At around 1:30 pm today, a bunch of my friends filed into a Thai restaurant. Pretty impressive, since we usually run on Cuban time and arrive about half an hour later for every single event we’ve had since middle school.
In attendance are a few characters I’ve already introduced, Nicky, Gio, May, Mina and Rae sat along my side of the table. Also present were perhaps my oldest non-Filipino friend, Susie* and her “friend” Franco* (whom Nicky and I secretly hope Susie will one day mate with), Mila* (whom I befriended 10 years ago on her birthday and continue to hug and love with each passing year), and Lin* (who is nowhere near as Chinese as her given name). Also, an old classmate, Dita* showed up with her cousin, whose name I don’t remember enough to give her a fake one. This last one was bit annoying, honestly, since I actually didn’t invite her to our luncheon, nor did anyone tell me ahead of time that we had two extra guests coming. I didn’t particularly mind, because we were able to move to a new table, but I did think it was a just a smidge bit rude to not give a heads up to anyone else, least of all the person who suggested the outing in the first place.
Other than that teensy hitch, the rest of the time went along fantastically well. Of course, there was notably one person who wasn’t in attendance: Ricky. In my last entry, I regaled with his sappiness, his undying affection for a woman who will, in all likelihood, never ever and I mean ever return his affections. Shortly after posting said entry, I actually spoke to the man and informed him that he was being a coward.
Amazingly enough, he conceded as such and assured me he was aware that he could never hope to top the current man in Rae’s life (I believe the idea, just not how he feels about it).
In any case, Ricky pretty much told me that if Rae was going, he’d stay at home instead. Quite mature for a 12-year-old. Too bad he’s 22.
Turns out, Rae did decide to come along at the last minute, at which point I had to call Ricky and warn him while simultaneously suggesting he come out anyway to prove that, you know, he’s not a completely wimp.
“Just come out.” I insisted when I told him Rae’s change of plans. “You can’t just avoid her forever.”
To be fair, he did have a great excuse:
“You see, most people have two kidneys,” He replied groggily. “But I’ve got three. And I need to donate one of them today…”
Eh, Ricky may be a pansy, but at least he’s a witty one.
In any case, we gathered together at the Thai place, waited forever to be served our glasses of water to begin with, and then our meals. It wasn’t great, it wasn’t disgusting, but it was nice to be in good company. We encouraged Franco to share a little bit about himself since he hadn’t been around the group much,
“Did you go to high school with everyone?” May asked politely, having stopped attending school with the lot of us after freshman year.
“Uh no,” Franco says wryly. “Susie and I went to middle school together.”
“Oh, so did you go to college with them?” May gestures to the rest of us at the table and Franco shakes his head, dryly replying,
“Nah. I go to University X in Indiana.”
When the rest of the group gives him a blank gaze, he sadly informs us,
“It’s right when you cross through the state border.” Franco shakes his head like he can’t believe he chose to attend school there. “You sneeze and you might miss it.”
“So…basically BFE?” I offer. Franco laughs and agrees, hereby launching into the tirade of why his college town is god-awful with:
“In the past two weeks alone, five meth labs got shut down” topping the list.
Informative indeed. At the same time, I managed to weasel in a few subtle hints about getting Susie and Franco together one day, an idea that both of them have rebuffed even though,
“My parents keep annoying me about it too.” Susie groans.
“So do mine.” Franco throws in. “And since she visited me at the restaurant, the entire staff bugs me about her too!”
(I feel like they should take the hint already. Lin suggested that he might be gay, but Nicky and I ignore it. We’re both really good at denial.)
Meanwhile, Rae and Mina sat on either side of me and quite literally talked behind my back (not meanly, and definitely not about me) when I leaned over and laughed with Susie, May and Gio about meth labs and addicts. In between Franco’s telling us of his family restaurant and wish to leave his family restaurant, I get to catch snippets of Rae and Mina’s conversations which, since about 9th/10th grade have consistently turned to relationships; specifically that Mina’s been in the same one for about 8 years while Rae goes through about 8 men every 6 months.
Of course, every streak ends at some point; even Rae’s singlehood.
Turns out, she’s found someone who, in her words, “treats me so well and is completely in sync with me.”
To anyone with half a brain and has spent even a modicum of time with Rae, this largely translates to “He can provide for the high-maintenance life I want to live.” Which is fine and dandy for everyone, minus of course Ricky and the 3 other men she had to stop seeing for this current “relationship” to work. But, considering that Rae has never even acknowledged being in a real relationship, it’s a very pleasant change.
On the other side of the table, Dita spoke up during a rare moment of silence,
“God I feel like we need to get on the ball.” She said. “I mean, we’re at that age where we need to start settling down.”
I was horrified. “Why the hell would you want to get married now?”
Dita got an equally horrified expression on her face. “Ohnononono! That’s at least a few decades too early!”
Apparently, she meant that we should start focusing on really starting our lives instead of simply pseudo-living in them. And I wholesomely agreed as long as we weren’t talking about actually settling down with a spouse. Lin pointed out that, in one of our personal conversations, I’d said I actually wanted a family.
I clarified, “Boys don’t know what they want. I do. If I happen to meet a boy who wants the same things I do, I’d be happy to marry and start a family.”
Since the above isn’t likely to happen, I’ll simply have to settle for waiting it out until…something happens I guess. The rest of the meal went by well and, at some point, I looked around and found myself feeling very, very grateful to have surrounded myself with the people there. Even moreso, that so many of us still stay in touch throughout the years. It was nice. And sober. And I like moments like those...
*names changed...although the following descriptions make it fairly obvious who they are
Written 12/27/10 Finished 12/28/10
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