1 Chapter 1
“Wait. Go where?”
Major, my best friend in the whole world, had taken me aside, there in the wood-paneled banquet hall of Darby’s Restaurant, in the center of Pawling, New York. “I’m leaving,” he said, tears in his hazel eyes, his reddish blond hair mussed from him tugging at it.
The place was a throwback to another decade. Olive green vinyl in the booths, orange tablecloths, gold-flecked mirror tiles…if the décor was original, it was time for an upgrade. If, on the other hand, they were going for nostalgia, anyone who missed the 1970s would be taken right back.
“When?” I ran my hand over my jet-black buzz cut, shorn especially for Major’s wedding. “Why?” I pushed my glasses back up my nose, which made him do it, too. It was one of those things, like yawning, that was contagious. “For how long?”
“I can only answer one of those questions, Sally.”
* * * *
In a suit I’d paid fifty bucks for on Kmart.com to wear twice, I had just made a toast to the happy couple. “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m best man Sal McKensie. My dad is Irish, my mom Italian. Since McKensie was a given, Mom wanted her roots represented—hence Salvatore Giovani.” I’d said it with the accent and appropriate hand gesture, which had garnered me a laugh. Since my very first sentence, the crowd had been putty in my hands. “To Major—and only Major—I’m Sally. To Abby, the beautiful bride, I’m Mick. To me, they’re adorable. Together or separate, I love them with all my heart.”
Follow humor with schmaltz. I knew how to give a speech.
“Tomorrow, at the wedding reception, I can go on for an entire forty-five minutes if I want. Tonight, I’ll try to keep it to twenty or less.”
The groans I’d gotten then had filled me with pride.
“Abby and Major…what can I say? From the moment I first spotted you in sixth grade Algebra, sitting there…so young…so adorable…so eager…so nerdy…both of you wearing glasses, your calculators and pencils at the ready, I said to myself, now there are two people I can cheat off of. I took the seat between you that your shyness had encouraged you to leave. I did it in the many classes we shared all through middle school, high school, and college. And cheat I did—on every exam, on every assignment. No wonder I’m so dumb.”
I pulled Major’s chair out of line right there at the main table—with him in it—causing a horrible sound as it dragged against the already marred hardwood floor. I squeezed mine in between my betrothed ginger besties and plopped down for old time’s sake.
“The three of us became HRH almost right away,” I’d continued. “We’d announce ourselves like the dorks we were as we entered class, the cafeteria, or the SUNY Albany student union, constantly joined at the hip for eleven years. Eleven years! ‘HRH in the house!’”
“HRH in the house!” Abby and Major had joined me then, rattling the dishes, glasses, silverware, and centerpiece as we’d smacked the table once for each letter.
I should have noticed right then how Major was a bit less enthusiastic than usual.
“We were no longer Sal, Major, and Abby,” my toast went on. “We’d quickly become Harry, Ron, and Hermione. We loved the books and surely looked the part. Maybe we still do.” I’d straightened my glasses then for effect. “Noticing right away how Abby’s cocoa eyes danced, how her face lit up whenever you entered the hall, Major, man, I decided to play Cupid. It wasn’t long before those hazels of yours looked right past me most days as they were captured by her beauty, her laugh, her spirit, her bouncing strawberry waves, her everything.
“I’d set up study dates for the three of us in college,” I had revealed to the assemblage, “but—oh, so clever me—I’d always show up an hour late, in order to give these two knuckleheads time alone. ‘Meet me at the edge of the woods at six, at the bench there, the perfect place to crack a book,’ I’d say. The perfect place for a romantic interlude these two geeks were too bashful to plan for themselves, more like it.
“One night, I left a picnic basket ahead of time with a note, like in ‘Alice in Wonderland’: Eat me. I can only imagine the debate that took place before they would dare to dive into the apples and hard orange soda. There, under the most gorgeous of sunsets, ‘Do you think it’s safe?’ Major had likely asked. ‘Maybe it’s from Sal.’
“‘Sal? Only if it’s stolen. Mick never has any money.’
“This scenario was confirmed when I arrived and the goodies were still untouched. My Harry magic didn’t always work. In hindsight, I probably should have signed the piece of college-ruled loose-leaf notebook paper.”
Public speaking had never really bothered me. I’d had the rehearsal dinner crowd in the palm of my hand. Still, at ten minutes and counting, I’d decided to reel myself in.
