Six
I refused to tell Cara where we were going, so I had to tell her when we had to get off the subway. I could see the wheels clicking in her mind, but she didn’t know where we were going. She couldn’t.
Once we got to the street, I pulled out my phone to make sure I knew where I was going and then said, “this way.” She gave me a skeptical look before following. I’d brought us to one of the main shopping areas in the city, but I bypassed most of the big stores, and took her down a few side streets to some smaller shops.
“This one,” I said, pointing to a small shop with an awning. Cara looked up at it and smiled.
“You would bring us to a candy place.”
“I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t,” I said, holding the door open for her. “This is just the first stop. I have some more adult stuff in mind.” That made her raise her eyebrows.
“Not adult like that, Care. Get your mind out of the gutter.” We walked together into the shop that looked like Willy Wonka’s wet dream.
“Never,” she said, nearly crashing into a display of candy bars. I grabbed her arm at the last second.
The place was cram-jammed full of every kind of sweet thing imaginable, floor to ceiling. I didn’t even know where to look. Bins of jellybeans, buckets of salt water taffy, bouquets of flower-shaped lollipops. I went right for those and grabbed a basket to put the lollipops in.
“You’re not getting those for me, are you?” she asked, lurking behind me, looking a bit more apprehensive.
“Yes, I am. You don’t have to eat them all. Go ahead and get whatever you want.” Her eyes lit up.
“Even coconut jelly beans?” she asked. I made a disgusted face.
“Yes, even those. Ew.” She had the oddest taste in candy, but I couldn’t help but laugh as she scampered through the shop, both of us filling up my basket pretty damn quickly. I made sure to get some of the stuff I liked as well, and then spent a small fortune at the checkout counter before I filled my tote bag.
Our next stop was a wine and cheese shop for something a little more grown up. I picked a bottle of sweet sparkling wine and Cara got a premade cheese plate with prosciutto, olives, and crackers.
After we had the food, I steered us in the direction of the river. I hoped we could find a semi-secluded spot so we could just sit together and I could do my thing.
It took a while, and I was about ready to dump the candy, which was beyond heavy, but at last we got a good spot where there weren’t too many people and we had a great view of the city, as well as a clear patch of grass free of goose poop. I hoped.
“I should have brought a blanket. I didn’t put that on the list,” I said, sighing.
“You made a list? I’m so proud.” Cara clapped her hands and I stuck my tongue out at her as I dumped the candy down with a thump.
“Now I wanted to take you to my parent’s house and go up in the barn and maybe hang this damn thing from the ceiling and have you pluck it down, but you know that I’m not that organized. You are. So I’m expecting something spectacular. But you know me, so you probably knew this was how it was going to be.” I couldn’t not do the traditional thing and get on one knee, so I said that and held out the ring. She already knew what it looked like, so I didn’t have to do the whole dramatic thing with the box.
Cara was still standing and I couldn’t stop looking at her face. In that moment, there was nothing more real than the expression on her face. Her hands trembled as she held them up to her mouth. As if she was shocked. As if this was the real deal.
“You are such a dork,” she said in a soft voice. “And you forgot the question.”
Oh, right. I should have written this down, but my whole thing was going to be spontaneous.
“Cara Lynne Simms, will you marry me so we can both get at my grandmother’s money?” She held out her hand and I slid the ring on her left hand.
“Yes, Loren Alyssa Bowman, I will marry you to get at your grandmother’s money.” I heard someone cheering and Cara went beet red. She immediately sat down and hid her face with her hands.
“You said this wasn’t going to be in public,” she said through her hands.
“I didn’t think anyone was paying attention. No one in Boston is usually paying attention to anyone else.” She let her hands drop and looked around to make sure no one was staring. No one was. They’d all gone back to their own business.
“Give me my candy,” she said, holding her hands out.
“Fine, fine. I worked for like, an hour on this proposal. I mean, I wrote down a bunch of ideas that I scrapped and decided to do this instead, but still. I worked on this.” Cara got the bag of coconut jelly beans open and crammed a few in her mouth and grinned at me.
“You did good. Now I have to do something better. I can’t let you top me.” I cringed at the jelly beans and pulled out a chocolate bar that had caramel and nuts in it.
“You don’t have to propose. I didn’t have to do it, but I figured I would, since we had the rings and all. No pressure. I need to contact the guy who is in charge of the account and let him know that I’m getting married so he better be working on getting me a check. I know he’s going to want to see the marriage certificate, so we’ll probably have to fax him a copy or something. But as soon as I have the check? Cha-ching!” I devoured the rest of the candy bar and went for the cheese and crackers.
“We should have a toast,” Cara said, opening the wine. “Do you have any glasses?” Shit, I’d forgotten something else.
“I really needed you to help me plan this. I’m a mess without you.” Cara took a swig from the wine bottle and passed it to me.
“We don’t need cups, see?”
I smiled at her and sipped from the bottle. We could always make it work.
“No, we don’t need cups. Here’s not needing cups, and marrying for money.” I raised the bottle and had a sip before passing it back to her.
“Here, here,” she said before drinking from the bottle as well.
“This is really nice, Lo,” she said, leaning back and grabbing some cheese. “You did a good job. And you didn’t have to. We didn’t need to do the rings. But I can’t help but feel good that it’s on my finger. It’s so pretty.” She held out her hand and tipped it back and forth to watch the shine.
“Now you’re making me jealous.” I looked down at my left hand that didn’t have a ring on it.
“You’ll get yours. Now that I know what’s expected of me.” I waved her off. I hoped she didn’t do anything too outlandish. We just needed to get our asses to the courthouse and get this done. Honestly, I had no idea how to even get married. Could we just go and do it? I had no idea. I should probably figure that out ASAP.
“Can we just go and get married whenever, or do we have to do something else? People go to Vegas and do it, right?” She shook her head.
“No. I’m not sure about Massachusetts law, but we probably have to get a marriage license and then wait for a few days before we go to the courthouse.” Damn. That sucked.
“Ugh. Well, we should do that next week, right?”
Cara nodded and looked at the grass.
“I know this is fake and everything, but...” She sighed and looked up at me.
“But what?” Panic had struck me like a speeding train.
“But I kind of want to... do it. Like, have a pretty dress and a bouquet. I don’t need bridesmaids and a reception and all that, but I was picturing going to the courthouse in regular clothes and it just doesn’t seem right. Is that okay? You can wear whatever you want, but I guess I want that little bit of ceremony.” She looked so guilty for wanting that and I couldn’t stand it.
I leaned over and hugged her.
“Care, you can wear a dinosaur suit if you want to. I don’t give a flying fuck. And if you want a bouquet? I’ll get you the best damn bouquet ever.” I already knew what she’d want in her bouquet because I knew all her favorite flowers.
The tension in her face melted into an adorable smile. I would do anything to make her happy. That’s what best friends did.
“What are you going to wear?” she asked. I hadn’t thought about that either.
“No idea. I might need you to help me pick something. I’ll go shopping with you if you want.” Her cheeks got red.
“What?” I asked.
“Um, I might have already picked a dress out at a shop. It’s way too much money, but I figured I might as well. I mean, if and when I eventually do this again, I’ll probably want something else. Styles change so fast, so I don’t think what I want now will be what I want when I’m thirty. So I might as well use it now, right?”
“Sounds good,” I said. I had never thought about wedding dresses like that, so I couldn’t relate, but I was going to pretend and nod and smile through this whole thing. She was doing this huge thing for me and I wanted her to be happy while we were doing it.
“I can go with you to see it, if you want.” I’d never thought about going to a wedding dress shop, but now I was curious. I was curious about all of this stuff now.
“Really? I trust you to tell me if it looks awful on me.” Nothing had ever looked awful on her, and I would tell her that too, but I agreed for now. The idea of seeing Cara in a wedding dress hit me with a bolt of longing. I wanted to see it. I wanted to see her.
“It’ll be fun,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure if that was the right word. We went back to the food and didn’t talk for a while. I was starting to think about what I might want. After a few minutes of pondering, I still had no idea. I’d have to try something on, I guess. Maybe I’d try a dress on at the shop. What the hell, why not? You didn’t wear a wedding dress every day. Might as well take my opportunity. Treat it like Halloween.
When we had eaten as much as we could and had nearly finished the bottle of wine, we ended up laying on the grass and staring up at the sky.
“Once you get all of your bills and shit taken care of, what are you going to do with the money?” she asked.
“I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I’ve only gotten to the ‘getting out of debt’ stage. I’m not sure. I’ve never really had a lot of money, so I’m just used to not buying things. I don’t even know how to indulge, isn’t that sad?” My parents had always been on the lower end of middle class, and we’d flirted with the poverty line more than a few times.
“If I had it, I’d buy lots of fancy cheese and maybe a better apartment and there’s this Kate Spade bag I’ve been looking at for like a year, but can’t justify buying.” I turned my head to look at her.
“Which one?” She got out her phone and showed me. I committed it to memory and hoped that when I went online that I could find the right one because I was getting her that damn bag.
“Other than that, maybe traveling? I want to go so many places.” Right, traveling. That would be cool.
“We can take a honeymoon. That’s another perk of getting married. We get to go on a trip. Since I don’t have a job, I can go anytime.” In fact, that was a great idea and I was going to start looking at plane tickets as soon as I got back.
“Could we?” Her voice was so hopeful. Looks like we’d found a few ways to spend my money.
“Absolutely. It’ll be a friendship honeymoon. Best friends go on trips all the time. Where do you want to go?” She let out a breath and laughed.
“I have no idea.”
“Me neither,” I said.