On the Rocks(72)

“Here I thought weddings were supposed to make girls all sappy and romantic. Typical, it turns you into a bubblegum-colored Rambo. Is there anything normal about you? Do you hate puppies?”

“Very funny.” I glanced down and noticed a zipped-up gym bag sitting at his feet. “What’s in the bag?” I asked.

“Something that’s going to make you feel very bad for just saying that I was an *.”

“I didn’t say that. I said you weren’t a gentleman. They’re not the same thing.”

“Sounds like it from where I’m standing.”

“Speaking of where you’re standing, can you please move so I can open the door? I really need to change. Come on up, even though you called me ugly.”

“Good God, woman, I did not say you were ugly. I said the dress was ugly. They’re not the same thing.”

“Sounds like it from where I’m standing,” I said as he grabbed the door and held it open for me. We walked up the three flights of stairs to my apartment. On the landing of the second floor, he held my pink shoes with their four-inch heels up to his face and examined them closely. “I will never understand how you guys walk in these things.”

“One of many sacrifices women must make,” I said.

“For who? Podiatrists and orthopedic surgeons?”

“Among others.” I threw open the door to my apartment and walked down the small hallway into the den.

“So this is where you live,” Bobby said as he followed me inside.

I suddenly felt very self-conscious about my apartment and the fact that I had done nothing to prepare for company. I noticed everything that was wrong with the place: the counters were dusty, the green-and-white throw pillows on the couch were jammed into one corner where I had been lying on them last night, stacks of old magazines littered the coffee table. For a second, I thought about suggesting we go to a bar around the corner, but since he was already inside, throwing him out so he didn’t notice that the towels in my bathroom hadn’t been washed seemed a bit silly. Especially since he had seen me with wet hair and no makeup for most of the time we had known each other.

This must be what being married is like.

I tossed my bag on my navy blue couch and dropped keys in a small dish on a console in the hall. Bobby followed me into the kitchen and placed the mystery bag on the floor as I flicked the light switch on the wall. I reached up into one of the wooden cabinets over the Formica counter and removed two heavy wineglasses, then turned to remove the bottle of wine from the rack in the corner by the utility closet.

“I hope you don’t mind red,” I said. “It’s all I have, and before you go raiding my fridge like you do at the beach, let me assure you, I don’t have any Budweiser.” He stared at me smiling, but didn’t say anything. “What? Seriously what?” I asked, looking down at myself. One thing I knew for sure: pink taffeta was not see-through. So at least I had that going for me.

“Let me finish my statement before you freak out, okay?”

“Oh, sweet Jesus, I just wanted a drink,” I said as I tilted my head toward the heavens (or in my case, the floor of the apartment above me). “Why, God? Why will you not even give me the simple things I ask for? I’m ready to admit there might be some master plan I’m unaware of that has me enduring the idiots you parade through my life like show ponies, but a drink in my own apartment? That’s too much to ask for without being tormented by a member of the opposite sex?”

I’ve been known to have a flair for the dramatic.

“So much for you letting me finish. You didn’t even let me start, you drama queen.”

“Fine. Start. Whatever,” I replied, curious as to what was about to come out of his mouth.

“What I was going to say was, you look nice tonight, outfit aside. I hate when girls go to weddings and do something crazy to themselves. They think they look prettier if they paint their faces with clown makeup and break out the curlers and stuff. There’s nothing scarier than a pretty girl who looks like an alien version of herself.”

“Thank you. I will send your regards to the highly skilled hair and makeup professionals who worked on me for three hours this morning.”

“Stop,” he said, almost as if he was slightly irritated. “You do that a lot, you know that?”

“Do what?” I asked, genuinely confused.

“Deflect compliments with self-deprecating humor.”

I exhaled, as that was nowhere near the top of the list of offensive things I thought he was going to say. I shrugged my shoulders and replied, “I’m sorry. It’s force of habit. What should I have said?”

He tilted his head to the side as he thought. “I don’t know. ‘Thank you’ would have sufficed.”

“Okay, thank you.”

“There. Was that so hard?”

This wasn’t the first time someone had pointed out to me that I did that. Ben used to point it out to me all the time. Maybe it was insecurity; maybe it was nerves. Maybe I really did have hair and makeup people work on me for three hours before they deemed me worthy of leaving the salon. Was that really so hard to believe?

“Thank you. Really.”

“You’re welcome. Now that that’s out of the way, why don’t you let me get the drinks? You go get out of that thing and put on some normal clothes.”