Epilogue Benji #2
“That draping would cost a client a fortune and Stormy did it by watching YouTube?”
“Apparently Stormy can do just about anything.”
A sound comes from inside and the glass door opens. Tex steps onto the deck in jeans and a T-shirt, carrying two mugs of coffee. When he sees the ring on my finger his eyes go bright and then a smile, slow and wide.
“Well, it’s about damn time,” he says, putting the mugs on the railing.
“I’ve been holding onto this secret for three days.
Do you know how hard it is to keep a secret when you talk as much as I do?
I almost told two customers.” He clears his throat.
“Congratulations, boys. Now drink your coffee before it gets cold.”
Stormy appears behind him. Standing just inside the glass door, half in and half out, the way Stormy stands when he wants to be present but isn’t sure he’s invited. His hair is messy from the wind. His hands are at his sides. He’s looking at the deck he decorated in the dark.
“Stormy,” I say. “Get out here.”
He steps onto the deck. I untangle from Mickey’s lap and walk to him. I pull him into a hug. His arms come up around me this time and he holds on tight.
“It’s beautiful,” I say into his shoulder. “Every sign. Every panel. It’s the most beautiful staging I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen a thousand.”
“I wasn’t sure about the fabric,” he says. “I didn’t know if white was right for sunrise.”
“White at sunrise is better than white at sunset. The pink light hits it and it glows. You couldn’t have picked better. It’s perfect.”
He pulls back and wipes his face. Then he turns to Mickey in the chair and bends down and wraps his arms around Mickey’s shoulders. Mickey’s arms come up around Stormy’s back and they hold each other. When Stormy straightens up his eyes are wet.
I hold out my hand to show him the ring. “We’re engaged,” I say.
He gives me his small smile. “Congratulations.”
Tex puts his arm around Stormy’s shoulder and pulls him close. Mickey reaches for my hand. Our fingers lace together on the armrest of his chair. The silver band presses between our palms.
“I’m going to plan an absolutely spectacular wedding,” I say.
“I know you are,” Mickey says. “You deserve to have your own wedding.”
“It’s going to be right here,” I say. “On this deck. At sunrise. With this view. Or maybe at sunset down there on the beach. What do you think?”
“Wouldn’t have it anywhere else,” he says.
“And Stormy will be doing the draping. And Sheila will do the food. And Tex will be behind the bar. And Dante is my best man. Your parents will be here. My mom and aunt are going to cry before the music starts. The music is going to be the jukebox because I’m not hiring a DJ for my own wedding when there is a perfectly good jukebox six feet away. ”
“That’s a lot of planning for you to do,” Mickey says.
“I can’t wait! This will be so much fun.
The only thing missing right now is Dante.
He should be here. He should be standing on this deck with a glass of champagne telling me my hair is a disaster.
And my ring is perfect and that he knew this was going to happen before either of us did. He knew the day he met you.”
“Benji, I knew you were gone the second I watched you put two-hundred-dollar cream on that man’s feet.”
The voice comes from behind me, inside the bar. I stop breathing and turn around.
Dante is standing in the doorway. Slim black pants. White linen shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. He’s holding a bottle of good champagne in one hand and his phone in the other.
“Dante!”
“Hi, Benji.”
“How are you — you’re — what—”
“Use your words, Benji.”
“How are you here?” I shout at him.
He steps onto the deck. “I flew in last night. I’ve been at the apartment since eleven. Mickey told me to set an alarm for five and to be downstairs at five-forty-five and to keep my damn mouth shut until the ring was on your finger.” He looks at my hand. “Is the ring on your finger yet?”
I hold up my left hand and flash the silver band at him.
“The ring is on his finger,” Mickey says from his chair.
“Excellent. Then I’m allowed to talk.” Dante sets the champagne on the railing and opens his arms. “Come here.”
I crash into him. Full body, no restraint, in a hug that almost takes us both over the railing.
“You knew,” I say into his chest. “You knew he was proposing and you didn’t tell me.”
“Of course I knew,” Dante says. “And why would I spoil his wonderful surprise? Mickey called me three weeks ago. He asked for my blessing. He called me and said, ‘Dante, I want to ask Benji to marry me and you’re the most important person in his life and I need to know you’re okay with it.
’ And I sat in my car in a parking lot and gave him my blessing in both English and Spanish.
” He pulls back and holds me at arm’s length to inspect me.
“No eyeliner this morning?” he asks. “Or hair combing?”
“Mickey told me to come as I am.”
“Even better. This beautiful face is the one that should be wearing the ring.” He touches the band on my finger, turns it once, gently. “It’s simple. I love it.”
“It’s perfect.”
“Yes, it is. It’s exactly right for you.” Dante looks over at Mickey. He crosses the deck, bends down and takes Mickey’s face in both hands. The same way he takes my face when he has something to say that matters.
“You did good, Officer Weaver,” Dante says. “The signs. The standing. The ring. All of it. I take back seventy percent of the difficult things I’ve said about you.”
“Only seventy?” Mickey says.
“The other thirty percent were accurate and I stand by them.” He leans in and kisses Mickey’s forehead.
One press. Brief and firm. Then he straightens up and wipes his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Now. I brought champagne because I refuse to toast an engagement with coffee. Someone needs to tell me the plan for this wedding because I know Benji has already planned the entire thing in the ninety seconds since that ring went on. I need to know my assignments.”
“You’re my best man,” I say.
“Obviously.”
“You’re standing next to me. On this deck or on the beach. At sunrise or sunset. I haven’t decided. In something stunning.”
“Also, obviously. We’ll both be stunning. That is a given. What else?”
“Your best man speech needs to be under seven minutes.”
“It will be exactly seven minutes, and not a second longer or shorter. I’ve been writing it in my head since the hospital. The opening line is devastating, and the closing line will make every person on this deck cry including Tex.”
The glass door opens again. Sheila steps onto the deck carrying a tray.
Biscuits, butter, a jar of her homemade fig preserves, and a stack of napkins.
She’s in her morning clothes, no apron, and her reading glasses are pushed up on her head.
She puts the tray on the railing next to the coffee mugs and the champagne and looks at me. Glances down at the ring on my hand.
She doesn’t say congratulations. She walks over to me, pulls me to her and kisses my cheek. Then she pulls back and points at Mickey.
“If you make me cry before seven AM, I will never forgive you,” she says.
“You’re already crying, Sheila,” Tex says.
“I’m not crying, Tex. I have allergies. It’s pollen. The Gulf has pollen this morning.”
“Since when?”
“The Gulf has whatever I say it has, Tex. Don’t test me. Maybe it’s red tide coming in early.” She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. She squeezes my hand. “You eat those biscuits,” she says. “They’re an appetizer.”
She turns to Dante. “And you sit down. You flew in last night and you look like you haven’t eaten since Miami.”
Mickey leans closer to me. “You’ve been putting two-hundred-dollar cream on my feet this whole time?” he says. “You told me the cream wasn’t expensive.”
“It wasn’t,” I say. “You were worth every penny.”
Dante sits down and nods towards Sheila. He catches my eye across the deck and mouths I love her. I mouth back she’s ours now and Sheila sees both of us mouthing and says “I can read lips, babies. I’ve been reading lips across a bar for thirty years.”
Tex looks us all over sitting on his deck. He takes a big breath that fills his whole chest and holds it for a second.
“Alright,” he says. He claps his hands together once, hard, the sound cracking across the deck. “Is everybody good now? Is everybody happy?”
He points at me. “Benji. You happy?”
I grin at him. “I’m very happy, Tex.”
He points at Mickey. “Mickey. You good?”
“I’m good, Tex.”
He looks down at Stormy tucked under his arm. “Stormy? We good?”
Stormy does the small nod. The one that means everything.
“Mama Sheila? You good?”
She wipes her eyes and nods without saying a word.
“What about you, Miami Cool Dante?” He points at Dante on the railing with his biscuit, his champagne and his linen shirt blowing in the breeze.
“I don’t know your whole story yet. You’re a work in progress.
But you flew across the state and showed up on my deck at dawn for my boy’s engagement and that earns you a spot in the roll call. Are you good?”
“I’m spectacular,” Dante says. “I’m always spectacular. But today especially. Thrilled to be here.”
“Well, I know I’m good,” Tex says. “I’ve been good since four o’clock this morning when I watched Stormy hang curtains from a deck railing in the dead dark.
” He holds up his hand and counts on his fingers.
“That’s everybody. Everybody’s good. Everybody’s happy.
Everybody’s on the deck. Nobody’s missing and nobody’s hurt.
” He lets that sit for a second. “The coffee’s getting cold and the champagne is getting warm but look at this view. ”
He sweeps his arm toward the Gulf. The water is clear blue now. The sun is up. The seagulls are working the surf line. The beach is empty and the sand is the color of sugar.
“As I always love to say, it’s another gorgeous morning on the Gulf of Mexico. So let the good times roll.” He looks at Mickey. “Told you they’d come back, brother.”
He slaps the doorframe, and reaches inside to hit the button on the sound system. Music comes blasting through the deck speakers. Classic rock. Loud and filling the morning air.
“I’m going inside to make pancakes for everyone,” Tex says.
Mickey looks up at me from his chair. His eyes are wet and he’s smiling. I take his hand. Dante is on my other side. He has the champagne open now, pouring it into coffee mugs because Big Tex’s Roadhouse doesn’t have champagne glasses.
We listen to the music, the waves, and Tex talking to pancakes in a bar he turned into a home for the people he loves.
I’ve spent years making other people’s perfect days.
This one’s mine.