Page 137 of The Holy Grail
He snapped his fingers. “Right. So, as an excuse, food poisoning is doubly effective because it not only gets you out of the date, but it usually keeps them from trying to go out with you again in thefuture, because they have the image of you—vomiting and whatnot—in their head, so they just wash their hands of you completely.”
“You know, I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but that one actually isn’t bad.”
“It’s brilliant, is what it is. However, my best one is pretty boring, without much flair to it—”
“Flair?”
“Yes,flair.Anyway, the excuse is just … work. I used it a lot when it was true, and then I just kept using it, even when it wasn’t, because people always believe the work excuse.” He slung an arm around Jules’ shoulders. “Now what’s in your arsenal of excuses?”
“I don’t have an arsenal,” she replied.
“Well, you must have a few excuses that you use.”
She shook her head. “If I don’t want to go out with someone, either the first time or the second, I just tell them I have no interest in going out with them. You know … be honest.”
Evan and Malcom exchanged a secret, man-look, and Jules elbowed Evan in the stomach, making him grunt. “Holy shit, was that one of my red flags? Myhonesty?”
Instead of answering the question, because only an idiot would do that, Malcom abruptly motioned off to the left, where all the fruit stands were. “I’m going to head over there and get some peaches for a cobbler,” he announced, before quickly walking away with his bag of yams, leaving Evan to deal with Jules, who could now be heard saying, “My honesty is one of the best things about me.”
“Brutally honest people always think that, but they’re the only ones whodothink it. The rest of us think it’s a red flag.”
By the time Malcom got to the fruit stands, enough guilt had set in for him to glance back, hoping Evan was still in one piece. He and Jules appeared to be still bickering a little, but without much heat. Evan was now facing her, his arms holding her against him as he peppered her face with tiny kisses in between bits of inaudible dialogue.
At first, whatever was being said seemed to be bouncing off Jules, if her impassive body language and expression were any indication. However, as Evan kept talking and continued to plant kisses everywhere, she seemed to thaw a little and it wasn’t too long before her expression softened, which had Evan looking pleased with himself.
Which, in turn, brought a contented smile to Malcom’s face.
After setting the bags from the Farmer’s Market down on the countertop, Malcom turned down all offers of help. So, after Evan grabbed a beer from the massive fridge and poured Jules a glass of wine, the two of them sat at the island and watched Malcom get the yams in the oven (his alternative to regular baked potatoes), then start prepping the salads.
After less than five minutes, however, he abruptly stopped chopping vegetables, looking self-conscious. “Don’t take this personally, but I need you both to leave.”
Jules and Evan exchanged a glance before turning back to Malcom. “Like, leave and go home?” Evan asked.
Malcom shook his head. “No. Just leave the kitchen. For some reason, having you two watching me is making me feel somewhat self-conscious, and I don’t want to mess anything up.”
“Really? Because I’ve watched you before,” Jules pointed out.
“I know, but with both of you there, it’s a lot. It’s making it hard to focus, and the last thing I want to do is cut off a finger.”
“I don’t want that, either,” said Jules. “I like your fingers.”
Evan got off his stool. “All right, we’ll go.”
“You aren’t offended, are you?” Mal asked.
“No, of course not,” Evan answered, then added with a smirk, “It’s my curse to be a distraction.”
With an amused frown at the back of Evan’s head, Jules got off her stool, and with beverages in hand, she and Evan filed out of the kitchen.
He immediately made his way to the turntable and record collection. As if on the same wavelength, they set their drinks down and began thumbing through the extensive vinyl, both sighing at the utter lack of organization.
“This is beyond unacceptable,” Evan muttered. “We’re fixing this now.”
“Are you sure? Mal’s gotten pretty used to it being like this.”
“I don’t care. This is not how it’s done.” Evan began transferring handfuls of records to the floor, to clear up space on the shelves for rearranging purposes. “Mal will thank us for it later. And if he doesn’t … I don’t care. This actually kept me awake the other night.”
With both of them sitting cross-legged on the floor, and Dawn Corleone watching from a few feet away, they worked out a system of alphabetizing, working mostly in companionable silence. Once in a while, one of them would hold up a particularly notablerecord which would raise eyebrows or produce a laugh, because the collection was very eclectic.
