J.P.: “Hey! How are you?”
It was kind of hard to hide my crushing disappointment.
Me: “Fine. You?”
J.P.: “What’s wrong? Wait—don’t tell me he hasn’t called.”
Me: “He hasn’t called.”
Unintelligible muttering from his end of the phone. Then:
J.P.: “Don’t worry. He’ll call.”
Me: “I hope so.”
J.P.: “Are you kidding? He’d be a fool not to. So how was your night last night?”
Me: “Fine. I mean, I didn’t do much. Just played Tuck with my brother.”
J.P.: “You played WHAT?”
See, Michael knows what Tuck is. Not only that, he’s PLAYED it with Rocky. I think he even LIKES playing it. It relaxes him as much as it relaxes me.
Me: “It’s—Never mind. Did you hear about Lilly?”
J.P.: “No. What about her?”
I didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news about J.P.’s ex, but I figured it was better he heard it from me than from someone in school on Monday.
Me: “She hooked up with some random muay thai fighter at her party last night.”
Instead of the inhalation of horror I expected to hear, however, J.P. sounded…well, almost as if he were laughing.
J.P.: “That sounds like Lilly, all right.”
I was shocked. I mean, sure, it sounded like the OLD Lilly—the pre–J.P. Lilly. But not the new and improved Lilly.
And he was laughing!
Me: “J.P., don’t you see? Lilly’s just acting out because she’s so crushed and brokenhearted over what she perceives as our betrayal of her! This whole muay thai fighter thing is directly related to that New York Post article. We’ve got to do something before she descends into an ever-increasing downward spiral of self-destructive behavior, like Lindsay Lohan!”
J.P.: “Well, I don’t see what we can do. Lilly’s pretty much old enough to make her own decisions. If she wants to hook up with random muay thai fighters, that’s really her business, not ours.”
I couldn’t believe he was still laughing.
Me: “J.P., it’s not funny.”
J.P.: “Well, it kinda is.”
Me: “No, it’s not, it’s—”
Sunday, September 12, noon, the loft
I had to stop writing just then because my cell phone rang again. It was Michael.
He’s in Japan. He got my e-mail.
He also saw the picture of J.P. and me in the Post.