We’d returned to Dmitri’s bedroom, and I asked in surprise, “We’re going to do this here?”
“Well, yeah. You’re obviously most comfortable in this room, given the way you were nesting when I arrived. And no way do I want to get potato chips in my bed.” She plopped the tray down on the mattress and said, “I’ll be right back. I need to slip into something more conducive to eating like a ravenous wolverine.” And she left the room. I sank down on the edge of the bed, and then fell onto my back. Catherine was exhausting.
A couple minutes later, she came back into the room and I jumped up off the bed. Her blonde hair was piled on her head in a messy bun, and she was dressed in a black tank top and matching pink and black polka dotted shorts – both very tight and very skimpy. She was all long legs and big boobs, and I didn’t know where to put my eyes. “Maybe, uh, do you want to put on a t-shirt or something? You’re kind of, you know…exposed.”
She hopped onto the bed and sat cross-legged, and pried open a carton of ice cream as she said, “Dude, you’re gay. You’re like my sister. What do you care how I’m dressed?”
“Gee, nice to know you basically think of me as a eunuch,” I told her.
“1765 called – they want their word back. And I don’t mean to insult you. It’s just a simple statement of fact. And you are gay, right? As opposed to bi?”
“Yes, I’m gay.”
“Ok then.”
“So you’re really going to stay like that?”
“You’re funny,” she said cheerfully. “And I’m not changing this outfit. I just spent six hours flying cross-country in skin-tight jeans, stilettos, and a push-up underwire bra. I need to be comfortable now. Especially because I’m about to gain ten pounds from all this food, and will need the elastic waistband.” She spooned a big dollop of ice cream into each of two bowls, and then reached for another container, repeating the process. When the bowls were filled she reached for the vodka, and poured it over the top of one of the bowls with a flourish.
“Oh, ew, what are you doing?” I asked.
“Being creative. Want me to douse yours, too, or do you prefer it in a glass like a boring person?”
“In a glass like a boring person.”
“Suit yourself,” she said with a shrug, and poured me a generous shot. Then she spooned up a bunch of ice cream and booze from her bowl and stuck it in her mouth. “Mmm. Better than you might expect,” she told me around the ice cream.
“Ok, are you finally ready to tell me what you meant when you said it’s a fake marriage? Because my whole life is kind of hanging in the balance here.”
“I meant exactly what I said. It’s a fake marriage. My cousin and I aren’t actually in love, we’re not planning to have inbred mutant babies, and the whole thing is basically one big sham. You know, this needs something,” she said, and reached into the box I’d brought up from downstairs. She pulled out a bag of potato chips and crumbled some over the top of her vodka sundae, then took a bite. “Oh shit, that’s amazing! You have to try this!” she announced, and thrust a heaping spoon at me.
“Later. I need more details. I don’t understand any of this.”
“Take a bite first,” she insisted. I sighed and did what I was told with a dramatic eye roll.
And then I exclaimed, “Holy crap, that’s completely delicious.”
“Want me to do yours?” she asked, indicating my plain bowl of ice cream.
“Only if you can do it while you talk.”
“Ok. Well, I should probably start by saying that Dmitri and I aren’t really cousins. I mean, we are, but we’re not related by blood. My father married Dmitri’s Aunt Josephine when I was three, after my real mom passed away. So, we’re related by marriage, but that’s it. And ok, it probably still sounds super gross, like there’s going to be banjo music playing at our inbred hillbilly weddin’ or something. But I just don’t want you to think it’s even worse than it actually is.”
As she’d been talking, she’d been doctoring up my ice cream to match hers. Now she fished in the snack box and pulled out a jumbo pack of peanut butter cups, and crumbled a few over both our sundaes with a flourish before handing mine back to me.
“Ok,” I said. “So why are you marrying your almost-but-not-quite cousin?”
“Why do you think? Why do Dmitri and I ever do anything? Because we fucking have to. Because we’re both marionettes in Gregor Sokolov’s fucked up family theater.”
“Your dad is making you marry your cousin?” I asked incredulously. “What the hell? And why don’t you tell him to shove it up his ass?”