Let's Get Married || Jensoo

Chapter 3: Getting To Know You

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Living with Jisoo proved to be odd. They were somewhat friendly, but not friends. They shared the same apartment, but lived mostly separate lives.

The night that Jisoo moved in, they had agreed that if they were to pass as a married couple - any sort of couple - they would have to learn about each other. In her usual practical (anal, infuriating) manner, Jisoo had suggested that they meet up once a day to study. And, for the first few days, it was the only contact they had with each other.

Jisoo had shown up to their first meeting with a leather-bound notebook and, Jennie suspected, a newly purchased pen. She had even sorted the notebook into sections with pre-prepared questions. It had felt more like an interrogation than a conversation.

Jennie had answered everything as patiently as she could force herself to, but they weren't getting anywhere. Facts were, after all, just facts. It was possible to know someone intimately without knowing either their favourite colour (Jisoo liked kelly green) or the name of their date to the junior prom (Jimmy Dolan, a fact Jennie dredged from the recesses of her mind only by mentally working backwards from the after-party, where she'd hooked up with the female bartender, a fact she didn't share with her wife).

At the weekend, they had their first mini-breakthrough. Jennie offered to help Jisoo move her things and, while they were packing up, Jennie found a framed ticket and playbill for Sweet Charity.

"Christina Applegate was in a Broadway musical?" she asked idly.

"Mmm-hmm. Tony-nominated. She was pretty damn incredible." Jisoo smiled in remembrance and put down the clothes she had been folding. She sat on the edge of the bed. "We'd been here about two years and I had never been to a Broadway show. I kept asking my parents over and over. I begged. I pleaded. I left newspapers open to the theatre reviews in prominent positions around the house. I would look up ticket prices on dad's computer and 'forget' to shut the browser down." She laughed to herself. "I was pretty damn obvious about it all."

"So, they gave in?"

"Well, I didn't think so. My dad would just go 'We'll see, honey' and then ignore me. My mother didn't even acknowledge what I was doing at all. But then, on my seventeenth birthday, I came home from school and sitting on my bed there was the most beautiful, the most grown-up dress I had ever seen."

Jisoo pulled her leg up underneath her and looked down at her bed as if the dress might be there. "I put the dress on and it was so perfect. It was a deep red velvet and it made me feel like I was Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. You know, when he takes her to the opera?" Jennie nodded. "Well, when I came out of the bedroom, my dad was standing there in a tux and my mom was in a full-length grey silk dress. It was like a fairy tale. There was a limo waiting for us and we had a pre-theatre dinner at the Tavern on the Green and, when we got to the theatre, we had box seats."

"Totally like Pretty Woman," Jennie agreed, enjoying seeing Jisoo's obvious happiness.

"It was just the most magical night you could ever imagine."

Jennie traced her fingers across the glass of the frame in contemplation. "This is what we should do."

"What?" Jisoo sounded distracted, still reliving the memory in her mind.

"This is what normal people do. They don't trade facts. They share stories, memories, hopes, dreams. I mean, I know what you studied at school, but not what you wanted for your life when you picked those subjects. I know nothing about why your past relationships didn't work out or what you're looking for in one. Do you want kids, Jisoo?"

"With you?" Her tone implied that she thought Jennie's potential for motherhood was up there with Joan Crawford.

Jennie flinched a little. Their whole act would be a lot easier if Jisoo could learn to be a little less dismissive of her. "Well, yes but no. With your real wife one day." She shrugged. "I mean, I don't know if I'm even your type. Do you have a type?"