Marina Cavell had never been comfortable with her arranged marriage to a woman named Taylor Swift. In her whole life, she'd never even heard from the woman, until she randomly shows up in New York, due to a social media post of Marina with a man.
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Marina Cavell placed her phone on the table. She smiled, "Okay, we all read them. What do you guys think?"
"Camaryn George's text seemed the most ardent," Mali Orlando allowed, laughing as she leaned over to read the text again.
Marina chortled. "She also had the best grammar. Celine, what do you think?"
"You do not care about grammar, Mari," Celine Cabot said, lightly exhaling through her nose. "We all know damn well that you're gonna go with Liam Lodge to the movies. There's no need to discuss the love texts from others to us poor single ones."
"They're not love texts, my lord." Marina said, no longer pleased. She switched from the chat with Camaryn George to the chat with Liam Lodge. Liam was the funniest of all of her male acquaintances, but love was a very strong word. She didn't love Liam.
"If they're not love texts, then what are they, hm?"
Marina gave a scanty frown, shutting her phone off. "It's just for fun. They're not serious."
"They're not serious, of course, because you've been affianced since before you could even walk." Celine declared, a frown on her face. "Not that you take it seriously. And neither do the people asking you on these dates."
"Celine, since when did you become a puritan?" Marina said. "I don't take those dates seriously. I'm not 'cheating' or anything."
"Plus," Mali furthered, rejoining the conversation, "when was the last time Mari even heard from Taylor Swift?"
"Never!" Mali and Celine completed together, laughing.
Mari joined in on their laughter, but she didn't think it as funny as they did. In romance books and movies, the person you're supposed to marry was meant to do anything for you. A simple text was very easy.
"Precisely," she said. "Not a single text or call in nineteen years. So there's no point talking about the woman I'm supposedly going to be marrying. She knows where I live. She never comes here. That's not my problem."
Mali exhaled. "So you're just never gonna get married?"
"I live in the best city in the world, I have the best friends in the world, and I get to have fun. My life is already amazing. I don't need marriage to satisfy me."
Celine shook her head. "What about your Pennsylvanian girl, though? Do you think she'll never leave Pennsylvania and just... die there? If she ever wants to get married... won't it be to you?"
Marina quivered. Leave it to Celine to find the hitch in life. "I don't care what she does."
"What even goes on in Pennsylvania?" Mali asked.
"Who knows. But I like her where she is. It's far enough away from here."
