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

to the occasion with flair and grace, shaking everyone’s hands and repeating names as she goes. My uncle Jack, like Donald when he met her, holds Amity’s hand a little too long and greets her with his face so close to hers that I’m sure she is intoxicated by the gin on his breath. She continues on before he can jam his tongue down her throat, and by the time she’s done, she’s soaked every hand with her perfume, and we all smell like the Este6 Lauder section of the cosmetics department at Maxwell-Grey.

As much as I despise him, I’m feeling sorry for my brother, Winston. He’s brought several girls to various gatherings over the years, and my family’s never made a fuss over his dates the way they’re making a fuss over Amity tonight. It’s the engagement, I’m sure, but maybe I was wrong about my mother and father, maybe deep in their hearts they knew these women of Winston’s weren’t the real McCoy. They were props. He’s always used ex-sorority, husband-seeking girls to put himself at ease. Even with our father gone, I don’t see him changing. He never talks romantically about women. Never kisses them in front of the family. Never asks them to stay over. Yet they love being with him. He actually can be exceedingly charming when he wants to be. He looks incredible in a suit. Has a great sense of humor. Impeccable style. And when not being a cad, he’s the quintessential gentleman in the classic

sense of the word. He stands when a lady enters the room, opens doors for her, seats her at a table, selects the wine for her. The problem is, he would also enjoy dressing her, styling her hair, teaching her how to walk, and entering her in a pageant if he could. But I suspect the last thing he’d want to do is to sleep with her.

And Amity knows this. And that’s why he’s threatened by her. The competitive part of me is amused. It’s quite ironic that the “straight” brother has no respect for his women and the gay one now does. But the other part of me is saddened that Winston has never understood that truth is the great emancipator. I take no pleasure in his self-imposed prison, and in a way I find it cruel that my mother is so desperate for some genuine heterosexuality within her sons that she’ll forsake the past pretenses offered by my brother, in order to flaunt the authenticity of this real, live, dick-smoking girlfriend of her formerly gay child. I admit, I love the attention almost as much as Amity does, and it’s fun being so worshiped by my extended family, but I embrace no joy in Winston’ spredicament, regardless of what a shit he is.

We drink cocktails and more cocktails. And Amity answers all the stock questions about Texas, Fort Worth, and her accent. Somehow the subject turns to cooking, and Amity, whose icebox still holds nothing but champagne, Diet Dr. Pepper, and nail polish, claims she’s an expert pie maker. “I’m famous for making pie.”

My aunt Shirley, blessed with a sick sense of humor, starts laughing, and I know right away why. With her accent, it sounds like Amity has said, “I’m famous for making Pa.” Aunt Shirley explains to the group what she thought Amity said, and my family, all of them possessing a wicked wit, joins in laughter at the thought of this beautiful and cultured girl saying, in a polite and acceptable way, that she’s famous for fucking her father.

Amity, ever the good-time gal, takes it in stride and laughs along. She even good-naturedly shakes her finger at Aunt Shirley. But now there is a crack in her mask so small that even Winston doesn’t

see it, probably because he’s concentrating on concealing his own. And inside that microscopic fissure of Amity’s, that only I can see, the pain of something awful is revisited. And I have a feeling that if all the lights and cameras were turned off on this dinner and we were alone and she spoke, she would sound as she did earlier in the day when she swore with an authentic voice that she would never have children.

Before we’re seated for dinner, I excuse myself for the restroom, and my cousin Brad, home from Yale, comes with me. He’s a big handsome guy. A soccer player. Quite intelligent, but macho, definitely a jock. We’re standing at the urinals, an empty one between us, and he’s got a shit-eating grin on his face. He says to me, “She’s pretty wild. All that hair. That accent. This is really something.”

I know what he’s trying to say. This is really something that not only have I brought home a girl, but one who looks like that.

“I’m totally in love with her, Brad. Can you believe it?”

He pauses. Decides to tell the truth. “Not really.”

We look at each other, start laughing, splashing our pee onto the sides of the urinals. “I know, I know,” I tell him. “Everyone thought I’d end up with my high school drama teacher, Mr. Sweeney.”

“Something like that,” Brad says. “This is a better choice, man. Why’d you do it?”

“She makes me laugh,” I say. I can tell he still doubts me.

“And she gives good head.” Now he doesn’t.

“She can even bake a pie,” he adds.

Man, this is so sexist. I can’t believe I’m standing at a urinal, taking a piss, talking about how my fiancee can give head and bake a pie. My lesbian friend from college, Debbie, would punch me in the mouth if she heard me talk like this. It’s such a guy thing-, to talk about chicks while you shake the pee off the head of your dick,

then skip the hand washing and head out. I don’t even check my hair in the mirror.

I can’t believe I just peed like a straight guy.

Everyone is feasting on their prime rib or pork loin or duck