My Best Man (34 page)

Physically, I’d have no problem sleeping with this guy. Mentally, that last statement tells me he’s all wrong. “Yes,” I answer emphatically, “it is something a boy tells another boy. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

He looks at his shoes, chuckles uncomfortably. “I wasn’t that kind of a boy.”

My voice is honest, not harsh. “No offense, Bob, but you aren’t that kind of a man either. I am. I don’t want to sneak around with you or anybody. I have no secrets about my love. His name is Nicolo.”

He turns slightly colder. “Funny. Nicolo looks an awful lot like a girl tonight in that black dress and pearls.”

“I told you, Amity knows all about him. My family too.”

“So why the party?” he asks, biting the olive off the toothpick. “And why the girl?”

I sigh. “For my mother, the family name and all. And … personal reasons.”

“Financial personal reasons?”

I nod affirmatively.

He chews the olive, swallows. “Then I guess you’re not that different from me,” he says bitingly. He sets his glass down and walks to the door. As he leaves, Winston appears, and the two of them bristle with recognition. “Hello, Winnie,” Bob spits. “Honoring your brother with a visit from his big sister?”

Winston shows his fangs, mutters, “Nice to see you too, Valentino.”

‘

I have no doubt they’ve slept together—it’s written all over their faces. I’m so glad I didn’t jump into the broom closet with Bob, because I would be grossed out to think I could mess around

z with anyone who’d slept with my brother: male, female, or inflatable doll. And I realize now that it was probably Winston who told Bob about me. “When did the children’s room become the snake pit?” I ask Winston as he plunks down into a chair.

“What’s the matter, Happy. Aren’t you having a good time?” “Who wouldn’t be? All these waxy people walking around. Music from someone else’s generation. Food that gives you the shits. What more could a guy want?”

He raises his feet to the ottoman in front of him. “Nicolo perhaps

I want to punch him in his pretty face. “How do you know about Nicolo?”

“Mother and I are closer than you think. And of course Acidity and I have our little chats.”

Oh, God, I can hardly handle the two of them separately. What are they chatting about?

“I’m sure Nicolo is wonderful, Happy. Far better than this silly girl running around shaking everyone’s hand like she’s running for governor. I really can’t believe you’re going through with this.” He crosses his legs.

I stand over him. “Gee, it’s so hard to figure out. If I do it, I’m fifty million richer. If I don’t, you’re fifty million richer.”

“So shallow. Since when did you start caring about money? What is money?” he asks, picking up a paperweight from the end table beside him. It’s glass with an Indian penny inside. He holds it to the light. “I hear things aren’t going so well with your Romeo from South America. Why don’t you drop this charade and reunite with your true love? I’d be willing to help you out, you know. Buy the two of you a house, another car, throw in some junk bonds, maybe even a horse.”

He still knows where Cinnamon is. Somehow he knows. Cinna mon would be sixteen years old now. With good care, he still has

half a life ahead of him. I can’t believe Winston would do this to me. “What happened to make you so fucking mean?”

He stands, speaks very soberly. “Do you understand what I’m offering you? Nicolo. And the horse. And enough money to be comfortable.” He squints. “Love and money. Are you refusing me?”

“Are you insinuating I don’t love Amity?”

“Not the way you love Nicolo. It’s not possible.”

“Why do you say that?”

“When you’re gay, you’re gay. You can’t love a woman fully.” I look him dead in the eye. “And you’re the expert, aren’t you?” He blasts me with contempt. “Harry. Harry Ford. The perfect little man so true to himself, true to the world.” He walks over to the bookshelf and plucks out a book, which he holds in front of himself like a sword. “Wielding the saber of honesty since the age of seventeen. Forsaking all financial provisions in order to live peacefully. How peaceful was it, Harry? Driving around in that junk heap, in debt up to your ears just to attend a public university. Eating franks and beans with your middle-class chums. Working in a theater box office in order to pay for your books. And now you’re tossing bags of peanuts to those animals in coach.” He tosses the book onto a chair. “Was it worth it?”

I look at him and wonder how he can be so handsome and so ugly at the same time. “It was great,” I tell him with pleasure. “I

was poor, but I was happy. I loved my VW it was the best car

I’ve ever had.”

“There’s no accounting for taste,” he sniffs.

“And franks and beans are just fine …… better after you’re stoned, but just fine. I loved working in the box office because I got to attend all performances for free, and it’s how I met my college boyfriend. And the flight attendant job well, it’s kind of a drag, I admit. But I won’t be doing it for much longer because now I’ll be happy and rich.”

“Wealthy is how we say it.”

I’ll be more than wealthy,” I assure him. “I’ll be spending my life with someone who loves me.” Nicolo, I hope.

“And you’ll give up Nicolo and your horse for money?” “I’m giving up Nicolo and my horse for Amity.” “She’ll burn you, little brother. Mark my words.”

I get up, leave. “I know what I’m doing,” I spit over my shoulder. I wouldn’t risk saying it if I weren’t sure I could get Nicolo back. Never mind that I can’t find him I know I’ll get him back, because if I have to, I’ll call off the wedding.

“I ask for your attention please,” Donald says into the microphone. “Your attention.” He’s a confident speaker I guess because he’s a general, and generals know how to give orders like, “Go out there and get killed!” So asking for attention is nothing to him. My mother stands beside him, wiggling and glowing like a firefly without an off mechanism. Amity holds on to me with one hand, her champagne glass with the other. “We’d like to make a presentation. As you know, we’re here tonight to celebrate Harry and Amity’s impending doom I mean, wedding.” Ha ha ha. The crowd chuckles on cue as if LAUGH signs are flashing in the corners of the room. “His mother and I …”

Who are you? I wonder, looking at Donald.

“His mother and I,” he continues, “are very proud parents this evening. Needless to say, Amity has made quite an impression on our hearts.” ‘

“And our checkbooks!” Winston yells.

The crowd laughs, mistakenly thinking the imaginary LAUGH signs are flashing again. Donald nods, as if the remark was planned, and continues. “We also want to extend the regrets of the Stones of Fort Worth, Texas, Amity’s parents, who had to cancel their plans to be here this evening when Amity’s grandmother suffered a mild stroke.”

The crowd gives one of those pathetically sad, “Oh” mixed

with “Ah” sounds, as if the flashing signs now say, SYMPATHY

NOISE.

Donald continues. “But from what we understand, the damage was mild, and Grandmother Stone will be back to the horse races and her book club in no time. We must tell you, the Stones, with their kindest regards, have had their accountant send a blank check to cover the cost of this entire event.”

The crowd is silent, but awash with impressed and approving looks.

I look over at Amity, and she looks back with slight nervousness and shrugs.

“Which we cannot accept,” Donald adds.

Amity’s shoulders fall as she exhales, relieved.

The room is peppered with several agreements of, “Of course not. ‘

Donald takes a check from his pocket and tears it in hall then drops it to the floor. “Now, we want to do something special for these fine young people. Hart’y, Amity, will you please come up here?”

Amity sets her champagne glass down and dons that same look she wore when collecting her award at the airline ceremony. Pulling me up as she rises, she lets me take over, play the big man leading his fiancee to the forefront of people’s affections. As we make our way, the band plays a few bars of Chopin’s funeral march. The crowd laughs. My mother good-naturedly shakes her fist at the band, and they stop the music, then launch into “We’ve Only Just Begun.” More rehearsed laughs. It’s getting so trite that Rogers and Hammerstein are going to have to change the line to “I’m as corny as Kansas in September.”

“Harry and Amity,” my mother says, nervous to be speaking into a microphone, “I would like to present you with something that has been in our family for three generations.” She opens a small velvet box, revealing a diamond-and-emerald ring of exquisite

beauty. “Amity, this was my mother’s engagement ring, and her mother’s before that.”

I look to the side of the room, where Winston and his date sit far apart, When Winston sees me he scoots closer to her and takes her hand, almost frightening her. He looks at me, at the ring, then at Amity. If he had a gun, he’d shoot the diamonds out of my mother’s hands.

My mother continues. “Since I have no daughters…” I expect Winston to crack a joke, and obviously she does too because 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. If I weren’t on a mission, I’d be happy to stay here with the innocents, but I’ve got a sabotage plot of my own to thwart.