She pushed open her screen door and made a fart noise, wearing her usual Fleetwood Friday–appropriate tunic, her long black hair feathered under her top hat. I ran past her inside and down to the basement.
She came clomping down the steps in platforms, eyeliner in hand. “What is the fuss, Cass?” she called.
I stood in the middle of her basement, hands on my hips. “I did it.”
“Did what?” She had to step sideways because of the boots.
I took a deep breath. “I married an army guy.”
She stopped in the middle of the steps. “Wait. What?”
“？‘Go army’？ ‘Count the benefits’？” I echoed the language of the brochure. “Remember when that Armando guy proposed?”
“Yeah, but—”
“I did that.”
Nora came down the rest of the stairs, furious. “You married that Armando guy?”
I held up my hands. “No, not him—”
“Thank God.”
“But that other guy. Luke. Frankie’s friend. The asshole from the bar.”
Nora sat on the bottom step, eyes wide. She opened her mouth to speak, but didn’t. I couldn’t tell if she was angry or confused or admiring me or all three. She set down the eyeliner next to her and folded her hands.
“Except he’s not really an asshole,” I said. “It’s nuts. I can’t even believe I went through with it myself.”
“So it’s done?” she said. “You’re actually legally married?”
I lifted my finger. “The Walmart ring is at home, but yeah.” My gut twisted, staring at her. She stared back. Nora was usually the fuck yes person in my life. When I asked her for a drink the night we met at a Father John Misty show, fuck yes. When I broke up with Tyler, a big fuck yes. When I asked her to form a band, fuck yes. Even when I told her that Toby and I hooked up behind a hay bale at the Harvest Festival shortly after he started playing with us, a minimal but present fuck yes. There was no fuck yes yet.
“Well.” She shrugged. “You’re insane.”
That would bring the tally of important people in my life calling me insane up to two out of two. “Am I?”
“And yet.” She held up a finger. “All things considered, it was kind of my idea. Remember when we were at your apartment and we were talking about rich people we would marry for benefits? That was me. This is a Countess LuAnn, Bethenny Frankel Skinnygirl margarita situation.”
I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I was pretty sure it was reality TV. And after the big leaps of the last couple of days, I was ready to listen to her talk about reality TV as long as she wanted to. I had my best friend on my side. I wanted to cry with relief. “Sure, Nor. It’s all you.”
“Okay,” she said, concentrating. “Where did you do it, how did you do it, why didn’t you call me, and what are you going to do now? Go.”
I told her everything, still popping almonds. From the moment I’d formed the idea after she left my house to the embarrassing proposal at Frankie’s to the shocking on-board-ness of Luke, to the day at city hall and the disaster at Chili’s. When I came to last night, I paused.
I tried to make my voice casual. “So, yeah. Now he’s deployed, and we’ll Skype every once in a while, and that’s it.”
She stood up and got closer to me, narrowing her eyes. She smiled. She smelled like rose petals. “You slept with him, didn’t you?”
I breathed in a mouthful of almonds, coughing, then laughing, then coughing more. Nora cracked up with me, patting my back. When I recovered, eyes watering, I said, “How did you know, you psychic?”
“I saw you two together, Cass. There was some heat, queen.” I looked at her, suddenly confused. “Some real heat,” she muttered, pulling her phone from her pocket to use as an eyeliner mirror. “And not just anger.”
“I mean,” I started, thinking back to last night. Thinking back to crying out as he pushed me against the wall. “I thought he was cute, but . . .” Thinking of this morning, how slowly our lips let go. “Whatever. We are so awkward together. We piss each other off constantly. He’s, like, this conservative bro. Maybe I have a thing for bros.”
“You don’t have to justify it to me!” She tossed the eyeliner toward me. I missed it. It clattered on the floor.
Right. It was her idea. Kind of.
But Luke, specifically, was not her idea. And in any other circumstances, I would have never seen Luke again after that night at the bar. Maybe I would have run into him again through Frankie, but we would have never even remembered each other’s names. And now we were entwined. There was another mismatching jigsaw puzzle piece: Luke’s silver-blue eyes.