I nudged him hard, “You realize you aren’t whispering anymore!”
We gathered eight adults in a very small living room, each of us involved in deep, separate thoughts. The homeowners were sort of pushed into the adjacent dining room area. They probably couldn’t believe they’d said yes to this. The wife was obliviously staring at Jason’s shoes. Doug’s roommate was excited but somewhat indifferent. He just wanted to know about the after party as he stood with crossed arms next to the wall with the velvet pug. My coworkers stood in uniform next to each other with smiles from ear to ear. They’d recently begun an affair that hadn’t quite turned sexual—or maybe it had. They too thought, “These white folks are crazy!”
Douglas and I held hands. Our hearts and minds felt the same love. Then there was Jason, frantic with the preoccupation of his son’s game. “So, come on, come on, come on in here guys…you don’t mind if we use your bedroom for a minute, do you?” The hosting couple reluctantly waved us in. Hell, why not?
We sat on their bed as Jason knelt next to us. He pulled out folded papers and a pen from his robe pocket, flattening them as best as he could onto his robe, then the mattress. “Okay, you are Douglas,” he muttered, scribbling it over a name already crossed out. “Do you prefer Doug or Douglas?”
“Either one,” he answered.
“Are you guys religious?”
“No. You can take out the God stuff,” I said.
Jason mumbled some of the text and crossed out three paragraphs. He flipped a few pages and marked through a whole page. “Shit, that got rid of a lot! This is my first time, guys. Hang tight. So I’m going to say, ‘Do you Doug take Emma blah bibbity blah, and, when I say ‘With this ring…’ Do you have the rings?”
“We don’t.”
Jason entered into a whole other state of panic, “What do you mean?” He looked to Doug for his answer. “Like, you don’t have them now?”
“No.” I had to put his mind at ease. “We don’t need rings to symbolize our love.”
Jason instantaneously rushed through his pages again and removed additional paragraphs. The sweat was dripping down his left temple, but no one told him and he didn’t bother to wipe it away. “Well, guys, this is great, I have less than a page to read. It’s going to be like, do you…do you…talk a little bit about unity and love then kissy-kissy, sign the papers, and I’m out. I got to get to the game. Do you have any questions?”
“I’m good. Let’s get hitched,” we declared in unison.
We walked out and stood near the velvet pug picture as Jason read his one-page ceremony. We cried, did the kissy-kissy, and signed the papers, just as instructed. After thanking the homeowners, we left to eat at a restaurant we couldn’t afford and ended up going to sleep around ten-thirty that night on a twin bed in the barracks. We reminisced over our attempts to be married in Las Vegas, the cleats, and velvet pugs.
“That would be a good book,” Doug remarked, “about how you dissed me at the club, dumped your ex, the whole Vegas food poisoning thing, which is an omen I just ignored, by the way, and now the judge with the baseball uniform under his robe. I’m going to tell my grandkid, ‘Hey, little Johnny, I remember my beautiful wedding to your grandma back in 1997. See the photos with the velvet pug? We had our honeymoon on a twin bed in the barracks.’” He laughed and snuggled closer to me.
I replied with a yawn and a hiccup from one too many Long Island iced teas with my steak. “Well, I think it’s a FAN-fucking-TASTIC story, but I’m totally falling to sleep.”
“What about honeymoon sex?” Doug slurred most of his words.
“Tomorrow, honey. We can tomorrow,” I mumbled as I awkwardly tapped his thigh.
“Okay, good, because I think my soldier’s unable to…the position of attention…” He lifted the blankets and yelled in the darkness. “A-ten-CHUN! Medic! Nope, see, he’s dead.”
I hiccupped again and laughed. God, I loved my husband.
CHAPTER 8
The next step was to begin sharing a life together and build a unity between two people. We became ecstatic over little pleasures, like picking out dishes and shower curtains. We held hands as we said yes to the loan for our cherry wood bedroom set, leather couch, and Lhasa Apso we lovingly named Bean.
Accepting our stance as a future yuppie couple included items purchased beyond our means and eating new and healthy foods. We played the latest music, had a new car, and never wore old clothes. All of which set the standard for where we wanted to be in twenty years.
They say the things you do reflect where you are in your life. For instance, if you do a massive cleaning of your closet and donate all the crap you don’t use, it means you are starting over or beginning a new chapter. Out with the old, in with the new! If you look in your wardrobe and realize that the once vibrant, gemstone items have all gone to earth tones, you have either found security and settled or seek a change.
If everything one does is reflective of one’s life, it is clear that I was in a fresh, positive start to a long-term relationship. Let’s analyze the symbolism, shall we? Cherry wood is hard, uncommon, and has a fine polished look. Leather is durable, yet flexible. A new puppy takes patience, nurturing, and communication. All descriptions are worthy of comparison to my life, my outlook, and my relationship.
I was happy, content, and every other wonderful word to describe utopia. We had everything we needed and began to live as one, eventually settling into a groove of our own. Morning routines were well-choreographed dances in and out of the bathroom timed with designated days for walking the dog. I fell more and more in love with Doug every time he made the bed or brought home a houseplant because he knew I had a green thumb. I loved the quick, playful squeezes as we passed each other to do mundane household chores. My infamous finger-up-his-ass move was perfected for just the right high-pitched yelp that always threw me into hysterics.
Expendable dog-children aside, I never wanted kids. As far as I can remember, this fact held true even when, at fourteen, my stepmom predicted I would be barefoot and pregnant in my trailer by the time my twenty-second birthday arrived. This was part of dinner conversation that my family shirked off as a joke until the prediction for my sister was successful businesswoman, unmarried in a new home with a new car in the driveway. But, I digress.
I probably informed Doug of this long-standing opinion on our way to get our marriage license, somewhere in between his possible bastard son confession and my genital warts admittance. He was just tickled pink over this news. One of the many reasons he married me, I'm sure.
So it was a shock to him when, early into our marriage, I begged almost daily to start a family.
At lunchtime we traditionally met at our apartment. One afternoon, my emotions got the best of me and I decided I wanted to have kids. He walked in the door to find me crying on the couch with Bean, our Lhasa Aphso, balled comfortably on my lap. “What are you blubbering about?” He walked passed me toward the kitchen.
“We should have a baby, Doug. No! We should adopt!” I smeared tears on the sleeve of my military uniform.
He laughed and looked to the TV to see the station dedicated to women’s issues, stories, and, as Doug would call it, the “Period-hormonal, I’m Not a Sex Object Bullshit Whiny” channel. “Oh God, are you watching the adoption show again?” he said as he opened a can of soup and put it in the microwave. He walked into the living room to stand between me and the television as he waited for his lunch to cook.