The Fifth Wedding #5
V doesn’t remember telling Meta about J’s arrival. She realizes she has to start assuming if she tells something to Thor, Meta will end up knowing it.
“Yes. That’s who I had lunch with. Even though I ended up missing lunch.”
Meta clocks this and pulls out her phone.
“You have to have lunch,” Meta says. “I’m ordering you lunch.”
Meta is talking to V like they’re friends, like they are in Meta’s dorm room at NYU commiserating over a bad date. V doesn’t know what to do with this.
“Thank you,” V says. Then, “Do you know what I want?”
“Yeah,” Meta replies. “I pay attention. Just like you. Someone has to around here.”
Now the girl is offering even more than friendship. It feels like...respect. And that’s exactly what V needs right now.
Meta hits her screen a few more times, then says, “There. All set. Fifteen minutes.”
“Thank you,” V says again.
“I’m honestly not sure how you do it,” Meta tells her.
What ? V wants to know. But the moment for asking passes. As Meta leaves, not sharing why she arrived in the first place, she adds, “Also, I really like your haircut.”
This almost undoes V.
J, who’s known her for so long, didn’t seem to notice.
But this girl, who she’s only known for a few weeks, did.
J is early to meet Skye at the performance space, but Skye is even earlier.
Skye takes one look at J and knows something’s wrong.
“Wedding jitters?” Skye asks. The space is basically the back room of a bar that’s a little too fancy to be a dive and a little too much of a dive to be fancy.
“No, I’m good,” J says,
Skye raises an eyebrow. “If this is good, I’d really hate to see bad.”
“Did Julia tell you the reason I wanted to spontaneously create a wedding?”
“Oh,” Skye answers, in a tone that makes it clear Julia provided the gist. “Reunion didn’t go as planned.”
J shakes his head.
“Look,” Skye says, “we don’t have to do any of this.
If you’re feeling like you just want to get into bed for the weekend and not see another living soul, we can cancel the fake wedding.
It would be easy—probably too easy—for me and Detroit to stage a big fight, post it online, and make a big to-do about the ceremony being called off.
Your girlfriend will never know the difference.
Because, if I may be a little presumptuous, I know full well that heartbreak isn’t a noun, it’s a verb, and it’s also one of the harder verbs to replace with other verbs, like perform or socialize or, I don’t know, exist . ”
J hasn’t been thinking of anything that’s happened in terms of heartbreak, per se. But now that Skye mentions it...well, he feels worse.
“Do you want some whiskey?” Skye offers. “Or a hug? I’m a firm believer in hugging it out.”
J wavers, because from yesterday he knows that Skye does give really good hugs. But he also wants to change the subject, wants to create something else to focus on.
“If you don’t mind,” he says, “I’d like to talk about the wedding. I’d still like to do it. Otherwise...I will go to sleep for the weekend. And that’s not what I should be doing.”
“Okay. Detroit should be here any minute...but I can start giving you the tour. There ain’t much to see.”
There’s an okay AV setup, and a stage that’s maybe two feet off the floor.
Not a lot, but enough. There are also poles on the stage.
(“There’s a pole-dancing class on Wednesdays,” Skye explains.
“It’s strangely popular with people my age who aren’t paid very much.
”) The décor is hardly wedding-friendly—just a few framed posters from fifties and sixties biker movies, which could have just as easily been purchased at IKEA as at a vintage shop.
“I’m sure this isn’t what you’re used to,” Skye says. “You’re so nice to do this.”
“No, you’re nice for letting me do this.”
“You know what would be fun? If we got into a total fight over who’s being nicer.” Skye smiles, and J is charmed. The two of them smile at each other for a beat longer than either would consider normal. Then Skye, a little flustered, checks their phone.
“I’m sure I told Detroit the time,” they say.
“Let me just text him.” They type something quickly, then stare at the phone.
Waiting. Waiting. “His phone might be off. We have that fight all the time. I say, what good is a phone if people can’t reach you?
He says, ‘It’s okay, the answering machine will pick it up.
’ I swear, that’s what Detroit calls it. The answering machine.”
“I’m in no rush,” J says, feeling much more rooted in Detroit’s generation than Skye’s.
“Do you want to sit down?”
There are a few chairs at the side of the room (“for when the pole dancers need a break, presumably”). J sits down and Skye turns their chair around so they can straddle it and lean on its back, putting J and Skye face-to-face in a strangely intimate way.
Skye can’t hide how glum they’re feeling.
“If history’s any indication, Detroit’s blowing us off. Not deliberately. But I’m sure he got caught up in something—or someone—else, and when he loses track, there’s no point in waiting for the train to arrive.”
“It’s not a big deal. We can just talk about how it’ll go, and you can pass it on.”
“I know, I know,” Skye says. “I just thought maybe Detroit would show up for, you know, our wedding rehearsal.”
“I mean, it’s not a real wedding rehearsal.”
Skye stands up, swings the chair around, and sits back down. “Oh, I’m very aware of that.”
“Do you want it to be a real wedding rehearsal?”
Skye leans back and laughs. Then they lean forward and touch J gently on the knee.
“Thank you. You are the only person who’s actually asked me that, Detroit included.
And the simple answer is, unfortunately, very complicated.
Do I wish we were getting married tomorrow?
No, I do not. But do I wish that our relationship was in a place where it would make sense for us to get married tomorrow? Well then, yes, I do.”
“You want to be monogamous?”
“Hell no! But I do want to be that important to Detroit. Or someone. I would like to have the confidence to say to someone else, ‘You. You’re the one I want in my life for the rest of my life.’ Doesn’t mean there can’t be anyone else.
But as much as I believe in an open relationship, I also believe in constants.
Is Detroit the closest thing I have to a constant right now?
Absolutely. But does that make Detroit an actual constant, an absolute, enthusiastic constant? Well...”
“You’ve only been together two years, no?”
“I know. But shouldn’t it be long enough to at least know whether there’s the potential?”
J thinks of V. “Maybe. But even if you feel the potential...that’s no guarantee that you’ll arrive there. Life gets in the way. Or maybe you get in the way.”
“Would you fight for her?”
“What do you mean? Like a fistfight?”
“Just answer the question. Would you fight for her?”
“Yes. But I’m not sure it would matter.”
“I think Detroit would fight for me. But only if I found a way to make him realize he needed to.”
“It sounds like neither of us is in an ideal relationship.”
“Come on,” Skye says, reaching for J’s arm. “I’d settle for something really good.”
Skye’s hand lingers a little, then goes back to their own lap. It again occurs to J that there might be some flirting going on. But it also could just be the way Skye is, the affection not held back by any self-consciousness.
“Okay,” J says, trying to bring it back to business, “let’s talk the run of show.”
“Sure,” Skye replies, sitting up as if they’re about to take dictation.
It’s pretty basic, really. There will be about seventy “guests” if they’re lucky, bribed into attending with drink tickets, Detroit’s treat.
A friend of theirs who goes by the name Sarah Burnheart will be the officiant.
When the time comes, she’ll welcome guests (i.e.
, tell everyone to shut up and listen), give a brief comment on the present state of matrimony (spoiler: not great), and then ask Detroit and Skye to share their vows.
This, Skye says, is the true performance art part, because they’ve been working on them separate from one another, “like a real married couple,” and the vows could take two minutes or twenty.
No telling. (“Mine will probably take three, tops,” Skye promises.) Then Sarah Burnheart will introduce J, who will play his songs.
Once he’s done, Sarah will ask if anyone objects, and there should be at least a half dozen plants in the audience who will do so, strenuously.
Chaos will ensue. The wedding will be called off, and then everyone will drink a little more and go home.
“We have the place until midnight,” Skye concludes.
“But I’m guessing we’ll be done by eleven.
Detroit often invites people to the apartment after.
You’re more than welcome to join, although I can’t predict what we will be doing with those people.
Could be an orgy, could be a spirited game of Charades. It’s hard to say.”
J can’t tell if Skye is joking or not and errs on the side of believing they aren’t.
“Any questions?” Skye continues. “Anything I missed?”
“No, I don’t think so. Do you have any questions?”
Skye suddenly looks bashful. But doesn’t say a word.
“What?” J asks.
“I mean, the only question that comes to mind is...what are you doing after this? I mean, do you want to get dinner or something?”
It’s sweet. And sincere. And for those reasons, J knows he has to say no.
“I’m so sorry, but the jet lag is due to kick in any moment now—the second day is always the hardest. Plus, I have some songs to write by tomorrow! You don’t want me phoning it in.”
If Skye feels rebuffed, their expression doesn’t show it.
“Of course,” they say. “The songs! I hope we’ve given you enough to go on. If you end up needing more, you have my number, right? Just text me, any hour. Odds are, I’ll be up.”
“I promise I will,” J says.