"Who is it, then? And why are they sending us a congratulations card with breakfast?"
Grant shakes his head.
"I don't know." He pulls out his phone and starts scrolling through it. "Do you have any pictures from last night?"
Suddenly I realize I don't know where my phone is. I look around the room, hoping I’ll see it sitting on one of the various surfaces, but I don't. I dig through the pile of clothes at the foot of the bed, then under the jacket draped over the dresser. Running out of options, I start looking in drawers. When I get to the nightstand, I peek in and find not only my phone, but the piece of paper it's sitting on. My heart thumps heavily in my chest, and my hands shake as I reach in and pick up the paper.
"Grant," I say.
"I have about 200 pictures from last night," he says, "but most of them are blurry and dark."
"Grant," I say again, trying to keep my voice calm, but needing to get his attention.
"Oh," he says. "There's the glowing beaker. Where did that come from? I wish I could remember what was in it. It looks good."
"I'm sure we could find it if we look hard enough, but right now, I need you to look at this."
He looks up.
"Did you find a picture?"
"No, but I might have found out who Jerry Williams is."
The name didn’t sound familiar at all when I read it, and it still doesn’t, even though I see it written with great flourish across the bottom of the certificate I'm holding.
"What's that?" Grant asks, coming to my side.
I look at him.
"I think we need to make a phone call."
A few minutes later, I drop my phone onto the bed.
"What's wrong?" Grant asks.
"Closed," I say. "The message says it won't open until tomorrow. What do we do now?"
"We wait," I say. "There's really nothing else we can do."
When we pull up in front of the address Grant’s phone directed us to the next morning, I'm gripping the paper tightly in my hand.
"Well, we've confirmed it is not a joke print shop," Grant says.
"Did you actually think there was a chance it was?" I ask.
Grant lets out a long breath.
"I guess we should go inside."
The man at the podium inside the building looks up as Grant opens the door, and we step inside.
"Hello!" he immediately gushes. "Mr. and Mrs. Laurence!" He eyes me with a mischievous glint. "Are you getting used to that, yet?"
"Oh, not yet," I say. "Mr. Williams?"
"What's this Mr. Williams?" he asks, coming around the side of the podium toward me. "Jerry. Jerry. You don't stay so formal with someone you shared such as special moment with."
"Do you have pictures of that special moment?" I ask Grant out of the corner of my mouth.
"I don't think so," he says just as Jerry gets to us.
He's reaching for my hands, but Grant shoves the piece of paper I found in the nightstand drawer into his instead.
"What's this?" he asks.
Jerry looks at him strangely.
"It's your marriage license," he says. "Not the official one, of course. Not the one you signed after the ceremony. It's your Tiny Pink Chapel of Love souvenir certificate."
Tiny Pink Chapel of Love. Yep. That's what I thought I read on that piece of paper.
"We signed a license after the… ceremony?" Grant asks.
"Of course, you did," Jerry says. "You know, the two of you squeezed in right under the wire. I was about to close up for the night. I always stay open a few extra hours on New Year's for couples, such as yourselves, who get swept up in the excitement of the holiday. If you had been just a few moments later, I would have been closed."
"Lucky us. Are you sure this isn't the one you're talking about?" Grant asks, showing him the signatures scrawled across the bottom of the certificate in his hand.
"No," Jerry says.
"We gave you that one?" Grant says.
There's a hopeful lilt in his voice even as he speaks slowly, like he's hoping to guide Jerry through the conversation.
"Yes," Jerry says.
"Fantastic. So, do you have that one?"
"I dropped it off at the courthouse this morning."
I see Grant's face drop.
"The courthouse? But aren’t the closed for the holiday?" I ask.
"Usually, but sometimes Sue decides to open up just in case,” Jerry says. "I wanted to make sure it got filed as soon as possible, so I when I saw it was open, I went ahead and dropped it off."
"Shit," Grant mutters.
"What's wrong?" Jerry asks, sounding like he's on the edge of falling apart.
"Nothing," I say, trying to reassure him as I take Grant by the elbow and start guiding him backwards. "Thank you again. And thank you for the card. It was a lovely gesture."
I pull Grant back through the door, and we get into the car.
"What are you doing?" Grant asks.
"Don't you want to try to get the license back?" I ask. "He can't get it back. He already took it to the courthouse. There's no way we're wrestling that thing back from the clerk. And if we try, we're going to be adding federal charges to our marriage mistake."
"So, what do we do?" Grant asks.
"We go to the courthouse and try to stop them from filing the license."
* * *
Grant
"What do you mean you can't give it to us?" Emma asks.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but that's official policy. The license has already been filed, so I can’t return it to you."
"But it's our marriage license," she says.
The woman’s eyes brighten, and she smiles.
"Congratulations!" she gushes. "That's wonderful."
"Yes, thank you," Emma says. "Such a magical time in my life. But, I really need that license."
If it wasn't such a serious situation, I would laugh at her intensity.
"I'm sorry," the woman says again. "There's really nothing I can do. It's already been turned in by the officiant and was processed shortly after I opened this morning.”
"What does that mean?" Emma asks, though I know she already knows what it means.
"It means you're officially married," the clerk says. "Congratulations."
Neither one of us seem to know what to say as we make our way out of the courthouse and back to the car. Emma drops heavily into the passenger seat, her head falling back against the headrest and her eyes rolling up toward the roof as if seeking divine guidance.
"What are we going to do?" she asks. "This isn't exactly how I envisioned the first day of a happy marriage."
"Scrambling around trying to figure out if we can disqualify it?" I ask. "Yeah, me neither."
"How did this happen? We got that license just so the ceremony with Mr. Kleinfelder would look legitimate. The plan was to not have him sign it, act like we forgot, and then disappear, which, in retrospect, is a very poorly thought-out plan."
She covers her eyes with the backs of her hands, and I see her taking some deep breaths.
"It's going to be fine," I tell her. "This is all just a little hiccup, and we're going to look back on it a few months down the line and laugh about it."
"That's what people say when they know they will never, ever look back at a situation and laugh at it," Emma says.
"Well, right now, we don't really have a ton of options," I tell her. "Our good friend Jerry filed the license this morning. Both of us signed it, and so did he. That makes it valid. Which means, at least for now, we are legally married."
"And what are we going to do about that?" Emma moans.
"I don't think there's much we can do right now," I say.
"Why is that?" she asks.
"Do you realize how horrible it would look for my business, and for us, to confess that this was a fake marriage to begin with?"
"You trying to make your client happy is what got us into this mess in the first place," Emma says. "At some point, we have to do
what's right for us."
"You would really be ok with telling Mr. Kleinfelder that we lied to him, faked our nuptials, and now want a divorce?"
I can see the reluctance in Emma's expression.
"No," she says. "I wouldn't want to hurt him like that. There's no reason he needs to know that."
"I'm glad you agree," I say. "Because there's a waiting period to get a divorce. We could probably try to file for an annulment, but honestly those things take forever, and are usually just as complicated, if not more so, than getting a divorce. And it would look just as bad. I guess we’re just going to have to stay married for a while."
Emma's eyes slide over to me.
"Wow," she says. "That's almost as romantic as your proposal."
She smiles, and I feel myself relax. I lean over and kiss her.
"Nobody needs to know about this," I say. "As far as anybody in Magnolia Falls knows, we just came out here for a business trip, and we're going back the same as we left. Nothing has changed. We'll keep it that way and figure out what to do on our own, and keep living our lives.”
A flicker of uncertainty crosses Emma’s face.
"What about us?"
"Nothing has changed," I say again.
* * *
Emma's phone rings while we’re on our way back to Magnolia Falls that afternoon. I sent my driver home yesterday, so it's just the two of us as we drive through the cold, clear day. She picks it up, and hits speaker phone so she can talk while munching her way through the bag of cheddar popcorn propped between us.
"Hi, Judy," she says.
"I'm not speaking to you," Judy says.
Emma looks at her phone strangely.
"Judy?" she says.
"I'm not speaking to you," Judy says again.
"You called me," Emma says. There's a long stretch of silence. "So, you called me to let me know you're not speaking to me?"
The call ends. Emma looks over at me with a questioning expression in her eyes.
"What was that all about?" she asks.
I shrug.
"How am I supposed to know?" I ask. "She's your friend."
"Don't even try that," Emma says. "Don't think I didn't hear you talking to her on the phone the other night about that cooking show the two of you watch together."
"We don't watch it together," I say.
"You watch it simultaneously and text about it at the same time," she says. "You watch it together… via satellite."
I laugh, remembering Mrs. Burke being so proud of herself when she described our call that way.
"All right, I concede. But she's your best friend, so you take most of the responsibility for her."
Emma reaches into the bag of popcorn and takes out several of the fluffy kernels. I open my mouth and she tosses some in. As I chew, I think of the casual pattern we’ve fallen into together. Our relationship status is not something we've discussed or defined. Emma still hasn't taken that step forward, and part of me is regretting the promise I made her.
We're not far from the ferry when my phone rings. Emma picks it up and presses speakerphone. I've quickly learned she sees absolutely no gray area when it comes to talking on the phone while driving.
"Hello?"
"You could have at least called."
"Hey, Preston," I say. "Nice to hear from you, as always. What should I have called about?"
My brother scoffs.
"So, you're just going to act like it’s nothing more than another appointment for you?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Guess I should cut you some slack," Preston says. "I heard it was pretty impulsive. But you could have at least called afterwards. Mom is really upset."
"Grant?" Dean's voice says before I'm able to respond to Preston.
"What's going on?" I ask.
"Don't mind Preston," Dean says. "He's just in a really shitty mood because his last client was a crier. He didn't figure it out fast enough and ended up stuck in an emotional whirlpool while they decorated a gingerbread village together."
"I told him to always be careful with the ones around the holidays, but that one isn’t my fault. I haven’t heard about anyone with a gingerbread fetish wanting our services. Even if I had, I probably would have sent them your way."
"No, that's not it. He wasn't talking about the client."
"Then what was he talking about?"
"Look, I don't have a lot of time. Preston and I have to get to a party. A party, by the way, you’re supposed to be at. But I guess you have a good excuse for why you're not here. We’ve been waiting for you call us, and you hadn't, so we thought we'd give you a quick call to say fuck you for not even letting us know, but well done. We'll see you when you get back to Magnolia Falls. Mom insists on dinner at the house."
Like he usually does, Dean hangs up without actually ending the call. Sometimes, I wonder if he does it on purpose. Emma looks at me strangely as she puts my phone back in its place on the console.
"We seem to be exceeding our quota for strange phone calls today," she says.
"We do," I agree. "You don't think they know, do you?"
"How would they?" Emma asks. "Like you said, they think we were at a business function. They didn't have any idea what the bucket list item was. Oh no, Judy did."
"What do you mean?"
"Judy knew. I told her about the wedding. She knows we've been planning the wedding for Mr. Kleinfelder to officiate, and that's what we were doing on New Year's Eve. We'd even made a pact to call each other at midnight so we could do a toast. Which, I forgot. Of course."
"But that doesn't mean anything," I say. "Just because she knows we were planning a wedding doesn't mean she has any idea how it turned out."
"You're right," she says. "I feel horrible for not calling her. That's probably why she's not speaking to me."
I nod in agreement, but I'm not completely convinced. I'm sure it hurt Judy's feelings for Emma to forget to call her on New Year's Eve, but she doesn't strike me as the kind of person who would be that upset about it. Even if she was, she wouldn't have waited this long to inform Emma they were no longer on speaking terms. And Emma missing a long-distance toast didn't explain my brothers. Something else is happening here.
Fifteen minutes later, we pull up to the ferry. The attendant beams at us when we climb out into the cold air to watch the crossing to the island like we always do.
"Congratulations!"
"Thank you," I say, looking sideways at Emma.
Something small and hard hits me in the side of the face, and I look down to see what looks like pieces of cereal scattered at my feet. I'm about to lean down to pick one of the pieces up when I'm bombarded by more from over the side of the ferry. I grab a piece out of the air and look at it, then glance down to see Carson sitting in his vacation boat. The skinny legs sticking out from his thick black parka are far paler than you'd expect for a man who lives his life on the deck of his houseboat. He once explained to me that sunscreen is an important part of his daily routine. "I belong to the sea," he told me. "And it's the sea that's going to end me. I'm not going to go out like a punk to stupid skin cancer."
After that day I could only imagine Carson envisions the end of his life like some sort of Norse myth.
For now, the evidence of his loyalty to the Sea lies in the milky whiteness of his exposed knees. He wears his baggy shorts like they are the required uniform of anyone living on a houseboat, but the parka provides insulation from the cold winter day, which I can only guess is even more bitter that close to the water.
"Happy New Year, Carson," I call down.
"Congratulations," Carson says, throwing more of the cereal at me.
I catch more of the puffed rice and examine it.
"What the hell is this?"
"Krispies," Carson says. "I can't throw normal rice at you. Bad for the birds, you know. I don't want them blowing up all over the place, or just dropping dead down into the water. Makes for some grim floating."
> I slide back away from the railing of the ferry and turn to look at Emma. She is shaking her head slowly, and we walk back to the car without a word. As soon as we close the doors on either side of us, she looks at me sharply.
"I sincerely doubt he's short on marshmallows and hoping you'll take over preparing treats for him," she says. "He knows we're married."
"How did he find out?"
"I don't know," Emma says. "But if he knows, there's not a single person on Magnolia Falls who doesn't know."
As we make our way off of the ferry and toward our street, it’s obvious she’s right. Everyone we pass waves at us enthusiastically and shouts their congratulations. A few have slightly bitter expressions that shine through their well-wishes, and I assume they are on the same team as my brothers and hurt that they weren't involved in the wedding.
I'm hoping for some quiet and the opportunity to talk this situation through when we get back to one of our houses, but almost as soon as I turn the corner to go down the street, I know that's not happening right now. A large tractor with a flat trailer behind it sits in front of Emma's house. I immediately recognize it as belonging to Jeremy, Judy's boyfriend. I haven't seen him since then, but here he is, lounging against the wheel of the tractor, watching as a stream of men come out of Emma's house carrying boxes and furniture.
"What are they doing?" Emma asks. "Why are they taking everything out of my house?"
She's scrambling to unhook her seatbelt before we even reach the house, and she flings herself through the door while the wheels are still in motion. She quickly and efficiently stalks across her yard toward a woman in a gray suit and oatmeal colored sweater.
"What's going on here?" she demands.
I climb out of the car and follow her across the yard. The woman has turned to face her, and I recognize her as Mrs. Davenport, the mother of the man who lived in the house before Emma moved in. She looks at Emma calmly like she isn't being yelled at.
"Hello, Emma," she says. "I didn't expect to see you back here today."
"Well, obviously," Emma says with a slight flail. "You wouldn't want me to be here while my house is being ransacked."
Mrs. Davenport laughs.
Marriage Mistake Page 26