“It’s our tree. Nothing’s touched it except my grimy hand,” Marx said.
“What about the birds?”
“I don’t fear the birds, Sadie. But you should have one of these.” Marx stood, and he picked another fruit for himself and one for her. He walked over to the hose at the side of the house, and he rinsed the persimmon. He held out the fruit to her. “Eat up, my love. Fuyus only yield every other year.”
Sadie took a bite of the fruit. It was mildly sweet, its flesh somewhere between a peach and a cantaloupe. Maybe it was her favorite fruit, too?
3
Once upon a time, in the great simulation beyond Mapleworld, the mayor of San Francisco instructed his City Hall to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples. It was a few days before Valentine’s Day, and Simon and Ant were deep into postproduction on Counterpart High: Junior Year. While both agreed that this was an interesting political development, they had never discussed marriage as it pertained to them personally. Had they been inclined to marry, there could not have been a less convenient time for them to take off from work. CPH3 had been playtested too long, and they’d added so many new elements that the game was extraordinarily buggy. To ensure the game would be delivered on schedule, they were regularly putting in eighteen-hour days.
“Do you think we should go, though?” Simon asked. It was four in the morning, and Ant was driving them back to their apartment to shower, change clothes, and perhaps, even sleep for an hour or two.
“Go where?” Ant said, yawning.
“To San Francisco,” Simon said.
“For what purpose?”
“To get hitched,” Simon said.
“I didn’t know you wanted to get married.”
“Well, it wasn’t an option before,” Simon said. “You can’t know you want something until it’s an option.”
“I think we have to finish the game before we can even think of doing anything else,” Ant said.
“You’re right. Of course you’re right.”
By 8 a.m., they were on the congested road back to Unfair.
“I’m feeling Torschlusspanik,” Simon said. He was the one driving, while Ant tried to catch some extra sleep.
“Nope,” Ant said, without opening his eyes. “You can’t throw German at me when I’ve only slept two hours.”
“Who knows how long before they stop giving out marriage licenses?” Simon said. “While we’re busy making a wormhole prom fantasy, we could have completely squandered our chance to get married in the real world.”
“I’m sleeping, Simon.”
“Fine. Go to sleep.”
Two minutes later, Ant opened one eye. “I honestly didn’t know you were so conventional. Next you’ll be wanting a white picket fence.”
“If you mean a house in Santa Monica or Culver, that sounds about right. I’m so bloody tired of driving to and from West Hollywood.”
And, at 3 a.m., Ant drove them home again.
“I think I want to go to San Francisco,” Simon admitted, sounding pissed off about the whole situation. “Will you come with me, Anthony Ruiz?”
They had met six years ago, as freshmen, in a character animation class. Initially, Ant had not been attracted to him, thought he looked like a muscular genie, not his type. Worse than his looks, Simon was obnoxious. He corrected their professor, hated American animation, had a habit of dropping long German words and making references to obscure films, had a laugh like a leaf blower.
About two weeks into class, Simon had presented his first twenty-second, animated project. “The Ant” began with a repulsive kid holding a magnifying glass over an ant. The camera zooms in on the ant, a leather jacket–wearing, eye-rolling, proto-hipster. The ant delivers a mordant monologue detailing his final thoughts about existence, and then he combusts spectacularly. No one in their class had anything nice to say about it, and although Ant thought it was the best student work he’d seen, he hated speaking up during critique. At the end of class, he went up to Simon. “That was brilliant,” Ant said.
“Thanks, man,” Simon replied. “I based that character on you, you know.”
Ant rolled his eyes and zipped up his leather jacket. “I don’t know how to take that.”
“Not the combustion,” Simon said. “The rest of it. The sexy ant.” He grinned, causing the eruption of a heretofore unseen dimple, and Ant thought, God help me, he’s cute when he smiles.
They asked Marx to go to San Francisco with them in case they needed a witness and, also, so he couldn’t possibly be angry that they were taking off in the middle of finishing the game. Once Marx was going, Sadie decided to go, too—someone needed to take pictures. And then, since everyone else was going and the event was of civic and historical interest, the mayor of Mapletown decided he, too, wished to attend.
They flew to San Francisco on Tuesday morning. By the time they arrived at City Hall, the line stretched around the perimeter of the building and only grew longer as the day progressed. Despite the cold, damp weather, there was a low-key music festival vibe—not like Coachella, more like Newport Jazz—mixed with the giddy bureaucratic tension of a day in traffic court. Simon feared that marriage licensing could be suspended without warning, and that cops, lawyers, homophobic protesters might show up to spoil everything. “Torschlusspanik,” Simon said.
“Okay,” Sam said. “I’ll bite.”
“Don’t encourage him,” Ant said.
“What’s Torschlusspanik?” Sam said.
“It means ‘gate-shut panic,’？” Simon said. “It’s the fear that time is running out and that you’re going to miss an opportunity. Literally, the gate is closing, and you’ll never get in.”
“That’s me,” Sam said. “I have that constantly.”
When the rain picked up, Sam and Sadie were dispatched to go buy umbrellas, which the group from eternally sunny Los Angeles had not thought to bring. The vendor in front of City Hall was sold out of umbrellas, and so they had to walk farther down Grove Street. The second vendor they encountered was selling dodgy, used/stolen umbrellas. It’s our friends’ wedding. We can do better than this, they told each other. A half mile or so farther, they arrived at a sporting goods store that sold colossal umbrellas designed for golf spectators. By then, Sam and Sadie were both drenched, and they agreed that they probably should have settled for the dodgy umbrellas a half mile back. Why are our standards always so high? they joked. Lacking other options, they bought three of the monster umbrellas. They opened two of them and began the trek back to City Hall.
Thirty seconds later, they came to the realization that it was impossible to share the sidewalk when deploying two umbrellas with five-foot-wide canopies. Sadie told Sam to close his umbrella and come under hers, and then, she offered him her arm. Sam interpreted the arm as an indicator of improved relations between them, and he decided to mention that he’d seen some of the Master of the Revels work. “I like the desaturated color scheme. Not quite black-and-white, but very stylish. It’s smart.”
“Thanks,” Sadie said. “That’s nice of you to say, considering how much I know you disapprove of it.”