Chapter 5
FIVE
Rowan
Rows and rows of clothing surround Macie and I as we walk through the store, each of us trying to find a cute new outfit for our nights out tonight. Macie has a sleepover with a few of her friends, which I arranged because Emmett freaking Fowler is taking me out to dinner tonight.
I’ve only ever been on two other dates in my life, and the last one was more than two years ago, so I’m excited. He seems like a nice guy; I’d definitely like to get to know him a little better, and if I happen to finally find love in the process? All the better.
I pile a couple of pieces onto my arm and Macie does the same, grabbing a lot of things that are probably too formal for a kids’ sleepover, but I’m not going to stifle her personal style choices. Who am I to tell her how to express who she is?
Once we’re sure that we each have enough options to choose from, we head toward the dressing rooms and climb into one of the larger rooms to try on some of the clothes.
I help my sister get into her favorite of the outfits she picked out: a white long sleeved shirt that goes underneath a black tartan dress.
When she picked it out, she’d mentioned something about pairing her favorite mary janes with the outfit.
I brush my hands over the skirt of it, smoothing out the fabric, and take a step back.
“Okay, gimme a twirl, let’s see it,” I tell her.
She spins in place, sending the skirt of the dress flying out around her as her little face lights up, and my heart melts into a puddle watching the pure, unfiltered joy on her face from something as simple as a new dress.
“Can I get it?” She asks me, making her eyes as big and puppy-like as possible, and I can’t help but smile.
“Of course you can. Let’s set it next to my purse, that will be our ‘keep’ pile.”
After helping her try on a few more outfits, she decides to keep three of them, and I just can’t bring myself to tell her no. She doesn’t get to pick out her own clothes that often, and she deserves this for her big night, so she can have her little pile of goodies.
I cycle through a few outfits of my own before landing on a cream-colored cable knit sweater that I decide to tuck into a matching pencil skirt.
“What do we think?” I ask Macie as I turn around to give her the full view.
Clapping, she nods her head enthusiastically and yells, “Really pretty!”
“Alright,” I say as I smooth out the front of the skirt. “Should we pay for our stuff and head home? You need a bath and we gotta pack your bag.”
“A bath with bubbles?”
“As if there’s any other way,” I tell her, ruffling her hair.
We each change back into our own clothes before collecting our ‘keep’ and ‘put back’ piles, toss the ‘put back’ pile onto the rack of rejected items waiting for us at the exit of the fitting rooms, and make our way to the registers to pay.
Bags in hand, we trek to the parking lot and toward my car, where we toss our merchandise into the trunk and climb into our seats. Macie insists on buckling herself into her booster seat, so we sit for a good five or six minutes before I can even put the keys into the ignition.
·
“Alright, kiddo,” I say as I help her get out of the bath, “go on and pack your jammies and toothbrush. I’ll be up in a sec.”
She shouts an excited ‘okay!’ and flies through the house and up the stairs while I bring our bags up from the living room.
My hips whine at me as I slowly climb up the stairs, begging me to sit down, but I push them just far enough to get me to my room, where my bed is waiting for me.
I toss the bags down onto the foot of the bed and plop down next to them, kicking off my shoes and letting out a long breath of relief.
I sit there for a minute, using removing the tags on everything as an excuse to stay sitting there, until Macie comes in, hauling her backpack behind her which is stuffed to the brim with things she wants to take with her for the night.
I laugh, taking in her excited expression and the overflowing bag. “Got everything you’ll need?”
“Yup!”
“Teeth brushed?”
“Yup!”
“Alright,” I chuckle, “then pick out what you’re gonna wear and you can hang out with me while I get ready.”
I don’t know where Dad is – probably at the liquor store or the dark corner of some dive bar - but he isn’t home, and that feels like a small victory for me right now. I really don’t want to listen to him scream about the way I chose to spend the money that I work my ass off to save.
Macie grabs her pile of spoils and runs off to her room to throw an outfit together, shouting her thanks over her shoulder as she leaves. While she gets dressed, I do the same, then move to my desk to pop some hot rollers into my hair.
My sister careens back into my room a few minutes later, donning that little tartan dress, and I can’t help but break into a smile looking at her.
“You look beautiful, Mace!”
Giving me a big, dizzying twirl, she says, “Thank you!”
She plops onto my bed and watches in the mirror as I slap on some concealer and eyeshadow, which she asks me to let her use, too, so I turn to pop a light champagne shade onto her lids and let her look into the mirror before turning back to put on some mascara and lip gloss.
“Pretty,” Macie tells me in the mirror with a firm nod. “Are you going to a sleepover?”
“Definitely not,” I laugh. “I’m just gonna have some dinner with my friend.”
“Gonna get mac and cheese?” Macie thinks everyone should always be eating mac and cheese. The spiral kind, specifically, if it’s available.
I tap my finger on my chin, pasting a thoughtful look on my face. “I like the way you think, kid.”
Once my rollers are cooled, she helps me take them down and fluff out the resulting curls so I can get a little extra volume to my hair, then we head downstairs so she can be picked up by her friend’s mom, who I thank for driving her and having her over before giving Macie a big squeeze and a smooch on the cheek.
I watch as she climbs into the booster seat and heads off for her first sleepover ever.
Something our dad should have been here for, been in charge of.
He should have been here to send her off and buy her a new outfit.
A twinge of pain stings my heart, hoping she looks back on this as a fun time spent with her big sister, and not a big moment that her dad wasn’t there for.
That our mom wasn’t here for.
Running inside to grab my purse and lock up, I stuff down my rising grief and move out to the porch to wait for Emmett.
I find myself suddenly nervous about him seeing where I live – not that I expect him to judge.
I wouldn’t be going out with him if that were the case.
It’s just that he’s the son of a gajillionaire business mogul, and I doubt he comes to neighborhoods like mine often.
I really don’t want him to see the mess in the house or smell the permanent aura of scotch that hangs in the air. Him seeing the way the exterior has broken down in just a few short years is more than embarrassing enough.
Emmett’s glossy white Mercedes coupe sticks out like a sore thumb when it pulls up in front of my house, and I wonder for a second if he feels as out of place here as he looks, but I stuff the thought down and wave at him with a grin as I approach the car.
He opens the door for me from the inside with a smile and I settle into the warm seat, relieved to be out of the cold.
“Hey,” he says, “you look great.”
I smile and take in his outfit: a white t-shirt that sits beneath a sleek navy blue blazer and matching slacks. His medium-length, dirty blond hair is pushed back – it looks like the cut was freshly touched up today. For me.
“Thank you,” I tell him, “so do you.”
As the car pulls away from my house, I find myself feeling really nervous.
It’s been so long since I’ve been on a first date, I feel like I’ve suddenly forgotten everything about myself and how to be a person existing in public with another person.
Like there’s some universal script I’m going to forget to follow.
He seems like a nice guy; we’ve become friends since we started working together, and I’d hate to screw that up. It’s one thing to be friends, but when it comes to romantic partners, I’ve come to learn that when people find out that you live with a chronic illness, they decide one of three things:
1. You’re faking it, because you just want some attention.
2. You’re dying and/or contagious, and they don’t want whatever it is that you’re passing around.
3. You’re going to need them to take care of you and it will become a burden they aren’t ready for or willing to deal with.
Getting that out of the way early on saves everyone involved a lot of time and a lot of heartache – even if it still stings in the end. So far, I’m two for option two, and I’m really not aiming to make that three. The last guy I went out with literally took a step back from me when he found out.
For a while, I swore myself off of dating after that, because it was humiliating, and really hurtful. I may not always feel like I’m deserving of that kind of love, but no one deserves that kind of reaction over something they can’t control.
As we pull up to the valet and step out, I see the line streaming out of the restaurant’s door, down to the end of the block. This place must be either really popular or brand new, to draw a crowd like this.
“Wow,” I breathe.
“Don’t worry,” Emmett chuckles, “we have a reservation.”
I feel a little guilty walking past all of these people, cutting the line ahead of them when they’ve been here for god knows how long, just waiting to get in and get some food in their bellies, but I follow Emmett up to the maitre d’ anyway, where he casually places his arm on the podium in front of him and speaks with a voice like butter.
“Reservation for two under Fowler,” he says.
“Of course, right this way, Mr. Fowler.”
Following him, I look around the restaurant and realize how incredibly far out of my tax bracket this place is.
Everyone is dressed to the nines, tables are lined with foods I can’t even pretend to recognize, and conversation is calm and subdued compared to the din of the restaurants I usually go to, on the very rare occasion I eat out.
When we get to our table, the maitre d’ pulls my chair out for me and brings over a small bench before taking my purse and setting it down gently onto it. I try to train my face into a neutral expression to hide the amazement flooding through me as I take my seat, thanking the maitre d’.
The server approaches our table, and I’m shocked that my order is taken first. I may not have much experience, but even at dinners with my dad, the men at the table were always asked for their orders first. I ask for a sparkling water – I’m really going wild tonight – and Emmett orders a really old-sounding wine for himself, which is brought over by a sommelier, who first pours a splash of the wine into the glass, then dumps it out before properly filling it and depositing it onto the table in front of Emmett.
I keep my food order simple, just a salad that has absolutely no business costing twenty-seven dollars, and Emmett opts for a gigantic cut of filet mignon.
After a bit of small talk and icebreaker questions, Emmett takes a sip of his wine then props his elbows on the table, resting his chin on his joined hands.
“So. If you had to escape this date, right now, how would you do it?”
I make a show of tapping my finger on my chin and lower my voice as I lean in conspiratorially, telling him, “If it was going badly, like really badly, I would make a scene. Like, we were breaking up and it was a total nightmare. You would think I was crazy and never call me again.”
“And if it was just a boring date?” he asks.
“Oh, easy. I’d slide under the table like a slug and crawl out of the restaurant.”
He throws his head back in laughter, saying, “Well now I wanna bore you, just so I can see that.”
“Have you ever had a date you wanted to escape?” I ask him.
“One,” he says, “Last year. I took her to an art gallery and she had a few too many glasses of the free wine. She wound up destroying one of the pieces, which I then had to pay for...and it was an ugly one.”
“Oh my god,” I say, my hand flying up over my mouth. “I would be mortified.”
He nods, sipping from his wine again. “I was.”
As our meal winds down, we decide to order dessert, which tells me the date is going really well.
I don’t want to get my hopes up too much just yet, but I’m cautiously optimistic that this might actually lead to a second date.
Shoot, I might get my first kiss tonight.
That alone sends butterflies through my stomach.
Tucking into our desserts, Emmett pops a bite of his tart into his mouth and asks, “What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done on a date?”
Oh boy, here we go. This is an in to tell him, but it’s also the defining moment of this date. This single moment can make or break everything that has been building up for this entire evening.
All of a sudden, my dessert isn’t appetizing anymore and those butterflies that have taken up residence in my stomach have all been squished, replaced with a nervous sweat that crawls across the back of my neck.
“On my last first date,” I say, “I passed out and smacked my head on the table.”
With a laugh he says, “Christ, were you drunk?”
“Nope, I’ve never had a sip of alcohol in my life. I just didn’t see that one coming. He practically ran away from me.”
His brow furrows. “That one?”
“Yeah,” I say with a nod. “I have this thing, and usually I just get dizzy, but sometimes I pass out. That time I passed out,” I laugh.
“What kind of thing?” He asks.
“Like a…health thing,” I tell him. “No one really knows what exactly it is. But it’s not serious or anything. I live a pretty normal life, considering. I manage it.”
“Oh.”
I watch in slow motion as his face falls, just a little, and I can actually see each individual wheel turning in his head.
So this is what option three looks like.
·
I lean over to give Emmett a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“Thank you, I had a really good time with you tonight,” I tell him.
“Yeah, me too. I’m glad we did this.”
He isn’t, but that’s okay.
I step out of the car and walk up to the front door, turning to wave goodbye to him as I slide my key into the lock and give it a turn.
I have to give him kudos for staying to make sure I get in safely, even if he didn’t walk me to the door.
One of these days, I’ll get that first date kiss, my first actual kiss.
My bed is waiting for me with open arms, and I flop down onto it, not bothering to take off my makeup or change my clothes. As far as I know, Dad is still out, so I’m going to get as much peaceful sleep as I can while I still have the house to myself.