My Best Man by Andy Schell (unputdownable books .txt) 📗

“I have to get married,” I told him as we exited the kitchen for the dining room, “or I’ll lose everything.” I dropped the potato off for the guy with the steak, then followed Nicolo out to a table for two, where a yuppieish couple was trying to enjoy a romantic evening.

Nicolo served the salmon to the man, the prime rib to the woman.

I reached down and switched the plates.

“How did you know?” the woman asked, looking sideways at me.

The cut of prime rib was a Texas-sized portion. “How can you eat that much meat?” I asked the guy, ignoring his wife’s comment.

Nicolo finally looked at me and imparted with great passion, “You are out of line, coming to my place of work! This gentleman can eat as much meat as he wants!”

The restaurant manager agreed and forcibly led me to the door

and told me that if I returned he would call the cops and Nicolo, who he said should have been fired long ago, finally would be.

For days I called, but either there was no answer or his mother picked up to say Nicolo didn’t wish to speak to me and requested that I not come to the house. Against his wishes, I did twice. Each time his mother appeared before I could even ring the bell and quickly ushered me away, telling me Nicolo wasn’t home, even though his truck was there and I knew he was. I wrote to him, explaining it all, and the letter was returned to sender, unopened. His pride is making it impossible for us to reconcile, but I’m not giving up. I must explain to him why I’m getting married; it doesn’t guarantee he’ll come back to me, but it’s my only chance.

In the meantime, my mother insists that Amity and I set a date since my birthday is approaching. “It’s best you’re married by your birthday, dear,” she tells me. She and Amity decide the ceremony should be October 18, the same day as my birthday, because they believe it would be so wonderful for me to link the two events forever. I agree. My birth and my death, so to speak. Playing this game, acting as if everything is progressing right on schedule with the wedding, is making me crazy.

Jacqueline is hanging out with us a lot since the mythical abortion. She and Amity are in this stirrup pants phase together now, Jacqueline taking the place of my mother and looking more like Laura Petrie than my mother ever could anyway.

In between flight assignments, since I’ve lost Nicolo, I sulk around the house. The girls try to include me in their shopping and eating ventures, but now I find it all insufferable. I’m not the same weak little wimp I was when I arrived nine months ago, and frankly, I’m getting bored with everything I found interesting before. It’s odd. I realize now that when I was in college my academics and friends were real, but I turned it all into a game. And now that I’m in the real world, everything is a game, and I have to find a way to make it real, which requires another game in itself.

Amity and Jackie insist on dragging me to the mall to see Gremlins, and I realize the escape of a film would be good medicine. We’re driving in Jackie’s Volvo to the mall, some innocuous song by some innocuous British techno band is playing on the radio, and I’m flipping through the Penthouse magazine that has now exposed Miss America’s clitoris to the American public.

“G’yaw,” Jacqueline says as she looks into her rearview mirror while I hold the magazine up in the backseat.

Amity turns around. “Can you believe Miss America’s snatch? It’s not very page antlike

“What does Emily Post say a page antlike snatch is supposed to look like?” I ask sarcastically.

Amity checks the shape of one of her eyebrows in the vanity mirror. “You know..” fluffy, ladylike, pink. With a little crown on it.”

“Do black women have pink snatches?” Jacqueline asks, looking at me in the rearview mirror.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen one,” I say, defending my ignorance.

“You’ve never seen a black woman?” Jacqueline asks.

“Never,” I say, defending Jacqueline’s ignorance. I flip to another picture and hold it up.

“Look!” Amity screams, turning around. “She’s with another girl. Miss America’s eating her be ave

Jacqueline’s confused. “Her be ave

“Beave, beaver, beavaronie. She’s putting her tongue on that girl’s Libby!”

“Big deal,” I remark. “Maybe she’s hungry.”

“Or thirsty,” Jacqueline adds.

I can’t believe I’ve been one upped by Jackie.

Suddenly Amity turns glum. “I can’t believe she was ousted. There’s nothing sadder than a beauty queen taking a fall.”

Just you wait, Amity. Just you wait.

Amity is back on the fast track, smoking more pot than ever and increasingly flying around on coke. As pissed off as I am, I don’t want to see her disintegrate on drugs, so I try to caution her to cool it, but because I’m angry at her, it comes off sounding preachy, and she dismisses me and assures me that she’s totally in control. Though she’s seeing Kim again, she’s pledged he’s given up his gun and, better yet, is considering going back to his wife now that he has Amity on the side. She tells me she’ sencouraging him to reconcile since it would be much better for everyone involved. And somehow, she manages to continue seeing Thomas as well, because, “I just love his testicles they feel so European!”

One Friday night, when Amity is going out the door with Thomas, I ask what Nicolo is doing, and Thomas kind of mutters, “Not a whole lot.”

But Amity gets this concerned look on her face, the kind of face that Matthew used in the end and tells me compassionately, “Babe, Nicolo is dating someone.”

She’s so cruel. How can she tell me this? I want to die. There’s no way I’ll ever find anyone as good as Nicolo I know it. And now, I’ve lost my