Claire got a glass of white wine, which arrived in a glass that had clearly been designed for a totally different beverage. Harper was already on her second vodka soda. Nina ordered a beer, which surprised both of them because Nina had always been a wine person.
Maybe this was just a beer kind of night. Hank’s kind of demanded that.
“Okay,” Claire said, “we need a plan.”
“It’s karaoke, not a military operation,” Harper said.
“Well, everything benefits from having a plan. So do we each have to sing a solo? Are we doing a group number? Do we pick our own songs, or are we going to pick songs for each other?”
“If you pick my song, I swear I will walk out of this building right now and drive back to Charleston, and neither of you will ever see me again,” Harper said.
“Okay, group number it is,” Nina said. “One song together. That’s the pact. We do things together.”
“All right, what song?” Claire asked.
They stared at each other.
The bar was filling up around them.
The man in the trucker hat had finished Sweet Caroline with modest applause and was now replaced by two women in matching denim jackets that they had apparently bedazzled.
They were attempting Islands in the Stream with more enthusiasm than accuracy. The Christmas lights blinked, probably because they were faulty or maybe shocked at how off-key the women were.
Peanut shells crunched all around them, and Hank, who turned out to be a large man with an even larger beard, had a surprisingly gentle voice.
“Shania Twain,” Nina suddenly said.
Claire looked at her.
“Which one?”
“You know which one.”
Claire did know. They all knew.
It was a song they had played on repeat in their apartment, the three of them dancing around in their tiny galley kitchen with wooden spoons as microphones. Of course, this was when they were in their early twenties and convinced they were invincible. This was well before real life had taken hold of them and showed them who was boss.
“Man! I Feel Like a Woman,” Claire said.
“Absolutely not,” Harper said. “That song has a dance break, and I am not planning to stand up there and do a dance break.”
“Rule three,” Nina said. “No backing out.”
“I’m not backing out. I’m establishing boundaries. My old therapist said that was healthy.”
“Harper, we sang this song at every party for two years. We sang it at Claire’s bachelorette, remember? We sang it at my wedding reception after David drank too many mojitos and started doing the electric slide by himself.”
“That man was a national treasure,” Harper said, putting her hand on her chest.
“This is our song,” Nina said. “It has always been our song.”
Harper took a drink and then set the glass down.
She looked at Nina, then at Claire, and then at the stage with its war-torn speakers and blue-font lyric screen.
“Fine,” she said, “but if anyone from my office sees this, I’m going to blame both of you and claim that I was put under duress.”
Claire went to sign them up. She wrote their names on the sheet in her small, precise handwriting.
