F*ck Marriage(68)

“Pretend you’re on your way to lung cancer! Excellent idea.”

“God, when did you become such a goody two-shoes?” she asks. “As far as I can remember you used to smoke them with me.”

“I was just trying to hang,” I say.

Billie leans forward and calls out to Phil. “I need two fags, Phillip.”

He looks at her, confused.

“Cigarettes,” she reiterates, rolling her eyes.

Phil hands her two Marlboros and his lighter.

“No, Billie, absolutely not,” I say as she lights one up.

“For old times’ sake, Sasquatch.”

She puffs until the cherry glows bright red and turns to stick the remaining cigarette in my mouth. I don’t protest when she leans toward me, allowing her cigarette to light the one propped between my lips. My mouth has no trouble remembering what to do. Billie watches me through slightly narrowed eyes as my cheeks concave to pull the acrid smoke into my lungs. She doesn’t cough at all, but I heave as if this is my first time.

“Out of practice, old man.” She grins.

She blows smoke through lips so candy-apple red I want to lean over and taste them. Her lipstick would get all over my face and I would love every second of it. I have more inappropriate thoughts about her lipstick on other parts of my body as we turn a corner and she leans into me. Goddamn. I rub a hand over my face trying to ignore my dick, which is swelling.

Our cigarettes are stubs now; we pinch them between our fingers as we smile at each other.

“Just two old people trying too hard,” I tell her, flicking the butt into a grate as we drive by.

“What? No!” She feigns offense. “We’ve totally still got it!”

The carriage jerks to a stop, and Billie breaks eye contact with me to look around.

“Are we going shopping?”

Peppermint has come to a stop outside of a crowded department store. A steady stream of shoppers pushes through a revolving door, their faces alternating between blissful and murderous. I help Billie down and she wobbles awkwardly on her boot as she waits for me to speak to Phil.

“We have thirty minutes,” I say, grabbing her hand.

“Okay. What are we shopping for?”

“Each other,” I tell her. “Twenty-dollar limit.”

She stops dead, forcing me to backtrack or get run over by the determined pedestrians.

“Where do you think this is? Target? You can’t buy a shoelace in Barneys for twenty dollars,” she says.

“Fifty,” I counter. “And we have thirty minutes to choose wisely.”

We fist bump and separate once we’re inside. Billie hobbles right toward the elevators, and I take a left through the makeup and perfume. I have no idea what I’m looking for and I already bought Billie a Christmas present. Slightly buzzed from the beer and hot buttered rum in Phil’s flask, I wander aimlessly, hoping something catches my eye before Phil and Peppermint get a ticket for loitering. I spot something in the home department I think she’d like. It’s a hundred and twenty dollars, but I grab it anyway and carry it to a register. The button Billie gave me sits at the bottom of my coat pocket. My fingers brush it as I search for my phone. I think about asking Billie about it, but there’s something about that night when she handed it to me that feels sacred. If I ask and she tells me, the spell will be broken. I don’t even know what the fuck that means, but it feels true. Billie is already waiting in the carriage with a broad smile on her face, when I emerge. I hop in and she automatically snuggles closer to me, hungry for warmth.

“Well…?” she says. “Do we do this now or later?”

She’s bouncing in her seat, a little sparking livewire. I kiss her nose because we’re that close and her eyes crease in a smile.

“Stop being cute,” she says. She rolls her eyes, but it doesn’t matter because they’re dancing with a light I haven’t seen in a while.

“Okay,” I say. “You first.”

She grabs a bag from her feet just as Peppermint lurches forward and proffers it at me with an alcohol-induced enthusiasm. We bump heads and then laugh as we rub the sore spots.

As I dig around the tissue paper, my mind once again goes to the button. Billie is watching me anxiously. My fingers brush against something hard at the bottom of the bag. She chews on her lip, her face somewhere between excitement and nervousness. When I pull my hand out I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking at.

“What is it?” I turn it over in my hand. It looks like a very bright, very knobby doll made entirely of ... wait for it ... buttons. Buttons of every color and size make up its face, limbs, and torso. I stare into its black button eyes, confused.

“It’s a button baby,” she says sweetly.

“A button baby?” I repeat.

She nods, taking it from me. “The idea is that if you need a button—say if you lost one on your coat—you’d find a replacement on this guy. Also, you know all those extra buttons that come with shirts and pants and whatnot?”

I nod. She turns over the button baby and shows me a zipper. “You put them in here for when you need them.”

“Hmmmm.” I reach into my pocket, deciding it’s the right time to bring up the white button she gave me the night of the Rhubarb Christmas party. I hold it out to her and her face lights up. She carefully takes it from my palm and deposits it inside of the button baby, zipping it closed to keep the button safe.