Suddenly a Bride (20 page)

C
hris glanced at his watch and decided it was time for lunch.  He logged off his computer and glanced up at Mark as he stopped by his cubicle.

“You ready to hightail it out of here?” Grinning, Mark lowered his voice and added, “I heard someone use that
expression
yesterday and wanted a chance to try it out
.”

Chris nodded, thinking it was taking him longer to catch onto all of the phrases people used.  “At least that one makes sense.  I heard someone mention how it was raining cats and dogs, but the only thing falling from the sky was water.  I don’t understand
why someone would refer to raindrops as cats and dogs.”

“
It means it’s raining hard. 
Next time it rains, you can say it.
  Anyway, I’ll drive today.
”

Chris stood up,
took his suit jacket fro
m off his chair, and shrugged
into it.  “Have you found someone who’d make a suitable life mate?”

Mark shook his head as they headed for the exit.  “I’ve seen lots of women, but most of them are a
lready with men.  They date on this planet
.”

“Date?”

“It’s not being a
life mate, but they go out and have a good time.”

“What do people on this planet consider a good time?”

They stopped in front of an elevator so Mark pressed the button to go down.  “From what I can tell, people like to see a movie and eat out.”

“Oh.”

“I we
nt to one of these movies
because I was curious, and you wouldn’t believ
e how expensive it is for a two-
dimensional exp
erience.  For the price they pay, they should be able
to go into the movie as one of the characters.”

Chris recalled the virtual reality books on their world.  “Is that what a movie is like?”

“Kind of, but you can’t be a part of it.  You can’t change the outcome of the story if it’s awful.”

“You’re telling me that you have to suffer through the whole thing?”

Mark shrugged.  “You can walk out of the theater or turn off the TV, but the fact that it was so horrible will stay in your memory forever.”

Chris grimaced and turned to the doors as they opened.  Once they stepped into the elevator, Chris debated whether or not to broach the subject that’d been on his mind.  Finally, he decided if he couldn’t talk to someone from his planet about it, then he’d have to keep it to himself and didn’t want it hanging over his head.  “You know how I met Caitlyn’s family
this past weekend?”

“Yes
.  You said you mopped the floor with the guys there.”

Chris frowned.  “Mopped the floor?”

Mark laughed.  “It’s another one of those Earth expressions.  It doesn’t mean to literally mop someone on the floor but that you won the game without any effort.”

Nodding, he replied, “I’d say that’s accurate.  I thought it went well.  I’m not sure what to think of Andy.”

“Andy? 
Her brother?”

“No.  That’s Blake.  Andy is her first husband’s brother.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

The elevator doors opened so they walked into the hallway, and as they headed for the exit, Chris sighed.  “I’m not exactly sure.  He seemed nice enough, but…”

“But?”

“Well, he was telling me about Caitlyn’s first husband and how much she loved him.”

“That’s good,” Mark said.  “I mean, women here actually want to be with men.  They don’t
have to be forced into life-mate
bonds.”

“Well, yeah.  That part is good,” Chris relented as he opened the door and stepped outside.  “Except she chose to marry her first husband.  She didn’t choose to marry me.” He noticed his voice grew softer on the last sentence, and an unsettling feeling twisted in his gut from having said it aloud.  It was one thing to think it, but saying it made it more real.

“That’s why I’m not going to choose a woman until I’m sure she wants to be with me too.  You know I didn’t want the agency to pick a life mate for me.  What if I got one who doesn’t want to be tied to a husband?  The agency picked a good one for you, but that doesn’t mean they pick a good one for every man who wants one.”

Chris kept stride with Mark as they crossed the parking lot to
get to Mark’s
car.  “I am glad they chose Caitlyn
for me.”

“Then why the hesitant tone in your voice?”

Chris stopped by the passenger side and waited for Mark to unlock the doors before he sli
pped into the car.  Securing
his seatbelt, he shrugged as Mark got in b
ehind the wheel.  “Well,
I wonder if I d
id
the same thing you’re doing if she would have chosen to marry me.”

Mark put the key into the ignition and started the car.  As he put his seatbelt on, he gave Chris an amused look.  “You’re taking for granted you would have crossed paths with her at some point.  You met Caitlyn because the agency selected her.  No one selected a woman for me
.  While I’m relieved I have many women to choose from, it’s a little overwhelming.  I’m not sure which woman is interested in marriage, which is already in a relationship, or which is worth spending the rest of my life with.  Marriages on this planet aren’t like the way we think of it.  The life bond requires a committed relationship for life.  People on this planet might get married, but a lot of them divorce.”

“Divorce?”

“They dissolve the marriage.  Some don’t marry again but a lot of them do.  Those that do remarry often take children into the new marriages.”

“Why do they divorce?”

Mark backed out of the parking spot
and shifted the car into drive.  “There are some who seem to have legitimate reasons.  One woman caught her husband sleeping with her sister.”

Chris grimaced.  Thank goodness the life bond made that scenario impossible.  An
y man who so much as touched Caitlyn
with sexual intent would be burned.

“And,” Mar
k continued, “there’s
a hotline for women
who
are being abused by their husbands.”

Chris’ jaw dropped.  “Husbands are abusing their wives?  That’s awful.”  What was wrong with the men on this planet?  Didn’t they understand that having women with them was a blessing?
  He’d like to see what those men would think if they were transported to his home world.

“I’m just saying I can see the point in some of these marriages getting dissolved,” Mark said as he turned onto the main road on the base.  “But most of them are dissolved because they’re not ‘in love’ anymore.”

Chris frowned.  “I’m not sure I understand.”

“I don’t either, but some women place a high importance on being ‘in love’ with their husbands as deciding whether or not the marriage is worth staying in.”

The tension in Chris’ gut tightened.  “And how can a husband guarantee the woman will have this ‘in love’ experience?”

Mark shrugged.  “Beats me.  It seems like such an arbitrary thing, and no woman will give you the same answer.”

“You’ve been going around and asking women about marriage and love?”

“Actually, I was interested in the marriage part.  They were the ones who stressed how love factored into it.”

“So they choose men to marry based on whether they love them or not.”

“It’s more complicated than that.  One woman I talked to said
while she loved her husband, she was no longer ‘in love’ with him, so she’s dissolving the marriage.”

What in the world was that supposed to mean?  Chris had no idea what this whole ‘in love’ thing was about.  He wasn’t even sure he understood the part about love
.  All he knew was that Caitlyn loved Rand
y.  If she stayed married to Randy
until he died, did that mean she was also ‘in love’ with him?
  And, more importantly, since the marriage ended by death instead of divorce, did that mean she was still ‘in love’
with him?

Just because someone dies, it doesn’t mean you don’t cherish their memory.
  That’s what she said when
Chris asked her why Randy’s picture was still hanging on her wall.  Did cherish mean the same thing as being ‘in love’ with someone?  If she had Randy’s picture up in her apartment, then it meant she still loved him, didn’t it?  Pictures were important on
this world.  If nothing else, Chris
learned that from his time at her family’s house.  And she still didn’t have a picture of him.  Sure, she mentioned it, but they hadn’t gotten a picture taken yet.  Wincing, he rubbed his chest.

“You okay?” Mark asked as he pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant.

“I don’t know.  I feel a weird pain in the center of my chest.”

“Are you sick?”

“I don’
t think so
.”

“Do you want to check out a doctor?”

Chris took a deep breath and thought of all the illnesses common to men on his world.  “I think I’ll be okay.  I don’t think it’s anything serious, but I’ll keep track of it and if it continues, I’ll go see one.”

Mark nodded.  “Do you feel up to eating?”

Chris tried to determine if he felt up to eating or not and decided he was hungry enough to have lunch.  “Yes.  My stomach is growling.”

“Alright.”
On their way into the restaurant, Mark said, “I think men have heart attacks on this world.”

“Heart attacks?  We haven’t dealt with heart attacks since the year 2C430.
”

“Yeah
,
but that was on our world.  People die easier here.  I think i
t’s because they still have a long way to go
in their medical advancements.”

The hostess came up to them and led them to a booth
before she handed them their menus and left.

“But we should be immune to stuff like that since we’re n
ot from here,
”
Chris said.

Mark shrugged.  “We don’t have access to our daily nutrients anymore.”

Chris frowned.  He hadn’t thought of that.  Maybe common Earth ailments would factor into his new life.

The server came up to them and got ready to take their order, so Chris put the matter from his mind.

***

The next evening, Chris found
himself staring at the trunk in
the bottom of the closet.  This was Randy’s trunk.  Caitlyn had opened it to give him a suit to wear to his interview and then again to get those cat paperweights.  He wondered what else was in there.

Since Caitlyn was eating an evening snack in the kitchen and talking to her
mom on the phone, he figured it
was a good time to see what kind of man Randy was.  Caitlyn chose to marry Randy because she loved him.  She loved him so much she kept a trunk of his things.

Taking a deep breath, Chris knelt by the trunk and lifted the lid.  He scanned the contents, not sure what he felt as he took in the photo album, a few items of clothes, some autographed records, the glass cats, and the picture that had been hanging on her wall when Chris married her.  At least those were the contents in his immediate viewing range.

Chris turned his head toward the door and heard Caitlyn let out an exasperated groan.  Good.  She was still talking to her mom.  Leaning forward, he took the picture and clothes out, mentally cataloguing where they belonged so she wouldn’t know he went through these things.  He didn’t know if it would upset her or not, but he decided it was best if she didn’t know.

As he
set the clothes and
picture down, he realized Randy
liked to wear jeans and t-shirts.  He glanced at his striped long-sleeved shirt and slacks.  Did Caitlyn prefer men who wore jeans and t-shirts?  He decided to pick up the photo album, thinking it might give him a better idea of what she loved about Randy.  He opened the album and b
linked in surprise.  More baby
pictures of Caitlyn.  But it wasn’t just her.  There were baby pictures of Randy too.  Hesitant, he flipped the pages of the album and frowned.  It was a visual account of Randy and Caitlyn’s life together from the time they were toddlers to the time they started dating in high school and to the time they were a married couple.
  Randy only wore a suit once, and that was when he married Caitlyn.  That was the same suit Chris wore to the interview.  Otherwise,
Randy wore jeans, t-shirts, baseball caps
and a goatee.  Was that the kind of look Caitlyn liked?

Chris
gulped the lump in his throat and felt another pain shoot through his heart.  He set the album down and tri
ed to gauge whether he had any other symptoms that might alert him to a heart attack.  From what he researched, he didn’t notice anything that ached besides his chest.