My best friend came from a poor family and had a fondness for secondhand things.
My boyfriend admired how thrifty she was, so he opened a secondhand company for her.
After that, every gift I received was used.
One word from her, that something was "too extravagant," and he traded my couture wedding gown for a dress she'd cobbled together out of old bedsheets.
One word from her, that "every grain comes from toil," and he canceled the wedding banquet we'd booked and replaced it with a hundred tables of leftovers.
He even believed her drunken joke that a "secondhand" woman had more flavor to her, and pressured me to date one of his buddies before the wedding, to gain some experience.
If that was how it was, then this secondhand love, I didn't want either.
I sent a message to my family:
"I agree to the marriage alliance."
"The wedding in a month, swap the groom for the man I'm matched with."
...
When James Mason saw me toss aside that bedsheet wedding dress, he started to scold me.
"Janet Dale stayed up the whole night making this gown for you. How can you be so thoughtless?"
Janet jumped in to smooth things over. "It's fine. Rosa probably can't stand a plain cloth dress like this. Let's switch it for the couture after all."
James exploded. "Switch it for what? She's not some movie star. What does she need couture for?"
"Rosamond Mann, you and Janet are as close as sisters, and you can't pick up even half of her thrift. How are you going to make a proper wife?"
Seeing this, Janet changed the subject and started talking with James about the reception décor.
"Why don't we return all the fresh flowers for the banquet and use the artificial ones the company recycles instead? That way we save money, and we get to promote our company too."
James went from furious to smiling in an instant, and the more they talked, the better they got along.
The company had been doing well these past two years, and Janet was hailed as the one who'd made it happen.
Only when he was facing her did James ever break into a smile.
But I was supposed to be James's real girlfriend, and instead I'd become the backdrop to their date.
My phone chimed. A message from Janet:
【Rosa, I handled your man for you. Don't thank me too much.】
【I don't get it. A good, thrifty man like this, I couldn't love him fast enough, and you're picking fights with him?】
I pressed the phone dark and didn't reply.
Since she loved him, then let him be hers.
James and I met in college.
He always said greatness rises from humble beginnings.
Not long after we got together, he hit it off instantly with my best friend, who came from the same kind of background.
After graduation, the two of them went into business together and opened the secondhand company.
To please my boyfriend, I wore secondhand clothes and let him go through my accounts every month and control my spending.
When we went to family dinners, my parents got mocked because I was dressed so shabbily.
Meanwhile, Janet was quietly wearing the couture pieces out of my own closet.
James explained it this way:
"You were born into wealth. You have more beautiful clothes than you can count. They're wasted on you."
"Janet's lived frugally her whole life. It's only right she gets to wear something nice."
They went from the reception décor to the décor of the wedding home, and didn't even notice me leave.
Two people who fit together this well really ought to be together.
I rode my bicycle, weaving through the busy traffic of the city.
A pink Cayenne pulled up beside me, and the muddy water it threw up sprayed all over me.
Janet leaned her head out of the driver's seat.
"Rosa, I was going to give you a ride, but now you've turned into a little mud doll... if you get in, we'll just have to pay to wash the car again."
James gave a cold snort. "There's no money to waste on her like that!"
"Get going!"
"Yes, sir!"
Janet stepped on the gas, and the car shot forward.
The body of the car clipped my handlebar, and I fell to the ground.
That Cayenne was the birthday present my parents had given me.
