Chapter Three
CHAPTER THREE
We talked to each other four or five times a week, ending calls with “I love you” and “I love you more.” Thanksgiving out in California went well; Emily’s dad, Pat, and his girlfriend, Ana, were cool and a lot friendlier than her mom.
Emily flew back to Connecticut for Christmas at the end of the fall semester and I picked her up at the airport.
When she came around the corner and saw me in the crowd, she made a mad dash, leapt into my arms, and bracketed her legs around my hips.
A few of the people around us hooted and applauded.
We spent most of our three-week break together.
Took the train into New York for the day to see the tree at Rockefeller Center and the holiday windows.
Home again, we went tobogganing over at the golf course.
We met my mother for lunch at Village Pizza because she wanted to meet Emily.
She had invited us over to her place, but Mom’s trailer was as messy as Betsy’s place was neat and it sometimes smelled of cat pee, so I lied.
Told her Emily was allergic to cats and that Ajax and Trixie might give her a sneezing attack.
When we went Christmas shopping at the mall, Emily and I were looking in one of the jewelry store windows when a saleswoman came out to the entrance and said she could show us a much bigger selection of engagement rings inside.
Emily blushed and shook her head. “Not quite there yet? Well, we have some lovely preengagement pieces and friendship rings. Come in and have a look.” I told her no thanks and we walked away hand in hand.
The next day I went back there and bought Emily a bracelet, fourteen-karat gold with a diamond chip.
We exchanged our gifts out in my car on Christmas Eve.
“You sure you don’t want to come in?” Emily asked.
I didn’t. I was going over to her mom’s for Christmas dinner the next day and there was only so much Betsy I could take.
Emily said she loved her bracelet and put it right on.
She didn’t say anything about the diamond chip and neither did I, but I hoped she’d gotten my intended message: a preview of coming attractions.
For my present, Emily had reserved us a room at the Three Rivers Inn for New Year’s Eve.
I had never stayed in a hotel room that fancy before. We made love in the warm, bubbling water of the hot tub and, later, in the plush bed. Emily had gone on the pill by then, so there was no fumbling with condoms. When she came, she burst out crying. “What?” I asked. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing’s the matter. It’s just… I don’t know. I’ve never felt like this before.”
“What do you mean—like this?”
“Like… feeling a little drunk when I haven’t had anything to drink. I’m just so happy, Corby. It’s a little overwhelming, in a good way.”
Cuddling, we watched a show about the major events of the year just ending—Katrina, Iraq, the death of Pope John Paul, the birth of YouTube.
Then the ball dropped in Times Square, we kissed the New Year hello, and fell asleep in each other’s arms. Two days later, we were back at the airport, and I watched her plane take off and rise, flying her back to California.
While I was packing to go back to school, Mom came in with a tin of brownies. She told me how much she liked Emily. “But long-distance relationships can be pretty hard to sustain,” she said.
“Yeah? I thought absence was supposed to make the heart grow fonder.” I was being a wise guy, which Mom sometimes liked and sometimes didn’t. And sometimes ignored if she was trying to make a point.
“I’m not trying to be a wet blanket, Corby,” she said. “I just don’t want you to get ahead of yourself with this girl. You’re both very young and—”
“You know something, Mom? You worry too much. Maybe long-distance relationships get tricky for some couples, but that won’t happen with us.”
“Okay then. I just don’t want to see you get hurt. And don’t forget to share those brownies with some of the boys in your dorm. There’s a dozen and a half.”
“Any wacky weed in there, Mrs. Feelgood?” She gave me a look. “Okay. Thanks, Mom. And stop worrying about Emily and me. We’re fine.”
And things were fine for the first several weeks of the semester.
When Emily’s letters and callbacks began to taper off, I chalked it up to her student teaching.
She had a forty-minute commute to her school, taught all day, and then drove back, prepared lessons and graded papers into the night.
She and I were rock solid; she was just super busy.
But then came the night when, over the phone, she said basically what my mother had said: that maybe we needed to tap the brakes on our relationship.
“I don’t get where this is coming from,” I said.
“I thought being with me made you feel… intoxicated. Was that because you’d just gotten laid and were feeling the afterglow?
” Instead of taking the bait, she let her silence do the talking.
But I couldn’t stop. “You breaking up with me? Is that what this is?”
“ No. I’m just wondering if maybe we should slow down a little, you know?”
“Jesus Christ! How much more ‘slowed down’ can we be with you out in California, me in Rhode Island, and three thousand miles between us?”
“Corby, why do you sound so angry? All I’m saying is that maybe we both should have the freedom to go out with other people from time to time.”
If there had been Skype or FaceTime back then, she would have seen my despair. “I don’t need that kind of freedom because I know for sure that I want to share the rest of my life with you.”
“Okay, but Corby, I’m just not sure we’re in the same place about that. I don’t even know what the rules are for us as a couple. It’s confusing.”
“So who is he?”
“Okay, if you must know, it’s Brad Pitt. I couldn’t resist.”
“No, seriously. Who is he? And have you slept with him yet?”
“There’s nobody else, Corby. You’re jumping to conclusions.”
“Am I?”
There was a long pause on her end. “One of my housemates? Mason? He and I were eating breakfast yesterday and he said, out of the blue, that he has feelings for me. Which was awkward because the only thing I feel toward him is annoyance. I mean, he clips his toenails in the living room. And when he’s studying?
He clears his throat so many times that I find myself counting instead of concentrating on what I’m supposed to be studying. ”
“Okay, who else?”
“No one else. The guy who runs the coffee shop I go to asked me if I wanted to go to some art show opening with him and I told him no, that I was seeing someone. But it’s gotten me thinking that if—”
“If someone better comes along? You want to keep your options open?”
“Okay, forget I even said anything. And stop being so fucking insecure. Because this is already a really stressful time for me with student teaching, okay? The kids in one of my classes keep testing me. And their regular teacher’s this hard-nosed disciplinarian who won’t even let the kids breathe.
Yesterday she told me that if my classroom management doesn’t improve, she can’t see how she’ll be able to give me a good grade.
But the thing is, she never leaves the room.
She just sits on the sidelines and scowls.
Whenever that class is coming up, I turn into a nervous wreck. ”
I didn’t want to talk about her student teaching; I wanted to keep talking about us . As if I were qualified to give her advice about her situation, I said, “Just tell her you’ve got your own style and that you need her to leave the room when you have that class because it makes you nervous.”
“Oh yeah, that would go over big,” she said. “The thing I said about not knowing what the rules were? For us as a couple? What if some guy I know, someone who’s just a friend, wants to go for a walk or to a movie. Is that—”
I barged in before she could finish. “Let me ask you something. That bracelet I gave you? Do you wear it or is it shoved in a drawer someplace?”
“I have it on right now, Corby. I wear it every day. Look, I know I’m not doing a very good job of explaining what I’m trying to say. But I’m just under so much pressure right now about the teaching stuff and—”
I told her I had to go but that we could talk later.
Hung up on her.
Paced back and forth. Guy at a coffee shop?
I thought about that barista at the Starbucks on Angell Street: guy was so good-looking and gym-fit, you noticed him even if you’re a dude.
Mr. Personality, too, with dollar bills and fives stuffed into his tip jar.
Like I’d have any chance if I had to compete against that guy.
I went downstairs and stormed out of the dorm.
Hoofed it from campus into downtown Providence and bought a pack of cigarettes.
I only smoked when I felt anxious about something, a habit I’d picked up one exam week in high school.
For a good hour or more, I kept walking, smoking, and thinking about what I could do so I wouldn’t lose her.
By the time I got back, my throat burned from tar and nicotine but I had figured it out.