Paul waves him off. “Oh please. If you think that means I hate women, you really need to lighten the fuck up. It’s a joke. People who get offended that easily are probably the same people who complain on the Internet about everything under the sun.”
“Touché,” Kori says.
“Nice to meet you,” Vince says, shaking Dom’s hand. “You’re the cop, huh? I was going to be a cop once, until I realized guns make me queasy. If they let you be a cop and have, like, a sword or something, I’d totally be on board.”
“It’s almost time to eat, my pretties,” Sandy says. “If we can mosey on toward the table, mimosas will follow for those of age to have one.” He winks at me. “Don’t want you to get in trouble with your cop.”
“He’s not my cop,” I say, but no one is listening to me at all. It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world.
“Not yet,” Paul says. “We’re waiting for one more.”
“Who?” Sandy asks. “Your parents? Nana?”
Paul grins and it’s evil. “Shouldn’t have made Johnny Depp scream about rape, Sandford.”
Sandy’s eyes narrow. “You. Didn’t.”
“I. Did.”
“Who’s coming?” Kori asks as Vince and Dom talk about what it feels like to be tased and as Wheels lies on top of my feet and begins to gnaw gently on my ankle.
“Darren,” I say, remembering the last time I’d seen that look on Sandy’s face, when we talked on Skype a couple of weeks ago. “You’re looking like a fire hydrant, Sandy.”
“Roast twinkie sounds good right now,” he mutters.
“Paul was more threatening than that,” I say.
“I like you, twinkie,” Paul says. “I’m Paul Auster. Yes, yes, like the author. Because no two people in the world were ever named the same thing.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” I tell him. “Nice to meet you.”
“You invited him here?” Sandy says incredulously. “You… you… you arrogant, pompous fruitcake!?
?
“You would total understand if you’d seen the looks on the people’s faces sitting in the waiting room at the vet clinic when Johnny Depp screeched, ‘Don’t put it in me again, Paul! Please, I’ll be good this time!’”
Kori and I burst out laughing.
“That doesn’t give you any right to invite that… that man into my house! You know how I feel about him, Paul.”
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” Kori whispers to me. “Wonder who that sounds like.”
“Who?” I ask, bewildered.
He sighs and shakes his head.
“Everyone knows how you feel about him,” Paul is saying. “And everyone knows how he feels about you. If you would just pull your heads out of your asses and—”
“You can stop right there,” Sandy says, though he’s more Helena now, all teeth and claws. “Just because you found your dreamy Prince Charming and got your cliché happy ending does not mean everyone else gets to.”
“I think they’re talking about me,” Vince tells Dom. “I don’t know, though. I tune them out when they get loud. Which is most of the time.”
“I understand completely about volume issues,” Dom assures him.
“You better not be talking about me!” I shout at him.
“It’s not about that,” Paul insists. “And dreamy Prince Charming? Could you make me sound like any more of a princess?”