My Best Man (36 page)

“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 smile. I step out of my increasingly ragged new car; they walk toward me. “Hi,” I say as they approach, the woman carrying a pie. “Amity’s out of town. You’re her parents, aren’t you?”

“How did you know?” the woman asks, smiling. Her twang is softer than Amity’s, and she’s plain and sweet. Auburn hair pulled back into a bun. Forest green dress, brown flat shoes. She looks nothing like Amity.

“I knew she couldn’t hide you forever,” I answer honestly. “She’d try,” the man says candidly, just the slightest amount of hurt on his face. He’s a large man in a big brown suit. His wingtip shoes are polished into a gleaming shine. “Jim Stubbs,” the man announces, reaching out to shake my hand. “And this here’s my wife, Erline.” His Texas accent is thicker than his wife’s.

I like them immediately. “Harry Ford,” I say, shaking their hands.

“She’s told us all about you,” Mr. Stubbs smiles.

“We were so relieved to finally get a letter,” his wife adds. “Come on in the house.”

“OK, but don’t tell Amity,” Mrs. Stubbs answers, giving me an impish wink.

I take them into the sitting room and seat them on the couch. After taking a folding chair from the hall closet, I sit next to them. Mrs. Stubbs puts the pie on the coffee table. “It’s homemade peach, Amy’s. I mean Amity’s favorite.”

I smile. “I know. So did you drive over from Waco?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Stubbs answers, “but we’re supposed to be from Fort Worth,” she chuckles nervously.

“I guess you’re wonderin’ why we’re here,” Mr. Stubbs says. Before I answer, he continues. “We’d been worded because she hadn’t been returnin’ our calls or letters, and in the past, that’s meant she’s fallen off the wagon.”

“She has a history of substance-abuse problems,” her mother says knowingly, as if she’s spent time with a family counselor. “But that’s all behind her now.”

I smile and withhold. What good will it do to tell them she’s gone wild with the cocaine again?

Her mother continues. “I know she’ll want to kill us for coming unannounced, but we were so thrilled to learn all about you, and when she told us she would be getting married again, well, we wanted to do something, so we baked her a pie.”

“That’s very sweet. She’ll be glad, I’m sure.”

“You must be something’ special, young man,” her father tells me, “because she’s never invited us to the other weddin’s.” Weddings. Plural. How many? I wonder.

“We were so impressed with what she wrote about you,” her mother says, in awe. “How your family background has made you the right man for her.”

Oh, I’m sure. She probably couldn’t wait to tell them that I was a Ford and how much my inheritance would be.

Her father looks at me with regard. “She says you’re different from any man she’s ever met.”

What? Gay? Dumber than the others?

“Kind and sweet,” her mother says softly. Then she grins, “But watch out for his sense of humor, she told us. “He makes me laugh till I’m standing in a pee puddle,” she wrote!”

“We were surprised,” her dad says honestly. “We never learn anything until after she’s married, and by then she’s usually divorced.”

“We suspect you must have money,” her mom laughs, “but we don’t give a hoot. Because this time we know it’s right. She says you’ve overcome your family to be the man you are, and that’s why she feels she knows you, because she’ sd one the same thing.” “What do you mean?”

“Oh, we don’t take it personal no more,” her father says. “Nope,” her mother decrees. She wears no makeup but has a few freckles on her nose, and they give her face a youthful quality for her age. “It was like she was born to the wrong family from day one. She used to look up from my breast and just squint, like “Who the hell are you? My real mother’s a queen.” And I’d look down and think, “Oh, Lord, this one’s going to be trouble.” “

“She was wearing makeup by the age of three,” her father laughs. “But Erline here don’t wear any, so she had to steal it from her little playmate’s mother next door. Can you imagine? Three years old and stealing makeup?”

“Don’t misunderstand,” Mrs. Stubbs says politely. “We always loved her. She just wasn’t like other kids. I mean, how many six year olds play the character of Blanche Dubois in a scene from A Streetcar Named Desire at their first grade talent night, with feeling I can tell by Mrs. Stubbs’s smile that she’s reliving the scene in her head.

“She read Gone With the Wind from cover to cover at the age of seven,” Mr. Stubbs gloats. Then he chuckles. “She’s always had a flair for the dramatic.”

“We’re not stupid, Mr. Ford,” Mrs. Stubbs says quietly, smoothing her skirt. “We know there’s an ache in her heart. We just don’t know what it is. It’s like she always feels she’s missing something.”

Her father shakes his head. “When we’d have tornadoes, I’d have to drag her to the cellar kickin’ and screamin’, because she

always wanted to stay in the house and fly over the rainbow to

Oz.” ‘

“Yep,” Mrs. Stubbs adds. “She’s always thought there’s some thing better than what she has, and if she moves fast enough, she’ll catch up with it.”

“We’re thinkin’ maybe she’s finally caught up with it,” Mr. Stubbs tells me sincerely. “Because she sure ain’t never wrote a letter about anyone like she did the one about you. She makes it sound like you hung the moon, and she put no dollar figure on it. That’s a good sign.”

Her mother looks at me with soulful eyes. “We just wish she felt she had a family. Of course we are her family, but if we’re not good enough, just ‘cuz we buy our underwear at Wards and prefer beer over that imported champagne she drinks well, then OK, we can accept that. We just want her to make a family of her own,” her mother says tenderly. “And not just in her imagination. So when we got her letter, we realized it’s finally going to happen. Thank you, Mr. Ford. Thanks for taming the beast in our little gift.” Mrs. Stubbs leans over and hugs me. Mr. Stubbs pats me on the leg.

“Will you stay for pie?” I ask, my emotions more confused than ever.

“That would be mighty nice,” Mr. Stubbs answers.

Amity has managed to avoid me during the past week. She’s flying to and fro, crowing about the bridesmaids’ dresses, the corsages, and all the preparations. She’s on the phone with my mother constantly, screaming and laughing with joy. I haven’t told her that her parents came to visit, because they made me promise not to. They told me she’ll punish them for “ruining whatever tall tales she’s spun on their behalf.” And that she won’t speak to them for an even longer period of time if I tell her what I know. I honor their request, but know that I have to speak to Amity somehow.

I’ve lost almost all hope of Nicolo. Though I’ll be forever in love with him, and I have no doubt that he is my true soul mate, I’m afraid that his mother has won her own little dirty war, and that my fate is now with Amity, who I’m beginning to believe loves me in her own way. I’m just not sure it’s the way I want to be loved.

I’m flying my last trip before Amity and I leave for the wedding in Kansas. My first flight of the morning is from Dallas to Shreve port, where we get delayed on the ground for three hours due to thunderstorms. Even on the ground, the aisle floor is moving beneath

my feet, a lingering phenomenon caused by the turbulence of the previous flight from Dallas. And the aircraft cabin is a sweltering, humid prison because they won’t let any of the passengers off the plane, in case we get clearance to leave on the spur of the moment. I have one guy tell me he is going to get the captain fired if he doesn’t take off for Dallas right now. We’re sitting at the gate, the sky is thundering and lightning as if it’s Judgment Day and we’ve all been very bad, hail is smashing against the plane, and this guy wants to take off. And I know it’s because he’s bald, because those type-A bald guys have too much testosterone. They have to shave three times a day and get fucked three times a day, or they start yelling at flight attendants, insisting we take off in hurricanes.

Finally, after sitting for hours, we depart and some portly gal from Louisiana comes out of the rear lavatory, holding the in-flight magazine against her ass. “Mr. Steward,” she says to me, “are you aware that you’re out of sanitary napkins in there?” What the hell am I supposed to do? Ask the captain to land at a 7-11 ? I want to hand her a cocktail napkin and a Band-Aid and tell her to make herself a little mini pad with wings but I bite my tongue and follow her up to the front lav to show her the compartment that holds those airline-issued rat mattresses we call sanitary napkins. When she tells me she’d prefer a tampon, I stop biting my tongue and tell her, “People in hell want ice water,” before storming back down the aisle.

And then, as we smash around the clouds on our way back to Dallas, a seven-year-old child who’s seated in the first row of coach, flying alone, throws up his airport hot dog. And when I go to help him clean himself up, he throws up again, on me. And the smell, and the feel, and the texture of regurgitated hot dog dripping off my face makes me throw up. And that makes the man in the row behind us moan, “Oh, God, I’m fixin’ to puke.” And the woman across from him says, “Myself!” and lets loose with chunks of creamed corn, causing the two children traveling with her to throw

up. And I want to get on the PA. system and announce, “Will everyone please throw up!” But instead I hold my head out in front of my torso and scurry to the bathroom which is occupied. I bang on the door, but give up and turn to the galley, where I pull out the trash can and wipe my face off with a wet paper towel, while the stressed-out stewardesses who are still devoid of vomit frantically try to help all the heaving fools in their seats. When the ancient geezer finally exits the lav, I enter and step directly into the puddle of whiz he’s left on the floor. I try to unwrap the little soap, but it’s glued so tightly shut that I consider going into the cockpit and grabbing the crash ax to hack it open. Finally, I smash it against the counter, rip it open, and use the little soap chips to wash my face.

When the plane lands in Dallas, I call the scheduling department from the loading bridge and tell them to send a replacement because I’m going home to run a screwdriver through my skull. But I don’t go home. I drive Amity’s car (she’d asked me to drive her car to the airport, so that she can “run wedding errands in the Beamer” while I was out of town) straight to Nicolo’s house and park on the street. His truck is missing, but I don’t care, I sit outside and wait. I won’t try to win him back. I just want one, final, last, ultimate chance to set the record straight. And I wait for over two hours, nervously thrashing in the seat of Amity’s car like a cricket caught in a jar, so that by the time Nicolo and his mother drive into their driveway, I’m drenched with sweat, my face still smells hot doggish, I have no idea what I’m going to say, and I’m so utterly exhausted, mentally and physically, I simply give up. I don’t even get out of the car. I just sit there, my hand on the ignition key, ready to leave. Nicolo, after lifting out two bags of groceries from the back of the pickup truck, walks out to the street, and asks me, “What are you doing, Harry?”

“I’m going home, Nicolo,” I tell him. “I’ve been chasing you forever, and I can’t chase you anymore. I’m losing respect for

myself. All I’ve wanted to do is explain, but now I’m going home.” I turn the key, put the car in gear, and roll away. Believe me, my love for him still endures, and I’ll always wish that we could have a life together, but the heat of the day seems to have melted my ardor, and I can’t get past his mother, nor force Nicolo’s face into a mold if it doesn’t fit, so I’m just going to go home and wash my own face for the eighth time today.

Minutes later I’m in the shower at my house when I hear a tapping on the window. “Harry,” a voice calls, “are you in there?” It’s Nicolo’s voice. He’s standing outside the slightly open bathroom window.