"PHILLIP DAVID Mackenzie!" Mrs. Mac yells. She squints her eyes and gives him the mom glare. "You told me you had nothing to do with the Robertson's house that Halloween."
"What Halloween?" he pretends.
"The year their whole sidewalk was covered in Fruity Pebbles. Then it rained, and the color stained their sidewalk. We thought it was never going to come off! You swore to me that you had nothing to do with it!"
Phillip scrunches up his nose and laughs. "What are you gonna do, Mom? Ground me? Besides, I was in charge of the forks, not the Fruity Pebbles." He gives me a pointed grin, so his mom will think it was my idea.
"Jadyn!" Mrs. Mac scolds.
"Uh, so maybe a Halloween themed wedding is a bad idea," I say, quickly switching the conversation back to something that won't get us in trouble. Besides, the Fruity Pebbles were all Danny's idea, but we won't mention that. Knowing Mrs. Mac, she'd be calling his mom.
Ashley continues. "Well, you could do winter wonderland or like a down home country style wedding. Some people even have Husker themed weddings. You both love football, maybe you should do something like that."
"I do love football, but I don't think I'd want that for my wedding."
"So what do you want?" Phillip's mom asks.
"I have no idea. I got surprise engaged on my first date, less than twenty-four hours ago. I really haven't gotten that far yet." They both stare at me like I'm nuts, so I'm like, "Phillip, what kind of wedding do you want?"
"Um..," he eloquently says, "I don't know. The kind that involves us getting married?"
Mrs. Mac and Ashley both roll their eyes at him in that, He's just a man, what could he possibly know, way.
"JJ, have you seriously never pictured your wedding? Every little girl dreams of her wedding day," Ashley admonishes.
Gee, I'm apparently a failure as a girl.
All I ever dreamed about was marrying a prince, but that was really as far as I got. To me, it was all about finding the right boy. I guess I sorta thought once you found the guy, the wedding just sort of fell into place.
I mean think of Cinderella. The whole story was about her and Prince Charming's courtship. It's only at the very end that the wedding bells ring, birds fly, and they kiss. No one asked Cinderella what kind of themed wedding she wanted. The wedding just happened.
Didn't it?
I know most of my sorority sisters have planned out their ideal weddings. I listened, thought they sounded amazing, and encouraged them. But my wedding seemed so far off, I never really thought about what I'd want. Plus, you have to remember my two best friends are Phillip and Danny.
Boys.
I can tell you with all certainty that they never once stood around the pool table planning their dream weddings. The only real discussions we ever had involving weddings was Danny praying some girl wasn't pregnant, so he wouldn't have to marry her.
"Uh," I say, "honestly, not really. We used to have weddings for Barbie and Ken, but those mostly involved a wedding in front of Phillip's LEGO castle. They'd drive off in her Barbie jeep and then have a Barbie baby. And sometimes, they went on a honeymoon to the blow up Barbie pool, where they would kiss, swim, and get their hair wet. Oh!" I giggle. "And sometimes, instead of Ken, she married G.I. Joe."
"Bigamy Barbie," Phillip quips as he sets a beer down in front of me.
"That's true, but you loved when she married Joe. You'd make him jump out of a plane or rappel down the wall, and then they'd get married. Joe always made a big entrance. It was all very exciting. Ken was really sort of boring, but he was there for her when Joe went off to, I don't know, fight in wars and shit."
Phillip laughs.
I can't help but laugh too. We had so much fun when we were kids. "She also married Robin Hood. So she was more like trigamy Barbie," I tell Phillip.
"Trigamy?" Ash questions.
"Uh, maybe trigonometry?" I stupidly say.
"Oh my gosh." Phillip chuckles. "Are you both blonde or what?"
Smart ass. "Well then, what would it be called?"
"Polygamy."
"No, that's when you have many spouses. What's it called when you have just three, like Barbie did? It would have to be trigamy. Really, that's kind of a good idea. Like she married Ken because he was pretty and would provide a good gene pool for kids. Then there's G.I. Joe. He'd like show up whenever. You'd just have wild sex with him, and then he'd be off again on some mission. And Robin Hood would take you on adventures. I think Barbie was on to something. She really did have the perfect life."
"Except when she got pregnant and didn't know if it was Ken or Joe's baby," Ash says sarcastically.
Like Barbie would've had a big dilemma on that one. "You know she would've just told Ken it was his baby. He wouldn't have known the difference. Ken looked good, but I don't think he was all that smart. But he was a good dad and would stay home and take care of the kids while she was off with Joe or Robin." That's not a bad idea. "Hey Phillip, can I have three husbands too?"
"Hmmm, I don't think so." He grins and shakes his head no.
Ashley rolls her eyes. "So are you saying you want a Barbie themed wedding?"
Uh, no. I may not know much, but I do know a hot pink Barbie wedding is not for me.
It seems the theme of tonight's dinner is for us to pick a theme. I swear, if they don't lay off, pretty soon my theme is gonna be, I don't give a shit.
Thank God, the oven buzzer goes off, meaning we finally get to eat. And here's what I want to know. Why aren't they asking Phillip these questions? He's the one that was so bound and determined to get engaged. I just want to have fun sleeping with him for a while.
Mrs. Mac falls back a little during dinner, but she apparently didn't make a full retreat. After dinner, she sits us down in front of apple pie and questions us.
I told you before, she feeds you and gets you to spill your guts. That woman is sneaky.
Phillip's as clueless as I am on the whole theme thing, so he tells his mom, "I have no freaking idea." Then he ditches me and takes his pie into the family room to watch football with his dad and Ash's husband, Cooper.
But Mrs. Mac will not be deterred. She gets up and grabs a large stack of the thickest magazines known to man.
Bridal magazines.
They practically break through the wooden table when she slams the stack down in front of me. Thankfully, I got my hands out of the way.
"I went through and marked everything I like in yellow," she tells me.
"And I marked everything I like in blue," Ashley adds.
When do these people find time to go through these monstrosities? If I tried to sit on the couch at home and flip through these, I'd make it all of about twelve pages before Phillip would be attacking me. Sex takes up a lot of our time lately.
Mrs. Mac continues in her sweet, If you do this for me, I will bake you cookies, voice. "So just flip through all the magazines and mark stuff you like. Then we'll help you figure out a theme. So what are you thinking for a date?"
"We haven't discussed dates yet, but I'm pretty sure we're going to have a very long, lengthy engagement. Like maybe a couple years. We really don't need to start planning yet."