We’re such a good fucking family that I want us to go on Family Feud because we would win, even if it was just the three of us, because it was just the three of us. You laughed when I said it last week—That’ll be the day—but when I went on your computer and looked at your search results, there it was: How do you get on Family Feud? I knew it. I knew that once I proposed we would all be in a better place. We are on the roller coaster now and there is no jumping off the ride. Our life is the photograph that rich dimwits pay for at the theme park because their memories alone are inadequate. We took the leap of faith and the coaster was slow to start—amusement parks are all aging and dangerous—but we took our chances. We boarded. We strapped on our seatbelts. And now our hands are in the air and we are coasting.
Our guesthouse is for guests—Ethan and Blythe can’t make it to the wedding because Blythe caught a parasite from a piece of sushi—but there will be guests eventually. I like it better this way. We are nesting and look what I did for you, Mary Kay! You aren’t the town widow who got fucked over by her druggie husband and her sleazy brother-in-law. You’re my fiancée. You stashed my guitar in the closet—I don’t want to go down that road again, you know?—and I do know. I’m not RIP Phil. I don’t want to be a rock star and it’s like you texted your semi-friend Erin, who is vying for Melanda’s position in your life: I always heard second marriages were like this. I know we’re not married yet but JESUS. Every day I’m like oh. So THIS is how it can be. So yes. Bring New Guy to the party. Believe in love!
I didn’t sneak into your phone or invade your privacy. You changed your settings and when you get a text the words are right there because for the first time in your adult life, you have nothing to hide from me, from RIP Phil, from anyone. I only look at your back-and-forths when you leave your phone open on the counter because you have to pee and a lot of people look in their spouses’ phones, Mary Kay. I’m sure you’d do it to me too if I were more like you. But I’m me. And you’re you. And we’re not gonna be those unbearable in-your-face assholes who create a Mr. and Mrs. Joe and Mary Kay Goldberg account. We’re not in denial about our individuality. But in a good relationship, you respect your partner’s needs. You’re a worrier so you don’t need to know that I just blew five grand on a vintage tabletop Centipede videogame formerly owned by a fucking Pizza Hut. You don’t need to know that Oliver still didn’t sell his show—issues with Johnny Bates’s likability—but continues to peddle it around that vile no-good city with his agent. To be me is to be aware of all the mugs of urine in the world, in our house. I know where you keep your diary—up high in the closet that’s yours now—but I haven’t opened it once and I dip my razor in the sudsy sink and the shaving cream clings to the blade.
Perfect.
I pull my skin and the razor does what razors do, it removes unwanted tiny hairs—I don’t want your face to burn when we get in bed together—and all is right in this world, in this home, on this razor blade, and you knock on the doorframe. “I’m just so fucking happy. Is this… Is this how it’s gonna be?”
I dip my razor in the suds and once again, perfection. “Yes,” I say.
You nod. You wear socks. And I tsk-tsk—my floors are hardwood, slippery—and your floors were different and you can’t wear socks around this house and walk safely and you are stubborn—socks are your tights in summer—and you are always stumbling and sliding. I want to protect you. I nag you to wear shoes or go barefoot but you think you’re Tom Cruise in Risky Business. You imitate his famous sliding dance and I shake my head and tell you what I always tell you when you walk around in socks, that life is risky business. “Young lady,” I say. “You need to put on some shoes.”
You take a step closer and you are over it. “Are you almost ready?”
I like our nagging because it means we are a real family. We’re being ourselves. You had PMS last week and I surprised you with O.B. tampons and you laughed—Thanks… I think—and you ate the leftover pizza I was planning to eat for breakfast and I was annoyed—I told you one pizza wasn’t enough for three people, that’s TV bullshit when they do that—and you were annoyed—You try getting PMS every month and see how you deal when your own body turns against you—and the Meerkat was annoyed—Mom, can you please not talk about your period so much?—and it was fucking awesome! Because it means we’re like Seinfeld and company on Festivus, we’re airing our grievances instead of letting them boil inside of us. There are weeds in our garden and they complement the flowers and that’s how I know this is real. The flowers and the weeds, I can’t tell them apart, but at the end of the day, I love them all. We’re not afraid of Virginia Woolf in this house. When we tousle it’s a fair fight. Clean.
You blush, horny like the fiancée that you are and you tell me that you’ll be on the deck and I breathe you in and you kiss my cheek and shaving cream covers your lips and I wish it was whipped cream. You giggle. Dirty. You reach for me with your hand and the door is wide open but you are a fox. You like the risk and this is who we are now. Lovers. You want my hand in your hair and I do what you want and there is no reason for you to know about RIP Beck or RIP Candace—your tongue grazes my shaft—and what we have is real. It’s now.
You stand. Dizzy. I zip up. Dizzy.
You are bashful, avoiding your own reflection in the mirror, as if what we just did was wrong. You swat me with a washcloth—Bad Joe, Good Joe—and I throw up my hands—Guilty. I tell you that you make me feel young and then I take it back. “That was the wrong word,” I say. “You make me feel better than young. You make me feel old. I always liked the song ‘Golden Years,’ and I know we’re that old, but I get what Bowie meant in a way I never did before.”
You like that. And you laugh. “Fun fact,” you say. “When Phil proposed, I was sleeping.”
I’m used to this by now. When I make a rock ‘n’ roll reference, you respond by talking about your rock ‘n’ RIP husband. And it’s good, Mary Kay. It’s healthy. You’re remembering all the little things that made him fallible because nothing compares to me and I fucking love it when you see the light. I’m excited for the rest of our lives and I grin. “No.”
“Oh yes,” you say. “He put the ring on my finger and left the house and it took me a long time to notice it and he was so mad…”
I do not speak ill of the dead but wedding days are like this. You reflect. I kiss your forehead. “I love you.”
You lean your head into my chest. “Yes, you most certainly do, Joe.”
And then you smack me on the ass and remind me that we have fifty people waiting downstairs and I salute you. “Aye, aye, Hannibal.” And then you change your mind and you close the door. “Or do you prefer Buster?”
I lock the door that you closed and I press my body into yours. I run my hand down your back and I pull your panties off and I am on my knees and who gives a shit about the fifty people outside when I am in here, Closer as in closest?