Chapter 16 #2
He chuckled. “No, Midland, Michigan. It’s about a two-hour drive from here.”
The waiter came with the wine. He poured a tiny bit into Edward’s glass. He tasted it and said it was fine. The waiter poured wine for both of us and asked if we’d like to order. Edward told him ‘in a bit’ and the waiter went away.
I sipped my wine. It was very good. Sweet and peppery all at once.
“I have a confession to make,” he said. That was terrifying. If he made a confession, would he expect one in return? I had no intention of admitting anything.
“I went to Keck School of Medicine at USC.”
“Oh, so you’re the enemy,” I said, referring to the cross-town rivalry.
“I never really bought into that.”
“Oh, me either. It’s a sports thing, isn’t it?” Of course, for four years no one could say USC around me without my saying, ‘Oh, the University for Spoiled Children.’ But we’ll let that pass for now.
“Did you like L.A.?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t say I got to see a lot of it. Medical school is intense.”
I knew that, of course, having gone directly from Doogie Howser, M.D. to ER. I wished we’d met in Los Angeles. I mean, we were there at the same—
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-one.”
“And when were you in Los Angeles?”
“From ninety-four to nine-eight.”
“It’s too bad we didn’t meet. I mean, not right away, that wouldn’t have been legal. I was legal the last year you were there.”
“I couldn’t have given you the attention you deserve.”
I deserved attention. What a fabulous idea.
The waiter came back with the popcorn perch and asked if we were ready to order. Edward said we were and then proceeded to order, while I fantasized about the kind of attention I deserved. Edward ordered a filet of sole cooked in butter. Then it was my turn. I’d paid zero attention to the menu.
“I’ll have a steak.”
“New York or filet mignon?”
“The New York, probably.”
“He’ll have the filet,” Edward said.
It was the more expensive cut. He rightly assumed that’s why I didn’t order it. And that made me nervous. Could he see right through me? Was I that obviously broke?
I actually had a great deal of experience dining in fine restaurants. There came a point in all my mother’s relationships, and possible relationships, when I had to be introduced. On the drive to some of the best restaurants in Los Angeles she would coach me.
“Don’t order the most expensive thing on the menu, he’ll think we’re gold diggers.
And don’t order the cheapest thing on the menu, we’ll look like we have no self-confidence.
Order something in the middle. And order something exotic.
A piece of unusual fish or something with a foreign name. It makes you seem more interesting.”
I always ordered a medium-priced steak. Since she didn’t exactly cook, it was exotic to me. Sometimes her dates did everything they could to impress me and sometimes they seemed very annoyed I was there at all. Not unlike my own dating life.
The waiter went away, and we were uncomfortably alone.
I tried the popcorn perch. It was yummy.
Since I was already thinking of my mother, I wondered what she would do in this situation.
She was good at conversation, especially with men.
She knew how to keep the chit-chat going.
I tried to emulate that with varying degrees of success.
If it was just me, my mother talked mainly about herself.
If there was a man around, she talked about him.
She flattered his looks, his taste, his value to the world, his humor, his intelligence—and his generosity.
That very few of the men she dated had any of these qualities in abundance never seemed to matter. They all believed her.
I was warming up to say something about what a good doctor Edward was, when he said, “I really admire you. Most guys your age would not be caught dead in a small Michigan town taking care of their grandmother.”
“Oh, well…” I fumbled.
He smiled at me. “You need to learn to take compliments. I suspect you’re going to have a life full of them.”
Wow, he’d missed the boat on that one. I was great at taking compliments, about my pretty eyes and my perky little ass and my snarky quips… I’d just never gotten one for taking care of my grandmother.
Really? That was worth a compliment?
“You should tell me more about yourself,” I suggested.
So, Edward told me some things about his growing up in a small town on the other side of Michigan.
Honestly, it wasn’t that interesting. What I really wanted to know was what it was like to be as pretty as he was.
Being good-looking has gotten me lots of things I wanted.
Edward was devastatingly handsome. People must trip over themselves giving him things.
Oh crap, he asked me a question and I completely didn’t hear it. I’d been lost in the perfect symmetry of his face, the dark blue his eyes had turned in the dim light of the restaurant, the squareness of his chin, his glowing skin, a pulsing vein in his neck which made me wish I was a vampire.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I asked about your childhood.”
“Boring really.”
But was it? I remembered a dozen apartments—one of which my mother owned, at least for a while; seven different neighborhoods; and five grammar schools. I did well in school. It was a sort of revenge on my mother who hated school and encouraged me to hate it as well.
“You could be a little more specific,” he suggested.
Then I realized I couldn’t tell him the truth.
That I’d been dragged through my mother’s many failed relationships, that we’d moved suddenly and often, that I’d been bullied in good schools and bad.
No, that wasn’t going to work. One thing I’d learned over drinks in West Hollywood was that guys didn’t want to hear about your tough childhood.
It frightened them, even if it wasn’t your fault.
“Well, my mother was a single mom. She worked really hard to keep a roof over our head.”
Kind of true.
“She always put me first.”
Not true at all.
He gave me a dubious smile. He wasn’t buying this. And that meant I probably wouldn’t be living happily ever after with the most beautiful doctor in the world. Ah, well.
“Where is your mother?”
“California.”
“She didn’t come out when your grandmother had her stroke?”
“Um, well, she’s married now.”
Lie!
“Her husband’s health isn’t good. She needed to stay with him.”
Super lie!
“What’s wrong with him?”
Oh God, a doctor would ask that. Quickly, I calculated the likelihood of Edward’s ever meeting my mother or her boyfriends and decided, “He has lung cancer. Stage six.”
“Stage six. That is serious.”
“I know.”
Our salads arrived. Caesar, the only salad they served.
But that was fine. It was wonderful. The conversation got easier.
I asked Edward to tell me funny stories about the ER.
He tried to but didn’t do such a great job.
He didn’t seem to want to criticize anyone which, to me, seemed the core of any funny story.
“So have you ever had a patient come in with a lightbulb up their butt?” I asked.
“No. I think that’s an urban myth.”
“This is a rural area. Maybe it happens in bigger cities.”
“Maybe. I’m just as glad I’ve never had to deal with that kind of extraction.”
My steak was fabulous, and there were long pauses while I chewed. In between I attempted to turn the conversation to things I understood well, like Sex and the City and America’s Next Top Model.
“Do you think Sex and the City is ending because the girls hate each other?” I asked, though Edward seemed a little confused by the question.
“I don’t get a lot of backstage gossip in the ER.”
“You probably would if you lived in L.A.” Which, to me, was the perfect reason to leave Wyandot County for L.A.
He attempted to talk politics, but it went right over my head. Apparently, there were protests in Tehran—probably because they didn’t get Sex in the City there. Seriously, if they just gave HBO to everyone in the world peace would breakout everywhere.
I couldn’t believe how well it was going. Who would’ve ever thought I’d come to Masons Bay and find a man like this? He thought taking care of Nana Cole was, like, admirable. Seriously? Well, maybe it was. And then maybe Edward was my gift for taking care of her.
Well, not directly. I didn’t think there was some kind of Santa Claus in the sky checking off boxes, like: Took care of old lady; give him a hot doctor.
Not intellectually, at least. Emotionally though, emotionally I could totally believe it.
He was my gift for being good—even if I hadn’t exactly been good on purpose.
As much as I wanted dessert, I turned it down. My plan was to have sex with him on the first date, and I didn’t want too much in my stomach. The wine and the steak and the salad and the popcorn perch were more than enough. He got the bill and paid it. I didn’t even offer to go dutch; I never did.
“Next time it’s on you,” he said with a charming smile.
“How do you feel about Burger King?”
He laughed, a rumbling dark sound.
Once we were out of the restaurant, he said, “Do you want to go for a little walk?”
“No, we can just go to your place.”
Edward laughed again. Apparently, I missed my calling as a comedian. He said, “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I think I’d like to wait.”
“Oh, you don’t like me.”
“I like you a lot. That’s why I want to wait.”
“Well, that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Casual doesn’t work out for me.”
And that made me ask myself, ‘Did it work out for me?’ When I lived in L.A. it happened a lot, and sometimes it was fun. Was that what it meant to ‘work out’? That it was fun? Or did he mean ‘work out’ as in something longer. Deeper.
And then, in front of my grandmother’s Escalade, he kissed me. Deeply. Passionately. Right there on the sidewalk. It was every bit as good as the meth-fueled kiss I’d had with Denny. But I was confident that the rest of the sex would be just as electric.
He stopped the kiss and left me standing there.
Gasping.