Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
All right. For now. I signal to Barb for another, then start in on the application again. “Middle name?”
I know it. Saw her diploma, her passport. But this way, she’s talking.
“Abigail,” she whispers.
I fill out the next bit and then hit the following section. My gut tightens up. “You want to take my last name afterwards? Or use your own? Or hyphenate? There’s a list of options here.”
“What options?”
I drop down the list and she begins reading them, sounding out the hyphenated versions under her breath. “Faraday-Wall doesn’t have a nice enough rhythm, does it?”
Sounds real nice to me. “It’s whatever you like.”
“The only ID that I have says Faraday.”
“That’s true. But you could keep using that passport for a while and be fine.” I gesture to the screen. “This mostly only matters if we end up in court.”
“Oh yeah.” She sits back. “Just use Wall, then. So we’ll present a united front. A…stone wall.”
Shit. I shake my head, but at least she’s back to giggling again.
“Maxine Wall,” she says, trying it out. “Maxine…Abigail…Wall. That’s pretty good. You know who the most famous Faraday is?”
“Who?”
“A guy who invented the Faraday cage.”
A cage? “You shitting me?”
She shakes her head. “But it wasn’t a cage to keep people in. Or not really. It shielded whatever was inside from electromagnetic waves. You can shoot lightning at it, pew! And you’d be okay inside. A car is kind of a Faraday cage. That’s why you’re okay in one during a lightning storm. But motorcycles?” She sputters a laugh. “Just toast.”
That’s true. “I know a story of a biker who stopped to piss by the side of the road, got hit by lightning—and because his boots were insulated, it grounded through his dick and that stream of piss.”
She sputters again. “Are you serious?”
“Dead serious. I bet I can find the news story once I’m done with this.”
“Was he able to use it again? Or was it completely fried?”
Not something I ever thought about. Or wanted to think about. “Not sure.”
“I just hope he changed his road name to Lightning Dick. Or—oh my god—Lightning Rod.”
I mess up my social security number three times, trying to type it on the phone’s little keyboard while laughing. Then ask for hers, while she’s still able to remember.
“This is ready.” I tilt the screen in her direction. “You press that submit button and we’re good to go.”
She doesn’t hesitate, and makes a drunken ‘boink’ sound effect when she pushes it.
“So, that’s it? We’re married?”
“Not until tomorrow. This is just for the license.”
I tuck my phone away. Barb shows up and trades out Maxine’s drink for a fresh one before leaving again.
“Ooh,” Maxine coos with a teasing grin. “Another cherry. You want this one?”
Fucking killing me. “Nah. It’s all yours.” And as she pops it into her mouth, I can’t stop watching. Can’t stop myself from saying, “But you’ve got to tell me why you decided to wait for marriage.”
“Okay, but…” She leans in and whispers with sweet cherry all over her breath, “It’s a really stupid story.”
“And I want to hear all of your stupid stories.”
“Then you’re in luck, because I have a lot of them.” She waggles her eyebrows. “Okay, so…when I was a sophomore in high school, there were three girls who got pregnant all at once. Not ‘all at once’ magically. But like…around the same time.”
Not magically pregnant. “I got it.”
“And one of them was a girl who was like…the girl. Smart and good at sports and everyone said she was going to Harvard or something. But she didn’t. Instead she dropped out. One of the other girls did, too. And that one was really sad, because the guy said they always used condoms, so they broke up because he thought she was cheating. But it turned out to be just the condom failing. So I thought… Nope. Not going to risk any of that. And decided to wait for marriage.”
“That’s not a stupid story. Protecting the future that you wanted sounds damn smart.”
“Real smart,” she agrees with a slow, bouncing nod. “But I still had a few boyfriends. And made out with them. That was fun.”
Lucky bastards. “I bet.”
“And maybe in college, I might have eventually changed my mind. But then I transferred back and was living at home with Grandpa again, and even without waiting for marriage, I’m not built to just hook up with someone. Not that I met anyone who really tempted me. But even if I had, taking someone home might have felt…disrespectful. Because he was really religious. But also not at all.”
“What’s that mean?”
“He was a pastor before the boating accident. Then he just…lost his faith in God. Still believed He existed, just didn’t believe in Him anymore. So he stopped preaching. Didn’t make Matt and me go to church, either. But he was still a really moral man. Still taught us good and bad. Just without the religious stuff. Does that make sense?”