Chapter 8: Couples Quiz

My mother squinted up at the deck with her hand over her eyes.

"Novak?" she said. "I don't know. We had so many. The lady with the white van?"

"Novak," Mina said. "I'm sure of it."

Eli drank his coffee.

He didn't look up at the deck.

"It's a common name around here," he said, to my mother, pleasantly. "There's three pages of us in the Milwaukee phone book."

"See?" my mother said. "Common. Mina, go get dressed, the quiz is at three."

Mina didn't move.

She stood there with her sunglasses on, looking at him.

Then she picked up her mug and went inside.

My shoulders came down, the knot in my neck loosening at last.

"There's a quiz?" Eli said.

"Mina's idea. For the bridal party and their dates." I rubbed my face. "Couples questions. Whoever knows each other best wins."

"And what do they win?"

"Mina decides."

"Of course she does."

At three o'clock the tent was full of folding chairs and the lights he'd fixed were glowing even in the daytime.

Mina's four bridesmaids sat with their husbands and boyfriends.

They were all lawyers or married to lawyers.

They all had very good hair.

Mina and her fiancé sat at the front, holding little whiteboards.

Eli and I sat in the back row.

He had a dry-erase marker in one hand and his other arm along the back of my chair.

"You okay?" he said quietly.

"No."

"Good. Nobody believes a couple that's calm."

Mina stood up with a stack of cards.

"Rules," she said, smiling. "I ask about one partner. The other writes the answer. Ready?"

The first questions were easy.

Her favorite color.

His middle name.

Where they went on their first vacation.