I joined their church and was baptized with a full-immersion soak in heavily chlorinated water while his family clapped, and I ate the lukewarm church potluck supper afterward with my bleached hair wet-clinging to my scalp.
But I belonged.
Jimmy loved me, and I loved him with all my soul, my puppy love turned to forever-love with an innocence that had never known heartbreak because he was my only boyfriend, ever.
And so, the pulling threads in my chest evaporated as Jimmy’s family swarmed me.
“Mom! I’ve got to go!” I yelled at the phone, dodging as Maisie tried to pluck it out of my hand. “Great talking to you, but I’m gettingmarried!”
Their shrill cheers filled the room as my phone was replaced with a plastic shot glass sloshing with amber liquid. I peeled the cellophane film off the top, tossed the liquor down my throat, and sputtered around the burn. I was not a whiskey girl, but I was willing to learn for the Johnson family.
“Come on!” Nellie yelled. “Jimmy is waiting, and then you’ll be official! Once you’re legal, you’ll never get rid of us!”
They tugged me out of the dressing room and out of the back of the chapel, and we strolled through the tiny tropical garden the casino had planted around the chapel, white lily-like flowers blooming in the early desert summer heat and attracting flies, even a small waterfall cascading over a cement wall molded to look like volcanic rocks that filled the air around it with chlorinated humidity.
Between Jimmy’s sisters and cousins, who were my best friends, and his mom, who’d taught me to cook and calmed me down from my wild high-school theater-kid days, I wascountingon never being rid of them.
Signing that little piece of paper would mean Jimmy and I would be together as husband and wife and I would be a part of their family.
This day should have been the most important day of my life, the day when I would finally,finallybelong somewhere, legally,forever.
Yeah, I never even saw it coming.
CHAPTER 3
speak now
LEXI BYRNE
The wedding ceremonywas proceeding perfectly.
Mason Johnson, Jimmy’s father and the president of Johnson Construction, walked me down the aisle of the Las Vegas chapel, the lace hem of my froufrou alabaster dress and crinolines underneath brushing the worn blue carpet under my shoes.
The chapel smelled desert-dusty and a little stale like it could use a good airing, but the carnations in my bouquet wafted their sweet scent up to my face.
Everyone had flowers, whether boutonnieres, corsages, or bouquets, so maybe people wouldn’t smell the chapel’s dry rot, I hoped.
I felt personally responsible for the olfactory experience of everyone in that Las Vegas chapel, and I was dying inside that it might not be perfect because they might think less of me. The desiccated-decay odor would ruin the whole wedding for them. They would snipe about it behind my back.
But the wedding. I had to think about the wedding. I had to look like the perfect Johnson bridefor the wedding.
Jimmy’s mom, Melissa, was sniffling prettily in the first pew on the groom’s side, touching the inside corners of her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief. Her blue eyeshadow streaked the white cotton.
My eyes grew misty, but I didn’t reach for the frothy hankie stuffed into the back of my right glove. My heart thumped happily under all that white lace because I was finally marrying the man I’d fallen in love with while we were in high school.
Each step I took toward Jimmy, who watched me with his chin held high and a sharp smile on his face, felt like a promise I was making to him, to love, honor, and cherish, to finally consecrate our love before God and his family.
This wasit.
Walking down the aisle was the transition, the liminal space where I floated like a white soap bubble on the breeze, wafting through the in-between from my old life to my new one.
Everything from now on would be my real life, my whole new life that I’d spend with Jimmy, having a family and growing old together.
I could hardly wait to begin. All my stuff from my one-room apartment had been moved to Jimmy’s house last week, and I’d been camping on an air mattress and watching TV on my phone ever since. Not that I’d had a lot of stuff. I’d been saving all my money for four years for this wedding and honeymoon, not buying tchotchkes.
Maybe we could get a dog or a cat. I’d always wanted a pet. My mother didn’t like the mess of animals, and I hadn’t been able to afford one, what with socking away every spare cent into our wedding fund. Besides, living in a studio apartment would have been cruel for an animal.
After we made our vows, after the ceremony, once we’d signed the marriage license and were husband and wife in the eyes of the world and God and the law, we’d spend our honeymoon together in Las Vegas and then go back to Scottsbluff, Nebraska. There, I’d work at their construction company until we started a family in a few years, and then I’d switch to part-time like all of Jimmy’s sisters, cousins, and sisters-in-law.
