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“By forcing me to marry someone?”
“No one is saying you’re actually going to marry him,” Mae cuts in, ever the peacekeeper. “Just say yes for now and we’ll figure out how to break you up after the tour. No big deal.”
Easy for her to say. She didn’t just learn she was the center of an evil faux wedding plot. Also, thanks for rubbing my low numbers in my face. Funny how I finally get taken seriously as an artist and lose the interest of the masses.
“We’re sorry you found out this way, but we thought you’d be happy,” Rena says.
“Happy? Why would I be happy?”
Steve squeezes my arm, and I tug it away.
So help me if he suggests one more dang almond.
“You’ve always wanted a fairy-tale wedding, right? You talk about it all the time in the interviews.”
“Because you tell me to!”
“Oh! What about staging some photos at a bridal shop at one of your stops on tour? Maybe even try on a few dresses?” Mae’s giant smile means she clearly didn’t hear what she just said.
“His numbers are through the roof right now,” Rena adds. “It’s the perfect time to hitch your horse to his wagon.”
“I think it’s the other way around,” Mae says.
“What is?” Rena asks.
“The hitching. The wagon goes to the horse. Not the horse to the wagon.”
“What? That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does in the context of nineteenth-century pioneer logistics.”
“Wait, isn’t the horse supposed to be drinking something?” Steve asks.
“Drinking what?” Rena says.
“Water, I think,” Steve replies.
“No. The horse doesn’t drink the water,” Mae cuts in. “You lead it to the water but it doesn’t drink. That’s the whole point of the analogy.”
“Idiom,” Rena corrects.
“Same thing.”
“It’s not.”
“What even is a horse, though, when you think about it?” Steve muses.
Ah! How is this helping anything?!
I clench my fists, having no idea what to do. This is absurd. This is…
Exactly what we’ve been doing for the last five years since Jarvis and I started playing this media game to enhance our careers.
I sensed their confusion even before the horse debate. Of course they don’t understand why I’m putting up a fight about this engagement stunt when several of our biggest ploys over the years were my idea. They especially don’t understand why I’d resist when I need to boost my profile more than ever.
But things are different now. I don’t know why, but what felt necessary for my career all these years, now feels icky. I can’t imagine looking Jarvis in the eye and saying I’m going to marry him, even as a charade.
“Where’s this sudden opposition coming from?” Rena asks. Guess they resolved the horse-wagon issue. I’m not entirely clear what that argument was about. “Are you romantically involved with someone else?”
