by Alice Wasser
Sam called the waiter over, and he wouldn’t let up until I ordered a turkey sandwich. I pouted as the waiter walked away.
“I hope you know you’re ruining my diet,” I grumbled.
“Well, sorry,” he said with a smile. “Anyway, you look great. You don’t need starve yourself.”
“I want to lose weight for the wedding,” I said.
He shrugged. “Either way, you’re going to look better than me.”
He always makes comments like that, like he’s somehow disgusting, although he doesn’t seem particularly bothered by it. I know he doesn’t have a great body and he’s in a wheelchair, but I’m sure he realizes how incredibly hot he is. There’s no way he could not know that. “That’s not true,” I said.
He rolled his eyes. “Come on, Millie. Objectively speaking, I think you’re obviously more attractive than I am.”
He said it so matter-of-factly, like I would be an idiot for even questioning his statement. He really seemed to believe it. I guess I should feel happy I’m marrying a guy who thinks I’m so attractive, even if it’s not objectively true.
April 17:
Sam’s friends took us out to celebrate our engagement tonight. It was his two married friends, Dave and Gordon, with their wives Annie and Michelle, then his single friend Stephen, who came alone. They’re all really nice guys, although if we were in high school, I would definitely have been sitting at the nerdy table. Since we’re adults though, they were just a bunch of successful, decent guys.
Everyone kept toasting Sam and making a really big deal over the whole thing. Stephen brought up the idea of a bachelor party, which Sam quickly said he didn’t want. I don’t know if he was just saying that because of me, but I wasn’t going to push him into a bachelor party.
(I’ve seen enough movies to know that nothing good ever happens at a bachelor party. Seems like that there’s a 50% chance that Sam would end up marrying the stripper and a 50% chance that he would kill her and have to end up burying her body.)
“Are you going to have a bridal shower, Millie?” Annie asked me.
“Um,” I said.
“You totally should!” Michelle exclaimed. “We can make her one, right, Annie?”
“Yes, definitely!” Annie said.
I didn’t know how to tell the girls that I wasn’t really excited about the idea of a party thrown just in my honor. And who would I invite besides Donna? I barely knew Annie and Michelle.
The guys kept toasting us and we were all getting pretty drunk, except for the designated drivers, Sam and Annie (who is pregnant). Sam had one beer and stopped, which I was kind of disappointed about, considering I was getting pretty buzzed and feeling quite amorous. I kept looking at Sam, comparing him to his friends, and man, he is so much hotter than any of them.
All right, he’s in a wheelchair. Dave probably won on best body, which honestly wasn’t saying much since I’m not sure if any of the guys had seen the inside of a gym in years. But Sam was by far the cutest, even taking that into account.
At some point, I slid into Sam’s lap. He looked surprised, but very pleased. “Hello there,” he said to me.
“Hello yourself,” I said as I ran my hands through his short hair and kissed him. Usually I’m way too self-conscious for that kind of public display of affection, but the alcohol was making me not care.
“All right, you two,” Stephen said. “Calm down. The festivities aren’t over yet.”
“Yes, they are,” Sam said as he went back to kissing me.
“No, we rented a movie,” Gordon said. “We got Sam’s favorite movie.”
That statement got Sam’s attention. He pulled away from me and stared at his friends, looking a little nervous. “What movie?”
I was curious too. I never asked Sam what his favorite movie was. We went to the movies a lot and seemed to have pretty similar taste.
“It’s Star Trek: Nemesis,” Gordon said.
I nearly choked. “That’s your favorite movie?”
“That’s not my favorite movie,” Sam said through his teeth. He looked at me. “It’s not.”
“It totally is,” Stephen said.
“He loves that movie,” Dave piped in.
“You guys are dicks,” Sam said, making a face.
Annie laughed. “Come on, Sam. You can admit you like Star Trek. Millie isn’t going to dump you.”
I hugged him. “It’s okay. You can watch the movie.”
Sam tried to insist he didn’t want to see that movie again, but the other guys were adamant. I’ve never seen Star Trek before in any way, shape, or form, and I really didn’t have much desire to now. But the guys were really excited about it and I didn’t want to spoil that. Annie whispered in my ear that we could hang out in the kitchen.
I teased Sam a little about it during the drive to his apartment. “I can’t believe you like Star Trek,” I said. “That’s so geeky!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said with a grin.
“So who’s better, Captain Kirk or Captain Picard?”
“I know you’re teasing me,” he said. “But I’m going to have to go with Captain Picard. Picard can swear in Klingon and he can quote Shakespeare. Plus, Shatner is a pretentious ass.”
“Have you ever gone to a Star Trek convention?”
“Ummm… maybe….”
I started giggling. “Oh my God, you have! You’re such a geek!”
“Okay, okay,” he laughed. “You got me. But I swear, I’ve never dressed up. I have my limits.”
“I don’t know if I believe that…”
He shook his head. “Worf in a wheelchair? Not so much. I don’t want to look like a complete idiot, thank you very much.”
“Who’s Worf?”
He blushed. “Never mind.”
I giggled again. “So do your buddies dress up?”
Sam grinned. “Stephen does. He goes to every nerd meeting you can imagine, always in costume. That’s why we like him, because he makes us feel less geeky by comparison.”
“That’s quite a feat,” I commented.
“Hmm. Is there any chance you’re drunk enough that you won’t remember this conversation in the morning?”
I continued to give him a hard time, but actually, it was sort of cute. Most guys are so obsessed with being cool. It was refreshing. It was also cute how embarrassed he got over the whole thing.
As I guessed, the girls hung out in Sam’s kitchen while the guys watched the Star Trek movie. Michelle got some Bailey’s Irish Cream out of a cabinet and made the two of us drinks, while the guys had beers. I hesitated, thinking I was going to be hungover tomorrow, but then figured what the hell.
“I’m so happy for you guys,” Michelle said almost tearfully as she sipped her drink. I think she was drunk. “I can’t believe you’re getting married.”
“Yeah,” I said, because what do you say to something like that?
“Sam is such a great guy,” Annie said. “You’re going to be so happy together.”
“And that ring…” Michelle sighed. She looked down sadly at her own ring.
I wanted to tell them that they didn’t need to sell me on Sam, that I was already marrying him. But actually, I didn’t mind hearing how wonderful my fiancé is.
Our guests left around one in the morning, except for Stephen, who had parked at Sam’s apartment complex but was too drunk to drive himself home. Everyone else lived in the opposite direction from him, so Stephen was about to call a cab but then Sam asked me if it was okay to let Stephen crash on the couch.
Honestly, it wasn’t. But I said it was, because I wanted to be a cool girlfriend, who was okay with my boyfriend’s buddy crashing on the couch.
I had hung out with Stephen a few times in Sam’s company, and I didn’t really like him. Whereas Sam is a cute nerd, Stephen is one of those guys who’s just detached himself from the rest of humanity. On the few occasions I’ve met him, each time he’s been wearing a math or computer-related T-shirt. Tonight he wa
s wearing a T-shirt that said, “Come to the nerd side. We have pi.” And then there was a giant symbol for “pi.”
I don’t think Sam even owns a math or computer-related T-shirt (thank God), and even if he did, I think he’d have the sense not to wear it in public. I can totally see Stephen dressing up as characters from Star Trek or Lord of the Rings or some other geeky movie.
But one thing that I do like about Stephen is that… well, he makes me feel desirable. He compliments me and says things to Sam to indicate that he’s jealous of his relationship with me. Sam told me once that Stephen hasn’t had a girlfriend in at least two years, maybe longer. He also said that Stephen is kind of pissed off that Sam picks up girls more easily than he does, considering Sam is disabled. Sam said he tried taking his friend to a bar to give him pointers, but it was hopeless. Anyway, it makes me feel good that someone could actually be envious of Sam for having me as a girlfriend.
Sam got ready for bed first, while I sat on the living room sofa with Stephen, making awkward conversation. He was slurring his speech a bit and was pretty clearly drunk. I was a medium amount drunk by now. A little buzzed, but thinking pretty normally. Actually, what I was thinking was that hopefully Sam wasn’t too tired to fool around tonight.
“So… you work in computers?” I said to Stephen.
“Yep, I’m a programmer,” he said. “A code monkey, basically. Exciting, huh?”
“I guess,” I said.
I hate making awkward small talk with a drunk guy. Where was Sam?
“You’re an actuary, right?” he asked me.
“Right,” I said.
“Sam told me,” he said. “He talks about you a lot.”
That made me smile, at least.
“I can’t believe you’re marrying him,” Stephen said.
It was the same statement Michelle made earlier, but I didn’t like the way he said it. His tone was almost disparaging. “What do you mean?”
Stephen shrugged. “Dunno. Just surprising.”
“Why?”
“Girls generally don’t want to commit to him,” he said. “You know, because he’s in a wheelchair.”
“It doesn’t bother me,” I said.
Stephen snorted.
My face turned red. “What?”
“Nothing, just that…”
“What?”
He looked me in the eyes. His were muddy brown. “I think you want to get married to somebody, and you’re settling for Sam. But I don’t think that’s what you really want.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Maybe from my mother, but not from one of Sam’s closest friends. “That’s not true.”
“You hesitated.”
“No, I didn’t.”
I hadn’t even realized that Stephen had slid closer to me on the sofa. His knee was nearly touching mine. “You’re into me, aren’t you?” he said.
“What?”
“I can tell,” he said. “You want a real man, not some cripple.”
I was ready to tell him he was out of his goddamn mind when out of nowhere he kissed me. The bastard kissed me. Or at least, he tried. Something similar to this happened at a New Year’s Eve party we went to recently, only with a different nerdy guy. I guess there’s something about me that makes nerdy guys want to kiss me when they get drunk
I let the kiss go on for about half a second, just because I was so shocked. As soon as I realized what was happening, I pulled away and slapped him. I have never slapped a man in my life, but it was just instinctive. I was so angry that my hands were shaking.
And of course, it had to be at that very minute that Sam was coming out of the bathroom. Or maybe he’d been there for longer, waiting to see what would happen. In any case, he saw the whole thing, which made me doubly grateful I slapped Stephen.
“What the fuck was that?” Sam growled at Stephen. I looked at Sam, and oh my God, he looked pissed off. I’ve seen Sam angry before, but like I’ve said, it’s more of a laid back angry. Even when my mom started in on him, he didn’t completely lose his temper. But now he looked so angry. His face was bright red. And I couldn’t blame him, really, although it made me think of Donna’s comment about how Sam wasn’t immune to jealousy.
“Look, I’m sorry, man,” Stephen said, rising from the couch unsteadily. He was even drunker than I thought, because he could barely stand. I guess that explained why he felt the sudden overwhelming urge to kiss me—I’m not attractive enough to warrant that sort of a reaction from a sober man.
“You tried to kiss my fucking girlfriend!” That’s another thing about Sam: he doesn’t curse much. So his repeated use of the word “fuck” was making me think he was mind-blowingly angry.
“I said I’m sorry,” Stephen said, as if that made it better.
“Get the fuck out,” Sam said.
“All right,” Stephen said, swaying as he fumbled for his cell phone. “Let me call a cab.”
“No, now. Get the fuck out now, you fucking piece of shit!”
Stephen’s eyes widened and I think it got through his head finally that he did something really bad and Sam looked like he wanted to murder him. I mean, a fistfight wasn’t going to break out, mostly because I don’t think Sam is physically capable of it. But I think if he could have gotten in a good punch, Stephen would have a black eye by now.
Even after Stephen left, Sam was fuming about how he was never going to speak to him again. I think he meant it. I tried to tell him that Stephen was really drunk and probably didn’t know what he was doing.
“I’m so sorry, Millie,” Sam said to me. “I can’t believe I invited that asshole into our house. I knew he liked you but I didn’t think he’d…”
“It’s okay,” I said quickly. “Don’t worry about it.”
Sam kissed me so tenderly that it almost made me want to cry. I could tell he felt really bad about what happened. I’m so glad I’m marrying Sam instead of someone like Stephen. To be totally honest, Stephen’s the kind of guy I always thought I’d end up with. Somebody I would’ve settled for because I couldn’t find anyone that I really liked.
April 18:
Stephen called a bunch of times yesterday and today, begging for forgiveness, but Sam won’t even speak to him. I feel really bad about the whole thing, because I know they were good friends before. I don’t want their friendship to fall apart over me. That’s crazy.
Sam said that what Stephen did was unforgivable. I remember his family told me that he really holds a grudge and I guess they were right. Still, I hope he changes his mind and decides to forgive Stephen.
April 25:
This morning, Sam and I were lying in bed, being lazy. If he had his way, Sam wouldn’t let me out of bed till noon every day. Whenever I tried to get up, he tackled me and I had to stay.
(On one occasion, he smacked me with a pillow. But he didn’t do that again after I informed him that there are 6,000 emergency room visits each year attributed to pillow-related injuries.)
I can’t help but wonder if he was like this with his other girlfriends. I know there have been a lot of other girls before me and sometimes it bothers me. I wish I could be the first. I know he’s 34, so obviously it would be weird if he hadn’t had any girlfriends before. But the thing is, even though I’m 33, I’ve never been in love before now. Not even close, really. But I think that he has. In fact, I’m positive that he has. I’m definitely not his first love.
“Who was your first girlfriend?” I asked him out of nowhere.
He looked surprised by the question. “My first girlfriend? Why?”
“Just curious.”
He smiled distantly. “Her name was Olivia,” he said. “I was a junior in high school. Sixteen, I think.”
I ran my hand through his hair absentmindedly as he talked. I was surprised to hear he had a girlfriend back in high school. In my experience, guys who like Star Trek tend not to date in high school. Neither do unattractive girls. I never got a date in high school, but Sam apparently did.
>
(I guess it was a testament to how incredibly cute and charming he was.)
“We dated about six months,” he said. “That’s like an eternity in high school. I can’t even remember why we broke up. I think she joined the track team and we didn’t have time to hang out anymore.”
“Was she pretty?” I asked.
“Pretty?” Sam repeated.
“You know.”
He shrugged. “I guess so. Not as pretty as you are.”
Sometimes I find it maddening that Sam won’t admit that other girls aside from me are attractive. I guess it’s good, in a way. I wouldn’t want him to be constantly ogling other girls. But I know he’s dated some really hot girls and I wish he’d just admit it. I know where Sam’s high school yearbook is and I have this feeling that if I looked up this Olivia girl, she’d be drop-dead gorgeous.
“What about after her?” I asked.
“Uh, well, I got into my accident in my senior year of high school,” he said. “So no girlfriends for a while after that. I think the next girl I dated seriously was when I was maybe 21, at the end of my junior year of college. Elisa. We broke up when college ended and I came here for grad school and she went east to be a lawyer. Neither of us wanted to stay in Ohio.”
“So it wasn’t that serious?”
He shrugged again. “Guess not.”
I wanted to ask again if Elisa was pretty, but I knew I’d never get a straight answer out of him anyway. “How about after her?”
Sam made a face at me. “Are you serious? You really want to hear my entire dating history?”
Yes, I did. “Well…”
“What about you?” he asked. “You haven’t mentioned even one guy you’ve ever dated.”
Right. I’ve let Sam believe that there were other guys I’ve dated seriously, just like he’s had other girls, mostly because I don’t want him to realize how pathetic my dating life has been. I didn’t have one date in high school or college. Most of my “relationships” lasted less than a few months. If I was honest with him, he’d think there was something wrong with me. And I guess there is, but he’s too blind to notice somehow.
