January, 1994

I stood with Amy, outside of her dorm with our luggage, waiting for our ride from Boston to Quebec. The morning rush-hour traffic was lighter than I expected on a Friday. It was already after seven, and even the Dunkin Donuts coffee in my hand was cold. Didn't stop me from drinking it, but it wasn't good.

"What kind of car are we looking for?" Amy asked, checking her watch for the third time in as many minutes. She wasn't a morning person, and standing outside in the cold this early was making her grouchy.

"Did ya leave your patience upstairs, babe?" I put my arm around her and hugged her close to me. "They're only nine minutes late." I kissed the tip of her nose. "It's a minivan, I think."

"It's wicked cold out here. I can't feel my feet." She shivered as she snarled at me and then handed me what was left of her cold coffee. She nodded toward the barrel at the bus stop a few yards away. I took the hint and pitched both our cups.

I put my arms around her again, hoping to warm her up a little. "It's gonna be even colder in Canada, especially in the Château de Glace tomorrow night. I hope you packed your long underwear." She tried to shrug me off, but realized pretty quick that it was warmer that way. She was right. It was cold, even for January in Boston. We both grew up in Lexington, outside of the city, so we were used to Mass winters, but it always felt colder in the city. Especially this winter.

"Yeah, sure. I packed the sexy long johns. You know, the ones with the red lace and no crotch?" She shook her head. Christ, the cold made her pissy. I could practically hear her eyes rolling.

"At least tomorrow night, we get to soak in the hot tub before we go to bed. The Château de Glace staff highly recommends it. Said so in the brochure." I tried to kiss her. She bent her head to my chest to foil my effort, and I got a mouthful of knit hat instead.

"Stop it," she said. "There are people around."

"So what?" I was getting annoyed at her. I was cold too. Didn't make me act like a jerk.

"So I don't need you pawing me out here in front of the dorm."

I sighed and hoped that the rest of the weekend would be better. My uncle was getting married at the Château de Glace, an ice hotel about forty-five minutes from Montreal. According to the brochure he sent with the invitation, the entire place was carved out of ice and lit with all different color lights. There was an ice chapel for the ceremony, and an ice bar where they served drinks in glasses made of ice. As my mother always said, Uncle Joe had more money than he knew how to spend, so he had booked the whole place for the wedding guests.

My parents had driven to Canada earlier in the week to help Uncle Joe with the arrangements. Since Amy and I had our first week of classes for the spring semester, we couldn't leave until Friday. Neither of us had a car, so Uncle Joe had arranged a ride for us with some other wedding guests from somewhere in Pennsylvania. They were picking another couple up in Newton, a suburb of Boston. I think he gave them extra money for gas or something. My uncle is friggin' loaded.

At that moment, a white minivan with Pennsylvania plates and a car-top carrier on the roof pulled up in front of the building. The passenger leaned out and yelled to us, "Kevin and Amy?"

I grabbed both suitcases and handed Amy my backpack. "I just hope the heat works," Amy said as we put our luggage in the back.

"Yeah," I said, knowing that if she didn't warm up and take a nap, she'd be bitchy all day. "Me too."

I opened the sliding door on the passenger side of the Dodge Caravan. "We've got the heat cranking in here 'cause the ladies were cold," the driver said. "You might want to take off your jackets before you get in and get settled." I helped Amy get her coat off and held it for her while I took off my own.

Amy stepped into the van, and because I didn't give her a hand, she tripped over the middle row seat belt on her way to the back, and fell into the lap of the woman on the passenger side. She was really nice about it and everything, so I was surprised by how embarrassed Amy was. She smacked my hand away when I tried to help her, and she was blushing like friggin' crazy. At first I thought her cheeks were just red from the cold, but I found out later that she was wicked embarrassed, and she got red every time she thought about it.

As soon as we sat down, Amy took out her headphones and turned on her Discman. I could hear the beginning of the Pearl Jam CD that she loved, blasting through the foam over her ears. She was gonna go friggin' deaf before she turned thirty with it that loud, but I wasn't about to tell her that and get my head bitten off.

It was quiet in the van for a minute after we pulled away from the curb, so I introduced myself. I didn't know these people or how they knew my uncle, so I figured I'd make conversation.

If you've ever tried having a conversation from the back row of a minivan, you know that it doesn't work. After a couple of attempts to talk to the guys in the front, I gave up and talked to the woman in front of me, the same one Amy had fallen into. The blonde woman behind the driver was asleep, so the brunette with the long, thick mane of curly hair turned in her seat to talk to me. She had an accent as thick as her hair.

I told her our names and explained that my uncle was the groom. She told me her name was Andrea, only she pronounced it An-DRAY-uh, with a flutter on the R. I nodded and pretended to understand everything she said. After a flurry of words that hardly sounded like English, she finally said something I understood.

"Your accent is so cool."

Wait. My accent?

"Uh, okay," I said. I knew I was making a face, but I was genuinely confused. "It's just the regular Boston one." I figured that she and the guy in the passenger seat were the couple from Newton, since the van was from Pennsylvania. When you live in Eastern Mass, you're used to the Pahk-the-cah-in-Hahvud-Yahd kind of English.

"I only eber heard that kind of accent on the TB before I met these guys," she said. "I just came here from Espain six years ago."

"Spain, huh? But I thought you lived in Newton. They talk like me there too," I said.

"No, no," she said. "My husban Marco and I live in Pennsylvania." Payn-seel-vah-nya, huh?

The driver looked at me in the rear-view mirror and said, "My name is Mark. Give her a coupla hours. She'll be calling you guys Kevino and Amycita, too.

She made a face at me and turned to slap the driver on the shoulder. She shook her head at me and said, "I gonna take a nap now. Nice to meet you." She smiled and turned back to face the front of the car.

I took my own Discman out of my backpack and put the headphones over my ears. I was just about to turn on some Nirvana when I saw the driver look at me in the rear-view mirror. There was something about the way his eyes shifted that made me think he was about to say something he didn't want me to hear, so I did the only logical thing. I pulled my Bruins toque over my eyes, adjusted my headphones, and pretended to sleep.

So much time went by before they started talking, that I almost fell asleep for real. It was getting pretty warm in the back of the van with all that heat cranking, and I caught myself snorting as I dozed. I guess that was what they were waiting for. Proof that I was asleep.

I heard mumbling, and then the heater stopped blowing so loud. I guess they were too hot, too. It was quiet for a minute, and I imagined the driver looking back at me one more time before they started to talk.

"Dude, please tell me you found strippers," the passenger said.

"Wasn't easy, but I found a guy in Montreal that would send two of them out to the Sheraton tonight. I had to go to the fuckin' library to find the Yellow Pages for Montreal. The poor blue-haired lady at the desk almost had a fuckin' stroke when I told her I was looking for strippers in fuckin' Canada," the driver said. "You can call to confirm them later when they open."

"I can use the car phone? Isn’t that wicked expensive?" the passenger asked, sounding surprised. And he was definitely a Masshole. Said car just like I do. .

"Sure. The strippers are important, but keep it short. The number's on that paper on the dash."

Strippers? I was nineteen. I’d never been to a bachelor party. Women taking their clothes off in front of a bunch of men? This was the coolest thing I’d ever heard of. I had to get in on that.

And a friggin' car phone. My parents didn't even have one of those yet. I bet Uncle Joe had one for the front seat and one for the back though. He had a cordless in his bathroom, for crying out loud. The phone in my dorm room wasn't even cordless.

Uncle Joe was my mother's youngest brother. I think he was, like, thirty-six. I hadn't met his girlfriend yet, but I heard my mother and grandmother talking a couple weeks ago, and they said that she was ten years younger. My grandmother was worried that she was just marrying Uncle Joe for his money. My mother was more worried about where Uncle Joe's money came from. He had one of those jobs where no one really knew what he did. We knew he worked in a big office on Boyleston Street, and he was rich. My mother never said it in front of me, but I think she thought he sold drugs or something.

The conversation in the front seat turned to hockey and whether the Bruins and the Flyers would make it to the playoffs, so I turned my music on for real and snuggled closer to Amy.

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