Page 20 of 3 Daddies to Go
He turns out to be right. We make it to the restaurant with ten minutes to spare. That rude bridesmaid, Monica, is already sitting at our reserved table. Damnit. How come we can’t get away from her?
Herbie is talking with the hostess but when he spots us, he runs over.
“You made it! Thanks for coming.”
We all shake his hand.
“Of course we did. You promised us delicious food.”
“That I did.” Herbie smiles, but the gesture looks forced. Not like he’s unhappy, but like he wishes he had another five hours of sleep.
Trudy saunters into the dining area looking every bit like a queen greeting her courtiers. Herbie kisses his new bride on the cheek and she nods.
“Glad y’all could make it,” Trudy says, giving us nods as well. She’s careful not to ruffle her dress, which is far too formal. The shimmery silver fabric skims the ground as she walks. It’s a nice gown, but it belongs at prom, not brunch.
Kendall isn’t here yet. Neither is the other awful bridesmaid from last night, thank god. Meanwhile, Trudy grabs hold of a waitress.
“Excuse me, can I get some water? With lemon. But no ice.”
She doesn’t thank the woman. Herbie better tip well at every restaurant they go to if Trudy acts like this because the servers don’t deserve her hoity-toity attitude.
“Hey, have you guys seen Kendall? She should be here by now.”
We shake our heads. Trudy huffs and glances at the door. Brunch isn’t supposed to start for like ten more minutes, but Trudy is the kind of woman who thinks that ten minutes before an event starts is late.
The guys and I take our seats, and I’m surprised Trudy didn’t try to assign them for us. While she bosses around more restaurant workers, Herbie slumps into his seat at the head of the table. The guy looks completely exhausted. Trudy is full of life, which means she probably got more sleep than him while he took care of the last-minute details.
I feel bad for Herbie. Trudy obviously doesn’t care about how dead-tired her husband is. It must suck to know he’s going to be tied to this woman for the next forty years.
Then again, he could always divorce her.
Monica, who had been distracted by her phone for the last ten minutes, finally looks up when Leonore approaches the table. The two greet each other with big fake smiles, and then they turn their attention to us, apparently just realizing we’re sitting here. Monica’s face brightens, and she puffs out her chest.
“You’re here!” she cries. “I’m so glad. Did you have a good night?”
The three of us nod. We’re not about to tell her just how good a night we had.
Monica pouts.
“Where’d you guys disappear to last night? I wanted a dance.”
Tag shrugs vaguely.
“We had some work to do, so we went back to the hotel.”
Leonore lets out a hyena-like giggle. It’s annoying without the buzz of champagne to drown it out. It’s not quite noon, but I’m tempted to ask the waiter for something stronger than orange juice.
“You guys were working on a Saturday night?” asks Leonore. “That sucks. I never work on weekends.
Monica nods in agreement. Her blonde hair is held with so much hairspray that it doesn’t move. At least she took down the weird braid they all had on last night. Today, Monica has a fancy bun perched on the crown of her head that probably took her hours to perfect.
“Seriously,” she says. “You couldn’t take the night off for your friend’s wedding? Sounds to me like you just wanted an excuse to leave. I bet you went home and went to bed.”
I roll my eyes. These girls are idiots and clearly, they have no sense of how the real world works. They probably work as assistants somewhere, only expected to work nine-to-five because they couldn’t handle anything more than that. If they even have jobs, that is because they very well could be living off their parents’ money. I should know because I went to school with a lot of trust-fund babies as a kid. That’s part of why Trace, Tag, Herbie and I bonded. We didn’t have much money between us, so we found cheap ways to entertain ourselves while our friends went on extravagant trips.
We have money now, thanks to our hard work. We earned every penny in our bank accounts. Even if Monica and Leonore do have jobs, I doubt they’re totally self-sufficient. Their clothes have expensive price tags, and they don’t seem to know what “work,” much less “hard work,” is.
A string of waiters sets out an assortment of breakfast pastries for us to enjoy until the real meal comes out. Kendall still hasn’t arrived. She loved the bread last night. I bet she’d really enjoy these danishes and croissants.