Take A Picture (It'll Last Longer)

I always thought the phrase “time flies when you’re having fun” was cliché and stupid, but as I was walking through the terminal at O’Hare, I suddenly wanted to go back to the sandy beaches of Acapulco and relive the past week, giant fights with Ben and all. I forgot about the businessman thing over breakfast and the two of us spent our remaining three days in Acapulco having loads of fun. We walked on the beach, we went shopping at some local stores, Ben finally harassed me into going parasailing on the last day and I actually had a lot of fun. I think the best part of the entire trip, however, was when Ben was totally rocking out to “Total Eclipse” on the flight back and one of the flight attendants asked him if he could “tone down” his headbanging a little because it was disturbing some of the other passengers. Ben was the same color as a tomato until the pilot announced we were about to touch down.

Once we had spent three hours at the airport tracking down all of our bags, we hailed a taxi to take us back to the apartment, both of us swearing to never fly anywhere ever again because O’Hare was such a hassle. Elle had thrown us a welcome back party and was surprised to see that I had gotten a semi-decent tan. I was only half a shade darker than before I left, but it was better than Ben who had a huge sunburn on his chest because he forgot to put on sunscreen. A lot had changed in the week since we left. Kip was now in New York and had e-mailed Ben about how once our marriage was over he should come to the Big Apple and score himself some wannabe actresses. Cordelia had met some guy at a bar and the two were going out the next week. Holly had been contracted to work at Chicago Mag and I pretended to be happy for her. And because Elle had been going on and on about how romantic it was that Ben and I just spontaneously got married and ran off to Mexico together, Dirk had finally gotten some nerve and proposed to Elle. I pretended to be happy for them too.

“So…” Elle grinned slyly at me. She, Cordelia, a very disinterested Holly, and I were all sitting around the living room while Ben and Dirk went on a beer run, “What did the two of you do…besides the obvious…”

“Obvious?” I said confused.

“You know,” Cordelia said with an eye twitch I later realized was a wink.

“No,” I shook my head, “I don’t know.”

“She wants to know how the sex was,” Holly rolled her eyes before going back to sharpening her nails. It was my turn to take on the same color as a tomato.

“Um…well…” I said awkwardly.

“That good, huh?” Elle giggled.

“Actually… we didn’t really…” I said.

“You mean,” Cordelia said to me, “he got you that nice ring, took you down to Acapulco for a week, and you didn’t put out?”

“I paid for half the trip,” I muttered, “and we only got married to keep him in the country…”

“You mean he didn’t even put the moves on you?” Holly said confused. “He’s more of a pussy than I thought…”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked her, annoyed.

“You guys didn’t even… not even once?” Elle said in disbelief. I blushed bright red.

“Maybe once…” I said sheepishly.

“I knew it!” Cordelia and Elle said to each other at the same time.

“But it was only because we were both drunk and we totally regretted it afterwards,” I cut in annoyed.

“You mean you only regretted it afterwards,” Cordelia snorted. “There’s no way Ben did.”

“Of course, he had to get you drunk first,” Holly said under her breath, as if we all couldn’t hear her.

“I don’t understand what the big deal is,” I snorted. “It’s just until he gets his green card…”

“Delusional,” Holly snorted.

“What is with you guys?” I said to all of them, pretty incensed. Holly was filing her nails and neither Elle or Cordelia would look me in the eye. “Would someone please tell me what’s going on here?”

“Well…” Elle began.

“Don’t say anything!” Cordelia said in an attempt to shush her.

“Don’t tell me what?” I demanded.

“It’s just that…” Elle began again.

“You promised him!” Cordelia said in a chastising voice.

“Someone please tell me what’s going on!” I said angrily.

“Okay, you didn’t hear this from me,” Elle said quickly, “but two weeks before we graduated, when you were down in Pontiac visiting your parents for the weekend, I was over with Ben and Kip and a few other friends hanging out and Ben was all depressed. So, naturally, being a good friend, I asked him what was wrong and he told me about how when you broke up with Jon the two of you…well… you know what happened then…anyway… Ben said he thought that was the start of something but you always pretended like nothing happened. And he was upset because we were graduating soon and he didn’t think that he was ever going to see you again after college. And he was super bummed out because he said he had been madly in love with you since you first met junior year and he thought he only had two weeks to tell you but he didn’t think you would listen even if he tried…” I didn’t know what to say to that, so I took on my normal method of coping with things: denial.

“You’re making that up,” I shook my head.

“I am not!” Elle insisted. “He said he was in love with you! All those years ago…”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he made up this whole Immigration thing just to marry you,” Cordelia snorted.

“I seriously doubt that,” I snorted. “I saw the letter and everything…”

“Besides, Ben’s not smart enough to think up something like that,” Holly said. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really argue with her on that one.

“Okay, maybe he didn’t make it up,” Cordelia said, “but how well do you honestly think he’s going to take it when the two of you split up?”

“Yeah,” Elle said, “you can’t just be married to him for six months, with all that’s entailed, and then just unceremoniously dump him. It would crush the poor boy’s spirit.”

“And Ben doesn’t have the greatest track record,” Cordelia nodded. “Every girl he’s ever gone out with has broken his heart.”

“Not to mention that he talks about you like you’re some sort of goddess,” Elle agreed. “He’ll probably kill himself if you break it off…”

“Elle! Don’t frighten her!” Cordelia hissed.

“Well, if you’d been broken up with by every girl you ever loved and then the one girl you cared more about than anything in the world annulled your marriage like it was nothing, you’d want to kill yourself too,” Elle snorted.

“Can we not talk about this?” I asked them annoyed. “It’s…disturbing…”

“Don’t worry,” Cordelia said to me. “I’m sure he’ll be fine when all this is over.”

“Or not,” Elle snorted. “You know how Ben can be a total drama queen sometimes. He’ll probably get his green card and then fly back to England anyway because he’s too brokenhearted to stay here any longer.”

“Maybe he’ll just walk into Chicago Mag and start shooting,” Holly shrugged. “They don’t seem to have a problem getting foreigners guns around here.”

“Actually, because he’s married to you I think he’s technically an American citizen now,” Cordelia pointed out.

“You guys aren’t helping,” I moaned.

“Truth hurts,” Elle shrugged.

“If I started telling you stuff like this about Dirk…” I began.

“If Dirk were so madly obsessed with me that he would fly me down to Mexico for a week just because I did him a teensy favor?” Elle snorted.

“This isn’t a teensy favor. It’s a major sacrifice!” I hissed.

“Does Ben know you feel that way?” Cordelia asked me curious. “Because he doesn’t look like he’s making some sort of sacrifice.”

“He looks like he won the lottery,” Elle nodded.

“A raffle drawing maybe,” Holly snorted.

“Why are you even here?” I asked her annoyed. “You’re still in college. Don’t you have class?”

“I’ve got people,” Holly shrugged, before writing down her answers to a quiz in a magazine I hadn’t even gotten a chance to read yet.

“Okay, so maybe I’m acting a little like I have a martyr complex about this marriage thing,” I shrugged, “but if Ben had just reapplied for his visa like he was supposed to, I wouldn’t be in this entire mess.”

“I think this could be good for you,” Elle said to me. “You haven’t had a man in your life since Jon and he was a total jack…”

“We’re back!” I heard Dirk call as Ben opened up the door.

“Miss us?” Ben asked with a bright grin.

“Like you miss a herpes outbreak,” Holly snorted.

“You might want to get that looked at,” I sneered at her. Seriously, the kid has got to go. I don’t know how I’m going to stand working with her.

“So, what did you girls do while we were gone?” Dirk asked, giving Elle a kiss on the cheek.

“Oh,” Elle said with a grin, “we just had a belated bachelorette party for Catt.”

“Huh?” Dirk said confused. Confused is the expression Dirk wears most of the time. His only other expression is annoyingly boring.

“Yeah,” Cordelia nodded, playing along, “you just missed the male stripper. He was fantastic.”

“Stripper?” Ben said, looking at me like he had just caught me in bed with two of his best friends.

“Uh-huh,” Holly said agreeably. Who knew she could play along? “It was pretty good. What were the two of you doing in the kitchen anyway?”

“Who was doing what in the kitchen?” Dirk demanded to know.

“We leave for fifteen minutes,” Ben muttered.

“Nothing happened,” Elle said to Dirk, rolling her eyes. “There was no stripper. We’re making it up to embarrass Catt.”

“So…there wasn’t a stripper?” Dirk asked.

“No there wasn’t,” Elle said to him like he was five.

“Oh,” Dirk said, like he was five, “okay.”

“I’m going to go put this in the kitchen,” Ben said. I had forgotten until he held it up that he was brandishing the beer and apparently a rather large bag of potato chips.

“I’ll help,” I said, trying to avoid Elle and Cordelia looking at me the way they were. I knew following Ben into the kitchen wasn’t going to discourage what was going on in their silly minds, but I didn’t want to face what they were saying either.

Once in the kitchen, Ben set the beer down on the counter top with the chips. I took out a large bowl, opened the chip bag, and poured all the chips in, taking a few out of the bag to eat myself as I did so. Ben seemed to be moving around aimlessly in the kitchen then produced a bowl out of one of the cabinets. He filled it with the French-onion dip I had in the fridge and then noticed that I was practically staring at him.

“What’s up?” I asked him, noticing the concerned look on his face.

“It’s nothing,” Ben said.

“It doesn’t look like nothing,” I said to him.

“We better go take the food in before the crowd gets ugly,” Ben said. I caught a glimpse of Elle shoving her tongue down Dirk’s throat.

“I think it’s already turning,” I grimaced.