I quickly jam the rest of the breadstick into my mouth and stand up with a huge grin on my face, still chewing, because Molly doesn’t deserve for me to wait until I swallow.
“Molly Marks!” I call, opening my arms wide like there is no reason on earth she wouldn’t step into them for a big old back-slapping hug. I am Seth Rubenstein, attorney at law, and I am going todrownher in my famous charisma.
She stands there with her head cocked, as if I’m a loon.
Look, Iama loon, I admit it. But I’m aniceloon, which Molly no doubt finds foreign and difficult to parse, being a cruel and chilling person.
“Hey, don’t leave a poor guy hanging,” I exclaim. “Bring it in, Marksman!”
She reluctantly steps into my arms and gives me a tentativetap, tap, tapon the shoulder—as if touching me with more than one finger would put her at risk of contracting a venereal disease.
Which I don’t have. I got tested before I flew out here. Just in case.
I pull her in closer. “Hey, a little affection if you please, Marky Marks. It’s your old pal Seth Rubes.”
“Who?” she asks, deadpan.
I laugh, because I’m determined to exude the relaxed affability of a very chill dude who is not at all disturbed to be in her presence. And Molly was always funny, to those rare people with whom she condescended to speak.
“I can’t believe you showed up to this shindig,” I say, stepping back to look at her. She didn’t come to our five- or ten-year reunions, to absolutely no one’s surprise.
“Me neither.” She sighs in that world-weary way that once drove me out of my mind.
“You look amazing,” I tell her.
This is, of course, the obligatory thing to say to someone at a high school reunion, but in her case it’s true. She still has that long, thick, dark brown hair straight down to her ass, which makes her stand out among the bobs and updos of our fellow Palm Bay Flamingos. She’s even taller than I remember, with killer legs shown off to great effect by the short, flimsy black dress she has accessorized with a leather jacket in predictable contravention of Marian’s “tropical cocktail” dress code. She is wearing somewhere between ten and twenty delicate gold necklaces, which fall at various lengths from her throat to the gap between her breasts, adorned with tiny pendants, like a thistle and the shape of California. I’m disappointed in myself to report that I want to take the necklaces off her, one by one.
She scans me up and down. “You look good too. I would have thought you’d seem older.”
Um.
I try not to look sad.
I likely don’t succeed because she claps a beautifully manicured hand over her mouth.
“I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I meant—”
“You expected me to wear the maturity bespeaking my innate gravitas?” I provide, to save her, as she looks like she wants to run off and bury herself in the sand.
I was never able to avoid trying to save her from herself.
Not that it ever worked.
“No, just… I mean, um, you haven’t aged. Or, you have, of course, but not like commensurately with the others here? You look handsome and virile? God, sorry, apologies.”
She still talks like a walking SAT study guide, but she seems genuinely mortified. I take pity on her.
“It’s the Botox,” I joke, “and I have a great surgeon.” She doesn’t laugh, unsurprisingly. She’s always been stingy with her laughter. If you want to crack her up, you have to earn it.
But it’s extremely gratifying when you do.
“Please, have a seat,” I say, making a sweeping, gentlemanly gesture at the empty chair beside me.
It’s empty because I did not bring a date. Or, more accurately, my date canceled at the last minute when she, my girlfriend of nearly fourmonths, broke up with me over text the night before we were scheduled to fly here.
She said, as have the last five or six women I’ve dated, that things were moving too quickly. That I wanted more than she was ready to give.
Perhaps she was right. I tend to throw myself eagerly into courtship, hoping we’ll both fall in love. Why hold back one’s natural zest and affection when any woman might end up being the one? I’m looking for my life partner, my soul mate, my wife.
