Lloyd's Angel Ch. 04

Introductions were made all around, and I found myself sitting between Susan on one side and Alexandra's friend, Connie, on the other. Beyond Susan, Alexandra's brother, Danny, was holding forth on his final undergrad semester. We had an empty chair, presumably for Jonathan, between Connie and Alexandra.

"What's he majoring in?" I leaned over to ask Connie. Danny was clearly the youngest of us, and also the most voluble. He was talking to Susan too quickly for me to follow.

"Women," she said with a laugh, and corrected herself. "I think the diploma will say 'Business' but it's a minor miracle if he graduates in four years without getting expelled first." Connie winked at me. "If you were a girl, I'd tell you to watch yourself around him, but you aren't his type." She waited a beat, and continued, "no offense, but I wouldn't have thought you were Alexandra's type, either."

"None taken," I assured her. "Dr. Reynolds assigned me and Susan to help Alexandra with her research." I started projecting a reassuring sense of trustworthiness and likeability.

"Oh, no!" she laughed. "You're that ham-handed idiot?" Connie put a hand on my arm before I could take offense. "I'm sorry; I shouldn't have said that. Really, Alexandra has had nothing but good things to say about you, Lloyd. The 'ham-handed' comment was from last year when she was feeling frustrated; I'm sure she didn't mean it then, and she surely doesn't mean it now."

We talked easily for a few minutes more until Jonathan arrived. I might have been tempted to ask for her phone number if I hadn't already had my sights set on Alexandra. If Danny stood out from the rest of us because of his relative youth, Jonathan did too. He looked like an up-and-coming executive, and we looked like rumpled academics. Danny and I did, anyway; the girls probably would have looked attractive, no matter what.

Jonathan greeted his fiancee with a kiss, and she introduced him around. I smiled through a bone-crushing handshake and did my usual best to appear trustworthy and nonthreatening.

After ordering, Jonathan produced a proof of the wedding invitations and showed it to Alexandra. Naturally, everybody else wanted to see it too, and it ended up getting passed around the table. It looked fine to me, properly elegant, but apparently I lacked the discernment to note that the wrong typeface had been used and that the vertical spacing wasn't perfectly balanced.

I guessed Alexandra was upset, less by the expression on her face than by Connie's. All of us praised the invitation, and Alexandra finally said it would be good enough, if nobody else could tell the difference.

Just the same, when Jonathan announced, "I thought you'd say that, so I told them to go ahead, and print and mail them," I caught a glimpse of white knuckles before she put her hands in her lap. I thought hard about how irritating Jonathan was.

Alexandra might have said something, but the waitress chose that time to return with our food -- Nino's wasn't fancy, but service wasn't slow, either. I met Alexandra's gaze, and we both covertly watched Susan as the waitress deposited a plate in front of her.

Once we'd all been served, Alexandra was quick to snatch the ketchup bottle in the center of the table and pour some on her fries and another dollop on her burger. She passed the bottle to Danny, who followed suit and then handed it on to Susan. I watched carefully, trying to hide my excitement, as she hesitated after putting some on her cheeseburger, but after a moment she passed it on to me without doing anything more.

The remainder of the meal passed with casual conversation. Alexandra groused about her thesis in general terms, without impressing Jonathan much as far as I could see. The wedding seemed a more popular topic, as everybody except Susan and I were more involved in it and Jonathan could intimate how great a catch he was. His attitude annoyed me, so I retaliated, to unknown effect, with a general broadcast of my negative impressions.

Our plates were nearly cleared when Susan surprised me by stabbing her last fry into the puddle of ketchup on my plate. She stuck it in her mouth, then made a face, but ate it anyway. It wasn't out of line with some of the other joking and clowning around that had been going on, so only Alexandra and I froze momentarily.

A few minutes later, the ladies made one of those group pilgrimages to the restroom. "Can't we do the penguin suit thing tomorrow?" Danny asked Jonathan as soon as the others were out of hearing distance. "This is prime time for window shopping!" The hourglass he sketched in the air made it clear what he meant.

Jonathan looked intrigued but sighed. "No such luck, kid. The shop already arranged to stay open late just for us, and officially I'm off the market." He could have just been playing to Danny, who'd been eying all of the women in the room all evening, but it didn't exactly feel that way to me; he'd put an unusual stress on "officially." "How about you, Lloyd? Are you off the market?"

A little surprised, I replied, "I guess I'd say not so much off the market, as not really in it to begin with. I'm here to get my doctorate, not have a good time."

"What a waste!" exclaimed Danny. "I bet Susan would show you a good time, if you know what I mean," he added speculatively.

I stifled a cringe, uncertain if he was just making an inflammatory barb, or had sensed something from her, or just made a lucky guess. Luckily for me, the girls made a prompt return and saved me from having to continue the conversation.

Unless I was hallucinating, they'd redone their lipstick and the ruby red of Midnight Siren now graced two pairs of lips. It was a bit over the top, but I still thought it looked very becoming, especially in the softer light of the pub. Susan was giving me a calculating look that was, frankly, unnerving.

"We should be going," Alexandra said. The comment was punctuated by the snap of Jonathan's fingers as he got the waitress' attention and gestured for the bill. "Lloyd, you can see Susan home, can't you?"

"Certainly, I'd be delighted," I assured her. Even if there'd been no ulterior motive, as the two odd people out, I would have offered if she hadn't asked first. Perhaps I was no social butterfly, but my parents hadn't raised a complete idiot.

Jonathan dispensed with the bill almost negligently, hugely overtipping the waitress. It wasn't that she didn't deserve a tip, but I sensed the point was more to make sure we all knew it didn't bother him to spend money like water than because of any real sense of largess.