The Reception

[beckstra]

“So, trouble follows me around all the time. It’s the truth, I swear. Take, for instance, that chick right there.” He pointed to an awkward, oafish girl in the corner. She sat looking at the table with her hair in her face and her shoulders shrugged up to her ears. Seeming unassuming enough, I dared to ask Marcus what was up.

“With the shrugger? Trouble?”

“I dated her.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of this new level Marc had attained. He had never in our fourteen years of friendship even looked twice at any chick that didn’t have her nose twelve feet in the air, and here was proof otherwise? “Yes, laugh if you will, but I did. I mean Francis was the most beautiful girl you ever saw…I swear on my dead grandmother’s grave.”

The earnest look in his eyes caused me to move up in my seat, away from the commotion of Chuck and Cindy’s reception and to really try to understand. Here was the best friend a man could ever have, Chuck’s best man, Cindy’s little brother, telling me about trouble. Instead of his usual getting plastered and screwing up the wedding, here he was, sober as the day is long, telling me the honest to goodness truth. To be honest, I thought about getting up and grabbing anything, anyone to get away from this madness, but I couldn’t.

“We were all set up in this cozy room at the Burr Bay Inn, and somehow…oh God, somehow, outta nowhere my ex—Tina—walks into our room with her new guy, and ends up attacking the poor girl. I mean, broke her nose, ripped out a chunk of her hair, the works. I’ve never felt so satisfied and horrified at the same time. Trying to justify that to God was no easy task.”

I snorted. I did.