Life Is Short (No Pun Intended)

by Jennifer Arnold

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Bill

  DateALittle

  IF JENNIFER HAD MET me when I was twenty, there would have been no way she would have dated me, let alone married me, and if by some mistake she had, she certainly wouldn’t still be with me now. I mean, most people aren’t very adult when they are twenty. They make mistakes, think they know everything, and do some downright dumb things. Ideally, by the time thirty-one comes around, they have grown out of that reckless or self-indulgent behavior.

  I used some of this wisdom that comes with age and reflecting on my parents’ divorce. I could see how things in their lives changed, how their circumstances changed, and how their behavior changed after they got married. Even what was important to them had changed. I was disappointed about the divorce for a long time, but I don’t hold a grudge against my dad. He has been married to his second wife since 1987, close to thirty years. Debbie, my stepmother, was a part of my upbringing, and my stepbrothers have been my brothers for a long time. When any one of us is discussing a “brother,” we have to wonder which of the four others he is referring to. Regardless of how the circumstances had changed between Mom and Dad, Dad always kept the interests of his children front and center. Looking back, I am sure some of my bad behavior toward my father and Debbie was an attempt to aggravate them simply because of my frustration that things had changed, that things were different and stressful. I saw my mother in so much grief, and I was hypersensitive about protecting the woman who had created me and taken care of me every day of my life.

  My initial contact with Jen was like the modern-day version of the way my parents made contact. They had been pen pals, but strangers, learning they liked each other through their communication. Jen and I first started “corresponding” on a site called DateALittle.com, an online dating site for single Little People.

  I had been a member of the site for only a short time when I came across Jennifer’s profile (circa December 2005). I recognized her as the girl that Diane, Dr. Kopits’s nurse practitioner, had been so enthusiastic about ten years earlier. Since then, I had heard updates on her progress, from when she was at U of Miami throughout Johns Hopkins medical school and beyond. She was kind of a celebrity in the Little People community because she was one of the very few who became practicing physicians. I loved her profile portrait. She was very pretty, with long blond hair combed perfectly straight and funky, pointy cat’s-eye glasses. I wrote to her immediately, but she didn’t write back. I shrugged it off, thinking that she was seeing somebody, or that I did not interest her. I couldn’t dwell on it, so I moved on and “talked” to other people instead.

  About a month and a half later, a “New Message” arrived in my Inbox. It was from Jen, who had sent me a lame note. “Have we met at a Little People of America convention? You look familiar.” I chuckled, because I hadn’t been to a convention in twenty years! So this was Jen’s corny, innocuous pick-up line. Of course, I had to write back. “No, probably not,” was the way I started my reply. I didn’t elaborate too much on the subject, quickly moving toward a more formal introduction, a bit of background about myself, and a barrage of questions that I had, hoping to learn more about her. She never mentioned my earlier message to her, and I didn’t ask, although she later claimed she never received a communication from me, and that if she had, she hadn’t seen it. She also talked about some property in the Everglades she wanted to sell to me!

  I also later learned why she had written that goofy pick-up line. She and her best friend Lakshmi were in their early thirties and despairing that they didn’t have social lives and never had dates, being too busy with all their medical training. Jen was living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and working in excess of one hundred hours a week at the hospital where she was doing her fellowship. Over a glass of wine one night, the two had decided they were each going to join a dating website and write to one person to see what happened. Jen chose DateALittle.com and out of all the profile pictures she saw, she picked mine. I think she liked that I was wearing little round eyeglasses and was driving a speedboat in my “mug shot.” Lakshmi was not a Little Person, so her candidate came from the average-size-people dating site, Match.com. Unfortunately for Lakshmi, her initial efforts with Match.com didn’t produce anything long-term, although there was a happy ending for her when she found her husband-to-be not long after Jen and I started dating. They are now married with two boys!

  Jen’s “have we met before” introduction soon turned to “let’s exchange phone numbers.” We talked on the phone almost daily for over a month until we finally decided it was time to meet. I love to tell the story of that first face-to-face encounter, so Jen is letting me have the honors. It was a dark and stormy night in Pittsburgh. HA! Actually, it was a damp, cold day, Friday, March 10, 2006, in the ’burgh on the day of our first meeting. Although we had been talking on the phone since late January and knew we were ready for a relationship, it took only one face-to-face for me to be smitten. It seemed to be the case with her, as well.

  It was unbelievable and totally romantic. I flew into Pittsburgh for the date, as Jen’s schedule was too hectic for her to come to Long Island and she wasn’t a big fan of air travel. I got a hotel room in the Courtyard by Marriott, not too far from the Children’s Hospital, because I didn’t want to presume anything, I didn’t want to blow it, and I didn’t want to awkwardly end up sleeping on her couch.

  Jen said she would pick me up after work, and I was really nervous. Because I was freaking out, I went to the hotel bar first and grabbed a quick beer. I’m not a big drinker these days, but a beer and some barkeeper’s small talk seemed to keep my nerves under control. Jen, who was coming off a thirty-hours-straight work marathon, said she’d pick me up outside. So, there I was standing on the street in front of the hotel, and she pulled up in a very dirty and scarred white 1996 Kia Sportage. Jen let me know this was her first car. She was so proud of it and thought it was cute. From anyone else’s point of view, it was about ten years old but looked about twenty. It sounded like either a Sherman tank coming across the battlefield, or a ’73 Plymouth with a bad muffler, although Jen told me she must have changed the muffler ten times already.

  “Oh, no,” I said to myself, “this can’t be her.” I assessed each vehicle that arrived at the Courtyard by Marriott in this manner.

  “Oh, no, it is her!” There was my date behind the wheel! My butterflies went crazy. She was in hospital scrubs, and I knew pretty much then and there that I was in love. This was my girl. I loved everything about her—except the car, but that was replaceable! What really captured me were her wide smile and the blue of her eyes, popping through her glasses. I had really liked her when we’d talked before, but at that moment, my heart melted. I knew I was headed to the altar.

  The huge grin on Jen’s face made me very happy when she stopped the car and idled in front of me. First off, she could have just kept driving when she spotted me, but she didn’t. She told me later that she thought I was very handsome, and she knew that she liked me, having loved everything about me from our phone conversations. But she was a little more hesitant than me, because she had already been burned a few times. So she liked me, and I was in love with her. “Well, I was in love with the idea of you,” Jen reiterated with her big grin when we reviewed our first impressions of each other years later.

  I opened the passenger door, climbed in, gave her a hug and a peck on the cheek, and we went to Starbucks to enjoy what would turn out to be the first thing we had in common—our LOVE of coffee. I don’t remember what we were talking about, but it was two hours over coffee and refills, just talking. I remember Jen telling me she was nervous that I was going to judge her by her car. I confirmed that I had judged—and decided that she was the coolest person on the planet—and that her car needed to be replaced as soon as humanly possible! It was just one of those weird connections, where we were totally in sync with each other at first glance.

  After coffee, Jen dropped me off at my hotel a
nd we made a plan to meet later on that night. She drove home, where she was supposed to get some sleep, but that didn’t happen, as she had to fight off a migraine. She also had to figure out what to wear. Jen is so stylish, always looking good and put together. That night was no exception. She was all dressed up when she came to pick me up, even though she was not feeling her best.

  Jen asked me what I wanted for dinner. Sushi restaurants were the new “in” thing in the early 2000s, and as I had acquired a taste for it, I suggested sushi. It turned out Jen didn’t like sushi at all, except the wimpy kind like California rolls and tempura. But she agreed. I have since learned that because Jen is always making big, life-saving decisions at work, she likes to be indecisive and dependent on others with small decisions, such as dinner plans. She also didn’t tell me how carefully she had thought out her backup plan in case this date went awry. In case there was trouble with me, and I tried to kill her, she would page her best friend, who was on standby. Wow! I had no such backup plan! I could have been thrown from one of the many bridges into the countless tributaries and rivers around the city!

  At the restaurant, the staff hooked Jen up with some linens folded over so she could sit down and we could be eye to eye. I sat across from her at our table for two. We ordered an amazing amount of food. We had all these dishes on the table, but we just kept talking. They brought all the food and they took it all away. We didn’t touch any of it, including the edamame, which Jen said she loved. We were just so wrapped up in the conversation and elated to be with each other that we didn’t even have time to eat or think of eating. When we got up to pay, the sushi chef actually came over, seemingly insulted or concerned, and asked what was wrong with the food. He accepted my explanation that it was our first date, the conversation was too good, and his rolls looked great enough to have us return some other time.

  After dinner, Jen took me for a little tour of the city. Eventually, we headed up to Mt. Washington, Pittsburgh’s “the Point,” where there was a great view of the Pittsburgh skyline across the Monongahela River. The climb wasn’t super high, maybe two hundred feet, but it was steep. We went up the windy road in Jen’s crash derby reject car, and I wasn’t sure we would make it. I was amazed we made it to the top. The view was amazing. There were several spots from which to view the city; one of them being a concrete sidewalk perched high above the river below.

  This was, of course, where I had a chance to put on my smooth moves. My first attempt was quite benign, just a little peck. Once it was apparent my peck was welcomed and I wasn’t going to be shoved over the rail to my doom, we actually had a “grown-up” kiss. What I remember most about that night was when I enveloped her in my coat because she was so cold. The overcoat I had made a couple of years earlier was loose on me, since I had lost weight, and it was big enough for me to fit Jen in there with me. Cold Pittsburgh night, clear skies, twinkling lights, and Jen warmly snuggled in my overcoat with me—it didn’t get better than this.

  Because the weekend I went to visit Jen was her birthday weekend, there were some planned activities already on the schedule for Saturday, specifically a birthday party for her that evening. So, we did a few things during the day—brunch, sightseeing around the historic Squirrel Hill neighborhood, and of course lots of coffee. Then I dropped her off at Lakshmi’s, who was the hostess for the evening birthday event and got a ride back to the hotel to get dressed. A couple of hours later, Jen, looking stunning as usual, picked me up.

  The party was great. There were forty to fifty people crammed into the apartment, mostly doctors. At first, I felt a little intimidated. I only knew Jen, and she was the person of the hour, so her attention was divided between me and the many guests who had come to wish her a happy birthday. After a short time, I began to settle in, cracking some jokes and finding out more about Jen’s “crew.” She had a lot of great friends in Pittsburgh, and soon I considered them my friends, too.

  Jen drove me to the airport for my flight home the next morning. “Can I see you next week?” I asked her. “I want to come back and see you next weekend.” She was on call, which meant I would only get to see her for one night, but it was worth it to me. So I flew back the next weekend, barely able to endure the days in between. Her friend Lakshmi loved me, which was a huge bonus in helping Jen see my charm through my idiosyncrasies. For the next year and a half, I flew back and forth to Pittsburgh every weekend that I could.

  In May 2006, two months after we had met, Jen let me know she was already entertaining the idea of moving closer to me. “Doctors have to apply a year in advance for positions in hospitals,” she informed me. “So I have started my search, and it just so happens that Stony Brook University Hospital has a good reputation and is currently hiring neonatologists.”

  “Oh, that’s great,” I think I said. The hospital was only five miles from my house, and I had already fallen for her. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that if Jen wanted to move closer, I would welcome her with open arms.

  She had already applied to the hospital and had been offered an in-person interview. Some guys might have been upset that she was moving too fast, but I couldn’t have been happier. For me, the prospect of being closer to each other was very exciting. Long-distance relationships can be tough. Inclement weather and flight delays would often cut the trips short, if not cut them out entirely. And when you know you love someone, you want the rest of your life to be together, not just weekends, and it can’t happen fast enough.

  • • •

  FOR THE INTERVIEW, Jen flew on JetBlue to JFK, where I picked her up and brought her back to my house in Port Jefferson. It was a great little house, perfect for me in every way. The previous owners didn’t have exactly the same taste as me, but they had kept it in good shape. I had turned it into a bachelor pad, complete with microfiber forest green couches in the living room; a simple guest bedroom in case a friend stayed overnight; and a universal gym in the third bedroom because I didn’t have any more furniture to put in there. There were no pictures, knick-knacks, or art on the walls. I had repainted all the walls and installed hardwood floors in all of the common areas, replaced all the light switches and fixtures, and put in a sliding glass door in the master bedroom to provide easy access to the deck. The deck and pool in the backyard meant lots of friends in the summer. Parties and casual get-togethers were a regular occurrence.

  The trash cans outside still had the name “Arnold” on them, as the previous owner’s last name was Arnold. When Jen and I got back to the house, that was the first thing she noticed. She didn’t know that the previous owner’s last name had been Arnold, a bizarre coincidence. When she saw the trash pails with her name on them, she was baffled.

  “What the heck is this all about?” she wanted to know. She worried I was a stalker who trolled the Internet for victims, and then after a successful murder, ground them up and deposited them in garbage pails with their names on them. It would have made for a good season of Dexter, imagine me as the “Long Island Garbage Man.” Fortunately, she accepted my explanation!

  That night, I took Jen out for a nice dinner at Pace’s Steak House. Pace’s and I had quite a history by now. This was where Michael had taken me to celebrate my first job. Over the years, any time there was a celebration, Pace’s was the place. We hosted many corporate holiday parties there, family birthday parties, retirement parties, you get the picture. I was such a regular, I would have had a table with my name on it if they’d had a custom like that there!

  When Jimmy Pace, the owner, found out I was bringing a possible love interest named Jennifer, he had everybody in the place treat us like royalty. When we got there, the maÎtre d’, Tommy, said, “Good evening, Mr. Klein, your table is ready.” I pretty much knew all the patrons in the restaurant as we headed to our table, but this night was too important to stop for a tableside chat. I kept it to the casual wave of acknowledgment instead. I was with the most beautiful girl in the world and had to make the most of our time!

  The maÎt
re d’ hooked Jen up with a set of pillows so she would be comfortable at the table. The dinner was amazing. The appetizers were delicious; the main course was off the menu and prepared especially for us; and the wine was a great bottle of Groth cabernet. Jen and I talked about how great it was going to be when she moved to Long Island while we drank our wine and feasted on stuffed lobster, the first lobster being stuffed with more lobster. She was truly blown away by the whole thing, as was I. All I could think was, This is what it could be like every day (if I owned a lobster farm).

  Jen and I went back to the house, where we stayed up talking and laughing until late into the night. I told her that in the morning we would go shopping for the last few things she needed for her outfit for the interview at Stony Brook. She needed a scarf for her neck. She wanted to present herself perfectly. She put a lot of pressure on herself, but that was Jen. I didn’t think she was going to have much of a problem and would sail through the interview, but she tended not to give herself that much credit.