“Mimi says she’s gettin’ married in Vegas. I don’t need a tux for that, I need a pair of shorts and a Hawaiian shirt and I’ve got, like, twelve of those.”
Mom whirled on Dad and, aghast, she exclaimed, “You are not wearing a Hawaiian shirt to Mimi’s wedding, I don’t care if it’s in Vegas.”
“I am,” Dad said.
“You are not,” Mom replied.
“Yes… I… am!” Dad repeated.
“Guys –” I tried to butt in (and failed).
“Wel , Roxie isn’t getting married in Vegas. Roxie’s going to have a designer wedding. You’l need a tux for that,” Mom said.
This was true. I was going to wear Vera Wang and Manolo shoes. I was going to have shrimp cocktail (not those little, useless shrimps but the meaty king prawn ones) and I was going to spend ten thousand dol ars on flowers; there were going to be flowers everywhere. I told them about the flowers and shrimps when I was eight. They’d been saving ever since.
“The way she and Hank’re going, Roxie’l be knocked up in a few months. It’l be a shotgun wedding and she’l have to get a dress from JC Penny.”
Both Mom and I gasped.
“Dad!” I shouted just as Mom yel ed, “Take that back, Herb!”
“Wel , excuse me, but they practical y jumped each other over the breakfast table. You were there, Trish, you saw it.
Hel , she’s livin’ with the guy!” Dad defended himself to us both and then turned to me. “Not that I mind, Roxie. I like Hank. And, it’s your time. You ain’t gettin’ any younger, you hear what I’m sayin’? Anyway, Hank’s a good-lookin’ guy, you two’l make beautiful babies.”
Good God.
“I am not getting a dress from JC Penny!” I snapped (priorities, of course). “And I’m not going to have a shotgun wedding! And I didn’t practical y jump Hank over the breakfast table!”
“Right,” Dad said, just a hint of sarcasm in his voice (okay, a lot of sarcasm). “Jesus. I’d like a f**kin’ grandchild before I’m slobberin’ in my f**kin’ Jel -O. Gil ain’t ever gonna get married, he and Kristy don’t believe in marriage, whatever the hel that means. Mimi goes through men like water. Roxie’s final y caught herself a live one. Hank’s a man’s man. Roxie, the way I see it, you and Hank are my only hope,” Dad told me.
How in the hell did we get on this subject?
I gave up.
“We’re running late, I’m getting dressed,” I announced, turning my back on them and flouncing out of the room.
I stopped dead when I reached the kitchen.
Hank was standing with his h*ps against the counter, palms on the counter top, an open beer in the fingers of one hand. His head was bent and he was looking at his feet. It was a pose of reflection. A pose that said he’d heard every word.
Mortification that he heard the ridiculous conversation was not why I stopped dead.
I stopped dead because Hank was wearing a suit. A dark gray suit with a midnight blue shirt, no tie, opened at the throat. His hair was damp and curling around his col ar, a week or two passed needing a cut. He looked good in a suit. He looked better than I’d ever seen him look. He looked so good, I couldn’t even move.
His head came up and his eyes came to me, ful on grin in place, showing me he thought the conversation with my parents was amusing, not run-for-the-hil s-scary-as-shit.
I put my hand to the counter to hold on and blurted, “God, you’re handsome.”
At my words, the grin left his face and something else came over it. There was no lazy in his eyes, they were just intense.
My legs went weak.
He stared at me for a few seconds, then said softly, “You better get dressed.”
I nodded, mental y shaking off my Hank Stupor and walked to the bedroom.
I got dressed quickly. We were already late.