Chapter Nine
Nine
AS EMMA HUFFED AND PUFFED UP THE STEEP HILL, SHE wondered how she’d ever had the stamina not only to live at Baxter, but park on the street every day. By the time she reached her former apartment complex, her calves hurt and her temples were moist. She thought she’d have a warm sense of nostalgia upon entering the worn-down lobby, but all she felt was relief that this was no longer her life. She made a mental note to try to remember that feeling since it was so distinctly different than her other thoughts of late, which were more of the if only I could go back in time variety.
Emma pushed the elevator button and prepared to wait an unseemly amount of time, but the doors opened immediately as though it had been sent down to retrieve her. She entered the small space and was hit with the interlocking smells of weed and cologne. It was surprisingly pleasant. Within moments she was standing outside Rob’s door trying to figure out the best way to greet him. Considering they hadn’t even kissed yet, it seemed like a friendly hug would be the way to go—unless he went in for a cheek kiss, which was one of Emma’s least favorite social conventions. She didn’t desire random people’s lips on her skin in a nonsexual way. And, unlike other features of her personality, this didn’t feel like something she needed to change about herself.
“I see you!” Rob’s voice came through the still-closed door.
Emma jumped in response. If there was anything Emma hated more than a cheek kiss, it was being startled. She tried to calm herself down as Rob flung open the door, smiling. He wore an apron that said Talk Nerdy to Me. A small amount of vomit came up Emma’s throat, but that could’ve just been the effects of afternoon coffee on her fragile esophagus.
“You made it.” Rob embraced her as if they hadn’t reconfirmed their plans only a few hours earlier.
“Of course. Thanks for making dinner.”
“For you? Anything! Including pasta.”
Emma followed Rob into his large studio apartment, which thankfully didn’t look exactly the same as it had ten years earlier, like Tony’s place. She was pretty sure the couch was different and the walls that had once been covered in taped-up movie posters were now covered with framed movie posters. The overall vibe was very much one of a bachelor with a strong interest in the arts and no favorite sports team.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Rob asked as Emma had yet again wandered over to the bookshelf in search of revelations about its owner.
“I’ll take some white wine if you have it.” Her eyes returned to shelves filled with medical textbooks, graphic novels and a box set of West Wing DVDs that looked unopened.
“Saving President Bartlet for a rainy day?” Emma asked as she joined Rob in the kitchen area. His counters were a mess and already covered in pasta sauce. She tried not to think about the hygiene, or lack thereof, involved in home cooking.
“Saving who for what?” Rob looked over at her, more stressed than seemed necessary for penne.
“I saw your unopened West Wing DVDs. Are you a fan of the show? Or just a collector?”
Rob picked up a dull knife and began ineffectively chopping some onions. “Neither. They were a gift and I guess I just never got around to watching. I’m not that into politics.”
“Not into politics as in not into watching acclaimed political dramas, or not into politics as in you don’t vote?” She’d tried to be casual but her tone revealed the importance of his answer.
“I vote! I vote, like, every time I’m allowed to. It’s part of being a citizen and everything. But…” Rob struggled to find a description that wouldn’t make him seem like a privileged straight white man who didn’t need to care about politics in order to survive and thrive. “I guess it’s just not my passion or anything. I’d rather read a medical journal than try to follow which senator is the most racist of the day.”
Emma nodded, content enough not to pry further. She had already ruined many a date night fighting about racist senators. Most notably when she had accidentally gone on a spring break trip with a Young Republican in college.
“Do you need any help?” Emma gestured in the direction of an overflowing pot of boiling water.
Rob jumped back before turning the heat down. He looked like he had been through war and still had to fight his way home. “No, no. You sit. I’ll be done soon.” He motioned to the sofa and returned to what was quickly becoming the greatest challenge of his adult life.
Emma wondered why he hadn’t just bought a can of sauce instead of attempting to make his own. Maybe he hadn’t realized she was surprisingly easy to please in the sauce department. That was one of the many strange parts of dating—you find yourself doing intensely intimate things for people you barely know.
A memory of Ryan holding her hair back while she puked from acid reflux on their third date popped into her head. It had been her first time at his place, and he hadn’t even hesitated. He’d just rubbed her back and pretended the sound of her hurling wasn’t a huge turnoff. Emma had barely known the guy but after that moment she felt safer with him than she had with anyone. He’d even sent her a bunch of articles the next day about how to reduce acid buildup. His genuine desire to find a way to help her feel better made her fall in love with him. It also allowed her to burp freely instead of holding it in.
But maybe it was time to let that love go to make room for someone else. Plus, Rob probably already knew a lot about acid reflux; he was a doctor.
Dinner was finally ready nearly an hour later. Emma stood awkwardly while Rob set the table, not letting her so much as lay down a mismatched fork. As he scavenged his kitchen drawers for matches to light two rather formal candlesticks, Emma wanted to point out that he was focusing on the wrong things. She wasn’t there to be wooed by some archaic standard of romance; she was there to get to know him—and they’d barely said ten sentences to each other since she arrived.
But she also understood that nerves could get in the way of logic. That’s why she nonsensically shouted, “Autograph my foot!” the one time she ran into Mark-Paul Gosselaar outside a popular restaurant. She hadn’t been thinking clearly because she’d been overcome with nerves at meeting her childhood crush. Maybe something similar was happening now. Rob probably didn’t date much, which would explain why their interactions always had a level of performance to them. She needed to make him comfortable enough to open up and be normal with her. Criticizing his “moves” wasn’t the way to get there.
“Sorry, this took a bit longer than expected. I guess I don’t have the red thumb I thought I had,” Rob said.
“Red thumb?”
“Like a green thumb but in the kitchen.”
Emma laughed, which made him break out into a splotchy blush.
“Oh, no. Have you never heard of that? Is this another thing my parents led me to believe was universally used but is really a made-up saying?”
Emma tried to suppress another laugh. She couldn’t tell if Rob was going to be able to joke about this or if he was on the verge of tears. “I think they made it up. But I also think it’s brilliant and I will be using it moving forward.”
“Really?”
“Definitely. I mean, sayings have to start somewhere! Why not in your own family?” Rob looked at her with such relief it made her uncomfortable. She wanted to move away from the intensity of the moment. “What else have they made up?”
Rob leaned back in his chair, letting his brain whirl. “They call stomachaches ‘ouchies.’ If you said you had an ouchie, you immediately got a ginger ale and some crackers.”
“Your parents sound awesome.”
“Yeah, until you go to the nurse’s office in high school and announce you have an ouchie in front of Steven Bombardo and get called Ouchie for the next two years like an idiot.”
“Who is Steven Bombardo?”
“Just the most popular guy at my school. Quarterback, but could also make these incredible ceramics. Really cool dude.” Rob looked off into the distance as though he was summoning the image of his high school idol/tormentor.
“But didn’t he give you a mean nickname?”
Rob shrugged. “I was an easy target. You can’t blame the guy for taking advantage of the situation. I mean, I thought ouchie was a medical term until I was fifteen—I deserved to be made fun of.”
“I don’t think anyone deserves to be made fun of. Except Republicans. And maybe those people who dye their dog’s hair without their consent.”
Rob smiled and reached for her hand. “You’re a really nice person.”
Emma smiled back. While the compliment felt sincere, she knew she hadn’t earned it from him. For all he knew, Emma stole money from old people or left trash on the highway.
“I thought gunpoint was an actual place until I was an adult,” Emma confessed. “Like when Cher from Clueless said she got robbed at gunpoint, I thought that was just a dangerous place in LA and people shouldn’t go there.”
She waited for Rob to laugh but instead he nodded, somewhat solemnly. “I can see how that would be confusing,” he replied without a hint of irony.
Emma put some overcooked pasta in her mouth to keep from screaming. After a few more minutes of polite eating, Emma excused herself to the bathroom and immediately dialed Jackie.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” Emma whisper-shouted into her phone as she climbed into the shower for added sound protection.
“What’s wrong? Is he trying to murder you? Because you should try to leave strands of your hair around as evidence—”
“No! No. He’s just… He doesn’t get when I’m joking. And every time I say something, even if it’s not that smart, he looks at me like I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread.”
“I’m having a hard time locating the problem here,” Jackie replied. “Are you complaining because Rob likes you too much?”
“Yes! No. I think Imani was right and he just likes the idea of me, not me as an actual person. Also, I think I maybe hate him.” Emma hadn’t meant to add that last part, but now that it was out, she knew it to be true and her desire to flee quadrupled. “I need an excuse to leave right away that won’t completely destroy his already dangerously fragile ego. And you lie better than me. I need your best stuff. Please.”
Instead of responding, Emma heard Jackie talking to someone else in the background, followed by a distinctly male murmur.
“Emma, we think you might be overreacting a bit. Isn’t this guy a doctor?”
“Yeah…” Emma replied, already nervous as to where this was going and vaguely annoyed that Chris was involved in what she had hoped was a private conversation.
“And your main issue is that he likes whatever you’re saying too much?”
“It’s more than that. I don’t think I’m attracted to him.”
“Because of his looks?”
“No. He’s good-looking.”
“Because of his smell?”
“I haven’t noticed his smell.”
“Well then, you are definitely overreacting. He’s probably just nervous. If you find a good-looking, nice doctor who doesn’t smell and is obsessed with you, you don’t just walk away because things are a little awkward at first. That would be insane.”
From what sounded like a far distance she heard Chris shout, “Super insane!”
“Don’t say ‘insane.’”
“We won’t if you act normal for once. Now go out there and get a better sniff.” Jackie hung up the phone, leaving Emma to fend for herself. Which, quite frankly, Emma was not prepared to do.
When Emma left the bathroom—far too many suspicious moments after she went in—she was shocked to see Rob had moved over to the couch and dimmed the lights. He patted the seat next to him as though this was the inevitable progression of a great evening. Emma looked longingly toward the front door before making her way over to the neutral-smelling radiologist. She tried to remind herself that sometimes a physical barrier needed to be broken in order to break down an emotional one—or at least she’d been told some version of that at summer camp when her bunk mates had pressured her to kiss a boy she had never even talked to before. She’d gone for it, and they had somehow ended up “dating” the rest of the camp session even though they continued not to speak. It was a confusing lesson at the time.
But this wasn’t the summer of ’02 anymore; the stakes were higher. She wasn’t just looking for a boy to hold sweaty hands with while avoiding eye contact during the talent show—she was looking for a life partner. And sometimes that required searching in unexpected places. She decided to push through her growing sense of ick and sat down.
“Hi,” Emma said.
“Hi,” Rob replied.
As he stared deeply into her eyes, Emma wondered why she had never enjoyed the lead-up to a first kiss. She always felt anxious to get it over with. That’s why her favorite ones were when she was taken by surprise and didn’t even have time to panic. Like how on the night she met Tony he had simply leaned in and kissed her goodbye as though they were already a couple. Her brain didn’t even get to process what had happened until she was safely tucked in her Uber on the ride home. No anticipation anxiety, just the afterglow of realizing something magical had happened to her without her having to orchestrate it first.
“Can I kiss you?” Rob asked with a slightly deeper voice than normal. It reminded her of the guy from Moviefone, which was not an association that put her in the mood to do anything other than see a blockbuster.
“Um…sure.”
Rob closed his eyes and leaned toward her mouth. As their lips connected, Emma tried to be in the moment and shut off her overactive brain. But all she could think about was the repetitive motion of Rob’s tongue. She wondered if he knew that not all kissing had to be of the French variety. After about fifteen seconds of more of the same—like exactly the same— Emma knew she had to get home to her toothbrush. And she realized she might have just the right play to get herself there.
“I want to get married,” Emma blurted out as she pulled away from his still-open mouth.
Rob took a moment to process what she had nearly shouted before breaking into a grin. “I want to get married someday, too.”
Emma shook her head, leaning into the role of a slightly more unhinged version of her true self. “No. I want to get married soon. Like on the same day I was supposed to get married the first time.”
Rob sat back on the couch. “Okay…” He seemed interested instead of repulsed, which wasn’t what Emma was looking for.
“Like I want to find a replacement groom and sort of just swap him in for Ryan so I can continue with my life as planned. I already have the venue and everything. It would be exactly the same wedding as I was previously planning with someone else.”
Rob nodded as though what she was saying wasn’t completely bonkers. She needed him to see the light and kick her out.
“I know that probably sounds a bit intense.”
“Not necessarily. Weddings are expensive. And if you already have the venue…” Rob gazed at her with what appeared to be excitement. “When’s the date?”
“August 29. Of this year.”
Rob looked at his Apple watch and seemed to do a quick calculation. “That should be more than enough time to get my family out here. That is—” he leaned in and cupped his giant hand under her chin in what she guessed was supposed to be a romantic gesture, but ultimately felt infantilizing “—if you’re asking me to marry you.”
Emma felt her stomach turn as she jumped up from the couch. “I have to go!”
“What?”
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I thought… I don’t know what I thought but this isn’t going to work out.”
Rob’s eyes flashed with hurt. “Then why did you just ask me to marry you?”
Emma searched around for her purse, located it and made her way toward the door. “I didn’t mean to! I thought if I told you my plan in the bluntest way possible you would be freaked out by it and ask me to leave. But I can see now that was misguided.”
“Why do you want to leave? And what do you mean your ‘plan’? Are you really trying to find a replacement groom or not?”
“Sort of. Not a replacement though. More of an upgrade.”
Rob followed her to the door. Emma was quickly learning that all her professional training on delicate delivery of tough information went away the moment she was the one in crisis.
“I see. And I’m not an upgrade so you were trying to get rid of me?” Rob appeared on the verge of tears.
Emma took a deep breath and tried to regain some control over the deteriorating situation. She reached for his hand as a rush of thoughts shot through her. “Rob, I swear this isn’t about you. I’m a mess right now. I came up with this completely delusional idea that if I could find a different groom in time for my original wedding, I could avoid all the hurt and pain that comes with being left.” Emma barked out a laugh. “I even let myself think I could be an inspiration to other people. I thought I could reinvent marriage, for Christ’s sake! But saying it all out loud to you just now made me realize how bananas the whole idea is. I clearly need to take a break from dating and get back to healing. I hope you can understand.”
A moment passed and then Rob squeezed her hand three times as if they had some sort of secret signal. “I understand. Thank you for being honest. And if you ever feel ready to get back out there, you know where to find me.” He opened the door, and she looked back at him one more time.
“Thank you. For everything.”
He nodded solemnly before blowing her a kiss.
As Emma walked toward the elevator, she sent a mental thank you to her high school drama teacher whose years-old guidance had just allowed her to give the performance of a lifetime. It had been so convincing she’d almost believed it herself.
As the elevator descended, Emma opened Hinge and sent Will a quick message officially asking him out.
She was ready to meet. And she was ready to marry.