Futures and Frosting (16 page)

I won’t admit to
anyone that I’ve been secretly wondering what it would be like to be married to
Carter.  Frankly, I shouldn’t even be thinking it or lightening will strike and
ruin everything.  Our life is perfect just the way it is.  A few stray thoughts
here and there about what it would be like to sign the name Mrs. Claire Ellis
doesn’t mean anything.  It just means that every once in a while I can act like
a typical girl.  It doesn’t mean I have any desire to don a white dress and
parade myself in front of hundreds of people whose only thought about me at
that moment in time is whether or not it's appropriate for me to be wearing
white.

And besides, men
run for the hills as soon as you get the tiniest inkling you might want to
someday be married to them.  If you so much as glance in the general direction
of a bridal magazine in the store, they start hyperventilating and imagining
balls and chains permanently secured to their legs for all of eternity. 
Really, I'm doing this for Carter.  I'm saving him from a coronary or some
other life threatening illness that comes from thinking about marriage.  I
think I read somewhere that just saying the word
marriage
makes a man’s
balls shrink.  It must have been Google.

Before I know
what was happening, both Jenny and Liz are dragging me onto the dance floor
amid hordes of women who are foaming at the mouth and practically punting away
young children who ran from their parents to join in on the game of catch.

Once I'm firmly
ensconced by giddy, annoying females on all sides, Liz turns and flees the
scene. 

“Oh my gosh, oh
my gosh, oh my gosh!  I hope I catch the flowers!  What if I catch the
flowers?  Could you imagine?!  We should move closer to the front.  Or maybe go
to the back.  Can Liz throw really far?  I hope they don’t get stuck in one of
the chandeliers.”

I cross my arms
in front of me in protest and roll my eyes as Jenny’s incessant chatter rings
in my ears like an annoying cow bell.

“These parents
need to come out here and get their kids.  What happens if one of them catches
the bouquet?  Will someone tell them to give it back?  This is like, a really
important thing.  They’re not opposed to be out here.”

I sighed and
scan the crowd looking for Carter, hoping to get a smile of encouragement from
him to brave this storm.  He would feel my pain and know how miserable I am in this
moment, surrounded by crazies.

As my eyes move
through the sea of people standing around watching, Liz is handed the
microphone and with her back to the single women, she begins her countdown.

“5, 4, 3, 2, 1!”

Finally, my eyes
lock on Carter standing not far from Liz.  The corners of my mouth begin
curling up when a sudden blur of activity around me causes my focus to wane. 
Heels are flying, taffeta is swirling, and women are going down like dominoes. 
I unfold my arms to move away from the chaos when the bouquet Liz throws drops
down into my hands like a gift from the heavens.

All movement on
the floor around me stops and the pile of wrestling women stare up at me with
reverence like I hold the Holy Grail in my palms.  I have the strongest urge to
spike it to the ground like a football and get as far away from it as possible.

I don’t know
what scared me more.  The fact that the impulse to get rid of the bouquet
disappears as quickly as it comes and I find myself cradling the flowers like a
baby out of fear that someone will try to take them from me, or the look of
sheer horror on Carter’s face when my eyes find his again.

My best friend
has been gone on her honeymoon for a week and I feel lost.  I need someone to
talk to.  I’m sure I could have called her if it was an emergency, but trying
to explain to her that I think Carter thinks I want to get married and I think
it’s got him freaked out while she’s lying on a beach in Maui would probably be
wrong.

“Hey, Liz! 
How’s the honeymoon?  Oh that’s wonderful!  Speaking of wonderful, I think
Carter is afraid I want to get married, so I’ve been trying to let him know I
don’t really want to get married when secretly it’s all I can think about but
it scares the holy fucking hell out of me.”

Yeah, that makes
perfect sense.

All I’ve been
able to think about for the past few days is the look on Carter’s face when I
catch the bouquet.  He looks like he did the day he met Gavin and got kicked in
the nuts.  And who knows what the hell
my
problem is.  Suddenly I'm
crying during an episode of
“A Wedding Story”
on TLC and thinking the
bride is totally justified in refinancing her house to pay for a third wedding
dress with the Swarovski crystals on
“Bridezillas”
.

I had woke up
the other day at four in the morning because I didn’t want Carter to know I set
the DVR so I could see if the girl from New Jersey on
“My Fair Wedding”
let her fiancé dress up like a Yeti and sing John Denver songs at the rehearsal
dinner.  Carter came home from work a few minutes early and I jumped up from
the couch in shock and turned off the television as fast as I could.

“Hey, what are
you doing up?” Carter asked.  He set his work bag down on the floor and walked
over to the middle of the living room to pick up the blanket I dumped on the
floor in my haste to shut off the TV.

“Um…uh…nothing. 
I wasn’t watching anything,” I stammered, looking nervously back and forth
between the TV and Carter.

He raised an
eyebrow at me and looked down at the remote in my hand where my finger was
still poised above the power button.

His eyes slowly
moved back up to my face that was now covered in a thin sheen of sweat from my
nerves going haywire.  I could feel my cheeks heating up and knew he must be
wondering why they were turning red if I had nothing to hide.

He was going to
know I recorded
“Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta”
.  I couldn’t just be
happy with Kleinfeld’s.  Oh no, I had to get greedy and see what people bought
from Bridals by Lori.

Carter turned to
look at the TV again and then back to me, his eyes suddenly going wide.

“Oh my gosh. 
Claire, were you watching-”

“No!” I
interrupted him.  “I wasn’t watching anything.”

I laughed
nervously and looked down at the remote in my hand, chucking it onto the couch
so fast you would have thought it burned me.

“Holy hell…yes
you were,” he said as he stared at me in awe.

I had no idea
what was going on but if he was this happy that he caught me watching the
wedding channel then maybe we didn’t have as big a problem as I thought.

“It’s okay. You
don’t have to be embarrassed.  It’s actually kind of hot.”

I looked at
Carter like he was insane.  And maybe he was.  Maybe working all these late
nights finally got to him.  While I stood there half awake in my yoga pants and
tank top, hair all askew, face flushed and embarrassed, he stared me up and
down like he wanted to devour me.  I had started to ask him what he was talking
about and why he was looking at me that way when it had suddenly occurred to
me. Four in the morning and I had been sitting in the living room under a
blanket all alone looking like I just had a very fulfilling romp in the
hay…with myself.

“OH MY GOD!  You
think I was watching-”

“Honey, really,
it’s fine!  You don’t have to be freaked out.  Everyone watches a little porn
now and then.  I just wish you would have waited for me,” he said with a leer.

So there’s
that.  My boyfriend thinks I’m a closet porn watcher, that I sit alone in the
dark while he’s at work every night watching Skinemax and diddling myself. 
There’s something wrong with me if I’d rather he think I had a porn addiction
than a deep seeded need to find out if David Tutera could turn a camo, guns,
and ATV wedding into a masterpiece.

To try and deter
him from my fake inclination toward porn benders, alone in the dark on the
couch, and to try and erase the memory in my mind of the sheer look of terror
on his face at Liz and Jim’s wedding when I had caught the bouquet, I’ve
decided reverse psychology is the best route to go.  It works well on kids. 
And men are pretty much giant babies most of the time anyway, so I figure I’ve
got a fighting chance at getting things back to normal between us.  Ever since
the wedding he’s gone back to being on edge and jittery around me.  I think
he’s afraid he’s going to wake up one morning strapped to the bed in a tux with
me standing over him in a wedding dress, waving a sledge hammer over my head
Kathy Bates-style, threatening to smash in his kneecaps if he doesn’t marry me.

He should be
more concerned with my father doing that, frankly.

I start off slow
by telling him I absolutely don’t believe that whole tradition that whoever
catches the bride’s bouquet is the next to marry.  I believe I might have used
the words
hogwash
and
twaddle
in that conversation to bring my
point home.  But Carter thinks I said
twat
and then it turns into an
afternoon of him saying, “Twat did you say?  I cunt hear you.  Let’s see if I
can finger it out,” while I try to show him just how unconcerned with this
custom I am by throwing the bouquet away.  The beautiful gerbera daisy, orchid,
and lily nosegay that looks stunning in my hand.

Shut up.
“The
Wedding Planner”
had been on the other night and Jennifer Lopez taught me
what a nosegay is.  I had also learned that Alex, the hot doctor from
“Grey’s
Anatomy”,
isn’t so hot when he’s playing a guy a few fries short a Happy
Meal with a shitty Italian accent.  And also, the guy from the Magic Bullet
infomercial looks a lot like Nigel from
“So You Think You Can Dance”
. 
Also, late night television should be illegal in all fifty states and maybe I
really would be better off watching
“Sweet Home I’ll-a-Slam-Ya”
or
“Driving
Into Miss Daisy”
.

“Claire, what
the hell is your problem?  You’ve been moping around all day,” Jenny says as
she comes out of the office of the shop with some invoices for me to sign in
her hand.

I jump at the
sound of her voice and realize I’ve been dipping the same pretzel in chocolate
for the past twenty minutes.

Liz might not be
here, but at least I have
someone
to bounce my thoughts off of.

“Carter thinks I
have a porn addiction,” I blurt out.

“Ooooooh me
too!” she replies with glee.

My mouth dropped
opens and I stare at her in shock.

“Oh no!  I don’t
mean I think
you
have a porn addiction.  Well, not that I know of.  I
mean Drew thinks
I
have a porn addiction too.  We’re like twinsies!”

Yeah, I don’t
think so.

“I have a
membership to a porn-of-the-month club.  It’s kind of like a jelly-of-the-month
club except you don’t get jelly.  And I can’t tell my mom about it.  The porn,
not the jelly.  She likes jelly so I could tell her about that.  I just got
‘Weapons
of Ass Destruction’
and
‘Forest Hump’
.
Sex is like your box on my
cock-o-late,”
she says in her best Forest Gump voice.  “We should totally
watch that one together!”

Not gonna
happen.

“Awww, you miss
Liz, don’t you?  I know what will cheer you up.  I’m going to call Drew and
have him come up and help you frost all those cookies for the baby shower order
tomorrow.  He took the night off of work tonight, but we don’t have any plans. 
Did I tell you his mom’s been making these amazeball cookies for his sick uncle
and the guy just raves about them and keeps asking for more?  I’ll have Drew
bring some up so you can try them.  Maybe they’ll spark a little creative
genius in you.  You can put us to work, kick back, relax, and enjoy someone
else’s cookies for once,” Jenny rambles as she pulls out her cell phone and
starts dialing.  “Don’t forget you have that interview with
‘The Best of
Baking
’ magazine so we can go over some things for that while we’re at it.”

Even though I'm
now privy to more of Jenny and Drew’s sex life than I ever wanted to be and the
sound of her voice droning on is starting to give me a headache, I have to
admit that hiring her to help out with all my back office stuff was a stroke of
brilliance.  She had secured me my own domain name instead of a website that
included the words “freesite4everyone” in the address, and once I forbid Drew
from sneaking in thumbnail pictures of his penis in the “about me” section, it
actually looked very professional.  Customers can place orders online and even
print out coupons thanks to Jenny.  She’s organized my schedule so I can work
around Gavin’s three days of preschool a week and see Carter before he leaves
for work every day, and she’s managed to get me an in-studio interview with the
local news station and three write-ups in local baking magazines; the first of
which is scheduled for tomorrow.

In just a few
days, my best friend will be home from her honeymoon, and I’ll be able to get
her advice about Carter.  I am so worried about saying or doing something to
scare him away that I might have taken it to the extreme.  When he had asked me
this morning if I wanted more cream for my coffee I replied, “Speaking of
cream.  Why do women wear cream to their wedding?  Weddings are stupid. 
Married people are stupid.  I think I broke my thumb.”

No, I don’t know
why the fuck I told him I thought I broke my thumb. I had panicked.  And now
I’m pretty sure he thinks my maybe-broken-thumb is due to the late night pornography
habit I just can’t quit and it’s either from A) pressing the rewind and or
pause buttons too quickly or B) pressing MY buttons too quickly.  Either option
is not something I care for him to be wondering about me every time he looks in
my general direction.