‘I know that’s putting it mildly.’
Beneath my thighs, my fingers twitched.
‘But the thought of you not being able to help your sister – of me being the thing that stands between you and her – I hate that. And I’m not sure I can live with it.’
The room was bright. Too bright, really. The globe in my desk lamp had burnt out, so I had the overhead light on. It was harsh, bluish-white light, the kind that did nobody any favours.
Despite that, it felt like we were in the kitchen again. In the quiet, still darkness, the remnants of that terrible mug cake on the table in front of me, Sadie’s hand on mine as she asked,Truce?
‘And honestly, I feel like you have to appreciate the genius of the scam,’ she said, tone lighter now. ‘What a way to outsmart the managerial classes and get more casuals into permanent jobs, right?’ She tapped one of the union stickers on her laptop.
‘I’m not sure how popular arranged marriage would be as a conversion strategy with the rank-and-file,’ I said tightly.
‘This isn’t arranged marriage.’ Sadie looked thoughtful for a second. ‘This would typically be called marriage of convenience. Maybe marriage-in-name-only. When romance was serialised in women’s magazines in the mid-twentieth century, it was such a popular trope that they used to call it MINO as a shorthand, and—’
‘I don’t need the lecture.’
She raised her eyebrows.
‘I’m sure it’s a very interesting lecture,’ I amended. ‘But – think about this, Sadie. Think about what you’re proposing. Literally, down on one knee, proposing.’
I expected her to snap back at me, but her voice was almost gentle. ‘Do you really think I would come to you with a proposal this extreme if I hadn’t thought it through?’
‘Look, I might not have always shown it, but I have every respect for your intelligence,’ I said. ‘But no, I don’t think you’ve thought this one through. You said yourself that it was insane.’
‘I said that itsoundedinsane. Not that it was.’
‘Do the semantics really matter?’
‘Of course they do.’
Only Sadie Shaw could turn a discussion about herliterally proposing to meinto an argument about close reading.
‘It’s not insane,’ she said. ‘Nothing about our relationship or our living situation changes. You get a job you deserve just as much as I do, with the bonus that you get to help your sister and I get to sleep at night. All that’s different is that we sign a piece of paper.’
‘It’s a pretty important piece of paper. Would you call that,’ I gestured to my framed doctoral degree, ‘just apiece of paper?’
‘Of course not. You had to earn it. Anyone can get married.’
‘What if the university caught us?’
‘How would they catch us? The marriage will be legal. Everything we’ll put on the stat dec will be true. They’ll have no way of proving any different.’
I paused.
‘Doesn’t this—’ I struggled to find the right words. ‘Doesn’t this mean something to you, though? You read all those romance novels.’
‘So that means I’m dreaming of a white dress and a picket fence and a Prince Charming?’
I’d heard this sharp, clipped note in her voice before. It usually meant she was going to tear someone25a new arsehole.
‘I’m a woman in academia, Jonah. I’m familiar with all the research on how marriage benefits men and disadvantages women. All the stuff about division of domestic and emotional labour. I’ve read all those books by all those pale, male, stale scholars where they casually mention in the acknowledgments that their wife typed the manuscript and did like ninety per cent of the research.’
She probably didn’t know it, but she was very accurately describing my parents.
‘Love – now that means something to me,’ she said. ‘Marriage, not so much.’
Sadie put her hands on the bed behind her, leaning back slightly. I studiously did not look at what that manoeuvre did to her breasts in her thin camisole.
