I leaned in and kissed him on the mouth, a long kiss to take the place of all the ridiculous words I would surely have voiced otherwise. Then I sniffled and said, “Good. All sorted, then.” I touched the crosshatched red lines climbing over the bridge of his nose and up his forehead. “Nice scars, by the way.”
“Right? I’m all Phantom of the Opera now.”
“It’s good, though. I was always jealous you were cuter than me, so maybe now we’re even.”
He laughed, the smile beautifying his face all over again. “Asshole.”
He glanced at the door of the room. His parents stood there, alternately beaming at us and cooing at Verona. They’d never seen us kiss on the mouth before, I realized, but it didn’t bother me.
Andy’s face brightened and he reached out his good arm toward them. “Baby! Bring me the baby.”
Carlos brought her over and laid her across our laps. She frowned up at Andy, wiggling all four limbs in her footed green onesie.
“Hi, Toothless!” Andy stroked her hair. “Check you out. You are way cute.”
She gazed at him a moment, then squawked in protest.
“Here. She likes this position better.” I propped her up to sit against the crook of his cast-covered elbow, and plunked the toy in front of her that Kelly and Carlos had brought.
She quieted, staring at it. It was a soft flower with a mirror in the middle, each petal a different texture, some of which made interesting sounds when you squeezed them.
Andy shook it to ring a bell inside, and squeezed the crackly petal, then the squeaky one. He grinned, watching her. “She totally has your eyes.”
I was floating in bliss to finally behold this scene. “Little early to tell, isn’t it?”
“Nah. I know your eyes, man.” He leaned down and kissed her on top of her head, as naturally as you please.
I sat with him for an hour, catching him up on my nightmarish past few weeks, and making sure he ate some of the sandwich and soup they brought him for dinner. He sighed to hear about my conversation with my parents, but he wasn’t surprised. Kelly, however, contributed, “I am going to slap them if they don’t shape up, Sinter. Honest to God.”
Carlos and Kelly carried Verona out to walk her up and down the hall and take photos of her. The latest nurse left with the dinner dishes. We were finally alone.
I got on my knees on Andy’s bed (screw the floor) and said, “Hey. Will you marry me?”
He laughed in surprise. “What?”
“Next time I have to call a hospital about you, I want to be able to say, ‘He’s my goddamn spouse, so tell me what’s going on.’” My voice cracked with emotion.
He gazed into my eyes. “Wow. Um. I want to say yes, because I’ve loved you for ten years like my stupid sister told you, but …” He set his hand on mine and looked down at it. “You’re only asking because you’re all emotional right now. You don’t mean it. You need to think about questions like this.”
“I have. It’s not like we don’t know each other well enough. And I’ve loved you a lot longer than you think, okay? I loved you months ago, when I realized I didn’t want anyone else at Girasol. I loved you when I was willing to leave London for you. Hell, I probably even loved you that day you left for college. I just didn’t know it until lately. So yeah, I stand by my question. Will you marry me?”
He beamed and twined his fingers into mine. “Then yes. But let’s make it a long engagement, so we can get past Verona’s newborn stage, and you can have time to change your mind if you want, and—”
I snorted, cupped his banged-up face gently in both hands, and gave him a long, deep kiss, the kind of kiss you simply have to give someone who’s just accepted your marriage proposal.
“Come on, Toothless, humor me?” Andy implored.
Wrapped in a bright-yellow, one-piece Pikachu costume, complete with hood, feet, and forked-lightning tail, Verona lay on the changing table, kicking and screaming. Halloween was the next day, Andy’s boss had given us the costume, and Andy was determined to try it on her.
Since his apartment was occupied by people subletting it, and since he would be delayed in going to Tokyo (he planned to join them for the second half of the project), he had moved into my duplex with me. My landlady was fine with it, even when I introduced Andy as my fiancé. She could teach a thing or two to my grandparents.
Standing by with my phone camera switched on, I said, “I don’t think it’s because of the costume. It’s just seven o’clock. The usual hour of screaming.” Verona had entered a phase where no matter what we did, she cried for about an hour every evening after dinner. Good times.
Andy ran his hand through his hair. “So, what, we try later?”
“All we can do.”
Andy flipped a blanket over his shoulder in preparation for the inevitable drool and/or spit-up and picked her up carefully—he’d just gotten his cast off and was still taking it easy on his healed arm. “Okay, shush shush, I’m sorry, Toothless. I love you. I’ll never torture you with costumes again. Well, that’s a lie. I’ll probably do it every Halloween, but—”
I put out my hand to silence him. I thought I’d heard a knock on our door.
Verona’s wails sank to a lower volume as he cuddled her.
The knock sounded again.
I crossed to the front door and opened it, while Andy hung back with Verona, pacifying her with kisses on her ear.
My mother stood on the porch wearing her long black raincoat. Raindrops sparkled on her shoulders. A small piece of luggage, like an overnight bag, sat at her feet. Andy and I stared in shock.
Was she there to take the baby from us? Was someone dead? Had someone kidnapped her and dropped her beside the road in Seattle, conveniently within walking distance of our place?
“Hello, boys.” She seemed composed, if tired. Her hands rested in the pockets of her coat.
“Mom.” Surprise resounded in my voice.
Andy glanced at me and withdrew a step, as if to let the two of us face off without interference.
She focused on me, raising her voice to top Verona’s cries. “Joel, I’ve left your father.”
My stomach did a roller-coaster flip. “Left him?”
“We’ve been talking for weeks. We can’t agree. Until he stops being so stubborn and accepts your situation, I refuse to live with him. I want to be a part of my granddaughter’s life.” Her gaze moved to Andy. “I have nothing against you two being together. I no longer want to make life any harder for you.”
I stuttered out, “Oh. Okay.”
Andy smiled, still bobbing our crabby baby. “Well, come in. Let’s get that wet coat off you.”
“Thank you.” She entered, and I took her coat and hung it up.
“Mom … I’m so glad you feel that way, but … I don’t want you to leave Dad. Not forever.” Despite all my reasons to want revenge upon my father, I found myself in a panic at the idea of my parents divorcing—over me, no less.
She straightened the hem of her royal-blue cardigan. “I imagine he’ll come around. But your child’s happiness comes first. I’m sure you understand that.”
“Yeah. I guess.” I glanced over and made a wry face at my clearly unhappy baby.
“Let’s see her.” She held out her arms, and Andy handed Verona over. “You were the same at this age,” she told me. “I bet I still remember the maneuver.” She began rocking Verona in big, slow bounces while making a shushing sound. To my amazement, within a minute, Verona quieted down to a low whimper, calmer than we had gotten her so far. “There, sweetie,” she whispered.
Andy and I stared, impressed. “Thank goodness,” he said. “An expert’s finally arrived.”
“I’m sure she was about to fall asleep anyway,” Mom said. “Such a fuss wears a baby out.”
“Can we, um, make up the sofa bed for you?” I said. “It’s all we have, but—”
She gazed at the baby. “Thank you, but I’ve already booked myself a room at Hotel Monaco.”
<
br /> The Monaco was one of the ritziest hotels downtown, the kind with a row of international flags outside. “You do things in style, Mom.”
“I may stay in town awhile. But I promise I’ll only be around when you want help.”
“We can always use help,” Andy assured her.
She lifted her face. “Andy, what are your parents called, as grandparents?”
“They’re Nana and Papa.”
“Good. I would like to be Granny.”
I stepped forward to view Verona, who slept blissfully in her grandmother’s arms, her smooth eyelids shut and her lips parted in an O. Torn between telling my mother “Thank you,” “I love you,” and “Please, seriously, don’t divorce Dad over me,” I said nothing. I leaned down and kissed Mom on the forehead, then stepped back.
“Did you pick her name?” Mom asked me. “I like it.”
“I did,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Very Shakespearean.”
“That was the idea.”
She looked at Andy. “I went to your parents to find out how you were doing—all of you. They were very kind.”
“Aw, I’m glad,” he said. “They’ve been great.”
“They helped me see that your situation needn’t be a problem. Patty and Phil did too, when I spoke to them. They have a gay daughter, you know.”
I cracked a smile at Andy, remembering the country-club debacle. He grinned back.
“Yeah,” I said. “They mentioned.”
Mom glanced at Andy again. “You’ve filed to adopt her, Kelly told me.”
Andy and I exchanged another glance. I shrugged.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s … they say it should all go through just fine.”
“That’s good. I also asked if you were engaged, and she said yes.” She looked calmly over at me.
“Um,” I said, “yeah. I mean, we haven’t set a date, but …”
“Your grandparents won’t come,” she remarked. “Any of them. I can tell you that. But I’d like to, if that’s all right.” She smiled down at the baby.
Andy and I met each other’s gazes again, amazed.
“We’ll save you a front-row seat,” I said.
CHAPTER 43: CEREMONY
I SKETCHED EYELINER AROUND MY EYES —NOT THE CURE LEVELS, JUST ENOUGH TO PRETTY MYSELF UP A little. This time it wasn’t black, either; it was brown, to match my current hair color.
In the past year, my agent, Dawn, had found me a role in a TV series, a Netflix exclusive. It was a spooky, X-Files-type show where people from other times and places kept appearing out of nowhere in a small Northwest community. We filmed in a town in the hills outside Seattle, and I played a cobbler from the 1850s who, like many of the misplaced visitors, became an unwilling modern-day resident. The show was a hit, to the point where I sometimes got recognized in public. On my social-media pages, I had hundreds of followers I’d never heard of. I had fans. It was insane, and I tried not to think about it too much.
For my role, the hairdressing team dyed my hair brown and kept it earlobe-length and smooth. On days like this one, though, when I wasn’t on set, I liked to give it some rock-star unruliness with the help of styling products.
Daniel stepped into the dressing room. “I’ve been sent to put your flower on you, mate.”
He looked especially GQ-ready in his perfectly fitting gray suit with a white rose pinned to the lapel, his wavy hair tousled by Colin Firth’s own stylist (or such was my private theory).
I set down the eyeliner and turned, blowing out a long breath to calm my nerves. “Thanks.”
Daniel pinned the boutonniere to me: a purple calla lily backed with the trimmed eye of a peacock feather. As he sorted out the pin, he glanced at me and grinned. “Nervous?”
“Yeah. But at least this is a theater, and I’m used to being nervous in theaters. How’s Andy?”
“Same, I reckon, except he’s not used to being nervous in theaters.”
Daniel and the other groomsmen and groomsmaids proved more traditional than we expected, and weren’t letting Andy and me see each other in the hour before the ceremony, even though we’d woken up in the same bed that morning and driven over together. In the next dressing room over, Andy was being primped by his siblings and whoever else barged in.
Julie popped into our dressing room and squealed upon viewing me. “Oh, wait till he sees you! You look beautiful.”
Daniel stepped back, having fastened my boutonniere, and I looked into the row of mirrors facing me. I wore a black velvet tailcoat with silver buttons (though I was supposed to leave the coat open and not fasten any of them), pin-striped gray trousers, lace-up black boots, a satin vest in vertical stripes of dark purple and black, a white shirt, and a purple tie that matched my vest and lily. I had opted against ruffles, goggles, or a top hat, but I still looked fairly steampunk. Or new wave.
This was the kind of thing that happened to you when you knew costume designers. Still, it suited me much better than a traditional tux.
Daniel checked the time on his phone. “We’re pushing the limits of ‘fashionably late.’ All set?”
I packed in another deep breath and nodded.
It had been a long engagement. Not because we were ambivalent, but because we were busy. I’d been on the TV show for two seasons and was booked for a third, the closest thing to steady work an actor could hope for. Andy, scenting a networking opportunity, asked our producers if they’d be interested in developing a tie-in role-playing video game for the show, and to his glee they were. Andy and Dakota and their team had been designing it and releasing updates to it as the better part of their job lately. (We in the cast voiced our own characters in the game, naturally.)
Then there was raising a baby, who became a toddler, clever and stubborn enough to find new ways to test our sanity every day and make us doubt our ability to do anything as complex as planning a wedding. Yet there we were.
This venue was a small, hipster-chic theater with neon signs and a balcony. I had never performed in it, but it was only five miles from our place, and the space could be rented for events, so we grabbed it. We had both grimaced at the idea of a church or city hall, and when Andy cheekily suggested a country club, I stopped speaking to him for the rest of that day.
When I walked in from stage left with Daniel, I looked down at the front row and found two-year-old Verona on my mom’s lap, with Andy’s parents sitting beside them. I waved.
Verona crowed, “Daddy!” entirely too loudly. I put my finger to my lips, and Mom murmured something into her ear.
From stage right, Andy strolled forward with Emma, their other two siblings tailing them. The multicolored stage lights played across his smile. Within seconds, I was seizing his hands and refusing to let go or to stop grinning.
He hadn’t wanted to wear a velvet tailcoat, so he wore a more mainstream suit in the same colors as mine: black jacket, striped vest, dark-purple tie and peacock/lily boutonniere. With pink lights falling on his face, his scars from the car accident didn’t even show much. On the one and only occasion he had let me draw cosmetic stripes along them to disguise them, at which time he had also let me paint him up with eyeliner and lipstick, I swore truthfully to him that he looked hotter than Adam Ant. But for whatever bizarre reason, he didn’t want to look like that at his wedding, so I was the only one of us wearing cosmetics.
I didn’t work at the café anymore—the TV show kept me busy full-time—but we were still regular patrons and friends of Chris and Kam’s, and it turned out Chris was one of those people ordained by the Universal Life Church and thus able to perform weddings. She stepped up, facing the audience across our joined hands, and began her spiel.
I stared into Andy’s eyes with a dopey grin. Though my heartbeat pounded in my ears, he and I were able to repeat our vows lucidly enough.
As we readied the rings, Verona yelled, “Daddy! Oddy!”
We had simply been calling Andy “Andy,” but her developing tongue couldn’t quite grasp t
hat. She began with “Addy,” which had since developed into “Oddy.”
“Vee,” Andy said to her. “Shush.”
I held out a hand toward her, middle and ring fingers tucked down, pointer and pinky up. “Quiet coyote,” I reprimanded, face stern, and everyone laughed.
Verona devoted herself to trying to form coyote ears with her fingers and stick them on her head. Mom and Carlos assisted her.
At Chris’s command, we slid the rings onto each other’s fingers—basic bands, silver for me, gold for Andy, because he wanted his to look as much like the Precious as possible.
“By the power vested in me by some website,” Chris announced, “I pronounce you lawfully married! Kiss!”
We kissed. Even in my rush of joy, I could predict what would happen next, and sure enough, it did: Verona screeched, “Meeee. Me, me, me.”
Because every time she saw us kiss or hug lately, she wanted in on it.
Everyone applauded. Andy and I turned to face our guests, holding hands. I took Daniel’s hand too, on my other side. All of us in the wedding party raised our joined hands, then bent down together in a curtain-call bow.
Andy and I trotted down the movable block of stairs they had set up in front of the stage. We caught Verona, who had launched off Mom’s lap at us, and kissed her too.
People got up, the venue staff started moving the chairs and setting up tables, and the reception was on.
We wanted a small ceremony, and we did manage to keep it to under a hundred guests—still larger than some audiences I’d performed for.
There were some notable people who weren’t among the audience that day. My grandparents, for one. All four of them had ceased speaking to me when I’d sent a letter to my family members two years earlier, announcing Verona’s existence and my engagement to Andy. They were also not speaking much to my mom, since she sided with us. The cousins, aunts, and uncles who held moral views similar to those of my grandparents weren’t there either, but at least we got congrats emails from some of them. They were keeping their distance, but not cutting all ties. There was a spectrum of disapproval, it would seem.
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