I got another text from Jim, once we were about halfway down the road. You guys still coming?
Yeah, I replied. Ten minutes.
“Jesus,” Vicki said as we navigated through the buttes. “Your mom just texted me.”
“What does she want?” I asked.
“She said she heard about the groundbreaking,” she said, “and she said they’re all coming.”
“That’s nice of her, I guess,” I said.
“You know,” Vicki shook her head. “If we live here for the rest of our lives, I still don’t I’ll ever get tired of this view.”
“Right?” I said. “This is it. You and me, forever.”
“This is it,” she smiled and took my hand over the console.
“The traffic is heavier than usual,” I noticed.
“Yeah,” she said. “Usually there’s only one or two other vehicles down this way. Now there’s tons of them.”
“A Mercedes, with a California plate,” I noticed.
“Holy shit,” Vicki said. “You don’t think…”
“No,” I said. “Surely not. How would they have….”
When we arrived at the build site, on our land, though, our suspicions were confirmed. The place was packed with vehicles.
“Oh my God,” Vicki said as we pulled up. “Half of these are from California.”
“AJ,” we both said in unison.
We exited the vehicle, and there was no one to be found. We navigated through the miles of luxury vehicles and finally got to a clearing. As soon as we rounded a corner past a tree, we heard the yell,
“Surprise!”
There must have been two or three hundred people standing on our land cheering for us. I wrapped my arm around Vicki, who was just as shocked as I was. I noticed then, the tiki lights, and the banner hung on two bamboo poles.
Congratulations, Henry and Vicki.
After the cheering died down AJ, Phoenix, Leila, Jagger and Landon all approached us.
“So,” AJ had a microphone in her hand. “The Paradigm Productions Group is so grateful for everything you’ve done, we’ve decided to throw you guys an engagement party.”
“Yeah,” Phoenix took the microphone. “Your L.A. friends are all a bunch of assholes, but we got them all here.”
The whole crowd roared in laughter, and I saw a few raised glasses from faces I hadn’t seen in a year.
“Oh, my God,” I shook my head. “Thank you guys.”
Vicki was crying. “Oh my god. You guys are so sweet.”
Out of the crowd, about six women, dressed to the nines in high end designer dresses emerged and embraced Vicki so tightly they nearly knocked her over.
“So,” Phoenix continued. “Everybody eat, and drink up, and let’s get this party started!”
Everyone cheered, and Vicki completely disappeared in a whiff of perfume and gushing women and heels. We had never met each other’s L.A friends, and she had mentioned a few times missing them. I had been trying to think of a way we could have gone back for a visit, but I guess AJ took care of that for us.
I moved through the party, and found drinks and food and everywhere we stepped, someone congratulated me. I found River pretty quickly.
“Good to see you, bud,” he slapped me on the back.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “You only saw AJ in Facebook photos, huh?”
He laughed. “I talk too much. I realized I gave myself away. Hot chick though. Really. Who’s she with?”
Jim approached me before I could answer. “I was worried you weren’t going to come.”
“Well,” I said. “It did occur to me it might not be a good idea to piss off the guys that are building our house.”
He laughed and then Kelsi Matthews showed up.
“Hey, Kelsi,” I said and gave her a quick side hug.
“Sorry I couldn’t tell you,” she laughed. “I was biting my tongue so hard yesterday when Jim came into the office to invite you.”
I laughed. “You knew then?”
Jim laughed. “Yeah, I couldn’t even look at you. You were sitting there and your face was beet red and I just had to look away.”
They both laughed.
“Where are those sentimental construction workers?” I asked. “And a gift?”
“Uh, yeah,” Jim said. “About that..”
I just laughed. Jim and Kelsi disappeared, and that’s when I spotted a face I thought I’d never seen again.
“Mr. Sanchez,” I gasped.
My old boss stood regal in a high end suit on Teddy’s Roosevelt’s land. He held a plastic champagne flute gingerly in his hand. I smiled. I hadn’t seen those yet at the party, and I knew my old friends would snub them. But AJ and the Paradigm Group had probably deeply agonized over what kind of champagne to serve our sophisticated L.A. friends. If they couldn’t appreciate that, then fuck them.
“Good to see you, Henry,” he said. Despite it nothing having been so long since I’d last seen him, Sanchez looked a fair bit older than I remembered, but he had aged in a way that made him appear more distinguished than infirm. His hair was salt and pepper rather than the black with flecks of grey, but he appeared to be a few pounds lighter. His suit was, as always, bespoke in whatever the latest Italian style was, and the watch-geek in me noticed that he had upgraded his wristwatch to the new Rolex that all the Arabian sheiks were going ga-ga over.
“I’m glad you could make it out,” I said.
“I’m really impressed with what you and Vicki are doing,” he said. “I thought you were throwing away your career. But, I think you two got a hell of a good thing going on here.”
“I appreciate that,” I said.
“I’m glad I could play a small part in bringing you two together,” he said. “I always thought you two would make a great couple. I always wondered why you never went for it.”
I
