Mom and my sisters got strawberry daiquiris. I got a lemonade. People got up, crossed their name off the chalkboard, and then sang at the mic. Most people, when they were done singing, put their name back on the bottom of the list. The stage was well-lit, but the rest of the bar was dim. Between songs, my sisters talked about the guys in the bar and who they reminded them of. Several ex-boyfriends were discussed. Surprisingly to me, Mom joined in. I just felt...bored.

When the "Swedish Bikini Singing Team" was next on the list, Mom asked suddenly, "Are we really going to do this?"

Olivia, who had just polished off her second daiquiri, said, "Oh yeah. It'll be a lot of fun." My other sisters nodded. I had no clue what they were talking about.

My sisters and Mom got up and went into the bathroom. Meg was carrying her bag. A minute later, four platinum-blond women wearing string bikinis and big reflective sunglasses stepped out of the bathroom. Their hair was very light, almost white, and came down a little past their shoulders. Their bikini tops were two dark blue triangles outlined in yellow which were just big enough to hold their breasts, with yellow strings to connect the pieces. The bikini bottoms were very high cut, with only a small amount of material over the crotch. They were also dark blue outlined in yellow. They were also wearing blue high heels. Man, they were smoking hot. Every guy in the bar turned to check them out. They strode out with big smiles on their faces. Where the hell did they come from?

One of the four women was carrying a bag, which she dropped off at our table. I then realized that the women were my sisters and Mom. Holy shit!

My family kept walking. Guys started whistling at them. As they walked toward the stage, I could see their backsides. The backs of the bikinis were like wide thongs, which showed off most of their asses. My sisters all had great asses. Mom's ass wasn't as fine, but she was in great shape for someone who was fifty. When they reached the karaoke stage, one of them crossed "Swedish Bikini Singing Team" off the list. Suddenly, I caught the reference. Dad had a Playboy with The Swedish Bikini Team on the cover. Dad only had a few Playboys, so this one must have been special to him. He kept his Playboys hidden, but I found them when I was like twelve. Apparently, my sisters had found them too. The Swedish Bikini Team had been five actresses who wore platinum blond wigs and bikinis while doing commercials for Old Milwaukee beer. Now, my family was recreating them.