“Kind of,” she said.
We extricated ourselves from the get-a-room corner, and having taken the measure of me artwise, Abena drifted off. That left me free to scan the gallery for familiar faces. I saw James Royce-Royce and James Royce-Royce, uncharacteristically unbabied, standing with Tom by a grey papier-maché statue of a figure sitting hunched with its chin on its hands. Its body was covered in tally marks, and a stack of what looked like cherry stones were piled at its feet.
“Well,” James Royce-Royce was saying, “that’s rather melancholy, isn’t it?”
I wandered over and exchanged hugs with the three of them.
“Oh, don’t. I’ve just been talking to Priya, and she’s made it very clear that I can’t art.”
With a smile, James Royce-Royce put a friendly arm around me.
“Don’t worry, Luc, my dear. Neither can any of the rest of us.”
“Apparently,” I offered, “it’s about what it makes you think and feel.”
James thought and felt for a moment. “I’m mostly thinking, would it go well in the corner of the restaurant?” He turned to his husband.
“You know, by the door to the kitchen.”
“Too hot,” said James Royce-Royce. “And too humid. The paper would get soggy.”
“It must be…” James Royce-Royce stirred a hand in the air like he was whipping a soufflé. Assuming you whipped soufflés.
“Lacquered or something. I’m sure it would be fine. And it’d be nice to have a souvenir of Luc’s bachelor party.”
“Are the pieces even for sale?” asked Tom, who’d been busy texting while the James Royce-Royces had been doing comparative art shopping.
Turning, I scanned the room for Abena. “The owner’s over there.
You could ask her.”
Before anybody could move, Tom looked up from his phone again. “That was Bridge,” he said to none of our surprise. “She’ll be here soon. She got delayed because they sent one of their interns out to the ?ngelholm UFO-Memorial to look for that author who went missing, and now he’s gone missing too.”
That sounded basically normal once you adjusted for the Bridge’s life factor.
“Anyway, pumpkin”—James Royce-Royce gave me a squeeze —“you realise you’re officially joining the ranks of the tediously wed.”
“How tedious is it going to be?” I asked.
“Well,” said Tom with a smile. “I’m still in the honeymoon stage, so not tedious at all.”
James Royce-Royce managed to maintain hug contact while turning to face someone else. “You’re married to our Bridget. There are a number of problems I can anticipate in your future life, but tedium is not one of them.” His expression grew slightly marshmallowy. “In my experience, Luc, married life is rather wonderful. And, of course, now we have Baby J, which means every day is a fresh adventure.”
Oh God. We were about to be told a fresh adventure. I was at a party, celebrating the end of my youthful bachelorhood while one of my married friends regaled us with stories about his baby.
“Of course,” James Royce-Royce went on, “we should probably be calling him Toddler J now.”
James Royce-Royce shook his head. “No, it’s fine. We’re using baby as an affectionate diminutive not as reference to a specific developmental stage.”
“There’s no need to be so literal, darling. I was just making a funny.” Letting me go, James Royce-Royce produced his phone and started scrolling. “Yesterday he made a tower of three blocks, using the blue, the red, and the purple, which I think shows a natural aesthetic sense, but apparently four blocks is what we’re shooting for.”
We were shown the tower. Then the tower with the blocks in a slightly different order. Then an earlier version of the tower which had only been two blocks. None of which distracted from the fact that Affectionate Diminutive J still looked like a goblin.
“Well,” I said, “isn’t he…clever.”
And, once again, I wished Oliver was with me. Because he could say things like that and he wouldn’t sound sarcastic.
“You may scoff, Luc O’Donnell,” declared James Royce-Royce.
“This will be you in a few years’ time.”
“Actually,” I said, “I don’t like to brag but I reckon I could stack three blocks on top of each other right now.”
Putting a hand on his hip, James Royce-Royce somehow managed to pout with his eyes. “You know perfectly well what I mean. You and Oliver must have talked about it.”