Didn't Stay in Vegas

by Chelsea M. Cameron

  I didn’t know what to say, and I wasn’t speechless very often. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last I’d been speechless. A strange spluttering came from my mouth, like a car that wouldn’t start. I couldn’t make words, only sounds.

  Emma shrugged. “Or we can annul it like we planned. No big deal. It was just an idea.” She reached for my hands and clasped them. “It was just a silly idea.” This really meant a lot to her and I had no idea why, but did that matter?

  “I mean . . . yes, it’s a completely off-the-wall idea. That’s supposed to be my specialty.” Emma didn’t do things like this. Ever. That was what had me so confused. I was the one who should have come up with this. It was as if the world had flipped upside down and I was still trying to figure out how to stand.

  “I know. But I was thinking about it and doing research and well—I made a list and here we are.” Even her off-the-wall ideas were researched and planned. So Emma.

  I turned the idea over in my head as Emma waited and squeezed my hands so hard that I was worried about my circulation. It was as if she really wanted me to be on board with this. But why? It wasn’t like I had a lot of money or something. My health insurance was bullshit, and I had no property. So the financial aspect was going to benefit me more than her. I couldn’t understand what other compelling reason would make her want to do this, but it only took me a second to decide that her reasons didn’t matter. This was Emma. My Emma. My best friend that I would walk through a hail of bullets for. Who I would walk miles over a path covered in fiery LEGOs for. Who I would do anything for. This was something she wanted and it didn’t matter why. It only mattered that I would give it to her.

  “Okay,” I said. “What the hell? Let’s stay married.” Emma hugged me and I knew I’d made the right decision, even if I didn’t know why I’d made it.

  “What is wrong with us?” she said, laughing, her eyes sparkling. They were bluer in this light.

  “No idea, but if this is wrong, I don’t want to be right.” I was married. I was married to my best friend. Emma was my wife. The word felt strange and forbidden and adult. Way too grown-up for me, or for us. It wasn’t like I was going to come home from work and find her in the kitchen making a pot roast in heels and pearls. Granted, life wasn’t a 50s sitcom, but still. We weren’t married married, with sex and a house and a future and everything.

  “I think we should celebrate,” Emma said, bouncing up from the couch. I hadn’t seen her this excited since they uncancelled her favorite space show. I waited on the couch as she bounded to the kitchen and came back with a tiny bottle of champagne and two glasses.

  “I’ve had this in the fridge forever. I was saving it for, well, I don’t know what for, but I think now is as good a time as any to drink it.” She popped the cork and managed not to spill any on the floor.

  “This is really weird, Em,” I said, taking the glass from her. I was going to be good and sip this carefully. Moderation. That was what I needed right now, especially since alcohol was what got me into this. A few too many drinks and BAM, I have a wife.

  “How about we just go with it?” she said, tapping her glass to mine.

  “That’s my line,” I said. “Have I finally influenced you so much that you’re stealing my personality?” I laughed, but I was a little serious. This new Emma was a stranger to me. Her eyes were wild with suppressed excitement.

  “Are you going to be okay? I mean, are you stoked to have me as a wife or something?” I asked. She gulped some champagne and then put down her glass.

  “No, Callyn, I’m just . . . I don’t know. I feel like I’ve been going in circles for so long and then I finally decided to do what I wanted to do for the first time in my life and it’s like I’m high on it. Everything seems different. I feel free, and it’s making me a little loopy, I guess.” I had noticed a change in her, definitely. Her shoulders weren’t as slumped as they had been for years. She’d also stopped caring so much about what her parents thought, which I had been begging her to do, but she hadn’t been able to do it until she was ready.

  “I’m so happy for you, Em. You do seem different. I guess I’m adjusting too, but you can’t become the impulsive one. That’s my job.” She grinned and the happiness radiated from her entire being. I loved seeing her this way. It made my heart feel like it was too big to stay in my chest without causing some internal damage.

  “You’re still going to be the impulsive one, Callyn. But maybe now instead of listing all the reasons you shouldn’t do the thing, I’ll take your hand and do the thing with you.” Why did that make me feel like I wanted to cry?

  “I’ll drink to that,” I said, and we clinked our glasses again. “Wait, do I have to change my name? Do you have to change your name? Should we mash our last names together?” All kinds of thoughts hit me all at once.

  “No, Callyn, you don’t have to change your name. This is just temporary, remember? Just for six months. I mean, nothing is really going to be that different. Except you can get my health insurance, if you want.” Emma had insurance through her new school. It wasn’t great, but it was better than what I currently had from the hotel. I missed being on my parent’s plan. I had had so much less to worry about back then and I didn’t even appreciate it. I wanted to slap Past Callyn over that.

  “Yeah, sounds good.” That would be cool. Maybe I could even see a dentist. Being in your mid-twenties was wild.

  “What would we change our names to, if we decided to do it? Could we be cool and do one where we put the letters of our last names together into a new name?” Emma laughed and we both typed the letters into our phones to see what we could come up with.

  “What can we make with Stott and Vitali?”

  “Stotali!” I said. “Uhhhhh, Vitott? Vott? Stali?”

  “That last one sounds too much like Stalin.”

  “Right. Good point.”

  “How about Atlis? Ohhh, we could do Vitol.”

  “Now that one sounds too much like vitriol,” I pointed out. Emma winced. We went through a few other options and finally settled on Volta.

  “It sounds like a cool robot,” Emma said. “Or a spaceship or superhero or something. I like it as a hypothetical last name.”

  “It’s way cooler than Stott, that’s for sure. I kind of want to take it anyway.” I was completely joking, but Callyn Volta was such a badass name I was sad it couldn’t be real. Callyn Volta wasn’t the kind of person who put face wash on her toothbrush by accident. She wasn’t the kind of person who put off returning a dress until the return window closed and lost money because she was too much of a dork to get herself to the store to return it. No, Callyn Volta wouldn’t take shit from anyone, not even bitchy customers who yelled at you for things that weren’t your fault.

  “I could be Emma Volta, I think,” Emma said.

  “You totally could,” I agreed.

  “Emma and Callyn Volta. The Voltas.” I laughed because it was all too ridiculous. Two weeks ago we were best friends and now we were The Voltas.

  “We should get that monogramed on everything,” I said.

  “Definitely,” Emma agreed and we both collapsed into laugher. I had no idea why it was so funny, but I couldn’t get myself together. I laughed until there were tears streaming down my face and my ribs ached.

  “Do you want to stay again?” Emma asked, as if that was even a question. I’d spent more time here in the past week than at my place. I always slept so much better at Emma’s apartment.

  “I think my roommates are trying to outdo each other with how loud they can be during coitus. Honestly, I kind of wish they would all go in one room and just all do it together so they could be done and I could get some peace and quiet,” I said.

  “Wouldn’t that just be really loud, though?” she said. I shrugged.

  “I guess. I just want them to stop banging all the time, or at least do it more quietly. I mean, it’s a slap in the face when you’re not getting any.” Emma always got awkward when I talked about
sex and I tried not to, but sometimes I was just horny and frustrated and needed to vent to my best friend. I mean, she and I had zero secrets from each other, so I didn’t get why she got squeamish about sex.

  “Right,” she said, staring at the bubbles in her champagne. There weren’t many left; it had gone mostly flat.

  “Emma, we’re married.”

  “I know.”

  “No, we’re married. That’s a thing adults do. We’re not adults. I mean, I’m not.” I sure didn’t feel like one. I was so bad at doing anything that adults were supposed to do. I was a complete and utter disaster of a person.

  “You are. And you have me to help you with the difficult stuff. Who is the one who helps you detangle your taxes every year?” she asked, pouring more champagne into her glass. That would be Emma. She was my one-woman CPA, best friend, and advice-giver. Not that I always took her advice.

  I pointed at her. “You. And who is the one to convince you to climb a mountain in the middle of the night so we can see a meteor shower?” She smiled softly at the memory. Sure, we’d thought we were going to get eaten the whole time by a bear, but once we’d gotten to the top of the small mountain, it had been completely worth it.

  “That would be you, Callyn.”

  “Exactly. We need each other.” I wasn’t going to say that I needed her more than she needed me even though that was definitely true. I couldn’t think of a difficult time in my life when she hadn’t been there, when she hadn’t been the person I leaned on when I thought all hope was lost. Emma was my everything. Maybe that was why I sucked at dating. Because I got so much of what I needed from Emma.

  “You’re my go home,” I said. We had joked forever ago about the saying “go big or go home,” because we would both prefer to go home than go big, so we’d started calling each other our “go home” instead.

  “Always,” she said, throwing back the last of the champagne and making a face at how flat it was.

  On Saturday all of the Bachelorette Babes (as we had dubbed ourselves) got together. We tried to meet at least twice a month to talk and rekindle our friendships. Since my family was meh, my friends were everything to me. I didn’t have sisters or cousins or anyone to call when shit went down. I called Emma and then called the rest of the group.

  It was my turn to pick our brunch place and I’d chosen a diner that looked greasy on the outside, but served things like kale and ginger smoothies and had an entire vegan menu on the inside. You had to love hipster Boston.

  We had to wait for a while to get a table to seat all of us, and I wasn’t prepared for the first question after we finally sat down and got menus.

  “So, are you divorced yet?” Nova asked, not looking up from her menu. Sammi hit her on the arm.

  “We agreed we weren’t going to ask,” she hissed, but her voice was so loud that we all heard her anyway. Sammi wasn’t good at subtle.

  “We’re sitting right here,” I said. Guess we were doing this now. Emma and I had talked about what to say and, even though we didn’t want to lie to our friends, we decided it was for the best. We wanted to keep this thing between us. They could hear about it after everything was over.

  “Yeah, we’re getting it done. They have to process the paperwork and everything. Takes some time,” Emma said, staring so hard at her menu that I hoped it didn’t ignite from the power of her concentration.

  “See? All set,” I said, my stomach twisting with the lie. Emma and I had agreed that they wouldn’t understand. They wouldn’t get it.

  “Well, that’s good. You both kinda stole my thunder there,” Lara said. I had already apologized about that, but I guess she was still a little salty about it.

  “I promise not to announce a pregnancy at your reception, how’s that?” I asked, and she tried to hide a smile.

  She stuck her hand out and shook mine across the table. “Deal.”

  The topic of conversation moved back to Lara and her wedding, which was in a month. This was the first wedding I’d ever been in and I was already exhausted. Who knew being a bridesmaid was such a massive commitment? I hadn’t realized, not until after I’d put the dress I couldn’t afford on my credit card and then had to pay for alterations on top of it. Not to mention the time spent planning everything, and then there was the wedding itself. Rehearsal dinner, bridal brunch, wedding day, reception still to go. This was a marathon, not a sprint. Still, it was going to be a great time.

  Lara’s parents were loaded and they were going to spare no expense on their youngest daughter’s wedding. She had three sisters and they’d all had grand weddings, so she was able to get what she wanted, because her sisters had. I wish my family was like that, or that I’d get a fraction of what they’d done for my sister, but you couldn’t choose your family.

  At least I was running this wedding marathon with Emma, and neither of us were the maid of honor. That position went to Lilly, Lara’s next-oldest sister. She was also throwing Lara another bachelorette party, but that one involved a fancy hotel, tea, and board games. Lilly hadn’t been up for the whole Vegas thing, which was understandable since she was pregnant. The Bachelorette Babes had agreed on two separate events, so we still had the second half of the party to get to in two weeks. Tired. I was already so tired and I hoped that none of my other friends were going to get married for an extremely long time, or at least had the decency to elope.

  It was so strange to think about Lara getting married when I’d technically had a wedding of my own already. I just couldn’t remember most of it.

  “What are you thinking about?” Emma asked me, as I dug into my Garbage Plate, which was tater tots with cheese, sausage gravy, and two fried eggs on top. I didn’t mess around when it came to brunch. I’d been tempted to get a Bloody Mary, but stuck with orange juice mixed with seltzer instead. Moderation, like an adult. I was learning.

  “Moderation,” I said. I didn’t want her to know I was thinking about our forgotten wedding. I’d asked her a few times if she remembered anything and she always said that she didn’t. Weird that neither of us could recall, but that was what happened when you got blasted in Vegas, I guess. I hadn’t told her that I remembered one small moment, so I just pretended that the entire thing was a blank for me too.

  “Interesting,” she said. “In what way?” I looked up from my plate and at Emma.

  “In every way. I think I should be less impulsive, don’t you think?” I was teasing her, and it took a second for her to get that.

  “That’s probably a good idea,” she said, nodding and her lips twitching from a suppressed smile.

  “I think so.” I swerved back into the larger conversation again as we chatted about Willa’s latest dating escapades. For some reason that poor girl picked the worst people to date. It seemed like a cosmic joke at this point.

  “How can you be so smart, but so bad at dating?” Emma asked.

  “I don’t knowwww,” Willa said, dropping her head on her folded hands on the table. “Just because I’m good at tech doesn’t mean I’m good at people.” Willa’s job was so techy that I didn’t even know what it was, only that she worked at a company that made robots and I spent a lot of time telling her not to make them sentient and she would just roll her eyes at me.

  This time her first date with a new girl had ended abruptly when the date’s wife had walked into the bar they were at and was unaware that Willa’s date was seeing people outside their marriage. Oops?

  “So then I got a drink thrown on me, for some reason, and then I was wet and sticky, but the bartender gave me her number, so maybe it wasn’t a total loss? Maybe I should just stop dating white people. No offense.”

  “None taken,” Emma, Lara, and I said at the same time.

  “I’m only half-white,” Sammi said. We all laughed and agreed that the bartender was hot after looking her up online. That was a great meet-cute story, so I hoped it worked out.

  Hearing horror dating stories made me glad to be single. Was I technically still single if I w
as in a sham marriage? I had to talk to Emma about that. How could we date other people if we were legally married? Not that I wanted to be dating, but you never knew when you might meet someone.

  We sat around for a little while and then, since the sun was out, we agreed to head over to Boston Common and take a walk. The air was still full of summer, even though it was the beginning of September. The merry-go-round was still out, so I ran for it and Emma followed me, laughing. My rule was that I had to ride any merry-go-round I ever encountered, and as my best friend (and now my legal wife), Emma had to come with me. Lara, Willa, Nova, and Sammi also followed because they were good friends.

  “I can’t wait to be at Disney,” I said as we waited in line near a bunch of children who gave us strange looks. I didn’t even care. I was more than happy to be the adult going on the merry-go-round.

  “I know,” Emma said. “I feel like we’ve been planning it forever.” As a group, we’d decided to take our annual Girl’s Trip to Disneyworld next year and I couldn’t be more excited. We usually just went to the beach for a few days, or to a cabin in the mountains, but next year we were doing it up. I was going to have to put most of it on my credit cards, but whatever. It was worth it.

  “Yeehaw!” Nova yelled, swinging her arm above her head like she had a lasso.

  “You are ridiculous,” Sammi said, but she had a fond smile on her face.

  “Do it with me,” Nova said, leaning over her horse and kissing Sammi clumsily. “Come on, yeehaw with me!” Sammi let out a half-hearted yeehaw and then we all joined in and embarrassed ourselves.

  “We’re going to get banned from this merry-go-round,” Sammi said, after the third round of yeehaws.

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” I said.

  “And it won’t be the last,” Emma finished.