Page 19 of It's Holy Matrimony, Baby

“He was better in person.” Our conversation tapers off the way it does whenever this subject is broached by people who didn’t know him. We both stand around awkwardly staring at the building, her biting her thumb nail, and me with my arms crossed.

“You grew up here?”

Can’t blame her for wanting to change the topic, even slightly. Don’t know what to say myself. “I did.”

“This place must have been amazing in its heyday.” She glances around the empty lot.

“It was.”

“I heard Sophie Valentine had her first kiss in this parking lot.” She shields her eyes with her hand as she twists at the hips like she’s surveying her kingdom.

“Yeah, I remember.” Standing beside her, I point at an uninteresting spot in the yard. Memories overlap the rubble and littered glass from windows and broken bottles, tinting it golden. It’s like looking through dust motes or dirt streaked windowpanes at a perfect summer’s day. “Um, it happened right over there.”

She gazes out to where I pointed, and then her nose crinkles and she turns to me. “Was it with you? Did you and Sophie—”

“Oh. No. Not me.” I grimace. Sophie and I shared a lot of moments, but they were all platonic.

“But you were there.” She nods to herself, most likely slotting images into place in her head. She lifts her Nikon and takes a few photos of the area. “Will you tell me about it?”

“It’s not really my story to tell.” Crossing my arms, I rock back on my heels. Boy, it was a story though. We thought it would be an epic. But time teaches reality, doesn’t it? Sometimes, I wish...

“Please. It’ll be completely off the record. It’s just I’ve always wondered.”

“Well, since you’re my wife I suppose I can tell you.” I owe her at least this much.

“Hmmm,” she says, but she doesn’t argue. I guess at this point she just wants me to tell her the story.

“Sophie was having a bad day. A real shit show. She’d been in the booth for hours, but the song wouldn’t come together. They’d run through it so many times that my dad suggested it might be better if she came in the next day. It wasn’t a big deal. We’d grown up together, so she’d always had unlimited access to the booth. It was sort of unspoken that she was a star.”

“Really?” Beck whispers, as though she doesn’t want to interrupt the story.

“Yeah. She had that...light inside her, that zing from the beginning.” Sort of like Beck did the first time I saw her. Everything was haywire in my head and she shone like a flare. Can’t tell her that though. “Anyone could tell she was special the moment they heard her voice. But she worked her ass off too. That day wasn’t an exception. And then she received a phone call about the boy she was dating. It really messed her up.”

“I wonder what it was.”

I still remember her face while her best friend broke the news that the boy Sophie had started dating was spreading rumors about her. She had never kissed a boy and half the kids we went to school with were going to believe she was a slut. “I’m not sure, but she was furious. She stormed out of the booth.”

“It must have been bad.”

“Yeah, I think it might have been.” She was so pale, all the color washed out of her face and tears started leaking from the corners of her eyes as she slammed the booth door behind her. Her hands were shaking, and she was panting as she turned to race out of the building. And then my brother said something to her about how she shouldn’t let it get to her. “She flew out the doors behind us and straight across the yard. Do you see that line?”

“What line?” She screws up her nose and uses a hand to shade her eyes.

Taking her arm, I pull her in front of me and then point over her shoulder so that she can follow the line of my finger to the faded white line on the gravel. “That one.”

“Oh yeah,” she whispers.

“That’s how far she got. You see there was this other boy. He worked here. A boy she’d grown up with and had been friends with all her life. And he’d loved her for all that time. So when he saw how upset she was he had to comfort her. He slammed out of those doors right behind her, chased her across the yard, and then he grabbed her arm.” I take Beck’s elbow as I step closer to her, guiding it back toward my chest, holding onto her like I need her to stay. What would it take? “Like this.”

She inhales sharply. “Go on.”

“Sophie spun around, her eyes red rimmed. She could have obliterated him with her glare. They were both breathing hard, locked into the moment.” Leaning closer, my breath ruffles her hair. The thin strands dance against the nape of her neck, and goose bumps form despite the heat. “A storm of electricity between them, they stood rooted where they were. I suppose it had been there for a while, but not like it was that afternoon while they stood in the sunlight, and he took her face in his hands and told her that she was too good for some stupid boy from this town. That she was going to be the one who everyone wished they could have had a chance with because she was so much more than anyone deserved.”

Her breath hitches and her shoulders still. She’s caught up in this story. Deep down inside, Beck Casey is a romantic. She just doesn’t know it.

“And she asked him if she was too good for him,” I continue.

“What did he say?” she asks.

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