Page 11 of Two Friends in Marriage
She knowsI’mokay with it; she knows I haven’t had sex in years, a state of affairs that doesn’t bother me.I’ve only ever been attracted to two men—and it’s been a long time since I’ve felt sexual attraction.I do have a libido, but I take care of that myself a few times a month.Sex isn’t something I miss, and it’s part of what makes dating so complicated for me: I’m never attracted to someone from the beginning, but in a long-term romantic relationship, itissomething I’d want.At least, I did in the past, though my sample size is small.
And even though it usually takes me a while, I’ve known Evan for fifteen years, so if it was going to happen, I’d think it would have happened already.
“He’s free to get it outside of our marriage.I fully expect him to do that at some point, though he doesn’t seem too concerned about it.Don’t worry—we talked about all this before we got engaged.Which was, um, in December.”
“And you’re only telling me now?”
“Sorry.It’s a weird situation, and most people don’t know the truth.”
“You know I’m all about weird situations,” she says, and I laugh.“If you think you’ll be happy in this sort of marriage, then I support you.When’s the wedding?”
“July.You’ll be invited, of course.I hope you’ll come.”
“Definitely!Just give me the date and I’ll look at flights.”
When Claudia and I end our call, I feel relieved.It was nice to tell someone, other than the person I’m marrying.
But now that it’s done, my brain jumps to something else I need to figure out: my wedding dress.
I don’t have any female relatives to go dress shopping with me, and Evan and I aren’t having a proper wedding party.Once Claudia books her flight to Toronto, I ask if she’ll be a witness, and she agrees; Max will be the other one.We tell them that they can wear whatever they want.
“You can wear whatever you want, too,” Evan says to me.“It doesn’t need to be a white dress—or even a dress.”
But although I haven’t spent my life dreaming of my wedding, I did always imagine wearing a white dress.
“You could ask Lana and Camila,” he suggests, when we’re talking on the phone one day.“Or I could go.I think it’s supposed to be bad luck for me to see you in the dress before your wedding day, but I’m not worried about that.”
I brighten.“Would you?”
I just want something off the rack.No more than $1,500.
We start with a store in Corso Italia, and the sales lady asks me questions about what I want, but I’m not well-versed in the language of dresses.I tell her that I’d like I bit of lace.Nothing strapless.Despite my limited help, she quickly selects four dresses that look promising.
The fit of the first one is all wrong, though, and the second is okay, but not something I’d spend over a thousand dollars on.As I return to the fitting room, my thoughts start to spiral.I know I shouldn’t have expected the first or second dress to be perfect, but I fear I’ll never find something, and I don’t know anything about this sort of thing because I don’t have a mom…
I exit the dressing room in the third dress, not feeling terribly hopeful.Some women say theyknowas soon as they put on the dress, and I don’t feel that way about this one, either.
But when Evan sees me, he smiles.“I like it.You look very pretty.”He turns me to face the full-length mirror and keeps his hands on my lace-covered shoulders.“What do you think?”
“Your fiancé has good taste,” the sales lady says.
She doesn’t find it weird that my groom-to-be is accompanying me to search for a wedding dress.Even if it’s not “traditional,” she’s probably seen everything.
I take a closer look at myself in the mirror, the lacy details on the bodice, the long sleeves.It really is gorgeous.My mind stops racing; I can imagine myself getting married in this one.
I try on a few more dresses, just in case, but in the end, that’s the one I buy.
When we leave the store, I’m relieved to have one more thing checked off my list, and I’m also relieved that I don’t have to do any of this alone.
Not surprisingly, buying a house is harder than buying a dress.
We get a real estate agent and a preapproval for a mortgage.We tell her what we’d like and start going to viewings.We put in bids for two houses in Markham, but we don’t get either of them.
It seems ridiculous that two thirty-three-year-olds, who’ve both worked for over ten years, have to consider themselves lucky to even have a chance of buying a house in the Toronto suburbs.But I know we’re lucky.Our parents aren’t giving us six figures for a down payment, but our families paid for the majority of our schooling.Twenty-five years ago, it would have been a given that we could buy a house; unfortunately, prices have skyrocketed.
I knew it might be tough, but I feel like I wasn’t fully prepared.I’m doubtful we’ll close on a house before July.Maybe it was foolish to think we could plan a wedding and buy property in seven months, even if it’s a simple wedding.
One spring day, Evan and I go to an open house in Thornhill.It’s the smallest, shabbiest house on a nice street, and it’s painfully busy.
