Coda 01 - Promises

going?”
    Lucy was visibly shaking now, fidgeting with her necklace. “Well, I was thinking of Fort Lauderdale, but I’m not sure if only kids go there. Maybe Orlando? Have you been there?”
    “I haven’t, but my brother—”
Lizzy didn’t get to tell us any more about her brother. Joseph suddenly stood up, knocking his chair over behind him
    in the process. Matt looked up, startled, as Joseph pointed a finger at me and said, “Are you fucking my son? Is that what’s going on here?”
    “No!” Matt and I both said in unison, and Matt said, “Dad, enough!”

    “Joseph!” Lucy’s voice was a quiet plea. “We are guests here. Sit down.”
    He didn’t listen. “I knew a man like you in the Marines,” he said to me. “Married and everything, and one day his wife comes home and finds him fucking another man in her bed. Earned himself a dishonorable discharge.”
    Matt’s hands were white knuckled fists on the table in front of him. “You were friends with James for six years before that happened, Dad. Remember that? He was a good guy.”
    “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“He was your friend. You should have stood by him.”
    “You don’t know what it’s like in the Marines. You took the sucker’s way out. Don’t try to talk to me about what I should or shouldn’t have done. You don’t know a goddamn thing about it.” He picked up his wine glass and frowned at it blurrily when he saw that it was empty. He picked up Lucy’s and drained it. Then he grabbed the open bottle off of the table and went back into the house, leaving the rest of us in uncomfortable silence on the patio.
    After a minute, Lucy stood up too. Her hands were shaking, and I could tell she was close to tears. “Matt, I think you should take us back to the motel now. We’ve intruded on your friends enough for one evening.” She straightened her shirt and her skirt, smoothed her hair, and put herself back together before turning to Lizzy. “It was very nice meeting you all. Thank you for a lovely dinner.” I think she would have said more, but her chin had started to quiver, and she quickly retreated to the house.
    Nobody else moved. Brian looked stunned. Mom looked pissed. Lizzy looked like she was replaying the whole dinner in her mind, trying to figure out where things went wrong. Matt was just sitting there, staring at his plate. Finally he raised his eyes to Lizzy. “Lizzy, I’m sorry.”
    She looked over at him and gave him a sad smile. She held her hand out to him, palm up on the table. He obligingly put his large hand over hers. She put her other hand on top and patted it. “You warned me. Next time you tell me something is a bad idea, I’ll listen.”
    He relaxed a little at that and nodded. “Thanks, Lizzy.” He turned to me, opened his mouth to say something, then glanced at everybody else still sitting around the table, and seemed to change his mind. Instead, he just clapped me on the back and said, “I’ll see you later.”
    After he left, we all sat there in silence. I felt miserable. If I hadn’t been such an idiot, none of it would have happened. Why did I have to open my big mouth? “Lizzy, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
    “No!” Her eyes were fierce. “Don’t apologize! Don’t you dare apologize for that bigoted asshole.” She got up, came around the table and hugged my shoulders from behind my chair. “He’s a jerk, and you have nothing to be sorry about.”

“J ARED !” Ringo crashed through the door of the shop at top speed,
    knocking over a display of car air fresheners. He didn’t stop but ran back to where I stood at the back. “Jared, I passed! I got a ninetyseven on the test!” He flew at me and threw his skinny arms around my neck.
    “That’s great!” I patted him awkwardly on the back, and he seemed to realize what he was doing and stepped back. His face was glowing triumphantly, and he was grinning ear to ear.
    “You’re a genius!” he told me.

    I couldn’t help catching a little of his good mood. “You did the work, not me. Come on! I’ll take you out for a beer to celebrate.”
    “I’m not twenty-one.”
“I didn’t say the beer would be for you! Let’s go.”
    I took him to our local pizza joint, Tony’s. We ordered our pizza, and the waitress had just dropped off my beer and a root beer for Ringo when Matt appeared at our table.
    “Hey Jared!” He looked genuinely pleased to see me but a little wary. “How have you