Here I Go

by Jamie Bennett

  That last part, I’d realized, was true. I was scared out of my mind, practically, but the more I thought about marrying Cain, the better I felt about it. We got along, didn’t we? We liked each other—or, I definitely liked him, and I thought he felt the same way toward me. I liked his aunt—no, I loved her, like she could have been another memaw to me!

  I wasn’t just marrying him because I wanted someone, I told myself, and he’d had plenty of chances to say no, he hadn’t meant it, or yes, he had meant it at the moment but later he regretted it and didn’t want to go through with putting a ring on my finger. But he hadn’t said either of those things so in some way, he also thought it was a good decision. Right?

  “He’s nothing like the kind of guy you said you would marry, not with his fifty-dollar haircut,” Cassidy told me. “Where’s his toolbelt?”

  I actually didn’t think that Cain was going to be very handy around the house, but that was ok. “Maybe I changed my mind about what I wanted,” I explained.

  “Ok, so what about kids?” she challenged. She spun her own ring around her finger. “Have you talked about that, Ari? You know you want to have a family, and you’d have to sleep with him to get it!”

  That part…that part I wasn’t ready to deal with yet. “Let’s talk about you and Bo instead! I’m sorry this situation with Cain is taking away from the attention on you.” I’d always thought that attention wasn’t really given out in our family in an evenhanded way. I didn’t want Cassidy to have to share the spotlight with me and my sudden, strange engagement. I didn’t want any of that spotlight at all.

  “My parents are making up for it,” she assured me. “My dad set off fireworks last night when we told them.”

  “I know you have your wedding with Bo already planned out, even though you told me that it never entered your thoughts.” I raised my eyebrows, which I realized that I would need to have shaped before our engagement pictures. “Right?”

  “I do have it planned, but only if you’ll be my maid of honor,” she told me.

  “Of course! This is a dream come true, Cass!” And we both cried, and I wanted her to be mine, but Cain and I hadn’t hammered down the wedding details so I didn’t want to ask her yet. I thought we might figure out more the next day because he’d told me he’d pick me up for lunch.

  “Bring your ID and your birth certificate if you have it, just in case,” he’d said before he left my apartment. We were going to the county clerk’s office to get our marriage license.

  It was hard to sleep that night as my mind raced, and I didn’t feel much better the next morning because I had to tell Eimear and Gary about leaving our little office family. “I’m so sorry,” I told them, “but this was unexpected.” That word didn’t cover it. “I hope you’ll be able to replace me really quickly and I’ll be here for a while to help train someone.” But Gary said not to worry, because he was happy I’d found what I was looking for. I took a deep breath and told myself that I had.

  “You’re engaged to that man, Aria?” Eimear looked extremely doubtful. “You just were telling me how he’s not the type to settle down, that you hadn’t even considered it. I know you like his aunt, but is that enough reason to marry him?”

  “That’s not the only reason!” I assured her. I certainly wasn’t going to repeat the story of what had happened yesterday in front of our boss, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell Eimear the details, either. It was complicated, and I didn’t think she’d understand—I didn’t completely, either. And Eimear hadn’t grown up with a mother who…cared so much. It was just complicated!

  When Cain came to pick me up at lunchtime, Gary asked him to step into his office behind the glass wall. He started a cross-examination in the voice he used in the courtroom, which made it quite easy for me and Eimear to hear every word. Cain, unfortunately, pitched his tone much lower and quieter, so his answers were hard to catch.

  “What is your business, exactly?” Gary asked, and the low murmur of Cain’s words started.

  “I’m reading about his company right now,” Eimear whispered. Her mouse clicked. “Wow. He’s really successful, Aria. Amazingly successful! These articles practically call him a genius.”

  “I know,” I whispered back, thinking of the pictures of his house. How was I going to live in a place like that?

  Gary asked a few more things about Cain’s life, family, and Future Prospects. I bet those sounded better to my boss than my own had when I’d talked about a salon that I didn’t really want and couldn’t actually pay for. Then we heard Gary say, “The most important thing is that you love her. Do you love her?”

  I leaned forward in my chair, straining to hear. It seemed like Cain had more than a one-word answer to that.

  “He does, of course,” Eimear told me. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t have asked you to marry him! Uh, he did ask, right? I mean, it wasn’t the other way around and you talked him into it?”

  “I don’t think I’m that persuasive!”

  “Aria, are you kidding? You blink your eyes and smile at the guy at the sandwich shop and he fills our lunch bag with about ten extra cookies!”

  “He just knows I like them.” I ran my hand over my stomach, wishing I hadn’t been liking them so much lately. What if I had to fit into a wedding dress soon? We hadn’t set a date, but I didn’t think it was a great idea for us to live apart indefinitely, Cain in California and me here.

  But there was no need to rush, either! Since he needed to leave immediately, he could fly there alone and I would spend the holiday relaxing with my family, as relaxing as our holidays were with the crowds and kids and pets and fighting. I started to plan for a Saturday wedding in the spring, a few weeks after Eimear’s date so mine wouldn’t interfere. Cain and I would be apart for a few months but we could visit each other, and I would have time to lose fifteen to twenty pounds and have a dress tailored to my new size.

  Suddenly Gary was exiting his office, with my fiancé—my fiancé!—right behind him. “It’s lucky I was a county commissioner! And I’m a notary, too, just became one when my former paralegal left.” He gave me a quick glance and I looked at the beige carpet on the floor. Gary was talking about Brian, my former colleague and emotional affair partner. “I’m doubly qualified for it.”

  “Qualified for what, Gary?” Eimear asked him.

  “For the ceremony!” he answered happily. “Convenient, too, since we can do it right here. I have been in a few fender benders lately, so my wife is encouraging me to stay off the roads. She had one herself, though, the first point she’s ever had on her license. I’m not letting her forget it,” he told Cain.

  “What about a ceremony?” I asked as I picked up my pocketbook. “I found my birth certificate,” I mentioned.

  “Gary, are you talking about Aria and Cain?” I heard Eimear asking as we walked to the stairs.

  “What was Gary saying?” I echoed to my fiancé. My fiancé! I had to get used to calling him that.

  “He suggested conducting the marriage ceremony himself and I thought it would be fine. What about tomorrow? I have a call at nine but I could bring Aunt Liddy down and we could get it done after that. She’ll want to be there, even if it’s just…what it is.” He jingled his keys. “Do you want to drive or walk to the clerk’s office? It’s about a mile. What shoes do you have on?”

  I had stopped dead. “You mean that you want to get married tomorrow after your call? In the law office?”

  “Just like we said, quick and easy.” Cain stopped moving forwards and came back to me. “Isn’t that what we agreed on?”

  “Quick and easy,” I repeated. I hadn’t fully understood what he’d meant when he’d said that.

  “Let’s drive,” he decided. “It may rain and I have another call at three. It should be short and I can take it at the club, though.”

  “Great,” I answered, my mind spinning. “Quick and easy.”

  “Aria? Are you getting in?”

  It was very simple to get our license.
Quick and easy, I told myself. Quick and easy. I’d just never thought of a marriage in those terms. “It’s really happening,” I said out loud as we left the clerk’s office. It had started to rain.

  “It is,” Cain agreed. “You’ve been pretty quiet. Not like you usually are.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” I explained, and thought about that remark, too. “Do I talk too much?”

  “No. You just always have something to tell me,” he said. “You always have something to talk about with my aunt.” He paused. “I like it. So why aren’t you telling me anything now?”

  “I didn’t understand what you meant when we discussed this yesterday. I assumed that we’d have, you know, a wedding. Nothing too big or fancy,” I added, because I really had already given up on the idea of the ball gown with the crystal-beaded lace. It hadn’t felt right with the kind of proposal—non-proposal—I’d had. “I just never thought about getting married where I work. At the law office.”

  “We could choose another place,” he told me. “I thought you understood that the marriage license is only good for thirty days. Didn’t we discuss going to San Francisco together? You told me you were moving in with me,” he reminded me. “I know you wouldn’t do that without us getting married.”

  I stopped walking, because my move to California didn’t sound like a discussion. It sounded like I’d stated what I was doing like it was fact and he’d had to accept it. “I thought it was ok with you that I was moving there,” I reminded him back, and we stood staring at each other on the sidewalk on Lookout Street. “Maybe…”

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” I said, very firmly. Quick and easy was the way to go. We weren’t going to drag this out and live in two states for months—that was silly! It hadn’t been a big, romantic kind of proposal, and it wasn’t going to be that kind of wedding, either. “It doesn’t really matter where we have the ceremony or what we wear, if I have a dress or not. The most important thing is that the people we love can be there, so I need to start inviting everyone right away.”

  Cain latched onto one point. “A dress? You wanted a wedding dress?”

  I thought of the hundreds of images I’d saved. “It doesn’t matter,” I repeated, and I tried to believe that so it wouldn’t be a lie.

  “I guess that’s a big deal,” he said slowly. “I remember Demetra shopping for days for her stuff when we went to events. She flew to New York and Paris, too. She was my former girlfriend,” he explained.

  The last thing I wanted to hear about at this moment was his ex-girlfriend who looked like a model and her beautiful gowns from Paris for their “events.” “I’m sure I already have something nice,” I said. “I don’t need days to shop. Tomorrow is a great day for getting married.”

  He looked at me for a moment and seemed about to say something back, but then he only took my arm. “Come on, we’re getting rained on.”

  I put the marriage license under my coat and Cain drove me back to my office.

  Chapter 6

  “Not yet.” Cassidy bit her lip and wouldn’t look at me. “I’m sure it’s fine, though. I know! Maybe there’s an accident on Highway 27 causing traffic. I bet there is.”

  I nodded and tried to project confidence, just like you were supposed to do up on stage. “He’ll be here,” I told her. “He’ll be here soon,” I repeated, but louder so that everyone in the garden could also catch the words, and I pageant-smiled, too. I saw a few of my relatives nodding and trying to agree and my mother shaking her head. He’ll be here soon, I told myself again. He would.

  “Can you check my phone one more time?” I whispered to my cousin, and she nodded and picked up her skirt to hurry over to where I’d hidden my pocketbook. She was wearing the deep rose dress from our cousin Analisa’s wedding when we’d both been bridesmaids and it was a great choice, the perfect color with her dark hair and brown eyes.

  The day before, when I’d gotten back from the trip to get the marriage license, my friend Eimear had come up with an idea. “Aria, if you want to, you could have your ceremony behind Griffin’s welding shop,” she’d suggested. She meant, behind her fiancé’s business, and it was much, much nicer than it sounded! Griffin had created an amazing garden there and the summer before I’d visited and picked cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers. It had been beautiful and green and full of fragrance and flowers.

  “Really?” I asked her. “He wouldn’t mind the interruption?”

  “No, he got pretty excited when I suggested it. The guys inside could stop working for a while, during the ceremony,” she said. “There’s not a lot growing back there right now but it’s nicer than…” Her words had trailed off and she hadn’t finished the thought, but I knew she meant it was nicer than getting married next to the copy machine and shredder in our office, and holding the reception in the conference room where we ate our lunch every day.

  And when I’d arrived at the welding shop this morning with Cassidy, I saw what Eimear and her fiancé had done: they’d decorated the entire garden with flowers, probably hundreds of dollars’ worth of them, spending so much when I knew that they were saving for their own wedding. “Oh,” I’d said, and I’d thanked her and Griffin and started to cry for the twentieth time since I’d woken up early from a terrible dream with tears already on my cheeks.

  We were all very emotional, even my sisters when they both showed up with their daughters dressed in their pageant gowns and carrying baskets of petals like each was my flower girl. That had led to a sibling incident that my Uncle Jed had dealt with, thankfully.

  So, the garden looked beautiful, the rain was holding off, my sisters had stopped fighting, and my mama had (finally) taken a break from gossiping to my other relatives about my fiancé’s sealed juvenile record. But Cain wasn’t there. He was late, and it was starting to get very obvious, very cold, and very embarrassing.

  “Nothing,” Cass told me when she got back from checking my phone. A whipping wind blew through the leafless trees and plants around us, making my teeth dry and frozen from where they were exposed by my constant smile. “No calls, no messages. Not from him, anyway, but a lot of people are writing to congratulate you.”

  “That’s nice,” I said blankly. Where was he? “Did you check the traffic reports?”

  “No,” she said, eyes big and innocent so that I knew she was lying. There hadn’t been an accident on the highway that was making him late. And now my mother was heading in our direction, too, probably to lecture me again about not getting married in the church like both my sisters had been. I turned my back and walked through the metal doors and into the welding shop. The guys were all there, having a snack or a Coke, hanging out and not using their tools as their boss had instructed them. They stared at me as I walked out of the green doors in the front. I needed just a moment outside of the high fences surrounding the garden. It had started to feel like they were moving in, like a trash compactor.

  The minute the front doors shut behind me, I spotted Cain’s new car on the other side of the rutted street. He sat in the driver’s seat, his hands on the steering wheel, staring at Moody & Family Co. Welding. I waved, but it was like he didn’t see me, so I picked up my skirt out of the mud and walked quickly over, avoiding the puddles from all the December rain we’d had in the past week. The grey sky threatened it again today.

  I had to knock on the glass, and only then did he flip his face in my direction. He rolled down the window.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi there,” I greeted him back. “Um, we’re all ready for you inside! Or, in the back, in the garden, actually. But we’re all ready! I hope it’s not bad luck for you to see me out here.” I peered into the car. The passenger seat was empty and so was the back. “Where’s Miss Liddy?”

  “She died last night.”

  I stepped away fast, jumped almost, and felt cold mud ooze over the tops of my satin shoes from the puddle I’d landed in. “What?” My voice shook it out.

  “I knocked on her bedroom doo
r to tell her that dinner was ready and she didn’t answer. It was like she was asleep, nothing like when I found my father. There won’t be a funeral because she didn’t want one. They already picked up the body for cremation.”

  “What?” I repeated, and my voice shook more. I stepped back toward the car and my shoes squelched. “Oh, Cain. Oh, my word!”

  He opened the door and now I jumped out of the way. “Let’s get this over with,” he said flatly.

  “No, wait!” I grabbed his arm and his movement pulled me along with him. “Wait!” He slowed a little but his legs didn’t stop going. “Why didn’t you call me and tell me? We don’t have to do this today. Cain!” I tripped on my skirt and he caught me under my arms.

  “I want to do it now,” he said. “Let’s go.” He half-carried me and we stumbled through the green doors, past the guys not working, and into the garden.

  “Finally!” I heard my mother’s voice, but Cain marched me over to where Gary stood with his wife, Bevie.

  “Let’s get it over with,” he told my boss.

  “Is everything all right?” Gary asked, looking at me, and I stared at him in shock. I didn’t think anything was all right.

  “Let’s get it over with,” Cain said again, and this time, I nodded slightly.

  “All right, then,” Gary told us, concern in his voice, and patted my shoulder. He walked over to the spot under the bare apple tree that we’d chosen for the ceremony and waved his arms, calling everyone else over too. Cassidy hurried to my side and the rest of the small number of relatives I’d quickly invited, the ones who’d been able to miss work on such short notice, clustered around us.

  “We are gathered here today in this lovely garden,” my boss began, “to join Cain and Aria in holy matrimony.”

  The ceremony went on but I didn’t really hear Gary’s words as he talked about the meaning of marriage. My eyes were on Cain, and his looked unfocused as he stared up at the clouds building above us. I tried as hard as I could not to cry as I thought of Miss Liddy and him finding her.