1
June
“You may now kiss your bride.”
Only when we were announced to be husband and wife, I noticed that the man I had just married had a tattoo on the left side of his chest. A silver chain and a hint of ink peered through the two undone buttons of his white shirt as we stood facing each other in front of the officiating clerk. When we had been introduced outside the registrar’s office at the San Francisco City Hall five minutes earlier, I had noticed only his tattooed forearms and the edge of another on the back of his neck.
Somehow, of all things, this detail about the Italian who had just put a ring around my finger avalanched the full weight of what I was doing. An acute pang of desperation hit me. I had done everything to avoid being thrown back to feeling like I used to feel growing up, the way I’d sworn I’d never let myself feel again. I tried too hard, and ironically, trying too hard had landed me here, marrying a stranger to save my butt financially. The perfectly coiffed veneer I had bandaged my past wounds with finally fell apart.
And this man … a walking ad to immigratingtoItaly—tall, an athletic build, bicep-clinging sleeves, and a gut-wrenchingly beautiful mix of dark hair, blue eyes, and sun-kissed olive skin, not to mention the chiseled jaw and strong contours. If it were under any other circumstance, my natural deodorant might have vaporized from looking at his handsome, stubbly face, but now I couldn’t wait for the moment I’d see the back of him. I never wanted to see him again, at least until we signed the divorce papers.
“How’s it going?” Standing in the corridor, waiting for our turn to be married, I had busied myself with texting Rio, my trusted employee and friend who managed my health shop in my absence.
“Great. Stop worrying and enjoy your day,” she texted back, unaware of what my day off actually included and leaving me with nothing to do but side-eye the slim yet well-built, dark-haired younger man who leaned against the corridor wall.
His eyes skimmed over me for a moment before he cast them down, busying himself with his phone. The waiting area was filled with excited couples and witnesses awaiting their turn, as well, so I wasn’t sure if he was just someone’s family member or my intended.
Jerry, my landlord and debtor, and the orchestrator of this business transaction, was getting our license. He had told me the guy I was about to marry was an Italian. This guy certainly looked like one. Even the casual yet elegant way he dressed hinted at that—a perfectly fitting white shirt, cuffed at the elbows, and khaki pants that would have looked frumpy on another man. Even with the tattooed forearms and rock-n-roll aroma, he had the natural European chic that most men in my hometown lacked.
Jerry appeared, waving the license he had obtained. He gestured with his head toward the two of us, his thick white hair flapping in the process.
The man pushed himself off the wall and moved to stand next to Jerry.
“June, this is Angelo Marchesi. Angelo, this is June Raine, soon to be your wife. So, be nice.” Jerry giggled. He had the habit of laughing at his own jokes.
I hadn’t been laughing back when he’d left me with the impossible choice between closing my health shop in the building he owned or buying it.
Angelo nodded and shook my hand with a disinterested smile.
“It’s our turn,” Jerry said, looking at the door that opened down the hall and the excited couple who emerged from it, all smiles and hands entwined.
“The contract of marriage is most solemn and is not to be entered into lightly, but thoughtfully and seriously with a deep realization of its obligations and responsibilities,” the officiating clerk cited when we stood in front of him.
The words rang in my ears. I had not entered this contract lightly. Yet, I felt like the world’s biggest liar, standing here as if either me, Angelo, or Jerry, who was our sole witness, meant any of this for real.
I sweated under the loose, beige, organic cotton pantsuit I was wearing, the kind I wore for meetings at the bank. I sweated because my life, which in my forty years had a narrow margin of error, had become a grand mistake. I hated sweating.
I side-glanced at the man standing next to me. Like me, he hadn’t bothered dressing up too much for this event.
“By entering into this marriage, you are pledging yourselves to a lifetime in which each will enrich the life of the other,” the retired judge continued, and I wanted to laugh and throw up at the same time. “You will be partners, standing together to cushion the difficulties of life. Rejoice in your partner’s graces. Nurture your marriage carefully and watch it grow gracefully.”
Oh, God.
“Please face each other and join hands.”
Until now, I had kept my eyes mostly focused on observing the moles on the judge’s face, counting them as if it could save me from hearing the words that left his mouth and avoid looking at the man who stood next to me, whose light yet definitely commercial aftershave reached my nostrils. But now I had to fully face Angelo.
“Do you, June Raine, take this man to be your lawful wedded husband? To have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish as long as you both shall live?” the officiating clerk read blankly, only raising his eyes with a hint of interest when he had pronounced my name out loud.
I was used to people smiling or snarking at my name. So were my younger sisters, January and September.
For the millionth time that day, I thought about how I was becoming my sister. At least January was always the fun in our dysfunctional. Me, on the other hand, though named June, was no sunbeam. And now the clouds that had been gathering for a long time, rained down on me in the shape of the worst financial entanglement I had gotten myself into that forced me to agree to rash and stupid solutions, like marrying a stranger, so he could get his green card and I could regain the green light from my bank.
To avoid going back to the trauma of my childhood, having grown up constantly struggling, scratching and clawing for money, I was now marrying a guy who looked like an Italian rockstar slash playboy, the type I wouldn’t go for, as enticing as he was, even if I were ten years younger.
Angelo said, “I do,” right after me, then cited after the judge with an accent, “I give you this ring, in token and pledge of my constant faith and abiding love. With this ring, I thee wed.” He put the ring on my finger, only down to my knuckle, without even touching my skin in the process.
I slid it to its place, feeling Jerry beaming not far from us, as if this was a joyful celebration of real love. I reciprocated by placing the plain gold band only on the tip of Angelo’s finger and letting him put it on himself.
