Boston Marriage (Part Three)
Title: Boston Marriage
Author: politicette, themistoklis
Fandom: Fake News: The Daily Show, The Colbert Report
Characters/Pairings: cis!girls "Stephanie" Colbert/Joan Stewart (genderbended from "Stephen" Colbert, Jon Stewart), assorted "Colbert" family members, assorted original characters
Rating: R
Length: ~26,300 words
Warnings: TRIGGER WARNINGS for domestic violence, homophobia, alcohol use
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Notes: Thank you so much to paperscribe for betaing this piece for us. We started it so long ago we legitimately do not remember most of the first half, but apparently it's in okay shape.
Summary: Joan and "Stephanie" run away from home to get married, and it's going to be totally awesome.
Part One | Part Two
[MOM] "ur sister lulu is @ the airport. where r u?"
Stephanie is in one of Joan's oversized button-ups, which means it doesn't quite stretch down to her knees, and the sleeves stop short of her wrists. She has on shorts underneath, because they're not alone, and her hair is tied back from her face.
She has peach-colored paint smeared on the tip of her nose from where Joan swiped her with a paintbrush.
The phone is on the coffee table they got after Joan haggled for it at a thrift-store - it came for free with their new couch. While she's bent over it, it buzzes again, and her hand darts out to turn it off before anyone else notices it went off.
[MOM] "she's staying @ a marriott. go c her."
Stephanie takes a couple of paint-scented breaths and turns her phone off.
No one notices, and she wriggles her fingers, shaking some of the ache out. She doesn't have to think about this now. It's perfectly fine if she waits until that night - or the day before. Besides, they have company.
Yelping, George runs up behind her and grabs her shoulders. She nearly topples over when he spins her around to face the bathroom.
Company is more important, right then.
"Stephanie, your lovely girlfriend keeps flicking paint at me!"
"Stop calling me that!" Joan, apparently forgetting that she has a paintbrush in her hand, stomps out of the bathroom and puts both hands on her hips. "And I'm only flicking paint at him to get him to stop bugging me. He's supposed to be in the kitchen. There's no room for two people to paint in here."
Stephanie raises an eyebrow at George (she's done that a lot today).
"We have the same color green, though," he protests.
"Actually, hers is a shade lighter. Yours would be too overwhelming in that small space."
With a sigh, he bends down to rest his chin on her shoulder and she laughs, making Joan mutter something under her breath. "I'm only checking on her. The fumes in there are really strong!"
Joan sticks out her paintbrush and waggles it at him. "Go finish the kitchen so it can dry and Stephi can add the accents."
Shuffling sideways, George bends at the waist. "Yes ma'am."
He shouts when Joan takes a step towards him and darts back to the kitchen, missing Joan's grin when his back is to her. Stephanie wishes she had caught that on camera, because she knows George wouldn't believe her if she told him.
The cell phone tucked under a newspaper, Stephanie ducks her head into the bathroom. Joan just holds herself back from flicking paint in her face. "Uh. Sorry. Thought you were George."
"I'm gonna go ask him," she says.
"He'll say yes."
Stephanie smiles. "Then you two can go tux shopping together," she says, and laughs at the way Joan's mouth falls open.
When she comes into the kitchen, George is kneeling in a chair, leaning over the counter so he can get one of the last bare spots. The green paint can doesn't have much left inside it, and even though it looks a little different on the walls than it had on the paint chip, she still likes it. It'll look better once she gets a chance to paint in all the yellow (to match the living room) accents and back splash details.
"Thanks for helping us," she says.
George smiles at her over his shoulder and nods, and she's surprised by how her hands shake when she goes over to the fridge to tug the door open. There's no food in there, yet, just a pitcher of lemonade they got at the store earlier. Joan doesn't want her cooking in the kitchen until the majority of the paint has had the chance to dry.
"So, um," she murmurs, pouring George a drink, "I was wondering if I could ask you for a favor. Or. Well. Sort of a favor. If you look at it that way."
He carefully sets his paint brush down and turns to face her. The expression on his face is pretty unreadable. "Go ahead."
She picks up a clean brush, one of the small ones she'll use for the back splash, and twirls it back and forth. The bristles feel nice against her palm.
"I was wondering," she says, staring at the drops of yellow paint on her shirt, "if you."
"Steph?"
"Would you like to come to our wedding?"
His face lights up, and he hops off his chair. "Of course!" He walks over and pulls her into a hug, and her hands start feeling better. "I was starting to worry you weren't going to ask, actually."
Stephanie laughs. "No, no! I was just going to ask if you would mind walking me down the aisle."
George leans back and stares at her, and her hands shake just a little.
"It's just," she says, and thinks there's nothing wrong about this, sometimes these things just happen, "I don't think that I'll have someone else to do it, and you've been so nice to us, and Joan really doesn't hate you--"
"I'd be honored, Stephanie," George says, and when Stephanie breathes in she can't smell the paint at all.
---
Waking up in their apartment is new, and brilliant, and Stephanie holds onto Joan and doesn't move out from underneath the covers until she's too hungry to stay in the bedroom any longer. Then she makes pancakes and convinces Joan to crawl back into bed to eat them, even though they get crumbs all over their pillows.
"Do you remember playing house, when we were kids?" Stephanie murmurs, swirling a bite of pancake around in her syrup.
Joan swallows. "I remember having to save the house from alien invaders."
"I put flowers in the pie," Stephanie says. "They were allergic to flowers."
"I think I ate one of the flowers once."
Stephanie looks around the bedroom. A shirt hung over the corner of the closet door, most of Joan's clothes still in boxes in the corner.
"We stole the blue from every crayon box once to color the back wall of the tree house."
Joan hums around her fork. "I remember that."
Stretching her legs out, Stephanie half-twists to rest on her side without spilling all the pancakes off of her plate. "What do you want to do today?"
"Uh," Joan says. The corner of her mouth twitches. "Nothing?"
"I like that plan."
Joan finds a comfortable spot to read the books she did bring with her, and Stephanie takes out some stationary to write a thank-you letter to Mrs. L for helping them pay for the hotel. She keeps stopping to stare at her penmanship. She thinks she may have to work on her signature before she writes out the wedding invitations.
George shows up at lunch, when Stephanie is just cutting into Markus's chocolate pie. He's got a bag slung over his shoulder and a math book dangling from one hand, and the pen he was using to make notes on the bus is tucked behind his ear.
Looking at the pie, he nearly starts drooling. "Would you like a slice?" Stephanie asks, picking up an extra paper plate for him.
They have really got to buy some actual utensils and dinnerware.
"Just a small one," George says, sidling up to the kitchen table next to Joan. She pops her fork into her mouth and looks at him from the corner of her eye. He puts his book on the table and rests his elbow on it. "No class this afternoon - just a review session for stuff I don't need to review - so I thought I would come by and maybe we could go out tonight. You know, with everyone."
Stephanie tries not to make licking her fork too obvious. She has to get this recipe. "Go out?"
George grins. "If I'm in the wedding party, I've got to throw you two a bachelorette party."
---
"I can't believe you talked me into this," Joan grumbles, dragging her clothes to the bedroom door.
Stephanie looks up from her compact. "It'll be fun. George promised not to go too overboard."
"I don't think George and you operate on the same definition of overboard," Joan whines.
Her girlfriend raises an eyebrow at her. "It'll be fun," she repeats. "Go get dressed."
While the last of the paint in the bedroom (blue, which Stephanie thought would be relaxing after getting out of a yellow living room) dries, Joan gets dressed. Stephanie has unpacked most of her clothes, but since nothing besides Joan's two dress shirts and her jacket needs to be hung up in the closet, she hasn't bothered. Once they find a dresser, she can stop living out of her duffel bag.
She thinks it'll probably be nice. And she does like the sight of her jacket hanging up next to Stephanie's. Even if they're both going to be completely inadequate come winter. (Joan sort of remembers snow from New Jersey. She's seen photos, anyway. Winter in Boston is not one of the new experiences she's looking forward to.)
"Hey, Joan?"
"Yeah?" She's trying to decide whether to wear a belt. Stephanie told her to wear the blue dress shirt, to bring out her eyes.
"My mom sent me a text saying Lulu's in Boston."
Joan walks out of the bathroom with her slacks clasped in her hand.
Standing in the doorway to the bedroom - and, damn, they've got to leave the windows open while they go eat - she knows she must look ridiculous, but Stephanie is staring at her cell, anyway. She's got on jeans and a blouse but must be planning on wearing sandals, because even though Stephi has got her feet tucked under her, Joan can see bare toes.
"What does that mean?" she asks, when she realizes she doesn't know.
Stephanie strokes her thumb over the screen of her phone. "I don't think she's here to help me pick out dresses," she finally says, giving Joan a tiny smile.
The knots are back in her throat. "Does she know where we are?"
"No, no." Stephanie turns her phone over a few times. "Lulu hasn't even sent me a message yet. Just that one from Mom." She looks up, eyes shiny behind her glasses, and swallows. "If I go see her, will you come with me?"
The fumes are really what's making her a little dizzy, she knows that. "Sure. Yeah. Of course."
"Okay. I'm ready to go, by the way. George said to just buzz the apartment when we get down to his building." She puts the phone down and swings her legs over the side of the bed. "Bring your cell? I'm going to leave mine here."
Joan just nods.
Stephanie keeps smiling at her, then frowns a bit, and Joan has to hang onto the door frame.
"Um," she says. "You should probably put those on."
Joan blushes and hops into her slacks on her way back to the bathroom.
---
Joan's thighs are filled with far-away pinpricks, her legs falling asleep underneath her the longer Stephanie spends sprawled across her lap, hip pressed against Joan's side and heels resting in the now-empty chair next to them.
Drunk-clumsy, Stephanie's fingers are dancing over Joan's tie, which she keeps reminding herself is technically Jonah's, since he was the one who loaned it to her, and he probably doesn't want liquor stains all over it. Maybe that's why Stephanie is fiddling with it, her fingers slipping over the knot. Maybe she's worried about Joan spilling her drink all over it, but Joan finished her last drink a couple of minutes ago and since it hasn't been refilled, she thinks that maybe the waitress has cut their table off.
Stephanie frees the tie and promptly drapes it around her own shoulders, before going back to undo the top two buttons of Joan's shirt so she can press her thumb into Joan's skin.
Gulping, Joan curls her hands around Stephanie to hold herself in place.
"Joan," Stephanie says, pressing her palms flat against Joan's chest. Her eyes are very wide, and very dark behind the hair that's fallen into her face.
"Yeah?" Joan asks, and then, "Yeah?" loud enough to be heard over the band.
Stephanie's eyelashes flutter against her cheeks, and she raises her hands to cup them over the sides of Joan's face. "Hold still," she orders.
"Okay," Joan says.
She holds still.
Stephanie stares at her for so long that Joan starts to think she's forgotten what she asked Joan to hold still for, but as soon as she opens her mouth to say so, Stephanie darts forward and and fits their lips together, presses her tongue inside Joan's mouth.
George whoops. "Get 'er, Steph!"
Joan raises her middle finger without opening her eyes. Stephanie tastes like bubbles, like fruit and champagne and fizz, and Joan's legs aren't falling asleep anymore. It feels like some of Stephanie's bubbles are inside Joan's brain.
Stephanie's hands curl over Joan's head, fingers pulling gently against her hair. Shivers go all the way down to Joan's feet. "Are you having fun?" Stephanie asks.
"Yeah," Joan whispers.
She doesn't think her voice makes it over the music, but Stephi nods, satisfied, and turns to look out at the dance floor. If George had been around a moment ago, he wasn't anymore.
Stephanie clears her throat and pulls on the collar of her dress, pushes her hair back. "We should go back to the party. I overheard Jonah saying something to Deja about a cake."
"Cake?" Joan blinks, letting Stephanie curl her hand around her wrist. She just ducks to avoid dancers while she's pulled across the floor, colored lights and bass flooding over her. "There's cake?"
"There might be," Stephanie says, tugging on her hand. She rocks onto her toes and waves, nearly clipping a guy in the head, when she spots everyone gathered at a table.
George jumps up from his seat, scrambles over Markus's legs, and bursts through a gaggle of (other) people who look like they're too young to be here to grab them both by the hand.
"You guys have got to see this cake," he enthuses, pulling them towards the table. "The dudes even put flowers on it!"
He rushes them right into the table, making Markus and Tina reach out to keep drinks from falling over. Which Joan guesses is a good thing, because the cake takes up most of the tabletop. Joan has to blink and squint in the weird lighting, but she can definitely see flowers, and Stephanie leans over to coo at it up close.
On the top tier, it says WELCOME TO BOSTON and, underneath that, HAPPY ENGAGEMENT.
"We couldn't pick," Tina says. "And the coin went under a chair."
"It's fondant-free," George gushes. "That's all icing."
"They don't care, my darling child," Deja scoffs, patting George on the hand to signify no harm done. "Now let's let them cut into it. I want to eat."
The knife is so big that Joan thinks they must have swiped it from the kitchen, and Stephanie makes her hold it first, so she can curl her fingers around Joan's and shift them to the right position.
Deja applauds when the first slice is dropped onto a plate. "It's a good thing you guys are around, giving us an excuse to throw a party," she says, scooting over so George can slide into the chair next to her. She's been drinking wine all night, and Joan wonders how that's going to taste with chocolate cake.
Throwing her arm over the back of Deja's chair, Tina nods. "Yeah, we were having to throw them for like, lobster day and shit. It was getting pretty sad."
"I think lobsters are cute," Deja protests, poking Tina with her fork. Tina snorts and kisses her cheek, which Deja ignores. "Markus does too. Don't you, Markus?"
"Lobsters are very nice animals. If I had room for an aquarium I would get one as a pet," Markus says. He pauses and taps his spoon against his mouth. "We are still having a birthday party for Frodo, yes?"
"I think Frodo and your lobster would be friends," Deja muses, closing her purple-tinted lips around her fork.
"Lobster buddies," Markus smiles, reaching out for Deja's hand. They twist their fingers together in one of the most intricate secret handshakes Joan has ever seen.
Deja swallows. "So sad for Tina that she can't appreciate them."
"Not true," Tina says. "They're delicious with butter."
Guilty, Joan tries to stifle her wild giggles.
Stephanie rests her head against Joan's shoulder. "That's kind of mean," she snickers.
"I am glad Tina does not think lizards are delicious," Markus says into his cake. He eats the icing flower on his piece just as George is asking to get a better look at it.
Two AM sees last call and all of them stumbling out of the bar together, Jonah and Markus with their arms around George to keep him upright (he fell asleep on his cake half an hour ago, and still has red icing smeared at the corner of his mouth, which Joan will never admit is kind of sweet). Tina has been giggling into Deja's arm for five whole minutes now.
Stephanie is doing her best to walk with her chin held up and her shoulders braced. Joan sidles up to her when the sidewalk clears and wraps an arm around her waist. Stephanie melts to fit against Joan's side, her heels tilting over pockmarks in the sidewalk.
"You've got icing on your lips," Stephanie says.
The corner of Joan's mouth turns up. "I think that's your lipstick."
"Oh." Stephanie blinks. "Let me get it for you anyway."
Two taxis are pulling up as Deja waves.
"How 'bout when we're back at the apartment?" Joan asks, settling her hand on the small of Stephi's back.
"I think that might work... backwards," Stephanie mumbles, pressing her face against Joan's.
Joan raises a hand to cup against the side of Stephi's face, breathes in her perfume and the alcohol on her breath.
"Come on, guys!" Tina wheedles. "You can do this later, I want to go home!"
But Joan ignores her. She's pretty sure that as sweet as Stephanie is talking right now, as soon as they get home, she's going to kick off her shoes and end up curled around her, insisting she'll stay awake until Joan is asleep, all her words eaten up by yawns.
But Stephi's tongue darts into Joan's mouth, and Joan thinks that maybe neither of them are all that tired, underage drinking or no.
Which is even better.
---
Stephanie waits until that night before sending Lulu a text. She curls up on the corner of their new couch to do it, and waits for a moment with her thumbs on the keyboard, listening to Joan hum while she cooks macaroni and cheese in the kitchen. They made a budget for groceries, and they went into the thrift-store so many times that the owner finally told Joan they had an opening, so they've got one income now.
They're holding off on getting cable or a TV until Stephanie has something, too. Being careful about saving means they have to keep being careful.
She wonders whether her parents are going to cancel her phone before the contract is up, and how she's going to transfer the number to a new account. Joan thinks she should just get a new number altogether.
[me] "hi"
It isn't much of a message. She thought about it for three hours.
[LULU] "steph <3 where r u?"
Stephanie inhales. "Joan?"
"Yeah, babe?" It sounds like she's draining the pasta.
"Your hours are nine to one tomorrow, right?"
"Uh-huh. ... You on with Lulu?"
"Yeah."
There's a rattle in the sink, and a second later Joan comes out, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She sits down next to Stephanie and winds both her arms around Stephanie's shoulders, kissing her jaw while she types out the next message.
[me] "where r u?"
[LULU] "a hotel. come c me"
[me] "tomorrow. 2?"
[LULU] "tonight, now"
Stephanie presses up against Joan's chest. Joan rubs her hands up and down Stephanie's arms, tells her that they can check their e-mail after this, see what Joan's mom thinks about the photos of the apartment they sent using George's internet.
[me] "tomorrow. 2. hotel address?"
Lulu sends the address without comment. Stephanie is one-hundred percent certain that Lulu doesn't think she's going to bring Joan with her.
"She must not have a plane ticket home yet," Stephanie murmurs, setting her phone down on the couch. Joan brushes her hair back from her face, kisses her temple. "She's leaving her job to be here. I wonder how she got time off. I hope she's not using her sick days."
"She probably came because she was most able to, Stephi," Joan says. She gives her a tight squeeze and Stephanie nods, turning the phone face down. "Let's go eat?"
Joan pulls her up by her hands, and her phone falls between the couch cushions.
---
The hotel is a skyscraper.
There are escalators in the lobby, and chandeliers, and empty chairs everywhere. Stephanie prefers to stand, her hand wrapped tight around Joan's, her feet firmly planted on the ground in slip-on flats.
She wants to rub at her eyes underneath her glasses, but that means letting go of her phone, and she's just sent the text telling Lulu they're there a second ago. "Am I hurting your hand?"
"No," Joan says.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, babe," Joan says, kissing her cheek.
Good. No matter what, she's not going to let go of Joan.
The phone buzzes in her hand and she looks down at it to see that Lulu's coming to the lobby to meet them. To meet her. Her stomach has been twisting all day, and her hands shaking, and she drops the phone into her purse now. Lulu thinks she's going to be alone, going to be by herself.
It's not lying when you don't actually say anything.
Lulu may not be here to bring her home. She hasn't said anything, either. Stephanie squeezes Joan's hand and watches the elevators, wondering if Joan is going to have to pull her forward when the doors open. Her shoes are kind of catching on the carpet.
She steps out of the elevator and looks around the lobby, squinting. She's not wearing her glasses, and Stephanie digs her heels into the carpet. She doesn't think she's been gone from South Carolina long enough to have missed her sister getting contacts, and she hopes that Lulu just left them in the hotel room. Stephanie likes her glasses.
They wait until Lulu spots them to step forward, and step forward, and step forward. Lulu waits by the elevators and doesn't move. She has her hands folded in front of her, and purses her lips when they're a few feet away.
"Steph," she says. She's still squinting. No contacts, then. "How are you?"
"Good," Stephanie says, stopping. Talking or walking, she can do either right then. It's inefficient to try to do both, anyway. "I'm good. Really good. How are you?"
"I'm fine." Lulu looks at Joan, and back at her. "Do you want to come talk?"
"Yes. I thought, you know, your room. Private." The corner of her mouth jerks up and falls back down. "No need to air our laundry to everyone."
"Privacy," Lulu agrees.
She's squinting at Joan, now.
"Joan is coming with me," Stephanie whispers. She looks around the lobby, but everyone there seems to have things to do, and no one is hanging around. No one holds the doors to the elevators open for them, either.
Stephanie is probably hurting Joan's hand, a little.
Mouth pressed into a fine line, Lulu looks back and forth between them. She finally turns around and hits the call button for the elevator without saying anything, and as soon as she's not looking Stephanie leans against Joan's side.
The elevator ride up to the fourth floor is mercifully short and painfully quiet.
Stephanie walks down the hallway behind her sister and tries to guess what the room looks like. It's a Marriott, so it must be nice, and the building itself is nice - the place that she and Joan had stayed was a lot smaller, but it was cozier, and she thinks that no matter how big Lulu's bed is or how many stations the television gets, theirs was better.
Lulu lets the door drift shut behind them, and mostly what Stephanie notices about the room are the two chairs facing each other by the window. There's a third one, but it's up against the wall, and she tugs Joan over so she can drag it next to one of the ones Lulu laid out.
She manages to sit down, too, without letting go of Joan's hand.
"Would you like something to drink?" Lulu asks, hovering at the corner of the (yes, very large) bed.
Joan starts to shake her head, but Stephanie nods. "Did they give you tea packets?"
"And hot chocolate," Lulu says. She smiles just a little and walks over to the desk behind their chairs, and Stephanie twists around to watch her fill up the boiler from the faucet in the bathroom. She comes back out to plug it in, and leans against the desk while the water starts to heat up. "But it's not very good," she says. Her nose wrinkles. "Fake marshmallows."
"We were at a hotel for a couple of days," Stephanie says. "They had coffee and tea, but no hot chocolate."
"Do you remember how the twelve packs of hot chocolate always left us short?" Lulu asks. She's got her arms crossed over her chest, and she's watching the steam coming out of the boiler like it's enrapturing. "And we would always share a cup?"
"Yeah."
Lulu pours water into three of the four coffee cups on the tray and lowers in tea bags. She doesn't look up from them when she asks, "Are you planning on being home to do that this Christmas, Steph?"
"Home?"
Lulu carefully hands her a cup, then puts another in front of her, and waits for a moment before Stephanie realizes what she's doing and passes the first one over to Joan. Joan has her jaw locked, and sets her cup on her knee without tasting the tea. Stephanie tries it while Lulu sits down in the chair opposite, it's got some kind of fruity taste that she really doesn't think she likes. If you're going to bother drinking tea, it ought to have the decency to taste like tea.
"Home, Stephanie," Lulu murmurs. She sips at her tea and lowers it to her leg, taking a few deep breaths before looking up again. "You're eighteen, you're too young to be moving away from home and, and..."
"I was already going to school here in the fall. How is this different?"
Lulu tightens her hand around her cup. "You're too young to be getting married, Stephanie."
"Mama got married when she was twenty." This isn't quite the direction she expected the conversation to take, but she looks at Joan and guesses that isn't a direction Lulu expected, either. For her part Joan is looking very calm.
Shaking her head, Lulu sips her tea. "This is different."
"How?"
"Steph-"
"This isn't different. I know - I know what my heart is telling me," Stephanie says.
If she had a free hand, she would be pressing her fist to her chest. Joan rubs her thumb over the back of Stephanie's hand, and Stephanie catches her sister's eye. She looks younger when she's not squinting. Quieter.
"I'm getting married, Lulu. I want--" She wets her lips, and Lulu tilts her head to one side. "I want you to come to the wedding. I want you to be there."
Lulu stands up and walks her cup over to the dresser, where she slides her glasses back onto her face. "Mama really wants you to come back," she says. "She thought you just left for the night because you were - because you were mad, or scared. And then you didn't come back."
"I - I took all my things with me. I," she swallows, "I moved out."
"She wants you to come back."
"Does Daddy?"
Lulu turns back to face them. "I haven't - I haven't talked to him. Mama was the one who told me what was going on. She told me I needed to come up here and talk to you."
Her hand is shaking enough that she twists to place the cup behind her, on the desk. It doesn't help straighten out her fingers when she tries to brush her hair back from her face, so she presses her palm against her leg and hopes that it'll be fine enough to use the elevator buttons when they have to leave.
"I don't think that Daddy wants me to come back," she says, very softly.
"He's your father, Stephanie, he--"
"Lulu. I'm marrying Joan." And she is. They're going to have a wedding, even if it isn't in the country, and they have an apartment with the paint colors she's wanted for years. "I'm marrying Joan."
Fists clenched at her sides, Lulu shuffles her weight and tries not to stare at Joan past Stephanie's shoulder. "You should come home," she says. "You should be with us. I know we aren't all at the house anymore - but Steph, you're just a baby, you're too young--"
"I am not 'too young," she snaps, standing up. Joan stands up with her, and Stephanie tilts her chin up. Joan's hand is cold. "I'm an adult! You may be my big sister, but you can't tell me what I want!"
Lulu's face flushes. "What you want and what you need are two very different things. And you don't know what you need. I am your big sister, I'm older than you - I know better than you! You don't need this, Stephanie," Lulu says, waving her hand at Joan, and Stephanie feels herself bristling. "You need to be back home. With your family."
"Family treats each other with, with kindness and decency and love. They say, 'Isn't that wonderful!' when you tell them you're getting married," Stephanie hisses, "not, not, 'You're too young.' That's not what family does."
"Family helps each other when they do wrong," Lulu says. Joan goes stiff.
"Don't you tell me what family does and doesn't do, Lulu," Stephanie says. "Since you clearly don't know."
Lulu inhales. "Stephanie, I know better than that. I know better than you do - you're doing wrong here, with, with her." And she actually points at Joan, before letting her hand fall to her side. "It's not right. You shouldn't be with her, not like this. You had to leave home because at home they know that good people don't do this. It's disgusting!"
At school, the cheerleaders had spilled drinks on Joan sometimes. Tripped her in the hallway, talked about her behind her back. Stephanie's teeth start to grind just thinking about it - just feeling the way Joan is pressing against her back, now, the way she used to hide behind her when certain people walked down the hall, and Stephanie knows she promised she would never let any of those girls say those things to Joan's face.
"We're in love and we're getting married," Stephanie says. She feels hot, all over, like she might need to start leaning on the chair. But Joan is right behind her and hardly breathing and she's not going to stop here. "That is what good people do. Good people don't spit in other people's faces."
"This is all her fault. She's corrupting you!" Lulu snaps. "Stephanie, if you come with me, we can fix this. You're young and you're confused and you don't know what you're doing, but if you come home we can still save you."
If Stephanie's hand wasn't tangled up in Joan's, she might have walked over there and hit her sister.
(Even though she knows that wouldn't be very good.)
She can feel more than just her hand shaking. "You should be ashamed, Lulu. Don't talk about me like that. And I know that y'all think that I'm stupid. But I'm not."
Her breath is damp and every one she takes is getting wetter, until she's crying, and her glasses are all fogged up, and she hates herself but she hates Lulu more, Lulu with her teeth clenched and her shoulders squared and her composure completely intact.
"Stephanie-"
"Shut up!" She can taste salt dripping onto her lips. "Don't ever talk to me like this again! And don't you dare ever, ever talk about Joan like that again, not ever! I thought Mama raised you better! I thought we were supposed to act like ladies! Ladies do not say things about their sister's fiancees!"
Lulu's mouth falls open.
"And I don't seem to recall Mama ever saying that it was okay to be rude to a person's face! Or to talk about them like they aren't in the room!"
"You shouldn't have brought her! I certainly did not invite her here--"
"You invited me, and she comes with me! To have someone I love be insulted by a no-good, classless w - meddler." She draws her shoulders up just as much as Lulu's. "I am not coming back, and I'm not sticking around here any longer!"
She pulls on Joan's hand. "Come on, Joan. Tina's waiting for us to help with the cake. We're going."
Lulu starts to say something, and Stephanie glares her mouth shut. She tosses her hair over her shoulder, takes a deep breath, and strides out of the room with just as much bravo and blast as she would've had if she'd been wearing heels. She spins Joan around a little after the doorway, too, so she can yank the handle and slam the door shut behind them.
It feels really, really good.
So does answering the hand on her cheek with a kiss hard enough to make their teeth click, Joan's shoulders slamming against the wall, Stephanie pushing and pushing until Joan is holding onto the chair rail and pressing her knee between Stephanie's legs and neither of them can breathe anymore so they break apart, Joan dropping her head back to thud on the wall.
"Okay," Joan whispers. "Um."
Stephanie takes a deep breath, Ivory soap and country fresh detergent and Joan. "I'm sorry she was such a bitch to you," she says.
"You were great," Joan says, her hands finding Stephanie's wrists. Her face is flushed. "Really great," she whispers.
Stephanie clears her throat and opens some space between them, enough for Joan to peel herself off the wall. "I'm not quite sure what came over me."
Joan grins, and keeps her hands looped around Stephanie's wrists as they step backwards towards the elevator. "Is Tina really waiting on us?"
"Yes, she is."
Joan licks her lips. "How long does it take to pick out a cake?"
Stephanie blushes.
---
"Too long."
Stephanie kicks her under the table, but it was totally worth it. Joan puts her elbows on the tablecloth and rests her chin in her hands, fluttering her eyelashes at her fiancee when Stephanie glares at her (and smirking when Stephanie's breath catches in her throat).
"Okay, so normally they don't do cake tastings nearly this early, but I asked nice and they know me here anyway so they gave me some leftover cinnamon and lemon and chocolate for you guys to try."
The lemon cake has white icing that clings to Stephanie's lip while she chews, and Joan quietly crosses her legs while she cuts the tiny square of chocolate cake in half. She just has it on her fork when Stephanie finishes swishing her water around her mouth and looks over at her.
"Ooh, I want to try that," she says, leaning over. Joan just holds the fork in place while Stephanie takes the bite of cake off the tines. She sits back up and tilts her head to one side, chewing, while Joan's hand hovers in the air. "I think maybe it's a little overwhelming for a wedding cake."
"You can get a real appointment later, with a design consultation and everything, but I thought you might want to check it out first."
"It's nice," Joan says, glancing around.
There are a lot of sample cakes set up, in the window and on stands all around the shop. There's also a glass display case where people are lining up to buy single slices and cupcakes. She feels like she's going to knock something over if she moves the wrong way.
"Do you want your cake to look like your dress?" Tina asks.
Stephanie stares down at her fork. "I, um. I haven't picked out my dress yet." She takes a breath and looks over at Joan. "It felt too fast, before."
Tina taps her own fork against her lips. "You should probably get on that. Alterations take a while."
Stephi sits back in her chair. "Do you want--" she starts.
"Tomorrow?" Joan murmurs. Stephanie smiles at her, broadly.
Tina makes them both jump when she starts laughing. "You too are too fucking cute for words."
---
The shop is set up so there are mirrors for each individual bride-to-be, and chairs for their guests to sit in and watch.
Joan is sitting on the edge of hers. She feels like any second, someone is going to walk up to her and tell her she's not supposed to be there, that it's bad luck, that it'll ruin the experience of seeing Stephanie walk down the aisle.
George is holding Stephanie's purse in his lap a little defensively. The person who sat them down earlier had looked at him when they'd come in and asked if he was planning on staying for the whole appointment. He keeps scooting closer to Joan whenever one of the workers walk by.
"They're not going to kick you out," Joan finally says, wriggling her chair over an inch. His knee keeps touching hers. George's shoulders hunch and he ducks his head a little. "They just thought you were the husband. I'm guessing not a lot of guys come with their girlfriends to pick out wedding dresses."
"They probably just think I'm the wedding planner," George scowls, gesturing to the purse in his lap.
"You kind of are, at this point," Deja drawls. She's sitting to his side, her own purse on the floor behind her feet. Tina (who apparently has an eye for these things) is off helping Stephanie pick things out.
George huffs. "If I was going to carry a purse, though, it'd be a lot bigger than this thing."
"What could you possibly have to put in there?" Joan asks.
"I don't know. Stuff."
Deja crosses her arms over her chest. "You bring a big bag with you, people ask you to carry all their shit. Why do you think I only own small purses?"
"I do not ask you to carry my stuff," George protests.
"You tried to get me to smuggle a hamburger into the movies last time we went," Deja snorts, and Joan rolls her eyes. All she ever asks Stephanie to carry when they go to the movies is a bag of candy from the drugstore.
George slumps in his chair. "I was really hungry."
"You should bring a purse with you next time."
"Maybe I will."
A slow smile rolls over Deja's face. "Good. You can borrow one of mine."
"I want the little red one," George says.
Joan sighs and leans back in her chair, balancing on two legs until Tina walks up and pokes the back of her head.
"Steph wants you to cover your eyes," she says, grinning. Since they last saw her she's got a new piercing, this one near the corner of her mouth. "She's tried on a couple, and she's got a few others hanging up, but she thinks she's going to like this best."
Joan obligingly places her hands over her eyes.
She can hear fabric rustling and then smell Stephanie's perfume, and from the way George shifts in his chair next to her she can tell that Stephanie is standing in front of her, in the middle of the mirrors.
Her palms feel damp against her skin.
Stephi takes a breath and asks, "So?"
"I like it," George says.
"It's very energetic," Deja muses. "I like the bottom. And it fits you well."
Joan squeezes her eyes shut tight, to block the little bit of light seeping in between her fingers. It wouldn't take much to part them and peek out, but the bad luck of seeing the dress early and everything that goes along with it is Stephi's decision, not hers. Even if she has to sit here through a dozen dresses with her hands pressed over her eyes.
"Are we supposed to not mention details so Joan can't hear?" George asks. "Because I think that, um. That thing is neat."
Tina makes a soft humming sound. "She'll have to get shoes to match."
"Joan?" Stephanie asks.
Everyone goes silent.
"Yeah, babe?"
Stephanie is quiet for a moment. Her voice is a little shaky, and it sounds like maybe she is tearing up a little. "Do you want to see?"
"Do you want me to?" Joan isn't sure if she's allowed to say yes.
She knows it's tradition not to see the gown before the big day, but if they were going strictly by tradition she wouldn't be the one with her hands over her eyes. She'd be in the back, trying on bridesmaid dresses.
"You two," Tina laughs.
"It'll be special if she doesn't," George says. "But if she does, it'll still be special."
Deja sighs. "You are not coming when I pick out my dress, George."
"I think I want to wait," Stephanie says. She sniffs, and Joan can just hear the corners of her mouth picking up. "But I'm glad you're here."
Joan smiles.
She sits through four more dresses with her hands over her eyes, and hears that George likes a lot of neat things but is godawful at making a critical assessment, while Deja prefers what Joan guesses are more modern gowns, and Tina keeps cackling at the looks Stephanie is apparently shooting her way.
When she can hear Stephanie coming out again, Joan reflexively raises her eyes to her face before anyone tells her to, even when Tina and George start laughing. She uncrosses her legs and is about to ask what's going on when Stephanie's lips brush hers.
She feels safe peeking through her fingers, then.
Stephanie is back in her jersey skirt and top, and grins when Joan drops her hands. "Thanks for letting me drag you along for nothing," she says, holding her hand out to help Joan up.
"Wasn't for nothing," Joan murmurs.
"See, this? This is why we didn't believe George when he first told us about you," Tina laughs.
---
Stephanie is first in line at the ice cream shop, and the first to sit down. She has a small bag from the wedding store that makes her heart speed up every time she looks at it.
The receipt for the dress is inside, and the card she has to take to the fitting once they make a couple of minor alterations. There's also a brochure from a hair salon that partners with the store, but Stephanie already knows how she wants to do her hair, and Deja says that she can help with the parts Stephanie needs more than two hands for.
The ice cream has whole strawberries in it, and Stephanie is glad that she has a metal spoon so she can cut them up a little. Even with the strawberries, though, it's creamy and smooth, and slides down the back of her throat.
Joan comes over with some chocolate monstrosity piled with what looks like peanut butter toffee. "Salt and sugar," she says, snagging the seat next to Stephanie. "Want a bite?"
"No thank you."
Tina brings over a chocolate-dipped frozen banana and sits with her arm tossed over the back of the chair next to her. "This is my favorite thing to get here. George is very well-trained not to make any comments about it."
"I wouldn't even know where to begin," George says. He looks at the empty chair next to Tina and decides to pull one up to the end of the table, spoon dangling from his mouth.
Joan leans over to look inside his cup and hmms around her own spoon. "Coconut?"
"Vanilla," he says.
Tina wrinkles her nose at him. "Freak."
"There is a reason," George says, "that vanilla is the original flavor."
"Fruit is the original flavor, actually," Deja corrects him. He scowls, and she sweeps down into the seat next to Tina, putting her cup down so she can drape her purse over her knee. "Which is why true connieseurs know strawberry is the best."
Stephanie smiles, a little. "Strawberry is my favorite."
"You should get strawberry frosting on your wedding cake," Deja says.
Inside the bag from the wedding shop is also a ring-shaped pad of paper, and on the bus ride back to the neighobrhood Stephanie wrote a few things down on her to-do list.
The wedding cake. The dinner, after the ceremony. Music to play - their first song, they still have to pick their first song. Shoes, to match the purple sash on her dress, which she's glad George thought was neat. A purple ribbon to put in her hair. The sparkly makeup she wants to wear because it's her wedding day and she can. The location. The bouquet. Joan's tux.
There's only going to be a handful of them, and she'll deliver most of them in person, but she still has to make up the invitations, too.
"Joan?" she murmurs.
"Hmm?"
"Are you going to cry when you see me in my dress?"
Joan smiles and draws her spoon out of her mouth. "Yeah."
"Oh." Stephanie lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding. They haven't found the place for the ceremony yet, so she can't picture where Joan's going to be standing, how she'll look when George walks her into the room. She can't picture Joan's tux, not quite, and she's just starting to get an image of Joan's face when she sees Stephanie in her dress. "Good. I was hoping you would ... I mean I don't want you to cry obviously, I just--"
Joan is grinning. "I know, Stephi."
She can see Joan's mom using up a whole box of tissues, and Larry standing with his hand on Joan's shoulder.
"I think I got more strawberries than you," Deja says. She scoops a couple up on her spoon and dumps them into Stephanie's cup.
Deja will wear heels, and still be taller than everyone else when she's sitting down.
Tina breaks the exposed part of the stick skewering her banana off and drops it on top of her napkin, wiping melted chocolate off her fingertips. Stephanie can see her sitting with Deja, in something strong, with clean lines, and lots of silver jewelry, and Markus and Jonah trying to sit so they can see past Deja's head.
Stephanie can't see the room, but she can see the people.
Author: politicette, themistoklis
Fandom: Fake News: The Daily Show, The Colbert Report
Characters/Pairings: cis!girls "Stephanie" Colbert/Joan Stewart (genderbended from "Stephen" Colbert, Jon Stewart), assorted "Colbert" family members, assorted original characters
Rating: R
Length: ~26,300 words
Warnings: TRIGGER WARNINGS for domestic violence, homophobia, alcohol use
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Notes: Thank you so much to paperscribe for betaing this piece for us. We started it so long ago we legitimately do not remember most of the first half, but apparently it's in okay shape.
Summary: Joan and "Stephanie" run away from home to get married, and it's going to be totally awesome.
Part One | Part Two
[MOM] "ur sister lulu is @ the airport. where r u?"
Stephanie is in one of Joan's oversized button-ups, which means it doesn't quite stretch down to her knees, and the sleeves stop short of her wrists. She has on shorts underneath, because they're not alone, and her hair is tied back from her face.
She has peach-colored paint smeared on the tip of her nose from where Joan swiped her with a paintbrush.
The phone is on the coffee table they got after Joan haggled for it at a thrift-store - it came for free with their new couch. While she's bent over it, it buzzes again, and her hand darts out to turn it off before anyone else notices it went off.
[MOM] "she's staying @ a marriott. go c her."
Stephanie takes a couple of paint-scented breaths and turns her phone off.
No one notices, and she wriggles her fingers, shaking some of the ache out. She doesn't have to think about this now. It's perfectly fine if she waits until that night - or the day before. Besides, they have company.
Yelping, George runs up behind her and grabs her shoulders. She nearly topples over when he spins her around to face the bathroom.
Company is more important, right then.
"Stephanie, your lovely girlfriend keeps flicking paint at me!"
"Stop calling me that!" Joan, apparently forgetting that she has a paintbrush in her hand, stomps out of the bathroom and puts both hands on her hips. "And I'm only flicking paint at him to get him to stop bugging me. He's supposed to be in the kitchen. There's no room for two people to paint in here."
Stephanie raises an eyebrow at George (she's done that a lot today).
"We have the same color green, though," he protests.
"Actually, hers is a shade lighter. Yours would be too overwhelming in that small space."
With a sigh, he bends down to rest his chin on her shoulder and she laughs, making Joan mutter something under her breath. "I'm only checking on her. The fumes in there are really strong!"
Joan sticks out her paintbrush and waggles it at him. "Go finish the kitchen so it can dry and Stephi can add the accents."
Shuffling sideways, George bends at the waist. "Yes ma'am."
He shouts when Joan takes a step towards him and darts back to the kitchen, missing Joan's grin when his back is to her. Stephanie wishes she had caught that on camera, because she knows George wouldn't believe her if she told him.
The cell phone tucked under a newspaper, Stephanie ducks her head into the bathroom. Joan just holds herself back from flicking paint in her face. "Uh. Sorry. Thought you were George."
"I'm gonna go ask him," she says.
"He'll say yes."
Stephanie smiles. "Then you two can go tux shopping together," she says, and laughs at the way Joan's mouth falls open.
When she comes into the kitchen, George is kneeling in a chair, leaning over the counter so he can get one of the last bare spots. The green paint can doesn't have much left inside it, and even though it looks a little different on the walls than it had on the paint chip, she still likes it. It'll look better once she gets a chance to paint in all the yellow (to match the living room) accents and back splash details.
"Thanks for helping us," she says.
George smiles at her over his shoulder and nods, and she's surprised by how her hands shake when she goes over to the fridge to tug the door open. There's no food in there, yet, just a pitcher of lemonade they got at the store earlier. Joan doesn't want her cooking in the kitchen until the majority of the paint has had the chance to dry.
"So, um," she murmurs, pouring George a drink, "I was wondering if I could ask you for a favor. Or. Well. Sort of a favor. If you look at it that way."
He carefully sets his paint brush down and turns to face her. The expression on his face is pretty unreadable. "Go ahead."
She picks up a clean brush, one of the small ones she'll use for the back splash, and twirls it back and forth. The bristles feel nice against her palm.
"I was wondering," she says, staring at the drops of yellow paint on her shirt, "if you."
"Steph?"
"Would you like to come to our wedding?"
His face lights up, and he hops off his chair. "Of course!" He walks over and pulls her into a hug, and her hands start feeling better. "I was starting to worry you weren't going to ask, actually."
Stephanie laughs. "No, no! I was just going to ask if you would mind walking me down the aisle."
George leans back and stares at her, and her hands shake just a little.
"It's just," she says, and thinks there's nothing wrong about this, sometimes these things just happen, "I don't think that I'll have someone else to do it, and you've been so nice to us, and Joan really doesn't hate you--"
"I'd be honored, Stephanie," George says, and when Stephanie breathes in she can't smell the paint at all.
---
Waking up in their apartment is new, and brilliant, and Stephanie holds onto Joan and doesn't move out from underneath the covers until she's too hungry to stay in the bedroom any longer. Then she makes pancakes and convinces Joan to crawl back into bed to eat them, even though they get crumbs all over their pillows.
"Do you remember playing house, when we were kids?" Stephanie murmurs, swirling a bite of pancake around in her syrup.
Joan swallows. "I remember having to save the house from alien invaders."
"I put flowers in the pie," Stephanie says. "They were allergic to flowers."
"I think I ate one of the flowers once."
Stephanie looks around the bedroom. A shirt hung over the corner of the closet door, most of Joan's clothes still in boxes in the corner.
"We stole the blue from every crayon box once to color the back wall of the tree house."
Joan hums around her fork. "I remember that."
Stretching her legs out, Stephanie half-twists to rest on her side without spilling all the pancakes off of her plate. "What do you want to do today?"
"Uh," Joan says. The corner of her mouth twitches. "Nothing?"
"I like that plan."
Joan finds a comfortable spot to read the books she did bring with her, and Stephanie takes out some stationary to write a thank-you letter to Mrs. L for helping them pay for the hotel. She keeps stopping to stare at her penmanship. She thinks she may have to work on her signature before she writes out the wedding invitations.
George shows up at lunch, when Stephanie is just cutting into Markus's chocolate pie. He's got a bag slung over his shoulder and a math book dangling from one hand, and the pen he was using to make notes on the bus is tucked behind his ear.
Looking at the pie, he nearly starts drooling. "Would you like a slice?" Stephanie asks, picking up an extra paper plate for him.
They have really got to buy some actual utensils and dinnerware.
"Just a small one," George says, sidling up to the kitchen table next to Joan. She pops her fork into her mouth and looks at him from the corner of her eye. He puts his book on the table and rests his elbow on it. "No class this afternoon - just a review session for stuff I don't need to review - so I thought I would come by and maybe we could go out tonight. You know, with everyone."
Stephanie tries not to make licking her fork too obvious. She has to get this recipe. "Go out?"
George grins. "If I'm in the wedding party, I've got to throw you two a bachelorette party."
---
"I can't believe you talked me into this," Joan grumbles, dragging her clothes to the bedroom door.
Stephanie looks up from her compact. "It'll be fun. George promised not to go too overboard."
"I don't think George and you operate on the same definition of overboard," Joan whines.
Her girlfriend raises an eyebrow at her. "It'll be fun," she repeats. "Go get dressed."
While the last of the paint in the bedroom (blue, which Stephanie thought would be relaxing after getting out of a yellow living room) dries, Joan gets dressed. Stephanie has unpacked most of her clothes, but since nothing besides Joan's two dress shirts and her jacket needs to be hung up in the closet, she hasn't bothered. Once they find a dresser, she can stop living out of her duffel bag.
She thinks it'll probably be nice. And she does like the sight of her jacket hanging up next to Stephanie's. Even if they're both going to be completely inadequate come winter. (Joan sort of remembers snow from New Jersey. She's seen photos, anyway. Winter in Boston is not one of the new experiences she's looking forward to.)
"Hey, Joan?"
"Yeah?" She's trying to decide whether to wear a belt. Stephanie told her to wear the blue dress shirt, to bring out her eyes.
"My mom sent me a text saying Lulu's in Boston."
Joan walks out of the bathroom with her slacks clasped in her hand.
Standing in the doorway to the bedroom - and, damn, they've got to leave the windows open while they go eat - she knows she must look ridiculous, but Stephanie is staring at her cell, anyway. She's got on jeans and a blouse but must be planning on wearing sandals, because even though Stephi has got her feet tucked under her, Joan can see bare toes.
"What does that mean?" she asks, when she realizes she doesn't know.
Stephanie strokes her thumb over the screen of her phone. "I don't think she's here to help me pick out dresses," she finally says, giving Joan a tiny smile.
The knots are back in her throat. "Does she know where we are?"
"No, no." Stephanie turns her phone over a few times. "Lulu hasn't even sent me a message yet. Just that one from Mom." She looks up, eyes shiny behind her glasses, and swallows. "If I go see her, will you come with me?"
The fumes are really what's making her a little dizzy, she knows that. "Sure. Yeah. Of course."
"Okay. I'm ready to go, by the way. George said to just buzz the apartment when we get down to his building." She puts the phone down and swings her legs over the side of the bed. "Bring your cell? I'm going to leave mine here."
Joan just nods.
Stephanie keeps smiling at her, then frowns a bit, and Joan has to hang onto the door frame.
"Um," she says. "You should probably put those on."
Joan blushes and hops into her slacks on her way back to the bathroom.
---
Joan's thighs are filled with far-away pinpricks, her legs falling asleep underneath her the longer Stephanie spends sprawled across her lap, hip pressed against Joan's side and heels resting in the now-empty chair next to them.
Drunk-clumsy, Stephanie's fingers are dancing over Joan's tie, which she keeps reminding herself is technically Jonah's, since he was the one who loaned it to her, and he probably doesn't want liquor stains all over it. Maybe that's why Stephanie is fiddling with it, her fingers slipping over the knot. Maybe she's worried about Joan spilling her drink all over it, but Joan finished her last drink a couple of minutes ago and since it hasn't been refilled, she thinks that maybe the waitress has cut their table off.
Stephanie frees the tie and promptly drapes it around her own shoulders, before going back to undo the top two buttons of Joan's shirt so she can press her thumb into Joan's skin.
Gulping, Joan curls her hands around Stephanie to hold herself in place.
"Joan," Stephanie says, pressing her palms flat against Joan's chest. Her eyes are very wide, and very dark behind the hair that's fallen into her face.
"Yeah?" Joan asks, and then, "Yeah?" loud enough to be heard over the band.
Stephanie's eyelashes flutter against her cheeks, and she raises her hands to cup them over the sides of Joan's face. "Hold still," she orders.
"Okay," Joan says.
She holds still.
Stephanie stares at her for so long that Joan starts to think she's forgotten what she asked Joan to hold still for, but as soon as she opens her mouth to say so, Stephanie darts forward and and fits their lips together, presses her tongue inside Joan's mouth.
George whoops. "Get 'er, Steph!"
Joan raises her middle finger without opening her eyes. Stephanie tastes like bubbles, like fruit and champagne and fizz, and Joan's legs aren't falling asleep anymore. It feels like some of Stephanie's bubbles are inside Joan's brain.
Stephanie's hands curl over Joan's head, fingers pulling gently against her hair. Shivers go all the way down to Joan's feet. "Are you having fun?" Stephanie asks.
"Yeah," Joan whispers.
She doesn't think her voice makes it over the music, but Stephi nods, satisfied, and turns to look out at the dance floor. If George had been around a moment ago, he wasn't anymore.
Stephanie clears her throat and pulls on the collar of her dress, pushes her hair back. "We should go back to the party. I overheard Jonah saying something to Deja about a cake."
"Cake?" Joan blinks, letting Stephanie curl her hand around her wrist. She just ducks to avoid dancers while she's pulled across the floor, colored lights and bass flooding over her. "There's cake?"
"There might be," Stephanie says, tugging on her hand. She rocks onto her toes and waves, nearly clipping a guy in the head, when she spots everyone gathered at a table.
George jumps up from his seat, scrambles over Markus's legs, and bursts through a gaggle of (other) people who look like they're too young to be here to grab them both by the hand.
"You guys have got to see this cake," he enthuses, pulling them towards the table. "The dudes even put flowers on it!"
He rushes them right into the table, making Markus and Tina reach out to keep drinks from falling over. Which Joan guesses is a good thing, because the cake takes up most of the tabletop. Joan has to blink and squint in the weird lighting, but she can definitely see flowers, and Stephanie leans over to coo at it up close.
On the top tier, it says WELCOME TO BOSTON and, underneath that, HAPPY ENGAGEMENT.
"We couldn't pick," Tina says. "And the coin went under a chair."
"It's fondant-free," George gushes. "That's all icing."
"They don't care, my darling child," Deja scoffs, patting George on the hand to signify no harm done. "Now let's let them cut into it. I want to eat."
The knife is so big that Joan thinks they must have swiped it from the kitchen, and Stephanie makes her hold it first, so she can curl her fingers around Joan's and shift them to the right position.
Deja applauds when the first slice is dropped onto a plate. "It's a good thing you guys are around, giving us an excuse to throw a party," she says, scooting over so George can slide into the chair next to her. She's been drinking wine all night, and Joan wonders how that's going to taste with chocolate cake.
Throwing her arm over the back of Deja's chair, Tina nods. "Yeah, we were having to throw them for like, lobster day and shit. It was getting pretty sad."
"I think lobsters are cute," Deja protests, poking Tina with her fork. Tina snorts and kisses her cheek, which Deja ignores. "Markus does too. Don't you, Markus?"
"Lobsters are very nice animals. If I had room for an aquarium I would get one as a pet," Markus says. He pauses and taps his spoon against his mouth. "We are still having a birthday party for Frodo, yes?"
"I think Frodo and your lobster would be friends," Deja muses, closing her purple-tinted lips around her fork.
"Lobster buddies," Markus smiles, reaching out for Deja's hand. They twist their fingers together in one of the most intricate secret handshakes Joan has ever seen.
Deja swallows. "So sad for Tina that she can't appreciate them."
"Not true," Tina says. "They're delicious with butter."
Guilty, Joan tries to stifle her wild giggles.
Stephanie rests her head against Joan's shoulder. "That's kind of mean," she snickers.
"I am glad Tina does not think lizards are delicious," Markus says into his cake. He eats the icing flower on his piece just as George is asking to get a better look at it.
Two AM sees last call and all of them stumbling out of the bar together, Jonah and Markus with their arms around George to keep him upright (he fell asleep on his cake half an hour ago, and still has red icing smeared at the corner of his mouth, which Joan will never admit is kind of sweet). Tina has been giggling into Deja's arm for five whole minutes now.
Stephanie is doing her best to walk with her chin held up and her shoulders braced. Joan sidles up to her when the sidewalk clears and wraps an arm around her waist. Stephanie melts to fit against Joan's side, her heels tilting over pockmarks in the sidewalk.
"You've got icing on your lips," Stephanie says.
The corner of Joan's mouth turns up. "I think that's your lipstick."
"Oh." Stephanie blinks. "Let me get it for you anyway."
Two taxis are pulling up as Deja waves.
"How 'bout when we're back at the apartment?" Joan asks, settling her hand on the small of Stephi's back.
"I think that might work... backwards," Stephanie mumbles, pressing her face against Joan's.
Joan raises a hand to cup against the side of Stephi's face, breathes in her perfume and the alcohol on her breath.
"Come on, guys!" Tina wheedles. "You can do this later, I want to go home!"
But Joan ignores her. She's pretty sure that as sweet as Stephanie is talking right now, as soon as they get home, she's going to kick off her shoes and end up curled around her, insisting she'll stay awake until Joan is asleep, all her words eaten up by yawns.
But Stephi's tongue darts into Joan's mouth, and Joan thinks that maybe neither of them are all that tired, underage drinking or no.
Which is even better.
---
Stephanie waits until that night before sending Lulu a text. She curls up on the corner of their new couch to do it, and waits for a moment with her thumbs on the keyboard, listening to Joan hum while she cooks macaroni and cheese in the kitchen. They made a budget for groceries, and they went into the thrift-store so many times that the owner finally told Joan they had an opening, so they've got one income now.
They're holding off on getting cable or a TV until Stephanie has something, too. Being careful about saving means they have to keep being careful.
She wonders whether her parents are going to cancel her phone before the contract is up, and how she's going to transfer the number to a new account. Joan thinks she should just get a new number altogether.
[me] "hi"
It isn't much of a message. She thought about it for three hours.
[LULU] "steph <3 where r u?"
Stephanie inhales. "Joan?"
"Yeah, babe?" It sounds like she's draining the pasta.
"Your hours are nine to one tomorrow, right?"
"Uh-huh. ... You on with Lulu?"
"Yeah."
There's a rattle in the sink, and a second later Joan comes out, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She sits down next to Stephanie and winds both her arms around Stephanie's shoulders, kissing her jaw while she types out the next message.
[me] "where r u?"
[LULU] "a hotel. come c me"
[me] "tomorrow. 2?"
[LULU] "tonight, now"
Stephanie presses up against Joan's chest. Joan rubs her hands up and down Stephanie's arms, tells her that they can check their e-mail after this, see what Joan's mom thinks about the photos of the apartment they sent using George's internet.
[me] "tomorrow. 2. hotel address?"
Lulu sends the address without comment. Stephanie is one-hundred percent certain that Lulu doesn't think she's going to bring Joan with her.
"She must not have a plane ticket home yet," Stephanie murmurs, setting her phone down on the couch. Joan brushes her hair back from her face, kisses her temple. "She's leaving her job to be here. I wonder how she got time off. I hope she's not using her sick days."
"She probably came because she was most able to, Stephi," Joan says. She gives her a tight squeeze and Stephanie nods, turning the phone face down. "Let's go eat?"
Joan pulls her up by her hands, and her phone falls between the couch cushions.
---
The hotel is a skyscraper.
There are escalators in the lobby, and chandeliers, and empty chairs everywhere. Stephanie prefers to stand, her hand wrapped tight around Joan's, her feet firmly planted on the ground in slip-on flats.
She wants to rub at her eyes underneath her glasses, but that means letting go of her phone, and she's just sent the text telling Lulu they're there a second ago. "Am I hurting your hand?"
"No," Joan says.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, babe," Joan says, kissing her cheek.
Good. No matter what, she's not going to let go of Joan.
The phone buzzes in her hand and she looks down at it to see that Lulu's coming to the lobby to meet them. To meet her. Her stomach has been twisting all day, and her hands shaking, and she drops the phone into her purse now. Lulu thinks she's going to be alone, going to be by herself.
It's not lying when you don't actually say anything.
Lulu may not be here to bring her home. She hasn't said anything, either. Stephanie squeezes Joan's hand and watches the elevators, wondering if Joan is going to have to pull her forward when the doors open. Her shoes are kind of catching on the carpet.
She steps out of the elevator and looks around the lobby, squinting. She's not wearing her glasses, and Stephanie digs her heels into the carpet. She doesn't think she's been gone from South Carolina long enough to have missed her sister getting contacts, and she hopes that Lulu just left them in the hotel room. Stephanie likes her glasses.
They wait until Lulu spots them to step forward, and step forward, and step forward. Lulu waits by the elevators and doesn't move. She has her hands folded in front of her, and purses her lips when they're a few feet away.
"Steph," she says. She's still squinting. No contacts, then. "How are you?"
"Good," Stephanie says, stopping. Talking or walking, she can do either right then. It's inefficient to try to do both, anyway. "I'm good. Really good. How are you?"
"I'm fine." Lulu looks at Joan, and back at her. "Do you want to come talk?"
"Yes. I thought, you know, your room. Private." The corner of her mouth jerks up and falls back down. "No need to air our laundry to everyone."
"Privacy," Lulu agrees.
She's squinting at Joan, now.
"Joan is coming with me," Stephanie whispers. She looks around the lobby, but everyone there seems to have things to do, and no one is hanging around. No one holds the doors to the elevators open for them, either.
Stephanie is probably hurting Joan's hand, a little.
Mouth pressed into a fine line, Lulu looks back and forth between them. She finally turns around and hits the call button for the elevator without saying anything, and as soon as she's not looking Stephanie leans against Joan's side.
The elevator ride up to the fourth floor is mercifully short and painfully quiet.
Stephanie walks down the hallway behind her sister and tries to guess what the room looks like. It's a Marriott, so it must be nice, and the building itself is nice - the place that she and Joan had stayed was a lot smaller, but it was cozier, and she thinks that no matter how big Lulu's bed is or how many stations the television gets, theirs was better.
Lulu lets the door drift shut behind them, and mostly what Stephanie notices about the room are the two chairs facing each other by the window. There's a third one, but it's up against the wall, and she tugs Joan over so she can drag it next to one of the ones Lulu laid out.
She manages to sit down, too, without letting go of Joan's hand.
"Would you like something to drink?" Lulu asks, hovering at the corner of the (yes, very large) bed.
Joan starts to shake her head, but Stephanie nods. "Did they give you tea packets?"
"And hot chocolate," Lulu says. She smiles just a little and walks over to the desk behind their chairs, and Stephanie twists around to watch her fill up the boiler from the faucet in the bathroom. She comes back out to plug it in, and leans against the desk while the water starts to heat up. "But it's not very good," she says. Her nose wrinkles. "Fake marshmallows."
"We were at a hotel for a couple of days," Stephanie says. "They had coffee and tea, but no hot chocolate."
"Do you remember how the twelve packs of hot chocolate always left us short?" Lulu asks. She's got her arms crossed over her chest, and she's watching the steam coming out of the boiler like it's enrapturing. "And we would always share a cup?"
"Yeah."
Lulu pours water into three of the four coffee cups on the tray and lowers in tea bags. She doesn't look up from them when she asks, "Are you planning on being home to do that this Christmas, Steph?"
"Home?"
Lulu carefully hands her a cup, then puts another in front of her, and waits for a moment before Stephanie realizes what she's doing and passes the first one over to Joan. Joan has her jaw locked, and sets her cup on her knee without tasting the tea. Stephanie tries it while Lulu sits down in the chair opposite, it's got some kind of fruity taste that she really doesn't think she likes. If you're going to bother drinking tea, it ought to have the decency to taste like tea.
"Home, Stephanie," Lulu murmurs. She sips at her tea and lowers it to her leg, taking a few deep breaths before looking up again. "You're eighteen, you're too young to be moving away from home and, and..."
"I was already going to school here in the fall. How is this different?"
Lulu tightens her hand around her cup. "You're too young to be getting married, Stephanie."
"Mama got married when she was twenty." This isn't quite the direction she expected the conversation to take, but she looks at Joan and guesses that isn't a direction Lulu expected, either. For her part Joan is looking very calm.
Shaking her head, Lulu sips her tea. "This is different."
"How?"
"Steph-"
"This isn't different. I know - I know what my heart is telling me," Stephanie says.
If she had a free hand, she would be pressing her fist to her chest. Joan rubs her thumb over the back of Stephanie's hand, and Stephanie catches her sister's eye. She looks younger when she's not squinting. Quieter.
"I'm getting married, Lulu. I want--" She wets her lips, and Lulu tilts her head to one side. "I want you to come to the wedding. I want you to be there."
Lulu stands up and walks her cup over to the dresser, where she slides her glasses back onto her face. "Mama really wants you to come back," she says. "She thought you just left for the night because you were - because you were mad, or scared. And then you didn't come back."
"I - I took all my things with me. I," she swallows, "I moved out."
"She wants you to come back."
"Does Daddy?"
Lulu turns back to face them. "I haven't - I haven't talked to him. Mama was the one who told me what was going on. She told me I needed to come up here and talk to you."
Her hand is shaking enough that she twists to place the cup behind her, on the desk. It doesn't help straighten out her fingers when she tries to brush her hair back from her face, so she presses her palm against her leg and hopes that it'll be fine enough to use the elevator buttons when they have to leave.
"I don't think that Daddy wants me to come back," she says, very softly.
"He's your father, Stephanie, he--"
"Lulu. I'm marrying Joan." And she is. They're going to have a wedding, even if it isn't in the country, and they have an apartment with the paint colors she's wanted for years. "I'm marrying Joan."
Fists clenched at her sides, Lulu shuffles her weight and tries not to stare at Joan past Stephanie's shoulder. "You should come home," she says. "You should be with us. I know we aren't all at the house anymore - but Steph, you're just a baby, you're too young--"
"I am not 'too young," she snaps, standing up. Joan stands up with her, and Stephanie tilts her chin up. Joan's hand is cold. "I'm an adult! You may be my big sister, but you can't tell me what I want!"
Lulu's face flushes. "What you want and what you need are two very different things. And you don't know what you need. I am your big sister, I'm older than you - I know better than you! You don't need this, Stephanie," Lulu says, waving her hand at Joan, and Stephanie feels herself bristling. "You need to be back home. With your family."
"Family treats each other with, with kindness and decency and love. They say, 'Isn't that wonderful!' when you tell them you're getting married," Stephanie hisses, "not, not, 'You're too young.' That's not what family does."
"Family helps each other when they do wrong," Lulu says. Joan goes stiff.
"Don't you tell me what family does and doesn't do, Lulu," Stephanie says. "Since you clearly don't know."
Lulu inhales. "Stephanie, I know better than that. I know better than you do - you're doing wrong here, with, with her." And she actually points at Joan, before letting her hand fall to her side. "It's not right. You shouldn't be with her, not like this. You had to leave home because at home they know that good people don't do this. It's disgusting!"
At school, the cheerleaders had spilled drinks on Joan sometimes. Tripped her in the hallway, talked about her behind her back. Stephanie's teeth start to grind just thinking about it - just feeling the way Joan is pressing against her back, now, the way she used to hide behind her when certain people walked down the hall, and Stephanie knows she promised she would never let any of those girls say those things to Joan's face.
"We're in love and we're getting married," Stephanie says. She feels hot, all over, like she might need to start leaning on the chair. But Joan is right behind her and hardly breathing and she's not going to stop here. "That is what good people do. Good people don't spit in other people's faces."
"This is all her fault. She's corrupting you!" Lulu snaps. "Stephanie, if you come with me, we can fix this. You're young and you're confused and you don't know what you're doing, but if you come home we can still save you."
If Stephanie's hand wasn't tangled up in Joan's, she might have walked over there and hit her sister.
(Even though she knows that wouldn't be very good.)
She can feel more than just her hand shaking. "You should be ashamed, Lulu. Don't talk about me like that. And I know that y'all think that I'm stupid. But I'm not."
Her breath is damp and every one she takes is getting wetter, until she's crying, and her glasses are all fogged up, and she hates herself but she hates Lulu more, Lulu with her teeth clenched and her shoulders squared and her composure completely intact.
"Stephanie-"
"Shut up!" She can taste salt dripping onto her lips. "Don't ever talk to me like this again! And don't you dare ever, ever talk about Joan like that again, not ever! I thought Mama raised you better! I thought we were supposed to act like ladies! Ladies do not say things about their sister's fiancees!"
Lulu's mouth falls open.
"And I don't seem to recall Mama ever saying that it was okay to be rude to a person's face! Or to talk about them like they aren't in the room!"
"You shouldn't have brought her! I certainly did not invite her here--"
"You invited me, and she comes with me! To have someone I love be insulted by a no-good, classless w - meddler." She draws her shoulders up just as much as Lulu's. "I am not coming back, and I'm not sticking around here any longer!"
She pulls on Joan's hand. "Come on, Joan. Tina's waiting for us to help with the cake. We're going."
Lulu starts to say something, and Stephanie glares her mouth shut. She tosses her hair over her shoulder, takes a deep breath, and strides out of the room with just as much bravo and blast as she would've had if she'd been wearing heels. She spins Joan around a little after the doorway, too, so she can yank the handle and slam the door shut behind them.
It feels really, really good.
So does answering the hand on her cheek with a kiss hard enough to make their teeth click, Joan's shoulders slamming against the wall, Stephanie pushing and pushing until Joan is holding onto the chair rail and pressing her knee between Stephanie's legs and neither of them can breathe anymore so they break apart, Joan dropping her head back to thud on the wall.
"Okay," Joan whispers. "Um."
Stephanie takes a deep breath, Ivory soap and country fresh detergent and Joan. "I'm sorry she was such a bitch to you," she says.
"You were great," Joan says, her hands finding Stephanie's wrists. Her face is flushed. "Really great," she whispers.
Stephanie clears her throat and opens some space between them, enough for Joan to peel herself off the wall. "I'm not quite sure what came over me."
Joan grins, and keeps her hands looped around Stephanie's wrists as they step backwards towards the elevator. "Is Tina really waiting on us?"
"Yes, she is."
Joan licks her lips. "How long does it take to pick out a cake?"
Stephanie blushes.
---
"Too long."
Stephanie kicks her under the table, but it was totally worth it. Joan puts her elbows on the tablecloth and rests her chin in her hands, fluttering her eyelashes at her fiancee when Stephanie glares at her (and smirking when Stephanie's breath catches in her throat).
"Okay, so normally they don't do cake tastings nearly this early, but I asked nice and they know me here anyway so they gave me some leftover cinnamon and lemon and chocolate for you guys to try."
The lemon cake has white icing that clings to Stephanie's lip while she chews, and Joan quietly crosses her legs while she cuts the tiny square of chocolate cake in half. She just has it on her fork when Stephanie finishes swishing her water around her mouth and looks over at her.
"Ooh, I want to try that," she says, leaning over. Joan just holds the fork in place while Stephanie takes the bite of cake off the tines. She sits back up and tilts her head to one side, chewing, while Joan's hand hovers in the air. "I think maybe it's a little overwhelming for a wedding cake."
"You can get a real appointment later, with a design consultation and everything, but I thought you might want to check it out first."
"It's nice," Joan says, glancing around.
There are a lot of sample cakes set up, in the window and on stands all around the shop. There's also a glass display case where people are lining up to buy single slices and cupcakes. She feels like she's going to knock something over if she moves the wrong way.
"Do you want your cake to look like your dress?" Tina asks.
Stephanie stares down at her fork. "I, um. I haven't picked out my dress yet." She takes a breath and looks over at Joan. "It felt too fast, before."
Tina taps her own fork against her lips. "You should probably get on that. Alterations take a while."
Stephi sits back in her chair. "Do you want--" she starts.
"Tomorrow?" Joan murmurs. Stephanie smiles at her, broadly.
Tina makes them both jump when she starts laughing. "You too are too fucking cute for words."
---
The shop is set up so there are mirrors for each individual bride-to-be, and chairs for their guests to sit in and watch.
Joan is sitting on the edge of hers. She feels like any second, someone is going to walk up to her and tell her she's not supposed to be there, that it's bad luck, that it'll ruin the experience of seeing Stephanie walk down the aisle.
George is holding Stephanie's purse in his lap a little defensively. The person who sat them down earlier had looked at him when they'd come in and asked if he was planning on staying for the whole appointment. He keeps scooting closer to Joan whenever one of the workers walk by.
"They're not going to kick you out," Joan finally says, wriggling her chair over an inch. His knee keeps touching hers. George's shoulders hunch and he ducks his head a little. "They just thought you were the husband. I'm guessing not a lot of guys come with their girlfriends to pick out wedding dresses."
"They probably just think I'm the wedding planner," George scowls, gesturing to the purse in his lap.
"You kind of are, at this point," Deja drawls. She's sitting to his side, her own purse on the floor behind her feet. Tina (who apparently has an eye for these things) is off helping Stephanie pick things out.
George huffs. "If I was going to carry a purse, though, it'd be a lot bigger than this thing."
"What could you possibly have to put in there?" Joan asks.
"I don't know. Stuff."
Deja crosses her arms over her chest. "You bring a big bag with you, people ask you to carry all their shit. Why do you think I only own small purses?"
"I do not ask you to carry my stuff," George protests.
"You tried to get me to smuggle a hamburger into the movies last time we went," Deja snorts, and Joan rolls her eyes. All she ever asks Stephanie to carry when they go to the movies is a bag of candy from the drugstore.
George slumps in his chair. "I was really hungry."
"You should bring a purse with you next time."
"Maybe I will."
A slow smile rolls over Deja's face. "Good. You can borrow one of mine."
"I want the little red one," George says.
Joan sighs and leans back in her chair, balancing on two legs until Tina walks up and pokes the back of her head.
"Steph wants you to cover your eyes," she says, grinning. Since they last saw her she's got a new piercing, this one near the corner of her mouth. "She's tried on a couple, and she's got a few others hanging up, but she thinks she's going to like this best."
Joan obligingly places her hands over her eyes.
She can hear fabric rustling and then smell Stephanie's perfume, and from the way George shifts in his chair next to her she can tell that Stephanie is standing in front of her, in the middle of the mirrors.
Her palms feel damp against her skin.
Stephi takes a breath and asks, "So?"
"I like it," George says.
"It's very energetic," Deja muses. "I like the bottom. And it fits you well."
Joan squeezes her eyes shut tight, to block the little bit of light seeping in between her fingers. It wouldn't take much to part them and peek out, but the bad luck of seeing the dress early and everything that goes along with it is Stephi's decision, not hers. Even if she has to sit here through a dozen dresses with her hands pressed over her eyes.
"Are we supposed to not mention details so Joan can't hear?" George asks. "Because I think that, um. That thing is neat."
Tina makes a soft humming sound. "She'll have to get shoes to match."
"Joan?" Stephanie asks.
Everyone goes silent.
"Yeah, babe?"
Stephanie is quiet for a moment. Her voice is a little shaky, and it sounds like maybe she is tearing up a little. "Do you want to see?"
"Do you want me to?" Joan isn't sure if she's allowed to say yes.
She knows it's tradition not to see the gown before the big day, but if they were going strictly by tradition she wouldn't be the one with her hands over her eyes. She'd be in the back, trying on bridesmaid dresses.
"You two," Tina laughs.
"It'll be special if she doesn't," George says. "But if she does, it'll still be special."
Deja sighs. "You are not coming when I pick out my dress, George."
"I think I want to wait," Stephanie says. She sniffs, and Joan can just hear the corners of her mouth picking up. "But I'm glad you're here."
Joan smiles.
She sits through four more dresses with her hands over her eyes, and hears that George likes a lot of neat things but is godawful at making a critical assessment, while Deja prefers what Joan guesses are more modern gowns, and Tina keeps cackling at the looks Stephanie is apparently shooting her way.
When she can hear Stephanie coming out again, Joan reflexively raises her eyes to her face before anyone tells her to, even when Tina and George start laughing. She uncrosses her legs and is about to ask what's going on when Stephanie's lips brush hers.
She feels safe peeking through her fingers, then.
Stephanie is back in her jersey skirt and top, and grins when Joan drops her hands. "Thanks for letting me drag you along for nothing," she says, holding her hand out to help Joan up.
"Wasn't for nothing," Joan murmurs.
"See, this? This is why we didn't believe George when he first told us about you," Tina laughs.
---
Stephanie is first in line at the ice cream shop, and the first to sit down. She has a small bag from the wedding store that makes her heart speed up every time she looks at it.
The receipt for the dress is inside, and the card she has to take to the fitting once they make a couple of minor alterations. There's also a brochure from a hair salon that partners with the store, but Stephanie already knows how she wants to do her hair, and Deja says that she can help with the parts Stephanie needs more than two hands for.
The ice cream has whole strawberries in it, and Stephanie is glad that she has a metal spoon so she can cut them up a little. Even with the strawberries, though, it's creamy and smooth, and slides down the back of her throat.
Joan comes over with some chocolate monstrosity piled with what looks like peanut butter toffee. "Salt and sugar," she says, snagging the seat next to Stephanie. "Want a bite?"
"No thank you."
Tina brings over a chocolate-dipped frozen banana and sits with her arm tossed over the back of the chair next to her. "This is my favorite thing to get here. George is very well-trained not to make any comments about it."
"I wouldn't even know where to begin," George says. He looks at the empty chair next to Tina and decides to pull one up to the end of the table, spoon dangling from his mouth.
Joan leans over to look inside his cup and hmms around her own spoon. "Coconut?"
"Vanilla," he says.
Tina wrinkles her nose at him. "Freak."
"There is a reason," George says, "that vanilla is the original flavor."
"Fruit is the original flavor, actually," Deja corrects him. He scowls, and she sweeps down into the seat next to Tina, putting her cup down so she can drape her purse over her knee. "Which is why true connieseurs know strawberry is the best."
Stephanie smiles, a little. "Strawberry is my favorite."
"You should get strawberry frosting on your wedding cake," Deja says.
Inside the bag from the wedding shop is also a ring-shaped pad of paper, and on the bus ride back to the neighobrhood Stephanie wrote a few things down on her to-do list.
The wedding cake. The dinner, after the ceremony. Music to play - their first song, they still have to pick their first song. Shoes, to match the purple sash on her dress, which she's glad George thought was neat. A purple ribbon to put in her hair. The sparkly makeup she wants to wear because it's her wedding day and she can. The location. The bouquet. Joan's tux.
There's only going to be a handful of them, and she'll deliver most of them in person, but she still has to make up the invitations, too.
"Joan?" she murmurs.
"Hmm?"
"Are you going to cry when you see me in my dress?"
Joan smiles and draws her spoon out of her mouth. "Yeah."
"Oh." Stephanie lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding. They haven't found the place for the ceremony yet, so she can't picture where Joan's going to be standing, how she'll look when George walks her into the room. She can't picture Joan's tux, not quite, and she's just starting to get an image of Joan's face when she sees Stephanie in her dress. "Good. I was hoping you would ... I mean I don't want you to cry obviously, I just--"
Joan is grinning. "I know, Stephi."
She can see Joan's mom using up a whole box of tissues, and Larry standing with his hand on Joan's shoulder.
"I think I got more strawberries than you," Deja says. She scoops a couple up on her spoon and dumps them into Stephanie's cup.
Deja will wear heels, and still be taller than everyone else when she's sitting down.
Tina breaks the exposed part of the stick skewering her banana off and drops it on top of her napkin, wiping melted chocolate off her fingertips. Stephanie can see her sitting with Deja, in something strong, with clean lines, and lots of silver jewelry, and Markus and Jonah trying to sit so they can see past Deja's head.
Stephanie can't see the room, but she can see the people.