Helen looks slightly dejected as she begins removing items from the table. Oh no. Is no one coming? But this meant so much to her, having her own people come.
“Well, yeah,” Mike II says, sounding sheepish now, “but I got divorced and now I’m getting married again, so I just thought…”
This is just wrong on so many levels and the wrongness of it absorbs all my attention. I can’t accept this gig just to add another notch to my Best Man belt.
“I can’t be your Best Man,” I say.
“You can’t?”
“No! That’s double-dipping. That’s like the worst thing you can do.” OK, maybe, relatively speaking, I’ve only been married for the equivalent of five minutes, but even I know it’s got to be bad karma to do a retread on your bridal party when the first marriage didn’t work out. “I mean, you wouldn’t get married at the same place, would you?”
“Well, actually…”
“Mike!”
“It was a nice place!”
I spend the next five minutes explaining to him the impropriety of his desires, and by the time we’re done, we’re mostly good.
“So I’ll get a change of—what’s the word?—venue,” Mike II says with a heavy sigh, “but who’m I gonna get for Best Man?”
“Don’t you have any brothers or something?”
“Yeah but they’re both douches. One never shuts up and the other flaked and never even showed up the one time he was asked to be Best Man.”
Ouch.
“So ask—” I’m about to suggest Billy, but then I think about how things have seemed a little tense in his marriage to Alice lately. Is someone whose marriage has turned a little tense really the person you want giving a wedding toast?
“Ask Drew,” I settle on.
“Drew?”
I can understand his skepticism. Not only has Drew’s marriage to Stacy been tense lately but it’s always been that way. And that’s why he’s the perfect person to have. Tension is status quo for him and will probably carry him and Stacy through until fighting death do they part. Hell, for all anyone knows, they’re perfectly happy the way they are.
“It’ll be fine,” I reassure Mike II. “Just don’t let him be in charge of getting the beer for the bachelor party. You know—Budweiser.”
“OK, Drew it is then. But at the actual wedding…could you still give the toast?”
I don’t even dignify that with a response as I wrap up the call, turn to see a dining room table now set for three—wait a second; didn’t one of Helen’s brothers just call her and cancel dinner?—and that’s when the doorbell rings. Helen’s nowhere in sight, just Fluffy underfoot, as I go to answer it, wondering who’d be out trying to sell something on a Saturday night, and open the door to see:
“Carla?”
“I’m sorry,” she says, not really looking sorry at all; really, annoyed is more like it, and rumpled, which is her usual state, “were you not expecting me?”
How do I put this…? Um, no. But of course I can’t say that. I can’t say I was expecting one of Helen’s brothers and one of their significant others—and then I wasn’t expecting anyone when Helen got that phone call and I saw her start to remove items from the dining room table—so instead I go with:
“Of course I was expecting you! Come in, come in! If I seemed shocked, it was simply that I was overcome with how good it is to see you after so long. After all, it’s been at least a few weeks since the wedding—you look great!”
Am I laying it on too thick? I’m laying it on too thick, aren’t I?
“Here, let me get you a drink,” I offer.
“I’m the only one?” Carla sounds surprised as we pass the table with its three place settings. She’s surprised? I’m surprised! I’m going to be eating dinner with just Carla? Not exactly my idea of a good Saturday night. The truth is, I’m not a Carla fan. But that’s OK, because she’s not a Johnny fan either and in fact she started the not liking first. And if that sounds juvenile, well, that’s the way life works. When someone doesn’t like you from the beginning and for no apparent reason, it’s tough to warm up to them.
We’re in the kitchen now where there is the fridge and—thank God!—beer.
“What would you like?” I offer, opening the fridge and grabbing a cold one. “Helen! Carla’s here!” Is that desperation in my voice?
“What a great color!” Carla enthuses as she turns in a circle, fully taking in the Canary Yellow walls. It figures she would love it. “Did you do this?” she says, for once sounding impressed with me.
Only because I had to is what I’m tempted to say, but instead I go with, “We got beer…we got wine…”
“I gave up drinking. Did you not know this?”
Apparently, I did not. “Oh, well, then…”
“Water’s fine.”
I get a glass and let the water from the tap run until it’s cold. It never occurred to me before to get one of those fancy see-through pitchers some people have to keep water in the fridge, but I sure wish I had one now because as I hand Carla her glass of tap water it just feels so…unimpressive.
“Cheers,” she says, tapping her glass against my beer bottle.
“Back atcha.”
“So, what are we having for dinner?”
“I got a nice London broil. I’m going to grill it with—”
“Did you not remember that I don’t eat red meat?”
Did I not…? How was I supposed to remember, if I ever knew in the first place, when I never even knew she was coming! I guess this means she’ll never be impressed with the tarragon Dijon sauce I whipped together with which to baste the meat?
“It must’ve slipped my mind,” I admit.
“Don’t worry about it. I can fill up on the sides. You are making sides, aren’t you?”
“Oh, yeah. I found these huge baked potatoes and I figured I’d—”
“Too many carbs. I’m back on Atkins.”
Seriously? She’s on Atkins and she doesn’t eat meat? Isn’t that the whole diet on Atkins?
Carla snorts. “I suppose you’re serving strawberry shortcake for dessert?”
My eyes widen. “How did you know?”
“Classic male dinner: meat, potatoes, strawberry shortcake. Even if I wasn’t doing Atkins, I’m allergic to strawberries.”
“Well, I did also make a salad…”
“Carla!” Helen throws her arms around Carla as she walks in.
Helen’s finally here. Thank God.
Well, this is fun, I think, cutting another piece of my meat which, I must say, is grilled to tarragon-Dijony perfection. There’s nothing like having someone over for dinner who refuses to eat anything you prepared and is not interested in anything you’d ever want to talk about.
Actually, no, I’m not being fair here. Carla is willing to eat one thing I made—the salad—but only after having me give her a colander so she could wash off the creamy avocado dressing from her portion; she didn’t trust me to do it for her.
But as for her being uninterested in any topics I might be interested in? Put it like this: She doesn’t watch GH; in terms of politics, which I love, she supports That Guy while I support This Guy (and I think almost all of us can agree That Guy is a douche); and she’s a Yankees fan. Need I say more? Honestly, except for the no-GH thing, it’s hard to fathom how Helen and her ever became friends in the first place.
Yet they are friends. And I can see, looking across the table at my wife who is smiling and laughing as the two of them chat up a storm about who-knows-what, that having her friend here is making Helen happy. So what if I’m not really a part of things? I’m content to sit here and eat my meat in silence, except for…
I notice that a piece from the spinach I used in the salad is stuck between my wife’s two front teeth and every time she opens her mouth to smile or laugh, I see that flash of green. Doesn’t she feel that? Doesn’t it bother her?
“Hey, hon?” I say.
Helen looks away from Carla to
me.
To demonstrate the problem, I put a fingernail between my own two front teeth. “Spinach,” I say.
Carla’s expression darkens. “What are you trying to do, embarrass her? Who does something like that?” She squints at me. “And what the hell did you do with your hair?”
Yes, we are having a lot of fun here.
I elect not to serve the strawberry shortcake because while I feel no qualms about eating meat in front of Carla, I’d feel too guilty eating dessert in front of her when she’s on a diet. Plus, she says that even looking at the strawberries will cause her to break out in hives. So we retire to the living room with another round of drinks.
Well, this is awkward.
Carla’s only been here an hour, but it feels like forever, and yet it’s only eight o’clock at night. The thing is, though, I have to make this last until ten, so it’ll be a full three hours.
That’s something I learned from Billy. Any social occasions involving one person going to another person’s home—unless of course you’re talking about drive-bys or condolence calls—must last for a full three hours. Otherwise, it’s considered to be rude. Believe me, it’s not like Billy’s a paragon of etiquette—in fact, most days, he’s just one evolutionary step ahead of Drew, as am I—so he certainly didn’t come up with that gem on his own. Rather, he got it from Alice. It has, however, served Billy well, because whenever he’s compelled to spend time with Alice’s family, he simply marks the time on his cell phone when the get-together starts and sets the alarm on it to vibrate three hours hence. Then, as soon as the three-hour mark hits—not a minute before, not a minute after—he either stands to leave or yawns to encourage other people to leave, as the case may be.
I check my watch: now it’s been an hour and four minutes, meaning there’s still an hour and fifty-six minutes to go. So, much as I’d like to give a monster yawn and wide stretch, signifying an end to the evening, I realize that wouldn’t be right. It would be like throwing in the towel and admitting that having Helen’s people—or Helen’s person—over was a complete failure. I can’t do that to Helen. Still. What to do…what to do…
“How about a game of pool?” I suggest. After all, who doesn’t like to shoot pool?
“I don’t like to shoot pool,” Carla says.
Oh.
“We could play something else,” Helen offers hopefully.
There’s something to play, other than pool or poker?
“I’ve got a whole box of games around here somewhere,” Helen says, “from my old place. Let me go see what I can find.”
I jump out of my seat. “I could help you look!”
“Don’t be silly.” Helen laughs, waving me back down. “You won’t know where to look. I’m not sure even I’ll know where to look.”
She leaves, I sit, and once again I’m left alone with Carla.
“Beautiful night out, isn’t it?” I try.
“I wouldn’t know,” Carla says. “I’m in here.”
“That’s a nice outfit you have on.”
“It’s old.”
“Seen any good movies lately?”
“I don’t believe in movies.”
Screw this.
“Excuse me for a moment,” I say. Then I go in the kitchen, get out the shortcake and whipped cream, and eat my dessert, minus the strawberries. Despite my screw-this attitude, I can’t bring myself to eat it with strawberries because I’m worried hives might make Carla irritable.
“I found something!” I hear Helen call.
Backhanding the whipped cream from the corner of my mouth, I head back to the living room to see my wife holding a beat-up old box.
“Scrabble!” I say. I love Scrabble! “I didn’t know you play!”
This is yet another wonderful thing I did not know about my wife.
“Are you kidding me?” she says. “The Troys take their Scrabble playing very seriously. This is the board my parents used to use. They got it when they were first married. They gave it to me because I loved it so much. Look at this.”
She opens the lid to reveal an old board, folded in half, the edges worn. There’s a felt bag inside and inside that are these beautiful old blond-wood tiles—not a hint of modern tacky plastic in sight.
“This looks like an antique,” I say, fingering a smooth tile. It even feels better than any Scrabble tiles I’ve ever played with before. “Very cool.”
“Want to play?” Helen looks at Carla, expectantly, hopeful.
Carla opens her mouth and from the shape of it, I’m sure she’s going to say no, perhaps adding that she doesn’t believe in Scrabble. But then she must see what I see—how happy and excited Helen looks—and the shape of Carla’s mouth changes until what comes out of it is: “Why not? I know a few words.”
And in that moment, I almost like Carla, because while we have almost nothing in common, clearly we do share one goal: we both want to see Helen happy.
“Is the cat going to stay there the whole time?” Carla wants to know.
We’re back in our places around the dining room table, which Fluffy has just jumped on, stretching in a very catlike way before he settles down on the vacant space between me and Helen.
What’s Carla’s problem? There’s no food on the table. Fluffy’s not bothering anything. This is where the action is, so who can blame him? He just wants to feel like part of the group. And despite the fact that I want to make Helen happy—which, on this evening, entails making Carla happy—I’m disinclined to give Fluffy the hook, what with the way he’s been acting out lately.
“He’s not bothering anything,” I say.
“What if he knocks the tiles all over the place?”
“He won’t knock the—” I grab the fourth wooden tile-holder from the box, set it down in front of Fluffy. “There. He’ll feel just like us now, minus the tiles, so there will be no need for any knocking.”
Fluffy touches a front paw to the tile-holder, perhaps noting that we have tiles in ours while he does not. I’m half tempted to give him seven tiles, just to see what letters he might randomly point to—would they spell a word?—but I’m sensing this is not the group for that.
“Tell you what,” I say to Carla in the hopes of mollifying her with my magnanimous gesture. “We won’t even draw tiles to see who goes first. Since you’re the guest, why don’t you go first and cash in on the automatic double-word score…”
Things go along nicely for a good half hour until I make qwerty.
“That’s not a word!” Carla says.
“Of course it’s a word!” I counter.
“What does it mean?”
“It’s the modern-day layout for keyboards. It dates back to 1878. The name derives from the letters on the first six keys on the left of the top letter row. Q-W-E-R-T-Y: qwerty.”
“You’re making that up!”
I snort. “Is that a challenge? Because we can access the dictionary from my computer—you know, the computer with the qwerty keyboard?”
“Never mind,” Carla says, grumpily.
She’s even more grumpy when I add up my points. My qwerty ran down the far left side of the board, the t landing beautifully on the red triple-word score, adding on to a word Carly had made previously: on. The combined points of my qwerty and my ton when tripled comes to 72.
I swear, there is absolutely no gloat in my voice when I say that number for Helen, who is scorekeeper, to put down.
The game proceeds in silence for a few rounds with people just making your basic words but then my turn comes again and I’m stuck with an almost complete consonant stew. I’ve got just one vowel, an i, and so, making the most of it that I can, I add it to the right of the q at the top of qwerty to make qi.
“What is that?” Carla objects. “That’s not a word.”
“Qi,” I inform her, “is the acceptable variant spelling of chi—you know, the vital energy that is held to animate the body internally. It’s of central importance in some Eastern systems of medical treatment, l
ike acupuncture, and exercise or self-defense, like tai chi. It is not, however, to be confused with chi as in the twenty-second letter of the Greek alphabet; that chi has no qi spelling variant.”
Carla just stares at me for a long moment. “Who knows crap like that?”
I’m about to attempt an answer and it’s a good thing Helen chimes in because I got nothing. How do I know what kind of person knows the things I know?
“Johnny graduated Magna Cum Laude,” Helen informs Carla. Is that pride I see on her face? Certainly, no one here is gloating! “He’s extremely smart.”
“You know,” Carla says, eyes narrowed as she wags a suspicious finger at me, “I think I recall hearing that about you. Maybe back when you and Helen were first dating? Helen might have even mentioned it more than once.” She shrugs. “But for some reason, that knowledge of you has never stuck. I wonder why that is.”
“I don’t know.” Now it’s my turn to shrug. I’m tempted to say, Maybe it’s because you’ve never seemed inclined to see anything good in me? But, not wanting to be rude to Helen’s friend, instead I go with, “Maybe it’s because I’m so good at impersonating stupid.”
“That must be it,” Carla says.
Another few rounds go by and now it’s Carla’s turn to stare at her tiles like she’s stumped.
“Do you by any chance have an a?” I ask, thinking to be helpful.
“What? Have you been peeking at my letters?”
“No, but counting the number of a’s that are on the board, I figure there are still two outstanding. I know I don’t have any, but I figured you might.”
“And if I do?”
“You could attach it to the bottom of the z at the beginning of zoo.”
“And that would make…za? What the hell is za?”
“It’s slang for pizza.”
“Za, for pizza? I’ve never heard anyone say that in my life—and, believe me, I’ve eaten a lot of pizza!”
I’m assuming she means before she went all Atkinsy, but anyway…
“It’s in Webster’s Eleventh! Look it up if you don’t believe me!”
“Qi, za,” she mutters, although I do notice she adds her a to the z for a nice eleven-point za. “The qwerty thing, maybe I can understand—I suppose that might be part of common knowledge, somewhere—but who knows qi and za? That’s just plain weird.”
Isn't It Bro-Mantic? Page 19
