How to Love an American Man (6 page)

I try to bounce back. “Well, I don't want to overwhelm you with the legend that is my family, but every year on the third of July they all gather at our lake house for a pig roast and sleepover. You said earlier that you wanted to maybe do something outside, so, no pressure, but it's an option.”

He swiftly maneuvers a U-turn in the highway. I call my mom to tell her we're on our way. Chris is wearing a button-down and pants again, and I'm in a ruffled blouse and heels . . . okay, maybe we're a
little
overdone for a pig roast. Shortly I will learn my lesson when it becomes fiercely evident that we should have just gone to Clearfield. What follows instead sends me running into the arms of another guy—and directly to my grandma's sun porch to explain who he is.

“I'
M JUST SURPRISED
, I thought the doctor was lovely.”

Well,
you're
single now, Grandma
, you
date him
, I want to snap, but then my wits filter out the rudeness. “He was lovely, Grandma, but that doesn't mean he's right for me.” It's a Monday afternoon in mid-August and the sun is so hot that even with the ceiling fan swirling and the blinds shut, the screened-in porch is a brick oven. Grandma and I had talked about going to four o'clock Mass—between her loneliness and my man confusion these days, Sunday morning solace barely lasts a day. But the way our conversation's starting to pick up, I can tell we're not moving anytime soon. Grandma has scooped me a bowl of Neapolitan ice cream in classic Gloria-portion size, which is approximately just enough to satisfy a sparrow.

“What went wrong?”

“Grandma, what
didn't
go wrong? You saw what happened at the party.”

When I'd called my mom to tell her Chris and I were headed to the Landing to join the pig roast, apparently she announced to our dozens of family members that Krissy and The Doctor were about to make a grand entrance. They all hovered at the front door of the house, like a surprise party that's dreadful at finding hiding places. Cautiously he and I took seats at the outdoor bar, and Grandma strategically placed herself across from Chris in a spot where she could absorb the details of this enigmatic doctor.

“Krissy, what are you waiting for,” my mom directed under her breath. “Go get him a plate.” Instantly my aunt, clearly already tipsy from the selection of red, white, and blue margaritas, started lining up cocktails in front of Chris, who had politely informed everyone that he wasn't much of a drinker.

“Then what's he doing with
this
family?” my brother mumbled. I shot him a look. Chris leaned in and whispered, gesturing to the patriotic cocktail under his nose, “Will I look like I kissed Smurfette if I drink this?” I smiled halfheartedly, grateful for his attempt at humor in this nightmare. I wished I could shrink to Smurfette proportions and hide. Stat.

My mom's friends drooled from their bar stools and asked Chris to educate them on the latest in skin care. Their husbands told loud, perverted jokes in the background while Chris explained to his growing female audience why every woman should be exfoliating—if not for the youthful benefits, then to slough off precancerous skin cells. Behind him my cousin laughed so hard at a testosterone-fueled punch line that he snorted, sending an insufferable echo across the lake.

My dad, wearing an outfit sloppier than I'd ever even seen him wear running, stumbled over to us with red eyes and a cigar. “You know what you are?' he slurred to Chris. I held my breath. “You're
refreshing
.”

“Grandma,” I told her afterward, “in no way am I surprised things went downhill from there.”

“I thought he had a good time, he conversed a lot. Sure draws a crowd, reminds me of your grandpa. And those eyes! My heavens, I couldn't stop looking at him. What's his name again, I can never remember . . . oh right,” pleasure diffuses across her face and her focus drifts off into the air,
“Dr. Christopher.”

This is not going how I'd hoped. I've come to get Grandma's blessing because I'm officially dating someone new, someone who's actually proven himself to want a relationship with me. I'd envisioned Grandma would be thrilled that I'm finally spoken for, and instead here she is sipping Sprite from a highball glass and telling me I'm missing the picture.

“I thought you and Grandpa wanted to see me in a relationship.”

“We've always wanted what's
best
for you.”

“Grandma, what if this is what's best for me? I'm back home now, I've tried dating someone really handsome and successful, and it didn't work. So I went for the sure thing.”

Grandma takes a deep breath and stares into her glass.

The party at the Landing kicked off a series of confusing dates with Chris. He got along with my family despite their frat-house partying, but then e-mailed to ask why the CD, which he played for his parents on the Fourth of July, had the F word on it. (
OHHHH NO, I BURNED THE WRONG SONG!
I wrote back, subsequently losing my appetite for three days.) He would call me to enthusiastically make arrangements together, and then show up hours late and with completely compromised plans from what we'd set out with.

One Saturday, for example, about a week after the pig roast, when for some reason he decided to see me again despite my burning him a song about getting drunk, smoking cigarettes, and fucking—classy!—he rode his bike to work and got a flat tire. So instead of going to an arts festival together that night, I picked up him and his eighteen-speed on the highway with barely enough time for us to squeeze in a swim before dark. We stopped at my house and, crazed, I dug up one of the considerably modest bikinis I still kept in my drawer from high school. Why did my year in Italy foster such an excess of bravery for me to purchase stringy, sequined bikinis that I spent a summer's nanny wages collecting?
I'll never even wear these things!
Then, while Chris took a work call in my garage, I raided the fridge to fill up a jumbo brown Bloomingdale's bag with groceries my mom and I had just stocked up on: grapes, sea-salted almonds, a wheel of brie and crackers, and blue tortilla chips with fresh-made guacamole. I grabbed two plastic cocktail cups and a bottle of prosecco, and Chris ended his call to help me transport our goods into my mom's SUV.

I set up our dinner on the Landing's outdoor bar, telling Chris to go ahead. “How's the water?” I called as his silhouette emerged from his plunge.

“It's perfect,” he said, pressing his wet hair back away from his face. “Wait till you feel.”

I pulled my hair into a neat bun and undressed on the sand of our tiny beach, careful not to pull things off with suggestiveness or tantalization. In the past I've always been brazen with men, but something about Chris feels different. My inclination is to operate respectably, not to force romance or make waves—so to speak. I wanted to moan in pleasure as I sank into the lake; the water was like a spa. Instead, I remained silent until I finally said, “You want to know something?”

“What?” He floated on his back in the water, a boat length away from me.

“You have a really beautiful natural scent.”

The water made sensual sounds as he maneuvered to stand on his feet. Quietly, he said, “Do you believe in that?”

“What, pheromones? Oh yes.”

“Me too.” We stayed silent another minute, and I pretended not to be self-conscious as I slowly swam alone. “Look at that sky,” he said. The moon was three-quarters full, surrounded by stars rising up to fill every centimeter of space over the mountains and trees. They shined in mirrored perfection off the water, making the night twice as bright as it actually was.

“I know,” I sighed, ducking into the water in awe so the dangle of my Florentine coin earrings was halted.

“Is it deep where you are?”

“Um.” I struggled for my feet to touch bottom. “I can stand, but I don't want to. It's all mud.”

“Come here, then,” he said gently, holding out his hand. “It's all rocks.”

I waited a moment, and then slowly began to swim toward him. Suddenly I caught us both by surprise when I stopped paddling and said, “That's close enough.” In the moonlight I watched him drop his hand, slump down in the water and drift away.

I wished I could erase his confusion and reveal that my tentativeness was only because if I grew too near to him, then he might have done something to make me want to get even closer. Then, eventually I'd want to give him everything, craving things in return that he's not ready to give. It's a cycle more certain than the moon's.

“I'm getting hungry,” I told him. “You too?” I was relieved that he wasn't cold toward me when he took my hand to help me climb the ladder onto the dock. Under the string of white lights over the bar, we snacked on munchies and sipped prosecco. “I love meals like this,” he said, as though he was realizing it for the first time. “Light. Whole foods.”

I wrapped my towel tighter around my wet suit. “Me too.” I couldn't get enough of the intelligent conversations we have, and our stories and easy laughter made me certain I wanted to see him again . . . I just wished I could decide which one of us was causing my hesitation.

When I dropped him off at his house and helped take his bike off the back of my mom's SUV, he stared at me for a minute, then hooked his elbow around my neck and kissed me hard on the mouth. After he'd gotten safely into his house, I stood there in the dark for a few seconds pressing my lips together, bewildered over what he'd meant to communicate with that. Was it a
Thanks a million for your help with my bike today!
or a boyish way to say,
I'm starting to have feelings for you
?

The following Tuesday I was riding around town in a sloppy ponytail and cutoffs, searching for saffron to test a mulled wine recipe that I'd just sold to a food magazine.

My phone rang. “What are you doing right now?” Chris asked.

“I'm out looking for saffron.”

He laughed. “Saffron?”

“Yes, and do you know how hard it is to find saffron in small-town Pennsylvania? I'd have better luck digging for the treasure in Treasure Lake. What's up?”

“Are you busy right now?”

Uh, yes, horribly. “Um, not really.”

“Come over to my house.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Oh, everything's great. You'll see. Hey.”

“Yes?”

“Make sure you bring your swimming suit.”

“Uh,” oh
God
, I needed to run home and shave my legs! “Okay then, see you shortly.”

Shoot, I thought, I was on a deadline, but what could I say? I swung my mom's car around in the grocery store parking lot and raced home to find a bikini that might camouflage as many of my corporal misgivings as possible. Since when had swimming on third dates become protocol? Doesn't he realize I'd like to know him a little better before he sees my body? It was different in the dark, but today the sun is blazing.

When I arrived, he walked me down to his dock, where he'd lined up turkey subs on whole wheat and fresh cubes of pineapple.

“Sit down,” he said. “You have to eat lunch before your first sailboat ride.” Had I told him that not sailboating while I was in Italy was my only regret? Had he remembered? And had he really done this all by himself? Amazing. Across the gingham tablecloth his eyes shined bluer than the lake, and when I observed this, I determined that I was officially taken with him. “What's that ring you're wearing?” I mused. I normally avoid guys with rings—too macho and self-indulgent—but the wide silver band around his pinky finger was . . . sexy.

“I haven't told you this,” he said, pouring water from a crystal pitcher into wineglasses (
wineglasses
!), “but when you moved to Italy last summer, it's very possible we could've crossed paths. I took a holiday to Florence myself.”

I tried to act subtle as my stomach flipped over the word
holiday
. “Last summer, you mean?”

“Yes. And during one of our free days, I took an excursion out to this tiny village where all these artisans were displaying their wares in the street to the half-dozen tourists wandering the place. I forget the name, it was really remote. So I find this ring, and the crafter and I try our darnedest to communicate about it—what type of metal, why he chose this layered design—but we wound up shaking hands and parting ways before I could really understand what the ring meant to him. But to me, I knew what it meant. It's my reminder every day that before I'm a surgeon, before I'm a doctor, I'm an artist.”

I want to chime in so badly, to point out how in our work we share an eye for the beauty and significance in everyday situations. I keep my exclamation inside; but man, am I feeling for this guy.

During lunch I remembered the discovery that I first made in high school: when I'm with someone I like, I can't help but eat
really slowly
(and this is pretty much the only time I eat really slowly—just ask my grandma, who recently noted that eating is the only thing she's ever seen me do quickly).

When Chris saw that I had finished my sub halfway through, he wrapped it back into its white deli paper and packed it securely for me to take home. Then he placed his hand on my knee. “You've gotta see this boat.” He dragged the boat from the bank of his yard into the water and invited me over. As I climbed on board, he cupped water in his palm and gently rinsed the tiny stones off my feet with the meticulousness of, well, a surgeon. It reminded me of the feet-washing scene in the Bible, and how feet washing is said to be the most profound act of ser vice one person can offer another. I'd never been out with a man so caring before.

“Okay,” he said, “so, the sail essentially steers the boat, but the wind is in charge of the sail. You'll hear me say, ‘Keel,' and when I do, that means you need to duck your head down because I'm going to swing the sail over your head. You got it?”