Emily's Reasons Why Not (8 page)

“Honey, what’s happened to your pubic hair?”

“It’s a Playboy wax,” I say through my teeth in a huff to the bathroom.

“Looks painful,” she yells back as I slam the bathroom door.

On the tour bus Mom holds my hand and I have to admit, it’s kinda nice. My daughter time. I look around at the people crowded on the seats. A
couple
, middle-aged, snapping photos out the window. A
couple
, elderly, on their forty-fifth wedding anniversay. I know this, as they are wearing T-shirts that say,
It’s our 45th anniversary … can you believe it?

Then there’s a lovely gay
couple
… Thad and Tom, the two Ts. I borrowed sunscreen from Tom in the pool yesterday after mistaking him for straight. The rum dulled my gaydar.
Just my karma that the guy I try to pick up on my “escape” weekend turns out to be gay. I miss Josh. Finally, my eyes narrow on what must be a
couple
having an affair, as I can’t see her face. They have had their tongues in each other’s mouth for the past twenty minutes. That leaves me … and Mom. Jesus, am I going to end up with my mother? Alone, with two dogs, a guest house, and my mother making me breakfast when I am fifty? Perhaps that is it. I’ll just enlist for this life with Mom and call off the search for love.

Then my blind, deaf, and dumbness magically vanishes as I notice a tan, blond, mid-thirtysomething guy sitting ALONE at the back of the bus. I look over my shoulder, subtly as not to be noticed, place my hand on my hip, twist, and pretend to crack my back. Wedddddding band? No! No ring. Single. BONUS!

He pulls on a Ping baseball hat. Heeeeellllllo, the same baseball cap I’m wearing. He must be straight with that golf hat on. A single babe on my bus. Why didn’t I notice him?

“Say hello, honey,” Mom says, pointing the video camera an inch from my face. “Tell everyone at home where we are.” I want to smack that camera right out of her hand!

“Hi. We’re in St. Croix.” Did that just come out of my mouth? Mom hands me the video camera and proceeds to
SNAP.
She takes my picture.

I look back at the babealicious guy and he’s smiling at me, giving me a knowing nod … like all parents, at any age, were put on this earth to embarrass and humiliate us.

I am struggling to strap on my backpack and Mom’s video
camera when Mr. Single-Over-Six-Foot walks past and says, “Nice hat.”

Flutter, flutter
.

I almost fall on Mom. She shoves me forward down the bus aisle.

“Was he talking to you?” Mom says, watching him through the window. “He’s kind of cute. Sweetie, where’s his wife?” She has a point. Maybe the wife, girlfriend, gay lover was sick and they didn’t want the tickets to go to waste.

Maybe his perfect, size-six girlfriend with long beautiful hair and perfect legs minus any visible signs of cellulite is waiting naked in their bangalow bed for her prince to come home.

The hike begins up the curvy, rocky slope. Mud flies up from Mom’s sneakers and lands on my sweaty shins. Bugs and mosquitoes buuuzzzzzz around me. Panting like a dog, I am anything but glamorous at this moment. I hate hiking. I hate this mountain. I hate this island.

Crack!
Mom’s hand lands hard on my sunburned thigh. “Spider,” she says, showing me the gooey remains on her palm.

“They’re not poisonous,” Hot-Babe-in-Matching-Hat says.

“I’m Craig, Craig Kautz from Montana.”

Nice green eyes, white teeth. His forearm brushes against me as he helps Mom up a steep, rocky slope.

“Bitsy Sanders, and this is my daughter Emily,” Mom adds, wiping the sweat off her brow. “Do you mind taking our picture?”

I wish the spider had bitten me and it was poisonous. Wish I would die. I wrap my arm around Mom and smile. “Sure.’
He takes the camera from Mom, looks through the lens, and stops to look at me for a good long while.

I stand, confused, looking back at him. He slowly steps closer, his face next to mine, his green eyes looking deep into me, studying my face, then he wipes a yellowish-brown smudge of something that resembles horrible tropical insect poop out of my hair.

I feel my heart tighten and constrict as I collapse on the ground and die of humiliation. This trip has become a lesson in humility.

“Wouldn’t want to tarnish that pretty hair,” Craig says, looking back through the camera lens. “One, two, three, say—we’re almost off this godforsaken hike.”

“We’re almost off this godforsaken hike,” Mom and I both say, laughing.
Click
.

That was the best picture from the entire trip.

I am pulled back into Dr. D.’s office by the smile on his face. “What?”

“Nothing. I’m just listening. Please continue.”

I guess therapists can enjoy a story, too, from time to time. It dawns on me that Dr. D. is human, a man, sitting there listening to my intimate life tale. I file the thought and jump back in.

On the bus ride back to town I learn that Craig is not married, but I hide my curiosity and refrain from digging any further, as I would like to be kissed at least once on this trip. So much for denying my need for men.

“Do you play golf?” he asks, pointing at my Ping hat.

“I played with my ex-boyfriend. He loved to play and I
found after he dumped me that it was the one thing I still liked about him.”

“My ex-fiancée hated golf. Hated it when I played. I think it’s awesome that you learned,” he distantly replies.

Did he say
ex-fiancée?
What makes a person commit to marriage and then decide to call it off?

I realize that I have let too much time go by, and there is now an awkward silence. How could there not be when he just threw that word
fiancée
out there like a damn grenade into my future of eleven days in paradise with Mr. Ping Perfect?

“Well, after I broke up with my boyfriend I kept playing golf. You figure there’s thirty-to-one odds guys to girls on the golf course, I like the ratio. And if you’re remotely ‘okay cute’ and can play, it’s a great place to meet the other half.”

Then there was … laughter. Humor, the saving grace for any awkward situation.

“You’re absolutly cute, not okay cute,” he says, looking directly at me.

Yeeeaaahhh, cute isn’t how I feel, covered in dirt, bug poop, and sweat.

But there is something nice about Craig’s compliment. Must be the Montana in him. I take a deep breath as Bitsy turns with her camera and hollers, “Smile!”

I feel like an eighth grader. “Have dinner with me tonight?” Craig asks through his frozen smile, waiting for my mom to take the picture. I turn and look at him. He is still looking forward.

“Okay.”

Mom’s flash goes off.

Sunset over the ocean and Bitsy and I stand at the maitre d’ stand, waiting. She fixes the straps on my white, flowy sundress and kisses me on the cheek. “You look very sweet.” She smiles.

I give her a little hug. “So do you.” Moms can make us feel good about ourselves, but I think we know that they are biased and thus we’re less likely to believe them. Bitsy and I walk through the bamboo-and-wildflower-decorated dining room of the resort. We follow the maitre d’ to the balcony, where I see Craig sitting alone. He stands when we approach.

He’s wearing black linen pants and a cream linen shirt with a white T-shirt underneath, black belt, black casual loafers. No socks. His tan face and green eyes are highlighted by a blond, sun-kissed crew cut. His teeth are great; one of the bottom front left ones is just slightly chipped. Rugged in a cute kind of way. It makes me want to run my tongue over it. He’s way hotter and stylish than I ever would have guessed a guy from Montana could be.

I mean, isn’t Montana all about open prairies, cowboys, and John Deere tractors? The waiter opens the second bottle of Chardonnay as I watch Craig charm my mom. “… from Duke in eighty-six and then got my MBA at Stanford.” His eyes catch mine for a long beat while Mom cuts her salmon. “I lived in L.A. for a while and did my time on Wall Street before I got tired of the crazymaking and went back to Montana. Now I help my father manage our family business. It’s
funny. I spent my entire childhood wanting to get out of Montana and small-town life, but these days all I want to do is be there in the comfort of it. Of my family, friends.”

At that moment I knew exactly what he meant.

“What do they do?” Mom seems riveted, as if she’s already planning our wedding, and he doesn’t even notice.

Like mother, like daughter.

I can barely hear a word. I just want to reach over the table at this point and kiss that incredible mouth. Wow, I need to ease off the wine.

“Real estate, mainly. We own and manage property in Idaho, Montana, Utah. Mainly ski resorts.” He turns and looks at me. “Do you ski?”

“Yes, I do, but I really want to try snowboarding,” I answer.

“I’ll teach you.” He cuts his steak. Did he just say he’ll teach me? When? When will he teach me?

Reason #1:
Beware of promises made in paradise. Men talk about the possibility of a future with you on a romantic island when you are tan and easy-breezy, but it never makes the flight home
.

“I’m pleased you said that. I was just about to interrupt,” says Dr. D. “Be wary of a man who talks about the future when he has no idea who you are, or where the future will take you as a couple when there is no ‘couple.’”

“At the time Craig said it, I could see us laughing, snow-boarding, having snowball fights, mauling each other in front
of a roaring fire in his mountain house. I snapped out of it, but the damage was done.”

“Where’d you go?” Craig studies my face.

“Oh, ah, nowhere.” I shake my head, almost embarrassed that he knows I have him naked on a bearskin rug. When the check comes, Craig takes the bill.

“Don’t be silly,” Mom says, handing him her credit card.

“Ma’am, ladies don’t pay,” in his best John Wayne.

As Craig walks us out, Mom stops in the lobby. “I’ve got to meet some of the ladies for late-night bunko,” she lies. “Thank you for dinner, Craig. Take care of my girl.”

“I will.” He kisses Mom on the cheek, and she gives me a good-night wink over his shoulder.

The sand on my toes feels cool and soft. The waves are slushing up onto the beach. The sound of steel drums floats in the distance. We walk for a long time without saying anything, just watching the clear sea brush against the soft white sand under the moonlight. Craig carries my sandals. He stops and looks up at the moon, lays our shoes on the sand, and takes off his linen shirt, leaving his white T-shirt covering his shoulders and chest. He looks even tanner and hotter. “Wanna sit for a while?” he says in a soft whisper.

Yeah! I almost scream. I wanna sit, roll, strip, kiss, and stroke that beautiful tan body.

“Okay.” I ease onto the shirt and dig my toes into the sand.

He sits next to me. “How come you haven’t asked me why I am here alone?”

I lean back and look up at the stars.

Because I don’t want the answer. Because you’re about to ruin a perfectly good evening. Because whatever you might say could infringe on my ability to put my lips on yours and my obsession with running my tongue over that jagged tooth.

Reason #2:
When you don’t want the answer, it’s probably bad
.

“I am just glad that you’re here.” I smile.

He cocks his head at me.

“I figured you’d tell me when you wanted to. And maybe I didn’t want to know the answer.”

He leans back next to me and says flatly, “This is my honeymoon.”

I roll onto my stomach and run my fingertip in the sand, drawing a “K.”

“I met my fiancée at Stanford. She was from Boston. We dated for three years before I proposed. Two of which I lived in New York and she lived in California.”

I draw an “I” in the sand.

“Too much distance,” I murmur.

“Too much everything,” he murmurs back.

I draw an “S” in the sand. Silent and listening. Not sure what to say. Wondering where this is going and when exactly I am going to have to pry his foot out of his mouth. Just wishing he’d shut up and do what men are supposed to do. Where’s the pawing? Where’s the overt gesture? I am on vacation, for God’s sake. I make another “S” in the sand.

“She moved to Montana and hated it … hated me,” he says reluctantly

Huh? Wonder what he did to make her hate him?

“I don’t know you very well, but ‘hate’ seems like a pretty strong word.” My finger traces an “M” in the sand.

“I wanted her to be happy, not to worry about anything. I told her she didn’t have to work. She thought I was too old-fashioned.” He leans back.

“Nobody really wants to work,” I sigh, “except movie stars and professional athletes.”

“That’s what I thought. I figured that I would take care of her. And she’d love and take care of me, but she thought … hell, I don’t know what she thought. Then out of the blue she tells me she thinks my family is too involved in our lives. As if being close to your family is a bad thing.”

“I can’t really say too much on the whole parent thing, being that I am on a romantic vacation with my mom.”

“Yeah, but I like that. I think it’s great.”

“And, she called me cheap. I watch my spending, but I am not cheap.”

Cheap is unacceptable. There will be no cheap. There will be no penny-pinching while dating me. It ranks right up there with not opening the car door on the first date or making your wife take out the garbage. Men need to pay. Pay now, or pay later. But pay they must. It’s chivalry. It’s courting. It’s the fire hoops a man must jump through to prove that he thinks his date is worthwhile and valuable.

“You did buy dinner tonight, so there again, I think the ex is wrong,” I dispute.

“I don’t know, one minute she’s wearing my grandmother’s wedding dress down the aisle and the next she’s running out of the church. So I came on the trip alone. To try and sort it out. Maybe have some fun.”

“Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Having any fun,” I say, finishing my sentence with an “E.” He sits up, letting the moon light hit my little drawing in the sand …“KISS ME.” And at that point, he finally leans down, scoops my head into his hands, and …