“Boo,” someone says to me, while I pretend to pick through the green beans.
I look down to see Georgia, alone, wearing huge, reflective sunglasses and a baseball cap that barely contains her mop of wavy hair. Again, she claws a smile from my face, but this time, I’m filled with an indescribable warmth. “Hey,” I say. “Why do you look like a celebrity trying not to get noticed?”
She grins, and it’s a burst of energy and light. “I don’t remember much from the last happy hour, Oliver, but I do remember that we’re in Fort Greene right now and that this,” she says, gesturing between the two of us, “is a Secret with a capital S.”
My heart drops with how quickly I’d forgotten, and howright she is. “This,” I say, deflecting, gesturing between the two of us in the same way she did, “isn’t anything.”
She hums, smiling that infuriating, placating smile at me. “If this isn’t anything,” she says nonchalantly, “then why does it have to be a Secret?”
I keep my mouth shut.
She peeks into the bag on my shoulder. “Did you pick your perfect produce already? Ones that are a five out of five on the Produce Quality Review rubric you’ve probably created?”
My mouth twitches. “It’s actually a ten point scale?—”
“Principal Flores!” a little voice calls out.
I freeze. Georgia turns away and pretends to be extremely interested in the okra. I look around and spot a PS 2 family waving at me. “Hey, guys!” I manage.
Thankfully, they wave and walk away.
Georgia is looking at me when I turn back to her. “Still think this ‘nothing’ isn’t a Secret?”
I take a deep breath.
“Wanna get out of here?”
“Please.”
She leads us west, and we meander through the lawlessness and car exhaust clouds of Downtown Brooklyn.
“I believe we should be more prepared this time,” I tell her, pulling her away from a double-parked car that suddenly starts to move.
“Like I should wave my checkbook around?” she asks.
“What is this, 1999?”
“Tell me more about how we should be more prepared for this farcical situation in which we are a married couple living our best one percent lives and looking to buy a multimillion dollar home,” she demands.
“Could we go back to the checkbook for a second? Were you alive in 1999? How old are you anyway?” I’m dying toknow. I’ve refrained from checking her employee records for personal information for weeks. Because I am the Consummate Professional.
What is an age gap I’m comfortable with? Wait, why does it matter?
She reads my mind anyway. “Twenty-eight. Ten years isn’t too bad of an age gap, daddy,” she informs me, with a sparkle in her eye.
I clear my throat, but in my head, I agree. “Regardless, we should have alter-egos. A backstory. Shared goals, and all that.”
“Would you like me to draft our pre-nup as well?”
“It would technically be a post-nup at this point,” I mutter.
We cross through Borough Hall, dodging skateboarders and stopping momentarily to look at the tomatoes at this farmers’ market. “Okay. Our alter-egos,” Georgia begins. “We are the Kensingtons. Cornelius and Beatrice?”
I think for a moment. “Percival and Eleanor.”
“Montgomery and Eugenia.”
“Reginald and Victoria.”
