by Heather Gean
Van shrugged. “I had a strange childhood.” That made me think of the Schroeders and then of Ashley in particular. The mood darkened a bit.
“Ashley’s sleeping with Dee.” I don’t know why I said it. It just sort of slipped out, almost like I was justifying Van sitting on my couch. “I went by his office before leaving New York and they were in there screwing on his desk.”
“I know,” Van said quietly.
“You know?”
“I found out a few days before I came down with Piper. I went over to wake him up and ask him to help me load up a sculpture I had in their backyard. She was there,” Van explained. “Neither of them woke up, and I just left. Better not to get involved”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Van looked as if he was struggling with himself. “He’s my brother…” He shifted uncomfortably. “I knew you weren’t into him, so it didn’t seem relevant. I wouldn’t have been able to confess my attraction for you if I had thought he cared about you. It still probably wasn’t right but it made it a hell of a lot less wrong.” He sighed and picked up the remote to press play. Dr. Frankenfurter had just ice-picked Eddie to death.
I snaked my hand over and laid it atop Van’s. It was difficult to get him to make eye contact with me, and when he finally did I could see the emotional turmoil. “I understand why you didn’t tell me. It’s not a big deal. It’s respectable, even.”
“Do you really want to understand? Do you want to hear a scary story? It’s Halloween, after all.”
“You don’t have to--”
“No, I need to tell you. How can you trust someone if you don’t know the whole story?” He finally pressed pause on the movie to interrupt some loud dialogue. Things grew chillingly somber. “I’m older than Ashley. Do you realize what that makes me? Technically, the heir. Ashley’s whole problem is that he is trying to earn his keep to make sure I don’t earn favor and get any of the money.
“You know that saying keep your friends close and your enemies closer? I guess that is the deal with us. He doesn’t want to piss me off, and I try to look out for him like a big brother should look out for his little brother. I’m allowed around the house because the rest of the family hopes and prays that I won’t cause a fuss and take all their money or ruin their reputation. Honestly, I don’t give a shit about their money. I just… wanted a father, wanted a family.”
Van’s eyes were glossy, but with the tightness of his jaw I doubted he would cry. His hair hung close to them like a curtain. My heart broke as he continued. “I know I’m a little screwed up. It’s fine with me. It’s probably a requirement to be an artist anyway.” Van paused to take a deep breath, and his eyes stopped wandering to focus on me intently. “You just need to know that I’m never gonna have anything to give you. I don’t have anything – no money, family, sanity.”
His confessions and questions warranted a series of complex answers. I wanted to apologize for his family situation, but an apology didn’t seem like enough. I considered talking shit about Ashley or the government, but that also would fall short. There were only a handful of words powerful enough to make him feel what I wanted him to feel and to explain how I felt. My heart swelled as if it might burst as I played them over in my head. “You make me happy and… I love you, Van. That’s enough for me.”
Chapter 18
My decision not to sit idly by while the government destroyed my life found me huddled in front of a computer screen with Sasha and a computer savvy friend she’d met in a support group for people troubled by the marriage system. This friend, better known to me as Harold, scrolled down the homepage of a fully-functioning website he’d created with the help of Sasha and through my direction. Though I’d originally conceived the idea for what would become the Legally Unmarried Couples Coalition, I’d passed the responsibilities along to those I could trust to get things in motion. After all, what is a general without troops? The blue background with red and white lettering reflected off the lenses of Harold’s glasses.
“This looks great,” I said as I scanned the page. I saw the link I’d requested where members could sign up online; the online petition to end the marriage system, as well as information regarding the insurance company one of the group’s members worked for and had agreed to create joint coverage for legally unmarried couples. My creation was finally growing up into a fully functioning government nightmare, and I could hardly take any of the credit. Then again, in my high profile situation with Ashley, it was better than way. I was fine being the woman who funded the projects and helped bounce around ideas. “How’s the recruiting going?”
Harold clicked around until he showed a graph of membership. I didn’t have a lot of business smarts, but the line jutting upwards into the right hand corner of the screen seemed like a positive thing. “Thousands of people are signing up every day. We’re working on getting a chat room working since, you know, chat is much more efficient than forum posts. We were thinking it could build a sense of community among people who are spread out all over the country. I mean, what do you think?” Harold seemed so nervous tossing out new ideas to me that I almost laughed at the way his eyes avoided me.
“It’s great. Everything’s great. As long as you talk things over with Sasha and the others in the committee, I’m cool with whatever. I might be the founder, but really I should change my title to treasurer.”
“Oh, don’t say that, Lorna,” Sasha said to me, using the code name I’d adopted for all activities regarding the LUCC. “You’re a great founder! We’re thinking of organizing a Founder’s Day Parade, just for you.”
“Ha, ha.”
“So the chat feature is okay? What about the formation of action committees in each city? People to organize rallies. We need to get more attention other than just online.”
I laughed and stood up from the chair. “Whatever the committee agrees on, Harold. I just write the checks, remember?”
He readjusted his glasses on his flat nose with an increasingly confident grin. “Yes, ma’am. Need anything else, Lorna?”
“Nope. You seem to have things under control. And I have a plane to catch.”
~*~
I had been suspicious of Piper since she had accidentally stumbled upon my love affair with Van. I had even had reservations about inviting her to cover the marriage exhibit, considering she could easily sprinkle in some gossip about the exhibit coordinator and her feelings on marriage and launch a media hell for me to contend with. When the November issue of Revolutionary hit my desk, my nerves were aflutter with anxiousness about what might be contained inside. However, by the time I finished the article and skimmed the rest of the magazine, Piper had established herself as one of the most tight-lipped journalists in the business. Considering that bit of gossip could have earned her a big bonus, I figured the least I could do was to compensate her for her ability to keep a secret.
The first chance I had once the exhibit was up and running, I caught a plane to New York to meet up with Piper. We got drinks at an Irish-owned bar where I had promised Piper an interview with Lorna Schuyler, the founder of the Legally Unmarried Couples Coalition. Sasha was the chairperson of the organization, and she was busy making ripples across the country with the participation she and the committee helped to generate, but it was the mysterious Lorna Schuyler that the media was buzzing about. Everyone wanted to know the details about the founder of the marriage rights activist group that had seemed an overnight success on college campuses, the internet, and rumors of an organized campaign trail that would venture across the country to rally supporters. People everywhere were joining the cause, and it had manifested into something larger than life, something that was on the news almost everyday. Lorna Schuyler had been rumored to be one of the most influential women in the country at the moment, yet nobody knew who she was. It just so happened that I knew Lorna very personally.
Piper ordered us a round of drinks and then leaned in anxiously across the table. The peppy Irish tune playing lo
udly around us was similar to her excitement. “When do I get to meet her?” she asked.
I smiled because I knew when I answered her question she would be floored. “You’ve already met her,” I said slyly. “She’s my alias.”
Piper’s eyes widened until I thought her eyeballs might fall out of their sockets and plop right into her beer. “No!” she breathily exclaimed. When things began to make sense for her, she started nodding. “Good God, love. Aren’t you just full of secrets?”
“Since you’re good at keeping them, I figured I would share a few more with you. After all, you will be the only reporter in the country with an interview with the elusive Lorna Schuyler.”
Her surprised expression melted into an ooey-gooey smile. “This is all because of Van, isn’t it?” A high-pitched giggle rolled from her. “You two are brilliantly matched.”
“This is actually all because of my other brilliant match to one Ashley Schroder, but the thing with Van definitely didn’t hinder the idea at all.”
The waiter brought me a beer and Piper another, earning him a quick kiss from her before she shooed him away so we could get back to the details only she was privy to. “I can’t believe that you’re the founder of LUCC. It makes perfect sense, though. You’ve got the sugar daddy to foot the bill,” she said. “But why the cover? You aren’t actually going to go through with marrying that rich asshole are you?”
“No, but I’m waiting for an appeal and trying to keep my chances high. I don’t want to have any ties left to Ashley whether I marry him or not. If I never got one it would always be hanging over my head, ya know?”
Piper was still completely amused with my secret identity. “You’re like Superman, you know? Not Wonder Woman, because no one really liked her at all, but like Clark Kent. You zip into a phone booth as your average person and come out as Lorna Schuyler, defender of all things good. You could have your own comic book!” I laughed, but she continued to persuade me. “Seriously, Rainy, you are the definition of heroine!” She yelled out to the bartender. “This lass deserves another drink!”
“You won’t tell?”
“It would be stupid of me to! If everyone knew who you were then everyone would be trying for an interview with you,” she jested. “Who is the woman running the operation for you?”
“Sasha,” I said. “You met her in Memphis. We grilled out at her house.”
“Right, right.”
Piper pulled out her tape recorder and notepad before much more could be said. She wasn’t going to miss out on a single word of this. “No offense, but the tape recorder has to go,” I said. “I can’t chance my voice being tied to the Lorna Schuyler interview.” Piper winked at me, took a swig, and stashed the tape recorder back in her bag.
“I guess the real thing that everyone wants to know is should the government and the Department of Marriage Licensing view LUCC as a threat?”
I took a long drink from my bottle of Irish ale, reveling in the sensation of one of the most important interviews of my entire life. I smiled wistfully at Piper. “They’d be stupid if they didn’t.”
~*~
For good measure I agreed to stop by Ashley’s house and try on the wedding dress that Dee had painstakingly made for me. While many would think this might have been an awkward moment, I wasn’t even the tiniest bit anxious about it, and I doubt it had anything to do with the couple of drinks I had had with Piper at the bar only hours earlier. Knowing that Ashley was in some sort of relationship with Dee was no different than my knowing that the man at the coffee shop on the corner was dating a nail tech from out of town; it was inconsequential because I didn’t have any feelings involved.
Ashley met me at the door, outside the door, actually. I tugged my coat more tightly around my body. “Hey,” I said uncertainly. I had expected the doorman.
“Hey, listen, Dee is upstairs, and I wanted to make sure that there aren’t any hard feelings before you go up there.”
“I told you already that there weren’t any hard feelings. C’mon, it’s freezing.”
Ashley blocked the way. “Did it really not bother you?” he asked. Knowing that it didn’t bother me really seemed to bother him.
“Why is that so shocking? Am I the first girl who has ever turned down the amazing Ashley Schroeder?” I asked in a sarcastic tone.
“You’re the first girl I’ve known to do most all of the things you do.” As I tried to ignore the strange inflection on his words, he opened the door and led us into the warm foyer.
The doorman also seemed confused that he hadn’t been allowed to do his job, and to put him back on track I politely passed him my coat. “It’s nice to see you again, Miss Clarke,” he said with a smile and a wink. Over the months I had become a favorite in the house, not just with Colin, the doorman, but with a lot of the other hired help. It’s amazing the friends you can make when you aren’t pretentious.
Upstairs in the dressing room, Dee waited nervously. It was a struggle for her to keep from gnawing at her manicured nails, and her fingers tapped anxiously at her mouth. Her giant smile was less spectacular and more apologetic than normal. It was unnecessary, and the informal way I greeted her and the comfortable way I behaved put her slightly at ease. The three of us awkwardly stood at different points in the room, uncertain of what to do next.
“Would you like to see your dress?” Dee asked. “I really think you’re going to love it, but I want you to put it on before you look at it. The hanger doesn’t do it justice.”
I shooed Ashley from the room before I disappeared behind the dressing screen. “It’s bad luck to see me in the dress,” I said jokingly. He left hesitantly like he thought I might kill Dee in his absence. It was quite amusing that he thought I cared enough to do any such thing.
As I undressed, I could hear Dee pacing back and forth across the room. Even on carpet her heels made a distinctive clopping sound. I marveled at the mass of white fabric folded in front of me, trying to figure out the best way to shimmy into the thing. “Rainy, I’m really sorry about what happened at the office. It was spur of the moment and completely unintentional.”
I rolled my eyes. What did it take to convince these two that I didn’t care what they did in their spare time? “It’s not a big deal,” I assured her. I wanted to tell her that Ashley and I weren’t actually getting married because I wasn’t sure if he had told her or not, but then again I didn’t want to her to let it slip to anyone who wasn’t supposed to know either. I busied myself with tugging the dress up around my body.
“If I were you I would hate me,” she continued.
“Well, you aren’t, and I don’t.” I twisted the dress until the zipper was straight down my back, but even with my long arms I couldn’t reach it.
“I’m not the type of girl you probably think I am--”
“Could you help me with this zipper?” I stepped out from behind the screen just in time to catch her look of distress. The worry in her eyes subsided as she moved over to help secure me into the dress. Her hands were cold against my back.
Once I was suited up, I was turned toward a set of full-length, one-eighty mirrors. I was adorned in the softest white imaginable, like the color of angels’ wings, and with a silky texture much the same. The skirt flowed and fell into graceful folds, hugging my hips in just the right way. The beadwork on the bodice was dainty and complementary so you only caught a glimpse of the sparkle. I was captivated. My reflection drew me in. This was just the kind of dress I needed to be wearing when I sent my big ‘fuck you’ to the DML.
“It’s exactly what I asked for,” I told Dee. Her face overflowed with excitement, and she rushed to the door to invite Ashley in.
I hung around the mirror for a few moments longer, gently running my fingers over the beadwork and the smooth silk. It fit so perfectly that when I had the urge to fidget, to tug at the strapless bodice, there was no reason to because it remained perfectly in place. I finally turned to where Ashley was hovering near the door. His hands wer
e in his pockets, and his head was tilted slightly to the side. He never took his eyes off me, as if he was both enchanted and frightened by the dress.
“What do you think?” Dee urged him. She began rattling off the selling points of the dress, the specific kind of silk and the nature of the beads and the hand-stitching. As she spoke she spread the small train out just so and then swept some of my hair out of the way to make sure the clasp above the zipper was joined.
I wanted to get out of the thing before anyone else saw me, but I didn’t have that kind of luck. Monica Radella had swarmed in within seconds, apparently having been invited to the fitting to make sure everything was acceptable. Her mouth fell into an O as she gasped in delight. “Now this is the centerpiece of a designer wedding,” she exclaimed. She joined Dee, and the two of them circled me like vultures.
Monica tugged at the top of the bodice to examine it. “It is snug enough that we shouldn’t have a wardrobe malfunction. But could you add some padding to the bust? Or maybe just get a couple of those fake breast inserts.”
“My breasts are fine,” I said defensively.
“Maybe if you were a chicken, but you’re a celebrity bride. These little tricks are how we behind-the-scenes people make the world beautiful.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I argued. I reached up to cup my own breasts and then tugged the dress from underneath my arms even though it didn’t need it. “Whatever happened to natural beauty?”
Monica chortled, and before she could spit out another nasty thing about the size and shape of my body, her eyes were drawn to my wrists. She reached out and snatch one of my arms, turning it palm up. The word freedom stared up at her. Before I could drag that arm away from her she had the other one in the same position. “You haven’t always had tattoos.” Her words stretched out like they were coated with tar. “This is absolutely unacceptable.”
“More unacceptable than my breasts?” I asked as I jerked my hands out of hers. “Is there anything else you would like me to change about myself?”