Page 50 of Just (Fake) Married
“You can wait over there on that bench.” Mabel said, typing away on her computer. “I’ll call you when the judge is ready.”
Harmony sat nextto me on the bench, her body practically vibrating.
“You can still back out of this,” I told her, for like the tenth time.
“I told you, I’m good,” she insisted.
“I feel like now is maybe not the best time to point this out, but…”
“What?” she glared at me.
“Your sweater is on inside out,” I told her.
She glanced down at herself and started laughing.
“It’s not that funny,” I said, as the sound of her laughter, merry and bright but bordering on manic, echoed in the stone hallway.
Right in front of me, she pulled her sweater off, revealing a bright pink tank top with thin straps. The tops of her breasts spilled out of the top, creamy and round. They shimmied as she turned her sweater inside out and I was struck dumb for a second. Unable to look away. When she pulled the sweater on over her head the static electricity sent her hair straight up. I reached forward to pat it down and she dodged my hands, looking at me like I’d tried to feel her up.
“I was just…your hair,” I said.
She smacked it down. “I wasn’t one of those girls who thought a lot about her wedding day, you know? I didn’t buyBride Magazine and cut out pictures of beautiful dresses. But this…” her voice caught and she shook her head. “This is pretty grim.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think for a Calloway and McGraw wedding, we’re doing all right. Neither of us is bleeding and I have no plans to kill you.”
“Yet,” she said ominously.
“I wonder what kind of statue they’ll create about this moment to put in the park.”
“Hungover with my sweater inside out?” She laughed. “Just the way I want to be remembered.”
The wooden doors at the far end of the hallway creaked open and a woman in glasses and a black robe stepped out.
“I understand you are here to get married!” The judge clapped her hands like a high school cheerleader. “Fun!”
I looked at Harmony and she looked at me. Fun, she mouthed and I smiled.
“Come on, come on. I’m Judge Lee. No time like right now to start the rest of your life. Am I right?”
Harmony and I got to our feet and marched into that office like we were meeting a firing squad.
“Now, let’s check your paperwork.” Judge Lee went back to her desk and moved aside a couple of coffee mugs to get to the papers on her desk. One said, Ask Me How My Baby is Sleeping.
“How is your baby sleeping?” Harmony asked, pointing to the mug.
“She’s not. But thank you for asking.” Judge Lee smiled at us and then grabbed a piece of paper and came around to the front of her desk. “Do you have a witness?”
“No,” I said, and left it at that.
“Okay,” Judge Lee said. “Let me just…” she walked back around her desk and hit a button on her phone. “Mabel, can you come witness the happy nuptials?”
“How old is your baby?” Harmony asked.
“Well, this mug is from my first born who is three. My new baby, the one keeping me up most nights, is three months old.”
“A three-year-old and a three-month-old,” Harmony said with a smile. “Your hands are full.”
“They are,” she said with a soft laugh.
