After talking about the house through several beers, I said, “I hope Miranda hasn’t been driving you too crazy. She’s very particular about what she wants.”
“That’s a good thing. The worst clients are the ones who keep changing their minds. No, Mrs. Severson’s been great.” Brad slid a Marlboro Red out of the pack that had been sitting on the table since we’d sat down. He tapped the filter a few times against the varnished wood, then asked if I’d mind if he stepped outside to smoke.
While he was gone, I took a look at my phone, which had been vibrating silently off and on in my pocket for the past twenty minutes. Miranda had sent me a succession of texts, culminating in: SERIOUSLY, WHERE THE F ARE U? I texted her back that I was having a few drinks with Brad and would be back to the hotel shortly. I told her to feel free to get dinner without me. She texted back OK, then a few seconds later XOXOXO.
I spun around in my booth and looked out through Cooley’s front windows toward where Brad was standing, blowing smoke into the now-dark evening. From the angle of his head, it looked as though he were staring at his phone as well, possibly typing into it. Maybe he was texting my wife as well. A moment of rage flared up in me, but I reminded myself that I was on a fact-finding mission. The war had begun with this slightest of skirmishes, and the more Brad drank, the more chance I had of discovering his weak points. I went to the bathroom, bringing my three-quarters-full beer, and dumped most of it down the sink, in an attempt to keep relatively sober.
When Brad returned, the subject of Miranda did not come up again. He started to ask me questions about my work, and my life in general, and when he learned that I’d gone to Harvard he began questioning me on what I knew about their hockey program, and how many Beanpot tournaments I’d been to. Despite not caring, I had actually been to a couple of hockey games with my sophomore-year roommate, a sports-obsessed English major who went on to become a successful magazine editor. From hockey, we moved on to the previous year’s Red Sox season, a subject I knew a little more about. I told him how I shared a block of season tickets in one of the luxury boxes, and I promised to take him to a game the following year. After switching to Jamesons, and feeling that I had exhausted my limited repertoire of sports conversation, I asked him about his divorce.
“I have two great kids,” he said, after removing another cigarette from his hard pack and tapping it down on the table. “And a fucking ballbuster of an ex-wife.”
“Does she have the kids?”
“Except for every other weekend. Look, I’ll say this for her, and it’s all I’ll say, but she’s a good mom, and the kids are better off with her. But if the marriage hadn’t ended when it did, I was going to kill her, or she was going to kill me, and that’s all there is to it. It was fucking nonstop. Brad, where the fuck are you? Come home early and fix the toilet, Brad. Brad, when are you going to take me and the kids to Florida again. Brad, doesn’t it bother you to work on all these beautiful homes while your wife and kids live in a shithouse. Nonstop. It’s a good thing I didn’t own a goddamn gun.” He grinned. His teeth were slightly yellowed from the nicotine.
“You know what I’m talking about, brother,” he continued. “Or maybe you don’t. What’s the dirt on Miranda?”
“No dirt. We’re like newlyweds. All’s well in paradise.”
“Oh, fuck,” he said in a loud voice. “I’ll bet it is,” he said. He had begun to slur. I’ll bet it ish. Then he presented me his fist from across the table, and I bumped it, awkwardly, grinning back at him. How had he suddenly become so drunk? Even though we’d been drinking steadily for about two hours, Brad had seemed sober five minutes earlier.
“No, Miranda’s great,” I said.
“No shit,” Brad said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re not a bad-looking guy or anything, but how did you score a wife like that?”
“Just lucky, I guess.”
“Yeah, luck and a few million dollars.” As soon as he had said it, his face