by Jackie Lau
Just before I reach her mouth, she whispers, “This isn’t pretend anymore. Not for me.”
* * *
I take Valerie home after dinner, disappointed I don’t get to spend more time with her, but I’ll see her again soon. And she’s agreed that we are now in a real relationship, which is what I wanted all along.
Yes, things are going well.
Back at my apartment, I pour myself a glass of juice, then notice there’s something different about the fridge. Next to the puppy card is a card of two penguins holding hands—or flippers, rather. It’s adorable.
I was right about Valerie. Like a durian, she is utter mush inside. Sure, she’s complicated and a little spiky and not everyone understands her, but I think I do.
I’m about to open the card when my phone rings.
It’s my father.
“Peter,” he says, “how was Thanksgiving dinner with your girlfriend’s family?”
I can’t help smiling when he says “girlfriend.”
“It went well,” I say.
“I just want to remind you that we leave for Spain on Thursday.”
Oh, shit. I forgot about that.
“So you’ll stay here and look after Biscuit, right?” Dad asks.
Biscuit is my parents’ Bichon Frise. They got her a couple years ago. My mother had long dreamed of getting a little dog and naming her Biscuit; my father hates the name and voted to call the dog Fred, but eventually, he caved. Sometimes he still calls her Fred to annoy my mom, though.
“Yes,” I say. “No problem.”
“You don’t sound terribly enthusiastic.”
“No, no. It’s fine.”
It just means I’ll be heading to my parents’ house in Thornhill after work each night, rather than having a shower at my apartment and going to see Valerie at Ginger Scoops.
But we’ll manage.
“There’s something I have to tell you,” Dad says, suddenly serious.
My heart rate kicks up a notch.
“Biscuit is an Instagram star.”
Wait. What?
“Biscuit is an Instagram star?” I repeat dumbly.
“Yes. It was all your mother’s idea...” Dad trails off, and a moment later, my mom gets on the phone.
“Hey, Peter,” she says. “That’s right, Biscuit is quite popular! You see, I found all these Instagram accounts for Bichon Frises, and I thought, ‘Well, they’re cute, but not as cute as Biscuit,’ so I started my own for her.” Mom goes on to tell me the Instagram handle, as well as the password. “She has lots of followers, and her fans will be upset if they don’t see any pictures of her for ten days. So I was wondering if you’d be able to add a couple pictures to her account while we’re away. Maybe a video?”
“Um. You want me to maintain your dog’s Instagram account?”
“Yup, just while we’re gone. You’ll be looking after Biscuit anyway, and she’s bound to do sweet things.”
Well. My parents have Facebook accounts, but I never expected them to be on Instagram. I certainly never expected them to have an account for their pet.
The world is a strange, strange place.
“Uh, yeah, sure. I can do that.”
“Thank you! Oh, and just to let you know, there’s a new painting in the guest room.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Was that really necessary?”
When my sister and I moved out for good, Mom and Dad changed my old room into my mother’s art studio so she didn’t have to work in the basement, and they turned my sister’s childhood bedroom into the guest room.
So, yeah, my mother paints erotic pictures in my old bedroom, and she’s now decided to display them in Mackenzie’s old room.
How fun.
I can’t help wishing my parents were normal, but I suppose nobody thinks their parents are normal, do they?
“Yes, it was necessary!” Mom says. “There’s no more space in our bedroom.”
“Of course there isn’t.”
“Don’t be such a prude, Peter! The naked female form is a lovely thing.”
I immediately think of Valerie.
“But you’re my mother,” I say. “I don’t need to fall asleep next to one of your vagina paintings.”
“Oh, it’s not a vagina, it’s—”
“Mom, no! I don’t need to hear the details. I’ll see it soon enough.”
She laughs. “Speaking of lady parts, how is this new girlfriend of yours? She’s welcome to stay here while we’re gone, we don’t mind.”
“She might be too scandalized by your paintings.”
“Nonsense!”
We speak for a few more minutes before I put down the phone, shaking my head. Sometimes my parents are a little too much for me.
But then I look at the penguin card from Valerie.
Inside, she’s written, Thank you for being you.
My mouth splits into a grin.
* * *
“So, how’s it going with your fake girlfriend?” Leo asks.
Leo, Aaron and I are sitting in a sports bar in Thornhill, within walking distance of my parents’ house.
“Oh, it’s going great.” I take a sip of my IPA.
Leo and Aaron look at each other.
“What?” I say.
“Have you slept together yet?” Leo asks.
“None of your business.”
“So that means yes.”
“None of your business.”
“Have you bought her red roses?” Aaron asks. “A box of chocolates in the shape of a heart?”
“Now listen,” I say. “You two are wrong about romance. You think it’s all roses and chocolate and bubble baths.” Well, actually, there was a bubble bath. A very enjoyable one. And we ate flourless chocolate cake together. But... “But it’s really about getting to know a woman and giving her something special, just for her. Something no other guy would have gotten her.”
“Thank you, Romeo,” Leo says.
I roll my eyes. “And she’s my real girlfriend now, just saying.”
Aaron starts humming “Oops!...I Did It Again,” something he picked up from Mackenzie several years back.
“You’re going to tell us you’ve never felt like this before,” Leo says, “aren’t you?”
I open my mouth, then close it.
Yes, I’ve never felt like this before. It’s true.
Isn’t it?
“You say that every time,” Aaron says.
“Well, not every time,” Leo interjects, “but this would be far from the first.”
“Not that there’s anything wrong with liking relationships,” Aaron continues. “It’s not my cup of tea, but it’s yours, and that’s cool. It’s just that you act like each one is different and special, then in six months to a year, you’ll have broken up and be talking about a new woman.”
“Now that’s unfair.” I have another sip of my beer. “I was single for eight months before Valerie.”
Leo shrugs. “An aberration.”
“I don’t fall in love as easily as I did when I was younger.”
But although my friends are annoying me, they might have a point.
How can I really know that what I have with Valerie is different from what I’ve had with other women? It hasn’t been all that long yet—that’s true.
“What do you think, girl?” I ask Biscuit when I take her for a walk later that evening. “Is Valerie special? Is she The One?”
Biscuit looks annoyed. Shut your damn pie hole and pay attention to me!
I don’t think it’s an Instagram-worthy look.
“Will her parents still like me when they discover I work in landscaping?”
Biscuit barks once, which I assume means, Not likely.
Well, I’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but for now I’m more concerned with the first question.
What Valerie and I have is great, and I’ve been smitten with her from the very beginning, but is it really different from what I’ve had befor
e?
Chapter 18
Valerie
“How is it going with Peter?” Mom asks me on Friday night.
We’re sitting in the living room together, in front of the TV, but we’re not paying much attention to it.
“It’s going well,” I say.
“I worry, though. He’s a pediatrician, and you work at an ice cream shop. Maybe it doesn’t bother him now, but it will eventually. If you were a software developer, it would be better. More respectable. You should go back to your old career.”
I tamp down my longing. “You know I can’t do that.”
“Aiyah! Why not? I am always hearing about how there are lots of opportunities for people who can program. Are you saying these are lies?”
“Mom, I—”
“You are experienced, too, and graduated second in your class.”
I sigh. “You know I applied for jobs after I quit, but I couldn’t get anything. Because I can’t get a good reference from anyone at my old job. Because no one wants to hire a woman who accused her previous boss of sexual harassment—and when they ask why I left, I’m always honest about that part.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be. Try again! Try harder!”
I shake my head. “I’ve accepted it. It’s just not going to happen.”
“Then start your own business.”
“I’m not interested in that.”
“Easier to find a job when you still have one. You should not have quit when you did.”
I tense. “Do you really think I should have stayed after what happened?”
“Temporarily? Yes. I know what your boss did was wrong, but it might have been better for your career.” She pauses. “I’m just afraid Peter will not stay with a woman who scoops ice cream for a living.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her that Peter isn’t actually a doctor, but I hold it back.
The truth is, however, that a part of me does feel like he’s too good for me. Not because of my job, but because he’s so kind and sweet and easygoing, and I’m...difficult.
Yeah, I think that’s how many people would describe me.
Difficult.
Yet Peter bakes me muffins and buys me durian pancakes and goes down on me in the shower and arranges for me to have a day all to myself. Compared to how other men have treated me, this is a revelation. Some men are actually wonderful. Who would have guessed?
It seems too good to be true.
I push that thought aside.
But I’m still shaken by my conversation with my mom and the uncomfortable memories she’s stirred up.
* * *
“What is that?” I ask, pointing at the painting on the wall across from us.
It’s Sunday morning, and Peter and I are lying in the guest bed in his parents’ house. I feel a little weird about being here when his parents are gone, but he assures me it’s fine.
“It’s my mom’s latest painting,” he says, “and everything my mom paints has something to do with the female form. Fortunately, this one is more abstract than usual, so I don’t actually know what it is. Though she’s assured me it’s not a vagina.”
“How comforting.”
He laughs.
We woke up an hour ago and had leisurely sex, but I’m in no hurry to get up. When we’re in bed together, it feels like we’re in our own little world, even with his mother’s painting on the wall.
“How about I bring you breakfast in bed?” Peter suggests.
Twenty minutes later, he sets a tray with coffee, an omelet, toast, and bacon in front of me. I’m still naked, and it feels weird to eat a meal when I’m not wearing any clothes. I start to pull on a shirt, but he stops me.
“You look good like this,” he murmurs. “Stay.”
“That hardly seems fair. You put clothes on to cook.”
“Because I had a bad experience cooking in the nude.”
I stifle a laugh. “What happened?”
“I was making breakfast for a girl, and the pan was hotter than I thought, and, well...oil splashed on my dick. It was painful, to say the least.”
“Poor baby.” I reach into his boxers and stroke his dick.
“Valerie,” he groans. “Eat the food before it gets cold.”
“What if I want to put something else in my mouth instead?”
Oh my God, who’s the woman who’s talking like this? It doesn’t seem like me.
But I feel like I can say anything with Peter and it’ll be okay.
I take my hand out of his boxers and begin eating.
He just stares at me.
“What?” I say around a mouthful of delicious cheese-and-mushroom omelet.
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to eat when you’re sitting there, looking like that, and you just had your hand down my pants.”
“You’re the one who wanted me to eat in the nude.”
“I know, I know, you just look so...” He gestures toward me, as though he, the English major, lacks the vocabulary to describe my beauty.
“You’ll manage.” I hold a piece of omelet up to his lips with my fork, and he eats it.
He then takes the fork from me and feeds me a piece of omelet.
We lean toward each other, and just before his lips touch mine, there’s a loud bark. We jump apart as though we’ve been caught doing something illicit.
“Biscuit!” Peter says to the fluffy white dog who trots into the room with her tongue hanging out of her mouth.
She barks again.
“Fine, fine, if you insist.” He feeds her a tiny piece of cheese.
Oh my God, this man is adorable, and it feels so freaking domestic, lazing in bed together on a Sunday morning, with breakfast and a dog.
My heart clenches.
I swore off serious relationships after what happened with Stephen, but now I’m in a relationship again, and I want this kind of future with Peter. I can’t help it.
I want to live with him. I want to buy a house together. I even want the freaking puppy who’s so cute she almost looks fake.
The realization of how much I want this scares me.
And Peter, because he notices everything, says, “You okay, Valerie?”
“Yeah. Totally okay.”
I smile and try not to think too much about the future.
* * *
Peter has promised to drop me off at Ginger Scoops around eleven thirty, which means we need to leave at eleven. But at ten o’clock, he says we should leave early because he has a surprise for me.
His last surprise was taking me to Doctor Durian, and I doubt anything could top that, but I’m sure it’ll be good.
We get in the car with Biscuit. Apparently, the dog is coming with us. Less than half an hour later, we pull up to a park in midtown.
“Sherwood Park,” he says. “You been here before?”
I shake my head.
We start walking, Peter holding Biscuit’s leash. At first, the park seems like nothing special, but then we enter a forested area, and...oh my God.
It’s the middle of October, and there’s still a little green, but the leaves are mostly golden, with some orange and red maples.
“It’s an off-leash dog area.” Peter reaches down to unclasp Biscuit’s leash.
She runs happily ahead of us, and Peter takes my hand. We walk in silence for a few minutes, leaves crunching underfoot. It’s a sunny fall day with blue skies, but there’s a brisk wind. In my trench coat, I’m just barely warm enough, but with Peter by my side, I don’t care about the wind.
“I thought the leaves would be at their peak this weekend,” he says. “And I was right. Let me take a picture of you.”
We step onto a wooden boardwalk, and he takes a couple pictures of me with the leaves, then insists on taking one of the two of us, which I grudgingly allow.
He makes it the background on his phone.
Then he says, “I need to take a picture of Biscuit for her Instagram account.”
“I still can’t be
lieve your parents have an Instagram account for their dog.”
I looked at it the other night. There were pictures of Biscuit looking cute in various different settings. To be honest, I found it a little repetitive, but she does have lots of fans.
Peter takes a photo of Biscuit, and then he asks me to take one of him with Biscuit.
My heart should not be melting like this. I should not be swept away by cute dogs and hot men, either separately or in combination.
Except this romantic walk in the park is certainly getting to me.
Breakfast in bed certainly got to me.
Somehow, Peter is taking apart the wall I built around myself, brick by brick, and I feel vulnerable.
“You know what my mom said the other day?” I don’t wait for him to answer. I need to start putting some of those bricks back in place. “She said I wasn’t good enough for you—”
“Your own mother said that?”
“Well, she didn’t use those exact words. But she can’t see how a doctor would want to date someone who works in an ice cream shop, at least not in the long term.”
“Valerie.” He stops and puts his hands on my shoulders. “I like you for exactly who you are. Even if I were a real doctor, I’d feel the same way. You’re brilliant and beautiful.”
“Brilliant.” I snort. What could I have possibly done to make him think that?
He gives me a look. “I mean it.”
And then he kisses me. He winds his arms around my body and presses his lips to mine, and it’s bliss. There are many layers of clothing between us, but I can still feel the warmth of him, his heart beating against my chest.
It’s wonderful. It’s perfect. Everything he does is just what I need.
It scares me.
Because I’m falling in love with him, and nothing this wonderful can last.
* * *
I try to smile at the little girl with pigtails as I hand over her ice cream cone, but I can’t seem to manage it. I’m not in a great mood.
It’s been two hours since Peter dropped me off at Ginger Scoops, and I’ve been grumpy ever since.
It’s too good to be true.
You know what happened the last time you fell in love. You’re an idiot.
Is everyone else’s self-talk this annoying, or is it just mine?
I remind myself of all the ways Peter is unlike Stephen. For example, Peter is not personally insulted that I want to use a vibrator in the bedroom. Peter makes me breakfast and respects my need for time alone.
