The invitation had promised bubbles in exuberant cursive. Did they mean champagne? Why not say that? It was, Evan thought, a dubious enticement to tempt a grown man to a child’s birthday party. Yet here he was sipping stoically from a plastic flute filled with some sweet sugary fizz of questionable alcoholic content.
“You like Ben and Tori,” Naomi had insisted, when he had groaned about the engagement.
“I don’t dislike them,” he had clarified.
The baby appeared to have acquired the status of a minor deity in the home. Professionally produced images that riffed on its inevitable smallness covered the walls. Here was Atticus curled into Ben’s flabby bicep. There he was lying naked in a thatch basket of freshly laundered whites as though he’d snuck in there himself in a fit of puppyish mischief. Next was the child’s hospital band, like a tiny nightclub entry bracelet, encased in a glass exhibit. A plaque gave the particulars: Atticus Tobias Fletcher, Jan. 4, 2008, 8lbs, 7 oz. Why always the weight? Why not 19 inches or whatever height babies were.
