“Oh. Well, I suppose that makes more sense. Except for the fact that you’re not qualified to do that.”
“It’s okay,” Pantomime said. “It’s not like laws matter anymore.”
Don frowned. “Yes… well… huh.”
Rodney crossed his arms. “If we don’t do this in the next minute, I’m going to change my mind and go to bed.”
Juniper looked at Don with pleading eyes. “Please, man. This is, like, everything I have ever wanted. You can come too.”
“Thank you,” Don said. “I was waiting for my invitation.”
Rodney scowled at him. “You’re high.”
“So are you.”
Rodney giggled.
Don did too.
With the moon high above them, Rodney said, “Uh, okay. Hold on. Let me think. All right. We are gathered here tonight with hippies who don’t have real names. Two of them want to get married. That’s fine with me. But I’m only marrying these two, so the rest of you, stop asking.”
Everyone looked on at Juniper and Pantomime standing before each other, hands clasped between them. A red ribbon had been tied around each of their wrists, binding them together.
Rodney continued, adjusting his flower crown. “These are strange times. Nothing makes sense. I’m in Ohio, and I don’t know why. I don’t like Ohio. I don’t like hippies, and here I am, talking to a bunch of them. Strange times, indeed. But these two people want to get married, and that’s the only thing that matters. Juniper, do you love Pantomime?”
“Yes,” he said.
“And Pantomime, do you love Juniper?”
“Yes, yes,” she said, eyes wet.
“Then by the power vested in—what am I talking about? I don’t have any power.” He paused, lines forming on his forehead. “I’m… powerless,” he said. He looked at Don. “There was nothing we could’ve done to stop it.”
Don breathed in. Don breathed out.
“I feel lost, sometimes,” Rodney said. “But then I see Don. I see his face. I hear his voice. I’ve known it—him—for decades. The best of times, the worst of times. But he’s still here, and I know that means something. I know because I choose to believe it, just like I chose to love him.” He looked back at Juniper and Pantomime. “You have a choice. You get to choose who you love. No matter what happens next, no one can take that away from you.”
There were no rings. Turned out, throwing an impromptu wedding meant certain things weren’t included. But Juniper and Pantomime didn’t seem to mind. As soon as Rodney announced them as husband and wife, Juniper dipped Pantomime and kissed her sweetly, his braid hanging down the sides of their faces. The crowd around them howled their joy to the sky.
They danced, that night. All of them. They danced into the early hours of the morning. Rodney too, though he refused the hand of anyone who asked. Aside from Don, that is. They moved away from the fire, away from the people. They danced in the shadows of the dark, pressed chest to chest, swaying slightly, feet shuffling through the grass.
“What an odd day,” Don said, a little more sober than he’d been during the ceremony.
“We’ve had odder.”
“Have we? I can’t remember.”
In the distance, near the fire, Juniper and Pantomime were in their own little world, hugging each other close.
Rodney said, “It’s not fair.”
Many things were unfair. Don didn’t know which thing Rodney meant, and said as much.
“They’re just kids. They don’t get to have what we had. Have.”
“A long life,” Don whispered.
Rodney nodded. “They don’t get to spend weeks and years waking up next to each other. They don’t get to see the world together without thinking about how it’ll all be gone soon enough. They don’t get a chance to justbe.”