Scratch the Surface

“Well, good,” Ray Gallagher said with a sinister smile. “It’s about time someone turned your head.”

“Shall we watch something else?” I offered, hoping he’d take the bait.

“I mean, let’s be honest; you need to get laid.”

Oh God. “You know, I’ve heard good things about that Nick Madison docu––”

“It’s been well over a year.”

Rehashing this was not something I wanted to do.

“You deserve someone wonderful, not like that piece of crap who dumped you.”

As if anyone, ever, in the history of the world, had wanted to discuss their romantic life with their father.

“Your mother never warmed up to him.”

She had not, that was true.

“I still feel terrible that he had me so fooled.”

Troy Fortney was handsome and charming and rich. Everyone liked him right away. My family had been crazy about him. Everyone except my mother. For the entire three years we were together, her smiles for him had been grimaces, and sometimes, even worse, fake and strained. Somehow she always managed to be across the yard with her Irish wolfhounds, Rick and AJ, whenever Troy and I were leaving their house so she didn’t have to hug him. It made sense; the dogs were never fond of Troy, and would sit like macabre bookends on either side of her chair and watch him walk by, their heads doing slow turns straight out of a horror movie. When she knew we were ready to leave, she’d catch me alone for a few minutes and kiss me and squeeze me, not calling it goodbye; instead, it was her simply wanting to love on her son. As if I didn’t know what she was up to, but even calling her on it had never altered her course. And she’d been right, she always was. The rest of us were blinded by outer beauty and charm, but she saw the man’s true nature.

“The balls on that kid,” my father went on angrily. “First he cheats on you, repeatedly, while you were together––”

I could have lived the entirety of my life without the “repeatedly” being thrown in.

“––and when you finally unravel all his lies and find it in your heart to forgive him––”

Hard to believe I’d been quite that level of naïve.

“––he decides at the New Year’s Eve party the two of you are throwing, to propose to your best friend!”

But wait…there was more.

“Your best friend who was originally going to be the best man at your wedding!”

And there it was, total and complete humiliation.

I could recall the grand ballroom at Somerset Manor on New Year’s Eve, and how I’d thought we were starting over fresh. I had forgiven Troy for cheating; we were moving forward with everything out in the open. We had planned to start couples therapy the following week, but then…then, all of a sudden, he was down on one knee with an open ring box in his left hand and a microphone in his right. His family and friends were shocked but happy for him, and they’d clapped when Derek accepted and they shared a kiss.

Then everyone, his people and mine, had turned to look at me with a mixture of pity and horror. Only my sister, brandishing her steak knife, kicking off her heels and rushing toward him, her husband in hot pursuit to keep her from committing murder, had jolted me from my stupor.

Later, at home—alone, because of course we’d never moved in together—my mother had shown up with my favorite banana bread and lain down in the middle of the floor with me, assuring me I’d dodged a bullet.

“He was no good for you,” she promised, her ankles propped on the couch next to mine. “And Derek was never your best friend. It’s Mike. It’s always been Mike, since third grade. Just because he got married and had kids and couldn’t go on ski vacations anymore doesn’t mean he was not always the better man.”

I rolled my head on one of the throw pillows she’d picked out when I moved in to look at her. “There was more to it than that.”

“Yes,” she agreed, hitting me with a pointed look. “Just like me, he never liked Troy.”

My mother I had to deal with, but Mike and I had a falling out.

“I suggest you fix it immediately, my son.”

That I had done.

I showed up on Mike Sato’s doorstep the following Monday, driving to his house in North Beach instead of going to work. He was there, in sweats and a T-shirt, holding his nine-month-old baby while his two-year-old leaned on his leg. He looked like hell, but then again, so did I.

“Michael, that’s your best friend standing on your doorstep,” his wife, Talia, apprised him as she waddled down the hall to the kitchen. “He’s sorry he was a pompous asshole. You’re sorry you were an unforgiving bastard. Now, give him the baby so you can feed your toddler. I have to pee again.”