Attach ments(84)
<<Jennifer to Beth>> Don’t. That parking lot is spooky. Stick with the break room.
I’M STILL HER cute guy, Lincoln thought, as he drove home.
He went to the gym early the next day and ran until his knees started to buckle.
I’m still hers.
“LINCOLN! DUDE! YOU’RE alive!”
“Justin, hey.”
“Sorry to call you at work, but I’ve been calling your house so much, your mom probably thinks I’m trying to get into her pants. I feel like I haven’t seen you since the sixth grade.”
“Yeah,” Lincoln said, “I haven’t been …” He wasn’t avoiding Justin. He was avoiding Sacajawea.
“Do you remember how big you were in the sixth grade? You were ‘My Motherfucking Bodyguard.’ Look, you’re going out tonight. With me and Dena.”
“I have to work tonight.”
“We’ll wait up. We don’t turn into pumpkins at midnight. I don’t have to work tomorrow. Dena does, but she can get by on less than eight hours … Aw, you can, too,” Justin said. Dena must be right there. “You don’t need eight straight to suck spit out of people’s mouths …I meant with a vacuum …
Hey, Lincoln, we’ll see you at the Village Inn, all right? I’ll see if I can get our usual table.”
“Yeah, all right. I can get there by one.”
“One it is.”
JUSTIN AND DENA were just getting their orders when Lincoln got there. They’d already ordered him his French silk.
“That pie is on me,” Justin said, “and so is the next piece. We’re celebrating.”
“What’s the occasion?” Lincoln asked.
“Show him, honey,” Justin said.
Dena held up a hand with a ring the size of her knuckle. There must be money in hospital marketing.
“It’s beautiful,” Lincoln said. “Congratulations.” He leaned over to clap Justin on the shoulder.
“Congratulations.”
“I’m as happy as a pig in shit,” Justin said, “and part of that is thanks to you.”
“No.”
“Yeah. You were my wingman, first of all, and then you knocked some sense into me when I nearly let this beautiful woman slip out of my hands. Don’t you remember? You called me on all my bullshit about not wanting to settle down?”
“You would have figured it out on your own,” Lincoln said, “you were in love.”
“Maybe so,” Justin said, “but I still want to thank you, and I …Dena and I would like to ask you to be in our wedding.”
“Really?”
“Really. Would you be a groomsman?”
“Sure,” Lincoln said, surprised. And touched. “Sure, I’d love to.”
“Well, all right,” Justin said. He took a big bite of mashed potatoes. “All right! I haven’t even told you the best part. Guess who’s playing at our reception?” He didn’t wait for Lincoln to guess.
“Sacajawea!”
“That’s the best part?” Dena asked.
“That’s the best part besides the marriage part,” Justin said.
“Sacajawea … ,” Lincoln said.
“Damn straight. I got in touch with them through the manager at the Ranch Bowl and talked to the lead singer. He said they’d play a fucking bar mitzvah if we could cover their fee.”
“It’s going to cost more than the open bar,” Dena said.
“It’s going to be awesome,” Justin said.
They told him more about the wedding. It was going to be a big wedding party. Dena had lots of sorority sisters. Lincoln could see how Justin might need to dig pretty deep to round up enough groomsmen.
“When’s the big day?” Lincoln asked.
“October seventh.”
“We’re shopping for a house now,” Justin said.
“We’re shopping for a barbecue,” Dena said.
“A grill,” Justin said, “and I don’t see why that’s such a big deal. I need to know what the grill looks like before we find the house, so I can picture it on the deck. I don’t want to move into a house and find out six months down the line that the fucking grill won’t fit. Why would you want to start our life together making compromises?”
Dena rolled her eyes and signaled to the waitress for another Diet Coke.
“We’ll have you over for steak, Lincoln,” Dena said.
“Fuck that,” Justin said. “I’m calling you when we move. Dena’s got a leather sectional that’s going to take three grown men and a rhinoceros.”
Lincoln figured he was the rhinoceros.
“It’s not that big,” Dena said.