My career is admittedly a departure from the misanthropic sensibility for which I am known. However, please note I’m surprisingly good at it. I had two indie hits back-to-back right out of grad school. Granted, that was eight years ago. But my producer is in talks with an A-lister to play the lead in the screenplay I’m finishing, and I think it could be a hit.
A big one, even.
Which my career could desperately use. I get steady work writing for hire, but after my success right out of the gate, I was vain enough to think I’d be the next Nora Ephron or Nancy Meyers, banging out stone-cold classics while minting money. Right now, I’m coming up short in the “millionaire voice of a generation” department.
“Appetizers are about to be served,” Marian continues from the stage. “So if y’all can go find your seats now, that would be perfect. We’re going to have this fabulous meal and then we’re going to get down like we’re sixteen again! To kick us off, there are icebreaker questions at each table. Chat through them while you enjoy your scallops. Now go have so much fun!”
I grab Dezzie’s hand. “I can’t believe I have to endure this alone.”
“You’re going to be great, princess,” she says, detaching herself from my grip. “Knock ’em dead. If not with charm, then with that famed sinister glare.”
“I already regret this.”
“Look, here’s our table,” Dez says to Rob, pointing at a nearby eight-top already populated with that quiet guy who founded a hedge fund and Chaz Logan, the funniest boy in our class.
“Oh man, you got Chaz and the billionaire?” I whine, despite being thirty-three years old. “I’m legit jealous.”
Dez scans the room. “Oh, I think your table will be interesting.”
I follow her eyes to a smaller table toward the side of the tent, near the beach, with a seagull-shaped sign that reads: Table 8.
And sitting at it, alone, is Seth Rubenstein.
My breath lodges painfully in my esophagus.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I hiss.
CHAPTER 2 Seth
I’m having so much fun. I love shit like this.
We’re one hour into my fifteen-year high school reunion and I’ve already recapped the last decade with my old chem partner, Gloria, and her wife, Emily (they’re set designers in Hollywood, and they just got a dog), looked at twenty pictures of Mike Wilson’s baby (cute little guy), threatened to throw Marian into the ocean (I love Marian, and she looks great), had two craft cocktails named after our high school (totally delish), and watched a snip of the Lightning game on Loren Heyman’s phone (I’m not a hockey guy, but I think Loren thinks I’m someone else, and I like that about him).
I am now sitting at table eight, alone, because unlike the rest of my former classmates who are still milling about, I respect Marian’s intricately choreographed event protocol. Besides, when you’re the first at the table, you get to watch everyone’s reactions as they realize they have to talk to you all night.
It’s a blast.
I stretch out my legs with my back to the lovely Gulf of Mexico, sip my Palm Bay Preptini, and tap my foot to the opening of “Margaritaville” as I await my dining companions.
There are those addictively crunchy Parmesan twists sticking out from the breadbasket—yum—and I grab one and bite into it. A somewhat embarrassing amount of cheese crumbs falls on my chest.
I’m brushing the schmutz off my jacket when I look up and my stomach lurches.
It’s Molly Marks, standing in the shadow of a potted palm, looking at me in horror.
I haven’t seen her in fifteen years.
Not since the night we broke up.
Or rather, since she broke up with me, stunningly and without notice, in a way that I didn’t get over until deep into college—or possibly law school, depending on how much PBR I’d been drinking.
I quickly jam the rest of the breadstick into my mouth and stand up with a huge grin on my face, still chewing, because Molly doesn’t deserve for me to wait until I swallow.
“Molly Marks!” I call, opening my arms wide like there is no reason on earth she wouldn’t step into them for a big old back-slapping hug. I am Seth Rubenstein, attorney at law, and I am going to drown her in my famous charisma.
She stands there with her head cocked, as if I’m a loon.
Look, I am a loon, I admit it. But I’m a nice loon, which Molly no doubt finds foreign and difficult to parse, being a cruel and chilling person.
“Hey, don’t leave a poor guy hanging,” I exclaim. “Bring it in, Marksman!”
She reluctantly steps into my arms and gives me a tentative tap, tap, tap on the shoulder—as if touching me with more than one finger would put her at risk of contracting a venereal disease.
Which I don’t have. I got tested before I flew out here. Just in case.
I pull her in closer. “Hey, a little affection if you please, Marky Marks. It’s your old pal Seth Rubes.”
“Who?” she asks, deadpan.
I laugh, because I’m determined to exude the relaxed affability of a very chill dude who is not at all disturbed to be in her presence. And Molly was always funny, to those rare people with whom she condescended to speak.
“I can’t believe you showed up to this shindig,” I say, stepping back to look at her. She didn’t come to our five- or ten-year reunions, to absolutely no one’s surprise.
“Me neither.” She sighs in that world-weary way that once drove me out of my mind.
“You look amazing,” I tell her.
This is, of course, the obligatory thing to say to someone at a high school reunion, but in her case it’s true. She still has that long, thick, dark brown hair straight down to her ass, which makes her stand out among the bobs and updos of our fellow Palm Bay Flamingos. She’s even taller than I remember, with killer legs shown off to great effect by the short, flimsy black dress she has accessorized with a leather jacket in predictable contravention of Marian’s “tropical cocktail” dress code. She is wearing somewhere between ten and twenty delicate gold necklaces, which fall at various lengths from her throat to the gap between her breasts, adorned with tiny pendants, like a thistle and the shape of California. I’m disappointed in myself to report that I want to take the necklaces off her, one by one.
