Eight Hundred Grapes (18)

I reached for a fork in the center of the table, holding it up. “Bobby, where are you going?”

Then Finn stood up. “I have to get to the bar,” he said.

Bobby moved toward the hallway. “I’m going to unpack,” he said.

Then they both walked out, in opposite directions. Leaving the lasagna to me.





The Wedding Crashers




Synchronization. To operate in union.

On a vineyard, synchronization meant watching and waiting until everything lined up.

You didn’t step in too quickly.

You also didn’t step out.

The night before Bobby’s wedding, Finn got arrested. He would tell you that it wasn’t his fault. He would be right and wrong.

We had been drinking that night at The Brothers’ Tavern. Finn had been good friends with the previous owners and they’d agreed to let him throw an impromptu bachelor party for Bobby. My father had joined us and left. Bobby’s friends had joined us and left. And eventually, Finn, Bobby, and I were the last people in the bar, a candle on our table, too much bourbon between us.

Bobby poured us each another round, and I rested my head on the table. Finn had his head in his hands. Bobby was the only one awake and he was wide-awake, wired. He slapped Finn on the wrist.

“Don’t be a pansy,” Bobby said. “We’re just getting started.”

Finn sat up, startled, and moved his glass closer to Bobby. “Hit me,” he said.

Finn was anxious to give Bobby whatever he needed the night before his wedding. I, on the other hand, was ready to go home. Though that wasn’t an option. When I said that my brothers each played a role in my life—one helping me to be better, one helping me to be better at being bad—I also should have said that I played a role in theirs. I fixed things for them, when they didn’t even know yet that they were broken. For Bobby, that meant staying up all night to put jokes into his speech for school president, revising his first Valentine’s Day plan with Margaret, which had involved a monster truck show with the football team. And on the night before his impending wedding, in a way he couldn’t name, fixing things for Bobby involved alcohol and nonstop movement.

“I think Bobby wants us to go and do something, Finn,” I said.

“I do!” Bobby said. “That’s exactly what I want. Let’s do something!”

There was nothing to do in Sebastopol at 12:50 A.M. But, Finn was up, ready to please Bobby. “Where should we go?” he said.

Bobby moved toward the door. “I have an idea,” he said. “I know of a party.”

“I love a party,” Finn said.

We headed up into the hills to a private estate owned by Murray Grant Wines. The lush vineyards surrounded a Spanish mansion that could have held five of my parents’ houses. All the lights were on, a party in action.

“What is this?” Finn said.

Bobby shrugged. “Some girl is getting married. One of the groomsmen was talking about it at the bar earlier this afternoon.”

“Are you crazy?” I said.

“Maybe.” Bobby smiled ear to ear. “I still want to go to a wedding.”

Finn shrugged. “Fuck it, then. We’re crashing a wedding if Bobby wants to,” he said. “Besides, it’s so late. Anyone who’s still out at a party won’t give a shit if there are a couple of new guests. They’ll be glad to have new people to drink with.”

Bobby nodded. “We are crashing a wedding,” he said. “Genius.”

Then Bobby put his arm around Finn.

This was the secret no one knew. For all of Bobby’s accolades at the time (newly minted MBA from Stanford Business School, a primo first job lined up at a venture capital fund), he just wanted to be as comfortable in his own skin as Finn was. (Finn, who still had yet to be employed, except for an occasional bartending shift and the stipend he’d made selling one of his photos to the Press Democrat.) And tonight that meant Bobby doing something ridiculous to prove to himself that even though he was about to write his future in stone, he could still be anyone.

We went into the wedding reception, which was on its last legs. Finn was correct about that. The bride was in her slinky sheath dress, but everyone else was in bathing suits and jeans. They were all drunk, hanging out by the Olympic-size swimming pool. Which made it slightly less awkward that the three of us were walking in in shorts and T-shirts, Finn in his backward baseball cap.

Bobby made a beeline for the bar, saying hello to everyone he passed. The partygoers stared at him, confused, but they didn’t really care too much. They were at a wedding in wine country, drinking Murray Grant’s rosé blend, thinking it was good.

Bobby made a face as he downed his first glass, then ordered another.

Then Bobby pointed to the bride. “She looks beautiful . . .”

The bride had flaming-red hair and makeup running down her face. She might have been beautiful earlier, but now she was a wet mess, someone having thrown her in the pool. She was happy about that. She didn’t care that she was a wet mess. That was how a bride was supposed to be. At least that was what Bobby said, toasting to the happy bride, before he walked right up to her.

Finn shook his head. “This isn’t going to go well,” he said.

But, the bride seemed to like Bobby, the two of them gabbing.