Chapter 8
Theo
In four days, I’ll be a married man if Lars and Paula are able to pull everything together the way they expect.
It feels very sudden. Because it is sudden and also because I have no desire to marry the girl waiting for the elevator beside me, who is currently pulling her hair into a ponytail and showing a serious amount of skin in the process: her flat stomach and—the lower curve of her perky breasts. No bra. Jesus.
“No one is ever going to buy this,” I say. I sound bored. What I’m feeling, however, is…I’m not sure what it is. But it’s something that shouldn’t be there.
“Sure they will,” she says. Her arms come down at last, thank Christ. “It’s a story as old as time: I’m the young, hot wife and you’re the hideous, significantly older husband I’m only with because of your extreme wealth.”
“I hate to point this out, but I can’t be that hideous given that you kissed me within minutes of our meeting.”
“Ah, you’re assuming I have standards,” she says, stepping onto the elevator. “That’s where you’d be wrong. If I’m willing to fuck a glass bottle, I’m willing to fuck a guy pushing fifty.”
“I’m nowhere near fif…you fucked a glass bottle?”
She shrugs. “It was a dare. It’s not like I did it solo for the fun of it.”
Fuck. I’m turned on. I’m also resigned to the fact that this show is fucking doomed. There is nothing this woman deems too much information.
People will already have their doubts once they see a wedding photo of us online, one in which I’m wearing a tux and she’s clad in a dress made out of marijuana leaves, and then she’ll tell them they can find her on Instagram at cumslut69, and the jig will be up.
“Look,” I begin slowly, knowing she will definitely resent what I’m about to say.
“I realize you prefer to turn everything into a joke, but I’m fairly well-known in certain circles.
If we don’t want anonymous sources coming forward from my side insisting the marriage is fake…
it would be helpful if you could present yourself as someone I’d actually marry. ”
Her eyes narrow. “Masochistic?”
“Respectable. We need to look like we belong together. So maybe a wedding dress that can’t double as a bikini, that sort of thing.”
“Fine,” she replies. “But you’re paying. Let’s see if there’s a dress store nearby.”
“Rebecca, I don’t shop with any woman I’m not actively fucking.”
She glances around us. “Will a blow job suffice? It’s kind of hard to have sex in an elevator.”
Goddammit. If I could adjust myself without her noticing, I would. In three minutes’ time, I’ve gotten a glimpse of her breasts, learned that she’s fucked a glass bottle on a dare, and been offered a blow job.
I insisted she could survive these next few months.
Now it’s me I’m worried about.
We arrive in the lobby and I walk out fast before she can make the situation worse. I’m relieved, at least, that she’s putting the sweatshirt back on.
“I’ve been renting an executive apartment near Maplewood since the winter,” I tell her when she gets outside. “I suppose I’ll just move my things over to your house sometime this week?”
Her eyes widen and then she looks away. “No. Let’s hold off on that. I’m just going to stay in the city for a while.”
It’s the small catch to her voice that snares my attention. She’s so blasé most of the time that I tend to forget how much she’s suffered these past few months. I’m remembering it now, though, with a thud.
“Rebecca…have you been home since the funeral?”
“I haven’t had time,” she says, still not meeting my eye.
How often did my mother use that excuse to avoid going through Kieran’s things?
Three years have passed and neither of us can stand to go near the building where he jumped.
And Bex has got nothing but time—she’s already admitted she spends her days in bed watching TV.
So is she avoiding the house itself…or is she avoiding the train?
“I can call a car to take you to New Jersey,” I offer. “And I can pick you up when we have to come back on Friday.”
Her eyes flicker up to me and there it is, suddenly: that fragile thing I saw in her face at the funeral—something shocked and young and so wounded.
“Thanks,” she says, “but I still have to get a dress. And I think it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s worse luck to marry a woman who’s counting the days until she can file for divorce.”
Her eyes crinkle. “That’s a good point, but let’s not take on any more bad luck than necessary.” She gives me a bright, forced smile as she turns to walk down the street, dragging a suitcase behind her. “See you in four days, I guess.”
I watch her walk away, too small and delicate to be wandering the city streets alone at dusk. And too broken. Perhaps just as broken as she was last December, and a little too good at hiding it.
Rick would want me to do something. He’d want me to call Jessie’s sisters or find her a therapist or help her sort through their stuff.
But what he’d want most of all is the one thing I’m not doing—he’d want me to leave his daughter alone.
· · ·
Four days later, I’m ushered into a brownstone in Greenwich Village by a maid and silently pointed toward the French doors.
I step out into a courtyard that is completely abloom somehow though it’s still March and barely above freezing.
It reminds me, for better or worse, of the place where I once proposed to someone else, back when I was another person entirely.
Oddly, that makes me feel better about what we’re doing today. You can never really know anyone and you can never really trust anyone, so if you’ve got to marry at all, doing it with no illusions about love is the only way to go.
Lars and Paula are here already, supervising Katrina as she lays our props on a table: birdseed, a bouquet. Rings.
“It never even occurred to me that we’d need rings,” I say quietly.
“They’re real but not great quality,” says Lars. “You can buy her something nicer later on.”
I laugh miserably. “Yes, that sounds like something I’d do.”
I tug at my tie, glance at my watch, straighten my jacket, pull my cuffs down.
“I’d ask if you were getting cold feet,” Lars says, “but they’ve been cold all along. What’s going on over there?”
“Aside from the fact that I’m about to marry a virtual stranger who doesn’t like me much?”
He laughs. “Yes, other than that.”
I run a hand inside my collar. “Her father would hate everything about this, and he was a really good guy, which might surprise you, considering Rebecca.”
He cocks his head. “Why would that surprise me? Bex is the entire reason this show exists. No offense—your straight-man routine helps and you’re well-known enough to legitimize the endeavor, but she’s the one who’s impossible to look away from. She just has…charisma.”
“Isn’t that what they said about Charles Manson?”
He shakes his head. “People like Bex are good at surviving, and that’s where I put my faith: in someone who’s going to survive no matter what gets thrown at them. I know she’s not who you’d have chosen, but you could do a lot worse than her. At least she’ll keep things lively.”
“If she shows up,” I reply grimly, glancing at my watch again. “She’s five minutes late.”
He claps a hand on my shoulder. “And here I’ll offer you some unsolicited marriage advice from a man who’s never been married himself: interesting women don’t perform on anyone’s timetable but their own. Accept that part up front and your fake marriage will go a lot more smoothly.”
I refuse to concede the point. Maybe he’s right—she is good at surviving, and I suppose she will keep things lively, even if it’s mostly in a way I dread, but that doesn’t mean I need to act as if her classic Bex behavior is okay.
I’m not her father. If she inconveniences me, she’ll hear about it.
If she misses our flight to Iceland next week, she can fucking swim there if necessary, but no one’s buying her a new ticket.
The burst of noise from inside the house indicates Rebecca’s arrival. She emerges through the French doors and I freeze in place.
There’s never been a time when I didn’t find her beautiful. When she’s weeping, when she’s traveled all day and spilled coffee down her front.
But today she makes my mouth go dry, my head go blank.
Her dress is a long-sleeved sheath, covered in a layer of lace…
very Audrey Hepburn circa 1950, accenting her delicate frame.
Her dark hair is pulled back into a glossy chignon, her skin glows, and her wide mouth is a pop of deep rose.
She looks tiny and elegant and precisely like the sort of woman my friends back home might believe I’d marry on sight.
Because anyone would marry her on sight.
Her lips purse. “I assume you have something to say.”
I clear my throat. “I’m just wondering how many minutes we have before your fairy godmother returns to undo the magic spell.”
“About fifteen,” she says, “because this dress itches like a motherfucker.”
Ah, there’s the charming little lady I remember. I knew she was in there somewhere. “I’m ready if you are.”
Paula hands a bouquet to my betrothed and an index card to me. “I’ll let the two of you look over the vows for a minute just so you know what you’re in for.”
I take the card and begin to read aloud. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate the union of Theodore Roger Porter—”
“Oh my god, your middle name is Roger?” Rebecca gasps before she turns to Lars. “Lars, call it off. I can’t do this.”
I take it back. No one would marry her, not without removing her vocal cords first.
Lars glances up from his phone. “Are you two done?” he asks. “I need you on your way to marital bliss fast. I’ve got a massage at three.”
We both shrug. There can’t be anything more egregious in the vows than the fact that we’ve got to say them in the first place.
Lars moves to what he apparently considers the altar and asks me to promise to love, honor, and protect her.
I fight down a twitch of guilt as I agree.
On the one hand, at least fifty percent of men don’t live up to these vows I’m making right now.
On the other hand, if her father is watching, he’s cursing me for this entire thing.
Rebecca promises to love, honor, and cherish me, though she’s smirking as she says it, and then Katrina runs over with the forgotten rings and we repeat more words as we slide them onto each other’s fingers.
“I now pronounce you man and wife,” says Lars. “You may kiss the bride.”
“Is that necessary?” I ask.
Rebecca rolls her eyes. “This marriage is already off to a roaring start.”
“It’s optional for now,” says Lars. “Okay, let’s grab some pictures and then the two of you can return to loathing each other.”
“I don’t feel that the wedding stood in our way,” I reply.
Paula steers us in front of a wall of tall, sculpted topiaries. “Theo, put your arm around her waist. Bex, rest your head on his chest.”
Standing like this with her makes me all too aware of the difference in our sizes. It’s easy to forget, given how large her personality is, that she’s physically quite small.
Her head rests against my chest, and there’s an unfortunate part of me that likes having her here like this, a baby bird tucked beneath my wing.
Stop. There would be nothing worse than taking any piece of this marriage seriously. Especially when it’s her I’ve married, because god knows she won’t do the same.
We smile at the camera; we smile at each other. She really is staggering. It would be easier if we didn’t have to make eye contact.
“Okay, final bit,” Lars says. “Katrina and Lupe here will throw birdseed while I film. And I need you to kiss. Nothing dramatic. Just turn to face each other, smile, and then kiss for the pretend crowd.”
He hits a button and the sound of clapping plays over a speaker. Katrina and Lupe, the maid who let me in, begin showering us in birdseed, and Rebecca turns, looking up at me with a flash of uncertainty in her eyes. “Try not to get an erection this time.”
I laugh despite myself and place my hands on her tiny waist before I lean down.
Her mouth is soft and warm, and her hair smells like an English garden. My palms slide to her hips—fingertips grazing the curve of her ass—and her body folds into mine as if it was made just for this purpose.
There will be a million parts of this fake marriage I’ll want to end quickly.
It’s a bad sign that this fake kiss isn’t one of them.