George shook his head and went back to reading.
Lizzie took the book out of his lap, closed it, and made one last try. “How about this? We could change our name to something neutral, like Austen, maybe. Or Bennet. Then I could be Lizzie Bennet. Elizabeth Bennet. That’d be pretty cool.”
George reached for the book. “Get a grip, sweetie. It’s not going to happen. Bultmann or Goldrosen, your choice.”
“Wait, don’t decide right away. Okay, no Bennet. But let’s think of other books. You liked A Wrinkle in Time, didn’t you? So did I. What if we became Murrys? Wasn’t that Meg’s last name? That sounds good, doesn’t it? George and Lizzie Murry. Or Ingalls? I’d like that. But if you liked Wilder better, that’d be fine with me,” she offered generously. “Or even Darling. George Darling. Lizzie Darling. That might be really fun.”
“Wait a second, stop, listen to this idea,” George said. “What about if we became the Littles? We could name our son Stuart. Or Seuss—then I could be Dr. Seuss. The kids in my practice would love that, I bet. Or wait, even better, let’s change our last name to Of Oz. That would be cool. George and Elizabeth Of Oz. We could name a daughter Ozma. That was always my favorite book in the series.”
That George could reliably make her laugh mattered a lot to Lizzie. She sometimes thought that it was what kept her from running away and spending some serious time searching for Jack.
“Dearest Lizzie, listen, we’re absolutely not changing our soon-to-be joint last name to anything else. We’re getting married and I’d be very happy if you chose to become a Goldrosen, but I’ll certainly understand if you want to remain a Bultmann. I’m sure your parents would be thrilled.”
“Jeez, George, you have never understood my parents and you never will. And I don’t think you understand me either.”
Well. What could George do but assure her that he did understand her parents and, even more importantly, he understood her. Which Lizzie never believed. All the evidence, she felt, was against it.
*?The Worst Thing George Ever Said to Lizzie?* That Was Actually True
Finally driven to extremes during a particularly long and frustrating Difficult Conversation early in their marriage, George told Lizzie that she had the emotional age of a three-year-old.
In her heart of hearts Lizzie realized that not only had it been true when George said it, but it was probably still an accurate description years later.
*?Why Lizzie Decided to Marry George?*
Lizzie found that it wasn’t so bad being engaged because it changed very little in her relationship with George. She began to grow very fond of her ring, although when she was in class she tended to turn it around so that the stone was hidden and all people could see (if they chose to look) was a plain platinum band. But marriage was something else entirely. If Jack should show up in Ann Arbor to see her, breaking an engagement was one thing. But what if he came after she and George got married? That would make everything much more complicated.
Marla didn’t think she should marry George right away. “It’s different for me and James,” she said. “We planned to get married practically from the moment we met in junior high. But you, you can just go on being engaged for as long as you need to until you finally accept that Jack isn’t coming back for you, ever.”
“I just can’t believe that I’ll never see him again. That’s just not possible, is it?”
“Listen, Lizzie, here are a few hard truths you have to hear. You and Jack dated for one quarter, call it three months. That’s all. Yeah, I know you said the sex was terrific and you shared all that poetry, but you only knew him for about ninety days. And you’re going to hang on to that long past its expiration date? You have a wonderful boyfriend who wants to spend his life with you, and you’re going to mourn the rest of your natural life for some jerk who ditched you?”
“I never should have told him that was me in the article. That’s why he left. The Great Game. That was my big mistake.”
“If that’s really why he left, which I don’t know if I believe, then he’s even more of a jerk.”
“It was my fault that he left,” Lizzie said stubbornly. “Nobody would want to stay with someone who did such a stupid thing.”
Marla sighed and reluctantly dropped the subject.
But after Marla and James’s wedding, Lizzie acceded to George’s desire to get married sooner rather than later. The reasons she gave herself were these:
1. She liked George well enough.
2. She loved his parents, particularly his mother.
3. She had no idea what to do next if she didn’t marry George, except to continue her search for Jack. She had no interest whatsoever in grad school. Lizzie knew that she was smart, but there wasn’t anything that she particularly wanted to study. She still loved reading poetry, but she hated the way poems had been analyzed to death in her undergraduate English classes. Breaking down a poem like that took away the joy of reading it.
4. Sex with George was fine. Occasionally and unexpectedly, it could be awfully nice. He was as generous and kind in bed as he was in everything else in his life.
5. George had an expansive sense of humor. He had a wonderfully contagious laugh. Lizzie loved that every time he laughed, the lines around his eyes crinkled up. (Many years later, Lizzie would hear Lucinda Williams sing “The Lines Around Your Eyes,” a song that she always wanted to believe was written about George.) Lizzie egged him on in his addiction to puns and tried, unsuccessfully, to get him to stop laughing at his own jokes. Even after he got famous, George still laughed at his own jokes. His fans loved that about him. Plus, as George pointed out to Lizzie somewhat smugly, he inherited the tendency to do so from his mother, remember?
6. As far as Lizzie could see, there weren’t a lot of reasons not to marry George. One, of course, was that he wasn’t Jack. But Lizzie knew the big reason not to marry George was that she probably didn’t love him nearly enough.
*?The Middle Linebacker?*