Work Text:
1. Now
I ring the doorbell. Bob steps back so he's standing behind me, silly man. I glance back. His white tennis socks are peeking out between his checkered pants and his brown loafers. My toes are peeking out of my sandals. Fuchsia nail polish. I'm not too old for that, am I?
The door opens. Oh my God, Lauren looks so good. "Oh my God, Lauren, you look so good!" I say.
"Trish! Bob!" she squeals.
"Lauren," says Bob.
"You have an awesome dress on you!" I say. "That's seriously, that's a number, that's a Hollywood-class number!" The dress is bright red and blue, with ruffles in the front that would make a regular tropical flower jealous. Franklin appears, behind Lauren.
"Thank you!" says Lauren, and gives us a big smile.
"Frank!" I say.
"You're early," says Frank, but he's smiling. His hair is exceptionally big today. But whoever chose that pink shirt?
"No we're not!" I say, absolutely certain of this. I'm never early, when have I ever been early? I step inside. Bob follows. I wonder if I smell fish or if it's one of those weird smell hallucinations. My mom's aunt used to have weird smell hallucinations. But she was from Ohio, what can you expect. Or Iowa. Whatever.
"We have wine," says Bob. Lauren tries to hug me just briefly but I hold her for a while. What is that perfume she's wearing? Peppermint and flowers. Bob awkwardly hands the two bottles over to Frank, reaching over Lauren and me.
"Wow. Grand cru." Frank eyes the bottle, visibly pleased.
Bob gives a chuckle.
We take off our coats. Frank politely helps me out of mine after handing Lauren the bottles. She disappears with the wine, in her fantastic dress.
Where is Tuck, anyway? "Where is Tuck, anyway?" I ask. "He better be here, we don't want to drink all that wine, just the four of us. Just kidding, we totally do."
"I'm afraid he is here. In the kitchen. Pretending that he can cook." Frank raises his voice. "Tuck-Tuck! Our guests are wondering if you've run away on us!"
"Yes! No! I'm here!" comes a voice from the kitchen. "Can't come right now!"
"You've made him the kitchen slave?" I ask.
"He volunteered, completely and totally from his own free will," says Frank.
"Welcome!" shouts the disembodied voice of Tucker from the kitchen. "Have a seat!"
"We will," shouts Bob.
2. A year ago
"Do you think it's possible to love two people equally?" Lauren asks.
Oh no. Absolutely not. Lauren looks at the ceiling and dangles her tiny feet from the chair. Nate's playing in the next room, and it sounds like he's broken something. "Love, yes. Be in love with, no," I say.
She is frowning hard. She'll be wrinkly as a prune in ten years if she keeps that up. Her mother already is. It's that thin, fair skin they have. You know how it is.
"What do you do when you don't know what to do?" she asks.
That I know the answer for. "I ask Bob." Of course.
"Your Bob? Bob Bob?"
"I know he's fat and ridiculous but he's MY fat and MY ridiculous." Bless his sexy big belly. Bless that trail of from his bellybutton down to-- Where was I? Bob. When has he ever steered me wrong?
Nate comes and asks my help with a toy car he's broken in two. Again. I love this family. I fix the car as far as it can be fixed. Lauren says nothing.
"Don't choose the better guy. Choose the guy who makes you the better girl."
She frowns again. "I really like how I feel with Frank."
Oh yes take him. He's hot, he's sexy, he's so dirty. "Then take him! You can always give him up if you don't want him any more! It's not like getting a dog."
Lauren's silent for a long time. She should just pick Frank. What will I cook for dinner on Saturday? I wish it would rain, the lawn is suffering. Did I clip my toenails this morning or did I just think about it? Those new curtains look awesome.
"And Tuck," she says thoughtfully.
Coe to think of it, Tuck is more handsome. And nicer. "Take them both!" I say. "Who says you can't! Whoo yeah! Butter on both sides of the bread!"
"I don't eat carbs." She frowns.
3. Now
Tucker has made warm grilled salmon salad. I think the fact that it's warm kind of negates the whole point of salad, but this is seriously good. We have to excuse British people their fetishes. "This food is so good I wanna fuck it," I say, and I mean every word.
"Have you considered," Tuck says slowly, "Exactly what that would entail?"
"Fishy," whispers Frank, who is sitting between me and Tucker.
"I heard that," I say. A few days ago, at work, I heard my supervisor talking about her underwear on her cell phone. Not a sexy call, just talking. About her underwear. I have a sharp hearing. Being a mother does that to you. Or maybe I'm just good.
We empty our plates. I want to fuck this food. I want to fuck the guy who made it. And his boyfriend. Preferably at the same time. How is it fair that Lauren gets to?
"For dessert, we have popcorn!" Frank announces.
"Popcorn? Lovely," says Bob, genuinely happy.
"Yesss," says Tuck. "Well, thing is."
"The thing is, my short friend here forgot to buy cream for the actual dessert that we had planned. Which is why we're not having crème brûlée, we're having popcorn," says Frank.
"I'm sure everyone will be perfectly happy with popcorn," says Lauren briskly. "Just leave the plates, we'll deal with them later." Everybody starts to get up. My Frank is tall. And he has a lot of hair. But my Bob has more beard.
"I love popcorn," says Bob. "What movie do we have?"
"Titanic," says Frank.
"Oh great," says Tuck, visibly cheered. "I like Titanic."
"Right," says Lauren, standing behind her chair. "Who sits where?"
"Guests on the sofa, of course. And ladies," says Frank. "Tuck, you sit on the chair."
"Why me? I ALWAYS sit on the chair."
"I can take the chair," Bob says.
"No no no, you're a guest in our house," says Frank. "Tuck is happy to take the chair."
Tucker looks at Franklin, then Bob. He scratches his neck. It's kind of sexy when he does that. Manly. "Right. In fact, I am," he says.
4. A year ago
I come to the hospital as soon as I can. My hair is still sticky and damp but my clothes have mostly dried. Whoever knows what germs lived in that pond, but as a friend, I'm concerned about Lauren more than my own wellbeing. As a great friend. I enter her room through a fancy automatic door. They gave her a whole room? Is she dying?
"Hi," she says, with a tired smile. She's reclining on a hospital bed but wearing her own clothes.
"Oh my god, are you dying? What have they put you through? Have you already dumped both of those horrible, dangerous guys?"
"I'm fine. Fine."
"You got a room."
"I got a room. I've got a couple of tiny cuts here." She points at her right arm. "I didn't need stitches, but they wanted to make sure. I'm fine. I think."
"Good God! You had me so scared there. And the guys, what about them?"
"I'd made a decision." Lauren stares dreamily into thin air. I start to wonder if she has a concussion. Bob had a concussion once. But he just kept puking. He didn't stare into space and talk of love.
"Are they alive? Are they all right? You can only dump them if they're alive." I take an ugly metal chair, move it next to the bed, and sit down.
"Oh, they're fine."
"Okay. You can deal with your social life later. I have just suffered the second or third most traumatic events in my life. I drove, no, I flew my car into a pond. Again."
"Poor you." She pauses. "I'd chosen Frank."
"I thought I was going to die for a minute there. Then it was clear that I'd live, and I was sure you'd die. But you're alive. Okay, take Frank." Actually, please, do take Frank.
"But now," she says slowly, "I don't like him any more--"
"So take Tuck. He's the better of the two, anyway. I always thought so." He's the better man, come to think of it. Take him.
"--any more than I like Tuck." She pauses. "Almost being crushed by burning SUV's makes you think."
"Then dump both of them!"
"I realized I love both of them. I'm in love with both of them. It's possible."
"Of course it is! That's what I told you!"
Lauren smiles, still with that vacant look in her eyes. I think I'll have to call a nurse here.
5. Now
As it turns out, the three secret agents had secret wine of their own. But it's all right, we've been perfectly capable of consuming more wine than just the two bottles Bob and I brought. At some point, Bob starts snoring on the sofa. Tuck and Frank take that as a cue to retire into the bedroom. The bedroom stays quiet, so maybe they did go to sleep, like they said. Never trust what a man says, though.
"Never trust what a man says," I tell Lauren, solemnly. She and I are sitting at the kitchen table, which is swaying a little. "Thass what I always said."
"No, I trust, I trust my guys," Lauren says. Have I ever told her that her eyes start to squint when she's drunk? Maybe now is not the time to say it.
My butt feels sweaty. I should get rid of these pants. They ride up. My head's swimming a little. Where was I? Trust. "That's good. I trust my guy. I'd trust my guy with anything. He's the best in the world."
"Although Frank has an appalling taste in movies. He pretends that he knows a lot. But he likes the worst ones. Blockbusters." Lauren leans a bit too far on the table with her elbows and knocks over a glass. I catch it. I'm pretty fast for someone this drunk.
"Do you regret your choice?" I set the glass back on the table. Fortunately, it was empty.
"And Tuck has crooked teeth." She tries to sit more upright.
"Lauren Scott, do you regret your choice?" I look her in the eyes. Her eyeliner is a bit smudged.
"Never, ever, ever," she says, looking at me with at least one eye. "Never."