Page 98 of Old Acquaintances

I returned the gesture. “Ella and Tucker. Whatever we are. The same we’ve always been.”

“They wouldn’t even know each other if it wasn’t for us.” He ducked and powder flew over his head. “I think we get to nametheir firstborn child.”

“I call it!”

“You can’t call it, this isn’t shotgun. We have to compromise.”

I turned as snow came at my face. “Do you really think they’re going to get married?”

“I really do.”

“Does Steve talk to you about that kind of stuff?”

“With his little penis, yeah.” He smiled when I laughed. “He said he has to marry someone so he might as well marry Gracie now, rather than try to find someone later.”

A cold wind rushed into my face. “That’s horrible.”

As mean and difficult as my sister could be, she deserved to be chosen because he couldn’t live without her, not because she was the easy choice.

“Steve will be good to her. He’s very loyal. I just…I don’t know how he could possibly know what it is to be truly in love.” Tucker stepped closer. “Like, can’t breathe sometimes, in love with her. The whole world only exists because she’s in it. Everything I have or see or do would be completely different if I never met you -her.” He skated his eyes over mine. “That kind of love.”

I brushed snow off his shoulder. “I didn’t know you were such a romantic.”

“Really? I thought it was pretty obvious.”

“With all those girls you date for a week?”

Tucker pushed my shoulders and my butt fell back into the snow. I was about to complain when he laid down beside me and told me to be quiet and look up. The sky was so clear, blue, stretches of cotton clouds.

He asked me, “Do you want to get married?”

“Are you proposing to me?”

“Yes.” I laughed, but he continued, “How about if we’re notmarried by the time we’re twenty-five, you marry me.”

I sat up. “Twenty-five! You think in four years I’m going to be such a dried-up old maid and no one else will want me that I’ll be forced to marry you?”

“With boobs like that, they’re going to start sagging real fast.”

I plastered snow all over his face.

“That burns!” he yelled. He conceded, “Okay, fine! How about thirty? If we’re not married by the time we’re thirty, you marry me. I might as well buy the cow.”

“If I have to spend my life with someone, it’s going to be someone who loves me.”

“Ilove you, Ella.”

“Ha ha.” I snuggled up next to him. “Hey, let’s make one giant snow angel.” I didn’t get a response, so I turned my head, ear into the snow, my hat rising, and found Tucker’s eyes on me. “What?”

He exhaled. “Nothing.” He stared back at the sky. “Let’s make one fucked up, two-headed snow angel.”

Tucker told me to meet him in the hotel bar. We’d only just turned twenty-one. The hotel was woodsy and rich, and I knew I couldn’t sit on leather chairs beside a stone fireplace with my wet hair, being stared at by proper adults, so I showered and changed into a sweater dress and heels. I dried my hair. As I curled the strands, I thought about Tucker twirling the ends of it. Too often, I wore my hair in such a way that he could touch it, because I liked him beside me, touching me, both of us pretending it wasn’t happening.

I shouldn’t want that, but I did. If I were dating someone, would Tucker still run his fingers through my hair? Would I want it? As we got up from the snow and continued to walk around, I thought about Steven and Gracie and how they nevertouched each other. They didn’t kiss in front of us or hold hands. They didn’t have a gravitational pull. I wanted more than a love like theirs. When I married someone, I wanted them to crave me.

Before we walked inside the bar, Tucker pulled me aside.

“I think we can get some free champagne. Do you want to try it?” He pulled my grandmother’s emerald ring off my finger. “Do you trust me?”

---