Ring Game by Pete Hautman

you ask Sophie?”
    “She’s having kind of a rough time right now. She thinks we’re spending too much on the reception. Plus, I don’t think she liked my wedding dress.”
    “Really? I thought they were all the same. Big and white.”
    “Mine’s a little different. Anyways, she’s kind of touchy right now. I’d just as soon not talk to her. Give her a couple days to cool off. I think maybe it was a mistake to tell her I was pregnant.”
    “If we hadn’t told her that, she’d still be trying to talk you out of marrying me.”
    “That’s true,” Carmen laughed.
    “Maybe I’ll take her out to lunch,” Hyatt said. “Show her my serious, trustworthy side.” He composed his face, flattening his cheeks and drawing his eyebrows together while keeping his eyes wide open. He made his mouth short and straight. He had learned the expression from watching Perry Mason , but Hyatt, instead of looking dark and intent like Raymond Burr, came across as vacant and confused. “What do you think?” he asked, keeping his lips tight.
    Carmen tipped her head to the side and looked at him carefully. “I think you’d better work on that one, Hy.”
    Hyatt let his face snap back to its usual smiling, nobody-home look.
    Carmen said, “She’s gonna figure it out, you know.”
    “Figure what out?”
    “That I’m not really preggers. All she could talk about the whole time they were fitting the dress was how I needed to leave a little extra room. The thing’s gonna be huge on me.”
    “That’s okay. Nobody’s gonna notice.” He looked at his watch. “You about ready?”
    “Ready for what?”
    “It’s time to go meet the preacher, Carm.”
    The refrigerator in the sacristy was secured by a padlock.
    The Reverend C. Bruce “Buck” Manelli scowled and gave the door handle a futile tug. These damned Lutherans didn’t trust anybody. Oh well, probably nothing in there worth drinking anyways. Protestants always went for the sweet, cheap, Kosher stuff—Manischewitz, or Mogen David, or worse. Although a few weeks ago, at First Family of Christ in Edina, the Reverend Buck had found the sacristy to be stocked with a decent California Cabernet, a bottle of tawny port, and, to his delight, a nearly full fifth of Bushmill’s whisky. But not here. Not at Christ Free Lutheran Church.
    “Should be called Trust -Free Lutheran,” Buck muttered, then laughed at his own joke. He loved to laugh, loud and hard. “ Ha ha ha ha ha !” Five shouted “has.” He believed that laughter was good for the heart, and besides, life was funny. He opened the fake oak veneer cabinet above the sink. A pair of chalices, one old and worn, the other new and cheap looking. An open bag of whole-wheat communion wafers, presumably unconsecrated. A plastic-wrapped package of paper napkins. He grabbed a handful of wafers and munched on them as he searched the rest of the tiny room. The cabinet beneath the sink was jammed with Amway cleaning products. No surprise there—Gruenwald was a distributor. Buck sorted through the pile of magazines on the small table near the door— Light and Life , Christian Single , and the National Enquirer . In the table drawer, beneath a few old church bulletins, he found a copy of Swing Set, The Bi-Weekly Journal . Buck flipped through the magazine, smiling, then laughing as he carried it out of the sacristy to the chancel area at the front of the church. He sat on a chair beside the communion table, eating the chewy wafers and reading as he waited for Hy the Guy and his bride to be.
I had often remarked to my husband, Todd, how attractive I found Michelle, the cashier at our neighborhood A&P. Her wild red hair, bright blue eyes, and incredible shape actually made her A&P apron look sexy. What a waste for a girl with her looks to be stuck behind the counter, scanning frankfurters and weighing zucchinis! Of course, I knew that Todd thought she was attractive too. Every time I went grocery shopping I would come home and