by Cee, DW
“So obviously, you all know I had a good weekend. What answers are you exactly looking for?”
The chief also joined in. “So is she still the one after two full days together? You’ve never once spoken of marriage till this Emily came along.”
“She is most definitely the one! This weekend only solidified what I already knew.”
The dim sum cart started coming around and everyone began picking their favorites. I saw my mom choose the shrimp and scallop har gow; Uncle Dave picked out the pan-fried dumplings; Dad decided on the siu mai, and the chief picked Chinese broccoli and shrimp rolls. I picked a deep-fried pork dumpling, and I thought of how much Emily would have enjoyed having lunch with us. There wouldn’t have been anything she didn’t like at our table.
“So what makes her the one? After years with Kelley, you never mentioned marrying her. Were you too young back then?” This time my dad wanted to know.
Considering how close we were as a family, it was only fitting that every Reid expressed not only curiosity, but also concern about my relationships.
“Dad, when you meet her, you’ll understand. She is such a sweet person. She’s honest and open and down to earth. She’s had a tough life. Her dad died when she was thirteen and her mom followed him when Emily was only seventeen. At times, I see signs of loneliness and sadness, but rather than being down on life, she’s playful and affectionate and heartfelt. I can’t get enough of this girl.”
“Does she feel as strongly about you?” That was a legitimate question from Uncle Henry.
“Not yet, I don’t think. Because she’s been alone for so long, I think she wants to lean on someone entirely but is also afraid to do so. She told me this weekend she felt abandoned by her parents for leaving her so early.” I decided to leave out the part about Max and their four years together. This wasn’t something I wanted anyone to know since it wasn’t important to her or me.
I saw my mom start to tear. “How heartbreaking to lose not just one parent but both of them so early in life. I will definitely dote on her when I meet her in Hawaii.” Knowing Mom, she would most assuredly do so. “Jane called to say Emily was wonderful. She told me they made a pact to be sisters regardless of what happens to your relationship.”
“I guess we have a new Reid in the family. We can’t wait to meet her next week,” Uncle Dave declared as we finished up lunch.
The rest of the day flashed by. When I got to Emily’s doorstep it was already midnight. The lights were off but I couldn’t resist seeing her. I had missed her all day.
Ding dong. The lights turned on like a domino effect—the family room, the kitchen, the dining room to the living room.
Incredibly excited to see my love, I wanted to hug and kiss her the moment I saw her. Instead I was shocked to see Emily’s face.
“What’s the matter, Emily? Have you been crying?”
“How’d you know?” Her face looked even more surprised than mine.
“Your eyes are puffier than a marshmallow. Why were you crying?” We walked hand in hand, and while I went off to the couch, she went to look at her eyes in the mirror.
“Does this have something to do with your lunch with Max today?” I knew her meeting with Max would be a bad idea. I hoped he didn’t undo all our progress this weekend. “Do you mind telling me what happened?”
Without missing any detail, she told me Max regretted breaking up with my girlfriend when she was his girlfriend. When I asked her how she felt about Max’s regret, she gave me all the right answers, but I still couldn’t understand why she had cried.
“If you don’t want a relationship with Max and it is me you want, why were you crying?”
She was at a loss for words. Thinking about this for a few seconds, she answered, “I cried because a lot of the pain I felt after we broke up resurfaced. Those were the words I wanted to hear eighteen months ago, not now. Maybe I was angry at him for…”
“Waiting this long?” I finished her sentence. “Do you want to get back together with him but can’t because of me? Am I in your way?”
What possessed me to ask these questions and leave the balance of our relationship up to her was beyond me. I guess I needed to know her answer.
“No! I want to be with you, Jake.” She hugged me tenaciously, body shaking. “Please don’t think that. Please, please believe me when I tell you how much I cherish our relationship.”
With such ardor, I was happy to have asked my questions. I brought her close to me and attempted to understand her.
“Emily, explain to me what’s on your mind. There must be something lingering in your heart for Max for you to be in such anguish.”
“To be honest, I don’t exactly know what hold Max still has on me, if any. I know there’s no more connection between us, but why I still hurt so much when he brings up the past, I can’t explain.” She looked guilty again. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess. This is the kind of stuff I don’t want you to see. What I do know is that in the short while we’ve been together, you’re the one I want to be with, not Max.”
I decided at this point it was time to tell her how deeply I felt. I’d held back as long as I could. “Emily, I’m not letting you go anywhere. We are not separating for any reason. I can’t imagine my life without you anymore and I hope you feel the same way about me. You must know by now how much I love you. I can’t believe I’ve waited this long to tell you.”
I saw more signs of hesitation.
“And by the look on your face you don’t quite reciprocate?” I asked to be sure.
“Jake, I’m not there just yet,” she answered half shrugging her shoulders.
“Emily, are you really not there? I think you’re just afraid to admit it.”
“To me, when I tell someone I love them, it’s a forever kind of word. I can’t take it lightly. Forever is not in my vocabulary just yet with us.”
I got angry again. “Why do you keep saying that? Didn’t you tell Max you loved him? Why are you so negative about us all the time? Do you think I take the words ‘I love you’ lightly? The words ‘love’ and ‘flippant’ do not coexist in my vocabulary either. This appears to be a weekly argument with us.”
“I’m sorry, Jake.” She had a coquettish but apologetic smile as she sat on my lap and put her arms around my neck. “Can we not argue about this again? Just give me a little more time? Please?” She had perfected the art of flirting with my hope.
“You can’t admit you love me and you refuse to have sex with me. Why am I still here with you?”
“Because you love me.” She answered before propositioning my lips.
The next day I stopped by with breakfast but had to leave within minutes when I got paged. I came back fairly late in the evening to find dinner waiting for me.
“What’s for dinner?”
“Spaghetti, chopped salad, and garlic toast.”
“That smells good! I brought a cheesecake for dessert.” I held up the bag to show her. “Should I put it in the fridge?”
“Uh-huh. Can you get out the iced tea I put in there? Dinner’s ready. Let’s eat.”
“How was your day?” Emily asked nonchalantly not realizing how much she sounded like a wife asking her husband about his day.
I delighted in her question and forgot to answer.
“Are we not talking tonight?” She stared at me.
“My day started off intense but slowed down after lunch. What did you to all day?”
“I did just about nothing. I read a book, went grocery shopping and made dinner. I think I could live like this for a while.”
“Me too,” I answered but she didn’t understand my comment.
“Jake…” It was never a good sign when she dragged my name. Either I was in trouble, or she needed to confess something. “Can I ask you something that’s been bothering me since I saw Allison this weekend?”
“You’re not going to bring up the kiss again, are you?”
&
nbsp; “No, not this time.”
“Then what’s bothering you?” I tried to think through all the things Allison said and did while Emily was present. There wasn’t much else that happened, I didn’t think.
“Well…”
“Emi, just spit it out.”
“Well…when I met Allison, I noticed she had a similar…never mind. I’m being silly. Finish your dinner. Let’s talk about something else.”
I dropped my fork. “I’m not eating anymore till you finish your thought. What is it?”
She hesitated for a long while then tried again. “I noticed Allison had a similar ring as mine and I wondered if you had given that to her.” Her head dropped immediately. I just hoped she wasn’t crying.
“Emily, what ring? I didn’t give her any ring.” Furiously I searched my brain for a mental picture of Allison’s finger that morning. I also did a quick jog through my memory to make sure I hadn’t given her anything that significant.
My girlfriend didn’t look convinced.
“It’s OK if you have.” She tried to backpedal. “I don’t mind.” Obviously she did. “I shouldn’t have asked. Sorry…”
“Emi, I promise you, I haven’t given her any gifts. I don’t know what ring she had on, but it wasn’t from me.”
“OK.” She answered and took a big awkward bite of her spaghetti.
“You don’t believe me, huh? I promise, it wasn’t from me.”
Emily didn’t say anything but continued eating.
“All right, let me tell you about all the girls I’ve dated and what I’ve given to each one of them so you will believe me when I tell you I’ve given no girl a ring in my life but you. You are the only one.”
Comically, Emily’s eye bulged and she cringed at the can of worms she’d opened. Purposely and tediously I named every girl I’d “dated,” even the ones I had a crush on in elementary school, and told Emily about each and every gift a girl or woman got from me. It started with the girl in first grade who received a pink pencil from me all the way to Kelley who received several Tiffany trinkets, to books to a trip to Mexico. I gave the names of all the other women I’d gone on a date with and where we went and what we did, to the best of my memory. For the sake of our relationship, I didn’t outline all that I had done on my dates and filled in the blanks to some I really couldn’t remember.
“OK! OK! I’m sorry. I believe you. I don’t need to hear any more. It’s not that I didn’t believe you the first time, I felt stupid having asked that question. I was jealous.”
“No, I think you need to hear more.” I punished her with copious details, many of which were unnecessary but made my adventures even more drawn out. Toward the end of the story, all Emi could do was laugh. I had made my point. She conceded a loss.
“You can be so mean sometimes,” she accused.
“Oh, you charge me with giving Allison the same ring you have on and tell me I’m the one who’s being mean?”
“I’m sorry. How can I make this up to you?” The banter began again.
“Will you let me stay the night?”
She gave me a “seriously” look.
“I’ll sleep in the guest room. Just let me stay here tonight.”
“I think it’s time for you to leave.” Emily got up and started clearing the dishes. “We’ll have the cheesecake tomorrow night. Will you be back?”
“Can I stay tomorrow night?” I didn’t let up.
She shook her head no again then grabbed my hand and led me to the door.
“What time is your surgery tomorrow morning?”
“Early. I won’t stop by in the morning but I’ll be home early as well.” I wondered if she caught the word home as I referred to it as our home. I was sure she did but pretended not to have heard it.
“Good night.” She tiptoed to give me a peck on the lips.
I caught the peck and responded with lust of my own.
The day started before the sun was up and I didn’t get to communicate with Emily till about noon. I called but she didn’t pick up her phone so I sent her a text.
Hello, Beautiful. What are you up to?
I could never understand why she texted back so quickly but wouldn’t pick up the phone.
I’m having lunch with Sarah. What time will you come over tonight?
Probably around 4:00. Tell Sarah I said hello. I miss you.
Will do. If you get there before I do use the spare key by the back door. Miss you too.
I got to Emily’s earlier than expected and found her car but no one to open the door. Possibly Sarah had picked her up and they weren’t back from lunch yet. I went around back and walked in using her spare key. Setting the key on her coffee table, I looked into Emily’s bedroom and found her taking a nap. Unable to resist, I gingerly walked over and crawled into bed with her. She didn’t feel my weight on the bed but quickly froze in fear when I curved my arm around her waist from behind.
“It’s only me,” I answered with kisses to the back of her head.
“You scared me,” she complained turning around.
Rather than pushing me off the bed as I had expected, she curled herself into my body and fell back asleep. We napped till the sun had long gone down and our stomachs started grumbling.
“You want to go out and grab a bite to eat?” I asked her as she stayed comfortably in my arms.
“No. Let me make us dinner.” I was sorry I asked. She got up, went into the kitchen and in the blink of an eye, pulled together a salad.
“What did you make so quickly?”
“It’s a shrimp and crab Louie salad. I had all the ingredients prepared. I just needed to assemble it.” She poured Thousand Island dressing on both our salads and I happily ate.
“Should we go watch a movie tonight?” I asked.
“What time to do you need to get into the hospital tomorrow?”
“I got in early today. I don’t start till 9:00 tomorrow. We can hang out tonight.”
“OK, but no movie. Maybe we can go rent a movie instead. I feel lazy. I don’t want to go anywhere. Let’s just hang out here.”
“Sounds good. How was lunch with Sarah? What did you eat today?”
“Sarah had some project near downtown so we ate at Langers. I had a pastrami sandwich craving.”
These cravings had helped us meet so I was always happy to hear about them. I got up and cleared our dishes and we sat comfortably in her living room without any agenda. As always, I enjoyed my time with her.
“Emily, I’d love to hear more about your parents. Will you tell me about them?”
“You want to hear about them?” She sounded thrilled. I would have asked sooner if I’d known it would make her this happy.
She ran over to get photo albums, and she plopped on the floor ready to begin her journey. She started with pictures of her parents when they were in college.
“Your mom was stunning!” I blurted out.
“I know, isn’t she beautiful?” she answered wistfully. “When I was younger, I used to hate it when people told me how pretty she was. Unfortunately I didn’t really appreciate her till I got older.”
“Why would you hate someone telling you your mom was beautiful?”
“Because I was jealous. No one ever said anything remotely complimentary about me. The comment I got repeatedly was, ‘I hope you grow up to look just like your mom.’ It bugged me. Plus, my mom had such a vibrant personality, and I was so shy. She was always the life of the party and I was the wallflower in the corner.”
“Love, girls don’t come much prettier than you…even your mom,” I reassured her.
“You wouldn’t be saying that if you’d seen my mom in person.”
“I’d say it regardless. So how’d your dad get so lucky?”
Emily started cracking up. “Oh, my gosh, that’s such a funny story. My dad told me when Mom got to college, she was the talk of her Texas campus. Every guy wanted to date her. She wa
s in some sorority and every frat and non-frat guy had visited her house to ask her out.”
“So did your parents meet at a frat party?”
“No, my dad was the antithesis of my mom. He was awkward and extremely shy. He was a senior when Mom was a freshman, and they only became friends because she needed help in calculus and he was her school-appointed tutor. He tutored my mom her entire freshman year.”
Emily flipped through many more pages of the photo album. “She was really beautiful, huh?” She spoke rhetorically and sadly touched her mother’s face.
“So my mom was dating some hotshot guy on campus but spending loads of time with my dad, because her math skills were so pathetic, and they developed a friendship during these tutorial sessions. My dad was probably one of the very few men who was more attracted to my mom’s heart than her face. Do you know what he told me he loved most about her?”
“What did he love most about her?” How could he choose just one or two qualities? I could sit here all day and count the ways I loved my Emily.
“My dad said that Mom was the most caring and attentive person he’d ever met. Every time they were together, she’d bring him a little something to thank him for working with her. She’d bring him lunch if it was lunchtime or a piece of chocolate she knew he liked, or she’d buy him poetry books. My dad was a bit of a poet. He devoured the attention. Oh my gosh…”
“What?” She looked like she’d just had an epiphany.
“I’m dating my mother. You remind me exactly of my mom. You’re both attentive and outgoing and exceedingly sure of yourselves. Oh gosh…” She trailed and went into her own thoughts one more time.
“What?” I asked again.
“Max was the epitome of my dad—shy, reserved, and gentle. How sad. I miss my parents so badly, I need to date people who remind me of them.” Emily shook herself out of her thought and continued with her story.
“So all this time, my dad loved my mother but didn’t do anything about it.”
“Was your mom into your dad also?”
“I asked that same question, and they both said no. She was dating someone else, but she said she always thought of my dad as a dear friend.”