Big Girls Do It Married (9 page)

"My brother has a daughter who's a teenager. Teenagers are difficult."

"Especially when you didn't want kids in the first place, like in our case."

"Oh, come on, Anna, I'm sure that's not—"

"I heard him say it, Jeff." I took a too-big swallow of wine and coughed. "I was listening out my window after Dad dropped Jared and me off, one Sunday night. He and Mom were arguing. Dad said he had to skip visitation for the next few weekends. Called it 'business.' Mom called it bullshit. She wanted him to spend more time with us, and he kept making excuses. Eventually my mom badgered him into getting so pissed off he just admitted it. 'I never wanted kids, Laura!' is exactly what he said. Mom flipped the fuck out on him. I refused to see him after that. I guess I always knew he didn't want me, but to hear it..."

"That's a shitty thing to say."

"Yeah. He knew it, too. He saw me in my window, tried to explain how that's not what he meant, but—"

"But the damage was done." Jeff's eyes were full of compassion.

"Yeah. That was when I was fifteen. I didn't really see him except for a handful of times since. He died a couple years ago. Cirrhosis of the liver."

"What about your mom?"

I pinched the bridge of my nose. I hated talking about my parents. "Jeff, this is history. I hate—"

"It's important to me."

I finished the wine and spun the cup by the stem between my fingers. "God. Okay. Well, my mom is more complicated. I love her, I do. She raised me by herself after she and Dad split up, and she did the best she could. Then she met her new husband, Ed. She changed when she met him. I don't know even know what it is, exactly, but she's just...different. She was always high-strung, passionate and outspoken and all that—"

"Gee, I wonder why that's familiar," Jeff said, grinning.

"Yeah, I wonder," I laughed. "But when she met Ed and starting dating him, she got more...just bitchy. I can't explain it much better. She's just not as nice anymore. It's something to do with Ed. He's an okay guy, it's not like he's not a perv or a complete dickhead or anything. He's just—I don't know—passive aggressive? Never openly disagrees with you or does anything outright rude or insulting or whatever, but he just makes these little digs, so subtle you have to think about whether or not he actually insulted you. By the time you figure it out that you're pissed off about it, it's long past the time you can say anything."

Jeff grimaced. "Ugh. I had a lieutenant in the Army like that. Except when someone like that is your superior officer, it's even worse, because if he does insult you, you can't do dick about it."

"Yeah, see, my mom thinks Ed can do no wrong. She thinks he's like...mini-Jesus or something. I don't know. Mom and Ed have been married for, like, almost fifteen years."

"How old is Miri?" Jeff asked, after a brief pause in the conversation.

"Um...twenty-three? Twenty-four? I'm twenty-six, and she's a little over two years younger than me. So yeah, she'd be twenty-four. She got married to Kyle when she was twenty, just barely. Their twins, Eric and Dawson, are three. Why do you want to know all this?"
 

"You never answered me about whether twins run in your family," Jeff said.

I sighed. "I don't know. It might, I guess. I think I remember some talk of one of my relatives being part of a set of twins, but I don’t know for sure.” I narrowed my eyes at Jeff. "Why does it matter?"

"Well, my brother has twin girls. So if it runs in both of our families, then if you and I ever had kids, there's a big likelihood we'd have twins."

"You're thinking about kids already?" Something like panic shot through me. "Jesus, Jeff. I haven't even fully processed that we're actually going to get married yet. Can we slow this down a tiny bit?"

Jeff didn't answer for a long moment. "It was just a thought, honey. I'm not saying I'm ready for kids, or trying to have a conversation about it. It was just a realization. If you have twins on your side, and I do mine, then its something we should be prepared for, if and when we're ready to start thinking about kids. That was my only point, I promise."

I let out a long breath. "I'm sorry, I guess I'm just feeling like things are moving a bit fast."

Jeff tangled his fingers in mine. "How so?"

"Just everything. Things with Chase over the last couple days really messed with my head, I think. You proposing was a surprise in itself. Now all that with Chase is settled, and suddenly we're engaged, which I'm happy about." I rubbed my thumb on his knuckle. "I don't want you to think I'm not happy or excited about this, Jeff. I am, I promise. It's just a lot, when a matter of weeks ago I wasn't even sure who I was really in love with. I'm overwhelmed, I guess."

"I guess that's understandable," Jeff said. "Things've been crazy for you lately."

"No kidding. I just...I want things to be normal for a hot minute. Just you and me. Let me get used to the idea of being engaged. It still doesn't feel real."

"I hear you. We'll give it time. No rush. We can plan when you're ready."

That sounded good to me.

CHAPTER 4

Jeff let it be for about three months. We went out together, we worked. We made love. He never brought up the wedding, never asked me if I was ready to plan, or even dropped any hints.
 

I fell even harder in love with him for that. I knew it was on his mind. I could see it in his eyes when he looked at me, when he took my hand in his and touched my ring with his thumb.
 

I think maybe the first hint I was ready for wedding plans came when I realized I'd thought of the engagement ring on my finger as "my ring" as opposed to "his ring." It seems like a silly distinction, I guess, but it was an important one to me. No one had ever given me anything worth a lot of money. My cars had all been bought by me with money earned by me. I'd been given earrings and necklaces before, but nothing expensive or extravagant. We were spending a lot of time at his house, and as much as I was beginning to think of it as "home," it was still
his
house, not mine. My car was old and starting to break down from one thing after another, so Jeff would often have me drive his Yukon if I needed to go somewhere, but it was still
his
truck, not mine. I had
my
cell phone,
my
clothes.
 

So, to me, the ring on my finger—worth more than my car several times over, I was pretty certain—was
his
ring. A thing he'd bought and had given to me, to mark me as his. But it wasn't mine.
 

I was at the store, buying milk, bread, beer, frozen chicken breasts, feminine pads, razor heads, and hand soap. The cashier paused in the process of swiping and scanning my items to glance at my left hand, resting on the little ledge with the card reader. My ring glinted in the fluorescent lights, and the cashier, a tiny, awkward-looking woman with sharp features and oily brown hair,
reached out and touched my hand near the ring.
 

"Wow, that is
gorgeous
!" she said, her wide, genuine smile showing nicotine-stained teeth.
 

I smiled at her, then glanced at my hand. "My ring? It is pretty, isn't it? Thanks."

My ring?
The realization of what I'd just said hit me like a bolt of lightning.
Is it my ring? Or his?

The cashier was speaking to me, but I didn't hear her.
 

It is
my
ring, isn't it?
 

I realized she was waiting for me to answer a question. "I'm sorry, what'd you say?"

"I asked when the wedding was?" She resumed scanning the last of my items and totaled it. "Forty-six eighty-two, please."

I counted out the cash, wondering what the correct answer was. We didn't have a date. We'd been engaged three months, and we had no date, no venue, no caterer, nothing.
 

"Um, we haven't set a date yet. We kinda just got engaged not too long ago," I said, eventually.
 

"Oh, well, congratulations, then."

"Thanks." I took my receipt and left, my head spinning.

I sat in Jeff's truck, the bags of groceries on the floor behind the passenger seat. Our groceries. Things for me, things for him, things for us. I was going to go home—to Jeff's house—and make dinner for us. I had half the closet full of my clothes. Space in the cabinet for my toiletries. Coats in the front closet. My phone charger in the kitchen.
 

I'd never lived with anyone before. Jeff hadn't asked me to officially move in, or made any comment about the mysterious influx of my things into his house, but my stuff seemed to suddenly have their own specific place in the house, and I found myself putting them there.

Jeff wasn't my boyfriend or my lover, or my fuck-buddy. He was my fiancé. I'd agreed to marry him.
Marry
him.

Sitting in the truck,
his
truck, I realized I'd only said yes because that seemed like the right answer. It was a way of making the decision between Jeff and Chase. It wasn't because I’d actually expected to get married, to have a wedding.
 

Get married. Have a wedding. The phrases rolled off the tongue easily enough, slipped through the mind quietly enough. But to put images to them, make them reality, that was different. Married meant only Jeff, for as long as I lived.

I tried the thought on: Anna Cartwright. Wife of Jeff Cartwright.
 

Hi, this is my husband Jeff.
 

My husband, Jeff.

Suddenly I saw flowers, lighting a candle, Jeff's hand on mine. Jeff sliding a ring, a simple band, on my finger. Jeff in a tuxedo.

Me, in a dress. All I could see of the dress, in my imagined fantasy, was waves of white, and my skin, and Jeff kissing me. Movie images, not reality images. But I could see it.
 

Where did you start planning a wedding? I had no idea.

I pulled out my phone and called the one person who might know. "Hey, Jay. So...if I was, hypothetically speaking, wanting to start planning a wedding, where would I start?"

Jamie was silent for a long time. "Um. I...don't know. I've never thought about getting married before. I'm not that kind of girl any more than you are."

"Yeah, so now you know my problem."

"Does Jeff know you're thinking about this?"

"No, I just now realized it."

"Oh. So...what happened that you're suddenly thinking about it for real?"

"It was weird. I'm at Meijer, grocery shopping. Well, I was, I'm in the car now, but...the cashier asked about my ring, and I realized I was thinking about it as
my
ring."

She got the significance of it immediately. "Oh. Wow."

"Yeah. Wow. And then I realized I was shopping for
us.
And I'm going to take the groceries
home
. To my
fiancé.
And it all just kind of sunk in."

"Well, I think most girls start by looking at dresses. That's what they show on TV, at least. I don't know. That's where I'd say we start. Maybe it'll make it all seem more real, or whatever."

"What kind of dress do I get?" I wore skirts, and even a few full-length dresses every now and again. I mean, it's not like I'm a tomboy, wearing jeans and sweatshirts all the time. I'm a woman, and I like fashion as much as any other girl. I read
Cosmo
and
OK
and magazines like that. I like romantic comedies. But I don't know anything about wedding dresses.
 

Jamie laughed, but it was a confused, disbelieving laugh. "Well, how the hell should I know? It's not like I sit around watching
Say Yes to the Dress
."

"Do too. I've caught you watching it."

"That's a dirty lie. Take it back."
 

"The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem."

I heard a blender in the background, and she sounded distant as if she was holding the phone between her shoulder and ear. "I'm not an addict. I can stop any time. It's just because I get so bored sometimes. All those long nights alone."

"You haven't spent more than three days alone at home in all the time I've known you."

"Shut up. So when are we going to look at wedding dresses, Miss ‘I'm ready to get married finally’?"

"Tomorrow? Lunch and then we can go to...a wedding dress store. Somewhere."

Jamie was silent for a few beats. "I think you have to make an appointment. It's not like going to buy a new skirt."

"Oh. Well. I guess I'll have to Google wedding dress boutiques or whatever and make an appointment? Or maybe we can go and just look, at first. Kinda get our feet wet."

"Your feet, maybe. Mine are staying dry. And out of wedding dress shoes."

"That's what you say now. If I'm getting married, then so are you. Just watch."

"God, now you've gone and cursed me, you meddling bitch."

We laughed, more at each other than because anything was funny. "I'll call you when I know what the hell I'm going to do."

"’Kay, see you later."

"Jamie?"

"Yeah?"

"You're gonna be my maid of honor, right?"

Silence. "Um. Obviously. Unless you have a secret
other
best friend I don't know about." Jamie laughed to make it a joke, but I could tell she was emotional. "Except I'm not really a maid. I think you have to be a virgin to be a maid. Or at least, virtuous. So I'll be the skank of honor."

"You're not a skank."

"Yep. That's me. The skanky-ho of honor."

"Jamie, seriously."

"The horny slut of honor."

I sighed. Her self-deprecation wore on my patience sometimes, more frequently now than ever. I used to think it was just her way of joking, but I was beginning to think she was serious.

"Jay, knock it off. You're being stupid."

"Okay, fine. Whatever. Call me."

 
"Bye."

Jeff came out and took the bags from me, and we put things away in companionable silence. I leaned back against the kitchen counter, spinning my ring in circles, wondering how to start talking about it all.