“Yeah.” Lawson grimaces. “I saw him at the store a few years ago.” Then he brightens, and chuckles. “The one silver lining of putting up with his harassment all through school: he turned out butt-ugly.”
“Really?” Dana looks delighted by the prospect.
“Oh yeah. Like an English bulldog. If an English bulldog was an alcoholic.”
She chuckles, and reaches for the phone. “Much as I’d hate for him to be there, I guess I gotta do my due diligence.”
“Here, gimme that. I’ll call him.” Lawson leans over the desk to snag the list, and then her landline. While he waits for the line to pick up, he scan’s Mark’s address and notes that it’s in a not-so-great part of town. Once considered the cutest boy in class, the football stud with the letter jacket and all the girlfriends, Mark’s not exactly making a name for himself as an adult.
Petty though it is, it makes Lawson feel marginally better about his own lot in life.
The line rings, and rings…maybe he can get away with leaving a voicemail instead of–
Click. “…’lo?”
Lawson delves deep into his customer service persona, the one he usually can’t dredge into fine form at Coffee Town, but whichisachievable with short bursts of intense effort. “Good afternoon, am I speaking with Mark Walton?”
There’s a long pause, and the sound of heavy, wettish breathing. “Who wants to know?” Mark demands, hostile and short.
“This is your Eastman High Twenty Year-Reunion Co-Chair speaking,” Lawson chirps, to make Dana laugh. “My fellow co-chair and I are following up with every graduate who hasn’t yet RSVP’d, and we wanted to see if you–”
“Go to hell,” Mark growls, and the call disconnects.
Lawson shrugs and cradles Dana’s phone. “I think it’s safe to go ahead and mark him down asno.”
She picks up her red pen and draws a fat line through his name.
“I miss real phones,” Lawson says, as he scoots Dana’s back across the desk. “Hanging up on someone with a cellphone just doesn’t have the same effect.”
She snorts. “As the city’s top accountant, let me be the first to tell you that Ido notmiss having the phone slammed down right in my ear. Okay, next we have…”
They work their way down the rest of the list, leaving more voicemails than making actual connections, but they manage to refine the guest list by a couple dozen names, and Dana seems pleased with their progress.
“Next week we have to meet with Lorraine about the venue,” she says as they pack up their things. “The rec center fell through, so we’re going to use one of the ballrooms at the Radisson instead.”
“Swanky,” he says. “You and Leo want to come by for dinner? I’m helping Mom make meatballs.”
“Aw, man. I love meatball night. But we can’t. We’ve got dinner with my parents.”
They trade hugs in the parking lot, and Lawson agrees to bring her leftovers tomorrow, because his mom always makes enough meatballs for fifteen.
The weather’s turning colder, and he cranks the heat up in his car, wincing when it rattles and wheezes and the vents emit their burnt-hair smell. He could fix the heat, but, really, he needs a whole new car. One that’s dependable, comfortable, and big enough for when he needs to take Dad somewhere and Mom’s van isn’t available. As he drives, he finds himself reflecting on the fact that, now, he probablycouldbuy a new car – a nice one. Nothing so nice that it’d get jacked in the Coffee Town parking lot, but not an economy special, either.
In the loosest sense, he has money now. That’s what Tommy said: that it was his cut of the sales at the shop that bought the new back deck and ramp, completed last week by Mack and co., and celebrated by a laughing half hour of wheeling Dad down and back up again, over and over, until Lawson’s arms were burning and Mom declared it too cold to stay outside. It’s been a few weeks, and he’s continued to swap baggies for blue notes and fat rolls of cash. He passes the money along dutifully to Tommy, or Noah, or Frank, or whoever comes to collect it in a lidded coffee cup each day, but some of that’shis.
If he’s going to risk his neck selling, he might as well reap a little of the rewards. Right?
He’s as excited by the prospect as he is disgusted with himself.
The last orange-fire glow of sunset flirts with the tree line when he turns into the driveway at home, its light gilding not one, but two vehicles parked behind the garage. His mom’s van, and a black Navigator.
He brakes, and then reverses back to the mailbox. There it is, two houses down: the Town Car escort.
Tommy’s in his house.
He shouldn’t be nervous. At this point, he sees Tommy multiple times a week, sometimes several days in a row. They hug, and they kiss, and Tommy looks at him like he’s edible, and it’s starting to feel normal.
That’swhy he’s nervous.
