She looked at us like we were actually supposed to name some places. Then she changed the subject, talking about Jess and Adam in a gossipy way, deciding this was a safe space to let loose her theories about what the bride and groom saw in each other. She didn’t know either of us so this was a risky proposition. She’d dated Adam before he met Jess. Did we know that? We did not. Well, she did. Like right before and kind of during. She never really “got” Jess and, furthermore, did not enjoy how righteous Jess probably felt, agreeing to invite a woman Adam used to sleep with.
“Maybe she just likes you,” Boots offered.
Georgette snorted and went on, undeterred.
“Then where’s my thank-you for training him out of jackhammering her pussy? He used to jam all his fingers up there like it’s ‘To Build a Fire’ and he’s using me for warmth, like he wanted to use my fallopian tubes for mittens. Like there’s a fucking game show buzzer up there. Like you know what I want to know? Who are the bitches before me who just let it happen?”
Boots stared out the window, trying to distance himself from the conversation. It was like someone had skimmed off the most offensive parts of Vadis and dropped them into a whole new person. Vadis liked to shock him for sport, not because she couldn’t help it. But I stayed with Georgette, sensing that if I broke off as well, it would make things worse. Only once was there a natural pause, when the driver announced that we were approaching the goat farm. We looked out to see clouds rolling over a muted sun. Trees entered the window frame and left just as quickly. On a hill was an oxblood barn and, behind it, the very tip of a tent.
Georgette was seated at our table for the reception. We discovered that we shared a birthday, though she was two years behind me. She was enchanted by the coincidence, but I had just been told to expect them and thus had no reaction. The DJ probably had our birthday too. She confessed that meeting people with her birthday was jarring if they were younger, because she imagined them coming out of their mothers’ vaginas at the same moment she was eating her cake. She tried to will herself to stop imagining it but all she saw was icing and blood.
“Cake, placenta, cake, placenta, cake, placenta.”
I was exempt from this imagery because I was older.
“Though,” she mused, “if you want to imagine me coming out of my mother’s vagina, I can’t stop you.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to ruin cake for myself.”
“I wouldn’t want to ruin vaginas for myself.”
Her collarbone was a speed bump that moved back and forth when she laughed. I couldn’t stop looking at her, unsure if I was attracted or repelled.
Then she kissed me. Sudden and efficient. An errand. I scanned the crowd for Boots, who had his back turned. I said nothing, mostly because I knew she did it to get a reaction out of me. Clive used to do this with zits or papercuts, less because he cared to show me, more because he was daring me to be scandalized. I wasn’t. Georgette had a similar expression—flirty but smug, like she knew what I was thinking. But what I was thinking was: What if I left Boots for you, Georgette? But then what if it ended and we were stuck in some twisted time loop manned by my former boss? Would I want to be haunted by you then? Would we be with anyone if we knew we could never get rid of each other?
“Go like this,” Georgette said, gesturing for me to wipe lipstick from my face.
I put my fingers to my lips but found myself rubbing instead of wiping.
For the first hour of the reception, Boots talked to everyone but Georgette. He was in his element and this conversational bully was encroaching on his turf. Though he had to touch down at our table eventually and, a few drinks in, he began to find her amusing. He had the tenor of the wedding on his side. It was from this place of confidence that he asked her questions about her life, taking her side against the landlords and collection agencies that oppressed her, nodding at her tales of friends who’d overdosed as if he’d ever known a single person who’d ever overdosed. In return, we let her in on a few prized private jokes. Like how, when we were first dating, we used to play this game called “How Much Would Someone Have to Pay Me to Kill You?” It was more money with each date.
And so the three of us became one. We danced together, moving our bodies far away from one another and meeting in the middle like we were folding a flag. We became keenly aware when one of us was in a porta-potty or trapped with someone dull. We followed one another on social media. Jess’s maid of honor gave a speech about how deserving Jess was of Adam’s love. I stifled my giggles as Georgette mimed Adam’s fingers, scooping the air. I could sense the night’s events unfold before us: Normally, Boots would barely look at another woman—he was puritanical about it, his loyalty wound so tightly around his identity that it choked out every other impulse—but Georgette would be our first threesome. I crossed my legs toward her under the table, bumping my bare calf against the warm silk of her jumpsuit and keeping it there. My abdomen tightened in anticipation of the experience.