High C

17. You're The Wurtz

After a final check in the mirror, Bob headed downstairs feeling like he looked like someone dressed for a misty mountain morning coffee commercial. He passed the living room which was indeed decorated like a shoot for a limited edition holiday roast, with all the cozy Christmas splendor of any Hallmark movie home. For the number of decorative cushions and throws strewn about, he had to assume it was room Gene avoided at all costs.

He followed the voices to the dining room and came upon the sight of the table set for a feast. Steve and Maya Adler sat at either head with DeeDee, Gene and Rodney on the far side. Bob's empty corner chair waited between Natasha and Steve, with Miss Sticks seated to Natasha's right.

The talking hushed as Steve hurried Bob along. "There he is! Park it over here."

Bob pulled out his chair and posed with his foot on the seat, leaning over his bent knee with his elbow, an opportunity to test the stretchiness of his borrowed pants. "Look how good I look! Is this the cover of my Christmas album? I should just stay like this all night."

Across from him, a smile for his silliness bloomed on DeeDee's face. Any other appreciation, however forced by some, was disrupted by a grinding mechanical noise coming from Gene's spot at the table. He was seated in some tricked out, motorized ergonomic chair, fiddling with the buttons of a control panel to adjust its height.

"Isn't this nice, all of us together?" Natasha said.

"I think it's great," said Bob, taking his seat. "I told Natasha she could have exactly two male friends so this works out perfect for me."

"What about Rodney?" Gene asked, adjusting the width between his arm rests.

Rodney, in his charcoal double breasted evening jacket and silver-grey poplin undone at the collar, raised a brow from behind his wineglass and straightened up at attention. "Present," he said.

Bob chuckled easily, "Rodney won't really count going forward."

"I should count the most," Rodney said.

"Gene," Steve said patiently, "could you just pick a setting and be done with it?" Gene narrowed the chair's width so that the arms were no longer invading DeeDee's space. He lowered the seat and brought the back forward so that he was not so much in danger of putting elbows on tables as armpits. He adjusted it higher again.

"We always open a present early, but I just couldn't wait till tomorrow night to give that to him," Steve explained. "It's all done with the push of a button, no knobs to twist, no levers to pull."

"Is it comfortable?" DeeDee asked.

"Quite comfortable. As you can see it's steel and foam rubber," Gene said as though showing off a flexed bicep.

"And if you eat too much at dinner you can just back it up instead of undoing your pants," Bob joked.

"Ahh, you make me think of parties of my youth," Steve said. "Anyway, let's eat!"

Maya aimed a narrowed stare in Bob's direction. "I know you," she said, meaning the moment he'd had only minutes to prepare for was upon him.

"Do you?" he asked innocently.

"Yes, but where do I know you from?" The wings of her white silk blouse formed a curtain over her starter plate as her fingers laced to a chin rest. The stare narrowed further, pulling her cheekbones higher.

Bob might have been insulted that she couldn't place the man she'd begged to be her sour arm candy, but he couldn't believe his luck. Maybe they'd get away with it after all.

"I guess I have one of those faces."

"The face completely escapes me."

"Story of my life."