Chapter 19 #2
“I’m talking about holy matrimony.”
Monique bites her lip before playfully ribbing Mike. “Dog, why do you think I’m here? You’re the one who reads Shakespeare. You’re going to tell me how to do this.”
“What?” Mike scoffs. “I can’t do that.”
“Bea, you know Mike. Tell him he has to help me.”
Mike strolls over to another prism sculpture. “Just because I study the Bard does not mean I have any practical advice when it comes to declarations of love.”
“How long have you and Stacey been together?” I ask.
Monique sighs. “We met freshman year but didn’t start dating until this spring.”
“And you know she’s the one?”
“Yes!” She pulls out her phone, and when she shows me a picture of the two of them, I realize I’ve met her Stacey. She’s Adam’s Fem Fantastic at the escape room.
Monique gently brushes her thumb over the image.
“I still feel butterflies whenever we hold hands or even when I get a text from her. I can’t imagine life without her.
I want us to be those two grandmas cheering for our grandbabies at soccer games on Saturday.
Traveling the world together. Making pasta on Christmas Eve.
I want to wake up every morning beside her and tell her she makes this world a better place just by being in it. ”
I feel my eyes prick. “Tell her that. All those beautiful details. You’d have to be a prickly, insufferable shrew not to melt at those words.”
“What Bea said. And buy a pretty ring,” Mike adds.
“Can’t you write me a sonnet or something?” Monique whines.
“No.” Mike holds open the door, and we walk out to the public gardens. “But if you want to borrow a deck and bring your own bottle of champagne, I maybe could have something ready in a month or two.”
“Oh my gosh. I’d love that. Have you seen his place?” Monique gushes.
“As a matter of fact…”
“It’s magical. Everywhere you turn there’s something new to discover. All those different elevation changes.”
Mike groans. “None of which are ADA-compliant.”
“Stop. It’s a treasure. I feel your grandma’s energy every time I’m there.” Monique checks her phone. “Okay, we have time to snap a few pictures by the Kusama pumpkin before our reservation at Sugar and Scribe. You are coming too, Bea.”
What? “Oh, no, I, wouldn’t dream of crashing your lunch.”
“But I already changed the reservation to a party of three. Come on, Bea. It’s a two-step tradition. Step one, art. Step two, carbs.”
Monique has to move her car—parking in La Jolla is a bit ridiculous—but waves us on ahead. That’s how I wind up walking with Mike in debilitating silence the four blocks to the restaurant.
“Say something,” I demand.
Mike slips his museum lanyard off and tucks it into his back pocket. “You were jealous.”
“I was not.”
“Admit it, you were jealous. I’d be jealous if I stumbled into you and a friend.” He tosses it out so casually. As if the words mean absolutely nothing.
“You’d be jealous?”
“Not for long. Some intense and lasting pity would flood my being for the poor devil who had to spend the day with you. You’d pick every last piece of flesh from him. There’d be nothing left.” He sucks his teeth. “What a way to go.”
My eyes narrow. “And I’m supposed to believe that one of your dates would fare any better? The poor thing would have to wear mirrors—and a whole lot of them—to survive even grabbing a coffee with you.”
“And your date by comparison would be dead because you bit his head off before he could even tell you…”
“What?” I demand.
“You look nice.”
“Nice?”
“Well, what else is he supposed to say? He can’t say ‘you look hot,’ because you’d attack him for being shallow and who knows what else? He’s not going to say ‘you look beautiful,’ because that’s too forward for a casual meet-up over coffee. And he’s not going to lie.”
“He could say nothing.”
“A lie of omission is still a lie,” Mike says quietly.
Wait. Did Mike just compliment me? I’m so distracted by the possibility that I miss the curb and nearly eat it when we cross Kline Street to the restaurant.
“You okay?” Mike asks.
“I’m fine,” I snap.
Monique is waiting for us at the ma?tre d’ station.
“What’d I miss?” she asks.
“Mike’s wondering if he can order off the kids’ menu. I keep trying to tell him they don’t honor emotional ages.”
“That’s cute coming from a woman who has the coordination of a toddler,” he says. “Do we need to hold hands the next time we cross the street?”
“First, you drop hints about getaways to DC, and now, you’re trying to find an excuse to hold my hand?”
Mike reaches for a menu on the ma?tre d’ station. “Look who’s keeping score.”
Monique watches us like we’re tennis players at the La Jolla rec center. “Y’all are a total vibe.”
Before I can even refute that statement, the host ushers us to our table, and Monique has ordered us three unicorn hot chocolates. “For the emotional twelve-year-olds in all of us.”
We chat. I learn that Monique and Mike were in the same sixth-grade play and how they’d walk to his grandma’s house after school to rehearse. I hear about summer tennis camps and birthday parties with legendary cakes.
“Grandma Evie loved food,” Mike says.
“I can’t eat taquitos without thinking of her,” Monique says around a mouthful of her waffles. “Or chocolate cake. Or red licorice. And she wasn’t even my grandma.”
“Licorice?” I ask.
“My grandma kept ropes of it in her pantry.” Mike steals a bite of my pancakes. “I can’t disassociate the smell of the ocean with the smell of licorice. Sunshine, hot sand, sea breezes, and red licorice.”
“When was the last time you had a piece?” Monique asks.
“Refined sugar laced with artificial dye derived from petrochemicals?”
“You’d be a lot more fun if you weren’t a food snob,” she teases.
“I’m not a food snob. I just don’t want to eat known carcinogens or highly addictive, overprocessed garbage.”
“Your grandma was fond of feeding you garbage.”
“My pancakes have glitter on them,” I observe. “Was Grandma fond of glitter?”
“No, but she’d be fond of you.” Monique nibbles some of the cotton candy from her unicorn hot chocolate.
“Very fond,” Mike says with so much sarcasm it feels like a threat.
“So, Bea, what was your favorite at the museum today?” Monique asks.
“Her book,” Mike says.
“Am I incapable of answering my own questions now?”
“No.” He shovels a bite of his chilaquiles into his mouth. “I just know how you feel about museums.”
We trade eye rolls, but there is something in his expression that feels like a dare.
“I liked the green, red, and blue mural.”
“Yeah? In the front? The one by Ellsworth Kelly?”
“Yeah. It’s…cheerful. I know I’m probably missing something deep and important about how it was anticommunist or something, but…it makes me smile when I see it.”
“I don’t think you’re missing anything. Art is emotive. I’m sure Kelly would be honored to know his was working for you.”
I turn a triumphant eye to Mike, but he’s not looking at me with an annoyed you-win-this-round expression. He’s looking at me like…like I’m a view of the ocean.
“What about you, Monique?”
She launches into the most impassioned description of Bird in Space that I actually want to go roam around the galleries to find it and give it my full attention this time. “You make me want to go back and see it in the morning.”
“You should! I have a fantasy about sitting all day in that gallery just to watch how the light changes when it reflects off of the sculpture.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Maybe I’ll go with you.” Mike steals another bite of my glittery pancakes.
“I want pictures if you do!” Monique demands.
We finish our meals and split the bill three ways. Mike offers me a ride home, so to avoid that bit of awkwardness, I claim I have a dog to walk. Duty calls.
“It was so good to meet you,” Monique says in parting. And then more softly, “I can see why he likes you.”
“He really doesn’t.” But there’s part of me that is giddy at the prospect all the same.