Own Me Read online

  “It’s diluted through hydrogenation,” I fill in, basking in his look of bald admiration. “Hey, I may not be devoting my life to yeast experiments, but I love science, too.”

  His smile grows until it seems to be a mile wide. “Perfect. Then maybe we can just say we’re ‘bonded’?”

  “I love that. That’s perfect. I’m very happy to be bonded to you, Adam.”

  “Good, because I’m very happy to be bonded to you, Gen. So. It’s official then.”

  “Sounds like it,” I say, and can’t help the maniac giggle that rises up in my throat.

  “On a practical note,” he says, “I have some money set aside. It’s not a lot, but I’d love if we put it toward this wedding. I want…I want you to be happy.”

  Am I happy? Yep, I’m definitely happy to be bonded to this sweet, amazing guy.

  I lean across and kiss him softly on the lips before he can say anything else or I can change my mind. It’s a celebratory kiss, just a brush of the lips.

  At first.

  Then his hand comes behind my neck and pulls me closer. His lips are hot and quick, and his tongue sweeps the outside of my lips, then teases inside and tangles slowly with mine. My mind skips and jumps, sending faulty signals to every part of my body. My heart flutters and I feel a damp, spreading heat between my legs. I lick back at him, press forward with urgency to feel the hot slide of his tongue and the gentle press of his mouth for another perfect second. When he pulls away, his eyes are wild.

  “So, I know it isn’t real, and it isn’t ideal, but you swear you’re happy with this?” he asks, his words dragged out on ragged breaths.

  “Couldn’t be happier to be bonded to you. Wanna go watch me try on fancy white dresses?” I level a firm look across the table, and his smile is pure want.

  …

  I force Adam to order more than toast before we head out. He wolfs down three eggs, pancakes, toast, hash browns, and coffee.

  I watch it all with approval. He’s going to need sustenance for what I have planned.

  Luckily it’s a rainy Wednesday afternoon, so the boutique bridal shop we pop into is completely empty. A girl with bold eyebrows and a bored smirk tells us to call her if we need help, and I’m actually glad she’s not bustling over. I kind of want this to be just me and Adam, surrounded by gauzy dresses, romantic fifties music playing softly in the background.

  “A wedding dress shop.” He looks around like a dazed anthropologist who just stumbled into a secret ritual of some lost civilization.

  “Yes, Adam. It’s where brides go to get their dresses. For their weddings,” I singsong.

  “Okay,” he says slowly. “Aren’t you supposed to do this with your mom and your sisters?”

  There’s a split second of hesitation while I consider Adam’s point. I’ve thought about this day since I was a little girl, and in my imagination, my mom and Cece and Lydia were always here with me, oohing and aahing as I tried on dress after frilly, frothy white dress.

  I also thought I’d be marrying Deo.

  Things change.

  I swallow past the lump in my throat. “My family is very opinionated. I’d rather try on a few dresses here with you, and then come back with them. Otherwise they’ll try to talk me into a dress I really don’t want.”

  “I could come with you when you all go,” he offers, raking his fingers through his hair.

  “That would be weird,” I counter.

  “But this isn’t?”’

  Of course Adam is using his logic to burst my bubble.

  “This is me and you taking the first step to make our plan work.” I’m careful to keep my voice modulated. “We’re going to start…with a dress.”

  A dress.

  My wedding dress.

  I suck the air into my lungs and feel my head spin. I’ve dreamed about this day since I was a girl, and now here it is, just not at all the way I expected it. My palms start to sweat and my throat feels dry, but I push past it all and flip through the dresses on the rack, overwhelmed and scared as hell.

  “Isn’t this really bad luck?” he worries, adding to my general unease. “For the groom to see the bride in her dress before the wedding?”

  Even as he’s protesting, he holds out his arms the way I instruct him to, and I pile gorgeous dresses—white and cream, beaded and lacy, full skirted and tight fitted, princess and mermaid—into his arms. I focus on the fashion, the lines and fabrics and styles, so I can avoid getting bogged down by the sentiment behind all of this.

  This is fun, I tell myself. This will work. You and Adam can make these decisions on your own, for yourselves. And it starts now. The first step is always the hardest.

  “Adam, are you serious?” I ask with a nervous laugh, as I inspect a tea length dress that’s absolutely beautiful—but can I pull off tea length? “We’re breaking every single marriage rule. Do you really think seeing me in a bunch of wedding dresses matters? Plus, I’m not planning on buying anything today. It’s just…you know. To make it all feel a little more real.”

  “Won’t the paperwork do that?” His frown is so adorable that I’m almost tempted to kiss him again right now. Maybe it will calm my nerves.

  “Nothing makes a wedding real like a dress,” I lecture in a voice I’m trying to keep from shaking, as I lead him to the row of white fitting room doors.

  “Gen, if we want this to be ‘real,’ we should be thinking about gathering data,” Adam says, gesturing to the rows of filmy dresses with frustration.

  “Data?” I wrinkle my forehead. “Like on the dresses? That’s probably not necessary—”

  “Not the dresses,” he interrupts. “Us. You and me. Our lives before we met. We’re going to get questioned by Immigration officials, and we’ll need to make sure we know everything about each other. Which means we should be practicing now.”

  “Practicing?” I snort. “You want to get together and make some flashcards or something?” I start to laugh but stop when I realize he’s not joining in. “Wait. Are you serious about the flashcards?”

  He rubs a hand along the back of his neck. “I mean, it’s not the worst idea. Hear me out—when you were having problems memorizing formulas, how did we fix it? How did we make sure you aced the class?”

  “Adam,” I say slowly. “This isn’t a test. This is me and you. We’re friends. We don’t need to do that.”

  “Yes, we are friends,” he says, moving so close to me so quickly I can feel the heat radiating off his body. “And I’ve gotten you into something risky. I’ve tutored you through some pretty complex stuff before. Memorizing the dates of some boring Abramowitz life events should be a piece of cake.”

  I stiffen. “Memorizing dates? Do you really think that’s the best way to do this? I mean, can’t we just talk? Can’t it be more natural? The last thing I need is to feel like I’m about to be tested on our relationship.”

  I have a pretty acute test-phobia. And, though I love learning, specific dates are not my forte. Not at all.

  “We’ve been talking to each other for years, Gen,” Adam says gently. “I still don’t know how long your parents have been married, or the ages of your siblings. I have no idea what elementary school you went to or who was your best friend growing up. We know a lot about each other as friends, but trust me, the government isn’t going to be interested in the fact that I know you don’t like onions on your burger.”

  He has a point. As chatty as I am, the conversations I’ve had with Adam have focused on our life in the present—classes, world events, funny stories, debates. I’ve shared things about my personal life, of course, but I tended to leave out the boring parts.

  The things my husband would definitely know.

  Adam’s point makes me extra anxious because he’s rattling off things he doesn’t know about me. I’m by far the more open of the two of us. It would be easier for me to list things I actually do know about Adam’s life before he moved to the States than it would be to number all the things I don’t
know about him.

  Maybe we do have bigger fish to fry than finding me a great wedding dress.

  “Okay. Maybe you have a point,” I agree. “But instead of flashcards, let’s try to be more aware when we’re together. We can even attempt this old-fashioned thing called talking. I’m sure we can cover just as much ground in a few nice, fun conversations as we could in a bunch of awkward personal tutoring sessions.”

  “We can try.” He crosses his arms like he doesn’t want to give up on the flashcards at all.

  “Good.” I push away all the additional anxiety he just heaped on my back. “We’ll start right now. You can learn a ton about a person by shopping with them. Let me find a few dresses to try on, and you can think of something to talk about.”

  “I’ll, uh, stay right here and…think,” he stutters, backing away slowly.

  “Okay,” I chirp. I make up my mind to enjoy playing dress-up for a little while and stop obsessing about the bigger meaning behind this whole shopping adventure. I slip on the first dress, a strapless princess-style ball gown, and realize exactly why brides-to-be shop in packs of women.

  “Um, Adam?” I call, poking my head out the dressing room door. “Are you out there?”

  “I’m here.” He comes over slowly, like he’s walking through a field booby trapped with landmines.

  “I can’t get this on all the way. Can you help?”

  “Wait, I’ll get the clerk.” He looks around in a panic, but the bored young woman behind the counter is now nowhere to be seen.

  “It’s just the closures. They’re in the back. Adam, you’ve used electron microscopes. You’ve built your own computer from scratch. You can handle a couple of hooks.”

  He hesitates for a few seconds, looking in every direction for the clerk, then sighs in defeat when he doesn’t find her. “Okay.”

  I step out, hoping he’ll catch his breath and tell me how gorgeous I look, but he is as cool and calm as the scientist I’ve been friends with for years. There’s not a hint of the savage who held me in his arms like he’d never let me go when we were in the ocean together.

  He does get a little excited over the hooks in the back of the dress.

  Ten minutes of yanking and pulling at the delicate material as he tries to close the tiny, delicate fasteners has him muttering the kinds of death threats I imagine Israeli interrogators using on their most hostile prisoners.

  “Ben Zona! Al ta’atzben otti!” he snarls. “What moron invented this closure system? It defies the basic laws of physics.”

  “As long as you get some of the top ones closed, I should be able to get a good enough idea of what it looks like,” I say, my eyes flying wide when I hear the sound of seams popping. “Adam!”

  “Sorry.” He backs off, wiping his brow, and I flounce out to the mirrors. “Why can’t they just put a zipper in the back? Why do they need a hundred tiny little hooks?”

  “A zipper isn’t as elegant,” I explain as I smooth the skirt and twist from side to side.

  It’s not the spectacular sight I’d imagined, which, I have to admit, is kind of a letdown. The bodice bunches up in the wrong places, and the skirt is so huge, it makes me look lost in a sea of tulle.

  Some of my initial enthusiasm deflates. I truly expected to put the dress on and be transformed. I thought the dress would make this marriage-pact feel more real, but it doesn’t.

  I begin to worry I’m making a huge mistake.

  “It doesn’t fit right,” Adam observes coolly. “It looks like the dress is eating you alive.”

  “Gee thanks, Captain Obvious,” I huff, blinking back tears. “It may have looked better if someone could have figured out how the closures work. Too bad I don’t know some science genius who could help.”

  “Hardy har har,” Adam says with a grin. “So I guess this one is a no?”

  I flip the price tag and gasp. “Uh, a definite no. Unless you think three grand is a good price to pay to look like my dress is eating me alive when I walk down the aisle.”

  “Three thousand dollars?” Adam says, and I can tell his giant, hyper-logical brain is totally boggled.

  Guess he’s never watched an episode of Say Yes to the Dress.

  “Don’t worry about the price,” I assure him, with a casual shrug that belies my defeated attitude. “Everything expensive has a cheaper knockoff version. I don’t need to get married in a Vera Wang.”

  I don’t mention it to him, but I think this dress might actually be the cheap knockoff.

  “Of course you don’t,” he says, and my feathers most definitely ruffle. “You don’t have to pay a ton of money to look beautiful—you cause traffic accidents when you’re in your sweatpants.”

  “Dress shopping is definitely making you crazy, Adam. You don’t usually exaggerate like that.”

  “I’m not exaggerating at all,” he says, his voice steady. “I’m talking about an actual event.”

  “What?” I laugh, fighting the tulle that keeps creeping up and engulfing me. “I’ve never caused a traffic accident. And I never wear sweats.”

  “You did,” he argues stubbornly. “That day there was the soccer game at the college, and masses of people were jaywalking right by Ludgate’s Deli. You were wearing sweatpants—”

  “I remember that day,” I interrupt. “And those weren’t sweats. They were heavy cotton casual capris, which I was wearing because they matched my jersey, and I wanted to show school spirit.”

  “Anyway, that soccer team started to sing to you in Spanish, and one of them ran across the road to give you his number. A car had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting him, and there was almost a street brawl over a dented bumper.”

  “Oh, that?” I laugh. “That guy was such an egomaniac. He ran after me like that for the attention. And those drivers were fighting because the guy in front was from our rival’s school. Their cars were such jalopies I’m shocked they could tell which dents were new. Sorry, but you were definitely exaggerating.”

  He follows me to the door of the dressing room, tugs the hooks loose, and lets his fingers drag down my shoulders.

  “I never exaggerate,” he says, his breath tickling my ear. “It’s a fact. You cause traffic collisions in your heavy cotton casual capris.”

  I’m not sure if the goose bumps on my arms are from the roaring air conditioner, his words, or the way his fingers slide over my skin like he’d touched me a thousand times before.

  I try to hold onto the sweetness of those words when he remains completely neutral as I step out in an elegant silk column dress, an old-fashioned but sweet empire-waist number, and the cute tea length dress.

  His reactions are, in order: very pretty; really pretty; that’s pretty.

  “You look annoyed,” he says after he finishes undoing the zipper on the fourth dress. The way he says it makes it clear he finds the fact that I’m annoyed highly ironic.

  “This is supposed to be fun,” I accuse.

  He raises an eyebrow. “I’m glad to help however you need me to, Gen. But this feels kind of pointless.”

  “Pointless?” I stamp my foot. How has Adam managed to bring out five-year-old Gen? “How I dress on our wedding day is ‘pointless’?”

  “No,” he says, clearly stalling before he backpedals. “What you wear will be pretty no matter what. You always look beautiful. But you’re trying on different shapes of white dresses that cost a lot of money, and they all look nice to me. If you wanted someone to tell you which one looks best, you need to ask your mom or your sisters. I could help you pick based on how hard or easy they are to get into. Or how much money they cost. But you’re asking me to make a judgment call I can’t make.”

  “Think of this as an experiment, okay?” I suggest. “I’m asking you to analyze the data.”

  “Okay,” he says slowly.

  “So, which is the prettiest so far, in your opinion?”

  He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I can’t decipher different levels of ‘pretty.’ Plus, my opin
ion doesn’t matter if we’re talking about analyzing data. It’s irrelevant. You looked really good in each dress—actually that’s kind of the control.”

  “Okay, forget being Adam the scientist for a second. Can’t you be…I don’t know…Adam the little kid? See! Here’s the perfect opportunity for you to tell me a little about yourself growing up. You can’t tell me no little girl ever roped you into dressing up in her dad’s old suit jacket so she could have a groom for her play wedding.” I put my hands on my hips and wait.

  “I don’t honestly remember much from when I was that young,” he answers, shoving his hands in his pockets. “You did that?”

  “Of course,” I say, grinning at the memory. And I decide to share the details with Adam, to help prove we don’t need flashcards to get to know each other better. “I used to steal my mom’s fancy white lace Seder tablecloth. We had these bushes with tiny white flowers on them, and you could shake them and make the petals fall off. I had a whole collection of bubble gum machine rings, and I’d bribe Enzo into being the ring bearer. Lydia and Cece would be my maids of honor, and Cohen always wanted to be the rabbi. We’d go outside so we could put up a chuppah made out of an old tablecloth—we’d use it as a tent after the big ceremony. And, if we were feeling super bold, we’d even find an old glass bottle to wrap in a sock and break. With a rock. We tried stomping on it once and nearly killed ourselves!”

  I duck into the fitting room and try on a beaded, sparkling mermaid gown. It hugs me perfectly in all the right places. The bright white is stunning against my dark skin, and I let my hair down in tumbling, silky waves around my shoulders. It’s sexy and vibrant, the kind of dress that would make all my aunties whisper and all the single girls look at me with envy.

  For the first time today I feel that thrill I’d hoped for the moment I walked in the boutique.

  I feel like a bride.

  The thought makes me blush and giggle. I step out slowly, feeling a little shy, because there’s no way this won’t get a wow from Adam.

  “It’s definitely an eat-your-heart-out kind of dress, right?” I ask, turning so he can tie the satin corset ribbons.