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“Had me though,” Irma said.
“I figured for love you’d loosen up.” Liddy poured the last of the lemon
drop.
“That cost you twenty.” Amilcar grabbed a glass.
The doorbell rang, and Liddy went to get it.
“Logan thinks I’m wild and crazy,” I whined for reasons my addled
brain couldn’t add up. I felt as if I was getting drunker even though I’d been
cut off. “Cossa my nose and I guess art or I dunno.”
“Please,” Amilcar said, pouring water into my glass again. “Save it.
You’re an old lady inside.”
“Was it a good deal?” Irma asked. “You got the fuck you money?”
“I got the fuck you money, and the fuck me man.”
They laughed, and I toasted with my water. I didn’t think I could
explain about the divorce coming sooner than we’d agreed. I didn’t feel
articulate enough and I couldn’t find a starting point. Was it high school? Or
his father’s ultimatum? Should I even mention that part? It wasn’t my story
to tell; it was Logan’s.
“This guy yours?” Liddy asked.
He was talking about the guy he’d brought in. Tall, strong Logan
standing by the refrigerator with his arms crossed. Or maybe I was tipsy
enough to mistake some random guy with cheeks and jaw as overgrown as
an abandoned lot for my husband, who I’d never seen unshaven for a
minute the whole time we were living together.
“Nope,” I said. “That guy right there? No. Uh-uh.”
“Sit.” Amilcar kicked a chair toward the man with the beard, who
opened his jacket before spinning around and straddling it with his arms on
the back.
The wrists. The hands. Could still be my fake husband.
“Thank you,” he said.
Sure sounded like him. And the way he looked at me across the table?
Only Logan Crowne could sober me up with his eyes.
“I slowed down enough.” I flicked a glass toward the man with the
scruffy chin and wide hands. “I got something to say and I wanna drink to
it.”
“Oh, shit,” Liddy said, snapping up the vodka bottle and pouring.
“You’re driving her home, right?” Amilcar asked.
“I’ll get her home.”