Eve can’t decide if she should wear white. At her first wedding, it wasn’t an issue, nudity being de rigueur. She embraced the absence of clothing. Well, why not? She glistened with youthful sexiness. Her body rocked, but now she needed a dress with some give around the hips, maybe some ruching to conceal the mush of her belly. Sleeves to hide her flappy upper arms when she dances at the reception.
Who would’ve thought she’d ever dance again?
Hell, who would’ve thought she would ever be doing any of the things she was into since she’d met Second Simon? Karaoke at the Gomorrah Bar. Skiing at Mount Nebo. Smoking weed. Tasting new wines. Even attempting to press their own grapes.
She loved the way Simon pressed her grapes. Her first husband lost interest in sex almost as soon as she was formed, said he felt weird kissing something that came from his own rib, felt somewhat cannibalistic, and said she tasted like dirt. He hated the taste of her, metallic and gritty.
Adam could spend hours pruning the garden, down on his knees, cradling tubers and rhizomes. Hours trying to entice wrens to land on his finger. But when it came to Eve, well, he just shrugged his shoulders and slumped away. Finally, they both agreed to give up. Divorce. Move on. Maybe find happiness.
Several months after the split, Adam messaged Eve, asked her to meet him at the Pea Patch Cafe. She almost didn’t recognize him. His usual scowl had disappeared. There was mousse in his hair. Adam’s hair had rarely been combed, much less coiffed. And his fingernails were clean, manicured.
“You look different,” Eve said.
Adam smiled. “I’m gay.”
“What’s gay?”
“I like men instead of women. I love Joshua. He doesn’t taste like dirt.”
“That explains a lot,” Eve said.
Adam pushed his chair back and stood.
He was out the door before Eve could ask if he was leaving. She saw him hugging a man on the sidewalk. Probably Joshua.
Eve carried on. She joined a book club, took cooking lessons, moved to a loft in the city, and bought a dog, one of those tamed beasts of the field everyone was raving about.
She relished being single, loved sleeping in a real bed instead of the cold, damp clay of the riverbed. She took little weekend vacations. Her girlfriends, Martha, Sarah, and Bathsheba, needled her to start dating.
“What’s dating?” Eve said.
“Oh, honey, you were married too long,” Bathsheba said. “Dating is when you go out with a man to a movie or dinner, and then you get laid.”
Eve was intrigued with dating, even more so with getting laid. So, she joined a matching service called Pro-Creators that promised success or your money back. Her second date was with Second Simon, who’d had three wives; all perished during the Great Venomous Spider-pox Plague. When he spoke of them, Eve heard sadness in Simon’s voice, but she also detected hope and a sense of gladness that he’d had true love threefold.
Simon liked fast camels and loud music. And oh, he could play the lute. Whenever he sang to her, Eve tingled down to her paradise.
They didn’t date long before Eve suggested they get married. They were older. No time to waste. No one, except maybe Methuselah, lived forever, and who knew what could happen: famine, flood, toads falling from the sky.
Simon said he was keen on the idea, so here she was, shopping for the gown. White? Hot pink? Silver with sequins? A dress of many colors?
“For such an occasion, you don’t want ready-to-wear,” the clerk said. “You must consult with our designer. He’s the talk of the fashion world. His studio is next door.”
Eve walked over and knocked. The door opened. Who stood there but Adam, flashy turquoise hair, stylish goatee, fingernails painted a devilish purple, tight paisley pants that accentuated Adam’s apples. And strangely, Eve wasn’t shocked at all, remembering all the cute outfits he’d made from nothing more than fig leaves and a prayer.
“Eve, dahling, entrez, s’il vous plaît,” Adam said. “I speak French now.”
“What’s French?” Eve said.
“It’s a beret. It’s a mime. It’s a snail that you eat,” Adam said. “It’s a je ne sais pas.”
“I don’t understand,” Eve said.
“I don’t either, but it’s all the rage,” Adam said.
When Eve explained that she needed a wedding dress, Adam grabbed her and hugged her tighter than he had ever had when they were married. Then he said, “Quelle surprise! I’m remarrying, too.”
They both designed an amazing gown, choosing a floral fabric bedecked with peonies, irises, tulips. “Eve, dahling, you’ll bloom like a human bouquet,” Adam said. “How apropos. I’ll sew it myself. I’ll even give you the family-and-friends discount.”
Eve invited Adam and Joshua to her wedding, but he declined, saying they were heading to Paris.
“What’s Paris?” Eve said.
“No one could explain Paris,” Adam said, “but everyone there speaks French and the bread is better than manna from Heaven.”
They bid each other adieu, even though she didn’t know what that was. Eve went home, walking past the overgrown garden where she and Adam had lived as newlyweds. She thought about how they’d been pushed into marriage without really knowing each other, reminisced about the good times: tasting all those exotic fruits, building their cozy thatched hut, birthing their sons. In turn, she remembered the hard days: the trouble with the snake, the eviction, the unending grief over Abel’s death.
She took one last look at the tangled mass of vines and briars, the gnarled tree trunks, the hunch of dead branches. Then she sighed, turned, and walked toward a new genesis. ⬥
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