I can't believe this. Don Corleone, please tell them how I feel...
"Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in!"
So Wednesday was supposed to be my day off. I slept in until ten, made a pot of coffee, and planned my day allocating equal time for productivity and relaxation. Then my phone rang and it was someone from work; I had closed the night before so I assumed it was the opener with some question about the prior night's paperwork or something. The voice on the other end was one of my subordinates (who incidentally annoys the piss out of me with her Machiavellian attempts at personal advancement) and she informs me that one of her counterparts has called out for the next three days due to a death in the family and there was nobody to close that night, and if I could come in to work. In a manner of two seconds I considered it, was tempted to pass the buck to the next guy, then realized as the Supervisor I'm the next guy and the last guy: it's my department and ultimately I'm the one whose ass is in a sling if there's no closer. I tell her I'll be in later and not to worry.
I arrived a few hours later with Dante screaming his mantra in my head, "I'm not even supposed to be here today!"
However, work was fine albeit a bit boring. That's not the point of this story.
After closing down the store that night I was in my car barreling south on the 15 freeway leaving Crazyville (where I work) in my dust. How a podunk town like that is accessible by the same freeway that leads to fabulous Las Vegas is beyond me. All these backwater suburbs sprouting up across the desert make for cheap housing but I'll take my overpriced apartment in the middle of civilization over a cheap desert mortgage surrounded by tumbleweeds and speed freaks circling the liquor stores on stolen bicycles at three in the morning. But I digress...
I was halfway home when my phone rang unexpectedly for the second time that day. The caller ID said it was Shuny and I assumed she was calling to find out how closing at work went or remind me to do something when I worked next. To my surprise it wasn't Shuny but her husband Nick.
"Where are you right now?" he asked.
"Heading south on the 15, I'm 'bout twenty minutes from home." I responded.
"Okay...well, I was going to tell you to sit down for this but if you're driving then that's taken care of. There's something I've got to tell you..." he prefaced.
(And pause. Right there my brain leapt off auto-pilot, snapping me out of the ennui from my regular commute. Instantly I was shuffling through situations that my warrant such serious preparations from Nick. By the tone of his voice I knew right away that it was nothing horrible, no one was dead or dismembered, nothing had gone up in flames, but I still wasn't sure if he was about to tell me good or bad news. My thoughts then took the next logical step (and that would be the last time I'd be able to use logic that night) and it seemed reasonable that maybe this was something about Brandi. I had just begun to form a shocking thought, "OMG, Brandi must be preg...")
Nick interupted: "Brandi's engaged."
"..."
"Dude, are you alri..."
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" My laughter filled the air like confetti on New Year's.
It was just so preposterous, so ridiculous, so
that my only reaction was dumbfounded laughing. Once the initial wave had passed I regained my breath and was able to speak again.
"Dude, are you kidding? I mean, that's really funny and everything but even so it's not cool to be joking about that right now" I asserted.
"I'm totally serious, man. They got engaged over the weekend. Brandi had been blowing up Shuny's phone for the last two days but Shuny had forgotten it at home one day and the next day she missed another call because we were at dinner with my parents. She finally got a hold of her today" Nick told me.
"Okay. Wow, okay. Wait, is Brandi just fucking with Shuny? Did Shuny actually see the ring?" I asked.
"Dude, they came over to tell us. I've seen the ring. Apparently he proposed at the airport when she came back from visiting her family in Reno" he said.
"Wow that's crazy. Crazier still, she said yes?" I inquired.
"She said yes. They already have a date planned, a little more than a year from now" he told me.
"Wow. I don't even know how to process that. Like, I don't feel anything either way; I'm not happy, hurt, or jealous I just can't even wrap my head around what you've just told me."
"Dude, I couldn't even believe it so I can't imagine you making heads or tails of it right now. Here, Shuny wants to talk to you." He handed Shuny the phone and the first thing out of her mouth is:
"Can you even believe how crazy this is?" She went on to say," Well, they came over and immediately took us into separate rooms. I didn't think anything at first because I know things had been strained between the guys ever since it came out that Brandi and him were together and he hadn't said anything to Nick about it."
Nick's encounter in the bedroom went something like this:
They went in and started bullshitting like guys do; Nick listened as he was told how they hadn't planned on getting together in the first place and it just kinda happened. He was sorry he didn't tell Nick about it from the beginning especially since Brandi had just split from one of his best friends (Me, guys! Keeping track? Okay.) and he knew that was sure to be awkward. Then the engagement bomb was dropped and they talked about that for a while. Nick let him air things out and told him that based on his past track record with relationships he better not fuck Brandi over. His response was something akin to, "Why does everybody keep telling me that? Steve was the one who was making her unhappy, that's why they broke up." To which Nick responded simply,
"If I hear Steve's name come out of your mouth one more time I'm going to literally throw you out of my house."
Shuny described her encounter like this: They went into the bedroom and she could immediately tell that Brandi was nervous about something because she kept fidgeting and avoiding eye contact. She said that she had something really important to tell Shuny but now she was scared to. Shuny reminded her that she had been blowing up her phone for two days so whatever it was she might has well come out with it. Shuny then made that same step in logic and asked if Brandi was pregnant to which Branid replied, no. Then Shuny noticed something specifc about the way Brandi was fidgeting; touching her arm and wrist. Then Shuny saw the ring and because Shuny's a woman she immediately she could tell which finger meant what even in reverse. The engagement dawned on her and her initial response was, "No. NO. No. NO! Are you crazy?" she asked though I assume that even then she already knew the answer. Brandi replied,
"He realized he loved me and couldn't be without me when I was gone to Reno for two days."
"Okay, well that makes him crazy, why'd you say yes?" Shuny demanded.
"You know me," she said "I'm impulsive." She emphasized the word as if it were the most essential attribute and explained everything fully."
"Brandi, impulsive? Impulsive is deciding out of the blue to go out and get ice cream NOT get married!"
After the respective encounters were done and the two who were newly engaged left Nick got on the horn and called me. He had made it clear to Brandi that telling me was the first thing he was going to do once they were gone considering he was forced to sit quietly on things just a few weeks ago. She acknowledged with muted heedlessness.
I still don't know what to make of it let alone how to feel about it. I have this inner assumption that I should either be jealous or enraged but for the life of me I don't care enough either way and honestly that makes me feel a bit guilty. This was my girlfriend of over a year and as much inner turmoil as I went through in the first weeks after our break up I find that with this new information my reaction is the exact opposite of what I would have expected. To clarify, I know that I still love and care about Brandi: I've long since known that as either a blessing or a curse I am a man who loves women and I am defined by forgiving past transgressions and retaining, if only in the most minute amount, traces of true love or at least the rose colored memories of time well spent. I really want her to be happy and as unbelieveable as an engagement only twenty-eight days later may sound; maybe it's right for her. Brandon's most astute observation about this whole thing comes closest to making it all understandable: He told me, "You know how you've told me you want your life to be like a sitcom; filled with wacky friends instigating outrageous situations and all lifes problems get resolved within the timespan of three commercial breaks? Well, I think Brandi is like that too except instead of a sitcom she wants her life to unfold like a romantic comedy and in that kind of world, no matter how crazy it may seem; in Brandi world you just don't say no to a proposal."
I thought on that and it really makes the most sense out of all the other explanations. I really want to believe that this is just the perfect thing for her. I don't want to look at it and see two people crazy enough to think that an engagement after less than a month is a good idea. I don't want to see them as crazy because if they're crazy that makes my ex-girlfriend crazy, and if my ex-girlfriend is crazy then that means I've spent the last year with my girlfriend being crazy and if my girlfriend was crazy then that must make me crazy too for sticking it out as long as I did.
That's just a bad reflection on me and I've got enough stuff to make up for in my life without bringing the question of sanity into the equation.