Marbles

This has been a busy weekend for Nick and Gabrielle—they moved into their new apartment on Thursday, so there has been a lot of running back and forth, pushing and shoving boxes across the floor, shouting questions at one another from opposite ends of the apartment, and making sudden trips back to their old houses for something forgotten.  It is enough to fray anyone’s nerves, and so they were glad to take a bit of a break this evening and attend a party hosted for them by Gabrielle’s parents.

“How many people are going to be there again?” Nick asked as they drove out.

“I don’t know.  Your parents and my parents, and my aunt and uncle, at least.  Most of the other people will be people from church, I think, although I asked them to invite Vic and some of the other girls.”

Nick was relieved to hear that he would not find a house full of strangers.  He was still nervous, however, and so was Gabrielle.

“Stop messing with your tie, you look fine,” Gabrielle said as she parked the car down the street from her parents’ house—the driveway and the curb were both already crowded with cars.

“Well, you keep messing with your hair,” Nick snapped back.

Gabrielle, who had just been looking into the rearview mirror, snatched her hand away from her hair and glared at her husband.  I had the happy thought of injecting a bit of humor into the moment, and their scowls dissolved into laughter.  Brief though it was, it soothed much of the tension that has been riding high between them for the past few days.

“Come on,” Nick said, opening the door.  “Maybe this will even be fun.”

Gabrielle rolled her eyes, but she took his arm when he offered, and they walked into the brightly lit house.

It was not fun—at least, not at first.  Gabrielle was right—the majority of the guests were members of her parents’ church, and more importantly, of her parents’ age group.  These men and women were delighted to celebrate their marriage, but they were also very traditionally minded.

“Now, what made you decide to get married so quickly?” one woman asked.

“You poor dear,” another clucked to Gabrielle, patting her hand, “you didn’t even get a honeymoon!”  Whereupon her three friends laughed loudly and long.

“Did she catch you completely by surprise?” one of the men asked Nick.  Their laughter was less kind.

Gary was telling everyone who would listen how glad he was that his daughter was finally settling down—although they’d be more settled in a house, he was quick to add, so why should they be throwing away their money on rent when they could be investing it into something that would do them some good in a few years?  Nick’s mother, meanwhile, is still deeply disappointed that she did not get a wedding, and complained cheerfully to whoever would listen that the whole thing had happened much too fast—“though of course I’m so happy to have Gabby as a part of our family, the dear girl.  Do you know, we’ve known her since she was three years old and prone to taking off her shirt when it was hot—she even left it at preschool one day, just pitched a fit before she’d take it home!”

I did my best to guide the young couple away from those whose words came from disapproval, and tried to show them with the rest the honest confusion that came behind the questions.  But to be surrounded by so many people who would have chosen different things—and who had the courage to say so—was wearing for them both.

In the end I drew a page from Freya’s book and borrowed another human to rescue my charges.  Victoria noticed Nick’s false smile and the tight grip Gabrielle kept on her glass before I had to point them out.  I had only to make a brief suggestion to her for her to snatch them both away as soon as would be polite.  She arranged a game room with the rest of Gabrielle’s friends, as well as two younger couples from the church.  The latter was my idea, and I hope it is not prideful to say that it was a good one.

“Trust me, you did good to avoid the big wedding,” Toni assured Gabrielle in between rounds of poker.  “Owen and I are still paying that off, and my mother took control of the whole thing—though if you ever tell her I said that, I’ll deny it.”

“Scout’s honor,” Gabrielle promised, laughing.  “Yeah, I think my mom would have been pretty cool about it.  Nick’s mom, though…”  She shuddered theatrically, and both women laughed.

“Don’t be in any hurry to get a house, either,” Chad said, winking at his wife Nicole at the next table.  “Yes, it might make sense to buy rather than rent, but house-hunting is stressful, particularly if you just barely have enough money for the down payment.  We looked for almost a year and it about killed our marriage.”

“I definitely agree with that,” Victoria said, and then laughed.  “Says the single friend.  But I think it’s important that you guys focus on your relationship.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Toni agreed.  “Every marriage is different.  Everyone’s going to give you all kinds of advice, and some of it will be good, but in the end you’ve just got to figure out what’s working for you.”

Gabrielle sighed and let her head drop onto Toni’s shoulder.  “You guys are my new best friends.  Can I just put you between me and my parents for the rest of the night?”

They all laughed.

“How is it going, by the way?” Victoria asked a bit later.  The two were venturing back into the main party for more food, and mostly Victoria was going along to protect Gabrielle from being besieged again by her parents’ guests, but she was genuinely curious.

Gabrielle was silent for a long moment.  “I guess I kind of thought it would be fun playing house, but it’s just as much of a pain as the last time I moved.”

“Yeah, because moving sucks.  You’ve got everything in the apartment now, right?  So the worst is over.”

“Yeah, but we keep fighting about where to put this and where to hang that—matching colors and furniture and are we going to get a firm or a soft mattress…”  Shaking her head, Gabrielle poured herself another glass of wine.

Victoria considered her friend.  “Fighting, or disagreeing?  Because I think there’s a difference.”

“It’s not bad,” Gabrielle said, understanding what Victoria was trying to say.  “Just bickering.  But it’s endless.  We just can’t seem to agree on anything.”

Victoria spotted Nick’s mother coming their way and guided Gabrielle adroitly in the opposite direction, as if she hadn’t seen her.  “Is it just little things that you argue about, or the big stuff?”

“I mean, we decided on the apartment pretty easily, and we talked about taxes and kids earlier this week and it went pretty smoothly.”

“In that order?” Victoria teased with a smile.  “Glad you’ve got your priorities straight.”  Gabrielle laughed.  “So it’s just the details,” Victoria went on.  “The stuff you’re trying to set up at the apartment.”

“Yeah, it’s just little stuff, but it’s stressing me out.”

Victoria paused in the door to the game room, in that small space of quiet.  “You both are trying really hard to make this work.  Maybe that’s why every little thing seems so important.  You just need to look more big-picture.”  She looked up at Gabrielle with a smile.  “Don’t look at the marbles.  See the universe.”

Victoria is quite good with words—that struck just the right chord with Gabrielle, who looked across the room at Nick and felt a rush of warmth.  She resolved then and there to relax a bit and remember how it feels to be with Nick, that safety and warmth and affection.

“Phew,” Nick said as they finally got into the car in the evening.  “Well, we survived.  I’m glad Vic was there, though, for sure!  And I like Owen a lot.  He and Chad and I are gonna grab coffee after work on Wednesday.”

Gabrielle looked at his profile in the semi-darkness, watching as he appeared and disappeared in the light of passing streetlights.  “Nick,” she said, “why did you marry me?”

He glanced at her, startled.  “What do you mean?”

“Well, it hasn’t been easy for you.  Everybody thinks we jumped in too fast, and you probably think that too.  And I know that I’m—that it wasn’t quite what you wanted.  So why did you do it?”

Nick was puzzled.  “Gabby, I’ve been wanting to marry you for years,” he said.  “Yeah, sure, I didn’t expect it to happen the way it did, and yeah, my mom is disappointed, but…”  He reached across the seat and took her hand.  “I saw my chance, and I took it,” he said with a smile.  “And I don’t regret it.”

She squeezed his hand with both of her own, and her universe opened up before her again.