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

“Zucchini bread, please. Zucchini bread.”

“So what do you say?”

“Lemon.” She picks up a glass of iced tea from the tray of hundreds of iced teas. “Lemon,” she says.

We sit across from each other and I take her hand. “Jackie, please. I need your help. This is my life here. I’ve got to get Nicolo back. And I’ve got to out maneuver Winston and Amity. You’re my only hope. Please.”

“I don’t know,” she says, drawing her hand back. “I mean, I don’t want to marry a guy unless he wants to have a baby with me. I want a guy who wants to have a baby with me, because I want a baby.”

“Fine. We’ll buy a baby. A doll. We’ll get out of bed every two hours at night and pretend it’s crying. Then after we get divorced, we’ll throw it in the trash and you can have a real one with the guy you really marry.”

She pulls off a piece of zucchini bread and puts it into her mouth. “I don’t know, Harry. People are supposed to marry for love.”

God, I hate it when uncomplicated people are earnest. And right. But I can’t let Winston steal my inheritance. Or Amity. “I will marry for love. I’m going to marry Nicolo. And you’re going to marry for love too. Just not this time.”

“Well, what about a license and everything,”.” she asks.

I fork one of my beef tips. “We’ll get a license. Today.”

She cuts herself a piece of roast beef. Then cuts that piece again. Then again. “I don’t know if I can do this to Amity. She saved my ass, man. If it weren’t for her, I’d have lost my job. She was a friend to me.”

“and you’ll still be a friend to her. If we tell her now, there’s plenty of time for her to save face and bow out gracefully. It’ll be fine. And after I get my money, I’ll pay for Amity to go to the rehab center. We won’t just abandon her.”

“It’s still mean,” she laments, putting the roast beef in her mouth.

I squeeze my corn muffin as if it’s her head. “Jesus, Jacqueline. I’ve told you what she’s doing to me. She’s a fucking crook. Worse, if she takes the two million my brother offered her, she’ll spin totally out of control.”

“She’ll buy a lot of clothes,” Jackie says, spearing a piece of broccoli.

“What she’ll buy is coke, weed, and champagne,” I warn. “She’ll ruin her own life besides ruining mine.”

Jacqueline sighs, sticking a broccoli floret into her mouth halfway and leaving it to look like a bonsai tree hanging from her lips. Finally, she sucks up the tree and answers, “I know. She ruined my life too.”

“What do you mean?”

“She was fooling around with my boyfriend Arthur. Behind my back. It was her and Arthur together that wrecked my Jaguar. They wrecked it.” She sips her tea, looks away, ashamed. “Together.”

I remember Amity saying that Arthur has no conscience. “Jackie! Why haven’t you ever told me this?”

“Friends shouldn’t talk about friends,” she says simply. “Friends are friends.”

“Even if they fuck you over completely? Jackie, her name isn’t even Amity Stone. It’s Amy Stubbs. She’s Amy Stubbs from Waco. Has she ever told you that?”

“Well, I don’t know about the name thing, but I know she’s from Waco.”

“So she’s still lying to you. And me.”

“What does it matter what her name is? She is who she is, no matter what. Look, we all make mistakes,” she says, taking a sip of tea. “You don’t just dump someone out of your life when they make a mistake.”

She’s right. It’s what Nicolo’s mother is doing to me, and it’s devastating. How could I do this to Amity? “You’re incredible, Jackie,” I tell her sincerely. “You are her friend, aren’t you?”

“She doesn’t have anybody really. Just you and me.” She punctures the meringue of her coconut cream pie with her finger, then sticks her finger in her mouth and tastes the meringue. Turning her attention back to her broccoli, she thinks quietly to herself while munching like a turtle. I don’t press her, but wait for her to finish and take a sip of tea. “Yes, Han’y. You’re a nice guy. And I think you’re right. I think she’ll probably fuck you over. She’s had her sights on you since that day we all met. When the hospital called me, after they found my phone number in your pocket, Amity called about two minutes later and insisted I didn’t need to go to the hospital. I could tell she wanted to get her hooks into you.”

“She told me you weren’t home when the hospital called,” I say, shaking my head.

“Look, she can’t help herself. I mean, she just can’t help herself. But I can. I can control myself, and I’m not going to fuck her over just because she’s fucking you over. There’s too much fucking over going on. And it’s against my principles to marry someone I don’t love. See, that’s what Amity needs. She needs your love. Then maybe she would get better. She’d probably get better.”

I’m now feeling guilty for trying to get the upper hand. Maybe I should think about loving Amity, rather than trying to outsmart her. And who says Nicolo would accept my bogus marriage to Jackie any more than he’d accept my bogus marriage to Amity anyway?

Randy’s plan is no plan at all.

After dropping Jackie off at the drugstore at the end of our block,

I swing by the ATM machine, then head for home, feeling confused, angry, and hopeless. As I pull into the driveway, I see people at the back door sitting on the step. A middle-aged man and woman. They’re dressed in church clothes, and the woman is holding some thing in her lap.

As I pull in and turn the car off, the man stands and puts his hand out to help the woman rise from the steps. They look at me and