EIGHT

Bart threw a green tie over the back of his neck. In the past, he didn’t normally wear bright ties to work, but ever since he married Maisie, he didn’t want to wear his old ties. The old ones were gray, navy, or dark red. They had patterns that reminded him of tiled floors or the bricks of a wall. There would be plenty of time for mourning in his life. He’d pull the old ties out then. After all the changes in his life, he wanted bright ties. They were the one spot on his outfit where he could show how he was feeling.

That morning, Maisie was asleep. She had the day off because she had a doctor’s appointment later that morning. For the first time, she was letting him come along with her. A grand concession that she only permitted after their wedding. He just had a few things to do at the office before he came back to pick her up.

Moving in with her instead of moving her to his mansion on the side of the mountain was a fantastic idea. It only took a few minutes for Bart to get to work each morning. He did not realize how much of his life was spent in transit when he lived outside the city’s main cluster. Or how lovely it could be to give away all the things he had in his life just to prove his status.

What had his status been for anyway?

If it had only been to prove himself to women he romanced and then discarded after two weeks, then that had been a pathetic way to live his life. He told himself that he had to do things like that in the past to secure the best clients, to impress his bosses, and to enhance the glamor of his position for the people who worked under him. After marrying Maisie, it turned out he didn’t need any of those things—comparing people to animals and amusing himself with a constant flow of criticism only to convince himself of his superiority. Now people were people, including him. The lone wolf that he had been had evaporated. He was a man with a woman like cut crystal between his fingers. He loved the change in himself almost as much as he loved Maisie.

He and Maisie had their wedding at his mansion on the side of the mountain. It was beautiful.

Bart found out he was the kind of man who cried when his bride came into view in her white wedding dress. He couldn’t help himself. She was all in white. She was all for him like a present that had all of life wrapped up inside. It was the most precious moment of his life.

Bart also insisted that Maisie invite her ex-fiance, Chalmers, to the wedding.

Under normal circumstances, Bart would have thought that doing such a thing would be unnecessary and something people did only to make themselves completely wretched, but Bart twisted it on its head by explaining that they needed to show her ex-fiance that Maisie was going to be okay. Chalmers needed to see the moment when she married someone else, landed in the arms of someone capable and came to a home he could never give her.

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It was something Bart said would comfort him and let him know that she forgave them.

Bart wondered if he had made the right choice when Chalmers took his seat at the wedding without a plus one, but the ex-fiance looked at Maisie the way someone looked at an angel. An angel is a person who brings a message from God. In her case, she brought a message about life and joy through difficulty. Chalmers couldn’t be the man for her, but Bart thought, as he admired her in her wedding dress, as he watched her twirl in her first dance with her new husband, that somehow he would be a better man because he knew her.

Chalmers didn’t cause a scene or even act sore.

He stood up after the first dance and spoke to Bart for a moment. He approached, congratulated Bart, and turned to leave. But at the last moment, he paused and asked Bart one last question. “What makes you different from me? What makes you able to handle all this?”

Bart brushed his hair off his forehead in a sideways motion that people usually use at their neck to make a motion of someone getting their head cut off. “It’s simple,” he said casually. He wanted to look cool if nothing else. “I’m just greedier than you.”

Chalmers had not expected that. He did a double-take. “What does that mean?”

“It means that greedy people know that what they collect cannot last. Boats sink, houses burn down, cars crash, and money shrinks. We know that the best things in life cannot last. We don’t expect them to. We still buy the boat, the house, and the car, and we don’t shrink back because our hopes and dreams will one day end up at the bottom of the ocean. Your greed just wasn’t as strong as mine.”

Chalmers’ mouth twisted. “I don’t believe you. It’s not greed. It’s something else.”

“What?” Bart questioned.

“I don’t know, but you can’t sell me on the idea that you’re doing this because you’re a greedy millionaire.”

“I am a millionaire,” Bart answered calmly.

“Oh?” Chalmers chirped. It was clear from the look on his face that he did not believe Bart.

“This is my house,” Bart explained. “You should see my cars. You should see my truck. I have a boat, but it’s been out of the water for a few years. I can’t seem to find the time, and now I won’t…” his voice trailed off as his eyes found Maisie.

She was talking to Nina and laughing, her bouquet jiggling in her hand as her body shook with joy.

“Excuse me,” Bart said as he covered the space between him and Maisie.

“I have to have another dance,” he said as he pulled her into his arms. “Dance with me again. I want to make your dress twirl.”

Maisie bounced a little in his arms as he took her back onto the dancefloor. He kissed her hand to show how much he adored her, and then he twirled her, making the iridescent beads on her dress shine in the late evening light.

“I never want tonight to end,” she whispered to him when he pulled her back into his arms.

“Tonight is never going to end,” he replied. “Tomorrow morning will still be tonight and tomorrow afternoon will still be tonight and even if we go to sleep and wake up again, it will still be tonight.”

She kissed him to stop him from saying enigmatic nonsense.

Except it was not nonsense. It was the way things were. That night never ended.

Not even once.

THE END