Page 22 of Independence Bae

“Look! Here!” Raven pushed against the paper so hard I thought it would rip, “A Midsummers Night’s Dreamput on by the Dartmouth Drama Society, Dr. Asher Krane, Department of Humanities, Director.”

“No, it can’t be? Can it?” Raven’s focus shifted between me and the piece of paper I held in my hand.

“I wonder how Ted got this?” I ask her because my brain did not want to handle piecing those things together right now.

“Not sure, but look there’s another piece of paper in the shoebox.”

I took it out and it was a travel itinerary for the two of us. We’d be heading to New Hampshire in October to attend Dartmouth’s Literary Festival and their fall production ofMacbeth. Attached to the tickets was a post it note.

My love. You and me are taking a trip of discovery. No matter what we find out, know you’re my future as I hope I will forever be yours.

“Fuckin Ted.”Raven tipped her head as far back as she could, rapidly blinking her eyes. “I just glued my eyelashes in, and he has to go and be a gigantic sap!”

“Right? Gosh after all that he went through with his own life as a foster kid—my heart is too full for words”

He’d told me one night when we’d been dating for about a month about his eighteenth birthday. When you are “released from care,” they hand you your case file, a few meager resources about jobs or education, and fifty dollars. I couldn’t even imagine at the age of eighteen trying to navigate being an adult without a single person there to hold your hand and make sure you were doing okay. It was like pushing them out of a plane with no parachute.

His case file listed him as Theodore Tucker, age three, anonymous surrender.

Anonymous surrender. Meaning someone had left him at a safe house where their identity was kept private, and walked away. As a three-year-old. Now everyone’s life has its struggles and I’m a thousand percent sure that Ted’s mother made that hard fucking decision because she hoped in doing so that he would have a better life. And maybe, compared to whatever she was going through his life in foster care was better. But I can’t imagine seeing Ted at three and being able to walk away from such a loving and sweet person, to never know how he turned out.

He’d paid stupid amounts of money in private detectives to try and search for his birth mom but not a single lead or discovery had ever come. The fact that he didn’t know what his true identity was, was a silent torment.

“Identity is such a big thing for Ted. As you know. I’m just… this gift is just so fucking Ted. He doesn’t want you to suffer like he does.” I watched her rapidly tip her head forward into a Kleenex, moving every which way to avoid messing up the recently applied makeup. “I sure hope you gave him something better than like cufflinks.”

“Oh yeah.” I was about to let her in on my surprise for Ted when the doors to our suite burst open.

“Am I in the right room? I heard someone is getting married in here today!”

The voice didn’t sound familiar to me at all and based on annoyed and confused look on Raven’s face she couldn’t place it either.

From around the corner appeared Ivy and Hillary, dressed to the nines, Ivy had a bag slung over her shoulder.

“I heard from a birdie—” she began, looking as if she’d just stepped off a runway in her ethereal gown. Hillary similarly oozed the kind of elegance that came with tailored clothes from high end designers.

“Named Odette…Odette was the birdie—” Hillary cut in, appearing to be bursting at the seams with excitement.

Ivy rolled her eyes and continued, “Odette told us that someone was having aMidsummer Night’s Dreamthemed wedding. And you know me,” She directed that last sentence at Hillary only.

“You do love a good theme,” Hillary finished for her. “So here we are!”

I almost expected jazz hands—that’s how hyped up they were. Ivy pushed the bag off her shoulder, bringing the bag to the rollaway cart where Raven and my dresses hung.

“Now we couldn’t crash a wedding empty handed.” Ivy smiled while unzipping the bag.

“Especially since you, you know, own and are the creative designer of a wedding dress company.”

Raven and I watched the pair from where we sat in our director’s chairs having our hair done. The two of them breezed in and commanded attention—it was a skill. Ivy undid the dress bag she carried and produced the very same dress I had tried on weeks ago.

“Ivy, we didn’t choose that dress. I’m sorry if someone led you to believe I did.”

She looked over the dress seemingly measuring it against my own frame. “Oh, I know. Odette told you the price and you high tailed it out of there so fast she didn’t have a chance to tell you that I would more than likely significantly reduce the cost because—well” she half shrugged before turning to us, hands on her hips. “It’s my dress, my store, my designs. They’re one of kind.”She held it up once again so I could take a long look at the dress wasn’t meant to be.

“Ivy as much as I appreciate you coming all the way here—it’s simply to cost prohibitive for me to be purchasing that dress—especially when we’re about to move cross county.”

“The cross country move! Yes, you two are going to love Chicago! I nominate me as your personal tour guide to everything the city has to offer—including where to consider purchasing your house.” Hillary flopped onto the sofa across from us, chattering away as if we’d been her best friends for years instead of having met her three weeks ago.

“Marley,” Ivy cut in, “I’m not going to charge you for the dress, silly. It’s yours. Please. Based on the look of the property and the dress you ended up selecting—I’d say Arianna fits right in.”

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