Best Friend for Hire

by Mary Mary Carlomagno

  “So, let’s talk about the bar,” he said, turning directly to business. “Tell me what you’ve done to save the place.” And with a sharp turn in tone and conversation, he waited as I gave him a complete rundown of the activities that I had done on behalf of the bar, and while he looked impressed, he seemed unsure that it was enough.

  “I still think I need to take that job in the city,” he said. “I mean, we really have no guarantee that we’re going to make it, do we?” And there he was again with the “we” language that he used so carelessly, so effortlessly that it made me think that there was an actual “we” here.

  “I am still holding on to hope the fundraiser will help us. More money, more time, a hero to save the day,” I offered. But the way he was talking had eroded any confidence I had built up about saving the bar. It suddenly seemed impractical.

  “Listen, I appreciate everything that you’ve done, but honestly, if I’m out on the street, so are you. What are you going to do then?” He delivered this hard news by reaching across the table and placing his hand over mine. I reciprocated his appreciation, but his odd behavior made me question where I stood. Whatever I thought I knew about him was being questioned, first by a test of commitment outside of Brooks Brothers, and now a test of emotional fortitude at The Cheesecake Factory.

  The waitress returned to clean up the remains of our starters and to serve a second round of drinks. He already looked and sounded drunk, and I worried that he would not be able to drive home.

  “Um, do you want me to drive home?” And instead of doing the responsible thing, like not ordering another drink, he went right ahead and ordered and said,” Yes, if you could drive home, that’d be super.” My recent bachelorette party experience had made me skilled with belligerent drunk people. While drinking the festive Piña Colada drinks, Dave had become both, belligerent and drunk.

  “I could use another, Helen, thanks so much,” he smiled and winked at the adoring waitress, who had him backed up with another drink. I think she thought he said, “I could use another Helen,” which somehow charmed her. And in the meantime, he reached over the table and finished my drink as well. After downing it in one gulp, he gasped a little and then put his head into his hands and leaned on the table. I thought he might start to cry, but instead he motioned to his head and then managed to say:

  “Brain freeze.”

  “Here, have some water. And just put your tongue on the roof of your mouth, it’ll help get the nerves warm again,” I explained. After a few minutes of recovery, he was back at his Pina Colada and ready to talk.

  “Jessie, I’m a 30-something, unskilled, tattooed dude with no direction. People think these tattoos are cool, so I keep getting ’em. Look at this one,” he said as he rolled up his sleeve. “I don’t even know what this means. I am just a character, a figment of everyone else’s imagination. And while I’m on the topic, what is with all these tattoos that are sentences? What is that all about, I mean, is it a reminder, like, don’t forget to be a good person all the time? Like you need that? Can’t you just remember to be a good person; you have to write it out? What the hell ever happened to someone just getting an American eagle? A good old-fashioned American eagle.”

  As he rambled, I pieced together his story. He was no different than me, a kid who grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey, so anxious to get away from his normal past that he had created a new city persona for himself. I had done the same thing to some degree. I understood.

  And then as abruptly and forcefully as the rant began, it ended. He paid the check, thanked Helen, and then said,” Okay, I’m ready to go now.”

  Standing up proved to be a little harder than Dave had expected, so I helped him up and guided him back through the mall to where we had parked in the Bloomingdales parking lot. He needed a little help walking at that point, but I managed to offload him into the passenger seat, where he slurred one last request.

  “Can we make one more stop on the way back?” he asked. He stared out the window dreamily and asked if we could stop by the Teterboro Airport, which was a short drive from the mall and turned out to be a special childhood memory for Dave.

  “When I was little, my grandfather used to take me here to watch the planes take off. We would pick up an ice cream cone and just watch them go. Life was easier, no big deal, just a plane and some ice cream.”

  We pulled up to the side of one of the runways and watched a few planes take off and a few land. We sat there quietly for about 20 minutes or so. And then we silently got back into his car and drove back to the city. I walked him to his apartment, which turned out to be just a few blocks from mine. I opened his door for him, said good night, and shut the door behind me. And then I walked home.

  Roddy’s of Springfield is known for two things: its Wednesday Night All You Can Eat Clam Bar and its elaborate weddings. Among New Jerseyans in the know, Roddy’s of Springfield is widely considered to be the top New Jersey wedding factory. It is impossible to get in there on a Wednesday night and even harder to book a wedding without at least two year’s notice. Luckily, my erudite and bipolar bride Emily had secured the coveted Saturday spot long before Brendan had proposed. She knew that a place like Roddy’s of Springfield was bound to be triple booked for Saturday night events and for her wedding she wanted to have the biggest and best room, “The Camelot,” which had all the amenities modern brides wanted and included a dramatic entrance for the newlyweds.

  The celebration complex, as I had referred to it, was located on the not so scenic Route 22 in Springfield, New Jersey, sandwiched between a Toyota dealer and a Pier 1. This particular stretch of Route 22 has the unique distinction of being one of the country’s most dangerous, largely because it is four lanes wide and jam-packed with retail, big retail. And if all of that retail on either side of the highway were not enough, smack down the middle of the road was a median with more retail, which served as a divider between the eastbound and westbound lanes. Without notice, a driver might cross two lanes of traffic to pull into a newly opened Party City store in the middle area. For this reason, as a child, my father would caution me to avoid “the highway” whenever possible.

  I am the first to admit that the highways in New Jersey have as bad a rap as the state itself, but Route 22, with its unpredictable jug handles and U-turns, can cause even the most responsive driver to give in to impulse and cut someone off without a blinker. But who can blame these people when so many retail choices surrounded them?

  Roddy’s of Springfield had been in business for more than 40 years and was a staple for proms, weddings, and office parties. Despite the changing of times it had maintained its original themed rooms, which mimicked those found in old-time England or Scotland. In addition to the prestigious “Camelot,” there was also The Sherwood Forest, The Maid Marion, The Pirates of Penzance (where my junior prom was held), and the lesser-used Round Table, which was used for business meetings, like a business card exchange, for example. The themes of the room were in direct contrast to its catering style, which leaned toward down-market Italian fare that was more likely to be found at a Super Bowl party, like fried calamari, meatball hoagies, and baked ziti.

  There had been a growing trend to “Italianize” everything for weddings, whether or not the bride or the groom was Italian. I guessed you could thank Olive Garden for that, which was also located on Route 22, in the westbound lane, across from Chuck E. Cheese.

  This notion of Italian-American had nothing to do with either Italians from Italy or Italians from America. Those two groups differ as well and I’m not talking about just the difference between eating pizza formally with a fork and knife or casually, folded in half on a paper plate. That’s minor. What I refer to goes deeper. It’s the perception that all Italian Americans are connected to criminal activity, just like every New Jersey Italian portrayed on television.

  I recalled educating a coworker about my own family connections. He could not b
elieve that no one in my family was a gangster or knew one.

  “Really? You don’t have an uncle who’s in waste management?” He used his hands to put air quotes around “waste management” and winked to drive home his point.

  “No, although I did cheer with a girl in high school whose father was a garbage man.”

  “You just proved my point. No one is really a garbage man.” And then for emphasis, he added a hand gesture to show he knew the lingo.

  “Come on.”

  “I never thought about what Gina Fellonica’s father did. I just thought she was pretty,” I offered. Based on that conversation, I was careful not to tell too many people at work about my New Jersey roots.

  Emily wanted her wedding to include everything, literally. She was an equal opportunity bride who embraced the traditions of all ethnic groups regardless of her own nationality. In the planning stages, I was concerned that her ceremony would come across more like the opening ceremony of the Olympics rather than the elegant affair that most imagine. I tried very hard to limit the campiness of the event, but failed most of the time. And I know that she had the suspicion that I had failed her as well, but I suspected my disappointment in her choices might have been misinterpreted. Because the more I tried to push her toward tasteful choices, the more she demanded the audacious.

  She called me hourly to “touch bases” and to “check in” to see if I was “okay,” using corporate catchphrases that she had learned at work and often used incorrectly. The teacher had become the master and her tone had become patronizing and, at times, even insulting. Even with our recent role reversal, I believed that the bridezilla would eventually transform back into the person I once knew and liked. Bridesmaids and wedding planners tend to acquiesce on most things, with the hope that it would all be over soon. Emily’s expectations were hard to predict and even harder to keep up with as they were subject to any media event, like something she saw on a E! Network special on celebrity brides. She would immediately want Victoria Beckham’s hair or Eva Longoria’s veil, even though, as late as the week before the wedding, all of these decisions had been made, everything had been ordered and it was too late to make a change. Any good event planner knows that, at a certain point, the event happens, warts and all.

  I had read an article on theknot.com that said, “It is not avoiding the disaster of a wedding day snafu, but how you fix it that matters.” I had made the plans the best I could, but all events that involve humans are subject to variation. And this cast of characters were more human than most and likely more subject to disaster. Add in a bride who is not only hyper, but also crazy, and little things could add up to big things in no time.

  The perfect example was the wedding favors, which were ordered weeks in advance. At each place setting, on top of the specially ordered pink charger plate and white dinner plate, which was sprinkled with silver “dust” that would emulate the pixie dust that helped Peter Pan and Tinkerbell to fly, would be the favor. After an exhaustive review of our favor options, from customized bags of coffee, to silver-plated corkscrews, to golf balls, she decided on a personalized shot glass. When we received the glasses, Emily conducted a thorough inspection of the artwork, which featured a tiny bride and groom. She threw a temper tantrum after she deemed the bride pictured looked fat.

  “Everyone is going to think that is me on the shot glass. And I am not fat.” In her defense, that was true. In the months that preceded the wedding, Emily went to great lengths to lose weight, an unnatural amount of weight, which she achieved by eating only meat and drinking grapefruit juice. The results on her body were significant, but I sensed that the carnivore diet made her act even more aggressive and, well, crazy.

  I assured her that the tiny bride on a small shot glass could not possibly look fat. And that no one would notice or make the correlation. “She is smaller than the size of a button.” I reasoned. Plus, half the glass was taken up with the customized messaging, which said Happily Ever After, Emily and Brendan and the date. Emily loved the idea of having her name on a shot glass. But when they arrived, it was worse than the spoiled bride-to-be thought; not only was she “fat,” but “super fat.” Immediately, I called the online vendor to upgrade the traditional glass to a taller tequila popper-sized glass, which magically elongated the squat appearance of the bride.

  Emily and I reviewed a redesign on Skype the day of the rehearsal dinner one final time. And once she was satisfied, the printer was given the “okay.” I drove to the factory in Fresh Meadows, Queens, that, despite its name, had no meadow and did not smell fresh at all, and picked them up in person. I dropped them off to the stressed-out staff at Roddy’s of Springfield who, in 40 years, had never seen a more bridezilla bride than Emily. Forty years. When I arrived, they were trying to figure out how to clear the pixie dust off of the dinner plates before meal service would begin. I overheard the chef yell, “Fucking pixie dust, is this bitch nuts?” before he slammed the kitchen door.

  Her all-is-best philosophy continued through the nations, with America exemplified by Ken and Barbie centerpieces. Bridal Barbie and Groom Ken were a special order (naturally), with the strawberry blond hair to mimic the real life Barbie and Ken. The two dolls sat on top of a bouquet of baby pink roses. Next stop was Scotland, where a bagpiper would play a recessional of “Danny Boy,” since Brendan was Irish. I tried to tell her that bagpipes are actually from Scotland, but she did not want to hear that. Her tour of nations was multidenominational as well. She wanted the bride and groom to be lifted on chairs on the dance floor like at a Jewish wedding, regardless of the confusion this might present to the guests who just sat through a one-hour Catholic mass. Neither the bride nor the groom went to church ever, but that was beside the point. Emily’s mother was Catholic and a member of the church and managed to secure the date by dropping off a hefty check to the priest before another couple did.

  Italy was represented with Ave Maria and Con Te Partiro being sung by an opera singer I found on Craigslist. At least Emily was half-Italian, so I could not put up too much resistance there. To be fair, I did not expect my mild-mannered assistant to be such a prima donna, but like a pod person in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, by the time the wedding came, Emily was almost completely unrecognizable as the person I thought I knew.

  The manic princess called me as I finalized the hotel arrangements where guests and the bridal party were to stay. Emily was frantic over Brendan’s speech at the rehearsal dinner, to be held at Dave’s Famous Ribs later that night. She wanted Sonnets from the Portuguese to be read. This was met with resistance from Brendan, who, in his defense, was not the obvious choice to embody Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sentiments. He was, however, the perfect Famous Dave’s Ribs customer, a burly junk food-eating fraternity boy who talked with his mouth full and interjected phrases like “you do the math” into just about every conversation he had. Getting through the tame, “How do I love Thee” sonnet was not easy for him to pull off. Especially, given the condition of the groom as he sampled the “all you can drink” open bar at dinner.

  But deal making had become essential to my survival. To get the Sonnets reading done, I convinced Emily to let Brendan add “one thing only” to the hotel gift bags. He chose a large box of Cheez-Its. That was one of the easier deals I negotiated. The other deals included pink neckties for the groomsmen in exchange for a vodka ice slide at the reception. Honeymoon in Hawaii for the bachelor party. It might have been easier for a Hatfield and a McCoy to get married, at the rate these two were going. But all that negotiation was excellent practice for the compromise of marriage, I reasoned.

  Despite the casual, all-you-can atmosphere of Famous Dave’s Ribs, the family and friends behaved well. I was encouraged. Brendan’s reading received great response from the elderly members of the family as well as some unexpected high fives from his ushers. But all that pent-up anger and compromise had eaten him up inside. He was like a time bomb about to blow by th
e time the rehearsal dinner ended. He gave a respectful kiss on the cheek to each and every family member as he and Emily hosted a receiving line near the salad bar as guests left.

  Unfortunately, what they say in theater about a bad dress rehearsal before a great show should have been enough foreshadowing. Brendan could not wait for the bachelor party; this was the one time “for him.”

  “We are going to read to the blind,” was his clever cover phrase for the activities that would follow that evening. He adopted the “don’t ask, don’t tell” philosophy to his last night of bachelorhood. I was concerned about the bachelor party being planned the night before the wedding, but it was the only time, Pierce, the best man, was able to get away from work. He had been training for his new job in Omaha, Nebraska, and was able to get a few days off for the wedding. “It’s the first time he has, like, been out of the Jersey, like ever. You do the math,” Brendan explained.

  To ensure everyone’s safety and the bridal party’s safe delivery back to the hotel, I had to take extra precautions. I arranged for a special escort to drive the boys door to door. The escort needed to be someone trustworthy, but with muscle. Instead of a retired police officer or bouncer, I opted for someone even better, Maggie. I capitalized on the fact that everyone was afraid of her and everyone listened to her, including a bunch of “lightweight frat boys.” She said, “I partied in Daytona in ’87 with the Hell’s Angels, you little shit,” she warned Brendan.

  “You kids are nothin….” She laughed maniacally.

  Brendan looked at me and hunched his shoulders, a move he had perfected after being pushed around by his fiancée and now his fiancée’s brawny cousin. Maggie relished her new duty.