“So how did you two meet?”
Sam bunches her fists. “We met at the . . . ”
Brian cuts in, “We met at a dance club. Sam is an incredible dancer and you should see her moving on the dance floor.”
Sam’s eyes bulge.
“I noticed her immediately. Cal, do you remember? We were at the bar ordering our drinks, and you said to me, ‘Wow, you should look at her’.”
With his face straight, Caleb says, “Uh, yes. I said that. I think.”
Cassie jabs his ribs.
Brian goes on, “She was incredible. Out of the entire dance floor, she stood out like an angel. She was sexy, magnificent, perfect in every way. She was wearing this really hot number. Bandeau top that reveals almost everything – ”
“I was not!”
“ – and this flirty skirt that twirled when she spun. And she was spinning all right, many times.”
Cassie says, the warning clear in her tone, “I thought you met her at the gym, Brian.”
“Nah, it was at the club. I have a memory for these things. So I elbowed my way through the crowd and danced with her. She was with this dude with greasy hair and a T-shirt that says ‘FUCK ME GENTLY’.”
Another round of gasps. Sam feels like vanishing into a hole in the ground.
She puts her hand on Brian’s back. “Now, darling, that’s not how it happened . . . ”
That’s not what we rehearsed, you evil manipulative twat, and you know it.
“So we danced all night. She was wearing this pair of red shoes, and her feet seemed to have their own manic energy, you know, like they were being possessed – ”
“Like in the fairytale,” Lori puts in. She claps her hands in glee. “Oh wow, I never knew Sam could dance. She was always such a klutz.”
Sam winces.
Brian says, “She can dance, take it from me, her boyfriend. So I asked her out. And we found out . . . during our ridiculously romantic date – ”
Sam holds her breath, closes her eyes and prays.
“ – that we went to the same school together. Would you believe?”
“No!” Adele and Lori chorus. It’s amazing how alike they sound.
OK, OK. He’s holding on to the script. Please let him follow the script.
“She has never mentioned you once, has she, Lori? When she was growing up?” Adele says, amazed.
“Nope, not once.”
“We didn’t really know each other in school,” Sam interjects hastily.
“But you’re both twenty-seven. Surely you must have taken the same classes,” Lori points out.
“Er, we sat at different ends of the class. And he was always cutting class, so we rarely saw him.”
Brian looks amused. “It’s true. I was an awful kid – never doing my homework, always in detention. I even got expelled twice.”
“Oh my goodness.” Adele’s hand flutters at her neck. “You must have been quite a bad boy.”
“The worst. Anyway, I fell for Sam immediately. We became inseparable. But don’t worry, Mrs. Fox, we’re practicing safe sex. Sam insists upon it. ‘Can’t be too careful about getting pregnant before time,’ she always says.”
“I didn’t know you even had sex,” Lori says to Sam, deadpan.
Sam is blushing too hard to make a face at her sister.
“And here we are, happily together,” Brian finishes with a flourish. “Never a quarrel or harsh word between us. It’s the perfect relationship. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”
He grabs her suddenly before she can protest and kisses her full on the lips, right in front of everybody. It’s a head tilted backwards, swooning kind of kiss. The type she always dreamed of having. Once again, he takes her breath away. She almost forgets everyone around them. Almost loses herself in him again.
“Oh my,” she hears her mother say.
When they part for air, her eyes are locked on Brian’s face. He has such an interesting face. One she can study forever. Why has she never noticed the little dimple in his chin?
“Oh well,” Lori cuts in, her voice shrill, “it’s time for you to meet Lance.”
Sam finally notices the nervous young man standing beside Lori. He must have been watching them kissing . . . and is that a look of mild envy on his features?
They shake hands and exchange pleasantries all round. Then Lori claps her hands.
“It’s time for the reception. Come on, everyone.”
*
Dinner is one long protracted affair. Brian finds himself seated in between Mr. and Mrs. Buchner, who quiz him on everything from business to the planet Saturn. (“Are the rings around it really made of ice?”) Lori keeps giving him glances from lowered eyelids and Lance Buchner turns out to have a stutter.
Brian figures out that Lori is marrying Lance for his money, since there is nothing remotely interesting about him. Or his stutter. Either that or the sex has to be fantabulous.
He finds himself studying Sam now and again. She is really beautiful when she laughs, and she does this often when Cassie and Caleb say something funny. Her teeth – which he remembers in braces during middle grade, and which had been a constant source of amusement for him – are now perfect and pearly white. Kudos to her orthodontist, whoever he is.
After dessert, the band strikes up a lively tune from the sixties. It is clearly meant for ballroom dancing.
Lori taps her wine glass with a knife.
“Listen up, everyone. I would like to make a toast . . . to my future parents-in-law, the Buchners.”
She’s totally sucking up to them, Brian thinks as he raises his glass.
Lori gushes on with more pleasantries and superlatives that she probably doesn’t mean, and then her face turns sly.
“And now, to lead off our dance for tonight, I would like to invite my sister, Samantha, to the floor. I hear she is quite the dancer.”
Applause all round.
Adele beams. “Oh yes, she is. That’s my baby girl.”
Sam’s face is engaged in the very act of petrification. Her eyes bulge as they shoot lasers at Brian. If looks could kill, he’d be blasted off to deep space by now.
Lori claps her hands. “Oh come on, Sammie. We are waiting.”
There are cries of encouragement and shouts of ‘Hear, hear!’
Lori starts up a chant, which is soon joined by everyone at the table. “Sammie, Sammie, Sammie, Sammie.”
Brian has to stifle his laughter. Well, f**k yeah. He got her into this. He supposes he owes her big time.