Steve Denyes: Music

Wedding Bells Will Ring

(Steve Denyes)

(excerpt from "Waiting on Arleen" monologue)

This whole time Arleen was coming in for coffee, Tom was still back in San Diego finishing up his last two weeks of work before the wedding. I started to wonder if Arleen had told Tom about her little visits to the Bean Counter. I started to wonder if Tom knew about me at all. Then, of course that got me wondering what Tom was like—what he had that I didn’t—aside from the obvious.

For better or worse, a few days ago, all my questions were answered instantly when Arleen brought him in to meet me. It was one of those rare afternoons at the Bean Counter when there wasn’t anybody in the place. Will was off running some errands somewhere and it was just me standing behind the counter with no place to hide.

Arleen had a nervous smile on her face when she introduced us. Tom said he’d heard a lot about me and it was nice to finally meet me and he’d heard so much about me. He figured we should all get together for a beer sometime after all this wedding business settled down. He was tall, well-dressed, good-looking, friendly as hell really—but I managed to hate him anyway.

The whole thing was just a bit more than I could handle. I just thank God they got their coffee to go.

And then, as if that wasn’t enough fun for one day, I got another surprise when I got home that evening.