Creatures of Habit by Jill McCorkle

abandoning her cart behind the greeting-card stand.
    So of course she said yes when Alan asked her to move in with him. Who wouldn’t? After all, here was this successful, nice-looking person ready to take care of her for life. Andmarriage made the most sense of all. What she had with Randy was a kid thing; intellectually she knew that this was the choice that made the most sense for her. So she read
Bride
magazine cover to cover, and the thought of herself in one of those dresses, the wonderful place settings to choose from, the whole prospect of buying her very own house with window treatments and furniture thrilled her beyond belief and took up a good chunk of her time. She would have to think about school or a job later,
after
the wedding. She might even decide not to get a job at all, ever, a luxury she had never dreamed of having.
    Randy sent her a wedding gift—a doormat that said “Wipe Your Paws” and a cookbook with all of Elvis Presley’s favorite meals called
Fit for a King.
She had not shown Alan these, fearing what he might say, though for several late nights, she scoured the pages of the cookbook for a hidden message—anything, a hair from his head, a turned down page that might lead her to read every word for the message. She told herself that if there was not a sign, she should let go and move on.
    â€œAre you sure this is what you want?” her mother had asked, and though she had a chilling moment when she wanted to voice her uncertainty, she had a sudden image of Randy bumping along the fields in his truck with the Chi O,showing her all of the places and telling her all of the things they had sworn to keep secret, and it made her sink her heels deeper. It made her turn her attention to some more expensive choices: she went from Gorham to Wedgwood. Everyone got cold feet. She studied all the travel ads in the back of the magazines. Alan had said that they could go anywhere on their honeymoon—anywhere she wanted to go.
    â€œNiagara Falls or the Poconos.” She had stated her choices firmly so that he wouldn’t talk her into some place like Italy or Hawaii, places she might want to visit as an older person. And of course going to a place known for honeymoons was corny but that was part of the fun of it all. She imagined they would take photos of the two of them lounging in a heart-shaped tub. It would be the sort of thing you could pull out and laugh about for the rest of your life. Alan said he had taken Susan Hunter on a cruise, and even though he could not afford it at the time, the two of them had always been so happy that they splurged and did it up big.
    â€œWell, this is what I want,” she said and showed him all the pictures in the magazines. “There is a swimming pool right in your room.”
    â€œOh God,” he sighed his worldly sigh and laughed. “If this is what you want then, okay.”
    There was condescension in his voice; she heard it loud and clear, but she would prove him wrong. Now, as she stood looking around the hotel entryway, she anticipated his saying
I told you so
. It looked nothing like the pictures. It looked as much like the Bates Motel as it did the pictures. She had read recently that Janet Leigh never showered after making
Psycho.
Who could blame her? Janet was in
Psycho
and Tony Curtis played the Boston Strangler. No wonder Jamie Lee Curtis wound up making those Halloween movies. She said all of this to Alan, but he claimed to know nothing about cult movies and horror shows. He only knew
films
and he was likely to
not
like what other people liked. He called it discriminating. There was a time less than a year ago when she would have called it boring. Randy would have said
So who died and made you the goddamn authority?
    Heart-shaped tubs and round beds. Fireplaces. Jacuzzis. It was clear that at one time this place had been
the
place to go—like maybe in the sixties. The nightclub entry was lined with photos of