The Husband Game

Are you out of your mind?? Who is this boy you’re suddenly posting about? We haven’t even met him and you want to marry him? Why do you want to get married so quickly, are you pregnant??

The questions keep coming. I skim the rest, and quickly respond. Calm down, I’m not pregnant.

Calm down?? You’re marrying a stranger out of nowhere and I’m supposed to be calm???

I chew on the inside of my cheek. Then I bite the bullet and dial her number. She picks up on the first ring.

“What is going on with you? Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

“Mom, no. I’m sorry, I should have given you a heads-up first. The engagement isn’t real, okay?”

On the other end of the line, I hear her let out a huffy breath. But she falls silent, at least, for long enough that I can actually get a word in edgewise.

“It’s just a… kind of like a performance piece, an art thing. An experiment, I don’t know. Fiona thinks that if I do this and write about test-driving an old-fashioned marriage, it will be a really popular article series. All I’m going to do is write about what it must have been like to get married so fast and young to someone you hardly know, like people used to do in the olden days. Then I’m going to write about how that marriage blows up in your face, as ours inevitably will, when we tank it.”

“So it’s fake,” Mom replies, latching onto the one part of that ramble she understands. “You’re pretending you’re going to marry this man, so that… what, you can break up and write about it?”

“That’s the gist of it, yeah.”

On the other end of the line, she lets out a long sigh that transitions into a groan. “And Fiona asked you to do this?” Mom knows all about Fiona by now. She knows Fi is my boss, and in charge of all things at the magazine. And that Fiona has been one of the few people to give me and my writing a chance. She knows I owe Fiona everything about my career so far. Without Fi, I wouldn’t be writing full-time, at least not with enough regularity to afford not to have another day job to pay the bills.

Without Fi, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve my dreams.

“She did,” I reply, a little more firmly.

Another sigh. “I worry about what people will think of you, though, writing about such personal things. Putting your whole life out there on display for anyone to consume, like you’re some kind of reality star. Don’t you worry about that?”

I blow my bangs out of my eyes with a huff. “Of course I do, Mom.”

“Why didn’t you talk to me about this before you agreed?”

“Because I kind of knew you’d hate the idea.” I shift from one foot to the other. “Given your views of marriage. Which I don’t blame you at all for having,” I’m quick to add.

“Look, your father’s and my marriage was a complete and utter disaster, I won’t sugarcoat that. He was a complete asshole to me, after all that I sacrificed for him. And I’m even more angry at him for abandoning you, because no matter what he felt about me, he should never have walked away from his children, from his relationship with his kids. But…” Another sigh, much slower this time, like she’s thinking through her next words very carefully. “Look, Lila, you can’t judge every relationship based on mine, okay? Some marriages do work out, though they’re rare and hard work. More are complete disasters because people rush into them unprepared and not knowing one another well enough beforehand.”

“That’s exactly what I want to showcase in this article series, though, Mom. I want to show people that marriages don’t work. That’s the whole idea.”

“But you could just write about real life failed marriages. You don’t have to risk your heart getting broken to write about something like that.”

“Who said anything about my heart being involved?” I snap, even as the organ in question shrivels within my chest.

“Please. I know you a little better than that, Lila. I saw the look on your face in that video, when you were staring at that boy. And moreover, I saw the way he was looking at you. You might think this whole thing is completely fake, that you’re just doing it as a performance or whatnot. But trust me, when real feelings get involved in something like this, it gets messy. No matter how fake it might be.”

I chew on my thumbnail again. At this rate, I’m going to have no nails left by the time this whole marriage act comes to a close. “Look, Mom…”

“It’s not too late to walk away from this,” she says. “Charlie seems like a very nice boy. I’m sure he’d understand if you told him you had to call off the fake show.”