Seven
One proposal down, one to go. We still had to get a marriage license, Cara needed her dress, I needed something to wear, and then we needed to get our asses to the courthouse and make this sucker official.
It was hard keeping everything from my other friends. Ansel might be kind of a pain in the ass sometimes, but he knew how to keep a damn secret. He was like a vault.
I tried to keep the conversations casual, saying that I was busy looking for a job and would get back to them when I could. A lot of them were in school, or working multiple jobs, or dealing with bad mental health episodes, so we didn’t get to see each other as often as I would like. I saw Ansel and Cara the most.
I told my mom about the proposal and I thought she was crying on the other end of the line.
“Mom, you know this was just for the money, right? And that you hate weddings and all that go with them?” My parents were deeply in love, but didn’t show it the way a lot of people did. I’d grown up used to it, but had learned that other people’s parents didn’t have pretend fights just for fun and then burst out laughing when neither of them could keep a straight face.
“I know,” she said, and I heard a sound like she was blowing her nose. “I’m just so happy for both of you. I know it’s not real, but you’re my girls and you’re taking care of each other. What more could a mother ask for?”
“You’re ridiculous,” I said, but now I was getting emotional.
“You’re going to send us pictures, right?” she said.
“I don’t know. If someone takes some. This whole thing is turning into a big production. I hope it doesn’t get out of hand. I just want to get it done. Did you talk to the financial guy?” My mom had offered to make the first contact with the financial planner who was in charge of paying out the account. I wondered how many other clients he had with stipulations like mine.
“Yeah, he was out, but I left a message with his assistant. I’ll deal with it for you. That’s my job.” I was relieved, because all that money stuff made me so anxious that my brain literally shut down and I couldn’t think when people started talking about things like annuities and IRAs.
“Thank you so much. That’s a lot.”
“I know. Being an adult is hard sometimes, isn’t it?” Now I felt like I was going to cry for a different reason.
“And sometimes you still need your mom,” I said, choking up a little.
“Oh, baby. You need to come and see us some more. Get on a bus, we’ll pick you up at the station.” I hadn’t been back to see them in a while, and I definitely had guilt about it.
“I’ll bring Cara after we get married. We can have a fake reception at the house.” My mom made a little sound of glee.
“I’m so glad you said that. I was dying to ask if we could do something. We could do it in the barn and set up tables and have a cake and –”
“Whoa, Mom.” I had to cut her off. “We’re not going to need a cake and all that. This is a fake wedding, right? Fake.” I was probably going to get tired of telling my parents this wasn’t real.
“Oh, I know. But I still think we should have cake. Every special occasion deserves cake.” She knew how to make me cave.
“I know you’re right. Okay, there can be cake.”
“And maybe some pretty lights and decorations?” This was going to be a disaster.
“You’re pushing it, Mom. Let me talk to Cara and see what she wants to do. She might not want to do anything but having lasagna with the family.” My parents always made lasagna on Friday nights and Cara had spent more of those nights with my family than her own. She could actually make my mother’s recipe better than I could. I had never been much of a cook, but she had a gift for it.
“Fine, fine. Talk to your fiancée.” I could tell she was smiling.
Technically, Cara was my fiancée, so I wasn’t going to argue with her. I also kind of liked hearing Cara referred to as my fiancée. No idea why. It just sounded good.
“I will,” I said and then she put me on with Dad, who wanted to build us both bookshelves until I told him that we weren’t living together, and neither of our apartments was big enough for bookshelves. He was grumpy about that and downgraded his ideas to making us book ends.
At last I got off the phone with him and called Cara.
“My dad wants to make us bookshelves and my mom wants to throw us a reception, how are you?” I said in a rush.
“Um, not great. My landlord says that his son is coming back to live with him and he wants my apartment for his son to live in, so he’s giving me some time to find a new place, but not much.”
“Wait, what? He’s kicking you out?” She made a sound that was almost a sob.
“I’m on a month-to-month lease. So he can.” Wow. That was shitty.
“How long do you have?”
“Thirty days.” I swore. That wasn’t long at all.
“Fuck, Cara. I’m so sorry. I wish I could say that you could live here, but there’s only the two bedrooms and my landlord is an asshole.” Plus, I didn’t think my roommate was going to go for that at all.
“It’s okay, it’s not your responsibility. But it means I might need more than the twenty thousand.” Oh, right. The money.
“You can have as much as you need. Any amount. You can have all of it.”
“Lo, I can’t take all your money. I just can’t. I think I’ll be fine to find a place. I’ll just have to lower my standards, that’s all. It’ll be fine. I’m sorry for dumping on you.”
“Care, you’re my best friend and my fake fiancée. You’re never dumping on me. I’m here for you. For everything.” I wished I could put my arms around her right now and hug her until she didn’t need me to hug her anymore.
“I know. I still feel like I’m taking advantage or I’m a burden. Thanks, Mom and Dad for fucking me up like that.” Whenever she talked about the damage her parents had done, I wanted to get on a bus, go to their house and scream at them all the nasty things I had ever thought about them. And then I remembered that they didn’t deserve it. They deserved to be wiped from our lives. Exiled. Forgotten. Cara had parents, and their names were Tim and Grace Bowman.
“You’re never a burden,” I said.
“Thanks, Lo. Do you mind if I come over? I know it’s crowded there, but I don’t want to be at my place right now. And maybe you can help me look for apartments?”
“Yes, come over. Right now.” I didn’t care if Lisa didn’t like it. My best friend fiancée needed me. Friendiancee? The words didn’t matter. Cara needed me.
“I BROUGHT STUFF,” SHE said, when I answered the door. “Since I was crashing, I thought I would bring dinner. Is sushi okay?” I had been craving it actually, so that was great. Like she’d read my mind.
“You’re the best,” I said, taking the bag of sushi and giving her a hug.
“No, but I try.” She kept her voice down as we walked up the stairs and dashed through the living room to get to the back of the house where my room was. Lisa had taken the nicer, bigger room at the front of the apartment, but I was closer to the bathroom, so I didn’t have to stumble through the entire house when I had to pee at 3 am. So who was the winner?
“Is she here?” she whispered as I closed the door to my room.
“I think so? It’s hard to tell. She’s really quiet and spends most of her time listening to music with those giant noise-cancelling headphones, or sometimes she disappears for like three days. I never really know, so I never feel comfortable running around the house in my underwear. It’s kind of annoying.” She nodded and flopped down on my bed.
“Sometimes I think about getting a roommate because it would be cheaper, but then I remember that I’d be living with a stranger and that would be awful.” I lay down beside her. My bed wasn’t as big as hers, so we were smushed a little.
“Yeah, you’re right. I should have vetted potential roommate candidates, but I was desperate and right out of college and she seemed nice. I mean, she’s not horrible. It could be so much worse. Most of the time I don’t even know she’s there, which I guess is good.” Cara turned on her side and popped open the box of spicy salmon and avocado rolls. I broke our chopsticks apart and she handed me my sweet potato and avocado roll and box of spring rolls to share.
“I don’t want to move. I like my neighborhood. I don’t like my apartment, but I wish I could afford to stay there. Now I’m going to have to find a different route to work and new takeout places.” She pouted and stabbed a piece of sushi with her chopsticks before dipping it in soy sauce and popping it into her mouth.
“That sucks. I wish you could move in here, but Lisa is distantly related to the guy who owns this place, so I’m pretty sure she’s not going anywhere and that’s why the rent is so low.” I had it so much better than a lot of my friends. Ansel was cursed by terrible apartments. Every single one he’d lived in had been more awful than the last. And he wasn’t renting cheap shitholes either. One of his places had been infested with bedbugs even though it was brand-new, one had had a roof cave in, and one had been condemned right after he moved in. He had other traumas as well, so we had all wondered if he just had bad taste in apartments, or if he was born under the wrong star.
“That’s okay. I’ll figure it out. Now that I don’t have to worry about school, I can put all my extra money to rent. What little extra I have.” She groaned and pulled her laptop out of her bag after setting her sushi aside. I was still busy stuffing my face with mine.
“So let’s see where my next crappy apartment is going to be.” I sat up and we put the laptop between us and started looking.
Immediately, things looked grim. Real grim.
“This is a closet. Like, an actual closet that has somehow been turned into an apartment. And I don’t think I could even fit in that shower. Also, where is the stove?” We clicked and clicked, and it was bad. I’d hoped we would find even one that might be acceptable, but no such luck.
“We don’t have to find one right now. You’ve got a little time. We can try again tomorrow,” I said, closing the laptop so Cara would stop clicking and getting sadder and sadder. Her shoulders had sagged and I could tell she was on the verge of tears.
“We’ll figure this out. Worst case? I’ll give you some more money to get a better place.” She started to protest, but I put my hand up.
“I’m not letting you live in a cockroach-infested closet when I can prevent that from happening. You’re my friendiancee. So deal with it.” She snorted.
“Friendiancee? Is that what I am?”
“Yup. And I’m yours.” Even though I didn’t have my ring on. “Speaking of that, when is this grand proposal happening? Because I want something shiny on my finger.” She looked down at her hand where she’d been spinning her ring around and around.
“You just have to be patient. I’m working on it. I got a little sidetracked with this apartment thing.” Ouch, now I felt like a bitch.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have put that much pressure on you about it. I know we’ve both got other shit going on.” A lot of other shit.
“I know,” she said, leaning back on my pillows and closing her eyes. “I just want things to stand still for a while. Just stand still and breathe and not have to worry so much. Just for a while.” I wanted that too, so I copied her position and closed my eyes.
“We’re still right now, together.” She let out a deep breath and I snuck a peek at her.
“You’re right, we are. This is nice. I always feel so much calmer when I’m with you. You make everything slow down a little.” She did the same for me. Whenever I was flipping out about something, I knew that if I talked to Cara, she would sit me down and tell me that it was going to be okay and help me come up with a game plan with bullet points to tackle whatever the problem was that I was flipping out about in the first place. I didn’t know what I would do without her.
High school had been so hard without her. We’d tried to keep in touch, but things happened and we just weren’t in each other’s lives anymore. But even if we hadn’t talked for months, when we did talk, it was as if we’d started in the middle of a sentence that had never ended. A sentence that, if I had my way, would go on forever. I didn’t know where my life was going to take me, but I knew that I wanted Cara by my side for the whole ride.
“Do you want to stay over?” I asked, hoping she would say yes. She’d said she didn’t have to work until tomorrow afternoon, so I hoped that was an incentive.
“Can I?” What a silly question.
“If you let me finish the spring rolls.”
She smiled and my heart did a little twirl.
“Deal.”