You Deserve Each Other(11)
I pick up his game piece and float him over to the library. He’ll like it there, where he can stock shelves with books about brushing your teeth in circular motions instead of from side to side. “Professor Plum.”
Brandy gasps. Melissa scribbles furiously on her detective notepad. Zach’s eyes glint with malevolent joy. Nicholas just looks annoyed. But Leon, I see, is smiling. Just barely, but enough that when my eyes rest on him, he gives me an interesting look.
It says So this is where you’ve been.
In a strong, bold voice, I march on: “I accuse Professor Plum of murder! He did it in the library, like a pretentious asswit, and he used the candlestick.” I know it’s not the candlestick because I’ve got that card myself, but I throw it in there anyway because: “It’s the stupidest possible weapon.”
Nicholas stares deeply into my eyes for an eternal spiral of time, and it’s entirely possible that we are going to break up over a board game, which would be a hell of a way to go out. His mother’s going to have a bonanza getting all her deposits back. The opportunity to call up small-business owners and yell that they’d better not charge her for an ice sculpture of roses will be the cherry on top of her year.
“Go on, then.” His eyes don’t leave mine as he jerks his chin to the center of the board. I realize that I’ve fallen asleep on the color of Nicholas’s eyes, which for whatever reason I’ve been thinking are gray. Up close, fierce with challenge, they’re every color of the rainbow.
Oblivious that I’m having an epiphany, he glares and his irises darken from pale silver to forest green like a mood ring. “Check the cards.”
I do so as slowly and theatrically as possible, warming up to the old Naomi. He wants so badly to knock over his Professor Plum figurine and cross his arms, but he’s trying to remain civilized. Dentists already have a bad reputation with phobics and he can’t afford any more negative press, even among the crawling maggots of Junk Yard personnel.
I check the cards and let out a hiss. Zach looks at me knowingly.
Mrs. White, in the kitchen, with the rope. “Well, wouldn’t you know it! Looks like I’m the murderer,” I say cheerfully. “Didn’t think I had it in me.” Nicholas casts me a distrusting look. I think he’s going to be sleeping with one eye open tonight.
The worst part about this whole evening is how quickly Nicholas forgets it.
We’re at home now, where I’m still irritated and he isn’t. The man is baking cookies, and he’s promised to wash up all the dishes, and now I have nowhere to point my anger because he’s Over It, which means he’s won.
He offers me a spatula to lick, which I refuse because maybe his trick is to use salmonella to kill me, and he plants a sloppy kiss on my hair and breaks away smiling down at me like I’m an innocent child.
He knows I can’t argue with him now, because if I dredge up anything negative I’ll look petty. So I stay in my well-worn position on the sofa (far right), where I’ve logged a thousand hours pretending to watch television and pretending to listen to Nicholas and pretending to be happy.
I snap a picture of him with his back turned to me and post it to my Instagram with a rosy filter. I caption it with three hearts and Game night with my love! No better way to cap off an awesome day, and there’s no one else I’d rather spend it with. xoxo. #LivinTheLife #MarryingMyBestFriend #TrueLovesKissFromARose
#TrueLovesKissFromARose is our wedding hashtag and if you look it up on Pinterest you’ll find one million pictures of bouquets, table settings, and bridesmaid dresses that I like (but am not allowed to have). Dopamine trickles in with the first response to my post: omg you guys are so cute; but the plush, pillowy feeling grinds down to metal on metal when Zach replies with lmao. yeah right. I delete his comment.
It’s my own fault that I’m still in this mess, and I know it. I’m the biggest coward I’ve ever met. I’m doing neither of us a favor by refusing to back out. If Nicholas had half a brain he’d be calling it off, too, so maybe we’re locked in some silent draw, waiting to see who bows out first.
I know why he won’t. His mother’s been nagging him to marry and give her grandchildren to rank from most to least favorite, depending on whose physical features our unfortunate progeny inherit. If Nicholas jumps ship now, Deborah will revert back to nagging him to procreate using the frozen, ten-year-old eggs of her friend from tennis, Abigail, who died a year ago and for whatever ungodly reason left her eggs to the Rose family. Heather, Nicholas’s sister, is to be the incubator for this abomination of a child.
I can’t jump ship, either. I’ve been shouting to the world that I’m perfectly happy in my perfect relationship, and if I run now I’m going to look like a fraud.
Aside from that, Mrs. Rose has hinted more than once that if I back out, she’ll bill me for her troubles. If I leave her son, she’ll undoubtedly take me to small claims court to be reimbursed for Swarovski crystal candleholders customized with the letter R (everything has been custom-ordered to feature the letter R), which I wasn’t involved in picking out. I don’t have a ton of savings, but I do have a little bit tucked away, and I’ll defend it with teeth and nails.
“Mom’s still going on and on about the prenup,” Nicholas is saying from the next room. Maybe we’ve been here all evening and my imagination made up going to Brandy’s. I’m sitting in the same spot, while staring at the same spot, and that uneasy churning in the pit of my stomach is a third, invisible member of our party. It materializes reliably whenever we talk about the wedding.