cliché musings

A girl at work married her boyfriend recently. Recently as in I came in one day and she wasn’t engaged, and then two days later she had a ring on her finger and a video of them taking their vows at the town hall, face masks pulled down to their chins. They’ve been together since New Year’s Day, she reminded us—a whole two months—but they’ve actually known each other for years, so it’s not too bad.

One of the baggers, a seventeen-year old who was asked to go home once because he was higher than the International Space Station, was laughing, bent over the counter with his head in his hands.

He’s still laughing when he walks over to us.

 “Would you ever do some shit like that?” he asks me. 

God, no, I think, and shake my head. “I don’t even know if I want to get married.”

The answer surprises me, and it’s not what I thought I meant to say. Marriage as my future has always been a constant, since the days of watching Cinderella and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on VHS tapes and drifting off to sleep. I was too young to consider if Cinderella would wear her glass slippers while she was pregnant and cooking in the kitchen, or if Snow White would die from tuberculosis after her kiss from the prince, and if the dwarves would cry at the funeral because who would do their chores now? Instead, I made bookmarks of the aesthetic; Cinderella’s transformation into a sparkling blue dress and perfectly spherical up-do, Snow White escaping to a cottage in the forest with meadows and vines and animals she can communicate with—and since it’s never explained, maybe I also have the special aura where I could stare into a deer’s eyes and hear its thoughts. But the secret ingredient to looking pretty and speaking to animals has always been a man.

Even now I can plan out visions of myself in a white dress, ball gown-shaped with sleeves to hide my flabby, chicken thigh arms so I don’t have to throw away all the pictures, alongside pastel bridesmaid dresses and a giant chocolate cake covered in white buttercream, probably in some romantic mountain resort venue with fairy lights and flower arches and those markers placed at the end of an aisle of seats. But the more I picture the more I can’t decide on the make of the wedding bands, the types of flowers in the bouquets, the items on the registry, or the proclamations I make in my vows. I can’t see my arm having the dedication to write and mail out invitations with neat, cursive calligraphy to my friends and family—the list of those I can even name, complete with an address, could probably fit on an singular envelope—or my legs having the strength to stand in front of an audience and confess my undying love. Certainly not in heels. My throat tightens up just saying I love you. Maybe I could manage, “I think you’re pretty cool, wanna legally bind together?” The priest would proclaim, “You may now kiss the bride” and I’d let out a short and awkward laugh. I’d look around, blush high on my cheeks. “Not in front of all these people, silly.” And I try to think who would stand beside me at the altar. An invisible form fills out the tuxedo, a headless shape that smiles and stands above me, maybe even sheds a tear if they can’t help it.

I attempt to construct the image of them getting down on one knee, pulling out a box with a ring. I envision a diamond because it’s the only jewel I can name and give a vague semblance of its worth, but if they lifted up a piece of string and, with wide, sincere eyes, said it was all they could afford, I suppose I would accept it. I like to think I would cry and nod my head, a soft, “Yes, of course,” and collapse into their arms. I probably wouldn’t. I only really cry when my feelings are hurt, maybe all the more reason to propose with a string ring. They would slide the ring onto my finger, but then I wonder how it’ll stay on. I don’t wear jewelry. Any ring, bracelet, necklace I’ve ever had comes off after a few days. The constant presence, chain wrapped around and digging into my skin, annoys me. Maybe I’d take it off. After all, it’s just a stupid tradition.

“Why aren’t you wearing the ring?” they’d say.

“I don’t like rings,” I’d reply. The truth.

“So I spent my life savings on something you won’t even wear?”

The ring would go back on, and I’d spend my time rubbing it around my finger, sliding it up and down, coming close to pulling it over the nail, tipping over the edge, and then shoving it back down over the fat under the skin. The string would snap apart in a few days, the ends fraying as my fingers pick at the loose weaves.

I try and imagine moving in with this person. We pick out a cute, decently priced house in an area that’s not too suburban and gentrified but also not too run down and ragged. We have our principles but we also enjoy our comfort. We have a dog and maybe a cat and neither are too clingy, loud, or rambunctious. We take walks outside and the neighbors say hello, the dog doesn’t bark at the other dogs, and it never has to poop on the grass. We go to Target, or maybe Home Goods, and pick out the silverware, the wall art, the furniture, the towels, the spices, together, our mutual decisions gone into every corner of our forever home. Except we wouldn’t. I would bring whatever I already had and they would bring theirs, a mix matching of colors and fabrics and brands and I try and establish my minimalist, Skandanvian taste while piling all my trash and useless papers and mail on available countertops and desk spaces. They would start to get frustrated grabbing discarded chip bags and Coke bottles, picking up the dirty clothes I left on the floor or the unwashed plates stacked on the bedside table. I would forget to take out the dog and wouldn’t clean the litter box. Pulling out a vacuum repulses me and even when I finally unwrap the cord and stick it into the socket, I’ll see a few back and forth movements over the carpet as sufficient enough. I could keep up with the bills—all thanks to the modern invention of autopay—but I’d spend our extra money on fast food I’ve already had twice this month and clothes I ordered and didn’t fit from a flash online sale.

“You need to start pulling your own weight,” they’d say. “You can’t be dependent on me.”

I don’t need anyone’s help, I’d think. Tears would fill my eyes. The dishes and clothes would be washed, bathroom would be scrubbed clean, the dog would go outside twice everyday and the cat would always have food in the bowl, but every stain wiped away would be left with a little bit of bitterness. I would’ve done it anyway, why did you need to tell me?

“What do you think about our future?” they’d ask, one day. “Do you see us getting married? Having kids?”

“I don’t want kids,” I’d say, for certain. I devise this scenario as an experiment. I’m not sure how we’d get this far if we didn’t agree on that. “I can’t let all those packs of pills go to waste.”

“I want to carry on the family name.”

“Good luck with that,” I reply. “They’d have my last name anyway.”

“What if I didn’t want to get married?”

“That’s fine,” I say, choked. “It’s a big commitment.”

“I think weddings are a waste of time. I only want to do something at, like, the town hall. You know, just us.”

“Are you proposing right now?”

“No,” they insist. “Well, only if you want to.”

I think of all my dreams of a grand wedding. Something memorable and made just for us. “I get it. It’s a stupid tradition.”

I’d get too hot sleeping in the same bed and wake up in the middle of the night, sweat sticking to my legs and back, and I roll over and pull the covers off of me. Then it’s too cold, and they’ve already asserted their dominance over the blankets, and I’m left to shiver for the rest of the night. The house would have two bedrooms, just for the sake of having our own spaces, but I’d retreat to my own mattress and the comforter and sheets set I picked out, a non-neutral color pattern that just myself enjoys, most nights.

“We just need some alone time,” I’d say. They’d wonder what they did wrong.

“I don’t feel as close to you,” they’d say. I’d wonder what I did wrong.

I try to see myself staying with them for more than a few months. I wouldn’t want to get broken up with. That would mean I would lie awake at night reevaluating my behavior, debating whether I wasn’t good enough or whether it really was them and not me. But when they raise their voice at me my eyes start to water. When they ask me to leave them alone for a while I listen but I get angry. When they don’t respond to my texts in the few-hour timeline I give them I start to wonder who they’re with. They tell me I’m different than anyone they’ve been with but I can’t picture how long that will last.

And I try to see myself meeting someone. I already have, but I struggle admitting it could happen more than once. I look in the mirror and see oily, stringy hair, a wide body, eyes that are too far apart and too small and eyebrows shaped like the very hungry caterpillar. Someone snaps, points their finger. “I want her,” they say. “The beached whale on two legs.” I try to see it working out, with the guy who doesn’t want to get married and doesn’t enjoy holidays and doesn’t have the money to do those things if he tried.

I don’t know if I’ll get married, so I laugh with the bagger at the coworker who did.