Chapter Text
Mae Boonchuy was doing dishes in the kitchen, humming along to the heavy metal playing from the radio beside the sink when she felt something tug at the legs of her jeans. Over the pounding drums and shredding guitar, she heard a tiny voice.
“Um, M-Mrs. Boonchuy…?”
Mae looked down. Little Marcy Wu, one of her daughter Anne’s best friends was staring up at Mae with a teary-eyed gaze, her lower lip quivering.
The sight of a child being upset sent Mae’s maternal instincts into overdrive. Quick as a flash she grabbed a towel to dry her hands, then turned off the radio. She knelt down, putting a comforting hand on Marcy’s shoulder.
“Marcy?” Mae asked gently. “What’s the matter sweetie?”
“A-Anne and Sasha are fighting,” Marcy replied with a sniffle.
Mae raised an eyebrow. She opened her mouth to ask for more details, but stopped and tilted her head towards the ceiling.
Without the loud music playing, she could hear high-pitched voices yelling from directly overhead, where her daughter’s room was.
“What in the world?” Mae asked herself. Shaking her head she stood up, gently taking Marcy’s hand in her own. “Come on Mar-Mar, let’s go see what the problem is.”
Mae led Marcy through the Boonchuy house, up to the second floor. The door to Anne’s bedroom was ajar, and the closer they got the louder the yelling became. Mrs. Boonchuy pushed open the door to see her daughter Anne and her newest friend Sasha Waybright standing just feet apart in the center of the room surrounded by Anne’s toys. They both glared at one another, tiny fists clenched as they talked far too fast for Mae to understand what they were arguing about. In fact, they were so absorbed in their argument that they didn’t even notice Mae and Marcy.
Mrs. Boonchuy put her fingers in her mouth, whistling sharply.
Anne and Sasha froze at the shrill sound. They slowly turned to finally notice Mae glaring at them, still holding Marcy’s hand, the third girl looking at the floor as she huddled close to her friend’s mom.
“Anne Boonchuy,” Mae said sternly. “Fighting with your friends? I’m very disappointed in you, young lady. You and Sasha both.”
“She started it!” Both girls said at once, pointing at the other.
“I don’t care who started it, I’m finishing it.” Mrs. Boonchuy put her free hand on her hip. “Now, Anne? What’s this about?”
Anne stomped a tiny foot, still pointing at Sasha. “Sasha said she’s going to marry Marcy when we’re grown up! But she can’t because I’m gonna marry Marcy!”
Mae blinked.
Okay, she hadn’t seen that coming.
“Why do you get to marry Marcy?” Sasha asked, hands on her hips. “Just ‘cause you knew her first?”
“That’s not the only reason!” Anne insisted. “I’m her bestest friend, I know all her favorite things! Like that she loves Pokemon and mint chip ice cream an-and she has glow-in-the-dark star stickers on her bedroom ceiling! I even helped her and her dad put them up!”
“So what?” Sasha shot back. “I’m the one who knows how to take care of Marcy! ‘Member when Marcy scraped her knee that day we were riding bikes? Or when she got that splinter when we were at the playground? Which one of us went and got help? Me! Who freaked out? You!”
The girls devolved into another round of bickering. Mae heard Marcy whimper as she hid behind her, and she pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Enough!” Mae said sharply.
Anne and Sasha stopped their arguing and looked back towards Anne’s mom, who knelt down to look them both in the eyes as she spoke in a firm voice.
“Friendship is not a competition, girls,” Mae said. “You can both be friends with Marcy in different ways. You don’t have to let some silly rivalry ruin your friendships with her or each other. Okay?”
Anne and Sasha looked down. Their anger melted away, replaced by shame.
“Yes Mom,” Anne said, at the same time Sasha said “Yes Mrs. Boonchuy.”
Mae nodded. “Good. Now apologize to each other and to Marcy for upsetting her.”
“Sorry Sasha,” Anne said quietly, holding her hands behind her back. “Sorry Mar-Mar.”
“I’m sorry too Marbles,” Sasha said softly, rubbing her forearm. “And I’m sorry, Anne.”
Marcy tentatively stepped out from behind Anne’s mom, sniffling and nodding. “Okay. Just don’t fight like that again, okay? Promise me.”
“We promise,” Anne and Sasha said in unison.
Mae smiled, nodding again. That was one issue down, now onto the other.
“As for why you were arguing,” she said, “none of you will have to worry about marriage for a long time. But when that time does come, Marcy should be the one that decides who she gets to marry. And wether that’s one of you or neither of you, you shouldn’t let her decision ruin what the three of you have. You’re all good friends, and nothing should get in the way of that.
“But… but I don’t want to marry anyone besides Anne or Sasha!” Marcy spoke up, getting the attention of the other three. She fidgeted with the legs of her overalls, her brow furrowed. “And I can’t pick just one of them…”
Marcy suddenly gasped and looked up. Her frustration melted away into elation. “That’s it! I’ll just marry you both! All three of us can get married when we’re all grown up!”
Mae blinked. “Wait, what?”
Anne and Sasha glanced at one another as Marcy’s suggestion hung in the air.
“I’m cool with that,” Sasha said, smiling slightly.
Anne nodded, smiling herself. “Yeah… yeah that could work. All three of us are friends, so all three of us can be wives too! That’s perfect!”
“Um girls-” Mae started to say.
But it was too late. Already Anne, Sasha and Marcy had bunched together, talking excitedly about their future wedding plans with excited eyes and bright smiles. It was as if the earlier argument had never even happened.
Mae chuckled and shook her head, walking out of the room and gently closing the door behind her.
As she walked back downstairs, Mae fished her flip phone out of her pocket and sent a text message to her husband: Looks like we’re going to have two daughters-in-law.
The wordless reply came a few minutes later after Mae had finished the dishes: ?
Taking a seat on the living room couch to relax, Mae texted a brief summary of the last few minutes.
Just the girls being silly, she sent at the end of it all.
Fifteen years later as Mae Boonchuy and her husband sat beside the Plantar family in a beautiful coral park in the heart of Newtopia, watching her precious baby girl standing at the altar, she idly thought back to that day years ago when the girls spontaneously decided that one day they they would all get married.
Just the girls being silly, Mae distinctly remembered thinking at the time.
Now as she watched Anne say her vows in a gorgeous blue dress that sparkled under the Amphibian sun, Marcy in a green dress on her left and Sasha in a pink dress on her right, it wasn’t silly at all.
In fact, it was one of the most beautiful sights Mae had ever seen.