22
“Boy, you look sharp. That Betty is a real wiz, isn’t she? Wouldn’t you say she’s a real wiz, Dan?”
Pete led Dan and Alan through the lobby of Building A and into the large beachside bathroom that would serve as Dan’s dressing room before the ceremony.
“So we got snacks out here if you’re hungry, but I bet you’ve got a bit of a bellyache, huh? When I married Lilyanna, boy, I couldn’t eat for weeks. Passed out on our honeymoon while doing a ropes course if you believe it, smacked my noggin something fierce on the way down. Good gosh, that was scary. But I guess I don’t need to talk to the pilot about heights! Aye, aye, Captain!” Pete laughed, placed his hand on Alan’s shoulder, and squeezed.
“Geez, you fellas look great. Speaking of looking great, how about this resort, huh? Pretty snazzy for your big day! So we’ve got these two big bonfires on the beach. I was out there earlier, and I gotta say, Dan, you’d never know the sun exploded. You wouldn’t. I turn to one of the guys, I turn to one of the guys, and I say, ‘Hey, can someone click on the AC?’ I swear I did! Also, you probably noticed on the way over, we drained the pools, drained the lazy rivers. Couple reasons. First, one of the older folks got in last night, and the poor guy almost froze to death. He was blue when our boys found him, good gosh. The other reason is, and I don’t wanna be crude about this…” He ducked his head, whispered, “Some Building C folks were using the pools like…well, like the little boys’ room. It was contributing to the smell, actually, so we took care of that.”
“Might be because the water’s off in their rooms,” Dan said.
Pete threw his hands in the air. “Gosh, I don’t know. Lord knows I can’t run a resort. I can barely run my car! No, no, thank goodness for Lilyanna, she’s keeping things in check. And I gotta tell ya, Dan, I think today’s gonna be something special. I saw your bride earlier!” He jabbed Dan’s chest, Dan flinched. “Oh, gosh! Are you still sore from the beanbag?”
“It’s getting better.”
“Well, praise God for that. ’Cause you’re gonna need those chest muscles to keep your heart from beating out once you see Mara! Goodness gracious, what a vision. Alan, you should see this woman. I know, well, I know you don’t—I know that’s not your taste. But actually, once you see Mara today, good gosh, you might rethink—”
Alan glared at him.
“Right,” Pete said, “okay, I’ll leave you two to it. Say, Dan, real quick. For the ceremony, are you more of a Corinthians 13:13 guy or a Peter 4:8?”
Dan didn’t know either of them. “Uh. Peter.”
“Peter!” Pete said. “Love that. Obviously. Good choice. Welp, fellas, I’ll catch ya later.”
Just as Pete finally seemed to be leaving, he turned around at the door and said, “Hope not!”
It confused Dan. “What?”
Pete laughed, slapped his knee. “Oh, that’s just what my kids say when I’m leaving, got it stuck in my head. I say to my teenage girl, I say to her, ‘Okay, love you honey, see you later!’ and that little rascal says, ‘Hope not,’ and doesn’t even look up from her phone. I tell ya, they get their dark sense of humor from their mother. They do.”
Then he was gone.
Alan scoffed. “Jesus, that guy is touched.”
Dan checked himself in the mirror. “Incidentally, Jesus was the one who touched him. Where are the others?”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than the bathroom door swung open again and there she was.
Dan had seen countless videos of grooms crying when they first saw their brides. But he always thought it was put on—by obligation or the presence of cameras or decades of social constructs—not genuine emotion. Like most things, he was wrong about that. The sight of Mara Usra Nichols, soon-to-be Mara Nichols Foster, took his breath away, turned his knees to spaghetti. He didn’t cry—he couldn’t, Alan was right there—but he understood now. Her dress was fashioned from some sort of white quilt, and it was beautiful. Mrs. Betty really was talented. Her hair was done up in a way Dan had never seen it before. She looked like the royal duchess of the bedding department.
She looked…perfect.
“You look gorgeous,” he said, hugging her.
Mara plucked a piece of goose down from the dress and flicked it away. “I better look gorgeous. I’ve had feathers poking my tits all morning. Alan!”
She embraced him.
“You look beautiful,” he said. “Charles told me you were having a hard time deciding between a dress and a saree.”
Mara laughed. “Mrs. Betty’s good, but when I asked her about making a saree, she said I had nothing to apologize for. I’ve got another idea for how to bring my Indian half to the wedding.”
The door popped open again, and in came Charles, Lenny, and Gloria, none of them looking too shabby themselves.
“Whoa-ho,” Gloria said, her false eyelashes curled like rib cages. “The men’s bathroom. Zip it up, boys, momma ain’t covering her eyes. Ha! Oh, God, would you look at Danny? He looks so handsome!”
“He really does,” Mara said, clutching Dan’s lapels and pulling him in for another kiss. Dan beamed. Dan could remember, like, four physical compliments he’d received in his lifetime, and he held on to each of them like trophies, looked at them when he was feeling down. Now he had five.
“Beautiful couple,” Lenny said.
Charles put his arm around Alan, held him close. “Well, shit. I’m gonna cry, honey, aren’t I? I always say I’m not gonna cry, but then I do.”
“Aw, my Lenny cries too,” Gloria said. “He does!”
Lenny shrugged that off, fixed the cuffs of his shirt. He was all business today. He folded his hands in front of his belly, a marble statue against the porcelain wall. This wasn’t the bombastic, loudmouth Lenny Fava that Dan knew. No, this was Leonard, Leonard Layout, the man with the plan. Leonard demanded respect. Leonard got shit done. Leonard’s shoes were untied.
“I’m actually glad everyone’s here,” Dan said.
“Me, too,” Gloria said. “This is nice.”
“No, we need to discuss something. Alan told me—”
Alan held his hand up to quiet Dan. He broke away from Charles, peeked inside the three toilet stalls, and then ran his fingers behind the edge of the large mirror. He carefully scanned the ceiling. Satisfied, he nodded at Dan. “Alright.”
“Okay,” Dan said. “Lenny, I know I pitched you an idea, and I’m sure you’d do a great job pulling it off. But Alan has another one, one that could get us all back home. Together. They don’t know this, but”—he looked around, bent forward and whispered—“ the plane’s ready. ”
Mara and Gloria gasped. Dan gasped too, but only for dramatic effect.
“Yeah. He thinks we can be in Florida by midnight .”
“Home, guys,” Charles said, having already known. “We could all go home.”
“If we leave now?” Gloria said.
Dan clutched Mara’s hand. “Gotta marry my girl first. It’s perfect though. Everyone’ll be drunk off their asses tonight. Everyone except the six of us. We take it easy…but act the part. When they’re all plastered, Alan’ll give the signal. Then we break off in pairs and get to the plane.”
Lenny used his shoulder to push himself from the wall. “Yeah. And what about the stuff? The food? The medicine.”
Dan said, “We won’t need it, man.”
Lenny grunted. “They still will.”
They being the remainder of Buildings B and C, of course, those who had no idea a plane even existed outside the ones originally scheduled to arrive later that week. Dan felt a tinge of something—shame—but he shelved it.
“It sucks, Lenny, but—”
“They’re not our problem,” Alan said, undeterred. “We’re on our own. That’s not our battle.”
Lenny scoffed. “I got my guys positioned, trained, ready to go the second I give ’em word. They’re ready to die for this if they gotta. Feels kinda like my battle, bro.”
Alan said, “No one has to die. Call it off, Lenny. You pull any shit today, and you can count the plane out of the equation. They’ll beef up security. We’ll lose our shot.”
“That wasn’t part of the plan.”
“There’s a new plan. A better one.”
“And what am I supposed to tell my guys?”
“Fuck your guys. Tell them to come to the wedding.”
This wasn’t going well.
“Fuck my guys? Fuck you, pal. I’m trying to do the right thing, here.”
“What you think is the right thing is going to get your wife killed.”
Lenny was breathing heavy now. Leonard had left the building, and here was the guy Dan knew all along, passionate and flustered, face a shade of strawberry.
“You don’t ever let someone take something of yours that don’t belong to ’em,” he said, like he was reciting a poem, a tagline graffitied onto the walls of his brain. “Nevah. You gonna let those pricks in Building A get away with this, Alan? That sit okay with you?”
Alan didn’t budge. “Not my problem.”
Lenny punched the wall. Gloria tried to calm him, but that was like trying to calm a buffalo who’d been speared. He thrashed about the bathroom, saying things under this breath, and Dan could only make out every third or fourth word, things like fuckin’ and bullshit and psh .
“Is there a way we can do both?” Mara asked. Her hand was sweaty. “Lenny’s guys get the supplies. We sneak off during the chaos. Maybe both can work.”
Lenny stopped. “Yeah. Both can work.”
“Both can’t work,” Alan said. “It’s too risky.” He laughed, but it wasn’t a real one. “I wasn’t expecting such a fight here, guys. I’m telling you a way we can get back home . You can see your families again. How’s this even up for discussion?”
“Because there’s more to it than just us, Alan,” Mara said. She slipped her hand from Dan’s. “Charles, I know you see that. You have to.”
Charles looked like he was being torn in two. “I—”
“Things aren’t that bad here,” Alan said. “Look at the food they’re prepping for today. Dan and I saw ice sculptures on the way over. Everyone’s invited to the party. These people will be fine.”
Mara shook her head, like, Are you kidding? “That’s today , Alan. And it’s a mirage to keep us from rioting. I know you’ve been at the hangar, but people are starving here. They’re filthy. Sick. Some women are having to decide whether to use the rationed toilet paper to wipe their asses or make tampons. The man sewing beside me yesterday afternoon has arthritis. He wasn’t producing. Think Rico and his thugs reassigned him? He got hit with the butt of a rifle and spent the night in the same holding cell they threw me and Danny.”
“And you think starting a war will fix all that,” Alan said. “Because that’s what you’d be doing if you try to take those supplies: starting a war. Listen. I’ve seen oppression firsthand. Somalia. Bosnia. It’s not like the movies. What do you think happens, nine times out of ten, when civilians fight back?”
Nobody wanted to know. They already knew.
“The streets run red. You pull some shit today, Lenny, it’ll be a bloodbath. You banking on Rico Flores placing his rifle down, realizing the error of his ways? Come on. Come the fuck on.”
“So fuck ’em all,” Gloria said, her hand on her man’s shoulder. “Long as you and yours are safe. That right?”
Alan nodded. “That’s right.”
Charles scolded his husband, but Alan recoiled.
“What? What? Guys, the fuckin’ sun exploded. If you think I’m missing a chance to get home to my boys because an old man has arthritis or because some women can’t wipe their asses, you’re insane. In-sane. Anyone else on this island would take that plane. Wouldn’t even think about it. But we gotta be the A-Team?” He realized he was shouting. He closed his eyes, collected himself. “Heroics died with the sun. Here’s all that’s left: people who survive, and people who don’t. Charles is going to survive. I am too. So will our boys. I’m inviting each of you to survive. To not die on this fucking island like the rest of them. It’s hard, I know. But it’s reality.”
No one said anything for a while. They stared at the floor, at the ceiling, at their shallow reflections in the mirror. When Mara broke the silence, she rubbed her left wrist.
“Despite the risks—I still vote we help the people here.” Mara turned to Dan. She practically whispered, “Come on, Danny. You’d really leave them?”
Dan’s eyes found hers. That tinge of shame, a little thing at first, a warm tickle on the inside of his ear, spread until it rattled his insides. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t put her at risk to save people he hardly knew. He wasn’t like her, like Lenny. He wasn’t like Alan either, for that matter, because they were all strong people with convictions, and belief systems, and a firm sense of who they were and where they stood in the world. They were solid. He was liquid, contorting to fit any container in which he was poured, a glass half-full one day, a puddle on the sidewalk the next.
He saw an easy way out. He had to take it.
“I stand by what I said. We leave.”
Lenny and Gloria hugged each other, like, Jesus, he really means it, and Alan and Charles nodded. There was a finality to Dan’s decision, somehow, like he held the deciding vote, even though the group was clearly split down the middle. Mara hugged herself, leaned back against the sink. She felt smaller now, and her eyes avoided Dan’s.
This is me, he wanted to say. This is the man you’ve chosen to marry. Are you sure?
Instead he placed a hand on Lenny’s shoulder. “You’ve got a heart of gold, man. But we gotta get you home to your nephew. To your deli. Think how much good you can do in Jersey City.”
That seemed to resonate. Lenny wordlessly tapped Dan’s hand.
“It’s the right thing,” Alan said.
“The right thing,” Dan repeated.