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

she barrels on. “I want you to have this ring and to become the fourth generation owner and, may I say, the most beautiful girl to wear it yet.” She hands me the ring while Amity mouths a tearful thank you to my mother the way a pageant winner does as she first walks the runway with her new crown. “Harry,” my mother finishes, “you may present the ring.”

When I was in college, I did a scene from King Lear in which I played the king himself. I assure you, I look nothing like anyone who’s ever played the character, nor do I have an accomplished voice or venerable manner. But I pulled it off, out of true commitment to the character. And that’s what I do now. Commit. I take the ring, while smiling at Amity, and hold the diamonds into the light, letting them sparkle across her face. My mother places the microphone in my free hand, and I begin. “Amity, I feel so honored to have met you. I don’t know what my life would be like today if we hadn’t been brought together on this earth.” By that other gold digger, Matthew, on the day he dumped me. Stop it, I tell myself. Concentrate. Look deep into her eyes. “I was lost, and you know it, until I met you. I didn’t know what direction to take in life. But when I was down, you were there.” Concentrate, Harry. “And now we’re here tonight, less than one month away from sealing our fates together.” Squeeze her hand. Kiss her on the cheek. Her eyes are misting up .. is it the cocaine? Is she going to

sneeze? Never mind. Get on your knees like those idiots in the movies.

“Amity,” I say on bended knee, “I present to you, my future bride, this ring. From my family. From my heart.”

She smiles and cries like Miss America, and as I rise to place it on her finger, the crowd contributes its tasteful applause while the band plays a jazz version of “Heart and Soul.” She nearly has to push her eyes back into their sockets when she flashes those diamonds and emeralds for the crowd. I remember how she told me that, if we ever got married, all she wanted was a thin gold band. My ass. I’d have to saw her finger off to take back this ring.

After dinner, the lights go off and the band strikes up the “Wil liam Tell Overture” and the waiters come out in a line, carrying silver trays of flaming baked Alaska over their heads. They turn and snake through the entire dining room to great applause. I look across the table to my grandmother. Her eyes are sparkling in awe as she claps like a happy little child while the flaming desserts streak by in the dark, and for the first time tonight, I’m content. It heals my confused heart to see her smiling and clapping, oblivious to the subterfuge that brought this night to fruition. When she looks across the table at me, she stops clapping and nudges my uncle and whispers to him. He reaches into his breast pocket and produces a pen, and she takes it from him and writes something on the linen napkin she’s pulled from her lap. Folding the pen into the napkin, she hands the napkin to my uncle and motions for him to discreetly pass it on in my direction.

It arrives from under the table on my right while Amity, to my left, applauds with the rest of the guests. I slowly unfold the napkin and look into my lap to read: “Are you happy?” I use the pen to scribble my response, given without hesitation. “No.” And then I pass it back as discreetly as it came to me.

When the lights come back up, Amity is gone. Probably to the ladies’ room to shove some more coca leaf powder up her nose.

But when I look over to Uncle Jack and Aunt Shirley’s table, where Winston and his date are sitting, I see that Winston is also missing. A doubtful coincidence. I stand to excuse myself, and before I leave the table I see that my grandmother is holding up another napkin, her message written in plain block letters: “TO THINE OWN SELF

BE TRUE.”

I look at her and shrug, as if it’s too late, then step away from the table. Before I leave the dining room, I walk toward the center of the room, letting people congratulate me as I pass by, and when I reach the speaking area where earlier I proposed on bended knee, I reach down and grab the torn check. When a few people notice, I make a joke. “She’ll want to tape it back together and head to Maxwell-Grey!” Ha ha ha.

Barbie Botter calls out to me. “Is is true you’ll be honeymooning in the Seychelles?”

“Of course!” I call over my shoulder. Where in the hell did she come up with that? I ascend the two steps to the top level of the dining room and wind my way out, piecing the check together. Kim Park is the account holder, and it’s definitely made out in Amity’s “Princess Modern” handwriting. She stole a check from Kim and forged it banking on the fact that my mother would never cash it. I stuff the pieces of the check into my pocket.

If Amity and Winston are together, I’m sure they’re in the TV room. I quietly approach the door and put my ear to it. Muted voices. A man and a woman. I slowly pull it open and peek inside. Children are frozen, two to a big cushy chair, staring at the flickering light of the TV screen while The A-Team thwarts a sabotage plot. The children, set free after dinner, are transfixed by the excitement of the small screen. They slurp their Shirley Temples with a frenetic pace that parallels the plot and root for Mr. T.