12. Peace, Justice, and Shots
Mina
“Can I take this off yet?” Aldo asked as Kevin swung the minivan around for our sixth U-turn, jostling him between Haley and me in the backseat.
“No.” Haley adjusted his blindfold again.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate the thought,” said Aldo, “or that I’m not surprised you’re throwing me a surprise party. But… blindfold, cryptic answers to all my questions, the fact that it happens to be my birthday, it’s kind of out of the bag at this point, don’t you think?”
“You keep thinking that,” Kevin told him.
“I mean, if this were some kind of prisoner-exchange-mob-hit-for-the-greater-good scenario, we’d talk about it first, right? And you wouldn’t get all dressed up for that.”
I tried not to be hurt by the very tiny edge of real nerves under the joke.
