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Our RV wasa veritable junkyard after one wild week. It wasn’t like sharing one with El. It wasn’t so much Maeve that messed it all up but rather she was friends with these wild, untidy women of our tribe. It turned out my Mom and Dixie had a penchant for changing clothes a million times a day, too.There were feathers, boas, and sequins as far as the eye could see.
There wasn’t anywhere to store clothes, so that might have been the problem. Maeve had taped up the only closet. Sealed inside was her wedding dress. No dust would touch it until the special day. This was already a far cry from any wedding Dixie had ever imagined her only daughter having. The dress was one tradition we’d promised her.
The day had finally come.
Everyone was here. And not just the everyones who’d dance and sing with us. Mitch was here, too. And that was why, once given the all clear to get the hell out of Malibu, this was the only place we could have ever tied the knot.
It was a strange thing. How impactful one person could be, during and after death, whether you knew him or not. I could only dream to live up to being a man like that. The Egyptians said that you only died when people stopped uttering your name. But the only way to make sure it stayed on the tip of someone’s tongue was to show them what love was. Buddha. Mohammed. Jesus. Even frickin’ Eckhart Tolle… these were people who lived and breathed the teachings of love. Of what it meant to be part of the eternal. And so, we never stop staying their names. Always wanting to learn the secret to being forever alive with the things and people we loved.
There were many moments I had been scared in the past year. I’d clung to Maeve like a proverbial crying baby. But in my most peaceful moments, I’d known we’d never truly be apart.
And that was just the laws of physics. Spiritual as I was, it wasn’t the gurus who had taught me about living forever. It was science. You couldn’t destroy anything in this world. It was impossible. And thus, we were forever. That’s how I’d gotten through the fear.
Then again, the instant I’d gotten the all clear from Dr. Chidozie, I’d yearned for earthly things. Like slipping a ring around my gorgeous soulmate’s finger.
I got ready in the Nakiki crew’s RV, and Maeve got ready in the Mom van. We hadn’t had time to orchestrate so many of the things I wanted here at our Uyu wedding, so throughout the week, I spent time making friends with strangers to make a day we’d never forget. That nobody would ever forget.
“Knock, knock,” a woman’s voice said through the RV door as I knotted my tie. Fucking hell, I was glad the boys thought to put the AC on here to cool it off for me.
Joe opened the door. “Hey, hey.”
A woman I’d met earlier in the week, Lila, walked into the RV. “Whew. Nice and cool in here. You guys ready soon?”
I turned my cell over to see the time. “Yeah.” I smoothed my hair but more out of habit than needing to anymore. Now that I sported super short hair, I was ready a lot faster. “Did you knock on the Mom van? The one with the pink bachelorette decorations?”
The girls had all insisted on having a bachelorette party for Maeve last night and had brought all the silly decorations with them from California.
Lila nodded. “Yup. They’re set.”
“Let’s do this.”
Lila and her friend, Freddie, had brought two matching rickshaws to Uyu. The back carriage bits of both were surrounded by privacy curtains. When I’d seen Lila and Freddie out on the Plain, I’d thought instantly of the fact that our camp at Uyu wasn’t near the temple where we’d get married. I didn’t want to see Maeve before she stepped in the temple. This transportation allowed us that breathtaking moment we might not have gotten if we’d had a casual walk over.
Thankfully, Lila and Freddie had jumped at the chance to be a part of something so magical. When we stepped out of the RV, Lila pointed over to her rickshaw, where the curtains were already drawn and all our Uyu ladies stood around in fancy dresses. “Maeve is ready to go, tucked up inside, so I’ll take her over.”
Fuck. My future wife sat only twenty feet away behind a flimsy curtain of fabric.
Freddie made a beckoning gesture. “Hop in, Drake.”
I hopped up into the carriage and pulled the curtains around me. I could see nothing but the reverse of a tapestry-like fabric. The ground beneath me made the spin-out sound of wheels on pebbles, and around me, the voices of my friends buzzed with excited conversation.
I’d had many surreal moments in my life, and this was certainly one of them. Being ridden on the back of a bike to the temple in which you’d get married but would be burned to the ground the next day was not an everyday moment. I marveled at the willingness of a total stranger to aid in this magic. I beamed inside at having been given the blessings of these friends, this experience, this woman, this body, this single mom, that convict dad, and every single good and bad thing that had ever happened to me crossed my mind as Freddie pedaled me off to my forever person.
None of this could have happened without all of those things happening. We must find gratitude in everything. Even the bad shit led up to all the wonderful things yet to come.
I heard more and more voices, and I knew we had to be very close to temple and the clock tower. Sure enough, the bike taxi stopped.
Freddie swiped open the curtains. “Showtime!”
I stepped down out of the carriage and into the temple with my boys. This year’s temple couldn’t have been more perfect for our ceremony. It resembled a Thai place of worship. There was a central building, and coming out of it, like nesting dolls, were several identical buildings, each only partially folding out. It was a fitting temple, because after this, we were off to Thailand for our honeymoon.
I went inside with the boys, and though I’d known we wouldn’t necessarily have a private wedding, it wasn’t like we could book the place out, I’d somehow known, and believed, that my fellow Gypsies would honor this moment. As expected, the ones inside noticed my suit and the fact that all the boys matched in theirs and scattered to the edges to quietly observe.
I made my way to the center of the vast room and stood on the dust, marked like a Persian rug with designs of sunlight carved into the ground. Koa was just beside me as officiant of our ceremony. Just like a traditional wedding, El, Pika, Joe, Tyran, and Myles stood along my side, my groomsmen. My heart pounded hard waiting for Maeve, and I almost wondered if I’d come this far only to give way to a heart attack. My pulse thumped in my ears.
The ladies all walked in, one by one, in matching black dresses, standing on the other side of me, waiting for the beautiful bride to enter. Once Dixie was in situ, already wiping her eyes with a tissue, I couldn’t look anywhere but the door to the temple.
