“Ohmygod! Are you freaking kidding me? You’ve been dating that hottie and you never said a word! So unfair, Anna. So unfair. I know you’re mad that I got into his car, but seriously, the more I think about it, the madder I am that you never breathed a word. I’m your sister. You should’ve told me.” She sits at the table, resting her elbows on it and propping her face in her hands. “So now, c’mon. Spill. Everything.”
“Well…we met a little while back.” I’m not telling her where.
“He said you guys spent some time together on Monday, which explains why you were late. I should’ve known you were bullshitting. ‘A wrong turn’.”
“Uh, language.”
“Oh come on. Stop yelling and start talking. Maybe my language will improve.”
I shake my head and start putting together two ham and cheese sandwiches. “We haven’t been seeing each other for that long.”
An understatement. We’ve seen each other maybe four times total. We just have chemistry, that’s all. But that doesn’t mean we actually know each other.
“And?”
“And…I don’t know.” I push the one with extra mayo toward Nonny and sit next to her. “Now he wants to get married.”
The sandwich stops mid-air as she stares at me. “Oh my god! Wow! I’m so happy for you!”
“Thanks, but… Don’t you think it’s a little fast?”
“Oh, so what? If it’s true love?” She takes a bite of her food, her eyes on some starry place far beyond the kitchen.
If it were true love, I wouldn’t be so ambivalent. Since I can’t talk about that, I just nibble on my sandwich.
She swallows, then has some water. “Okay, love at first sight totally exists. Besides, how could anybody not love you? You’re the sweetest, nicest person in the world.”
“Nonny…”
“If you have bad feelings about him, then you shouldn’t. Being hot and handsome isn’t everything, right?”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Although…he is really hot. But if you want to see where it’s going, maybe you should. What if you regret it for the rest of your life?”
“Regret?”
“Yeah, like ‘oh, what if I’d married that guy’ kind of thing, you know? It’s more common than you think.”
“Is that so?” I give her a wry smile. “And how would you know, Dr. Lovelorn?”
She rolls her eyes. “I listen to music. Even Adele sang about the love that got away, and it was one of her most popular songs! Why would it resonate with so many people if it wasn’t true for them?”
That makes me pause. “You know…you’re right.”
“Kind of makes you want to treat me with more respect, huh?” She grins.
Her happiness warms my heart. I can’t deny it. But at the same time I know the truth. This isn’t about love, not at all. It’s about him wanting to sleep with me until he gets bored—which he estimates to be about a year—and the marriage is something he is doing for some mysterious reason that apparently he’s not going to let me in on.
Oh and I forgot about him calling me Gigi. That’s just…too weird. And after listening to Nonny, I wonder if Gigi was the one who got away for him, and he’s trying to relive some deranged fantasy of having her in his life through me. Despite his protests, I’m pretty certain I look a lot like this Gigi so he can almost pretend I’m her.
“Are you really okay about me marrying him?” I ask. “I mean, if I decide to do it?”
“Yeah. Besides, I think he’ll be good to you.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because he was really nice to me.”
“He was just buttering you up.”
She shakes her head. “I would’ve known if he was being phony. He didn’t talk down to me, and he was polite and nice the entire time. Also he shut the Evil Squad up with just one look.”
A realization dawns on me. Those girls were picking on her again, and Elliot in his Maserati defended Nonny. I know a lot of why they mock Nonny is the fact that we’re poor and she isn’t fashionable or anything. I’m sure someone like Elliot giving Nonny a ride stopped them in their tracks.
“Well. I’m happy to hear that,” I say.
“So you should say yes.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“If you say yes now, have you guys set a date?”
“Tuesday.”
“Huh?”
“This coming Tuesday,” I clarify.
Nonny’s eyes go round. “Tuesday?”
“He apparently can’t wait.”