CHAPTER 4

ROHEED WAS STAYING at Charlie’s place. When he had left Yellow County a couple of years prior, his parents had immediately gutted his bedroom and put in a ping pong table and a mini-fridge. He didn’t want to say anything, but he thought Charlie’s apartment kind of sucked. There was a small bedroom that pretty much only fit Charlie’s bed and laptop, a bizarre bathroom/closet arrangement, and a kitchen/dining room/living room combo with a couch and a small table for meals for one and it all seemed lonely to Roheed.

But Roheed was lonely as well. He waited up for a couple of hours that night for Florence to FaceTime or call or at least @ him on Instagram, but no @s came and he was left feeling like an @-hole. She did post several shots from her deejay booth of a roaring crowd in some foreign city, but no mention of the boy she left back in the States to wait while she toured the globe. He scrolled through her old pics, reminiscing of the times when they were together often. There was the picture of him and her eating crabs at the staff dinner at the swim and racquet club, one of Roheed at the Natural History Museum pretending to high-five a caveman, the very next picture of Florence pretending to be a raptor, and of course the photos from their road trip to Florence, Alabama, to visit the very Comfort Inn that Florence was named after.

Roheed’s longing to be with her ached like an over-extended muscle. When he eventually fell asleep, with the social media app still open and resting on his face, his nose continually hearted and un-hearted a particular picture of she and him back at the YCCSRC a couple of summers ago after the big Tri-County Relay Race. They were both smiling, despite the outcome of the race.

• • •

The next day was to be dedicated to wedding-related events. Charlie and Roheed weren’t sure exactly what they were in for; this was Jonathan they were talking about. But they waited outside of Charlie’s apartment complex cautiously optimistic. A Hummer H2 stretch limo with a hot tub in the back rolled up. The window slowly skritched down, revealing Jonathan sitting in the back with his betrothed, Chris Partee, wearing her signature Diving Broad polo shirt, her hair slicked back, looking tough as nails but feminine as hell. Jonathan was grinning ear-to-ear. Chris, usually as cool as an unpickled pickle, was playing it cucumber, but Charlie could tell she was excited about the whole getting married ordeal. Of course, “Hollaback Girl” was thumping from the limo speakers.

Charlie gestured to the garish limousine. “What is this?”

“IYOGMO, bros,” Jonathan said, obviously instigating.

“Eye ogg moe?” Roheed questioned.

Jonathan explained, “‘Ideally, You Only Get Married Once,’ you know, like YOLO!”

Charlie buried his face in his hand.

Roheed said, “Not the catchiest of phrases, but okay.”

Jonathan was tired of trying to be cute. “Just get in.”

Jonathan had brought his buddies from the swim and racquet club and Chris had brought her acquaintances from the diving board retail biz: Pat from Totally Board, Sydney from At The Dive In, and Alex from Thornblatt’s Diving Boards and Diving Board Accessories.

Charlie popped the bottle of champagne that the limo had provided and sprayed it like they had just won the Tri-County Relay Race, to the annoyance of Chris’s friends. Roheed modestly shook up a can of generic store-brand lemon-lime soda and let the bubbles escape without spraying innocent bystanders. One of Chris’s buds had smuggled aboard a bottle of Jägermeister, but no one wanted to share in the experience of drinking a shot of licorice-tinged death liquid. Despite the fanfare with which Chris’s friend had presented the liquor, she quietly sipped it once or twice and put it away.

At some point, after a few laps through the streets of Tuxedo, a nearby town with a strange name, and some donuts in the YCCSRC parking lot, they decided to hit the hot tub in the back of the stretched H2. They waved to passing traffic and splashed water on unlucky pedestrians that had lost the lottery of life and happened to be pedestry-ing at that very moment. Roheed pretended for just a sec that he couldn’t swim and Jonathan sprang into action, his lifeguard reflexes taking hold. But then he remembered that Roheed could indeed swim, Roheed popped back up to the surface with a grin, and Jonathan conceded that he had been X’d like a punk. Charlie lifted his thin, pale leg out of the water and twiddled his Kevin Costner in Waterworld-esque webbed toes and everyone was thoroughly skeeved.

After a brief stint where for some reason Roheed was driving the limo and the driver hopped in the back to party with the crew, they hit a couple of spots in a Bladensburg strip mall (by the Village Thriftstore and the Checkers) for official wedding business. At the bakery, Jonathan and Chris tasted cake and icing combinations. Charlie and Roheed intertwined arms and fed each other cake just the same. In the jewelry store, where Jonathan and Chris were picking up their rings, Roheed iced himself out in garish chains and a Paul Wall-worthy grill. And at the flower shop, somehow Charlie convinced Roheed to strip and lay covered in rose petals, American Beauty-style, for Jonathan and Chris to find. A plastic bag floated by and Charlie filmed it with his phone with a dead-eyed stare in another take from the movie. Although Charlie and Roheed thought their shenanigans were hilarious, Chris’s friends were perturbed. Jonathan wished he could get in on the fun but abstained in solidarity with Chris’s crew, who all seemed to have excuses to leave the festivities early anyway.

The gang, minus Chris’s guests, returned to the limo and headed back to Tuxedo to go to the local tuxedo store, Tuxedo Tuxedos. Jonathan burst from the changing room totally decked out in an all-white tux, the red lanyard and whistle fashioned into a bolo tie around his collar. He looked good. Chris emerged from another changing room in a black tux, the pants three-quarter-length and the dress shirt underneath the jacket a little frilly. She looked super punk rock.

“You look good, babe,” Jonathan told her.

“You always do,” she replied, and they kissed.

While still locked in their embrace, Chris looked deeply into Jonathan’s eyes to the point where he knew something was wrong or at least weird.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I want our wedding to be special,” Chris began.

“It already is. It will be. What’s going on?” Jonathan began looking around the haberdashery.

“And I think this is for the best,” she continued.

“What’s happening?”

An older woman, short, vibing with nervous energy, entered the store. She looked around until her peepers fell on Jonathan. Jonathan saw her but couldn’t place her at first, his brain doing a Terminator-like scan of names and faces from his past to try and recognize this familiar lady. Who was she, with her salt-and-pepper hair, medium build, and piercing blue eyes?

Then it hit him.

“Mom?”