Chapter 8: Gigue

"Married?"

"Yeah, married. You know. It's like when we promise to love and cherish each other forever."

"Sweetheart, I know the M-word. But don't you think this is all happening a little too fast?"

"What's too fast? I love you, you love me, you're a man, I'm a woman. We're both old enough. My parents like you. It's not like we're going to starve or be unable to support our family."

Then Rebecca did a rewind. "You called me sweetheart! That's the first time you've ever called me anything but Rebecca. Will you call me sweetheart when we're married?"

She was trying to throw me off the track, but I was getting accustomed to her tactics so I did my own playback and carefully analyzed everything she had just said. Then it hit me. Family? Support a family? Holy crap!

I counterattacked. "Don't you want to enjoy your freedom, travel the world, do all that adventure stuff you can only do when you're young and unattached?"

She looked me right in the eye and took a more strident tone. "Hey, keeping you pointed the right way will be plenty adventure for me. I'm done with being a kid. I want to go on and do the big important things in my life, and I want to do them with you."

Then she used her sweet little girl voice and switched to a different mode. "You like to have sex with me. Right?"

I had to agree with her on that question.

The sweet little girl continued. "Well I like to have sex with you too, and I don't want to stop."

I parried. "Yeah, yeah, we like to have sex with each other, but that doesn't mean we have to get married."

"Mike, I don't use birth control, and I don't plan to. If we keep at it like we have been, by next week I'll be pregnant for sure. Do you want me to be an unwed mother?"

"Well no."

"Do you think we can stop having sex?" She was using that feminine thing on me again.

"I guess that's not very likely." Now I could see where she was going. I was done for.

"Then you have to marry me."

There it was. Just as simple as could be. I love you. You love me. If we're going to have sex, we're going to have a family. If we're going to have a family we have to be married. I could not dispute the logic, but I still hadn't learned to just keep my mouth shut, so I opened it one last time and sealed my fate.

"Well maybe."

She delivered the coup de grace. "Good. We can get a license today."

It was settled and we both knew it, but I made one last futile attempt to squirm away. "We don't have to rush to get a license, I'm sure your mom will want at least a few months to plan things and make reservations, you know, do all the wedding things that moms like to do. We can get a license a week or so before the wedding."

She was unperturbed. "The waiting period is 72 hours. We don't need a blood test or anything. I looked it up. If we get a license today, we can be married this Saturday afternoon."

"But what about your family? Don't you want a nice wedding? Your mother will have a fit." I didn't care about a big wedding but I thought that by dangling that carrot in front of her I might be able to buy myself a little time.

"Mike. My sister had a big wedding. She schemed and worried over every detail for almost a year. She was miserable, she drove my whole family crazy, and in the end it didn't make her happy. The only good thing that came out of it was that that's where I first saw you. I don't want a big wedding. Now that I know what I want to do with my life and who I want to do it with, I'm in a hurry to get started. We can save money on the wedding and spend it on the honeymoon."

Later, after my morning appointments, we met at the county clerk's office and bought the license. As we filled out the application, Rebecca was hanging on my arm, alternately nervous, and then excited, wriggling around like a schoolgirl. There was no one else in line, and the lady at the window examined both our driver's licenses and took my money. It cost me forty-one dollars in cash. As the clerk handed me the completed license, she gave me a cold look and sort of sniffed. I knew she was thinking that I was some kind of pervert taking advantage of the tender young thing at my side. If only she knew the real truth.

Our next stop was the Bedding Barn. I'd explained to Rebecca that the big bed and most of my good furniture really belonged to Bonnie. It wouldn't be right for our marriage bed to belong to one of my ex-girlfriends. Picking out a new bed with Rebecca was like taking a kid to Disney World. I think she tried almost every bed in the place.

At first she wanted a king-sized bed, but then as she thought about it she decided that she didn't want me to be able to get too far away in my sleep, so then it was a double bed. Finally she compromised on a queen-size. She'd lay on a mattress and bounce a bit, solo. If she liked it, then I'd have to lay on it with her and we'd both bounce. Finally she narrowed it down to three candidates, and we had to bounce on them all over again. The sales lady, a stout middle aged woman with a German last name, got quite a kick out of it.

The store couldn't deliver until next week and that wouldn't do for Rebecca, so I saved myself $50 and told them to just load everything into the back of my truck. I'd do the delivery. My back would be killing me from hauling beds around, but at least I'd get to sleep with Rebecca in our own bed that night. It wasn't such a bad deal.