by D. W. Cee
“I don’t know. You’re definitely not the Emily I know.”
Charlie added, “I prefer the new you.”
Emily shook her head.
“Why are you shaking your head?”
“It’s in response to your invitation. I can’t go away with you.”
“Will you go if Sarah and Charlie come along?” I hoped this would encourage her to spend some uninterrupted time with me.
“Well… only if I get to room with Sarah and you room with Charlie.”
“Deal. You two okay with Bacara next weekend?”
“We can’t next weekend but the weekend after that is okay,” they both answered.
My phone buzzed while Emily ordered herself some dinner.
“Hey, Nick, what’s going on?”
As I started talking to Nick, Sarah began whispering to Emily and my attention was on them rather than my brother.
“Emily, what’s going on with you?”
“What do you mean, Sarah?”
“Don’t you think you’re taking this a little too fast? Jake seems nice and all, but you just met him. You’re going to go away with him for the weekend?”
“Sarah. I only said yes after you and Charlie agreed. You know I wouldn’t have gone by myself.”
“Emily, I’m worried. It’s unlike you to take things so fast with a guy. You barely know him.”
“I know. I’m a little worried too. There’s something about Jake… I trust him. I feel safe with him.”
“Jake… Jake! Are you listening?” Nick interrupted my eavesdropping.
“Sorry, Nick. Say that one more time.”
“Jake, I’m sorry to bother you but Doug left me here to meet some girl and I’m stranded. Do you think you can give me a ride back to school?”
“Nick! Alright. I got it.” I was going to have to leave her again. Frustrated, I told him, “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
I was hoping to hear more but Nick hung up and I didn’t have any more excuses to eavesdrop.
“You have to leave, huh? Do you have something against watching me eat dinner? Why do you always bail on me when dinner is about to be served?” I didn’t know she could pout. There was no expression I didn’t love on this girl’s face.
“Nick got stranded by our cousin so I need to go get him and drop him off at school. I’d ask you to come with me but I brought my two-seater so that’s not a possibility.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have thought too highly of you if you had decided to leave your brother stranded for some girl you met only yesterday. I’ll see you again soon.”
“Trust me, I was very tempted to leave him stranded but I didn’t think my mother would have been too happy with me. I have to go to my house in the Valley tonight so I can’t stop by. I’ll call you from the hospital tomorrow.”
“Okay. You want me to walk you out?”
“No, you go ahead and eat.” With that, I asked Charlie and Sarah to take good care of Emily for me and I gave her a peck on the cheek good bye.”
Chapter 4 Can You All Just Leave Us Alone?
Once the week began, it wasn’t easy seeing Emily. She went to work earlier than I expected and I always worked later than she expected. Her phone was off until school was done at 3:00 then every time I attempted to call, I got a page sending me to the next patient.
Can we do dinner tonight?
It drove me mad we hadn’t seen each other since Sunday and it was already Thursday.
I don’t know, can we? It’s always up to you.
I’ll call around 7:00 and let you know. I miss you.
I can’t remember what you look like so I don’t know who it is that I miss. Call me soon before I forget what you sound like as well.
What a sense of humor this girl had. Having visited all my patients, I called Emily the first chance I got.
“Hi Emily. Are you ready for dinner?”
“Dr. Reid, do you know what time it is?”
“Isn’t it around 7:00?”
“It’s 9:30. It’s long past dinner time. Have you not eaten yet?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I wish I were. I’ve never been stood up so many times in one week. My ego is beyond bruised.”
“I can’t believe I did this to you again. Did you eat?”
“Uh-huh. I assume you didn’t? Come over. I have dinner for you.”
Luck was on my side as I hit every green light from the hospital to Emily’s house. I got there in record time.
“Did you fly here?” she asked opening the door.
I got in and held her in my arms for a while. “I’ve really missed you. It’s been a long four days without you.”
“I’ve missed you too. Come and eat. I have dinner on the table for you.”
Emily had grilled a steak along with a variety of vegetables. It looked and tasted scrumptious. With the knowledge that I had purchased a ring for her, I was tempted to get on one knee and propose to her right now. Seeing how she could hardly stand kissing me in public, I didn’t think she was ready for any lifelong commitment.
“You can cook?” I had eaten half my meal before looking up to talk to her. She sat in front of me and enjoyed watching me eat.
“I can. Tonight’s meal was easy. The grill did most of the work.”
“What’s this mealy yellow stuff I’m eating?” I shoved some in my mouth.
“It’s polenta. I pan-fried it. Do you not like it?” She looked at me with a curious face.
“No. There’s not much flavor and it has a weird texture.”
“Do you eat like this all the time? I thought you said you didn’t like eating by yourself?” The meal was so good, I was already done.
“I cook like this once or twice a week. The problem with me is that when I eat a meal, I need to eat a complete meal. I can’t eat random foods that don’t go with one another.” We took our wine and sat on the sofa. “Whether I’m at home or maybe one day eating at a place like French Laundry, my food has to have order and meaning. Way too complicated, huh?”
“It’s fascinating. You’re fascinating.” She looked embarrassed by my last comment. “So what do you eat the rest of the week if you only cook once or twice a week? Leftovers?”
“That’s the other terrible thing about me. I hate leftovers. I really dislike eating the same thing twice. Many times, I just don’t eat dinner. It’s lonely eating by myself. I’ll just have a big lunch and be done for the day.”
An image of Emily eating by herself made my heart feel a sense of pain I’d never felt before. I hurt for this beautiful girl who was by herself without any family. I wanted to be her family – to come home to her daily, to have dinner with her nightly, and to love her eternally.
“Jake... as much as I enjoy you being here, I have to get to bed. I have an early conference tomorrow morning and a meeting till late. My students don’t like me when I’m tired. I become psycho teacher.” That was my cue to leave. I guess we weren’t at the point where she was going to ask me to spend the night. Maybe a week of dating was a bit early for that.
My body didn’t want to leave. My movements were slow and my heart couldn’t fathom her absence.
“Where are you sleeping tonight? Are you at your mom’s or at your place?”
“I might stay in town to be near you.” I still hadn’t gotten off the couch. She pulled me up with her. “Can’t I stay just a bit longer?”
“No. If you stay any longer, I may not allow you to leave.” She flashed a sly grin. “You need to leave now.”
“Emily,” I whined but followed obediently. “I have Saturday off. You want to go have brunch and watch a movie?”
“Yes, now leave,” she commanded.
I got to Emily’s house early on Saturday eager to start our official second date. When I rang the door bell, Emily, of course was still in her pajamas.
“Perhaps I should invest in a set of keys for you so you won’t wake me up every Saturday and Sunday morning.” Emily look
ed groggy. I had woken her up with my text around 3:00am saying goodnight to her. She heard the text and jokingly scolded me.
“I’d love a set of keys. Does that mean I can come and go as I please?”
“No. It was a joke.”
“Maybe later?” I hoped.
“Probably not.” She smiled and hopped in the shower.
I walked around her house staring at pictures and books that decorated her home. Sometime during our date today I wanted to ask her about her parents and why she was living alone in this home. Possibly today, I could give her this eternity band and formally ask her to be my girlfriend. I wanted to the world to know that she was exclusively mine. I didn’t want any Dr. Ericksons attempting to ask her out again.
Giving her a ring hopefully wouldn’t scare her off. I’d never given any girl something so serious before. In all the years I dated Kelley, I’d never given her a present with so much commitment attached to it. Kelley probably would’ve been happier if I had committed more but she couldn’t grab my heart the way Emily did from the moment I saw her.
Thinking back, I guess I had dated a lot of girls. Kelley was my longest relationship but we were so on and off. She and I couldn’t make up our minds. We didn’t know where we wanted our relationship to head. Then there were the few doctors and nurses I dated at the hospital. What a mistake that was. I watched and worked with my mistake daily. Most recently there was Allison. Talk about a mistake. That was the biggest.
Allison was Jane’s roommate when Jane was living up north. She wasn’t shy about wanting to date me. She constantly called me and sent me gifts. She had moved down to LA a few months ago and showed up at my doorstep one night. Though Emily was the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on, Allison, the fashion model, was tempting.
Having fallen into temptation, we went out on a few dates. Actually, we didn’t go out much. We spent many nights together but soon I ended our so-called relationship. She wasn’t happy but I was relieved. I wondered how many men Emily had dated. If she dated this Max for four years, there couldn’t have been too many other men in her life. That thought was even more troublesome.
The little I knew of Emily, she told me she didn’t date around and she liked being with one man. This probably meant she was deeply in love with Max. He probably devastated her when he dumped her. What an idiot. I couldn’t wait to see what he looked like. I was sure our paths would cross one day. I couldn’t imagine letting go of someone as special as Emily, especially not after four years with her. It upset me to think of Emily being with another man.
“What are you sighing about?” Emily walked out looking stunning in a yellow sundress.
“I was wondering how much longer you were going to take.”
“Jake? Do you think we can invite Charlie and Sarah to join us today?”
Though I was a bit disappointed we wouldn’t spend this day alone, I was happy to oblige. “Sure.”
“I know you want us to be alone and we will… there will be plenty more time for that. Charlie and Sarah have always invited me to spend some part of the weekend with them. They know how much I hate being alone. You would think I’d be used to it by now but it still bothers me. They’ve really been like parents to me, taking care of me when they can.”
I appreciated them for taking care of Emily for me. I would prove to them that they can be at peace about passing the torch on to me.
“I’d like to invite them to spend a weekend with me… I mean us. Would that be okay?”
“Of course. Give them a call.”
“Good because I already did.” They’re meeting us in an hour.” She looked pleased. “Let’s head out. We can walk around the Marina before we meet them.”
We got in my car and her face lit up when she heard the Carmen opera CD I had picked up after a show at the Met Opera House in New York a few months ago. This was the second time I noticed this wistful look in her eyes. The first time she showed it when talking about French Laundry. It occurred to me, these must be places she wanted to visit or activities she wanted to do.
So far I’d uncovered Emily’s three faces. The first and most appealing was her angelic face. She was kind and funny and gracious. From the day I met her, her concern was for others first, and then herself. Next was the sad face that appeared whenever she talked about being alone. Though she didn’t show this face too often, whenever it appeared, I wanted to tell her I would be the one to erase her loneliness. The last was this wistful look. This look made me sad knowing there were so many opportunities she didn’t have being alone in this world – but happy knowing I could be the one to show her these experiences. That’s what I wanted to do – help fill all of her wishes.
“You’re not on call today, are you?”
“Does going out with me make you paranoid?”
“Kind of… I mean, it’s okay if you are. I know it’s your work and you do save lives on a daily basis. A date with me is in no comparison to the important work you do.”
“Emily, being with you has become the most important part of my life these days. I could give up saving lives but I don’t know that I can give up spending time with you.”
Her head tilted downward again. Maybe it was a little too serious? I basically told her she was the most important person in my life. Her eyes looked excited by my confession yet I sensed hesitation in her face.
“Jake, look. Sarah and Charlie are here early too.” I grabbed her hand before she could run off to them. “Hi guys!”
“Hi Emily, Hi Jake,” Sarah greeted us.
“Hey. Let’s sit and grab drinks before we start our meal,” I suggested.
We sat and Charlie turned to Emily with a chuckle in his eyes. “My sister keeps calling to tell me that Tom Erickson wants to take you out,” Charlie started laughing.
“Eew! You can tell him I said get lost! I’ve been screening all his calls.”
“Jake, you need to watch out or Emily’s going to get snatched out from under you.” Charlie sounded like he was about to warn me about Emily’s appeal to men.
“Huh? What does that mean?”
“Oh, only that she gets asked out by men everywhere we go. No matter where we are or who she’s with, some man will come up and ask her for her number. It’s her innocent look. Men seem to love it,” Sarah explained.
“You two are so exaggerating the truth. They only ask me out because they see you guys attached at the hips, or lips and I’m always by myself.”
“Max used to get furious! We’d be on a double date and somehow some man would corner Emily and ask her out before Max realized what was going on.”
“Charlie, that only happened once.”
“You know, I think Charlie and Sarah are right. The first night I met you, all three guys in the ER asked you out. Then the next day, you got asked out at the birthday party. Do I need to keep you locked up in your house?”
“Let’s move on to another topic. What did you and Charlie do last night?” Emily and Sarah started their own conversation while Charlie explained to me about his job at the architecture firm.
“Oh, we went out with…” I heard Sarah hesitate. “Charlie ran into Peter and they decided to go out for drinks which led to dinner for all of us - Charlie, me, Peter, Max and Jennifer.”
There was a mixture of sadness and discomfort in Emily’s disposition. I tried not to let her notice my stare but it disturbed me that her ex had such a hold on her.
“How’s Peter doing? He must be very mad at me. I haven’t called him since last June. What am I going to do when I see him again?”
Charlie leaned over to explain that Peter was Max’s best friend and loved Emily like a sister.
“Yeah, he’s livid with you.” The intonation of Sarah’s voice sounded like he wasn’t mad at all. “You should call him, he misses you.”
“Yeah, I miss him too.” I waited for the next obvious question. “How’s Max?” she meekly asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t talk to him or her t
he whole night,” Sarah huffed.
“Sarah, he’s your friend. Just because he broke up with me doesn’t mean you can’t be friends with him. And why are you being mean to Jennifer? She’s done nothing wrong.”
“Emily, how can you think anything nice about him after what he’s done to you?”
Now I was really curious as to what this guy had done that was so wrong.
“Sarah, let’s not get into this now.” Charlie gave Sarah a look of warning, probably because of me, which made Sarah stop immediately.
I put my hand over Emily’s and she gazed at me and smiled. There was a broken heart in that smile.
“Shall we go eat?” Emily asked.
“Sure, let’s go,” I answered hoping to change the mood.
We walked through the garden toward the dining area when unexpectedly my pager went off. Emily looked at me disappointed.
“I’m not on call today. There’s no reason for the pager to go off.” I immediately looked at the phone number. “It’s the Chief. He must have some personal issue he needs to talk about. Grab your food and I’ll meet you back at the table.”
“Is it okay if I stay with you?”
“Of course,” I answered stealing a kiss from her. She smiled and brought her body close to mine. Happily she put her arms around my waist and leaned into my chest.
“Hey, Chief. Why are you bothering me on my day off?”
“Jake, I’m sorry to do this to you but you’re going to have to fly to Atlanta for me today.”
“What? Why?”
“The President of the hospital board just got hospitalized after having a heart attack. I need to go into surgery right now. I’m sending you my keynote address. You will have to present it for me at the conference. My assistant emailed your plane ticket and everything else you need. I’m sorry, Jake. I know you’re with Emily but there’s no one else I can trust to give this address but you.”
“Alright.” Another date interrupted. What was I going to tell Emily?