Page 6 of Kiss My Glass
Nate holds up his hands in the “leave me out of this” gesture.
“Frankie!” Shelby steps in. “You never told me you got angry with Danny at the wedding. Why didn’t you say something?”
If you weren’t concentrating, you’d have missed the flicker of discomfort cross Frankie’s face. I see it, and I store it up as interesting intel.
“I was hardly going to bitch and moan on your wedding day,” she says. “And besides, I’d forgotten about it until I saw him again.”
“Sure,” I say. “Obvious. Absolutelynogrudge held all this time.”
“Well, can we pleaseresolve it now, so I don’t have a complete meltdown?” Shelby says.
“I second that,” Nate says. “Let’s get this sorted. And quickly, before the quesadillas congeal into one solid mass and I drink more beer than is good for me. Frankie, you seem to have the better memory.” Another barb in my direction. “You give us yourversion of events.”
Frankie raises her gaze to the ceiling as if petitioning the divine for patience.
“He was telling everyone at the table about an older woman who’d tried to pick him up at a bar, and he described her as a ‘cougar’,” she says. “I objected to the term as sexist. Said it was a hypocritical double standard that society approved of older men dating younger women but saw the opposite as predatory and pathetic. He laughed and replied that he had no problem with dating older women – as long as they weren’t an 1860.”
“An 1860?” Nate asks.
He’s trying to catch my eye but it’s me who’s now staring at the ceiling. It’s all coming back to me.Slightlydrunk might have been understating it.
“Oh, you’ve not heard that term, either?” says Frankie, with pointed glee. “Your brother was happy to translate for everyone present. It’s when a woman’s so fit she looks eighteen from the back, but when she turns round, you get a nasty surprise, because she’s actually?—”
“Got it,” says Nate, grimly.
“That’s so sexist!” says Shelby. “And ageist! Danny, howcouldyou?”
“It was a joke!” Let’s face it, I have no other defense. “Not a great one, I admit, but?—”
“And I did not storm off in a huff,” says Frankie, who will clearly need to have the last word in every argument. “I left before I committed an act of violence that would make me lose my job.”
“Did it involve an ornamental pumpkin?’ Nate asks. Their wedding had a Fall theme.
“Cocktail skewer,” Frankie replies.
“Those wedding cocktails were outrageous,” says Shelby. “I got squiffy just from the smell.”
I consider pleading overindulgence in cocktails as an excuse, but Nate gets in first. He’s got his judge-y face on again.
“Okay, so now we’ve aired that unfortunate incident,” he says, “let’s wrap it up. Danny, Frankie’s a hundred percent correct – that was a gross and sexist comment.”
“Jesus. All right, I apologize. Mea culpa for being an insensitive pig.”
“Ungracious but acceptable,” says Nate. “Frankie, it’s been months. Can you let it go and move on?”
“I guess,” says Frankie, grudgingly.
“And can you promise me that you’ll do your very best to get along?” says Shelby. “My blood pressure won’t cope if you’re constantly sniping at each other like you’re in some 1940s screwcap comedy.”
There’s a pause. Frankie gives me a cool stare with, if I’m not mistaken, a hint of humor.
“Screwcap comedy, huh?” she says.
“The cork comedies are staging a protest,” I reply. “Claim they were there first.”
“Are you making wine bottle jokes?” says Nate. “Because if so, I may have to slap you both.”
Shelby’s grabbed the platter of quesadillas and now she plonks it down on the kitchen table.
