Empty Nests (27 page)

“That’s milk they’re washing their feet with, as a sign of respect.”

“Ah.”

More hymns were sung, which James couldn’t follow. Drums were played. There was a lime taken out of a bucket. Through all of it, he kept a sharp eye on Dave. Maybe it was because Dave was the first member of his team to get married, but he couldn’t help feeling that if Dave blew this, it would somehow reflect badly on the team and his management skills. Dave looked nervous and confused, but every time he caught Kara’s eye, they both smiled in a way that made them look painfully young.

James chastised himself for being a cranky old man. He’d sat in enough single-parent support groups to know Dave would not have been in a minority if he’d simply run for it. The fact that he was standing there being talked at in a language he didn’t understand, while milk was poured on his feet, spoke volumes about his intentions of making a go of it. He felt the warmth of Gabe’s fingers lacing with his as the ceremony continued.

From the looks of it, they were up to knot tying.

“They’re not allowed to touch each other until those knots are tied,” Gabe whispered as Kara tied a cord around Dave’s wrist. James did his best not to snicker. Dave placed a necklace around her neck.

There were loud, fast drums that must have echoed across the park. There were more whispered instructions, then at some unseen cue, Dave linked pinkies with Kara. James saw his hand shaking, but he was also smiling. They started to walk.

“Seven steps, most important bit.”

James carefully counted their slow steps, as he was sure everyone else was. At seven Dave positively beamed. James turned to Gabe, grinning.

“There’s still more to go.”

“More to go” apparently meant feeding the fire with things that caused it to flare and pop, but Dave didn’t seem even slightly fazed. There were prayers and blessings and uncomfortable-looking family members, but the grin on Dave’s face hadn’t faded since the seven steps, and it was contagious. James took a quick look over his shoulder. Ying, Alex, and Zippy had grins as big as Dave’s. James turned back to Gabe and gave his hand a squeeze, getting one back in return.

Finally things came to some sort of a head. James wasn’t sure what signal he’d missed, but there was applause and hugs. Dave gave Kara a peck on the cheek and held her hand tight.

The two made their way back up the aisle together, but as they passed James and Gabe, Dave gave him a thumbs-up. James made sure to give him a smile and solid nod in return.

Gabe took a glance at his watch, then his phone. “That wasn’t so bad. No fights in the middle, and Dave didn’t pass out.”

“There’s still the reception.” The wind shifted, and the smells of savory food came down from the pavilions. James’s stomach rumbled. “Oh, that smells good.”

He followed his nose and the rest of the guests to the back of the reception line. He stood on his toes for a second to gauge how long the line was.

“I was at this one wedding in Indore, over a thousand guests. The total party took three days. This is tiny.”

“A thousand?” James couldn’t even picture that. The line was moving at a good pace, and James shifted them around so they’d be the last through. James gave Dave a good handshake first. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks, boss.” He turned to his new wife. “Kara, this is my boss, James.”

Kara took James’s hand in a good professional grip. “It’s so nice to meet you. Dave’s told me all about you.”

“Good things, I hope. It’s nice to meet you. This is Gabe.”

“Hi.” There were more handshakes.

James reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “Figured you should get this gift first. Congratulations.”

Dave unfolded the paper. “A shift schedule?”

“Look closely.” Dave squinted at it, then his face broke into a grin. “I moved some things around—you don’t have to be back at work until Thursday.”

Dave pulled him into a hard hug. “Thank you.”

He pried Dave off. “Use it well. It was nice meeting you,” he said to Kara before following his nose to the food.

Gabe touched his arm, then pointed at his phone. “Can I deal with something really quick? It’ll take two minutes, tops, I promise.”

“No problem.” James was amazed Gabe hadn’t needed to slip out midceremony. His phone must have been completely on silent. He headed toward the food. There looked to be enough to feed a thousand.

He loaded up a plate with curries, breads, spiced rice, and funny little pickles. He spotted most of his team doing the same. He also watched as some relative of Dave’s dished up the absolutely minimum amount that could be considered polite.

He went to find a seat, only to discover there were actual place cards. He circled around four tables before he found his name and Gabe’s near the head table, seated across from Dave’s grandparents. He took his seat and prayed they wouldn’t ask what kind of a worker Dave was. He wasn’t a very good liar and was really quite horrible at small talk in general. He introduced himself, shook hands, then shoved a spoonful of something made with chickpeas into his mouth. It took more self-control than James thought he was capable of not to simply melt into the floor, rolling around in culinary bliss. He really needed to learn how to cook. He wondered if he could get the recipe off the grandmotherly Indian ladies, who seemed to be taking a particular interest in exactly what people were eating and how much.

It looked like he was about to be forced into small talk when Gabe sat down with his plate, giving him a peck on the cheek.

“Everything okay?” James asked.

“Just some minor fires. Tamyra put out the worst of them. I swear if we paid her what she was worth, the company would go broke.” Gabe turned to the other occupants of the table and flashed them a bright smile while introducing himself. In a matter of minutes, he was steering the small talk away from James and himself. He had Dave’s grandmother, a restaurant bookkeeper, talking about rising produce prices, and Dave’s grandfather, a nearly retired supervisor out at the Port of Oakland, talking about the newest software—made by TechPrim—for tracking shipping containers, leaving James to eat his food, watch people go by, and smile and nod at all the right places.

James was on his second helping of he wasn’t entirely sure what, but it certainly was good, when there was a
clink
ing of a fork on glass. Everyone turned to the head table; Dave stood up.

“Um, hi, everyone. We’re not going to do lots of speeches, so don’t worry, but there are a few people Kara and I want to thank for this day. Well, first I’ve got to thank Kara for letting me marry her.” He smiled down at his bride. “I promise I will do my best not to screw this up.”

A few people chuckled; many didn’t.

“I have to thank Krishnaswami and Lalitha for arranging and gifting this all on really short notice. It is amazing, and Paati Jayam and Athai Radhai and Athai Bharati for the food. They’ve been working on it for three days. I need to thank my parents, Daren and Kate, for being amazingly supportive about the entire situation. I know in their shoes I don’t think I would be nearly as cool about it. Um…. And I really need to thank my boss over there, James Maron.”

James sat up straighter.

“He got the joy of listening to me whine a while back, and he… well, he told me the same thing people have been telling me for years: time to grow up, get my act together, take some responsibility, but he also added a pretty solid whack on the side of the head and a lot of yelling, so I guess it finally sank in.”

James smiled even though he’d just been thanked for doing something that could have easily gotten him fired.

“And we’d like to thank the rest of you for coming and making this a really memorable event.” Dave raised his glass one more time, and people drank.

James finished his glass of mango juice as a white cake was produced from somewhere and placed on the head table. It wasn’t large, but it was accented with little sugar flowers the same orange color as the strings around the gazebo. Kara and Dave linked hands together and cut into the cake, then fed bits to each other before the whole thing was dismantled for the guests.

“That was nice that he thanked you,” Gabe said softly in his ear.

“Considering he could have gotten me fired for assault, it was very nice.”

A selection of marbled cake made its way to their table, and someone turned on music.

Gabe jumped up and held out his hand.

“Oh no, I don’t dance.”

“Everyone dances.”

“Not me. Not at a wedding. Especially not in front of a bunch of strangers and my team.” Dave and Kara were moving as best as they could to the fast, bouncy Indian pop that was playing. Dave especially seemed to be throwing himself into it before other people got up and joined them.

“Fine, then. But you owe me a dance in private.”

“Deal.”

Gabe joined the group in the little dance area of the pavilion. He moved perfectly to the music, joining in with everyone else, his cheeks flushing and a grin covering his face. He spun around and sent James a wink.

James crossed his legs but also made a show of eating his cake. It was nice being out with Gabe and even socializing a little, but his body was sending demands for a private moment or ten.

As one song morphed into another, Dave extracted himself from the crowd. He sat down in the empty chair next to James and pulled a neatly folded piece of paper from somewhere up his sleeve.

“Hey, boss, I wanted to show you something.” Dave unfolded the paper, revealing a sonogram printout. “Look. You can totally see the head, and the arms and legs and tiny little hands and stuff.” Dave’s grin was as big as James had ever seen it. “I mean, it didn’t feel real, like really real, then we got this done on Thursday, and I could totally see it moving around on the screen, and I mean, there’s like a Dave or Kara junior in there. They don’t know which yet.”

“Everything looking good?”

“Yeah, totally. The doctor said everything looked fine, and there weren’t extra arms or anything, and Kara’s totally healthy. Man, it’s just up to me to get my act together. Those two have got their bits all worked out.”

James took out his wallet and removed a small black and white photo he’d carried every day for almost eighteen years. He handed it to Dave. “That’s Dylan at seven months in. That was the day they told me I was going to have a son. He was already sucking his thumb. Took me years to figure out how to get him out of that habit.”

“He’s totally cute.”

James took the picture back. He didn’t need to look at it. It was burned into his memory. “Day after this was given to me, I found out his mother’s parents were basically going to sell him to a couple out of state who already had eight kids and believed Jesus wanted them to take in the children of fornicators.”

Dave blinked a few times. “Suck. Ass.”

“Yep.”

“Dude, what did you do?”

“I sued.”

“You sued?” Dave laughed. “That’s kinda awesome.”

“Yeah. It was an interesting road to fatherhood. I’m not sure if I would have given me custody at that age.”

“Yeah, but your kid ended up just fine. I mean he’s going to college and everything. People who have it way easier totally fuck up their kids.”

“I think a lot of it was luck.”

“Bullshit. You need to write a book.”

James gave a bark of laughter. “A book? About what?”

“Raising kids. You could write an awesome book.”

“It would be called
The Stupid Teenager’s Guide to Parenting,
’cause that’s what I was.”

“Boss, do you know how many stupid teenage parents there are? You absolutely need to write that book. Put in stuff like how to graduate high school with a toddler.”

“Start drinking coffee at a young age. Lots of it.”

“I already do that.”

“Then get yourself off it now, so it’ll have the right amount of kick when you need it.”

Kara danced her way toward the edge of the crowd and threw Dave a smile. “Isn’t she amazing!”

“She is certainly an attractive young woman.”

“You know, I knew her for like five years before we ever met. She was GrenadeChick87. She spent years kicking my ass and trash talking. When she moved down here from Seattle, she ended up moving like a block from me.”

James had wondered where a guy like Dave would meet a girl like that. “Must have been fate.”

“Actually the pregnancy has totally screwed up her game. That’s how she figured it out. Every time she loaded up a first-person shooter, she could only stare at it for like a minute, then she’d get sick.”

“I’m sure that’ll pass.”

“I hope so. She’s supposed to be in a competition in a few months. Ten-thousand-dollar prize. I mean, I’m pretty good, but I wouldn’t stand a chance at a competitive level. GrenadeChick87 totally plays with the big boys. She’s like their dream girl.”

“And you just married her.”

Dave frowned in thought, then grinned. “Yeah, I totally did. I married GrenadeChick87. I am so bragging about that next time I’m on.”

A man with a particularly charming smile danced up to Kara. “Better go remind people who GrenadeChick just married.”

Dave grinned again before heading back to the dance floor with some purpose. James went to indulge his seldom-used sweet tooth and grabbed a few of the pastries someone had set out next to the cake.

When he got back to his seat, Kara was waiting for him. She was looking a bit rumpled and was adjusting her sari. “This is only the third time I’ve worn one of these. I don’t know how people live in them.”

“It looks very nice.”

“Thank you. And I wanted to thank you, Mr. Maron, for all the advice you’ve been giving Dave. It’s been a big boost to his confidence.”

“James, please. People only call me Mr. Maron when Dylan’s in trouble.”

“Okay. Still, thank you.”

“My pleasure. Any advice I have to give is yours.” James looked at the dance floor, where Dave was trying very hard not to trip over his own feet. James took a deep breath. “Okay, I’ve got to ask.”

“Why Dave?” Kara asked.