Toast monologue

TOAST

INT: AN ELEGANT RECEPTION HALL — EVENING

Tim is giving the Best Man's toast at Chase and Christina's wedding. He is holding up a flute of champagne and has obviously had a little too much already.

Tim

Ahem. Hello…everyone. As you probably know, I'm the best man. Although I'm here to stand by the groom, I'm actually honored to be a close friend of the bride's as well. That's how you get good real estate at the reception tables: befriend Chase and Christina separately. It's nice because I've gotten to see two people find each other, and to experience how much happier they are together than apart.

(Pauses to take a drink)

Oh, sorry. Not done toasting yet. I have to talk about the groom! What can I say? Chase and I have been friends since we were six years old. Six. He just walked up at lunch and said he had pudding and what did I have? and-bam-we were best buds. At six years old, pudding is the sacred cup of friendship. From then on, you're basically brothers. You share everything, whether you want to or not, you know?

(Pauses for laughter, looks at Christina)

Oh, jeez, Chris, I didn't mean it like that…

(Pauses to take a drink during laughter)

Okay okay okay, wait, I have to tell you how I met Christina, too.

We did cross-country together freshman year of college, before Chase drop-moved back home. Okay, so it was really wet that spring, and I was sitting in the grass under the bleachers during a home meet, listening to the rain on the metal seats above my head. And Chris ducks under there, with a purpose, you know? To get dry, I thought? She's soaking, and her hair is in like a wet braid, not like that fancy-schmancy do-up-ha, updo, whatever, Chris, you know what I meant!-she's got today.

(Pauses to take a drink, looks steadily at Christina)

And she lies down in the wet grass right next to me, with her shoulder against my hip, and she hooks her feet on the underside of the bleachers above my head. And she looks up, right at me, and she says, she goes, "Where do you think birds go when it rains? Do you think they have a way of keeping warm?" Like this is a normal question to ask a relative stranger.

And that's what's so special about Christina, I think. I'm not sure I appreciated it then, but that was before I went to Spain and found out how quickly your life can change when you leave it behind. I should've told her right then what a…an incandescent person she was. Most people barely think about the stuff that's right in front of them, so it takes someone really special to wonder about birds' happiness when they're not even there.

I just don't know how often you find someone who still thinks about you, so long after you're gone.