Chapter Four #2
David had no idea who Florian was, but judging by Genevieve’s response, it was evident this had been the wrong answer.
“Oh, now that’s just too much, even for you,” she scolded. “I figured you’d still be sulking, but pretending you don’t know about it is just childish.”
“I don’t know about it,” said Meredith. “I’ve not heard so much as a peep out of Florian or anybody. And I do not sulk.”
#31: He does, on occasion, sulk.
Genevieve set her teacup onto its saucer with a forceful clink. “I mean it, Mere, cut the crap. Florian already told me how you threw a tantrum because he asked Jayceon to be his best man—”
“I never did!”
“—and refused to be a groomsman over it—”
“I tell you this is the first I’ve heard—”
“—but to not even attend your own brother’s wedding?”
David fumbled with his own teacup as he set it down, earning a sharp look of disapproval from Genevieve.
Meredith had not once, in the entire time they’d known each other, mentioned the existence of a brother.
“And not even RSVPing is rude as shit, excuse my language. If you’re not going to go, at least grow up and have the—the decency to say so instead of just ghosting them.”
David would be lying if he didn’t admit to a certain satisfaction at seeing someone finally put Meredith in his place, even if he himself hadn’t been privy to the exact events that warranted it.
“Bit hard to RSVP to something one hasn’t been invited to,” said Meredith, now falling into a definite sulk.
Genevieve folded her arms. “I know for a fact Adalynn sent you an invitation weeks ago.”
“Who?”
That elicited another incredulous stare. “Uh, Adalynn, Florian’s fiancée? Your future sister-in-law?”
The name rang a faint bell in David’s memory, but Meredith waved away this information.
“Well, I’ve never met her, and she certainly never sent me any such thing.
” As Genevieve looked to be on the verge of rebuking him further, he turned to David.
“David, you tell her. You’d know if it had come, nobody else bothers checking the mail around here. ”
#32: Nobody else does bother checking the mail around here.
David had no interest in being dragged into this dispute. “It’s been weeks, how should I remember what came in the post for you?”
It was true he didn’t recall seeing such a thing, but it was equally true he simply mightn’t remember, and quite plausible that Meredith had, in fact, mislaid his mail.
Still, a tiny hint of doubt sprouted in the back of David’s mind.
Meredith had an astounding capability for remaining blithely unaware of a great many things, but for all his faults, in all the time they’d known each other, David had never had reason to believe him an outright liar.
“Perhaps it was lost in the post,” he suggested.
That seemed to diminish Genevieve’s ire.
“That could be,” she allowed. “Our letter carrier at home did have some trouble with a gang of renegade sorcerers a few weeks back.” She rummaged in her oversized handbag, pulled out a battered half sheet of card stock, and held it out in offering.
“I’ll let Adalynn know, but for the time being, here. ”
Meredith leaned in to view the invitation, and David did the same.
It read:
Together with their families
Adalynn Cartier and Florian Schwarzwelder
request the pleasure of your company
at their wedding
Saturday, the thirteenth of May—
David stopped reading.
Adalynn Cartier.
Adalynn Cartier.
The only child of Maitland Cartier. That’s where he’d heard the name, or, rather, read it: Cartier had been profiled in February’s issue of Accounting Monthly.
“Your brother,” David choked out, “is marrying Adalynn Cartier?”
#33: His brother is marrying Adalynn Cartier.
Meredith only gave a bewildered shrug. “S’pose so. Why?”
#34: And he fails entirely to appreciate the gravity of this fact.
“Do you two know each other?” asked Genevieve. “Adalynn and I have been best friends since college.”
“Not personally, no,” said David, composing himself as well as he could. “Her father owns the company I work for.” His mind was racing. If Meredith went to the wedding—if David could find a way to get to the wedding himself—
Genevieve, now somewhat mollified, took a slice of cake. “I’m sorry I came down hard on you about RSVPing, but after everything—well, never mind. You are coming, obviously?”
Meredith fidgeted and reached for his bracelets, but as he hadn’t put any of his jewelry back on following the business with the fresco, his wrists were bare of any adornment save his tattoos.
(One arm was covered in delicate black filigree; the other bore a full sleeve of various botanicals that David had never bothered to look at closely, done in shades of black and gray with a few tiny color details so minimal one was always surprised to catch sight of them.)
“Well, you see, I really haven’t the time.”
“This is your brother’s wedding,” Genevieve emphasized. “And it’s not for another six weeks. That’s plenty of time.”
“I’m telling you, I’m well booked up. I’ve got a waiting list.”
Genevieve wrinkled her nose. “Who’d book with you?”
David couldn’t tell whether she was teasing or not.
“People do,” said Meredith indignantly. “Lots of people.”
This was true. David knew because he’d eventually, out of sheer frustration, insisted on taking over the convoluted nightmare of Meredith’s taxes.
“I’m sure you can rearrange your schedule.”
“I can’t!”
“Mere, you need to go to this.” This time, there was no question Genevieve was dead serious as she leaned forward over the coffee table.
“I know you and Florian have never been best friends, but I haven’t seen your face at a family gathering since Grandpa died.
My mom was about to call and give you a piece of her mind—”
At this, Meredith visibly blanched.
“—but I told her I’d handle it.”
“But—” he began weakly.
No. No, there could be no buts, not where the daughter of Maitland Cartier was concerned.
David stood. “Meredith. Could you come help me in the kitchen.” It was not a request. It was also the barest pretense, but the situation was too dire to waste time on a more plausible excuse.
Without waiting for an answer, he caught Meredith by the wrist and pulled him to his feet. “Do excuse us for a moment.”
“David, what’s got into you?” asked Meredith with wide eyes once they were safely in the relative privacy of the kitchen.
“What the hell are you playing at?” David demanded.
“What do you mean?”
“Not fifteen minutes ago, you told me you were an only child, and now, all of a sudden, you’ve got a brother? Whom you somehow didn’t know was getting married?”
“I didn’t know,” insisted Meredith. “And anyway, I told you no such thing. I said I hadn’t got a sister. You always go making assumptions.”
“That,” said David, “is not the point. How can you possibly turn down a chance to attend Adalynn Cartier’s wedding? How can you refuse to participate in Adalynn Cartier’s wedding?”
“But Florian never asked me, I swear it!”
David waved away that protest. “Look, it doesn’t matter.”
“It matters,” said Meredith, “a great deal.” He appeared on the verge of tears—over a ridiculously small matter yet again.
#35: He cries at anything.
Horror films, baby birds, sad news stories, free jazz. (To an extent, David could sympathize with him on the final point.) He even teared up when cut flowers had passed their prime and needed to be thrown out, and every time “Solsbury Hill” played on the radio.
Very well, David could make a small concession to placate him. “Yes, all right. Clearly there was some miscommunication.” That, too, was altogether too likely.
This failed to have the desired effect; rather, Meredith took on an expression of hurt bewilderment.
Well, David had tried. “In any case, of course you must go. If you can still arrange to be in the bridal party, all the better.” Surely, as a groomsman, Meredith would be afforded a plus-one.
“I don’t want to be in the bridal party.”
“Of course you do.” David felt a pang of sympathy for Genevieve. Really, she’d had her work cut out for her. “Everyone likes weddings. They constitute an important social ritual and provide an atmosphere of conviviality.”
“All that?” asked Meredith doubtfully.
“And need I reiterate—the father of the bride is Maitland Cartier.”
“But I don’t care about Maitland Cartier.”
#36: He does not care about Maitland Cartier.
“But I do,” said David. “If you’ve no care for yourself, at least consider my position.
If I want to make any headway with Maitland Cartier, I must go to this wedding, ergo you must go to this wedding and find a way to get me there.
” What exactly he would say when face-to-face with Cartier was something he could work out later, after an invitation had been secured.
The important thing was the opportunity.
“But isn’t he coming here today anyway?”
“That is quite a different matter.” If luck held, David would have a chance to meet Cartier when he arrived to inspect the property, but a brief chance encounter was nothing in comparison to his daughter’s wedding. “Now, get back out there and settle things with your cousin.”
With an air of defeat, Meredith slunk back to the living room. “All right,” he told Genevieve, not without a lingering trace of sullenness. “I’ll go, if it matters that much to you.”
“I knew you’d come around.” She rose, put on her coat, and gathered up her handbag.
“I’ll let Adalynn know. Give your brother a call, okay?
” Stepping around Bianca, she went on, “Thanks for the tea, but I really have stayed longer than I meant to. And, Mere? I’m glad you changed your mind.
It’ll be good to see you with everybody again. ”
“I don’t know about that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Trust me, nobody cares about you being gay half as much as you do yourself.”
“I’m not!”
Genevieve’s neatly penciled eyebrows rose. “That’s the story you’re gonna stick with, huh?”
Meredith frowned, and one hand traveled once more to the opposite—and still bracelet-less—wrist, but before he could reply, Genevieve pulled him into another hug. “We’ll talk soon, okay?”
At that moment, the front door banged open, and Brian strode into the room as the two drew apart, startled.
“Really!” he cried in outrage. “This is disgraceful!”
“Brian—” began Meredith, taking the opportunity to fully extricate himself from Genevieve’s embrace.
Brian glared at him. “Don’t you even speak to me or I’ll scratch your eyes out!”
“I don’t want to speak to you,” said Meredith, turning his back, then looking over his shoulder to continue, “not if you’re going to go throwing teacups at people. I will not endure violence to teacups. Or to David.”
It would have been touching if it weren’t so absurd.
“It was a saucer, actually,” David corrected.
“I’ve only just moved out,” Brian fumed, “I’ve only just come back for the rest of my things, and you’ve already—you’ve—” He gestured toward Genevieve in inarticulate fury. “Brought this blond floozy into the house!”
Genevieve advanced a step toward him. “Excuse me?”
Brian’s accusation compelled Meredith to begin giggling, which achieved nothing in the way of diplomacy, even as he tried to compose himself. “She’s my cousin, Brian.”
“That’s disgusting!”
“No, no, you misunderstand—”
Genevieve’s gaze swept over Brian, leaving her clearly unimpressed. She turned to Meredith. “Is this one the virgin or the unicorn?”
“You said you wouldn’t tell!” Brian seized a stack of unopened mail from the hall table and flung it at Meredith, who tried to bat away the ineffectual barrage of envelopes.
“Oh! But I didn’t!”
“Stop throwing things,” implored David, though he doubted it would do any good.
“Right. Okay then,” said Genevieve. “Dave, nice meeting you. Mere, I’ll be in touch. Move it, unicorn boy.” With that, she barreled right toward Brian in the living room doorway, making him scurry out of her path. A moment later, the front door fell shut behind her.
David attempted to calculate whether there was enough space for him to edge past Brian and escape to his own room, and determined it an unlikely prospect.
Meredith, meanwhile, attempted to reason with him. “Now, look here, I had quite a nice time with you. It didn’t have to turn out like this. You didn’t have to go and—” He gestured at the fallen letters.
“You didn’t have to go and sleep with Mrs. Jupiter, and half the rest of town!” seethed Brian.
“But I told you,” said Meredith earnestly. “I did tell you I’m not in love with you, I’ve got no plans to fall in love with you, and we needn’t—”
“I thought you’d change your mind!”
Meredith turned a helpless look upon David, who remained stone-faced. He had no assistance to offer in this situation, and really, Meredith had brought it upon himself. He tried again: “I never gave you any reason to think anything of the kind.”
“No, I suppose not,” said Brian viciously. “I can’t imagine what I was thinking, wasting my time on some—some little hillbilly harlot like you!”
#37: This is not an altogether inaccurate description.
Unfortunately, it was also not one that Meredith could face with the solemnity and penitence Brian seemed to expect. He made a heroic effort to keep a straight face, but made the mistake of catching David’s eye across the room and promptly dissolved into giggles.
“And now you have the audacity to laugh at me!”
Brian seized hold of the nearest object, the jar of paint water on the end table, and threw it full force at Meredith.