Chapter 2. Seth
I’m having so much fun. I love shit like this.
We’re one hour into my fifteen-year high school reunion and I’ve already recapped the last decade with my old chem partner, Gloria, and her wife, Emily (they’re set designers in Hollywood, and they just got a dog), looked at twenty pictures of Mike Wilson’s baby (cute little guy), threatened to throw Marian into the ocean (I love Marian, and she looks great), had two craft cocktails named after our high school (totally delish), and watched a snip of the Lightning game on Loren Heyman’s phone (I’m not a hockey guy, but I think Loren thinks I’m someone else, and I like that about him).
I am now sitting at table eight, alone, because unlike the rest of my former classmates who are still milling about, I respect Marian’s intricately choreographed event protocol. Besides, when you’re the first at the table, you get to watch everyone’s reactions as they realize they have to talk to you all night.
It’s a blast.
I stretch out my legs with my back to the lovely Gulf of Mexico, sip my Palm Bay Preptini, and tap my foot to the opening of “Margaritaville” as I await my dining companions.
There are those addictively crunchy Parmesan twists sticking out from the breadbasket—yum—and I grab one and bite into it. A somewhat embarrassing amount of cheese crumbs falls on my chest.
I’m brushing the schmutz off my jacket when I look up and my stomach lurches.
It’s Molly Marks, standing in the shadow of a potted palm, looking at me in horror.
I haven’t seen her in fifteen years.
Not since the night we broke up.
Or rather, since she broke up with me, stunningly and without notice, in a way that I didn’t get over until deep into college—or possibly law school, depending on how much Pbr I’d been drinking.
I quickly jam the rest of the breadstick into my mouth and stand up with a huge grin on my face, still chewing, because Molly doesn’t deserve for me to wait until I swallow.
“Molly Marks!” I call, opening my arms wide like there is no reason on earth she wouldn’t step into them for a big old back-slapping hug. I am Seth Rubenstein, attorney at law, and I am going to drown her in my famous charisma.
She stands there with her head cocked, as if I’m a loon.
Look, I am a loon, I admit it. But I’m a nice loon, which Molly no doubt finds foreign and difficult to parse, being a cruel and chilling person.
“Hey, don’t leave a poor guy hanging,” I exclaim. “Bring it in, Marksman!”
She reluctantly steps into my arms and gives me a tentative tap, tap, tap on the shoulder—as if touching me with more than one finger would put her at risk of contracting a venereal disease.
Which I don’t have. I got tested before I flew out here. Just in case.
I pull her in closer. “Hey, a little affection if you please, Marky Marks. It’s your old pal Seth Rubes.”
“Who?” she asks, deadpan.
I laugh, because I’m determined to exude the relaxed affability of a very chill dude who is not at all disturbed to be in her presence. And Molly was always funny, to those rare people with whom she condescended to speak.
“I can’t believe you showed up to this shindig,” I say, stepping back to look at her. She didn’t come to our five- or ten-year reunions, to absolutely no one’s surprise.
“Me neither.” She sighs in that world-weary way that once drove me out of my mind.
“You look amazing,” I tell her.
This is, of course, the obligatory thing to say to someone at a high school reunion, but in her case it’s true. She still has that long, thick, dark brown hair straight down to her ass, which makes her stand out among the bobs and updos of our fellow Palm Bay Flamingos. She’s even taller than I remember, with killer legs shown off to great effect by the short, flimsy black dress she has accessorized with a leather jacket in predictable contravention of Marian’s “tropical cocktail” dress code. She is wearing somewhere between ten and twenty delicate gold necklaces, which fall at various lengths from her throat to the gap between her breasts, adorned with tiny pendants, like a thistle and the shape of California. I’m disappointed in myself to report that I want to take the necklaces off her, one by one.
She scans me up and down. “You look good too. I would have thought you’d seem older.”
Um.
I try not to look sad.
I likely don’t succeed because she claps a beautifully manicured hand over her mouth.
“I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I meant—”
“You expected me to wear the maturity bespeaking my innate gravitas?” I provide, to save her, as she looks like she wants to run off and bury herself in the sand.
I was never able to avoid trying to save her from herself.
Not that it ever worked.
“No, just… I mean, um, you haven’t aged. Or, you have, of course, but not like commensurately with the others here? You look handsome and virile? God, sorry, apologies.”
She still talks like a walking SAT study guide, but she seems genuinely mortified. I take pity on her.
“It’s the Botox,” I joke, “and I have a great surgeon.” She doesn’t laugh, unsurprisingly. She’s always been stingy with her laughter. If you want to crack her up, you have to earn it.
But it’s extremely gratifying when you do.
“Please, have a seat,” I say, making a sweeping, gentlemanly gesture at the empty chair beside me.
It’s empty because I did not bring a date. Or, more accurately, my date canceled at the last minute when she, my girlfriend of nearly four months, broke up with me over text the night before we were scheduled to fly here.
She said, as have the last five or six women I’ve dated, that things were moving too quickly. That I wanted more than she was ready to give.
Perhaps she was right. I tend to throw myself eagerly into courtship, hoping we’ll both fall in love. Why hold back one’s natural zest and affection when any woman might end up being the one? I’m looking for my life partner, my soul mate, my wife.
And I’m certain—certain—I’ll meet her soon.
I do not share any of this with Molly.
“Who else is sitting here?” she asks, looking around the table.
“Marian,” I say with delectation. Molly has always loathed Marian.
“God, she looks the same,” Molly says. “What does she do these days?”
Trust it to Molly to not keep up with anyone from our class.
“She’s an advertising exec,” I say. “Specializes in feminine hygiene brands.”
Molly snorts. “Marian sells tampons and shit?”
I shake my head. “Not shit. Just tampons.”
This time, she does laugh.
“So how are you? What do you do?” I ask, even though I know exactly what she does, because she is, at least in our overlapping circle of high school friends, famous.
She grabs one of the Parmesan twists and idly breaks it in half, like it’s a toy and not a delicious food.
If I’m not mistaken, she’s nervous.
I’mmaking her nervous.
Delightful.
“I’m a writer,” she says vaguely.
“Oh, that’s so great. What do you write?”
“Films. Rom-coms.”
She says this blandly, in the manner of someone who does not wish to invite further questions. Here is my opportunity to torture her, just a little bit.
“Miss Molly McMarks,” I say, “you must be joking. You, of all people, write kissing movies?”
“Kissing movies gross upward of fifty million dollars opening weekend,” she says. “Or, they used to, before superheroes started dominating the box office.”
“I love superheroes,” I say. “No offense.”
“Of course you do. You always loved a simplistic battle between good and evil.”
This is mean, but true, and I can’t help liking that she’s being catty. It reminds me of our romance. True love at sixteen is hardwired. To this day, I am hopelessly attracted to hostile women.
“I knew you were sentimental at heart,” I say, which is true. She always refused to go to movies with me because they made her cry, and she has a phobia about crying in public.
“It’s a job,” she says and swallows down half of a Palm Bay Preptini.
“Careful, champ,” I say. “There’s five kinds of rum in those.”
She flags down a waiter and motions for two more.
“Cheers,” she says, offering me one.
I accept it and take a sip. “Yum.”
“So what do you do?” she asks.
“Attorney. I’m a partner at a firm in Chicago.”
I will admit that I say this with pride. I graduated law school at twenty-three and made partner by twenty-eight, unprecedented at my firm.
“What kind of law do you practice?” she asks.
I’m less eager to tell her this detail. I know she’s not going to like it.
“Family law,” I say, as vaguely as possible.
Molly stares at me in what looks like true disbelief. “You’re a divorce attorney?”
She has a deep loathing for divorce attorneys. Justifiably.
But I try not to be like the ones who helped ruin her mother’s life when we were kids. I pride myself on helping couples break up humanely—or better yet, heal.
“Not entirely,” I say quickly, “I also handle prenups, mediation—”
Her lips crinkle into a menacing smile.
“That’s hilarious,” she says, without any mirth. “You were always such a hopeless romantic in high school.”
“You would know,” I say.
Her face turns the color of sand.
Whoops. I didn’t mean to go for the jugular so quickly.
I meant to draagggggg it out.
Her awkwardness pleases me, nevertheless.
Before I can engage her in further reminders of what she did to me in our youth, Marian comes to the table, flanked by her ex-high-school-boyfriend, Marcus; our French exchange student, Georgette; and Georgette’s plus one, an intimidatingly handsome man who looks bored in the way only a Parisian at a Florida high school reunion can.
“Aww, look at you two!” Marian cries, taking in me and Molly. “Like not a day’s gone by.” She turns and addresses the French guy. “These two used to be quite the amours.”
I throw an arm around Molly’s shoulders and squeeze the living daylights out of her. “Still are.”
Molly very subtly quivers with what might be disgust, or the chill of the ocean breeze, or a wave of nostalgic lust for me.
Okay, probably not the latter.
“Yeah, no,” she mutters.
The French guy extends his hand to Molly. “I’m Jean-Henri. Georgette’s husband.”
“I’m Molly,” she replies, shaking it. “Class bitch.”