My Best Man by Andy Schell (top 10 novels TXT) 📕

“I did,” I answer defensively “The day we met. I spilled my guts, if you remember.”

“You didn’t tell me you were a Ford.”

The hair on my neck rises. I hate when people use my family name with emphasis. “I’ve always found it easier to be a regular Joe than an irregular Ford,” I explain, “and I decided when I started this airline life that I’d keep my lineage a secret. Does it matter?” If it does, I’m out of here.

“Not in the least, Harry. Your family isn’t much different from mine.”

I realize I’ve been selfish. I’ve been so wrapped up in my family dramas, I’ve never really taken the time to ask about Amity’ sfamily. “Tell me about them,” I urge.

“I’d rather not,” she answers.

“Come on,” I goad. “What are they like?”

“I’m from money too,” Amity says, stepping into her dress. She faces the mirror, not me, but I see her reflection and her visage is guarded. “But like you, I’m sort of disconnected from my family. They’re from Fort Worth, you know.”

“What’s Fort Worth like?” I ask, the ignorant Yankee.

“Fort Worth is old money, Harry. The good families, families like yours, are from Fort Worth. Not Dallas,” she says with con tempt, “where everyone’s nigger rich.”

It sounds ugly to hear the word niggermparticularly when it’s spoken with a Southern accent. I’ve noticed that the people I’ve met in Texas get away with saying it by not actually using the word to call a black person a nigger, but by using it in phrases. If someone

is nouveau riche, as my mother says in Kansas, they’re deemed nigger rich in Texas. Likewise, if something is broken and has been shoddily repaired, it is nigger rigged, rather than jury-rigged.

“You’ve said you have a brother and a sister, right?”

“Right,” she says. “Zip me up.”

I reach behind her back and zip her up. “Are you the youngest, oldest? Fucked-up middle child?”

“Oldest,” she blurts. “I’m very well adjusted. My whole family is.”

“So why are you estranged from them?”

“My own choice. It’s personal, Bubba.”

“But you say your family has money and is well adjusted? What did you do, make them out of papier-mche in kindergarten?”

She smiles, while slipping diamond droplets into her lobes, but her face tightens and looks strange as if she did make them out of papier-mche. “Whoa,” Amity says. “Whoa, Bubba. We’ve talked about my family longer than we’ve talked about yours.” She finishes with the earrings and positions her hands in the time-out signal.

“You’re right,” I acknowledge. “Fair is fair. No more family talk.” Still, hers must be the first moneyed family on earth that is i well adjusted. Hard to believe.

When Troy arrives, she has me answer the door. We shake and head for the sofa in the little sitting room off the kitchen. Ri away I can tell he is friendly, outgoing, thick. Like if you asked’ him what the capital of Texas was, he’d say, “The T.” He is to the nth. A big, blond prep boy in khakis and a plaid button-downl shirt. Webbed belt, polished loafers, the whole nine yards. Not nearly as mysterious as that day I saw him at the airport. Now understand the dress Amity has chosen. And when Amity her entrance, she is the perfect preppy date. I notice she’s reserved, somewhat proper, in her manner with Troy, which really surprises me, because this is the first time I’ve seen her hold back,

We all get stoned together on some pot I bought before leaving Kansas, and Troy and I grow stupider while Amity becomes more alert. It is really the most intense pot I’ve ever had I bought it from a town cop, who I assume took it after busting some student. It smells like a ground-up pine tree, and I keep it in a baggie that has pictures of Mickey Mouse on it. After Troy and Amity leave, my beeper goes off. I’m so fucked up I can hardly dial the phone, and I want to die when they tell me I have to make it out to the airport for the last departure to Houston. I can’t even function when I’m stoned.

As usual, I’m assigned to our smallest, least glamorous aircraft, the DC-9. The two girls I fly with, Beverly and Angela, look at me with great suspicion. Maybe I’m paranoid, but I’m sure they know I’m stoned. I’ve doused my eyeballs with Visine, but they’re still redder than diaper rash and drier than lint. I blink every two seconds, and though I keep using Visine, it’s like pointlessly adding water to dead potted plants.

“Are you all right?” All rot? Beverly asks, as we prepare the cart in the galley. She’s a hefty gal with large hips, fat ankles, and heavy earrings. She put her hand to her mouth and whispered about me to Angela after I introduced myself in the flight attendant lounge. “Fine. Why?”

She tells me, accusingly, “Your eyes look funny.”

The truth is, her eyes look funny too. I wonder if Mary Kay has anything left in her inventory. “I have allergies,” I lie.

“Maybe you should see a doctor,” she suggests snidely.

“Maybe you should too,” I answer, fumbling a cup of condiment packets that lands on the floor.

She’s perplexed. “Why should I see a doctor?”

I’m on the floor, picking up these stupid little packets of coffee whitener, and my marijuana-induced paranoia makes me want to hide inside the stinky lavatory until we get to Houston. “I don’t know. When was your last … inspection?”

“For what?”

I don’t know. I’m stoned out of my mind! “Um… your levels.” “What levels?” “Oil.”

“My oil levels? What the hell are you talking about?” she her beefy ankles inches from my face.

“You could be low,” I caution.

“I think your brain levels are low,” she snips. “Come on. need to get these people their drinks before we land.”

I peel the last packet off the scummy floor and stand up

I realize she’s extended the shelf on the end