“I absolutely am.”
“Jonathan! Stop it. That’s fraud.”
“Fraud?” Jonathan repeated with a smile. “Right, of course. I’m talking to the girl who told the registrar that they’d given hertoomuch financial aid.”
“It was a mistake! I wasn’t being a Goody Two-shoes. It would’ve come back to bite me in the ass at some point.”
“Fine. I won’t make Kevin the cheapskate pay for a few drinks. Let see… I’ll sign the book as… Amanda Hugginkiss.”
“Yeah, sure you will…” Natalie said, rolling her eyes.
“Just did.”
“No, you didn’t.” She got up and walked over to the book. Sure enough, “Amanda Hugginkiss” had signed for two whiskeys.
“You’re such a doofus,” she said, unable to stifle a giggle.“Come on. You’re creating extra work for the poor employee who’ll have to sort this out.”
“Oh, it’s fine. I already told the front desk that I’d cover the drinks from tonight.”
“Well, in that case…” Natalie took the pen, scratched out her own name, and replaced it withDr. Anita Cox.
Jonathan stared at it, wide-eyed, and they both burst out laughing. Then, with a mischievous smile, he added “Biggs” as a middle name, and Natalie laughed so hard she lost her balance and had to collapse back into her armchair. “I don’t know why I’m having this reaction,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “It’s really notthatfunny.” Perhaps it wasn’t the juvenile joke; maybe it was the surprise of seeing Jonathan’s goofy side remerge. She hadn’t seen him like this in years—it’d been a long time since she’d felt this giddy energy with him, the kind she remembered from their early days in New York, when they’d gorge on all-you-can-eat sushi in the East Village, then meet some of their college friends for karaoke in Koreatown, where, if she’d had enough to drink, Jonathan could persuade her to sing TLC’s “Waterfalls” with him.
“I think you’re regressing,” Natalie said, still giggling. “It’s probably the stress of the wedding. I haven’t seen you like this in ages.”
Jonathan sank back down into his own chair, his expression suddenly contemplative.
“It’s not a bad thing!” Natalie continued. “I didn’t mean that you were doing anything wrong.”
“No, I know. I just… I guess I didn’t realize how much I’d changed.”
“I don’t think you changed. You just grew up—we all did.And that’s a good thing. No one wants a doctor who signs his charts asAmanda Hugginkiss.”
“For many reasons,” Jonathan said with a small smile. “But I miss the way I used to joke around, you know? Blow off steam. Now it’s like… I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s not the guy Marigold fell for,” he said quietly, then took a long sip of his drink. “Not that it’s her fault! It’s just… when we started dating, she kept saying how different I was from the other guys she’d been with. How I was ‘mature’ and ‘responsible’ because my job actually meant something. And I guess I leaned into that without even realizing it. And then, after a while, it just felt like…” He exhaled. “Like if I let the other parts of me show, it’d mess with the version of me she fell in love with.”
“Come on. You think Marigold’s only marrying you because you’re a doctor?” Natalie scoffed, though she wasn’t sure who her incredulity was meant to protect, whether she was bolstering Jonathan’s confidence or defending Marigold.
“No. I think I didn’t give her the chance to get to know the real me.”
“You’re being ridiculous. You make jokes around her all the time.”
“Certain kinds of jokes. Not stupid, goofy ones.”
“Then we all owe Marigold a huge thank-you.”
“Come on, Bumpy. You know what I mean. You just pointed it out!”
“It sounds like you just have cold feet.”
“Well, Iwasjust out in a rainstorm.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Remember when Anna had a panic attack the night before her wedding?” About a year after graduation, they’dgone to the first of their college friends’ weddings. The night before the ceremony, the bride, Anna, had begun to freak out, and when she’d complained of chest pains, Natalie had summoned Jonathan, who, although only a first-year med student, seemed best equipped to deal with the situation.
“Oh god, yes,” Natalie said with a laugh. She raised her voice to imitate Anna: “Of course I’m having a heart attack! I’m about to marry a man who takes so long to shit in the morning, he takes his laptop with him. And hiscoffee mug.” She shook her head. “At least Marigold doesn’t dothat.”
“How would you know?”
