Wedding of the Century update

Peter had thought he was over butterflies in his stomach. He and Gwen had been past that stage, into a place where he knew how wonderful she was. Not a surprise, except that she wanted to be with him.

But he spent the entire day feeling like a teenager. A teenager with a good life, like the hot guy in a CW show. His clothes looked good on him. His wet hair combed out into a GQ look. He managed to cook eggs Benedict without making scrambled eggs. At school, he put on a movie. He didn't really watch it and he didn't write Mr. Mary Jane Watson Parker all over his notebook, but he sympathized with the feeling.

It seemed like kismet when a young Mary Jane showed up in a small role and the crowd went so wild, Mrs. Catcher had to come over from next door and tell him that her kids were taking a test.

Finally, the school day was over. Peter felt a thrill of anticipation, blended with trepidation. She was so beautiful, so… nice. How could he impress her?

He looked over the kids boarding their busses. They probably had more of an idea what to do than him. At least they could settle for taking a girl to the arcade. Did they still have arcades?

He got home and buried himself in housework. He could at least tidy up the scene where Mary Jane rejected him, if it came to that. He gave the toilet a much needed bleaching, cleaned the grout in the shower, moved the furniture around to vacuum under it. Cleaned everything expired out of the refrigerator. It reminded him of when Aunt May had hired a cleaner when he'd been growing up. She got so neurotic about it that he and Ben always ended up cleaning everything before she got there.

The doorbell rang while he was beating a rug. He slung the rug over the fire escape and went to answer it.

“Mary Jane! You're early.”

“I got tired of all those stereotypes about women taking forever to get ready.”

Peter had worked up a good sweat, whipping the apartment into shape. He started to wipe his brow, then stopped himself. Maybe he shouldn't draw her attention to just how gross he was at the moment.

So of course what he said was: “I haven't showered yet.”

“Oh, don't let me stop you. The boys need time to set up.”

“The boys?”

They, Peter assumed, were the people who came through the doorway once MJ pulled him aside. They were possibly the most eclectic collection Peter had ever seen in one place. Somewhere between the cast of an off Broadway play and if a magic spell turned all the Muppets human.

“Is this some sort of… quintuple date?”

“They're my team. They're just going to… think of it as a sensitivity read.”

“For a date?”

One of the readers gave a whistle. “Red flag,” he said, and picked up a book from Peter's to-read stack with a swastika on the cover.

“It's a paratrooper's memoir. It's about fighting Nazis,” Peter said, trying not to be exasperated this early in the evening.

MJ picked a piece of lint off his shirt. “I know that, and you know that, but think of everyone watching the Tiktok in 480 resolution. All they see is a swastika.” She turned to the reader. “Replace it with Andrea Dworkin. And that copy of Catcher In The Rye… something by Maya Angelou. Dog ear it.”

“What Tiktok?” Peter insisted.

“Don't think of it as a tiktok, tiger. We're going on Instagram stories, Facebook, X, most of the attention streams…”

“Don't call it X,” Peter moaned.

“I'm legally obligated to. Elon musk is paying me ten thousand dollars.”

“Seriously?”

“He really wants it to catch on.”

“This rug’s no good,” another of the sideshow said.

“I was cleaning it!” Peter protested. 

MJ patted his chest. “He means it's no good as a physical object. Enrique, new rug!”

“I don't need a new rug!”

“Who does? What do they even do? Oh, that's good. Let's save that for the witty banter part of the evening.” Mary Jane whipped a pen and memo pad out, made a quick note, then ripped the paper off to hold out to Peter. “Pete, you want it?”

“Want it? “

“The line. You can have it. You need to be quippy and I know how hard it is to come up with these things in the fly. Why do you think people put up with Joss Whedon for so long?”

“My Tut!” Peter cried, as a man who had to go scuba diving on weekends walked by with his replica of King Tut’s funerary mask.

“Culturally insensitive,” Mary Jane said apologetically. 

“It's not like it's the real thing.”

“I know that and you know that…”

“You think people will see King Tut’s funerary mask in a schoolteacher’s apartment and say it's real?”

“Dumb people have internet too and they can’t watch Zach Snyder movies all the time.”

“Do we have to cater to them?”

“It's a huge demographic.”

“Why does it matter? Is this a date or are we putting on a play?”

MJ bopped her head to the left and to the right. “Can it be both?”

“I didn't sign up to star in some sort of… perfume commercial with you. Are those chairs?” he asked, now noticing that his folding chairs had disappeared and combinations of wooden dining chairs with raw sheep wool were being brought in.

“Let me answer your question with a question: how long have you had that dining set?”

“I don't know, I got the table in ’18, that chair with the slats missing in ‘22, that chair's from the Obama Administration…”

“I rest my case.”

“What case?” Peter demanded.

MJ drew him aside, out of the way of the registered libertarians bringing in a new table that was not meant for playing cards. “Peter, think of it this way. Acting, singing, those are just parts of my job. The real thrust of it is being famous. That means people have to like me, they have to want me, they have to think they are me…”

“That's messed up. Don't you get a private life?”

“Well, I do and I don't. Think of it this way. My fans are like my family. When you date someone, your family has to approve of them, right?”

“Think of it this way: they are not your family.”

“I'm not asking you to give a speech. We'll take a few pictures, film a few clips, let my fans get to know you a little bit.”

“Me and my well-documented love of Toni Morrison?” Peter asked as a male cheerleader brought a signed poster in.

“Everyone lies on their job application.”

“Being your boyfriend is a job?” Peter held up a hand to stop her response. “Let me guess. It is and it isn't.”

“Peter, picture this.” Mary Jane took him by the shoulders and aimed him out the window.

Peter looked back over his shoulder. “Is that an espresso machine?”

“Peter, focus. You’re a ten-year-old girl in Indiana.”

“I’m a ten-year-old girl in Indiana,” Peter repeated blandly.

“You don’t have many friends. No siblings. Your parents work late. Are they still married? Statistically, probably not.”

“Do I have to be a girl in this scenario?”

“You can be a gay boy too, I have a lot of gay boys.”

“Is that who the espresso machine is for?”

“No, they use Doordash and Starbucks. The espresso machine is because I have a sponsorship deal with König. I make two thousand dollars every time they show up in my videos.”

“So do I get a cut of that or—”

“Peter, stay in character. What ten-year-old girl thinks like that?” She gestured out the window. “Where were we?”

“Divorced parents.”

“Yes!” Mary Jane cried. “You don’t have a mother, little girl! No one to teach you how to be a woman!”

“Am I supposed to be looking… at Indiana?” Peter asked. “Is this the direction Indiana is in?”

MJ ignored him. “I’ll tell you what you do have, though. A dream. A dream called Mary Jane Watson. The cool big sister you never had. Leading the stylish lifestyle you want. Showing you that you can have it, just like her. You can be rich and famous and socially conscious, with the perfect boyfriend.”

“The perfect boyfriend can’t own folding chairs?”

“It’s an act, Peter. A beautiful dream. Sure, we’re massaging reality a little bit, but that’s just to give that little girl a version of this empowering message that she can believe in and understand. I know that you’re a real person, with your own thoughts and dreams and feelings. But this is a ninety-second video. We really don’t have time for that. Obviously I don’t care if you tweeze your eyebrows or not—but we do need that version of you for public consumption.”

Peter put his hands on his hips. “So you don’t want another Hollywood phony, but you want me to look and act just like another Hollywood phony?”

“Pete, I hate to impose, but it's putting a poster up for a few hours and getting new furniture. Is this really too much of a sacrifice to make for me?”

“No, Peter admitted, “of course not, it's just…” He paused for a moment as another of Mary Jane’s merry men came up behind him to check his shoulder width with a tape measure. He acquiesced with a wry look at MJ. “Nothing I'm used to.”

“I know.” Mary Jane ruffled his hair. “But I'll be with you every step of the way.” She looked at her hand. “Hey, is Magenta done with her cigarette? I need some product on this guy.”

“I just got a haircut.”

“Super Clips?” Mary Jane asked sympathetically.

“It's shorter, isn't it?”

“Pete, men have only so long until they go bald. Don't waste it. Can someone get me Fernando!? We’re going to need gel!”