Welcome back, Trashcrabs! Last week our Potomac Princesses took a hike to the beach, and Danator and I took it as our cue to take a little R&R as well. But knowing what our little schemers and dreamers might be capable of, we quickly hopped in our Escalade, blazed over to Delaware, (stopped at the Tanger Outlets,) and burst into Bethany Beach with beers in hand and bullshit to recap.
Yes, as it appears, the Potomac ladies’ “vacation” will be spent in the exotic, far away paradise of the Delaware beaches – a romantic, beer can-carpeted oasis where families run to buy hermit crabs for their shithead kids and college students escape to puke in each other’s hair. But there’s still a sort of quiet, attainable beauty to it: a soft, constant rush of waves crashing and warped borders of bending beach fences that reminds you of the artwork you’d find in waiting rooms. The shore line is dotted with enormous, 10-bedroom houses – the kind where mismatched tacky beach towels flap from endless porch space and the driveways are littered with leaking coolers.
It’s the same kind of house Ashley’s bought with her husband’s hard-earned money, and where she’s hosting the girls for this little getaway. Which, for the record, is almost as pathetic as New Jersey’s “vacation” last season (almost, but not quite – thanks Marcheses). On this trip, Ashley is being an intentionally dense hostess and Gizelle is being an equally intentionally shitty guest. Karen is pretty copacetic since Ashley’s shown the proper amount of respect to her inflated ass, and Charrisse, not even knowing or caring where she is, is wobbling around the house smiling and slurring and opening champagne bottles in the way of “helping.”
On the second night, she also flops all the girls down on the couch and insists they do some sort of “Sister’s Circle” since she just watched Waiting to Exhale for like the 23rd time this week. Karen goes first (as is TRA-dition) and admits that her mother has just been diagnosed with early dementia. The random friend who’s here that I forgot to mention is real shocked and stuff:
Robyn asks Charrisse if she’s taken any further steps in ending her marriage. Charrisse says that she hasn’t done anything yet, then does this thing I’m starting to notice with her: a fake cry that involves scrunching up her face real ugly and spreading her hand over it like it’s a starfish about to eat her head. She breathes really shallow until someone says “there, there. there, there.”
Ashley, curled up with her red solo cup, asks if there’s anyone else who wants to “sheer” anything. Robyn, breaking out in real tears, confesses that she and Juan lost all their money to a friend of theirs that trapped them in a Ponzi scheme. Looking directly at Ashley (the big-haired barfly who accused her of being standoffish and flapped her jaw to anyone who’d listen about Robyn’s finances), she explains that this betrayal has made it hard for her to open up to new people and trust them. Ashley interviews that she feels guilty as we flashback to her saying, literally “$25 IN THEIR BANK ACCOUNT. BOTTOM OF THE BARREL RIGHT NOW. THEY’RE BARELY SCRAPING BY.” All while her own mother was going through bankruptcy, cool!
Turning the conversation to something less tragic in an actual way, and more tragic in a funny as hell way, Gizelle asks Katie about her fundraiser. Last week at lunch, after they expressed their doubt that she could raise $100,000 in three weeks with no venue and zero invitations sent out, she fired the (smart) girls from her hosting committee. Tonight, Katie says she’s hired Brynee and Charrisse as her new host committee (a ghost and a drunk? way to pick’em, Katie), and doesn’t know whether or not the other girls will be invited yet. Ashley still wonders if Katie wants to “sheer something else wuth the sirrkle” (seriously, the way Ashley talks bothers the shit out of me).
Since Katie wants nothing to do with this horse crap, it’s up to Gizelle to inform her that she was acting like a total crackhead at Ashley’s birthday, and that they’re all concerned (“concerned“) about her behavior. Katie says she had just had a lot to drink while Karen, who wants no part of this conversation, purses her lips and stares at her lap. The discussion ends when Charrisse pours into the kitchen and blurts out a few words about “the girls’ best moves!” prompting everyone to dance bizarrely to no music.
Katie walks straight to her room and shuts off the lights, insisting to Ashley that she’s just tired.
15 minutes later, the house is dark and everyone is asleep. Everyone, of course, except Charrisse, who’s swaying to the dulcet tones in her head, clutching a bottle of Korbel, staring at herself sleepily in the soft reflection of the kitchen windows.