Shrimp Tails

            Everyone is jealous of Samantha and her boyfriend. When they go to the mall, Samantha and her boyfriend buy Lego sets and bath bombs and records for one another. They walk hand in hand back to Samantha’s car and rub their perfect love in everyone’s faces. 

            Everyone sits in their own cars and texts everyone else about how ugly Samantha’s boyfriend is looking in his red shirt. Red is not Samantha’s boyfriend’s color.

            Everyone watches a live stream of Samantha's boyfriend dropping to one knee in Florence, Italy. Must be nice, everyone thinks, as they eat radishes and unflavored yogurt in their dimly lit kitchens. Later, when Samantha and her boyfriend announce their engagement party, everyone texts about how cringey it is to book a party at a bowling alley. 

            Still, everyone goes, and they bring gifts. Love is eternal pillow shams; pairs of kissing birds; framed pictures of scrabble tiles that spell out SAMANTHA AND HER BOYFRIEND. Samantha and her boyfriend both bowl perfect games, make out on the couch next to their lane, and sneak off to the bathroom to hump. 

            Everyone bowls a 20. They slip and slide on the waxed floor. The onion rings and fries that they eat are limp, and their goldfish-bowl-sundaes have freezer burn.

            Samantha and her boyfriend book a cliffside venue for their wedding. On the day of, the cliff overlooks the most beautiful sunset that everyone has ever seen. A New York Times wedding photographer attends and takes a picture of             Samantha and her boyfriend in front of it. It makes the cover the following week. 

            Everyone hoovers up popcorn shrimp and glasses of free prosecco. They toss the leftover shrimp tails over the edge of the cliff when Samantha and her boyfriend aren’t looking. Everyone watches the tiny pink fins bouncing off the rocks as they fall down towards the ocean. Below there may have been a splash, but at the top of the cliff, the shrimp went silently.

            Samantha throws her bouquet over the edge of the cliff at the end of the ceremony. It floats in the water where everyone can see it if they lean their heads far enough. Everyone’s children light sparklers and burn their child wrists. Undone ribbon and detached petals drift a thousand feet below.

            Everyone takes off their ties, stockings, earrings, and headbands. They pile them on wicker backed chairs with ruffled poofs. Samantha and her boyfriend-turned-husband dance like they rehearsed it, even though they didn’t. Everyone else butchers the electric slide. They spill prosecco on their rented clothes. 

            At the end of the night, Samantha and her boyhusband get into a white 1966 Ford Thunderbird with the top down. The moon is bigger and brighter than it has ever been, just for Samantha and her boyhusband, who wave at it and blow kisses. 

            Samantha and her boyhusband put their white 1966 Ford Thunderbird into drive, the top still down. They blow one more kiss at their moon, then they floor it off the cliff. Everyone crowds around, drops their champagne flutes, and puts their hands to their cheeks. 

            Samantha and her boyhusband fall down to their ocean, mouths meeting, hands groping, not even buckled—not that it matters, since there’s endless buckled ways to go in a car from 1966.They head straight for those shrimp tails that everyone tossed in and their clothes billow up and away. Their car creaks and wonders where it could be off to, with the motor still running and the water coming closer and closer. 

            Everyone watches Samantha and her boyhusband as they get smaller and quieter. Everyone can’t speak from the shock, yet they feel vindicated—they knew Samantha and her boyhusband were too perfect. But they don’t smile because, in their hearts, they still feel jealous.