Cult Classic(37)

“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.

“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.