Chapter 4
4
Ginny is putting enchiladas in the oven when Bonnie, the Shetland sheepdog they’re fostering, starts barking wildly at the front window.
“Who’s here?” Ginny asks, though she’s pretty sure she knows the answer.
Took longer than they’d expected, honestly. There’s been a rock in their stomach all day that only got bigger when Elsie went hours without texting this afternoon.
Elsie comes in without knocking, like she’s been doing anywhere Ginny has lived since they were nine years old.
“I need your honest opinion about something,” she says from the door.
Her snow boots clunk against the floor as she takes them off.
“What’s up?” Ginny asks.
They come out of the kitchen because Elsie hasn’t made it past the living room, where Bonnie has turned from fierce guard dog to a wriggly mess of excitement.
“Who’s a good girl?” Elsie’s voice is sweet and high-pitched. “Who’s the best girl?”
She goes down on one knee to rub Bonnie’s belly, shaking her head along with the dog’s wiggles, so her blonde ponytail flicks back and forth.
Ginny can’t help but smile. “Why do my dogs always like you more than me?”
“Because I’m the cool aunt who can spoil them instead of making them follow rules.”
“Following my rules means they’re more likely to get adopted by a lovely family who can spoil them.”
Elsie’s engagement ring catches on Bonnie’s blue merle coat and she has to untangle it. So the engagement is still on. Not that Ginny expected Elsie to break it off after Derrick’s stunt this afternoon, but the possibility did cross their mind.
Ginny counts to ten. That’s as long as they can last with Elsie not saying anything beyond telling Bonnie she’s perfect.
“So what do you need my opinion on?” Ginny asks, like they don’t know.
Elsie finally stops petting the dog, who leaps to her feet and races around the living room, barking. Elsie laughs, and when she sits on the couch, Bonnie boomerangs over, but after glancing at Ginny, she keeps all four feet on the living room floor. Ginny opens the treat container on the coffee table rather than analyzing Elsie’s face. The moment the container is opened, Bonnie sits.
“Good girl,” Ginny says, and tosses a treat her way. Then they sit beside their best friend.
Elsie reaches down to pet Bonnie, but when she talks, it’s no longer in the who’s a good girl voice.
“Derrick wants to get married next week.”
Ginny lets out a breath.
They try to stay neutral—not to focus on how the flatness in Elsie’s voice means she’s not happy about the whole surprise wedding thing. It shouldn’t matter—Elsie’s relationship status is not about Ginny—but a weight has lifted off their shoulders.
“I know,” they say quietly.
Elsie leans back into the couch and sighs. “Your invitation already arrived?”
“He sent out invitations?!”
“Yesterday, he said.” Elsie squints at them. “If you didn’t know that, how did you know he planned it for next week?”
Ginny grimaces. Elsie isn’t going to like this. “He asked for my help getting you to the venue, but I had the farmers’ market.”
Elsie knows how long the market takes, but whether she doesn’t think about it or just lets Ginny off the hook, she doesn’t call them out.
Maybe because there’s a bigger issue.
“You knew and didn’t tell me?” Her voice is stone. Harder than it’s ever been when directed at Ginny. They don’t fight, not over anything serious.
Ginny’s shoulders creep toward their ears. “I didn’t want to ruin the surprise.”
“I don’t even like surprises!”
Ginny knows that. They know that Elsie doesn’t like surprises and that her favorite color is yellow and that she wants to get married under a chuppah. They know her better than Derrick does.
“I know you don’t usually”—they shrug, trying for nonchalant— “but he seemed so excited, and I thought you might be, too.”
“You thought I’d be excited that he planned an entire wedding and gave me a week’s notice? I’m just supposed to be ready to marry him in seven days?”
Since yesterday, Ginny themself has been trying to come to terms with the idea of Elsie getting married next week. It hasn’t come close to working, even though: “Well, you have been engaged for a year and a half.”
“Engaged!” Elsie slaps her palms on her thighs. “ Engaged is not married. Engaged is not getting married in seven days. Engaged I still have time to—to—to…”
Ginny gives her time to finish the sentence, but Elsie flounders, her mouth opening and closing a couple of times.
“To what?” Ginny prompts gently.
“To figure out whether I want to marry him.”
“Els.”
Ginny’s voice is too soft. Not quiet, but soft. It gets that way around Elsie sometimes. They can’t help it.
Elsie’s voice, meanwhile, is sharp. “You don’t think I should marry him next week, do you?”
They don’t think she should marry him at all, but they can’t say that. They didn’t think Elsie should date him, either, always knew she was too good for him. But it’s never been about what Ginny thinks. What Elsie wants is all that matters.
“I want you to be happy,” they say. “If marrying him next week will make you happy, then I think you should. If it won’t, then you shouldn’t.”
Elsie stands up. Bonnie leaps to her feet as well, ready for wherever they’re going to go. When Elsie paces back and forth across the living room, Bonnie follows her, leaping from one side of the room to the other.
“He’s already done all the planning,” Elsie says, still pacing. There’s a chaotic edge to her tone now. “Paid for everything.”
“So?”
“What do you mean, so ? He’s already sent out invitations.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Ginny says.
Elsie stops and pivots to face Ginny. “Of course it matters. We’d have to let everyone know it wasn’t happening. He’d be so embarrassed.”
“You can’t marry someone just because they’d be embarrassed if you didn’t.”
“I know.” She starts pacing again. “Obviously that wouldn’t be why I’d do it, if I do it.”
Ginny asks the question they’ve never been able to answer. “Why would you, then?”
“He’s nice. He’s sweet. And really cute.”
Ginny’s pretty sure none of those are good enough reasons to marry someone.
“And he’s good to me,” Elsie continues. “Or he tries to be anyway. Like when I told him I was pan, he’s always said he’d support me doing whatever I want in terms of feeling connected to my queer identity.”
Ginny tries not to react, but must not keep their face in check.
“What?” Elsie asks.
“Nothing.”
“No, what?”
She returns to the couch. Bonnie sits at her feet, then looks at Ginny like she thinks she deserves a treat every time she doesn’t get on the sofa. Ginny gets her one just to avoid looking at Elsie.
“Els, you made it sound like a reason to marry the guy is he’d let you eat someone out.”
“Oh my gosh, that is not what I meant. Obviously that’s not what I meant. I just mean—he tries to be good to me. Even planning the wedding without telling me is him trying to be good to me.”
“Right.” Ginny knows it’s true. Derrick loves Elsie. Of course he does. “So that’s why you would marry him. If you didn’t, why wouldn’t you?”
Elsie pets Bonnie some more. Sometimes it’s like this, trying to get her to talk about her feelings. But Ginny is patient.
“Marriage is supposed to be forever,” Elsie says finally. “And forever feels like a really long time. I’m only twenty-three. Marriage just seems so, like, final. It’s not the committing-to-one-person thing—it’s that it feels like that means committing to being one person. Like saying I’m forever going to stay someone Derrick wants to be married to.”
There’s so much wrong with that, Ginny doesn’t know where to begin. Elsie framed the question of marriage around whether she’ll stay someone Derrick wants to be married to, not whether he’s someone she wants to be married to.
“It’s like—do you remember in middle school when Emileigh Brown signed yearbooks Don’t ever change ?” She doesn’t wait for Ginny to respond. “Like, I’m thirteen years old, I sure hope I’m gonna change!”
“I don’t think marriage is saying you’re never gonna change,” Ginny says. “It’s more about changing together. Growing together.”
Like how she and Elsie are completely different people than they were in middle school, but they’re still best friends.
Elsie is quiet for a moment before responding. “What if I wanna grow on my own?”
Ginny takes it as a rhetorical question—mostly because they want to shout good and finally and yes, please. Elsie has been defining herself based on the people around her for as long as they’ve known each other. Her siblings. Her parents. Her boyfriend. Even Ginny, sometimes. It’d be great if Elsie wanted to grow on her own.
“He’s already sent invitations,” Elsie says quietly.
“Els.”
Ginny can see where Elsie is going, can feel what decision she wants to make, but they refuse to lead her there. This is her life. Her choice.
“I kind of thought when he got tired of me putting off wedding planning, he’d call off the engagement, not plan the wedding.”
“You’ve been hoping he’d do it so you wouldn’t have to?”
“Well, when you put it like that, I sound pathetic.”
“You’re not pathetic,” Ginny says immediately.
Elsie’s not, but Ginny might be, the way some white knight rears inside them at Elsie talking about herself like that.
“I am,” Elsie says. “If I wasn’t pathetic, I would’ve said no when he proposed, and we wouldn’t be in this situation at all.”
That’s new.
“You didn’t want to get engaged?”
“I was barely old enough to drink, Ginny.” Elsie says it like she’s mad at them. “And suddenly my boyfriend makes this moment that is supposed to be about me, about me graduating—I know it was just an associate’s, but it’s still a degree. It was still my graduation day. And instead, it became about us. I had no idea what I wanted—I still have no idea what I want—but how was I supposed to say no when he proposed in front of the entire graduating class?”
Elsie has never before said a single word of this to Ginny. They don’t disagree, but they also don’t know how to react.
“Come on,” Elsie says. “I know you don’t like him anyway.”
“I’ve never said that.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t like Derrick. He just wasn’t good enough for Elsie. Ginny’s never met anyone good enough for Elsie.
Elsie sighs. “He’s not a bad guy, you know?”
“I know.”
He really isn’t. Ginny does know that.
“I think if he’d just talked to me about this, maybe we could’ve figured it out,” Elsie says. “But the way he went about it just makes it really not what I want. Invitations sent out before he told me. Talking to my dad to get me time off work for the honeymoon.”
Ginny’s eyes go wide. “He didn’t.”
“He did. Which, to be fair—it sounds amazing. Santa Lupita for a week in an over-water bungalow. All-inclusive.”
“Holy shit, I might marry him for that.”
Elsie giggles, then sobers. “I can’t…” She goes quiet, and finally, she says, “I can’t believe I’m not gonna marry him.”
Thank god.
Ginny immediately feels bad for thinking it, but they can’t take it back. They would’ve supported whatever Elsie decided, of course. But this is the only solution that doesn’t make their chest hurt.
Elsie puts her head on their shoulder, and Ginny’s breath comes easily for the first time since talking to Derrick yesterday.
“This is gonna break his heart,” Elsie says, her voice soft.
Ginny presses a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s better than breaking yours.”