“Nope.”
“Am I being punked?”
“Nope.”
I cast around for some other explanation for this bizarre turn of events, but can’t come up with anything except, “Is someone holding a gun to your head and forcing you to tell me this? Have you been kidnapped or something?”
She bursts into raucous laughter.
“Why is that so funny?”
She laughs and laughs until she’s sighing again. I imagine her on the other end of the line wiping tears of joy from her face.
“I’ll tell you later. The point is, I’m getting married, and I want you to meet him. The wedding will be spontaneous, not a big event or anything. I don’t know the exact date yet, but it could happen any day, so we’d like you to come visit us as soon as you can.”
Visit us?
Not only is she getting married, she’s obviously living with this guy, too. I open my mouth to respond, but nothing comes out.
“I know,” she says sheepishly. “It’s unexpected.”
“Thank you for having the decency to realize how weird this is.”
“It is weird. I know. For all the reasons. But…” She clears her throat again. “You’re my sister. I want you to meet the man I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.”
“Please hold. I’ll be right back after I’m finished with this stroke I’m having.”
“Don’t be mean.”
Oh, the things I could say to that. Ho ho ho, the things I could say. But I choose the higher road and ask the next obvious question. “What about Nat?”
“What about her?”
“Why aren’t you calling her about this guy?”
“She’s already met him.”
There’s something odd in her tone that makes me suspicious. “And she knows you’re going to marry him?”
“Yeah.”
“So what does she think about all this?”
“Probably the same things you do.” Her voice gains an edge. “Except she’s happy for me.”
Man, this conversation is a minefield. I’ll be lucky if I survive with all my limbs intact.
Trying to keep my tone civil, I say, “I’m not not happy for you, Sloane. I’m just in shock. Also confused, to be honest.”
“That I’m finally settling down?”
“No. Well, yes, but not mainly that.”
“What, then?”
“That you’re reaching out to me. That you’re telling me about it. That you’re inviting me to visit you. I mean, we haven’t exactly been close.”
“I know,” she says softly. “I think that’s probably my fault. And I’d really like to see if we can fix that.”
After a long pause, she says, “What are you doing right now?”
“Lying flat on my back on the floor, staring at the ceiling, wishing I’d never taken all that ecstasy at Burning Man last year.”
She says drily, “You’re not having a drug flashback.”
“I beg to differ.”
She runs out of the infinitesimal amount of patience she has, and snaps, “You’re coming to visit us. It’s settled. We’ll send the jet for you—”
“Excuse me. Jet?”
“—on Friday night.”
I sit up abruptly. The room starts to spin. She’s dislodged my brain with all this nonsense talk of matrimony. “Wait, do you mean this Friday? As in, three days from now?”
“Yes.”
“Sloane, I have a job! I can’t just jet off to… Where would I be going in this jet you’d send?”
She hesitates. “I can’t tell you that.”
I deadpan, “I see. How illuminating.”
“Quit being a pain in the ass, Riley, and say you’ll come! I’m trying to be a good sister, here! I want us to be closer. I know after Mom died, things were rough, and we’ve never really been, you know…”
“‘Friends’ is the word you’re looking for,” I say acidly.
She draws a quiet breath. “Okay. That’s fair. But I’d like to change that. Please give me a chance.”
Another “please.” I lie back down again, utterly confused.
Whoever this guy is that she’s marrying, he must really be something else to morph the world’s biggest ballbuster into such a softie.
I decide on a whim that I have to meet him. I bet he’s putting Valium into her morning coffee, the evil genius! He’s spiking her afternoon wine with Xanax!