“Bullshit. Even if Tommy hadn’t told us on the way up here that you weren’t exactly excited about having us visit, I’d know it. It’s all over your face.”
Goddamn Tommy and his big mouth. I look up again and she’s still smiling at me. She holds out her hand.
Great. She wants to bond. I put the neck of the Chambertin in her outstretched fingers. “What the hell.”
She laughs and leads me upstairs.
We’re eating fried egg sandwiches and potato chips, and we’re well into our second bottle of wine. We’ve been gossiping about Tommy’s former boyfriends for most of the last two hours (Camille thinks, as I do, that Philip is only another anonymous bedmate in a long line of anonymous bedmates) and I’ve actually been enjoying her company. She just told me that since she and Kyle got married, Tommy’s had at least thirteen of these so-called “relationships.”
“I’m surprised it’s not more. Thirteen in six months is way under par for him.”
She fiddles with her wedding ring. “Some of them were actually very sweet men. Let’s see…” she holds up a hand and begins to count on her fingers, “the first one I met was Vinnie the carpenter, then came Pablo the fireman, then Brad the vacuum salesman, then after Brad was George, the big stupid policeman.” She pauses. “Or was his name Greg? Whatever, he had bad teeth and he smelled like lobster bisque. Anyway, you get the picture, I’m sure.”
She wets the tip of her index finger and runs it around the rim of her crystal glass, making it hum. “My favorite was this gorgeous Italian guy named Harold. Harold was a charmer. He taught kickboxing at the Y and was always showing up late to everything with bruises and cuts all over him.” She grimaces. “I thought he was a good match for Tommy but you know Tommy. He gets bored fast.”
I refill her glass. “Maybe he just needs some Ritalin.”
She makes a face. “What he needs is a bucket of saltpeter on his cereal every morning for breakfast.” She sighs. “I was really angry with Tommy when he dumped Harold, especially because the guy he replaced him with was a revolting pig named Willie who once told me that just talking to women made him sick to his stomach. Willie thought that cologne was something you should bathe in. Sitting in a car with him made me want to gag. I can’t believe Tommy brought him to our wedding.”
“Tommy was at your wedding?”
She takes a big gulp and nods. “He was Kyle’s best man. I wanted him to be my maid of honor instead, but I lost the coin toss.” She giggles. “He scandalized the crowd at our reception. He got up on stage with the band and sang a semipornographic version of the theme from Gilligan’s Island.”
“We made that up when we were kids.” (“Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a grateful dick.”) “I can’t believe he sang that in public.”
“He sure did. Kyle’s family is pretty uptight and they were all horrified. Kyle tried to get him to shut up but Tommy just dragged him up on the stage to sing along. Kyle was drunk and got laughing so hard he fell down and knocked over a microphone stand. It almost disemboweled the drummer.”
I shake my head. “That’s my little brother.”
She laughs. “That wasn’t even the worst of it. At the end of the night Tommy dropped his pants and took a garter off his thigh and threw it at the priest. My poor mother still hasn’t recovered.”
I laugh, too, and spill a little wine on my shirt. “It’s a wonder no one’s shot him yet. He always gets away with murder.”
She covers her mouth and burps. “I love that about him.” She stands up to get a cloth napkin from the cabinet by the sink and she tosses me one, too, before sitting down again. Her coordination is a little impaired, but she still moves gracefully, like a dancer. “He could care less about what’s appropriate, and he’s so good-natured no one can stay mad at him for long.”
I nibble at a chip. “It’ll catch up to him one day, though. He’ll lose his looks and no one will think the outrageous shit he pulls is cute anymore.”
She stares at me curiously. “Does he make you mad sometimes?”
I hesitate. “No. Not really.”
She studies me for a second and looks as if she’s going to say something else, but then she takes a lock of her hair and holds it over her upper lip to form a mustache. “Do you think I could pass for a man? My husband might like that. In fact, I’m sure he’d prefer it.” She giggles some more. “I think I’m a little tipsy, Nathan.”
“Really?” I grin at her. “You seem perfectly sober.”
We both start laughing again, then I take a big swallow of my drink and it goes down the wrong tube and I start coughing.
She reaches over to pat my back. “Easy. Don’t waste such good wine by pouring it in your lungs.”
I laugh some more and wipe my eyes. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
She settles back in her chair and I rest my chin on my fist and sigh. She raises her eyebrows. “What?”
“Nothing.” I look at the table. “I was just thinking about the time when Tommy tried to steal some condoms from the drugstore. Lydia Cruise caught him red-handed with two boxes of French ticklers in his pockets.”
She chortles. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me? So what happened?”
“Absolutely nothing, of course. Tommy gave her a song and dance about how some bullies threatened to beat him up if he didn’t do it, and he’d never dream of doing anything illegal otherwise, and he didn’t even know what the condoms were for, and please, please don’t tell my dad or he’ll kill me.”
I set my glass down and lace my fingers together behind my head. “Lydia Cruise was the biggest bitch in town. She routinely tossed kids out of the store just for looking at her funny. If it had been me she’d caught, she would have beaten me senseless, then called the cops, and my dad, and fucking Dan Rather and everybody else she could think of. But Tommy just batted his pretty blue eyes at her, and Lydia did everything but roll over and play dead.”
I pause to wipe my lips on my sleeve. “I couldn’t believe it when Tommy told me about it later. He said that before she let him go she even patted his head and gave him a free Snickers bar. Jesus.” Bitterness seeps into my voice. “Even Lydia couldn’t resist him. Precious little Tommy is everybody’s golden boy.”
She winces at my tone. “I thought you said he didn’t make you mad.”
I sniff. “Yeah, well, I guess I was lying.”
The screen door bangs open and Tommy, Kyle and Philip finally come trooping in, talking about something or other. They stop to stare at us.
Tommy looks at his watch and raises his eyebrows in mock surprise. “Wow. Not even one o’clock yet. I guess the sun passes over the yardarm earlier here than it does in New York.”
I grew up on the beach and I’m used to seeing beautiful young people (and quite possibly the wine has lowered my standards or something), but Tommy and Philip look like matching bronze gods, all long limbs and toned muscle and smooth chests—I know Tommy shaves his and I’d bet Philip does, too—and even though Kyle is too skinny and too hairy, he’s strong and healthy, with a nice firm ass and a perky set of nipples. His eyes flit over me momentarily, but he’s mostly watching Tommy, of course, and doesn’t even notice at first that Camille has put out her hand for him to take. He finally sees it and lets her pull him over, but when she tilts her head back for a kiss he pretends not to notice and releases her fingers so he can rejoin Tommy and Philip by the sink.
Camille looks hurt at first and then pissed, but she tries to mask it. She takes another sip of wine. “So how was the beach?” she asks no one in particular. Her voice