The alarm clock woke me at half past six the next day. I stared at it with incredulous eyes, trying to figure out how it got there so fast and why I had a feverish burn inside my head. It didn’t take me long to realize the culprit was one glass of wine too many. That Brunello was simply far too good for comfort.
After a quick shower which did little to mitigate the pain in my membrane, I headed downstairs, desperate for my morning espresso.
There was a shaking sound coming from the kitchen, slosh, slosh, slosh. Slosh, slosh, slosh. The sound was quickly explained by me laying eyes on A, jerking a plastic red protein shaker.
“Morning,” he said, in a somber voice which was unnatural to his usually bright and cheerful self.
“Morning. You sound down?” I mumbled. Too early. No coffee.
“We had a huge fight last night. Huge. She took a suitcase and left.” He stopped shaking his drink and studied the content, which had become a grey-brownish soil. I wondered how the protein people could call that chocolate when “sewage” seemed more apt.
“Oh, that bad?” I said, not feeling too surprised, as it wasn’t the first time B had made a dramatic exit and gone to spend the night at a friends’ house. It was an obvious attempt to elicit emotion from A, but she had complained that it only seemed to work for a day or two and then he went back to being the frosty caveman again.
Who said love was easy?
“My guess is she’s with Katie, but I’ve no idea really. She refuses to pick up her phone.” A put the shaker against his mouth and let the foul liquid run down his throat. I looked away briefly and thought he might be right, Katie always had a good ear for B’s problems, meaning she agreed with pretty much everything the movie star said or felt.
A made a disgusting swallowing sound and said, “Can you do me favor and check if she's okay? I was a bit tough yesterday, said some things I regret.”
“Well, that happens in a fight, I guess. What did you say?”
“I told her she was a selfish, alcoholic psycho with major issues. And I told her I’m soon giving up on having kids, I’m turning 40, it’s already quite late to start a family.”
Bringing up the old our-fantastic-genes-force-us-to-procreate discussion after B’s social disaster wasn’t the best timing, but you couldn’t really blame him for hearing the clock ticking. Extending the family was the natural next step, together with divorce of course. I thought they had reached some kind of tipping point where relationships either made it or broke it. I had seen it before with friends, but never gotten as far myself.
“Can you please make sure she's okay? I really have to go now.” A gave me a look that said he knew I would say yes, after all, it was my job to be the yes-man. I was paid for it.
“Sure thing,” I said and thought how strange it was to have another man ask you to manage his marriage. Being a relationship middleman was never in my contract, but it became a vital part of my job the last year of my employment. Question was, was it possible to save it? At that moment I thought it wasn’t very likely.
“You’re the man, Darryl. I don’t know what I would do without you. I'll call you from New York, okay?”
And as A left to finish his packing, I turned on the espresso machine, letting it slowly chug out a thick, luscious brew. I took my first sip and thought that I didn’t know what he’d do without me either.