We picked up cigarettes first at a Mobile station and we drove around the inlet with more palm trees till he told me to put on my lights.  We drove around some neighborhoods and then I hit the curb when I parked alongside it and next to only one car.  I knew I was the only one here and probably would be the only one here the rest of the night, but I followed him through the grass that grew through the stone walkway anyway.

When he pulled back the gate  I saw a large pool clear of leaves in between a guest house to the right and the main living space. I could hear music off in the distance but I didn’t know from where.  We opened a screen door with plastic crank blinds and walked into his kitchen where he fed his pit bull with all the lights on in the room.  He went around the house opening up the rest of the plastic crank blinds on the windows until the air that was coming through was humid and hot wind.  He asked me what music I liked and I asked him what kind he had and he named about five or six albums he had until he said the Grateful Dead.  He came back over to the couch and I sat beside him in my short skirt and crinkled top with my face hot from the air and the wind.  We talked for a little bit and then he asked me if I wanted to smoke up and I’d never turned it down up to now so I welcomed it and we sat back and listened to “Saint Stephens”off “What a Strange Trip it’s Been”.  Brett looked at me and asked what my story was and I told him a little about what had happened lately. I expected him to give me advice or to tell me that I should be nicer to my mom or dad, understand more from where they were coming on their side of the fence.  But he said “You guys are gonna change the world, huh?” It was what I thought too at that moment. Like something great was gonna happen for me and Sam. I felt so in love at that second that my stomach hurt, that my head got big, that I couldn’t come up with anything to say back to him.  Everything just felt real lately and I couldn’t describe it.  He kissed me once before he went into his bedroom and shut the door to go to sleep.  His dog followed with him and took off one of the throw pillows from a lounge chair and pressed it up against the end of the couch so I could rest some.  But I kept going up to his turntable and playing “Saint Stephens” and “Jack Straw” again and again and again.

In the morning while Brett made coffee and stood with his back to me against the counter chewing an English muffin, I slipped the cd into my bag and zipped it up.

I was hiding out behind the Cigarz shop next to the fountain where they’d built a tea shop in a small hideaway that looked like a lodge bunker up north.  It was drizzling more now and I kicked at the water in the rivets of the brick cracks near the iron bench I was curled up on.  My mom had found out through the secretary in the county clerks office that I had gotten married when she filed away the month’s marriage certificates and had come across my last name.  When she immediately came up after work to my father’s office on the 17th floor to say congratulations to the good news he didn’t have the words to say stuff back.

I got to Dante’s around seven, found the lot all full in front of their restaurant and so  I drove around up and down the residential street that it was off looking for spaces.  I finally decided to just park at the Dunkin Donuts lot and I walked in black heels all the way back to the side door of where Sam was working.  He came by my table and asked what I wanted and I said wine or something, whatever was fine.  He said my dad had been by today eating lunch at this back table by the window.  “What?”  I said.  My dad was here?  I couldn’t remember ever having told anyone that Sam worked here, except my brother.  I guess that’s how he found out.  Sam walked away to meet other customers.  There was that hostess at the front again, the one with brown curly hair down to her butt who had the perfect nose, who was skinny.  I wondered how long it’d be before he brought up something about him hooking up with her and feeling guilty.  I’d stopped to go to the bathroom here once before when I was picking up Sam from work and the blond with black underliner behind the bar gave me a dirty look that made me feel like she was jealous.  Guess Sam had gotten cozy with her too.  I drank almost all my wine and the comedian, it turned out to be that kind of night instead of a band, started up.  The manager stopped him though saying from the back of the room that they were towing at Duncan Donuts and if you had a car over there, you better go get it.  I stumbled for my purse, ran out the back door, saw the truck leave with my car, said “fuck”, ran inside Duncan Donuts demanding to know who called on my car and what I could do about it.  Sam came over and called me stupid for leaving it there, I came back into the restaurant to sit down long enough for the nice manager to give me a glass of wine on the house.  I drank it, walked outside to call my dad to see what I should do and listened long enough on the other end of the line for him to say “You can’t keep calling us when you have these emergencies.” I waited for my brother to pick me up after I used another quarter to dial him, came home and listened to my mother say that I needed to choose who I was gonna live with because I couldn’t keep switching up my loyalties.

We stood linking the ends of each others hands in front of Diane more because it was the thing to do than because we really wanted to do it because we both felt uncomfortable and kept shifting our weights as we stood.  There we were under the white bridal arch with wicker X’s that crossed and made room for the fake plastic ivy vines to wind through their spaces to create a border that was as contrived as Sam’s idea for going through with this whole thing without any relatives around except for my dad who was doing injunctions seven feet from above us on the fourteenth floor.  Except Diane and except for the handful of English as a second language users who had seen me cross the waiting room aisle and into the door where this justice of the peace stood, no one else knew we were here.  She was saying all these things, Diane and I was thinking all this, how no one I was here, how I really hadn’t thought this through, how I’d picked out costume jewelry diamond earrings that didn’t even have the correct amount of pendants that the matching one did on my other ear.  How I’d rushed to pick out the wrong kind of cream colored shoes that didn’t really match my white dress, that I didn’t even do my hair in the bathroom, brush it, or sweep it behind my ears.  And in fact I was still catching my breath from not having had on my wedding dress in the first place and making Diane and Sam wait while heading to the bathroom to slip on it and the accessories that I was thinking would make this time more worth while.  But two minutes later practically and she’d gotten done with what she’d said and I’d said “I do” and he’d put the silver ring on with the scratches in the silver band on me and I’d said “yes” and didn’t put anything on his finger since he wouldn’t go to kismet or any other cheap store to find a plastic, hemp or hematite ring in the least, to match my own.   So there we were nearly at the end of the day, filing out with all the late workers at 530 through the parking garage except that he had a yellow carnation in the breast of his I mean my step-dad’s coat pocket, and due to me wearing a white dress down to my mid-thighs, holding some stems of dried flowers that I’d picked from behind our toilet seat from the glass blue vase of lavender.  I’d tied them with some yellow string that I used when I cross stitched the twelve days of Christmas ornaments and had some left over after I’d finished the pillow ornament with the three French hens.

“Well,” I said as we walked across level 5 of the parking garage and down the steps to the fourth floor where the elevator was, “What now?  Should we go to dinner?” It sounded appropriate and Sam agreed, but we didn’t want to go to anyplace around here so we made a promise to go out on west I-4 towards the Olive Garden on I-Drive.  I would drive.  We stepped across Robinson together without holding hands and Sam slipped some Camels out from his, I mean my step-dad’s pockets, that I hadn’t seen him slip in there before and I worried about the tar bits that would accumulate for the dry cleaners.  But I didn’t say anything, I just walked when the stick figure on the walk sign turned white and looked out at Lake Lily with her man-made fountain spitting water up into the air and saw the red awning of Lee’s Lakeside behind her, thinking that that restaurant could have been where I’d had my reception had Sam mingled with my parents more and made good with them.  But instead we hopped in either side of my black Jetta and headed west on the interstate towards the Olive Garden.

He ordered steak of course with tomato penne pasta and I had some lighter fare, the salmon with tomato concasse and spinach.  I kept looking at my ring the whole time thinking “I’m married, I’m married, I’m married”.  Because I would have never guessed it’d be this soon, I always pictured me older with my master’s degree, with some experience behind my back.  But who knew?  And Sam was smiling, he had a big grin and we looked at each other a few times and smiled and I felt close to him, like I hadn’t before, so that was good.  At least something felt right about crossing this big line that would lead to a big divide.  And then what usually happened when I ate too many bites at once was that I’d sit back and contemplate, like “When was I going to tell my parents? What if dad found out?  What was mom gonna say at church?  What was dad gonna say at temple?  What was I gonna say to my friends?”  I chewed my cheek then looked down back at my pretty simple linen dress, that I’d gotten from a rummage shop or vintage store in Chapel Hill, and I looked at my ring again and Sam so handsome and I knew I’d married my counterpart, so I took a sip of our wine and felt settled again.  “Should we order dessert?” I said.  “For our wedding?”  And Sam as usual said tiramisu because that was his favorite even though they had gelato on the menu that I rarely got to ever had and wanted.  So we ordered what he wanted with two forks, we told the waiter it was our wedding day hoping he’d give it to us for free, add some candles sing a song, have the celebration for us that no one else knew to give us.  I’d had birthday’s here where they brought out a fudge brownies with ice cream and a candle in the middle, embarrassing you in front of the long table with your family and friends, but this celebration was new.  I’d never been to one of these when you told them you’d just gotten married.  And so ten minutes later they came out with what they ordered and I clapped along with them when they sang congratulations to us, probably the same song they sang to students who’d graduated high school or college, or to new parents and blew out the candles before Sam could get to them as they lay our dessert on the table.

Sam ordered more table-wine but I put my tipsy hand over his and told him not a bottle, just the glasses and I stumbled to move my plush cushion chair to excuse myself to the restroom.  We were married!  We were going to have babies and I was going to have them with him, the handsomest artist in the room. He’d be a great dad.  I came into the bathroom and passed myself in the mirror going straight to lock myself behind the restroom stall, I didn’t need to see how young I was because I already knew I was capable and we’d live in a small low-rent apartment around the corner from my mom and dad and he’d work part time as a waiter at Dante’s where he’d gotten a job, and I’d go to college, for the both of us.  I sat down to pee on the toilet seat and grabbed for the paper from the metal slot and felt flushed.  I needed water.  I came back around to the dinner table five minutes later and saw the clasp of my small dress purse opened and my wallet out.  “Where’s my wallet?” I asked, feeling the blood rush from out of my cheeks.

“Your card declined,” groaned Sam.
“What?” I said.  I felt the wine and the enthusiasm from my bathroom thoughts drain from my face and I searched around the white cocktail linen table cloth for my wallet.  “Where is it?” I asked.  He plopped it on the table from where he was storing it underneath the table.  I looked through it for other cards but one was a Target card only good for in-store, the other one a Firestone card good for the same thing.  I groaned but I was still in a good mood and I so I waved my waiter over still seeing that I had wine in my glass and that Sam still had some in his.  We could still enjoy ourselves and have a good time.  There was half the tiramisu on the table with a lump of caramel on the top that had gone untouched.  I whispered into the waiter’s ear once he got to us,

“You know, it’s our wedding day.  We’re so excited.  Our parent’s can’t be here and we’re also sad.”  I didn’t know how I came up with this part but I did: “So we’re saving up enough, I work at Disney, to bring them all here.”  I was still whispering, “So you know how it is, you do, you know?”  The man was a shorter Mexican guy who spoke broken English and waited politely but still for an answer.  “I have a roommate,” I whispered, I pulled the cuff of his coat sleeve towards me so that I could do some more whispering, “who has lots of money.  She’s rich.  I’ll go back to my house and I’ll call her and I’ll give you her credit card number, I swear.  I’ll leave something with you so that you’ll believe me. You know?”  I dug out my Target credit card that I swore I was gonna cancel just as soon as I got to my cell phone outside and I handed it to the waiter, ‘Almo’ was his name.  He seemed to agree sort of to this and I took my wine and gulped a sip of it and tapped Sam to do the same.  He looked away from me.  “I solved it,” I said.  “Don’t be mad.” I’d talked to him once more this confidently while we were smoking pot next to the wall in our old apartment against the blue couch at Elon.  “Take a sip, I want to kiss you.”  But he wrote me off as tipsy and paid attention to the game instead of soccer on TV because he loved soccer and so I ate the rest of the caramel on top of the tiramisu since he wasn’t watching and drank the rest of my wine and tried to drink the rest of his.

Of course I had to drop him off at the homeless shelter before 9 and it was 8 45 so we weren’t gonna be able to do anything after our wedding which was fine with me because I still had to drive twenty minutes to my house and I was tired from today anyway.  But it was sort of sad having to wait in the Orlando Magic’s parking lot across from the BobCarr theater while he changed out from Jim’s suit and back into his sleep pants and worn button down shirt that he used for pajamas, to go back to my house.  I had to do the same thing, changing into a pair of jeans and a long Indian cotton brown shirt I’d gotten one time at the beach.  I tried not to look at him when I kissed him because I didn’t want to think of it all, how I wouldn’t be able to crawl over into the covers with him tonight, and let him out.  I drove home and parked as usual, turned off the hall lights when my mom complained that they were too bright for her to sleep, washed my face in the sink, brushed up, and hopped into myGarfieldnightgown that had twice been shrunk in the wash.  I hopped into bed and kept the light on before going to sleep so that I could slip out from the white wicker in-table the thin baby naming book that I’d bought at our Walgreens two months before.

            I sat outside next to a foldout chair that felt like it was upholstered in mauve carpet.  My bag was sitting on the floor next to me and Sam was busy fiddling with a store bought disposable camera, winding the release dial on the back and practicing on the wall next to him.  The room was a good size with windows facing towards South Orlando with a view of the left side ofLakeEolaParkwith the fountain partially overflowing.  There was a arbor arch in the center of the room with white whicker x’s which created the open diamond spaces from where silk Ivy had been thread and wound.  This was where we were gonna stand in front when the Justice of the Peace finally got here.  Sam asked me a couple of times to stand in front of it, but I didn’t have my wedding clothes on yet and was still in my beige skirt and tan tank top but I smiled for the camera anyway.  The Justice of the Peace finally came in resembling Diane Sawyer, all hurried, hunched underneath the shoulder pads in her blue blazer and frosted blond hair.  She asked us if we were ready and I asked her to give me a minute while I rushed my bag out of the hall and to the left to a bathroom hall, crossing my fingers that I wouldn’t bump into anyone of my dad’s friends that I knew.  I took out and put into a pile that short white empire waist dress, the fake costume jewelry diamond earrings, and the crème Payless heels with a middle and back strap at the heel.  It didn’t take me but two minutes to get dressed and I hadn’t fluffed my hair out of my dress and onto my shoulders for more then ten seconds before I was out and running down the hall again.  I tried to stare past the immigrant couples waiting to be next in line for the justice of the peace, but I saw a few speaking broken English next to a brown lamp and wondered why Sam was rushing me to get married so fast.  I stepped into the empty room where Sam had been taking pictures of Diane Sawyer this whole time and after dropping my bag of clothes next to the mauve fold-out chair, I ran to the arbor acting like I had been the one who had been waiting for them to hurry it up all along, instead of the other way around.

I pulled my Volkswagen up our hill of a driveway already feeling like the chunky silver on my right hand’s ring finger was for me being married and I let Sam out first as I pulled up my emergency brake and studied the overgrown grass behind the chain link fence belonging to our neighbor Mr. Krutch, that intimidated our short even cut yard mowed down every Thursday by our landscaper Joseph. I got out and ran around the front of my car knocking my knee into the top of the three tiered emblem’s metal grill until I got to the door before Sam did, opening it with my key first, picking up a paper bag of groceries on the antique chest that held our mail, searching around through the house for Amira, our cleaning lady.  After I motioned with my hand to Sam from the front of the foyer I told him he could go back into my dad’s dressing area to borrow a suit and he picked out a black pinstriped one along with a corn blue button down dress shirt that he’d ordered from Rutlands almost five years ago.  Sam motioned towards my parents’ wooden storage closet where a tie rack hung with so many ties but I pulled him along and past the kitchen into my room where I made him get dressed in there while I rifled through my wicker trunk chest that I’d gotten for Christmas seven years ago.  I pulled down a red carry-on luggage bag from the top of my closet and folded twice a white dress with satin crinoline at the bust, an empire waist with a thin satin sheen below this that was no thicker than a white dinner napkin.  I took out from a shoe box a pair of  four inch square cream heels with a back strap and a leather strip running along the top and put them in the luggage bag beside the white dress and a box I’d saved in there, filled with a set of diamond costume jewelry earrings with one of the jewels missing.  I turned around to see Sam’s hands swimming in the cuffs of my father’s coat sleeves and looked down at the black loafers Sam had stolen inNorth Carolina to see the ends of his pants’ legs bunched up at his feet.  I didn’t care much and I slipped on my old black moccasins from Walmart that I’d had forever, peeked out from the sliding wooden drawer of my bedrooms’ hallway and motioned again in silence for him to come on.  I ran to the front of the door before he got to me to peek out through the glass to see if Amira had driven up the driveway with her music loud and the plastic necklaces dancing from her rearview mirror or anyone else and I locked the front door.  I walked up towards him to pull him along out the garage and through the side door where I came out the side of the chain link fence that stood up to my neighbors’ yard and saw Mr. Krutch because Mr. Krutch had not kept the curtains closed to his picture window that stretched along back his living room since his wife passed away five years ago and so I could see the back of him on his couch watching a football game on TV.  Sam got into the car quickly and so I put my bag into the backseats’ door and I got in.  Not five minutes later though and I was back pulling up again because Sam was complaining about the length of his coat swearing that he could find a better fitting one if I were to just pull back up to the house so he could run in and measure.

            We parked on East Robinson street two blocks from the courthouse and to the left of Lake Lily and after Sam got out first to catch up to me on the sidewalk I pulled out my red carry-on luggage bag and wheeled it up to Edgewater Drive where a turquoise honda honked in our way when Sam stepped out too close to moving cars going through the green light at the rush-hour 12:30 lunch time.  I turned around to hide behind my luggage feeling transparent with my white dress already inside it until the light turned red and Sam pulled my arm to cross the street and up the stairs to where we’d parked two days ago so we could purchase our marriage silence.  We knew the drill and we walked up three more flights until we got access to the elevator that brought us into the building, we hurried through the waxed marble floor to the elevator that brought us up to the seventh floor and we turned left into the entrance to the justice of the peace, an office kitty corner to the county clerks’ office where I would be collecting a a receipt stub four months later after issuing a restraining order preventing Sam from ever coming near me again.

When we got home though things got a lot worse.  Sam didn’t want to be dropped off behind a building by it’s dumpster of course and I didn’t agree to stay out all night with him either so I was stuck having to endure him sleeping in my car next to the Woodard’s oak tree with my car parked to the left of our driveway.  The neighbors across the street had tons of kids and their kids had tons of friends and I knew it would be a matter of time before my mom got a knock at the door with some neighbors complaining about a middle teenaged guy slumped over in a hoody in the driver’s side of my black Volkswagen Jetta.