“Pass the bottle,” said Sherri Griffin, without so much as a please or a thank-you. “And a shot glass.”

We all looked at each other like, “Whaaaaat?”

And then we passed the bottle.

And a shot glass.

Honestly, it wasn’t until a couple of days later, after the dust had settled, so to speak, that Brooke reminded us that Sherri hadn’t even been invited to the party.

70.

Sherri

“Pass the bottle,” she told the nearest mom, Monica or Jessica or Nicole. “And a shot glass.”

She didn’t need the lime or the salt; she didn’t need anything at all. She did one shot, then two, then a third, all the while looking Monica or Jessica or Nicole right in the eyes.

It felt good. She felt like herself again. She was reminded of what it felt like to have a roomful—in this case a yard full—of people’s attention on her.

Then she gave a businesslike nod, a nod that said, Time to get started here. And she got ready to say all of the things she’d been holding back since that first day of surf camp, all those weeks ago.

71.

The Squad

Okay, seriously? This new Sherri Griffin basically downed an entire bottle of tequila while we all watched. Maybe it wasn’t an entire bottle. But it was definitely more than one shot. Two or three or maybe four. And we were like, what the hell? First of all, save some for the rest of us! And second, was she going to fall down drunk right in front of us, or, and we seriously hoped not, throw up in the pool? (That happened at Brooke’s party in 2013, but we’re not naming names. We will say that the involved party did pay for the pool company to come out the next day and hand-clean the filter, which was no small expense.)

With each shot of tequila Sherri became more composed, more steady. Her back, already very straight (and visible) in that (we had to admit, fantastic) gold dress, got even straighter. Her eyes, which were heavily made up, opened wider. She seemed to grow taller before us, like The Nutcracker Christmas tree. And it became a truth universally acknowledged: Sherri Griffin could hold her liquor.

The bartender, sensing new tension, made his first round of Aperol tequila cocktails, and we each took one. They went down easy. Also, they were sort of small, so a few of us went back for our second drink right away. Don’t look at us that way. We knew the line would get long once the corn hole game ended, and we were just trying to be cognizant of the other partygoers. Okay?