For G with all my love..."Let's spend the day in bed" indeed!
"So," Matt proclaimed, as he polished off the last of his meat loaf. "After dinner, we hit Buzzy's. I hear they have a two-for-one promotion on bloody marys for V-day. We get loaded there -- if the drinks here don't do the trick first -- and then the club ought to be hopping by the time we're ready for it. Fuck around all night there if we want, or we can hit the bowling alley for the finale. See if we can push through to morning, and then waffles at the diner out by the freeway if we're still up. And Fuck Valentine's Day. What do you all think?" He set down his beer and looked around the table at his friends.
"Sure, man," said Gary, echoed quickly by Dave and Len as usual. "Anything to forget it's Valentine's Day, after all."
"I'm in," added Sarah, who as usual had parked herself next to Matt. "Who needs romance when you've got the guys, after all? Right, Maggie?"
Across the table, Maggie sipped her beer and tried to think of a nice way to let her friends down. "Thanks, guys," she finally said after a leisurely swallow. "But Danny and I are going home after this." She squeezed her husband's hand under the table and turned to smile at him.
Neither of them was surprised when Matt replied with a loud groan, or when Sarah and the boys followed his lead. "Christ, guys, you're not an old married couple yet, only a married one!" Matt argued. "You shouldn't give in to the boring life just yet!"
Maggie didn't feel like arguing with her on-again-off-again best friend. Poor old Matt had been on his I-hate-Valentine's-Day kick for weeks, and Maggie figured the irony of it all was lost on him. Five years before, he had spurned her affections and broken her heart. Now, he was carefully evading any and all awareness of Sarah's obvious interest in him. Some guys deserved their angst.
But Matt wasn't about to sulk in silence. "Danny," he demanded when he saw he wouldn't get through to Maggie. "Aren't you overdue for a night out with the boys?"
"A night out in this town?!" Danny asked. "You just went through literally every nightlife option in the county, remember?"
"Our point exactly," Dave piped up. "There's so little to do here, we ought to take full advantage of it on a night like this when there's so much drippy romantic crap out there."
"I agree!" Sarah added.
"Do you really?" Maggie asked her, with a meaningful look that was not acknowledged.
"Sure!" Sarah said. "Don't you remember how much you hated this holiday back in high school? All the cheerleaders with their flowers and teddy bears and chocolates, and what did girls like us ever get? We got to hang out with the guys because they couldn't stand it either! I'd say we got the better half of the deal!"
"Doesn't mean we have to go out and get wasted, though," Maggie said. "We're not college kids anymore, and really I didn't even like that sort of thing much when I was one."
"Me neither," Danny confirmed.
"But the point isn't getting wasted," Sarah said. "It's letting us forget about Valentine's Day because we hate it."
"Is that why you're dressed for it, Sarah?" Maggie couldn't help asking. Usually-tomboyish Sarah was wearing a red floral print dress, while the rest of the gang was in jeans and plain sweaters against the mountain chill outside.
"I'm dressed like this because it was the Valentine's party at school today!" Sarah insisted. "Danny told you about that, didn't he?"
"She's right," Danny confirmed. He and Sarah taught fourth and second grade respectively at the tiny local school, while Maggie and Matt had both taken jobs with the park service. Maggie, Danny and Matt had chosen to move together to the Rocky Mountain hamlet after college in California; Sarah was a similarly voluntary transplant from back East somewhere. Dave, Len and Gary were townies whom they had befriended along the way despite -- or perhaps because of -- their cosmopolitan out-of-state style. As usual, this Friday evening found them together for dinner at Sally's Bar and Grill, in the heart of their two-block downtown, and the room was just starting to fill up with the usual Friday night suspects. "I guess I should have worn something red for the big day too," Danny added. He was wearing Maggie's favorite of his sweaters, but it was blue rather than red. "But my kids didn't mind. It was kind of sad, really, the way you could tell the boys all wanted to act so tough and unromantic, and really you could see they were delighted to get all the valentines they did."
"What makes you think they were only
acting
tough?" Matt demanded. "They're boys, they don't need to be gentled down, even on a day like this! Especially on a day like this, come to think of it!"
"Matt!" Maggie was now getting truly annoyed at her friend. "That's a terrible thing to say! They're children!"
"I think he's right," Sarah said. "Boys should be boys and all that."
"Hear hear, and go get me a beer," Len piped up joyously, drawing a laugh from everyone except Maggie and Danny. For a moment, Maggie was afraid Sarah would indeed go fetch Len another pint, but to her credit she remained seated.
"Do you
really
believe that, Sarah?" Maggie probed.
"Course I do," Sarah shot back, now also sounding a bit irritated and, Maggie thought, defensive. She turned back to Matt and said, "Come on, guys, Matt's right. Come out with us and live a little!"
"Thanks, guys, but it's Friday night and it's cold," Danny said, waving to the waitress for the check. "Definitely a night to stay in and relax."
Matt sighed in resignation. "Guess it's true what they say about marriage: you might as well die."
Maggie was set to scream at him, but Danny grabbed her hand under the table. "N-day?" he whispered at her under his breath.
"Oh, that's perfect!" Maggie concurred.
"If you guys decide you don't want to spend the weekend like a couple of monks," Sarah needled, "You know where we'll be." She got her share of the money out of her purse and handed it to Danny. "I really hope you will come out. Just because you're married doesn't mean you're dead, you know."
"Thank you, Sarah. We'll keep it in mind." Maggie's resentment was gone in the wake of Danny's lovely suggestion. Why hadn't she thought of an N-day before now? What better day than the beginning of Valentine's Day weekend? "Hope you all have a great night in the meantime."
"It'd be even better if we weren't feeling sorry for you for missing it," Matt chirped, and the other guys laughed the way they always did at his nastier comments.
Outside, the sun had long-since set on Sally's front parking lot and the country road beyond, but the streetlamps gave off a tantalizing hint of the beautiful mountain view that had inspired Maggie and her friends to come to town. If the back-of-beyond rural location got a bit stultifying now and then, Maggie and Danny had never regretted the move. Neither, as far as they could tell, had Matt, though his attitude made it hard for even Maggie to ever be sure what he was really feeling. She'd had her doubts about him joining her and Danny on their move out here, but for all their mismatched past, they were still the best of friends. And so it was that Maggie let her irritation with him slide when he kissed her on the cheek just before unlocking his car. "'Night, Mags, for now."
"Good night, Matt," she said, and she took Danny's hand in hers for the five minute walk across the town square to their second-floor apartment.
The couple walked in silence across the snow-covered green. Neither one felt the need to comment on their friends' lousy attitudes or the hurtful things they had said; Maggie and Danny had been through all that a number of times before. Two years before, when they had announced their engagement, Maggie had heard every warning under the sun about getting married straight out of college. Her mother had stuck with "You're just too young, honey," her father had talked of opportunities to see the world on her own before settling down, while her friends had offered up saltier warnings like "What if the sex is no good?" That last point had given Maggie some pause, as she had made it to college with enough leftover Catholic guilt to keep things out of bed with Danny but enough curiosity to wonder if he'd be suitable as her only partner ever. But she had stuck to her guns on the matter, and Danny had never argued the point -- one reason why she had always loved him so completely. As her and Danny's final semester had dawned two years before, both retained their virginity and neither one was willing to stand the prospect of going their separate ways after graduation.
And so, having dated off and on since sophomore year, they had tied the knot at the rock garden on campus just an hour or so after commencement while still in the same clothes they'd worn under their robes. Their parents and friends -- including Matt -- had held off on their objections for that afternoon, at least.
In the months and weeks before, though, no friend had offered up more dire warnings than Matt: "Do you really want to miss out on being on your own in the big city somewhere? Don't you know how high the divorce rate is among people who get married in their twenties? Danny's an okay guy, but he's kind of immature, isn't he?" Some of his comments, especially that last one, had been downright offensive to Maggie. But Matt had been among her closest friends since freshman year, and so she had taken his outrage in stride. One reason for her high tolerance for his protests, of course, was that Matt was the one and only person who probably could have made her reconsider about marrying Danny. But he had never said the magic words that would have accomplished that: "But Maggie, I love you too." Freshman year, not a day had gone by that Maggie hadn't desperately hoped to hear him say it. Every one of their coffee dates or their long walks through town had been delightfully intimate, the two scared freshlings getting to know one another and sharing their feelings on life on their own for the first time and their dreams for the future, and they had always ended in a warm hug outside one or the other of their dorms...but nothing more, ever.
Maggie had waited and hoped for him to take the next step, and when he still hadn't by spring break, she had finally taken the bull by the horns and asked him out herself. "But we already are going out Friday, aren't we? Pizza, right?"
"I was hoping for something a bit more elaborate for once, Matt."
"More elaborate?"
"Matt! Can't you see what I'm getting at? We've been avoiding it all year!"
"Avoiding what? Oh, Maggie, you didn't think you and I..."
"Haven't you ever thought of it?!"
"Well...no, Maggie. I love you as a friend and all, but to me you're one of the guys."
