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that those pockets are indeed meant FOR PENS ONLY because nothing else would fit inside them. But no, she's never bothered to put anything in a specific place, choosing instead to stuff items in the bag at random, which always results in moments like this, when she is pulling out an unusable tampon half emancipated from its protective paper wrapper, a bottle of generic medicinal-smelling hand sanitizer, a fossilized trick-or-treat-size Baby Ruth bar ... everything but the cell phone she's looking for. She usually curses the pockets, but today she's grateful for them, if only because contemplating the pockets helped waste brain time that might have been devoted to other subjects.
    "Where is my ph—?"
    The phone. Bridget and Percy had told her about the wedding over the phone. They had grabbed the phone out of each other's hands to relay the story of how he had convinced her to make good on their engagement and get married already.
    "I want a wedding," Percy said.
    "He's the bride in this scenario," Bridget added.
    "I want a public ceremony, a celebration of how much I love her..."
    "I was, like, why do we need a piece of paper?"
    "I told her that we didn't need it. I just wanted it..."
    "I needed Percy to point out to me that my fears weren't really about us but about my parents ..."
    "Their divorce really messed her up ..."
    "It did, it really did ..."
    "She was afraid that getting married would somehow complicate things, make things worse ..."
    "I was afraid of history repeating itself. I mean, my parents must have liked each other at some point, though it never seemed to be while they were actually married to each other..."
    "We are not our parents ..."
    "We're just us ..."
    Jessica was happily mum during their back-and-forth banter, speaking up ("What?!") only when they asked her to be the ministress of ceremonies.
    "Urn, I'm a nonbeliever," Jessica reminded them.
    "We know!" they chorused.
    "You can get ordained over the Internet," Bridget explained.
    "By the Universal Ministry of Secular Humanity," Percy added.
    Jessica found it interesting that Bridget and Percy had assumed she was referring to her lack of faith in God, when she just as easily could have been referring to her lack of faith in the institution of marriage. Of the two, Jessica actually considered the latter a greater obstacle to overcome for the purposes of performing a marriage ceremony. She kept this opinion to herself, however, knowing that if any couple's union was worth forsaking her anti-matrimonial stance, it was Bridget and Percy's.

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    "Is the Universal Ministry of Secular Humanity anything like Pastafarianism?" Jessica asked.
    Bridget and Percy had anticipated Jessica's every argument and verbally climbed all over each other in presenting their counterarguments.
    "We actually looked into getting you ordained by the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster..."
    "But it seems that you can only be ordained by a real church, not a heretical parody of a church ..."
    "The Universal Ministry of Secular Humanity, however, is the best alternative because it makes a big deal out of being nondenominational and supportive of all
    religious practice—including the right not to practice ..."
    "Its emphasis is on this life and simply doing what's right..."
    "And once you get ordained, you can perform weddings throughout the United States, including the Virgin Islands, which is where we want to get it done ..."
    "Why go through all this trouble?" Jessica asked, flattered by how much effort they had already put in.
    "We want you!"
    "After all," Percy added, "you were the first to know."
    "How old were we?" Bridget asked.
    "You were a junior. I was a sophomore. Sixteen? Seventeen?" Percy said.
    "Omigod! How can it be possible that we've been together that long? That's crazy!"
    "Crazy ..."
    Where was Jessica during this conversation? Cross-legged on a quilted, garishly floral-patterned