Vin puts my drink back and clears his throat.
Raff and Lauro have, for some reason, decided to swap drinks and are now arguing over whether the bartender looks like Tilda Swinton or Timothée Chalamet.
Vin leans against me again and I suck in a breath, but he’s just reaching over for a bar napkin. “Why’d you draw a cat?” he asks me, studying the napkin.
“How’d you know I drew that?” I ask, amazed. “And more importantly, how could you tell it was a cat?”
His face quirks. Or I think it does. Hard to tell behind the beard. “I know what your drawings look like, Roz.”
Now I turn to face him fully. My knees press his legs and he takes a step back. “What have you ever seen me draw?” I demand.
His chin drops. “Grandma Vittoria.”
“Ohhhhhh.” How could I have forgotten this? This was the (almost) worst thing ever! Right after Vin and I eloped, Vin’s grandmother flew in from Italy, mostly to admonish us for not having a big Catholic wedding, from what I could tell. But I was new to the family, desperate for brownie points, and took it upon myself to befriend bitter, bitter Vittoria. Who doesn’t speak English. Also, I don’t speak Italian. Thus…a week and a half of the most torturous game of charades ever played. Complete with reems of shoddy drawings. Done by yours truly. Truly genius stuff. Like it would be time for lunch so I’d draw a picture of a pickle with an arrow next to it.
Vin collected the drawings and (affectionately) laughed until he had tears in his eyes, poring over all of them everynight in bed. I’d find those damn drawings under my pillow the next day.
“Also, you draw on the grocery list,” he says.
“Oh. Right.” I would call those doodles more than drawings, but sure. Sometimes I draw a little tomato next to the wordtomato.
You’d think this would be a catalog of my failures as an artist, but actually, the fact that Vin could identify a drawing done by me, because he’s seen so many of my drawings, makes me feel way moreyeah, I drawthan those damn art school boots.
“How in thewhat?” I hear Lauro say, so I swivel back toward the boys.
“What?” I ask.
Lauro is studying Raff inquisitively, his eyes narrowed.
“We just had a little competition to see who could get the bartender’s number,” Raff says innocently, sipping Lauro’s former drink.
I can’t help but laugh. I already know who won. Lauro just fell for the oldest trick in the book. “Oh, don’t let the Jimmy Buffett shirt fool you,” I tell him. “Raff islethalwhen he wants to be.”
“I’ve never lost that game in my life,” Lauro says with a frown down at his mesh-covered nips. “The headlights are on and everything.”
“Don’t feel bad. Lebowski over here always wins,” Vin says.
“We all have our little gifts,” Raff says. “And I have the number of averyhandsome woman.”
Lauro checks his phone. “Look, I’m about to meet some friends for bowling in Queens…” He lets it hang there for a moment, looking between the three of us.
“I’m too old to go to a different borough at midnight,” I say.
“I’ll come,” Raff says easily.
“Oh, great!” Lauro says. He seems genuinely glad for Raffi’s company.
Raff gives hugs, Lauro gives pounds, and then they’re out the door together.
“Is he going to break Raff’s heart?” Vin asks, watching them go.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
My drink is sweating and watered-down now.
“So…” he says quietly, his eyes on his beer. “Tequila?”
Ah. He wants to know why I wasn’t drinking my usual glass of house red. Tequila is extremely unusual for me. Pretty much reserved for that one time that Vin, Raff, and I went to Atlantic City together.
