Charmed Thirds_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [137]
Questions included:
1. What was the first record/CD your wife ever bought?
2. Who was your husband's first celebrity crush?
And the ever-popular, and in this case, nauseating:
3. Where was the wildest place you ever made whoopee?
To my shock, both my parents and my sister and G-Money knew everything about each other. G-Money knew that Bethany purchased We Are the World when she was in fifth grade. My mom knew that my dad was hot for Ann-Margret. They all knew their most outlandish whoopee-making locations, but for the sake of my gastrointestinal tract I'd prefer not recounting them here thankyouverymuch.
To end the dubious suspense, they got every question right, and ended up tied for first place with a hundred points. (The Doczylkowskis [senior] scored fifty. And the D'Abruzzis—a third marriage for husband and a first for wife—earned a meager ten points.)
Without a Sudden Death question, I declared them all winners. The contestants and the crowd were delighted. And as they all congratulated one another, I realized that I will never get what keeps couples like my parents and my sister and G-Money together. As an outsider, I can only see the bitterness. The bickering. The boredom. But on the inside, there's obviously an understanding between them, and only them. Which is how it should be. I've judged other couples and thought, God, I'd never, ever want a relationship like that. But that's a good thing, isn't it? I shouldn't want a relationship like anyone else's because it's so uniquely theirs.
Sometimes my revelations are so moronic. Epissanies.
I was thinking about this when I was approached by this attractive, clean-cut guy in a tan, one-button linen jacket, a pink-and-white-striped shirt, and dark jeans. It was a very deliberate outfit, and he looked like the type who is most comfortable on a sailboat or ski slope. Jaunty. He had the innate swagger of someone who's got the world hanging from his scrotum, so I assumed he would walk right past me.
“Jessica Darling!” He hugged me by way of a slap on the back. “How the hell are you?”
I was caught off guard by his enthusiastic greeting. “Uh. Yeah, it's me,” I said. But who are you?
I reeled back from the embrace so I could look into this person's eyes, trying to make a connection. Someone from school? Someone I interviewed during the Storytelling Project? Someone I've served at I SCREAM! or the Sweet Shoppe? I am very bad at putting people in context. Like, if I've only seen you in class, I will totally not recognize you if I see you on the subway. This is why a lot of people might think I'm a bitch. (Uh, besides the fact that I often display some very bitchy tendencies.)
“You don't know who I am, do you?” he asked.
“Uh . . . Sure I do!”
“The best man's little bro . . .”
Once he said it, I felt like a moron for not making an instant connection. He looked exactly the same, only with lines fanning out from his eyes, and more pronounced grooves dug deep into his cheeks.
“Cal!” I gasped. “Wow! I haven't seen you since . . .”
“Since I tried to have sex with you on the golf course during your sister's wedding reception,” he said candidly.
“Right,” I said, not embarrassed by this declaration.
“I imagine you haven't given me much thought over the past five years,” he said.
This was true.
“But I've thought a lot about you,” he continued. “It was a dick move and you called me on it. No girl had ever done that before. I learned a lot from that night, and I never treated a girl like an object again . . .”
After Cal returned to his preppy, peppy girlfriend across the room, I thought of what Paul Parlipiano said to me at that Beautiful People Against Bush party last summer. “We barely know each other, and yet have made a big difference in each other's lives.” With Paul, the feeling was mutual. But I hadn't quite considered that maybe I'd affected someone deeply, but never