“And when is this happening?” Georgette asked with a frozen smile.
She was gesturing at my ring. I could tell she hated it.
“Next fall,” Boots said, looking at me to confirm.
“Long time from now,” Georgette said.
“Georgette can be our witness!” Boots blurted out. “Or our officiant. Is that the same thing? A celebrant?”
“A priestess,” she decided.
“Yes, a priestess!”
I’d known men who became different people, barbarous people, when they drank, and so I knew I was lucky in that Boots became generous. If we owned a house, he would have given away the deed to a stranger in a bar by now. Once inebriated, he became like my parents in this way. All someone would have to do was ask nicely. This was why he was not allowed into a casino unsupervised. And why I sometimes woke at 2 a.m. to the sound of glass blowers or potters in my living room, bragging about the size of their kilns. Of course they could stay over, no problem.
“If we ever get married!” he added.
“Ooookay,” I muttered, shifting his drink around the centerpiece.
“Let’s just do it at city hall,” he decided. “We could do it when we get back. The building’s there, we’re there, the celebrants are there.”
“Whatever we do,” I said, “maybe we should plan further out than Monday.”
Georgette circled a spoon inside her coffee cup.
“Hey,” she said, “I get it. I’m never getting married.”
“There’s nothing to get,” I said.
“Yeah, there’s nothing to get. We’re married.”
“Well, no,” I said, “we’re not.”
“Why do you have to say ‘we’re not’ like that?”
“I’m not saying it like anything, I’m saying it like facts get said.”
“Georgette,” he said, turning away from me at a defiant angle, “you just haven’t met the right person.”
I could sense where this was headed and was frustrated by his delay in picking it up. He was trying to buck up his new friend. But she did not need bucking.
“People aren’t for me,” Georgette explained, diplomatically, “not like that.”
“What does that mean?”
“See that spry-looking woman to the right of Adam’s grandma?”
She raised her spoon between her eyes like a hunting dog’s paw. A tall Black woman with a tight ponytail was nursing something with a lime in it. Georgette told us how she’d met the woman when they were forced to participate in one of those dumb college orientation activities during which people are split into pairs and told to ask each other the most important question they can think of. The nebulous purpose of the exercise was to illuminate the priorities of the asker. Georgette sat across from the woman and asked her if she thought there was a God. Yes, the woman said, of course there’s a God. Then, when it was her turn, the woman asked Georgette to marry her. The woman kept asking every time she saw her for the next year. The proposals became a ceremonial greeting, a joke that was never quite a joke. And Georgette would say no as they continued on with their lopsided friendship.
After four years of this nonsense, Georgette decided to surprise the woman by driving up to Cape Cod over spring break, where her parents were renting a house. Listening to a playlist the woman had given her, Georgette began to think that she did want to marry her after all. She saw their lives spread out before them. When she arrived, the driveway was packed with cars so Georgette parked on the street. She checked her face in the visor and walked up to the house. She was about to knock when she heard sounds coming from the back porch. She went around to see the woman, her whole family, and another woman she recognized from her Intro to East Asian Literature seminar and her whole family. Mylar balloons spelled out congratulations.
As it turned out, the woman with the lime in her drink had been asking “every twat on campus,” figuring one of them would say yes eventually. It was an insurance policy for a good story. And all this woman really wanted was a good story. Georgette had gotten wrapped up in someone else’s dream. Standing with her at the side of the house, all she could think about was the long drive home and how terrible it would be. But then, as she left, she asked the woman one more time: Do you still think there’s a God? The woman said yes, of course.
“Then I got into my car and never had another romantic feeling about her again. Never missed her a day in my life. This is the first time I’ve seen her since. She looks good.”