"Soon the boredom will set in," we told each other. What once were solemn fears had turned into silly jokes that tickled us till we laughed.
Day by day we knew each other more, and our wonder and joy at being together grew.
We had been morally married since our experiment in exclusivity began, four years before, when we gambled that we were soulmates.
Legally, however, we were single adults. No legal marriage until you settle with the IRS, Marquart had warned us. No marriage, please. Keep Leslie clear, or she'll be caught with you in the quicksand.
Bankruptcy filed, IRS cut away, we were free to be married legally at last.
The wedding-office I found listed in the telephone book between Weaving and Welding, and the event took its place on our To Do list for one last Saturday in Los Angeles: 9:00: Pack and check out
10:00: Drugstore-sunglasses, notebooks, pencils
10:30: Wedding
In a seedy storefront, we answered questions the minister asked. When she heard Leslie's name, she looked up, squinted.
"Leslie Parrish. That's a familiar name. Are you somebody?"
"No," said Leslie.
The lady squinted again, shrugged, typed the name onto a form.
To the carriage of her hand-powered typewriter was taped a sign: Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven. Nailed to the wall, another sign: THIS IS A SMOKING AREA. The office reeked of cigarettes, ashes spilled on the desk and floor.
I glanced at Leslie, then quickly to the ceiling and sighed. There was no warning on the phone, I told her, not using words, that the place would be quite this tacky.
"Now, we have the plain marriage certificate," said the minister; "that's three dollars. Or the special, with the gold lettering that's six dollars. Or the deluxe, with gold letters and the sparkly stuff on it that's twelve dollars which do you want." There was a sample of each, pinned to a cork bulletin-board.
We looked at each other, and instead of folding up laughing we nodded solemnly. This was a legally important step we were taking.
We mouthed the word to each other at the same instant: PLAIN.
"The plain will be fine," I said. The woman didn't care. She rolled the humble certificate into the typewriter, bashed away at the keys, signed it, shouted across the hall for witnesses, turned to us.
"Now if you two will sign right here ..."
We signed.
"The photographer will be fifteen dollars. ..."
"We can skip that," I said. "We don't need photographs."
"The chapel fee is fifteen dollars. . . ."
"We'd just as soon not have a ceremony. Of any kind."
"No ceremony?" She looked questions at us, which we didn't answer, and she shrugged. "OK. I pronounce you man and wife."
She added figures under her breath. "Witness fee ... fee for the county . . . registration fee ... comes to thirty-eight dollars, Mister Bach. And here's an envelope for any donation you'd like to make."
Leslie took the cash from her purse, thirty-eight dollars and five dollars for the envelope. She gave it to me and I handed it to the marriage-lady. Signings finished, certificate in hand, my wife and I, we got out of there as fast as we could.
In city traffic, we handed each other wedding rings, opened the windows to blow the smoke from our clothes. There was laughter for the first minute-and-a-half of our formal married life.
Her first words as my legal wife: "You sure know how to sweep a girl off her feet!"
"Look at it this way, Ms. Parrish-Bach," I said. "It was memorable, wasn't it? Are we likely to forget our wedding-day?"