Read Online Lovesick by Alex Wellen - Free Book Online Page A

in my savings account, and Friday’s paycheck, I have a total of about $4,500. This assumes I go a few months without paying down my student loans. I don’t know what this gets me, but I’m hoping I know it when I see it.
    “Do you know her ring size?” he asks.
    “I don’t.”
Boy I stink at buying engagement rings.
    “Okay, you’re just going to have to eyeball it,” he determines. “You can have it resized later.”
    Sid knows San Francisco much better than I do. I read the signs for him as he drags me around Union Square. We take a right off Sutter Street onto Grant, and then a left down a quaint alley called Maiden Lane. Our undisclosed location is manned at the front door by a brawny, bald militant-looking security guard who checks our names against a visitor’s register (or a watch list), scans my license into a computer, and then walks over and punches in the six-digit code to the elevator.
    We’re let off at the end of a long, completely white hallway. There is no floor directory. None of the offices display business names, just gold-plated suite numbers. To the right of the door to Room 304 is an intercom system. After a brief authentication argument, the man on the other side of the wall buzzes us through the double steel doors. I brace myself for the sudden blindfolds, black hoods, and cavity search. You’d think I’m here to pick up the Hope Diamond.
    The teeny-tiny two-room office is bubbling with life. The prospective groom to my left taps his left foot nervously; he pinches the inside corners of his eyes to make the headache go away. To my right sit two couples. One couple is busy ignoring eachother—him thumbing away on his BlackBerry and her yakking it up with a friend on her cell. The other young couple leans back shoulder to shoulder, half-asleep. In the center of the room there is a well-dressed, middle-aged woman and her teenaged daughter—they’re not speaking.
    Igor Petrov’s assistant, an emaciated man in his twenties with a thick five o’clock shadow, looks up long enough to scowl and then goes back to crunching numbers feverishly on a ribbon-printing calculator.
    Sid and I take a seat. An open doorway separates this room from Igor Petrov’s office. Sid peeks around the corner and gives his friend a quick wave hello. Leaning against the dividing wall I can hear the men next door arguing over—if I’m not mistaken—koala bears.
    “Small fry, you ever play Texas Hold ’em?” Sid whispers.
    “That some sort of Southern sex act? Zinger!”
    Sid is stone-faced.
    “You’re talking about ‘making whoopee,’ right?” I ask.
    “Never say ‘making whoopee’ again. Even
I
don’t say ‘making whoopee.’ Texas Hold ’em is a card game. When we start negotiating for this sparkler, I need you to put on your best poker face.”
    “No problem,” I say, rehearsing that face.
    Sid is appalled.
    “For crying out loud. Here,” he says, handing me his wraparound shades. “Wear these, leave the talking to me, and we’re in like Flynn.”
    Where would I be without Sid.
    “If you’re so ready to get married, then tell me about the Five Cs,” he quizzed me the other day.
    “The five keys to marriage. You bet. There’s closeness … commitment … caring … compassion, and, uh … credit cards? Is that five or six?”
    The diamond industry would be devastated to learn that I’d gone nearly three decades without knowing that diamonds are judged according to their color, clarity, cut, number of carats, and of course that fifth C—cost. But now, thanks to Sid, I did.
    They’re sitting ten feet apart, but Igor still uses the intercom system to beckon his assistant. A moment later the assistant returns, walking right up to the mother and daughter in the center of the room. He cracks open the red jewelry box and sparks fly. Diamond earrings. The teenager is so delighted she throws her arms around her mother and cries.
    I’m in the right place.
    Petrov is now screaming at someone