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them leave. Just before
the door closed, Vicky said something that made Blake laugh, and I wondered if
it had anything to do with me. I hoped it didn’t.
     
    “You used to like
her,” Kim reminds me, fiddling with the tuner on my car’s radio before settling
on a station playing Tyson Ritter and his gang wishing someone hell.
    “No, I didn’t.”
    “Yes, you did,” she insists. “You
found her cute.”
    “That doesn’t mean I liked her,” I
tell her.
    “The point is, you were fine with
her when she was his girlfriend. You just started reacting when he proposed to
her.”
    “I wasn’t fine with her. I just tolerated her.
I figured she’d go away sooner or later.” And it was true. As I got to know
Vicky, her calculated, controlled overachieving became less admirable and more
like something that was getting in the way of Blake being his old fun self. We
hardly saw him anymore, and he was always coming up with excuses for
everything, almost all of which were Vicky-related. Friday night out with the
boys? He’d have to ask for her permission first. A basketball game after work?
He’d love to join us, but he promised her he’d take her shopping. A spontaneous
beach trip? He can’t, it was Vicky’s uncle’s wedding, and he was going as her
date.
    “Carl, you can’t be this
possessive of him. You’re being selfish,” Kim says. “You thought you and Blake
would be each other’s wingman until you’re thirty. You feel betrayed that he’s
getting married now while you could both be enjoying the bachelor’s life.”
    “That’s exactly the right word,” I
say. “Betrayed. Yes, I feel betrayed. Explain to me why there’s anything wrong
with that.”
    “Because it’s not fair to Blake,”
she says, sounding frustrated with me. “He made a decision, and he needs you to
support it. Why can’t you just be happy for him?”
    “Because I’m not, okay ,” I tell her, a little too loudly. She crosses her
arms over her chest and looks out the window.
    I reach for her hand. She lets me
take it, but doesn’t wrap her fingers around mine like she always does. “I’m
sorry,” I say softly. “I just think he’s making a mistake. He hasn’t known her
long enough. He doesn’t know her the way you and I know each other. How can you
possibly know someone well enough to marry her in less than a year?”
    “You can’t compare them with us,
Carl,” she says. “It’s different for everyone.”
    “And she’s trying to change him,”
I say. “She’s trying to change him into someone he’s not. She can’t do that.
She has no right. I mean, you’ve never tried to change me, have you? You love
me as I am, even if I obviously need a lot of work.”
    At this, she finally squeezes my
hand back. “Maybe Blake thinks he needs to change, too. Maybe he’s willing to
do it for her.”
    “But he shouldn’t have to.”
    “But maybe he wants to anyway.”
    I can’t come up with a decent
reply to this. Kim leans her head on my shoulder and starts running her hand
gently up and down my arm—her usual way of comforting me, which works
even when I’m in the worst mood. I can smell her hair—it smells like
vanilla and cherries—and definitely not for the first time in the seven
years we’ve been together, I feel very lucky that she’s my girlfriend, because
what we have is more stable and special than what any other couple will ever
come close to.

3
     
     
     
    Martin is being melodramatic again. He slams his beer down on the table, crumples his gambas -stained napkin, and throws it at me. “You lied to me,
Carl! Why, man?! WHY?”
    I roll my eyes. “I did not lie to
you. Kim said she wanted to go, and then it turned out she needed to stay at
the office overtime.”
    “But, but...” he gestures at his
legs and feet. “I’m wearing pants . And shoes !”
      “I can see that,” I say. “I’ve told you a hundred times, you
don’t have to dress up for Kim. She doesn’t mind.