Yes, evidence was clearly suggesting Max was nice.
“I better go.”
“Yeah, you go, the new plan is you have fun, Mindy has fun, I’ll come down to pick you both up ‘round eleven. That enough time for evasive maneuvering?”
The evidence was becoming overwhelming.
“You don’t need to do that. I’ll stay sober and drive Mindy home.”
“How’ll you get here?”
“Well, I could stay with Mindy and Becca and maybe one of them will bring me back tomorrow morning.”
His voice was different, firm to the point of being solid when he stated, “Babe, that’s not gonna happen.”
“Max –”
“See you at eleven.”
“Max –”
“Be good.”
“Max!”
Wasted effort to say his name, he hung up.
I slid Mindy’s phone closed and walked back to the table.
“Max has a new plan,” I announced when they both looked at me, I sat down and I looked at Mindy. “He wants us to have fun. He’s designated driver, picking us up at eleven.”
“Killer!” Becca cried.
“Cool!” Mindy cried at the same time.
I smiled at them genuinely this time because really, if I got down to it, spending time with them, shopping at great shops, eating delicious buffalo burgers, snowmobiling, gazing at beautiful vistas, meeting Cotton and having him take my photo with Max, getting my head sorted about Niles which was a relief even if it was a sad one, my Colorado adventure might have started out terrible and was trundling along the road of deeply confusing but still, it wasn’t turning out half bad.
* * * * *
“Rat-arsed!” Arlene yelled through a guffaw. “That’s just screwy.”
“Well then, what does shitfaced really mean?” I returned.
She considered this, head tipped to the side then grinned somewhat crookedly and proclaimed, “You got me there.”
“Ha!” I cried and she and I both laughed.
I was right when we left the pizza place. My Colorado adventure wasn’t turning out half bad and it was getting better.
The Dog was fun. It was well off the main drag out in the middle of nowhere. You had to know it was there to find it which meant it was almost entirely populated by locals.
And it was populated. Even for a Thursday it was busy, nearly jam-packed. The music was loud and the beer was cold. It was great.
Arlene, my taxi nemesis, had hit Mindy and my table around forty-five minutes after we arrived. She introduced herself and without invitation sat herself down at a stool at our small, high, round table. She was older than me I guessed by about fifteen years or so. She was short, very round but had the daintiest feet and hands I’d ever seen. She had close cropped hair that looked permed and it was colored a peculiar shade of peach that I thought was supposed to be strawberry blonde but missed the mark by quite a bit.
And she was hilarious.
“What other words do they have?” Mindy asked, leaning into me.