Saving Sofia

by Linda Seed

  “Oh, Sofia. That’s wonderful!”

  The coffeehouse, which sat at one of the busiest stretches of Main Street, was moderately busy, with about half of the café tables full of tourists, locals, and people tapping away on their laptops. The smell of espresso filled the air, along with the sound of the coffee grinder and the milk steamer. The place had a funky vibe, with polished hardwood floors, ancient wainscoting, and mismatched tables and chairs that had seen better days.

  “What’s wonderful about it?” Sofia moaned. “I’m meeting the parents? It’s only been four months!”

  Martina reached out, her arm covered with jingling bangle bracelets, and put her hand on top of Sofia’s. “What’s wonderful is that he’s a really great guy and he loves you.”

  Sofia raised her head off the table, just a little, to look at her sister. “He’s never said that.”

  “If he didn’t say it, it’s because he doesn’t think you’re ready to hear it. He invited you to have Christmas with his parents. He loves you.”

  Of course, Sofia already knew it. Everything about Patrick’s demeanor—the way he talked to her, the way he looked at her—said it was love. Still, hearing that it was obvious even to onlookers made Sofia feel warm and fuzzy inside, and she didn’t know how to deal with feeling warm and fuzzy at the same time that she was feeling sad and scared and unsettled.

  “Maybe I don’t love him back.” Sofia was just being petulant, and Martina knew it.

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Oh, God. Yes. I do. But … it’s a lot! I don’t know if I’m ready to be in love.”

  Martina scoffed. “Since when does being ready have anything to do with it? You expect love to follow your timeline? Sof, it doesn’t work that way. I wish it did. I’d have found someone years ago.”

  Sofia lifted her head off the table and regarded her sister. Was Martina lonely? Sofia had never considered that. With her artsy lifestyle and everything that came with it—the meditation, the yoga, the whole at-one-with-the-world vibe she gave off—Martina had always seemed content.

  “I didn’t know it bothered you, being single,” Sofia said.

  “Oh … it doesn’t.” Martina waved off the thought, her bracelets jingling. “It’s just … it would be nice, that’s all. And here you are, with this sweet, brilliant guy who adores you. You have what everybody wants. I’m a pacifist, Sofia, but if you let him go, I swear to God I’ll kick your ass.”

  Well. That was another reason to go through with it, Sofia supposed.

  25

  As pleased as Patrick was that Sofia had agreed to come home with him for Christmas, he wasn’t confident that it would actually happen. He sensed that she was ready to change her mind at any moment—that she might suddenly come up with an obligation or a crisis that would make it impossible. Waiting for the trip felt like carrying a baby bird in his hands—he was mindful that with one wrong move, he might drop it or crush it in his clumsy hands.

  And Sofia was only part of the issue—he also had to prepare his mother to behave herself during the visit.

  He called her shortly after Sofia agreed to make the trip. The idea that his mother might disapprove of Sofia was only one danger. Another was that she might approve of her so wholeheartedly that she would start designing wedding invitations at the dinner table.

  “Oh, honey,” Aileen greeted him when he called her after work one day in late November. “I’m so glad you called. How have you been?”

  They dispensed with the chitchat about his work, her volunteering, how he’d been eating, and the various activities of relatives he hadn’t seen in decades and wouldn’t remember if he did.

  “So, Mom …” He wanted to hit just the right casual note, suggesting that what he was about to say was no big deal, but was not, at the same time, not a big deal. “About Christmas …”

  “Oh, no.” Aileen’s voice filled with dread. “Please don’t tell me that you’re not coming, Patrick, because I’ve already told everyone—”

  “No, no. I’m coming. It’s just … I wondered if I could bring a friend.”

  “Well, of course you can bring a friend, Patrick. The more the merrier.” Her relief was palpable. “Is this someone from the college, or …?”

  “It’s … well, Mom, it’s a woman I’ve been seeing.”

  At first, there was only stunned silence. Then: “Oh, Patrick. Oh, honey. How wonderful. Oh!”

  He cut her off, hoping to stop her assumptions before they got too deeply embedded. “Mom? It’s not a big deal. Don’t—”

  “It’s about time you met someone!” she interrupted. “Someone nice, I mean. I never trusted that Kim.… And it’s been so long! Why, the last time you brought someone was, what, four years ago?”

  “Two. But—”

  “Tell me about her! Is it serious? It’s time you settled down, honey. I’ve always said—”

  “Mom.”

  This was exactly what he’d wanted to avoid. Talk of “settling down” and the like would surely spook Sofia, because it was early in their relationship, and also because she’d been so reluctant for them to spend the holidays together in the first place. Meeting the parents was a momentous occasion—he knew that—but he had to do whatever he could to lower the stress and the expectations.

  “Well … what is it, honey?” Aileen sounded irritated that her gleeful planning had been disturbed.

  “Can you just … take it easy, please? Sofia and I haven’t been seeing each other that long, and—”

  “Sofia! What a lovely name. Is she Italian? Oh, when your father and I went to Italy for our honeymoon, it was simply divine. The people …”

  Patrick closed his eyes and counted slowly to ten. He took a deep breath and started again.

  “Mom, please don’t scare her.” It was more blunt than he’d intended, but sometimes it paid to be direct.

  “Scare her? What do you mean?”

  “I mean, no talk about weddings. No talk about ‘settling down.’ No talk about … well … anything. We’ve been seeing each other for four months, and we’re not there yet. I don’t want her to feel pressured.”

  Privately, he could admit that he was very nearly there, in that place where he was thinking about some permanent future for himself and Sofia. But he couldn’t expect Sofia to be thinking that way—not when she was dealing with the crushing grief of the anniversary of her parents’ loss. Later, they would consider where their relationship might go. For now, he just had to get her through the next month.

  “Well, I’m not talking about pressuring her, son.” She sounded wounded, and Patrick immediately felt guilty.

  “I know you won’t mean to pressure her, but …”

  “ ‘No talk about anything.’ ” She repeated his words back to him, a tinge of bitterness in her tone. “Do I need permission before I say hello? Is it all right if I ask her to pass the potatoes?”

  “Very funny, Mom. You know what I mean.”

  “I’ll be on my best behavior,” she told him, their small rift already repaired. “And, Patrick, I’m thrilled. Honey, you deserve someone. I’m just thrilled.”

  Sofia was less thrilled. She was putting on a brave face in front of Patrick, but when he wasn’t around, her dread took over.

  “If you’re going to be this pissy about it, you shouldn’t even go,” Benny said at dinner a couple of nights after Thanksgiving as they were all seated around the table feasting on leftovers. Sofia’s tone when she spoke about Patrick’s invitation suggested that she’d agreed to a series of painful electric shocks instead of a holiday celebration.

  “I’m not pissy,” Sofia snapped at her.

  “Benny’s right,” Bianca said. “You’re pissy. If you don’t want to go, don’t go. Backing out is better than going and then making it clear that you’d rather be in a Soviet work camp.”

  Sofia’s shoulders slumped, and she put down her knife and fork. “You’re right. I don’t want to be like that. And I don’t want to back out. I wan
t to go and be charming and fun and lovely.”

  “All right,” Martina said encouragingly. “That sounds nice.”

  “But—” Sofia began.

  “But it’ll be too hard when you’re thinking about Mom and Dad,” Martina finished for her, tears glimmering in her eyes.

  “This isn’t about … about Mom and Dad.” Sofia could barely force out the words. Maybe because she didn’t like to talk about them, or maybe because she was lying.

  “Then what?” Bianca asked.

  “It’s a lot of stress, that’s all.” Sofia threw her hands up in frustration. “It’s … it’s Meeting the Parents!” She said it with implied capital letters. “What if they don’t like me? What if I don’t like them? What if everybody likes everybody and Patrick and I hurtle way too fast toward moving in together and getting married and having kids, and … and buying a house! I’m not ready for a mortgage!”

  It had started as a lie—the part about it having nothing to do with her parents—but had careened dangerously into the truth. What if all those things happened? She loved Patrick—she knew she did—but the thought of where things might go was terrifying.

  “Wow,” Benny said, impressed. “You’re already thinking about marriage?”

  “No!” Sofia exclaimed. “That’s the point! I’m not thinking about marriage!”

  “And yet you said the words married, kids, and mortgage. All without ever thinking of those things,” Bianca replied.

  Sofia sputtered, caught. “Well … I’m thinking of those things abstractly! As general concepts!”

  “Uh huh,” Martina said.

  “Oh … go screw yourselves.” Sofia turned her focus back to her meal.

  They all ate in silence for a moment, then Benny said, “Well, at least you’re not pissy.”

  Patrick and Sofia didn’t talk much about the trip in the following weeks. They were spending more and more time together, sharing a bed—either at his place or hers—more often than not.

  Sofia alternated among being tense, sad, and perfectly fine, but she didn’t talk about her parents or about what might await her in Michigan.

  The fact that she wasn’t talking about it worried Patrick. He pictured her emotions as a dormant volcano that was going to erupt with little warning, showering lava on scores of unsuspecting villagers.

  Any sane man would be miles away when it happened, but that wasn’t an option for him. If Sofia was in pain—if she needed him—he couldn’t imagine being anywhere but by her side.

  He’d tried to talk about it with her a few times, but to no avail. Any time he mentioned Christmas, or the trip, or, God forbid, her parents, she found something she urgently needed to attend to, excusing herself and walking out of the room.

  So he’d stopped trying to draw her out, deciding that she would talk to him when she was ready. In the meantime, the trip was getting closer and closer, and Patrick wondered if this was all a mistake.

  He could hardy withdraw the invitation now, though—not without making some kind of statement he didn’t intend. Instead, he worked and went about his routine, and waited.

  And tried to figure out what to give Sofia for Christmas.

  “Jewelry’s always a winner,” Ramon said when Patrick consulted him on the matter. “You can’t go wrong.”

  “But … jewelry sends a statement, doesn’t it?” The situation was already so fraught that he had to consider any message he might send carefully.

  “That’s the point,” Ramon said. “It sends the statement that you’re serious about her. That you were willing to drop some cash.”

  He was serious, and he was willing to drop some cash. Still …

  “What if it sends too much of a statement?” he asked.

  “You’re not buying her an engagement ring, for freak’s sake. Just something pretty. Women like pretty things.”

  Patrick and Ramon were hiking at Fiscalini Ranch, the site of his near death with Sofia. This time, they were taking it slowly, walking at a leisurely pace and enjoying the scenery as they hiked.

  “I guess you’re right,” Patrick said.

  “Of course I’m right.”

  “Maybe I should ask Lucy.…”

  “You don’t need to ask Lucy, you wuss,” Ramon said. “Just buy her a damned bracelet or something. Expensive, but not too expensive. Something that says you love her but you’re not rushing her.”

  Patrick considered it. “That’s a lot to communicate with a bracelet.”

  “Look, suit yourself,” Ramon said. “But the night I gave Lucy that first piece of jewelry? Best sex of my life.”

  It was hard to imagine sex better than what Patrick and Sofia had already had, but if such a thing were possible, it seemed foolish not to try.

  Patrick went to a jewelry store on Main Street in Cambria on a day when he didn’t have a class until late morning and he knew Sofia was at work. He peered into the lighted glass cases at the necklaces, the bracelets … and the rings.

  He couldn’t buy Sofia a ring, obviously. Neither of them was ready for that. But he hoped the day would come when he would look at diamond solitaires and accept congratulations on his impending engagement.

  He was already imagining the proposal—something involving the poetry he was working on for her.

  “Are you looking for an engagement ring?” the saleswoman asked gleefully, coming over to where Patrick was standing.

  He could feel himself beginning to blush. “Ah … no. Not yet, anyway.”

  “Not yet means soon!” the woman sang. “You’re that professor who’s seeing Sofia Russo, aren’t you? My goodness, she’s a lucky girl!”

  Patrick didn’t know the saleswoman, but he was sure he’d seen her around. And even if he hadn’t, that was how things were in a small town: everyone knew who everyone else was and what they were up to.

  It occurred to him that he should have done his shopping in Morro Bay.

  “Ms. …” he began.

  “Eleanor Green,” she supplied. “But please, call me Ellie.”

  Ellie was in her midfifties, with professionally styled blond hair, carefully applied makeup, and clothing in the loose, flowing style that upscale, artistic women of a certain age seemed to favor.

  “Ellie,” he went on, “if you could maybe not mention this to Sofia …”

  “Oh, of course not!” Ellie put a hand to her chest as though the very idea might stop her heart. “I would never tell a woman that her special someone was planning to propose. Why, I wouldn’t last long in the jewelry business pulling stunts like that!”

  Patrick closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, beginning to feel a headache coming on. “No. That’s not … I’m not planning to propose to Sofia.”

  “Oh.” Ellie deflated slightly.

  “Someday. Maybe. But she’s not ready yet, and I don’t want …” He was rambling. He forced himself to stop and begin again. “I’m looking for a Christmas gift for Sofia. That’s all. Not an engagement ring.”

  The news that the relationship was alive and well, and that Ellie might, in fact, make a sale, revived the woman, and she perked up considerably. “Of course! That’s wonderful. What, exactly, did you have in mind?”

  Patrick explained his need to find something that said he was serious about Sofia but not so serious that they should start shopping for china patterns. He wanted to charm her, not spook her. The gift had to hit just the right note.

  “I know exactly what you mean,” she reassured him.

  They settled on a necklace: a circular gold pendant on a delicate chain. Simple but elegant. The color would look lovely against her tanned skin, Patrick thought, and the design was very Sofia—classic but not at all showy.

  “It’s lovely,” Ellie said as Patrick handed over his credit card.

  “Do you think so?”

  “I do.” She hunted around for a gift box under the counter, and frowned. “I don’t seem to have any pendant boxes. Do you mind if I use a different size?”


  He didn’t mind at all, and in a few minutes he’d finished the transaction and had emerged onto Main Street feeling pleased with himself. He’d managed to invite Sofia, he’d purchased an appropriate gift, and he’d broken the news to his mother.

  Now all he had to do was live through December twenty-fifth.

  26

  With just one day to go before she and Patrick were scheduled to fly to Grand Rapids, Sofia was beginning to feel the pressure. Or, more accurately, she’d been feeling the pressure for a month. The difference was, now she was beginning to think it might cause her limbs to fly off.

  “Shit! I don’t even have a gift! Shit!” She was rushing around her room plucking things out of her closet and dresser to pack while Bianca looked on from the doorway.

  “You still haven’t bought Patrick a gift?” Bianca looked appalled.

  “Of course I did. I bought five. And the reason I bought five is that none of them are right! I can’t give him a sweater or ... or a coffee mug! What am I going to do?”

  “Show me what you got.” Bianca, always the calm one, took charge of the situation.

  Sofia brought out the items—the sweater and coffee mug, and also a wallet, a pair of gloves, and a keychain.

  “I bought a keychain. What the hell was I thinking?” Sofia moaned.

  “This isn’t so bad.” Bianca picked up one item, then another. “The sweater is nice.”

  So was the keychain, for that matter—Sofia had ordered it from Tiffany’s—but it was still just a keychain, and it didn’t come close to communicating anything about what she felt for Patrick.

  “Yeah, it’s a nice sweater—if I’m buying a gift for somebody’s favorite uncle.”

  “Hmm,” Bianca said.

  “I don’t have time for more shopping. I’ve got to do my laundry, and pack …”

  “I have an idea,” Bianca said.

  “Great. What is it?” Sofia stood amid the chaos of her room, her clothes and other various items strewn everywhere, and waited hopefully.