Chapter Twenty-Two
Twenty-Two
“You need to be ready for anything,” I tell Connor, on the train to Dumbo. We’re standing. His hand is wrapped around the bar above my head, mine on the bar closest to the door, both of us jostling lightly as we speak. “Dan loves to start arguments about the most pointless things.”
Connor smiles. “I think I can handle it.”
“Ask them about the wedding. See if you can find out what they’re thinking,” I instruct him. “Whatever you do, don’t mention Dan’s job, he’ll never shut up about it. If he brings it up, change the subject. You can ask Shannon about her job.”
“Noted.” He nods.
“Avoid giving an opinion about anything, if you can. Don’t ask for Dan’s opinion on any subject.”
“Roger that.”
“Unless it’s about their wedding,” I amend.
“Annie,” Connor says, nudging my chin up to look at him. “You know this is going to be fine, right? We’re going to have a nice time.”
He’s wrong, but I don’t argue. He’ll find out soon enough.
—
The bar Connor has picked out for us is perfect.
Just the right side of dingy, softly lit by candlelight, with lots of wood accents.
There are basically no windows in here, taking us from day to night when we cross the threshold.
I clock Shannon and Dan as soon as we arrive, sitting side by side at a four-person table.
They stop talking the second they notice our approach, both jumping up from their seats and greeting us with exaggerated cheerfulness.
I didn’t tell Shannon I’d be bringing Connor—payback for this afternoon—and though she looks a little surprised to see him, she recovers quickly, and seems genuinely happy he’s here, like she’s as desperate for a buffer as I am.
Both of them have changed, looking like glamorous night-time versions of the people they were this afternoon.
She’s in a silky black camisole and black blazer, accessorized with gold everything: gold earrings, gold rings, gold bracelets, gold chains.
Her hair is up, her lips are glossed, her eyeliner is immaculate.
As teenagers, Shannon once matter-of-factly told me on the drive to school that she was the hot one, and I was the cute one, as if this was an official designation in every family, and there was a maximum of one in each category.
I never once doubted her, then or now. Shannon has always been, and continues to be, the hot one.
As in: she looks like she could burn you.
Beside her, Dan is Shannon’s bargain-basement counterpart.
Though he’s dressed well in a dark knit polo with indigo and white stripes—Shannon’s doing, no question—he still makes it look cheap.
His hair has been gelled to within an inch of its life, slicked back from his face, his beard groomed so sharply it looks like he drew it on.
I can smell his aftershave from here, and I don’t care for it.
It just goes to show the old saying is true: you can’t polish a turd.
A waitress mercifully appears the second we sit down, saving all of us from any further small talk while we grapple with the logistics of our drink order. Connor recommends the margaritas, a suggestion approved by everyone except Dan, who always has to be different. He, of course, orders a Paloma.
“So how are you enjoying New York so far?” Connor asks them.
“A little overwhelming,” Shannon admits at the same moment Dan says: “Really overrated.”
Connor pauses, taking in these dueling bits of information, deciding which conversational off-ramp he wants to take. He goes with Dan.
“Oh yeah? How so?”
“Well, it’s insanely expensive, for starters. New York is always painted like it’s the city that never sleeps, but really there’s just traffic everywhere. It’s noisy. The streets reek of garbage. I don’t really get it.”
“Maybe you’re just not a city guy,” I say.
“That’s true. Cities are huge resource drains. Smaller towns offer a lower cost of living, higher quality of life, and less competition than sprawling urban areas.”
“Dan’s a town councilor,” I say to Connor. “He’s a very big deal.”
Under the table, he pinches my thigh. To Dan he says, “That’s cool.”
Shannon pivots. “So where are you from originally, Connor?”
“New York,” he admits, the corners of his mouth twitching. “I grew up on the Upper West Side.”
“Oh wow, cool,” she says lamely.
“You’re not wrong about all those things, by the way,” Connor says to Dan. “It is expensive, and there’s a lot of people. My mom calls it friction. But there’s a lot of good things about this place too. Hopefully you’ll discover a few of them before the weekend’s out.”
Dan mumbles something like for sure into the rim of his glass.
—
It’s not long before Connor’s easy manners put Shannon and Dan under his spell, and for a few blissful minutes I imagine what life would be like if Shannon lived here and Dan were a person I liked.
Connor continues to steer the conversation, asking Shannon what she does, if she also works in government? No, she tells him, but she’s very involved in local affairs. HA. Ironic.
She goes on to tell him she’s a realtor, a profession she fell into by chance but now really enjoys. It’s a refreshing change to hear Shannon talk passionately about something that has nothing to do with Dan, that there’s at least one piece of her life he’s never managed to infiltrate.
I can see why she loves it. Shannon was always popular, amazing at persuading the people around her to do whatever she wanted.
Competitive, too. What people don’t realize is that though he behaves like he’s the successful one in this relationship, Dan owes most of his lifestyle to Shannon.
Town councilors are not particularly well paid.
Shannon, on the other hand, is making a mint selling houses for all the guys who had a crush on her in high school.
When the waitress comes to take our orders for another round, Connor suggests we order a pitcher of Palomas, a move that visibly flatters Dan and enables him to give us his expert opinion that they’re the better, more underrated cocktail (and way more popular in Mexico, something he experienced first-hand when he visited Cancun for a whopping four days).
“So Annie tells me you’re planning your wedding at the moment?” Connor asks when the drinks arrive.
“That’s right,” Dan says, his arm going around Shannon. “It’s time to lock this one down for good.”
Oh, gag.
“What about you, man?” Dan asks, taking a swig of his drink. “Are you married?”
“Uh,” Connor says, looking at me, then back at Dan. “No.”
“I recommend it,” Dan continues, oblivious to the daggers I’m shooting him. “It’s the best thing you’ll ever do.”
Beside him, Shannon titters. “Not married yet, babe,” she says, patting his chest.
Not married ever, if I can help it.
“Well, you know what I mean,” Dan says, smiling down at my sister, then looking back across the table to Connor and me.
“We split up for a while, a couple of years back. I had to see what living without Shannon would look like. It was a dark time. After a few months of that, we knew we had to make it work.”
“Aww,” Shannon says. “I feel exactly the same.”
Gross. Across from me, my sister is looking flushed, but happy—a telltale sign she’s tipsy.
The alcohol has helped loosen her up in every sense of the word, her hair gradually falling out of the sharp bun she’d slicked it into and framing her face, and to me at least, she looks gorgeous, a closer semblance of the sister I remember rather than the high-definition glamazon who replaced her.
Dan, on the other hand, is starting to look a little shiny.
I thought he was just being a dick a minute ago, but now that I observe him closer it’s only fair to acknowledge that he’s probably drunk, rather than spiteful.
He’s never handled his alcohol well in my opinion, and Drunk Dan is Everyday Dan dialed up to eleven.
He’s loud, he’s opinionated, and he thinks he’s a lot more profound than he is.
—
Dan has taken a real shine to Connor, offering up his unsolicited advice on everything from fantasy football to cryptocurrency, and he and Shannon both take the opportunity to share with Connor as many stories as they can think of from my teenage years, which are embarrassing, but not quite as embarrassing as starting a chess club, so I let it pass.
Connor is doing the thing I sometimes watch him do in meetings, where he pretends to consider something that I know he’s not considering at all.
I want to run a wire between his brain and mine so I can hear all his thoughts in real time.
Is Dan’s conversation annoying him? Was he being honest when he said the breadsticks were good?
Does he think Shannon is hot and I’m cute?
When another pitcher comes down, I judge it to be time to wrap things up before they manage to drink it.
Connor switched to beer a while ago, and I’ve been nursing my drinks, knowing instinctively that getting drunk tonight would be a terrible idea.
Shannon and Dan, on the other hand, are two walking tequila bottles.
In the original version of this weekend, I made dinner reservations at an Italian restaurant in the Village and got tickets for Shannon and me to go and watch some stand-up at the Comedy Cellar.
And honestly, I was just going to let them go to waste.
But unless I want to subject Connor to four more hours of these two—which I don’t—it makes much more sense to give them the tickets instead.
“So, guys,” I say, when Connor gets up to use the bathroom. “I have a bit of a surprise for you.”
“No. I’m good,” Shannon says, dismissing me immediately.
“Don’t you want to know what it is?”
“Considering the last time you gave me a surprise it almost ruined my life, probably not.”
I lock eyes with my sister. I can’t believe she just said that, and judging by the look on her face, neither can she.
Dan’s glass hovers midair, frozen somewhere between his face and the table beneath him. His eyes dart back and forth between us, like a swimmer who’s realizing he’s out in shark-infested waters. This has all the makings of a bloodbath.
I’m on the verge of testily asking Shannon to repeat herself when Connor slides back into his seat and finds us all sitting in tense silence.
“Everything OK?” he says uneasily, tugging on the underside of my chair until it’s flush with his.
“Absolutely,” I say through gritted teeth. Shannon is glaring at me. I glare right back. “I was just telling the guys about the surprise I have in store for them. Tickets to go and see some stand-up.”
“Oh,” Shannon says, her eyes dropping to the table.
“Stand-up, wow,” Dan says with exaggerated (or maybe just drunken) excitement. “I love stand-up. Stand-up is so good. How great is that, Shan?”
“Great,” she agrees, inspecting the rim of her glass.
I feel Connor slide his arm around my waist and pull me into his side. I chance a peek up at him. He raises an eyebrow. Bigger person. Right.
I heave a huge breath, releasing Shannon’s shitty comment on the exhale and charging on. “It’s back in the city, but I think it will be really fun. So here,” I say, handing the tickets across the table. “My gift to you. Welcome to New York.”