“I hardly recognized you, Elizabeth,” she says, smiling at her. Provoking her, Beth would say. “You look beautiful. You’re always so dressed up, I love it.”
And can you believe when she made that comment about she loved how dressed up I was? she will say later. I mean, my god. What a vajazzled cunt.
In Beth’s dark glare, Tom is careful, supremely careful not to let his eye dwell too long on the long supple legs, the firm breasts of his buddy’s wife.
In the kitchen, Brindy offers them both watermelon daiquiris. “You have to try them. They’re so yummy!” In his peripheral vision, he sees Beth’s face darken, becoming an abacus of sugar and carb counting. Unable to watch, he leaves them there in the kitchen before he can hear her ask, Do you have any dry white?
Outside, Hot Pocket is flipping T-bones on the barbecue in his Oakleys, a pyramid of marinated beef on a large aluminum platter to his left. Ribs. Tenderloins. More T-bones. He’s wearing Bermuda shorts and one of those T-shirts that says GAME OVER featuring an altar-bound bride and groom standing side by side, the groom with little X’s in his eyes.
“Tom,” he says, fishing a Fat Tire out of the cooler and tossing it over.
“We, uh, brought something for the grill,” Tom says, holding up the soggy packet of veggie patty like it’s the tail of a dead skunk.
“Jesus.” Hot Pocket raises his Oakleys and holds the package up to the sunlight. “What the hell is this anyway?”
Tom shrugs. “Some sort of tofu thing. It’s for Beth,” he adds, in a slightly lowered voice.
Hot Pocket looks over at Beth, who is scowling between two tiki torches, sniffing doubtfully at a blue corn chip. Tom wants Hot Pocket to protest this addition to the barbecue in the holy name of all this meat he’s about to set fire to, but he just slaps him on the back and says, “Can do.”
Tom stays hunched morosely by the meat smells, getting drunk on Fat Tires until his view of the backyard begins to sway a little. A few more people arrive. Most of the men, he sees, are looking at Beth, who is too busy glaring at Brindy to notice. He grabs another Fat Tire from the cooler.
“So where’s Dickie anyway?” he mutters aloud. “Thought he was coming to this thing.” All week Dickie had said he’d be coming. He even threatened to bring his new girlfriend.
“Yes,” Brindy calls from the picnic table, “where is Dickie?” Everyone knows no party really starts until Dickie’s arrived.
“Probably fucking that fat girl,” Beth says, and by the way she says it, Tom knows she’s at least two drinks past tallying up alcohol units and carbohydrate grams.
“What fat girl?” Brindy asks.
“Just this chick Dickie’s dating right now,” Hot Pocket says, giving the steaks another flip.
“Awww. I think that’s sweet,” Brindy says, grabbing a handful of corn chips.
“It is not sweet,” Beth spits. “He calls it gastro sex, for God’s sake. And he’s only fucking her ’cause she’ll do anything. How is that sweet?”
“I think it’s sweet,” Brindy insists quietly, nibbling on a corn chip.
“Not sure how I’m going to tell when this is done, Elizabeth,” Hot Pocket says, poking at the veggie patty with his tongs. “These, uh, grill marks here are a little confusing.”
“Just when it starts to get brown, Matt.” She always calls him Matt. Because I’m not calling a grown man Hot Pocket.
“K,” Hot Pocket says doubtfully. He slaps the patty on the grill. It starts to hiss and pop, like an evil, unending fart.
? ? ?
Tom had been looking forward to this meal of meat and corn on the cob and chips and mayonnaisey salads all week. But now that it’s all piled before him beautifully on a paper plate, he can’t eat. Instead he feels his blood pressure rise, his fork grip become tighter as he hears his wife say, No, No, No, but thanks, to nearly every dish offered. He relaxes a little when at last she accepts some garden salad to accompany her plate of jicama sticks and a bunless veggie patty. When she begins to stab lamely at the lettuce, he decides he’s not going to let her ruin this for him any longer and tears into his ribs violently but without pleasure.
“How come you’re not having any?” asks Maddy, the seven-year-old daughter of Hot Pocket and Brindy, addressing Beth. Maddy is dressed as a fairy princess and her mouth is covered in barbecue sauce. She’s gazing at Beth intently with her mother’s large hazel eyes.
Beth looks from Maddy’s paper wings to her plastic tiara and gives her an awkward smile. “Because I don’t eat meat.”
“Maddy, honey, eat your burger,” Brindy says.
But Maddy isn’t interested in her burger. She is staring at Beth. Tom winces, hearing the child’s question before the words even form on her barbecue sauce–stained lips.
“Didn’t you used to be really f—”
“You know,” Brindy interrupts, “I just love that dress, Elizabeth. Where did you say you got it again?”
He feels Beth looking at him from across the table, but keeps his gaze fixed on the half-gnawed ribs on his plate.