Page 3 of Independence Bae

“Hey! That’s a great idea! We should make it a foursome—have a fun weekend in Chicago. Eat good food, Marley and I can check out bridal shops on Saturday, and then we can see if the Hursh plane can fly us back on Sunday afternoon,”Raven suggested.

Raven didn’t even wait for me to say, “That’s a good idea,” before she was dialing Leon’s phone and asking him to pitch the idea.

“If we’re going to Chicago for the weekend,” Marley turned towards Raven, “wanna just do lunch and blow off the appointment at The Bridal Shoppe.”

The Bridal Shoppe, like everything else in this town, the fucking E at the end of shoppe was nauseating in its pretention. Similar to the costume shoppe, and all the other precious tourist stores, it was heavy on the theatrics and light on the actual value to locals. If we did in fact end up going to Chicago, Marley would have a much easier time finding just about anything her heart desired in an urban setting rather than settling for something adjacent to but not exactly what she wanted.

“Looks like the dream team is headed to Chicago for the weekend!” Raven ended her call with Leon on a whoop of excitement. “And the lovely people at Hursch Industries and Media are putting us up at the Waldorf right in the heart of the Gold Coast! Marley, that is the perfect location for you and me to shop the day away on Saturday. Penn is driving up here tomorrow morning, and we’ll head to the airport right at nine. The jet will be waiting for us.”

Marley’s cheeks flushed, and her eyes lit as if I’d just told her we were going to Disney World.

“A private jet? The four of us are going to be flying on a private jet to Chicago?”

Resigned, I nodded my head. “It appears that way.”

Both Raven and Marley practically vibrated with excitement. There was something that held me back from being as excited as they were and I couldn’t put my finger on it. My life had felt like a roller coaster ride ever since Marley had stomped intoThe Dashing Haberdasheryeight months ago covered in snow and spouting all kinds of sass. This was a different kind of feeling though. With Marley, the roller coaster had been breathless excitement. Unsure what turn we’d take next, but knowing whatever it was, it would be fun.

This feeling in the pit of my stomach was as if I were being pulled up to the top of a roller coaster superman style, looking straight down at the ground below, knowing any second the brake would be released, and I’d plummet forty stories. I couldn’t quite describe the feeling—not quite dread but not quite anticipation. Not fear but not excitement either. I didn’t like it, whatever this unnamed feeling was. I didn’t like it at all.

Chapter Two

Even though itwas only for a weekend, the prospect of getting out of North Pole and having a genuine weekend getaway was too much excitement for either of us to handle. The whole way to the diner we’d chatted endlessly about the shopping we could do, and how nice it would be to spend a weekend with Penn and Ted, respectively.

“I went through all of my mom’s boxes and there’s no wedding dress. I mean, duh—she hadn’t married my dad so like I kind of knew subconsciously it couldn’t be possible but that picture had been so convincing I’d almost tricked myself into believing there’d been some secret lover I knew nothing about.”

“But we found the picture?” I’d helped Marley clean out some of her mom’s things—putting the important pieces in the basement for storage—prepping the house for Ted’s move in a few months back. During that clean up we’d found a picture of her mom in the most beautiful ethereal dress and thought for sure there was a wedding dress somewhere that Marley could use.

“A costume apparently.” She shrugged, shoveling a mound of chili cheese fries into her mouth. “She must have done some acting at the community theater or something. I found the dress, but it has Velcro and ties for a back—which pretty much screams theater and quick change.”

If I were getting married in less than a month and I didn’t have a wedding dress, I’d be beside myself. She appeared to be totally nonplussed at the thought.

“So, what are you going to do? You know for a dress?”

She signaled the waitress to bring her another Dr Pepper, downing the one she’d just ordered in four greedy pulls from her straw. I wish I could have that kind of lack of concern over my metabolism. To be in my twenties again.

“Well, worst case scenario I’ll get one off the rack or I’ll make one. The important thing is that I’m marrying Ted right? The dress, the venue, none of that matters as long as the most amazing man I’ve ever met meets me at the front of the aisle and says I do.”

The zen attitude was also semi-new. The last time we’d talked she was frenetically vacillating between “the whole world needs to come while I shout my love for Ted from the rooftops” and “no one cares, I have nobody, what’s the point, anyway.” The woman was giving me whiplash.

“I wonder what is so important that this Hursch chick needs to fly us to Chicago just to talk to us.” I pick at my salad. The anxiety of the unknown has robbed any hunger from me.

“The two of you are both acting really strange. You’re barely eating—Ted looked like he was one loud noise away from running screaming from the room. What gives? Are these people like really important or something?”

Sometimes when you wanted to escape from the insanity of the radio world, it was nice to have people like Marley who were so removed from the industry that you could just have a nice afternoon chat about anything other than radio. But the other side of that same coin was that when you wanted to chat about the intricacies of radio, they didn’t understand the nuance and you had to explain it all.

“Well I think it’s more what do they want from us. We’re contracted here in North Pole. Why the buy out? Does our management here want us gone?”

“I doubt that!” Marley jumped in. “You two doubled the money we raise for the Turkey Gobbler at Wegman’s. And everyone loved you at Carol the Square—personal humiliation aside.”

Marley had been chosen as the “town scrooge” after Ted had a run-in with a tear-filled Marley who was unable to pay for her car repairs, and gifted her with some Christmas magic. One thing had led to another and boom now they were engaged.

“So that brings the other possibility.”

“Which is?” She twisted the white paper that covered her straw, wrapping it around her finger.

“That we are being scouted because they want us to leave North Pole and host a show somewhere else. I wonder if they want us to move to Chicago?” That last sentence was supposed to stay in my head, but as soon as I spoke it into existence, Marley eyes went wide, and her skin morphed to a sickly pallor.

““Wait. What? Move! To Chicago? I thought we were just going for the weekend?”

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