Fourteen
We spent the rest of the day arguing about where we were going to go for our trip. Turned out that I did have opinions about locations for our vacation.
“There are too many things that can kill us in Australia. No way. I am not being attacked by a giant spider-kangaroo-wombat,” I said, and Cara burst out laughing.
“I hate to break it to you, but there is no such thing as a giant spider-kangaroo-wombat, and if there was, then it would be fucking adorable and awesome and I would want to take pictures with it.” I groaned.
“No, Cara. No. We are not doing that.” She made a huffy noise and crossed Australia off the list of places to visit.
“There are so many other places that have less things that can kill or maim us,” I said.
“You know that people are hit by cars in Boston every single day, right?” I did, but that was different.
“At least those cars aren’t being driven by giant poisonous spiders.”
“They aren’t in Australia.”
“Maybe they are. How do you know? You’ve never been there.” I grinned at her and she shoved me away and threw a pillow in my face.
“You’re impossible.”
“Your impossible wife,” I said, emphasizing the word. I had no idea what it was about that word, but I loved the sound of it. I enjoyed saying it and thinking of myself as Cara’s wife. Technically, I was. I had a shiny marriage certificate to prove it. In two weeks we needed to get a certified copy made at City Hall and then the paperwork for the withdrawal notarized. And then the money would be wired to my brand-new bank account just for that purpose, minus some that was going to a savings account for tax purposes. Fuck that. Who wanted to think about taxes? I mean, other than accountants, and maybe not even them.
“Yup, my wife. My wife who has decided that there’s something wrong with an entire continent just because there might be some dangerous animals. There are dangerous animals in the US too.” Now I was the one who wanted to shove a pillow in her face.
“Anywhere else. Anywhere other than Australia,” I said, and she sighed heavily.
“Fine, crush my dreams.”
“Isn’t that also my job as your wife?”
“Stopppppppp.”
Monday we went to my local bank to get the paperwork notarized. I wished we could get the marriage certificate, but that wasn’t going to happen because of bureaucracy. I just wanted my damn money.
I took our wedding dresses to a shop to be cleaned and preserved. Who knew if either one of us was going to wear them again, but they were special dresses and I didn’t want them to be stained and stinky forever.
I got some more job rejections and had another interview, but the company was a little too hardcore about pushing sales and memberships and even if they’d given me an offer, I wouldn’t have accepted. Plus, the pay was crap.
“No one wants to employ me,” I said, resting my head on my arm. Cara and I were out with Kell and Lane as sort of a double date. Sort of.
“You just need to find the right place. All you need is one to give you a chance.” Well, that wasn’t happening yet.
“It’ll be fine. You’ll find something. Have you thought about maybe volunteering somewhere that could potentially turn into a job?” Cara said.
“Like where?” Honestly, I was up for suggestions. In my mind, I knew that I could live on the inheritance money for a while if I needed to, but the idea of not having a job and a steady source of income, even with the extra money, made me feel like I was going to break out in hives.
“A library maybe?” she said.
“I could try that. I’ve also thought about maybe getting something that’s more part time, so if I did that, then I could still work at a job. The idea of anything other than full time terrifies me.” I wasn’t going to blow this.
“That sounds like a good idea,” Cara said, brushing my shoulder with her fingers. She’d been doing that a lot lately. Or maybe I was just noticing it now? I wasn’t sure. It definitely seemed like she was taking more opportunities to touch me.
“Seriously, really smart,” Lane said. “I’m not sure if I’d do that if I got a pile of money. I’d probably blow it all on bags.” Lane had an entire closet just for her purses, including many that were vintage and probably worth some dough. Right now she had a designer bag slung over the back of her chair that I didn’t need to look up to know it was expensive. The purple of the bag almost matched the purple streaks in her dark hair that she’d recently added. Lane also had an obsession with dying her hair any and all colors.
“If you had to save your purses or me from a fire, you’d pick the purses,” Kell said, pouting.
“Oh, babe. You can rescue yourself. The purses can’t. They don’t have legs, or a way to carry themselves. They’re helpless.” She cradled her bag like a baby in her arms.
“You see what I have to deal with?” Kell said, gesturing to Lane, who was now cooing endearments to the bag. “How is marriage going so far for you two?”
We were still keeping up the pretense that we were a real couple, and it was less difficult than I expected.
“I don’t know, Care, what do you think?” I said, putting my arm around her.
“It’s pretty great so far,” she said, leaning into me.
“I can’t believe you’re really together, this is so wild,” Kell said, and Lane put her bag back on the chair to stop Kell’s long red hair from getting dragged through her plate of spaghetti. Kell was always ending up with food in her hair or on her shirt. She carried extra clothes and detergent pens in her bag at all times.
“Is it?” I asked. Lying to my friends did make my gut twist with guilt. But they’d jumped on board with everything so quickly, that it almost didn’t feel like lying sometimes.
“Yeah, I mean, you’re best friends and then you say you’re getting married. With like, no dating step in between.” I looked at Cara and shifted in my chair.
“Yeah, well, we just decided it was right, you know?” Cara said. “And it just worked out. I know I’m not impulsive, but when Lo said she wanted to get married, I couldn’t dream of saying no.” She did that thing where she put her hand on my thigh under the table. She’d been doing that a lot more, I was sure of it.
“Well, I did do a perfect proposal,” I said, grinning back at her.
“Yes, you did,” she said, leaning closer. The noise in the restaurant faded and everything about Cara sharpened. Her eyes that were sparkling with our shared amusement. Her warm hand, which was still on my leg. The brightness of her cheeks because she’d had a few drinks. Her scent that I could pick out, even in this crowded restaurant filled with so many other smells. I could find her even in a sea of other people. I would always find my best friend.
“Tell us the story,” Lane said. “I haven’t heard it yet.”
Cara and I took turns telling first my proposal story and then hers and flashed our rings again and talked about where we were going to go on a trip and how we thought living together was going to work out.
“Honestly, when we moved in together, I was freaking out, but it was such an easy transition,” Kell said. She and Lane had been together for four years and I was surprised they weren’t married yet. They were one of the first queer couples I’d met in Boston, and they’d been my inspiration for what a good queer relationship could be.
“Except for the time when we fought about what to put on the walls. And where to put it,” Lane said with a smirk.
“You just didn’t understand my theme,” Kell said to her, and I snorted.
“Was your theme clutter? Because that’s what it looked like,” Lane fired back.
“Oh, unlike your collection of teapots? Because that looked pretty cluttered to me.”
“You love my teapots,” Lane said, leaning closer. It was like Cara and I had disappeared and Kell and Lane were in their own world. That was what I wanted.
“Ugh, I guess. I kinda love you too,” Kell said, leaning only a few inches away from Lane’s face.
“Oh you do, do you?” Lane said, smiling.
“Yeah, I do.” They shared a sweet kiss and it made my chest ache. I was so happy for them, and supported them, but seeing that when I didn’t have it and wanted it so much was rough sometimes.
“Hey,” Cara whispered as the waitress came to ask how everything was going and if we wanted drink refills.
“What?” I whispered back.
“Are you okay?” she said softly.
“Yeah, fine.”
“You sure?” I nodded and ordered another Coke.
“I’m fine.”
Pretending to be married was fun most of the time, and then there were the moments when melancholy and jealousy would creep in through the back door of my mind and take up residence at the front of my thoughts.
It wasn’t Cara’s fault that we weren’t really in love, and it wasn’t her fault that I had come up with this ridiculous plan in the first place. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but mine. My one consolation was that it would be over soon and we could hopefully go back to being best friends. We’d been through so much already and our friendship had survived. So why wouldn’t we make it through one little fake marriage?