Chapter 17

We met later that evening for dinner. "Notice anything different about me?" she asked as I opened the door. Considering I had only seen her about thirty minutes prior, I was stumped.

"Take a good look," she told me as she crossed her hands in front of herself, a command I was more than happy to obey.

I looked her up and down in an attempt to figure out what she was talking about and, though my eyes were concerned about other matters, I did notice her left hand. "I see Ray finally gave you your engagement ring."

"Yeeesssss" she answered happily as she held out her hand.

The stone itself was, well, pretty big, which impressed me greatly. Unfortunately, that was the only thing I knew about diamonds. "Very nice," I told her. It seemed like the right thing to say when I had nothing else to offer.

"Thanks," she told me happily. "He gave it to me last night."

"In that case, I repeat my congratulations. Shall we go?"

"Let’s."

#

We walked down to Weddleman’s for dinner. The weather was still warm in the early fall and the room was, once again, wide open.

She went bounding up to the bar with a, "Hey Dennis, look what I got!"

Dennis took a break from a needless wiping down of the bar and looked at the hand Lori held out. He looked at the ring like he was trying to stay cool after something decidedly unpleasant had happened; like, say, getting kicked in the crotch. His half-admiration of the ring stretched itself out into an uncomfortably long time. I imagined he was trying to come up with something to say.

"Well?" Lori asked him expectantly.

"Wow," Dennis responded. "I guess Ray asked you to marry him."

"Why yes he did!"

"And you said yes," Dennis answered with a caustic edge Lori either ignored or did not notice.

"Of course!"

"Wow," Dennis repeated vacantly. He was obviously among the host of men who carried around warm, fuzzy thoughts of Lori.

"Yes, isn’t it wonderful?" she said as she reached across the bar to hug Dennis, which he allowed her to do.

"So when did all this happen?" he asked disinterestedly. Dennis was angry, I could tell that. But I did not think he was necessarily angry at Lori or Ray, so much as he was angry at himself for the fact he had not realized Lori thought of him as nothing but a friend.

"About two months ago."

"And you didn’t tell me?"

"I wanted to get the ring first."

"Isn’t he supposed to give you that when he asks if you’ll marry him?"

"I suppose so, but I have it now, so everything turned out alright in the end."

"If you say so."

Lori gave a happy laugh before excusing herself, presumably to use the powder room.

"Well, fuck," Dennis said as he pulled a bottle of Jameson from behind the bar.

"Hear, hear," I agreed.

"I hadn’t realized they were that serious."

"Neither did I."

He finished pouring himself a shot and threw it down quickly. "Shit."

"That was my response, too."

He looked at me like he had a revelation. "It hadn’t occurred to me that you were interested in her."

"Do you know any men who aren’t?"

"I’d never thought to ask."

"I assure you, you’re not alone."

In a moment of reflection that is rare for men in their early to mid-twenties, Dennis’ mind made a leap that probably was quite an epiphany for him. "I wonder if Andrew is interested in her too?"

"I don’t know."

"Was he ever interested in her?"

"I don’t know," I lied. I did not think that was worth sharing with a bartender, no matter how familiar he was with the two of them.

"I can’t imagine he would be, otherwise he would have gone crazy by now. I mean, living with her and everything. It would drive me nuts being in a situation like that."

"Maybe he used to be interested in her, but convinced himself he wasn’t."

"How?"

"May an elderly geezer of twenty-eight give you a pearl of wisdom?"

"Shoot."

"Try to convince enough people of something, and you’ll start to believe it yourself. Truth is a pretty relative thing when it comes to emotions."

"That’s two."

"Two what?"

"’Pearls of wisdom,’ as you said."

"I’m running a special today," I answered, "Either way, I don’t know which emotions Andrew has and which ones he just covers up. Even he might not know the difference. What with him living with her, he’s probably better off not knowing."

"Here she comes," Dennis indicated.

As Lori came walking up, I realized I had built a few epiphanies of my own.