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Cassandra had been plotting for the last month. Late nights researching. Plumbing the depths of Pinterest for inspiration. Sending clandestine texts to Will Treaty. He was so busy with his charity app that he only had one free day to help her out. And that day was today.
She sighed and let her head fall back against the pillow, feeling her neck and shoulder muscles stretch. Alyss shifted in response, dark hair falling over her face and into her slightly opened mouth. “You’re drooling again,” Cass noted.
“Go away.” Alyss’s voice was muffled by pillow and sleepiness alike.
“If you want.” She pushed the blanket aside, letting the cold air in, and her girlfriend shrank back with an endearing shriek. Cass laughed, leaning down to kiss Alyss on the forehead. “Too bad, I’m leaving,” she said. “You’ve chased me away.”
“Fuck you.” Alyss rolled over again, wrapping herself more tightly in the comforter.
Cass sat up, watching Alyss’s eyelashes flutter over her cheek as her eyes shut again. She couldn’t stop the smile that spread over her face as she pulled on a hoodie and entered the kitchen. Using a chair as a stepstool, she grabbed a box of pancake mix from the pantry, moving very carefully as to not wake Alyss again. The chair legs scraped against the ground as she put it back, and she winced.
The oven clock read 8:34 as she began heating up a frying pan. Will should be back from his run by now. She typed his number into her phone with one hand, the other still unsteadily whisking the ingredients together. He picked up on the third ring, thank god. “William, dear,” she said by way of greeting.
“What’s up?” Cass could feel his eye-roll over the phone. He hated being called William.
“Wondering if you’re still good for eleven?” She wedged the phone between her ear and shoulder, reaching for a ladle, as the butter began hissing in the pan.
“Of course,” Will said. “Horace can’t be there—last year residency, you know how it is.”
“Yeah,” she answered, scooping pancake mix into the butter. “Where are you taking her before?”
“I was thinking just coffee.” There was an uncertain tone to his voice, like he wasn’t sure of the plan, but Cass let it go. It was an uncertain day, all things considered.
“Sounds great,” she said. “Thank you so much again—oh, shit.” She broke off as she heard sounds coming from their bedroom. Alyss was getting up. “I think she’s awake.”
“Before noon?” he asked wryly.
“Somehow.” Cass grabbed a spatula and flipped the pancake, now slightly past golden brown. “So I gotta go—I’ll see you at around twelve, if everything goes well?”
“See you at noon,” Will confirmed, and then he hung up.
Cass put her phone away, smearing a comet’s tail of batter across the front of her sweatshirt in the process. She was flipping the first pancake onto a plate when Alyss padded into the kitchen, hair still a rat’s nest, eyes warm and dull with sleep. They lit up when she saw the pancake on the table. “I love you.” Her girlfriend wrapped her arms around Cass’s waist, resting her chin on top of her head.
Cassandra squeaked. “I just got these braids done,” she protested, and Alyss straightened up again.
“Shoot, I forgot,” she said, but she kept her arms around Cass.
“You’re okay.” Cassandra leaned back against Alyss’s chest, feeling her girlfriend’s warmth fold around her like a blanket. “I love you too.”
She felt rather than saw, Alyss’s smile. “Can I help with anything?”
Cass disentangled herself enough to flip pancakes number two and three. “Check if we’ve got fruit in the fridge.”
“Blueberries,” Alyss announced, soaking the entire box in tap water. Cass tipped the two pancakes out of the pan and then stopped, attention suddenly caught on her girlfriend. She was focused on the sink, lips moving soundlessly as she washed—song lyrics or poetry. Occasionally her hair brushed against the nape of her neck as she turned, the movement transfixing in its simplicity.
She could have this every day. Wake up with her hair tangled in Alyss’s fingers, make breakfast together in their shared apartment. The thought choked up her throat, and she nearly missed the pan with the next ladleful of batter. Eleven o’clock, Cass thought, glancing at the clock again. Two hours and thirteen minutes till the rest of their lives started.
They ended up with three pancakes each. Cassandra doused her entire plate in whipped cream as Alyss shook her head. “You’re meant to eat pancakes with a side of whipped cream, not whipped cream with a side of pancakes,” she said, drizzling maple syrup over her own pancakes.
“I’m here for a good time, not a long time,” said Cassandra through her mouthful of cream and blueberries.
“You’re impossible.”
“You love me.”
“Somehow,” Alyss sighed, but she was smiling.
After breakfast, Alyss disappeared back into her room. Cass cleared away the dishes, begging the oven clock to move faster. She sat down at the kitchen table, opening their budget spreadsheet for the next month, but it was impossible to focus. The clock told her she had an hour and a half before Will got here. One hour. Thirty minutes.
“Babe!” she heard Alyss call from their bedroom. Cass slammed her laptop shut, grateful for the distraction.
“Yes?” she asked, pushing the door open.
“Is this outfit okay?” Alyss turned around from the floor-length mirror propped against the opposite wall, and Cassandra felt her jaw drop. Gauzy fabric floated around Alyss’s shoulders like smoke before the dress fell to just above her knees, ice blue against her brown skin. It was ethereal. Like she’d convinced a lake to rise from its bed and robe her in its waves.
Cass had majored in fashion design, but Alyss still managed to surprise her by looking like… well, like that. “Light blue is definitely your color,” she heard herself say.
“You think so?” Alyss did a twirl in front of the mirror.
She leaned forward and dropped a kiss onto Alyss’s bare shoulder. “You look beautiful. Don’t let Will steal you from me.”
“I’m not into men,” Alyss turned her head to kiss her on the mouth. “And even if I was,” she said, straightening, “Horace is too pretty to compete against.”
“Not for you,” Cassandra teased. “You are, Alyss Mainwaring, more beautiful than the moon herself.”
Alyss flushed pink, and she felt a glow of pleasure. It was more difficult to catch her girlfriend off-guard these days, but that meant Cass took more pride in the moments when she could.
Their doorbell rang.
“Your ride,” she said, suddenly impatient again. “You don’t want to be late.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” Alyss grabbed her phone and purse from by the door. “We could all hang out together.”
“Maybe next time,” said Cass, faking reluctance. “I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“Alright. I’ll hold you to that.” Alyss bent to kiss her and then left.
Cassandra heard the front door open and close, and she thought she could make out Will and Alyss talking—were the apartment walls thin enough for that, or was she kidding herself? She forced herself to wait until she heard the sound of a car engine, and then another three minutes after that.
Then, as if moved by some possessive force, she sprang for their bedroom, rummaging through the closet, hangers clacking together in a discordant harmony. She threw on the outfit she’d picked two weeks ago, then gold jewelry, and finally makeup in the bathroom with unsteady hands.
It was already a quarter past by the time she deemed herself passable and whirled into the kitchen, her socks sliding across the tiled floor. Cass yanked open the fridge and grabbed two wrapped packages: sandwiches and fresh salad. There was a small watermelon in the back that she decided to take as well, nearly chopping off a finger in her haste to cut it.
She laid everything neatly into a wicker basket and then went back to the closet to jump for an outdoor blanket off the top rack—this was what she needed Alyss for, honestly. She’d bought the blanket back in April, classing it as an impulse buy, when in reality it was anything but. It was heavy-duty on one side, aesthetic on the other, a red-checkered thing that Cass fell in love with immediately.
Her arms strained as she carted the basket to the trunk of their Toyota Camry, setting it down as gently as possible to avoid disturbing the food. Then Cass shut the trunk, leaning against the side of her car, feet planted against the curb.
“Last thing,” she muttered, looking up at their apartment. If she didn’t say it out loud, if those words weren’t somehow spoken into existence, she might not be able to summon up the spirit to go back inside.
The tiny box was tucked into the corner of a shoebox under the bed. Cass opened it with infinitesimal slowness, almost afraid that perhaps somehow the ring had gotten lost. Maybe it’d somehow fallen out during the last few weeks, when she’d hidden it away and summoned up the courage to propose.
Will you marry me? Even now, with barely an hour left, the words felt odd sliding off her tongue. Cass swallowed, trying out another phrase. My wife . There was a John Mulaney segment Alyss really loved—that’s my wife! —that seemed strangely applicable to this situation. Cassandra agreed wholeheartedly with every bit of it. My wife.
“Enough,” she said aloud, tucking the ring carefully into her pocket. She felt extremely aware of its pressure against her skin, every inch of it somehow tingling through the fabric, as she drove off.
The rendezvous spot she and Will had agreed on was a meadow just off the highway, but far enough away so that Cass could barely hear the cars on the freeway as she parked. In the summer, the county fair came here, which made it special—one of their first dates had been at the fest. Overhead, the clouds were pale cotton candy, suspended in an enameled sky. The sun lit the surrounding grass to streaks of gold, each a match set aflame. Cass smiled at a nearby squirrel as she spread out the picnic blanket. Not many moments in life were cinematic, but she was determined to enjoy the ones that were.
Her Rolex said it was a quarter till—Will was supposed to bring Alyss here at twelve sharp. Cass straightened out a crease in the blanket and opened up the baskets, arranging the food around the edges. Time and again her hand drifted down to her left pocket, brushing up against the hard corner of the box. Fifteen minutes.
Cassandra swallowed, rising from her kneeling position to the relief of her protesting legs. She surveyed the picnic spread—red gingham spread against the grass, traditional picnic foods arrayed neatly to one side. The wrappings were brown paper and lovingly tied twine, the containers frosted glass.
It needed a last touch. Cass looked around. Clusters of violets grew dark among the grass, and she bent over one, careful not to disturb anything else, and plucked it in one smooth motion. She studied it, satisfied that they’d complement the theme of the picnic very well, and then tied the stem around the handle of the picnic basket.
Cass was putting the last of the violets around the blanket when her phone screen lit up. Pulling up, Will sent . Gotcha, she texted back, and then sat down on the picnic blanket, smoothing the creases from her outfit and trying to look casual. A robin alighted in the grass beside her, and Cass was convinced it could hear the thudding of her heart. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this nervous about seeing Alyss.
Something rustled to her left, the side nearest the road. “Just wanted to show you something.” Will’s voice, gradually drawing closer. She could hear his smile without having to see it. “Over here.”
Then Alyss gradually came into view, threading her way through the tall grass, and Cassandra had to remind herself how to breathe. The noon sun haloed her hair in a crown, backlit in amber so Cass could see the individual strands curled around her shoulders, the light sweeping across her cheeks, the heat in her eyes that was not surprise but a kind of anticipation.
She could look and look till the oceans came up and swallowed the land entire, and she would still not see enough. In seventh grade Alyss had come to the Halloween social as a fairy, wings askew over her t-shirt and sparkles dotting the corners of her eyes. On impulse, she’d leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, and since then…
Yes, she had loved other people, but Alyss was about more than loving: she was knowing . Cass could trace the shape of her without touch, put the color of her eyes on canvas blind. Play the chords of her laugh without hearing and sing her to sleep without sound. And still in every word and glance from her girlfriend, there was something new to love.
She fumbled for the ring in her pocket with shaky fingers, legs trembling as she rose into a kneeling position.
Only to find Alyss kneeling in front of her too, hands clasped around a similar-sized box.
For a second they both stared at each other, Alyss’s lips parted in an incredulous smile. Then Cass looked past her to where Will was trembling from the effort of holding in his laughter. “Horace is never going to find your dead body,” she threatened.
“You played us.” Alyss looked at him, amazed. “I—you–”
“I’m so sorry,” Will choked out between bouts of laughter. He snapped a shaky picture of them both, still kneeling in front of one another. “But you both asked me, and I couldn’t—I had to.”
“I should have fucking figured.” Cassandra shifted slightly on the blanket, her legs protesting at kneeling for so long. “Wait,” she said, looking at Alyss again. “You were in on it. You had to have known, if you brought a ring–”
“Will said he was going to call you so we could meet up for lunch, not that you’d be proposing,” Alyss said, her face reddening.
Will was still grinning, but it faded as he looked between them. “I really am sorry for meddling, but… do you guys like it?”
“I do,” said Alyss softly, and suddenly all Cassandra could think about was another day, hopefully in the near future, where she would say those words again in white.
“Me too,” she said. “Thank you, Will. Really.”
A relieved smile broke over his face. “It was my pleasure. Now, shall we stop stalling?”
“Right,” Cassandra said, her throat going dry.
Alyss reached over with her free hand and took Cassandra’s in her own. “I have a question,” she said, grasping her fingers tight.
“The way you flirt is shameful,” Cass managed, even though her mouth was dry. A shared memory.
“Shut up,” said Alyss, but she was beaming. “Will you marry me?”
“Will you marry me ?” Cassandra countered.
There was one answer. There had only ever been one answer. “Yes,” they said simultaneously.