“Sounds great.”
Dennis unloaded white cartons from a brown paper bag while Kyle dropped onto the couch and reached for the remote. The set flickered to life, and he checked the listings of saved shows in the DVR. He knew that what he was about to indulge in over scotch and Chinese food was the worst sort of psychological scab-picking. But the option was going home to Van and her mother and those two bewildering little girls. There was no question: It had been a mistake to invite Alison to that misbegotten dinner party. But there was nothing to do about it now. Van had not forgiven him, and his brain hadn’t either.
Alison’s face loomed on the screen, emerging like a mermaid out of the blue water of a pool in the night. She looked straight into the camera, those unforgettable green eyes flickering with confusion and desire.
“I can’t believe you had a dinner party and you invited Alison and you didn’t invite me,” Dennis rebuked him. He dumped the white cartons of food on the coffee table in front of them. Chopsticks, paper napkins, plastic forks. There was no standing on ceremony with Dennis.
“It wasn’t me, it was Van. She thinks you’re a bad influence on the girls.”
“Not yet, but someday, definitely.”
Was that even funny? It wasn’t worth remarking that it might not be. Dennis was already watching the television set. “She looks hot,” he announced, as if this were news.
“She’s too skinny.”
“She was that thin two years ago, at Christmas.”
“It wasn’t two years ago. It was three years ago,” Kyle replied. Alison was arguing with someone now, it was hard to tell who. The sound was off.
“What was three years ago?”
“Your Christmas party.”
“The Christmas party.” Dennis nodded, digging into the kung pao chicken, wielding his chopsticks with an elegance that was somewhat surprising in a perpetual drunk. “Oh yes, that wonderful Christmas party. Remember those boots she was wearing? Thigh-high gray suede—”
“Yes, I remember the boots.”
“Is that bitter?”
“Why would I be bitter?”
“I don’t know. I know nothing, Kyle, you are ridiculously discreet, it’s one of your worst habits. You invited her to your house for dinner with your wife—”
“And ten other people.”
“Yes, and ten other people but not me. So I know nothing about your current standing with Alison. For all I know, you’ve been carrying on a torrid affair with each other via the internet this whole time. For all I know, she flies in twice a month and meets you in a hotel in Covington.”
“If I were fucking Alison, do you think I’d need to watch her do it on television?”
There was a shocked pause at this, and then Dennis laughed with glee. “Well well well, well well—” he started. Kyle stood. If he could have punched himself in the face, he would have.
“This is stupid,” Kyle said. He looked around for the clicker, but it was buried, somewhere, under those cartons. The silent movie of Alison, her green eyes, her body rising out of the water, was interminable. “Where’s the fucking clicker, I’m not watching this junk.”
“Dude, far be it from me but if we were in an AA meeting, there would be about sixty people telling you that you need to talk about it,” Dennis informed him.
“I don’t need to talk about it.”
“No, you just need to drink about it.” Kyle glanced at the tumbler in his hand. It was true; he had already powered through the sizable bolt of scotch, in a matter of minutes. “Where’s the clicker,” he asked.
“You can turn it off if you want, I don’t care,” Dennis shrugged. “I just thought we were going to watch it. And I didn’t get to see her when she was here, so I was kind of looking forward to it. But I can watch it later if you can’t handle it.”
“I can handle it, Jesus, that’s not what—fine.” The silent television continued to flicker before them, but Kyle deliberately ignored it, concentrating on his own set of cheap wooden chopsticks, splitting them down the middle without yielding splinters. It calmed him.
“So you and Alison got into it.”
“We didn’t get into anything.”
“Liar.”
“Dennis—”
“What? I want to know what happened, of course I want to know. She was at your house and now you’re watching her on television and talking about how you wish you were fucking her.”
“That’s not what I—”
“And you’re drinking rather heavily, which may be normal for me but is not for you. So maybe you need to talk about that.”
“I don’t actually need to talk about why I’m drinking. I know why I’m drinking. What I don’t know is why you’re so interested in my sex life.”
Dennis started, then laughed, enjoying the nasty turn. “Ooo la la, latent homophobia,” he grinned. “Goodness gracious, there’s always all that Catholicism, right there when you need it.”