To Sir, with Love

by Lauren Layne

ten-dollar sparkler sipped out of plastic cups to celebrate an engagement beats the pants off a three-hundred-dollar bottle of Cristal sipped from a crystal glass by someone bored by life.

“Hmm, okay, stop me when I get close,” I say, taking a sip of wine. We both pretend to study the art as I begin rattling off the potential snags to their relationship. “You’re gay. She’s gay. She likes cats. You’re a dog person. Opposing political views. One of you likes pineapple on your pizza, and the other thinks fruit on pizza’s an aberration. She wants to summer in East Hampton, you in Southampton. You have a porn addiction. You have different tastes in china patterns. She falls asleep to whale noises, but you like silence and a night-light. There’s someone else—”

don’t remember American cheese tasting like this.” “That’s because it’s homemade,” she says. “Please, let’s run away together.” I take another bite, wash it down with wine, and stare at my friend adoringly. “Live happily ever after, just us and this cheese.”

“But my dad didn’t say save it for a special occasion. He said save it for the right time. It’s a crucial difference, I’m realizing.”

And that’s sort of my point.” I set the bottle down and look at him. “I don’t think you can plan for the right time. Or the right woman. As far as timing’s concerned, maybe sometimes you’ve got to make it the right time and simply trust that it’s the right woman.”

“What if pursuing one path costs you another?” “That, my dear sir, is what you call life.”

“You’re welcome. Drink your beer. It’s the champagne of the people.”