“Oh,” Wren added. “And I’m afraid we’ll become Republicans.”
“We would never.”
“It’s happened to better people than us.”
Arthur said nothing, his face falling into that blank, slightly serious expression that betrayed nothing except for the fact there was something to betray.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing. It’s just…you’re sure I can’t change your mind? What if I promise we can do all our shopping at Trader Joe’s? Screw the kids, you never have to join the PTA. We’ll drive forty-five minutes so we can buy Fair Trade coffee from local cafés. Whadya say?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “You’re making fun of me.”
“What I mean is…we’ll keep it interesting, I promise,” he said, squeezing her hand now.
“It’s not even really that.” She sighed. “It’s that I know there will always be a next thing, you know? We’ll be house poor, scrimping and saving everything we can to make the mortgage, then for college, and then retirement. I’m afraid it’ll never end.”
“And we’ll forget to actually…live.”
“Exactly,” she said.
Arthur considered this, his face still serious, unreadable.
“I’m with you,” he said finally. “But there’s just one thing.”
Her heart skipped a beat then. The expression on his face was not one that usually came bearing good news.
“In a few years, I do want to start saving…for my funeral. I have big plans.”
A big grin spread across his face. She gave him a gentle knee to the midsection. The jerk.
“We’ll invite all our friends,” he said.
“Both of them?”
“Shut up. There’ll be an open bar, obviously. And not at the reception, I’m talking in the graveyard. My coffin will be made of glass.”
“Can we stop talking about this? You’re never dying.”
“I’m serious. If you want to be with me, you have to get on board.”
“Fine. I assume you want to be buried in the finest suit money can buy?”
“No, nude.”
She laughed, hard. The image was so utterly ridiculous it pushed out the horrific thoughts of Arthur being dead, sent them hurtling right out of her brain. When she finally regained her breath, she remembered.
“What were you going to say to me? You said you had something to tell me.”
He smiled, leaned in, and kissed her on the nose. “It was nothing important.”
Wren had half a mind to press him, but it was exactly at that moment that her stomach growled audibly. Even Ferdie jumped.
“OK, an update on the status of my various biological systems: I’m hungry.”
“Really? I still don’t think I’ve digested the Pop-Tarts from earlier. Probably because I haven’t moved an inch.”
She scooched closer, flashed him a devious grin.
