Becca had read that study, too. It made her stew about how many hours a day she sat in a classroom and at her study carrel in the library’s basement while Carson finished his senior year classes. He was going to law school next year. He took the LSAT last fall, and he’d already gotten into the U of A’s very good law school. He had career success written all over him.
Well, probably. That was one of the worries. Was he all talk and no action? There were guys like that, sweet talkers who told women what they wanted to hear. The big dreamers who never really followed through. Becca had grown up as the abandoned child of not just a father like that but a mother as well. Not a chance she’d put herself or her future children in a situation where even one parent turned into a missing anchor.
Carson was only twenty-one. He was older than Becca, almost done with his degree, but still hadn’t done much real stuff in life. How could Becca tell what Future Carson was like?
In the last few months, she’d spent most afternoons with him, heading to the running trails in the hills to the west of the city. She loved Tucson for how close the city was to the pure desert, just like her hometown of Bisbee, even though she had to face the occasional rattlesnake and a few tarantulas now and then. They were a small price to pay for the freedom of the great outdoors. And the chance they gave her to coast along the dirt trail to the foot-beats of Carson’s ever-entertaining conversation.
Carson Huxley. She sat under the dryer and closed her eyes to see his face. That grin of his affected everyone. Everybody loved Carson. The fun guy. The life of the party. The guy who never stopped talking about the latest funny political scandal or some classic muscle car. But Becca knew some other sides of him—like he really loved his family, would do anything to help them out, and like the fact he cared deeply about justice and truth, protection of the innocent, which was what drove him to study the law.
It almost made her want to go law school, too. Just abandon her botany degree and plans to become a Master Gardener and develop new breeds of tomatoes that grew better in the desert. His passion was that infectious.
She sounded like a melodramatic teenager when at eighteen she told herself he was the guy she’d always been looking for. But somehow her soul had echoed with this sense of eternal loneliness—until now. And Carson quenched it. Every day she spent with him made her life strawberry-covered bliss.
And he’d been no coy, casual dater when it came to expressing how he felt about her.
Becca, I think I am falling in love with you. He’d said it aloud on their third date, Halloween. She’d worn a stupid costume, as studying gave her no time to prep for the party he’d invited her to, and she was embarrassed to the hilt when he came to pick her up as the toilet paper mummy. Sixteen steps out the door, and the thing was falling to pieces, and she began tearing it off, leaving a trail to provide some poor homeless person a little needed Charmin comfort. They blew off the costume party and got Eegee’s slush and drank it atop the mountain with the U of A “A” on it.
And she’d kissed him.
“Your color should be done by now. Let’s just peel up this foil and check.” Xanthe tilted up the noisy helmet, and Becca popped her ears. “Yeppers. Now we have to rinse before you’re a skunk. I hate those sharp contrasts in the hair coloring, don’t you?”
Becca followed Xanthe to the sink, leaned her head back and let the water flow cool and refreshing over her scalp. Xanthe hummed a song while her fingertips worked the solution off Becca’s hair.
Becca should be thrilled. Tonight Carson was taking her to Tono Chul, a park downtown known for its cactus blossoms, the Night Blooming Cereus. Even thinking of the place made her tingle with excitement. I’ve always dreamed of having someone propose to me at Tono Chul. She’d told him this during one of their cool-down walks after a good run in the desert hills. She never thought he’d remember. At that point in their dating it never occurred to her that Carson might actually be listening, making note of her little wishes. It’d been so new then.
But now, he’d called and tonight, he was taking her to Tono Chul.
It was too early in the year for the blossoms, most likely, and no one ever had much more than twelve hours’ notice before they bloomed, but she loved the park any time, whether the elusive flowers than bloomed en masse only one night a year were on display or not.
“But back to what we were talking about earlier.” Xanthe towel-dried Becca’s hair. “You’ve got to be extra careful. Marriage—it’s something you should approach with your eyes wide open.”
“And then half shut your eyes once you’re in?”
“I’ve been married six times.” She sighed and applied more chemical paste. “Should’ve opened my eyes a lot wider five of those times.”
Six! Becca didn’t think Xanthe looked older than thirty. “So you kept them three-fourths shut on the sixth?”
“No, I gouged them out for the sixth.” Xanthe had an engaging cackle. It bounced off the tile floor and ended with a staccato snort. “Still married after five years. Look, that’s why I sort of make it my mission to educate the uninitiated. I’ve prevented some disasters.”
“Disasters? How?”
Becca might only be eighteen, but she’d seen a few of her slightly older friends’ marriages go down in flames already, marriages that on paper looked ideal. That was what scared her. Maybe this fluttery, strawberry-smothered world she lived in dating Carson might be a façade. Love is blind, and Becca figured she didn’t even have the merest of low vision anymore about him. Another perspective from someone less swimming in fruit syrup might be wise. Especially before things escalated, as they might tonight.
“Yes, disasters. One woman I know almost married a guy without a job. Pah!”
Carson didn’t have a job. Unless you counted Poli Sci tutor. But nothing with an income.
“Another woman caught herself just in time before saying yes to her boyfriend’s proposal after only knowing him for six months. Six months! Can you imagine?”
Becca only met Carson in early October. March winds stirred up dust devils today. October through March. But only part of March. A little sick feeling crept up Becca’s bones.
“Maybe she felt like she’d known him forever?”
Xanthe rolled her eyes. “Everyone feels that way, at first. And then you get married and you think, ‘Who is this total stranger?’ Believe me. It happens. Every time.”
Becca wrung her hands together under the long black apron draped over her body. “How can you tell if it’s going to be a good match, then?”
Xanthe pounced right on this. “Oh, I have a set of three of foolproof tests. They have to be administered together.”
Tests? Oh, great. It wasn’t one of those “Your Blood Type Determines Whether You’re a Match” kind of tests, was it? Because Becca already found out in one of those online quizzes that she was B-positive and Carson was AB-negative and they had a thirty-nine percent chance of ‘true love.’ Not that she believed in those things. It was the same as picking petals off a daisy. Harmless. Dreamy. Schoolgirl-ish.
“First, you find out what kind of a pet person he is.” Xanthe parted Becca’s hair and began rubbing product into the roots in a soothing scalp massage. The foamy pink liquid smelled like mandarin oranges and jasmine. “If he’s a cat person, and you’re a cat person, great. If he’s a dog person and you’re a dog person, also great. But if he’s a dog person and you’re a cat person, that gets put down as a neutral. On the other hand, if the girl is a dog person and he’s a cat person, it’s a negative.”
“How so?”
“Because you won’t get along. Believe me. It’s been proven time and again.”
“Right.” Becca submitted to the whirring whine of the hair dryer, as bits of hair hit her cheeks and forehead. The dryer didn’t stop Xanthe from explaining.
“The next thing is the political party test. You know, they say that more than any other factor, matching political party determines compatibility.”
&
nbsp; “More than religion or ethnicity or anything else?”
“Yeppers. More than same taste in Metallica and Def Leppard versus One Direction and Kenny G, even. Believe me, I can vouch for that.”
Becca didn’t want to go probing into that one. “The cat person versus dog person, plus the political party test?” Right. Whatever. People were complex, and there were no guarantees. No silver bullet tests. But, then again, sometimes life had simple answers. Besides, Carson didn’t have any pets. Did he? And for sure they had similar political views, no matter how he was officially registered in a party or not. “That’s it?”
“No, no. Those are just the preliminary tests. If those are both red flags, don’t bother with the third one. It’s a little…scientific.”
“I’m okay with science. So is Carson. He’s doing his undergrad in Political Science.” Ugh. Could she sound stupider? The hair salon fumes were dissolving her brain.
Xanthe explained something from her psychology education, the “Stanford Marshmallow Test.” In it, a child subject seated at a table was given a marshmallow. The subject was told they could eat the marshmallow at any time, but if they waited for fifteen minutes, they’d be given a second marshmallow. The study then tracked long-term the children who ate the marshmallow immediately versus those who waited. Those who could delay gratification proved that over the years they could make better decisions in life. Those who ate the marshmallow right away had no self-control in other matters, either, and made poor life decisions.
“So I should give him a marshmallow and see what he does with it?”
“Yepparooney. It works every time. Without fail.”
Becca bit her lip. The hair color was looking perfect. She’d see Carson in a couple of hours. But would she have the nerve to shove a marshmallow at Carson? She would feel stupid. Utterly weird. Anxiety ratcheted up her heart rate, and she kept vacillating. To marshmallow or not to marshmallow.
But if it would answer some of her questions—like whether Carson was a good bet, whether he was a guy she could count on to be stable—maybe she didn’t have a choice. She was so young. This guy, he’d swept her away, and she didn’t have a lot of experience, couldn’t compare him to other guys. Sure, Becca knew how she felt when she was around him, but she didn’t have a mom around to bounce ideas off. And when she took him to meet Grandma, he’d been so charming, Grandma liked him instantly.
But was that a good way to judge? Grandma’s love life hadn’t progressed anywhere in the fifteen years since Grandpa died. She’d get within shooting distance of a marriage proposal, and every man bolted. Becca wanted her to be happy, but it just always seemed out of reach. Maybe Grandma was overly enthusiastic for Becca because of what she herself couldn’t have.
Becca paid Xanthe and went out into the windy March day. Tucson’s purple jagged mountains pointed skyward. She looked up and said a little prayer, and then she looked in her wallet.
Just enough to buy a bag of Jet-Puffed Marshmallows. Crazy as it may seem, she had no better way to gauge whether he was a safe choice.
She had to do it.
Read the rest of Becca and Carson’s story! Click this link.
The Legally in Love Series
Attractive Nuisance
Asked and Answered
Legally in Love
Other Books by Jennifer Griffith
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Immersed
The Lost Art
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All of these books are cotton candy for your soul, guaranteed not to change your life.
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Legally Wedded (Legally in Love Book 3) Page 40
