“Hi,” he said, eyeing them as he approached the table. To Scott’s surprise, he walked around to the unoccupied left side and sat in the open seat beside him. He correctly read their expressions and said, “Speak of the devil?”
“No, we weren’t talking about you,” Letty said. “Narcissist.”
Carver grinned at her. “What were you talking about, then?”
“Their elopement,” Scott lied smoothly.
“Alright,” Carver said. To Scott, he said, “Can I get a cigarette?” and to Letty and Sana he said, “Where’d you elope?”
It was strange to hear Carver’s voice again. Scott remembered the sound of it but had forgotten the finer details. Like Chip, his voice was low but not excessively deep — a high baritone. But unlike Chip, who was often loud and spokewith a scratchy boyish quality, Carver’s voice was smooth and sometimes soft, like water over rocks.
The brides told Carver the whole story while he smoked one of Scott’s Marlboro Reds. When they concluded, he said, “That sounds really nice.”
“It was,” Letty said.
“How’d you guys meet?”
“At a bar,” Letty said with a smile. Sana’s eyes were twinkling. “I’d just gotten out of this heinous relationship, and I was there with some friends, and I kept staring at her, I guess, because she came up to me and said, hey, are you gonna keep fucking staring at me all night —”
“That’s not what I said!” Sana exclaimed, laughing. “I said, you keep looking over at me, would you like to buy me a drink?”
“That was it.”
“It was pretty out of character for me,” Sana said. “I was a little drunk.”
“Anyway, I did buy her a drink, and the rest is history,” Letty said, still smiling. “Carv, I heard you in there talking about work stuff, is everything okay?”
Carver exhaled smoke. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
“So it’s all good?”
“No, but it doesn’t matter, so don’t worry about it.”
“Uh, okay.”
“How’s business going for you, Letty?”
“Hmm, remind me what I do?” she teased him.
Carver dropped the butt of his cigarette into the ramekin and took a sip of his drink. “I remember you’re with an HVAC business out in Jersey,” he said. “And last time we talked, you were in purchasing.”
“Very good. I’m the logistics manager now.”
“Yeah? How is that?”
Letty shrugged. “It’s a desk job, it’s pretty recession-proof and it pays the bills. I work with a lot of men, some great guys and some assholes.”
“Do you guys live close to each other?” Carver said to Scott, making brief eye contact.
“Nah,” Scott said. “I’m in Hoboken, they’re in New Brunswick, it’s like a forty minute drive.”
“I got my master’s at Rutgers, and then I got a job nearby after,” Sana explained. “And then I met Letty, so it’s just kind of turned into home.”
“Baby, seriously, we can leave anytime you want,” Letty said. “I can work anywhere. You know I bartended in college.”
“But consider that I’ve been working for the same company for twelve years, and I’m too scared and weak-willed to leave.” Sana grinned. “What if I go somewhere new and they’re mean to me? Or their printer is too confusing?”
“I get it,” Carver said. “I’m the same way. Other than two years at Goldman, I’ve never worked anywhere but Blackbrick.”
