Marriage of Unconvenience

“Cara, this could work.” Why wasn’t she jumping up and down?

“No, Lo. I can’t take that money from you. It’s too much. And I wouldn’t feel right about it. I know you don’t care about marriage, but I do, and I wouldn’t want to do it for the wrong reasons, and money isn’t a good enough reason.” I burst out laughing.

“Do you know how many marriages have started because of money? And how many marriages started between two people who didn’t even like each other?” Rich people did that shit all the time. Hell, royals had done it for thousands of years. Why did we have to be any different?

“No, Lo. I can’t do it.” She shook her head and crossed her arms, as if to make it final.

I sighed.

“It would solve all of our problems, Care. It would take less than a week and we could have the money in our hands. And you could fulfill your dream and I could pay my rent and fix my car and stress a little less about finding a job. Don’t forget, I need this money too. You’d be helping me get at it, and I’d be helping you in the process. It’s perfect.”

She frowned.

“I hadn’t thought about it that way. I mean, you know that I would do anything for you, Lo, but...” she trailed off. “I just don’t know if I can do that.”

She sipped her cranberry juice slowly, and I gulped down my tea. I was high on the energy of my brilliant idea.

“You don’t have to decide now,” I said, even though I wanted her to say yes and agree and for us to make plans to go to the courthouse right away.

“Okay,” she said. “I will think about it. I promise. It’s just a huge surprise and a shock.”

It wasn’t every day that someone said “hey, let’s get married so you can pay for grad school,” but here I was with a solution to our dilemmas and I wanted nothing more than to share that money with her. There was more than enough for both of us. I knew my parents would support my idea of sharing the money with Cara. They loved her as if she was their own daughter, which was good, because her parents were the worst. I was glad she had finally cut off all contact with them.

Our food arrived and a silence descended on the table, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Cara and I had spent so many years together, silence wasn’t a bad thing. My pancakes were perfect and fluffy as usual, but it didn’t matter. I was itchy and wanted to leave. Whenever I got a good idea like that, I had to see it through immediately or else I couldn’t sit still. I wanted action, now. Cara had never been like that. She was the kind of person who looked at every single angle and made countless lists and took forever to decide. Maybe that was good, since she was in the medical field and people’s lives were in her hands. I couldn’t even imagine. I was much more happy with computer data that wouldn’t die if I made a mistake.

“Got any good stories for me?” I asked. Cara always had interesting stories from the hospital, and sometimes they were about her coworkers.

“Two of the EMTs got caught banging in an ambulance they were supposed to be restocking. Of course they just got reprimanded, but I can’t even imagine the looks on their faces when they got caught.” We both laughed.

“That’s some Grey’s Anatomy shit right there.” She rolled her eyes.

“I hate that show.”

“I know you do,” I said. Cara had a problem with almost any medical drama because they got everything wrong, and she spent most of her time yelling at the screen. It was adorable and sometimes I wanted to watch things with her just to see it.

She told me some more stories, but in the back of my mind, I was only thinking about the money. And about putting a hypothetical ring on Cara’s finger.

Three

Of course I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and I told Ansel about my idea when we had pizza on Sunday night. He’d agreed to buy, and threw in a pitcher of cheap beer that I was slowly sipping, along with water.

“That would make way more sense than you and I getting married. Especially since you both need money.” Cara wasn’t any more attracted to me than Ansel was, and she’d been my best friend since we were kids. There weren’t any kind of romantic feelings involved, so it would still be a marriage for the money.