“You’re my old BFF.” Laura heard the door behind her creak and the sound of loud voices. More college guys. Swiveling around, she took a look. Fresh, unlined faces. Wet t-shirt contest-looking tops and running shorts. Sneakers. Backwards baseball caps. Why did they all look twelve?
“Henderson Cross Country” read all the wet shirts. Ah. High school. That’s why they looked twelve.
The sound Josie made caused Laura to pivot back, whiplash a distinct possibility. “You pig! At least try not to burp,” she hissed.
“In some cultures it’s a compliment, you know.”
“In some cultures, a woman who did that would be stoned to death.”
Josie stuck out her tongue and stifled another belch. “How can I be your old BFF when that woman is like a thousand years old.”
“She’s young on the inside.”
“She could be the cryptkeeper’s mother. Grandmother. Uh—”
The door behind her creaked open again and she heard footsteps. Then a low whistle from Josie, who peered around Laura. “Hot damn!”
Madge slid a cruet of peanut butter joy at Laura, who speared a chunk of green cake and dipped it in the creamy mixture. “Whuh?” she asked, tipping her face up to watch her friend.
Josie pitter-pattered her fingertips over her heart. “Some day my Thor will come. And this one is mine, Laura. All—” She halted, eyes growing alarmingly huge, her words ending abruptly in a strangle. Mouth dropped, Laura could see parts of Josie’s meal in her tongue.
“Jesus, Josie, shut your trap.”
“Hey—I didn’t say anything bad.” Squinting, Josie cocked her head and flinched, suddenly nervous.
“No, I mean literally. Your jaw is almost on the table. Shut your mouth. I can see what you just ate. We’re not in third grade.”
“Right,” Josie answered absentmindedly. What the hell was wrong with her? Laura’s feeling of comfort, of relaxation was dissipating fast as Josie’s distracted body language just added to Laura’s feeling of exhaustion and confusion. As she shifted to look behind her to see what on earth Josie was staring at, her friend shouted, “No!”
Huh? “What the hell is wrong with you?”
When she turned around, though, she understood exactly what was wrong with Josie. There stood Thor, cupping the waitress’s balls, with a more muscled version of Joey Tribiani grinning madly at him and saying “How you doin’?”
Dylan hadn’t been back at Jeddy’s in, what, two years? Last time he was here was with a group of guys from work, after a fire, when in the bowels of the night they’d found themselves embraced by soot, dead tired, and starving. No ramen noodles or scrambled eggs back at the station would do, so they’d come here.
His balls greeted him nicely. OK—their balls. Because it had been the trio who had invented the famous cardboard, be-balled icon at Jeddy’s, a combination of some wicked bad peyote and Mike’s college job working at Newbury Comics. Old Madge had helped, offering up an ancient server’s uniform, and the balls had been Jill’s idea. Dylan’s Joey Tribiani imitation stuck —a little too well, because he was known as Joey until they’d finished college.
“You two,” Madge greeted them, shaking her head, lips pursed in an expression that was either pleasure or disgust. Dylan didn’t think the difference mattered much at her age. Or with her temperament. How the hell do you serve drunk frat boys, homeless glue sniffers and post-coital munchie seekers for six decades and not become—
Was that? Mike elbowed him. No way.
No.
Fucking.
Way.
From behind, he couldn’t quite tell whether it was Laura, but he had to be dreaming. She sat at a booth, hunched over a plate, blond hair in need of a combing, the woman across from her looking like a greasy chihuahua posing as a human dancer. Teeny tiny and hyped up, eager and craning to look at something.
Him?
Them?
“Is that Laura?” Mike whispered furiously as they followed Madge, who threw two menus down on the scarred formica table and walked off unceremoniously. Dylan slid in on his side, ass catching something, impeding his fluid movement. Duct tape. He wiggled his ass to settle down the torn edge, then froze.
“What? You’re crazy, man. What are the chances she’d be—”
“Come to claim your third?” Madge’s gravelly voice nearly made Dylan laugh. She sounded like a caricature of an old South Boston woman combined with Harvey Fierstein.
Mike’s eyes bugged out of his head, shifting between the blond in the booth and Madge. “Our third?” His voice sounded like Peter Brady going through puberty.