Valentine Kisses: A Kiss to Last a Lifetime

by Abigail Drake

  “This is good.” Emily smacked her lips in a noiselessly adorable way that reminded him of the way Benny slapped his gums together after every meal. Ezra mused that most girls probably wouldn’t find the comparison very flattering, but he had a feeling Emily might. She knew what it was like to feel connected with your dog. He could tell by the way she doted over Walt. “I’ve never had this brand before.”

  “Neither have I,” Ezra said, trying not grimace as an image of the tiny white price tag flashed in his mind. “I’ve never had vegan lasagna before either.”

  Emily took the seat closest to the food and flashed a quick smile. “I think you’ll like it.”

  When she shot down Ezra’s earlier suggestion they make restaurant reservations for the evening, he was a little confused. Now, Ezra realized, Emily may have wanted to cook for him because she was especially adept in the kitchen. He may not have tasted the food yet, but between the delectable scent wafting off the lasagna and the confidant way Emily grinned every time dinner was mentioned, he was certain the woman knew exactly what she was doing when she proposed an alternative plan.

  They do say the fastest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, after all.

  Ezra took the chair across from hers and took a swig of the full-bodied wine. “If it tastes even half as good as it smells, there’s a chance it’ll be my new favorite dish.”

  “Why don’t we find out?” Emily reached for the knife and made the first slice, releasing more steam from inside. “It came out of the oven a few minutes ago.”

  “Hot and fresh,” Ezra remarked, watching the steam trail to the ceiling. “I would imagine that’s how it tastes best.”

  “Actually,” Emily started as she made a second cut and picked up her spatula, “it tastes better the next day. After it’s been reheated, of course.”

  Ezra leaned back when she reached for his plate. “I usually eat all of my leftovers cold.”

  “Not a fan of the microwave?” she asked as she expertly plated the messy lasagna.

  “It’s not that.” He stood to take the plate back from her, feeling ungrateful and lazy for sitting back while she did all the work. “I just feel like that’s kind of the point. There’s no sense in pretending its fresh food.”

  “You’ll see.” Emily wagged the spatula at him before maneuvering it back into the casserole dish. “I’ll package up a piece for you to take home, but you have to promise to reheat it before you eat it.”

  If she sends me home with leftovers, Ezra thought, I’d have to return her container. He was already dreaming up reasons to see her again.

  Once Emily set her plate down and settled into her chair, Ezra picked up his silverware and sliced into his food. He speared the pasta and a piece roasted eggplant with his fork and popped the rather large bite into his mouth.

  As expected, it was heavenly.

  Even though he’d been raised on meat and potatoes, Ezra could see himself considering veganism if he had Emily cooking for him all the time.

  He wanted it more than anything.

  The realization nearly made Ezra choke. He wasn’t just interested what made Emily tick. He wasn’t just trying to cure her unhappiness. He wanted to be with her despite it.

  “This is incredible,” he said after noticing she’d been watching him and waiting to hear what he’d thought.

  “Yeah?” she asked, looking unsurprised but appreciative of the praise nonetheless. Her brown eyes brightened, flecks of green shining through.

  “Yeah.” Ezra suddenly wanted to lean across the table and kiss her more than he needed to finish his dinner. Since Emily had a demeanor much like a nervous cat, he decided it was best not to surprise her with sudden movements such as unexpected displays of affection. Instead, he smiled. “I promise. This,” he pointed to it with his fork, “is the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

  “Thanks.” She flashed a shy smile of her own, looking away just as their gazes met to tuck her hair behind her ear.

  “You said it’s an old family recipe?” Ezra asked as he made another slice in the lasagna on his plate.

  When Emily didn’t answer right away, Ezra glanced up from his plate to find the light in Emily’s eyes had been extinguished. The flickering taper candles from the center of the table cast shadows on her face, emphasizing the way sadness shrunk her features. With narrowed eyes and a tight mouth, Emily looked down at her plate and appeared almost catatonic. Ezra held his breath, trying to remember what he’d said. You said it’s an old family recipe? They’d been talking about the lasagna since he’d gotten to her house, so it couldn’t have been what upset her. It must have been his mention of her family. It registered then that of all the conversation topics they’d broached, they hadn’t discussed their families. He knew he’d brought up his parents casually as supporting cast members in his many stories, but he couldn’t recall a single time Emily had referred to hers.

  When she finally blinked, Ezra let a heavy exhale. Years ago, he’d gone out on a date with a girl he’d met at work, which at the time was a bartending gig at a hole-in-the-wall bar a few towns over. After he picked her up, and she told him she’d found out that morning she hadn’t gotten her dream job. She’d spent years shampooing clients for more tenured stylists when she’d noticed an opening at the high-end salon she had wanted to work at since beauty school. When she didn’t get the job, she was crushed. As soon as the sad, sappy story left her lips, Ezra found himself wishing she’d cancelled the date. She moped throughout their meal, leaving him to attempt awkward conversation he knew would go nowhere.

  Ezra didn’t want to do that with Emily. He wanted to have a meaningful conversation with her about her family, her sadness, and what he could do to help her fix it.

  “Emily,” he started, his voice quiet and low. “What’s wrong?”

  7:15 PM

  Emily shut her eyes, silently chastising herself for having such a dramatically melancholic reaction to Ezra’s simple question. Her evening with him was supposed to be a distraction from thoughts of her mom. She wasn’t supposed to slip back into her grief until he left.

  In truth, she was surprised it had taken him so long to ask what was bothering her. He’d know from the moment they met she was having a bad day. But he was having one too, and she figured they were both using their time together for a momentary escape from whatever was nagging at them. Ezra didn’t bring up whatever had him down, and Emily happily followed suit, prepared to give her standard reaction whenever someone asked what was bothering her on February 14th.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Are you sure?” Ezra placed his forearms on the table and leaned forward. “You might feel better.”

  Emily opened her eyes and gazed at her plate, wishing she’d made something other than the lasagna. Of all the family recipes she had stored away, the roasted vegetable lasagna was the one that reminded her of her mom the most. Ginny Scott made it at least once month as a cozy, Sunday night family dinner. Emily was always in the kitchen with her, helping with prep work and eventually working alongside her as she got older. The last time they’d made the lasagna together had been a week before Ginny died. They cooked as Emily nervously recited some of the poems she’d been working on for class, her confidence growing as Ginny heaped praise upon her daughter, beaming like the proud parent she was.

  “I don’t think so.” Emily quickly brushed an escaped tear away. Her grief combined with the knowledge she’d likely scared Ezra away, made it too hard to maintain a stable façade. “I’m sorry. Don’t feel obligated to say.” She pushed back her chair. The sound of wood squeaking on wood, alerting the attention of both dogs. “In fact, why don’t I walk you out?”

  “I’ll go first.” Ezra sat back in his chair and crossed an ankle over his knee, a defiant gesture which made anger simmer somewhere deep under all the sadness inside of her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m going to tell you what’s been getting me down, and hope
fully you’ll reciprocate with a story of your own.” Ezra linked his fingers together in his lap, his lasagna getting cold in front of him.

  Emily sank into her seat even though she desperately wanted to flee, not sure what exactly kept her from doing so. There was something about the soft, sympathetic slant in his eyes that made her want to trust him.

  “Okay. I guess I’ll start then.” Ezra rubbed his hands together.

  “I found out this morning that I don’t have a job for the next few months, which means I’ll need to find a replacement gig somewhere. It might not seem like too big a deal, but I really liked my job. I spent most of my time there writing, and my boss was okay with it. It’s not going to be the same someplace else.” Ezra sighed and ran a hand through his hair, looking frustrated. “Admittedly, this all doesn’t sound that bad. But it got me thinking about how little I’ve achieved since college. All I ever wanted to be was a writer. And, so far, that hasn’t really panned out. So, I started thinking this morning: is it time for me to move on? Maybe I’m not a writer. Maybe I don’t have the cultural or emotional experience needed to write a decent book with believable characters. Maybe it’s time to set goals I’m actually capable of achieving.”

  His earnest tone tugged at Emily’s heart. Their problems weren’t that different. They were both struggling to let go of something which meant the world to them, only they were in different parts of their journey. Emily faced a loss she had no control over eight years ago, while Ezra was wrestling with whether it was time to let go. She held onto her grief; he held onto hope.

  “I’m sorry to hear you’re going through all of that,” she croaked, her voice low and scratchy. She reached for her glass of wine, intending to have only a sip to wet her throat but ending up downing the contents in a single gulp.

  “Thank you. It feels good to hear someone say it.” Ezra slumped back in his chair and linked his fingers over his stomach. “You know, I haven’t talked to anyone else about this. I don’t feel like I can. After I got the call from my boss this morning, I hit up all my friends to see if anyone could hang out with me tonight while I drowned my sorrows. But that was it. We weren’t going to talk about what was wrong. We were just going to drink. I saw my parents this afternoon. I could have told them, but it’s kind of hard to tell your parents they raised a failure, you know?”

  “You’re not a failure,” Emily reassured him, sympathy edging out her misery. “You’re still young. You’ll have plenty of chances at success.”

  “Usually, I think the same way, but this job thing hit me hard,” Ezra said as he stood, rounded the table, and took the seat beside Emily. He sat back in the chair, facing his nearly untouched lasagna, his closeness warming her body. Without warning, he reached over and threaded his fingers with hers. Their joined hands rested on her knee, a simple show of support and solidarity that meant the world to her. “But it helps to hear you say it. I hope I’ll start believing it again, too.”

  A few beats passed and neither of them spoke. The room would have been entirely silent, if not for the sounds of the dogs playing together in the living room, their amiable exuberance an interesting contrast to the somber tone in the dining room.

  “I know you want me to go next, but I don’t think I can.”

  “Why not?” Ezra’s voice was barely a whisper, soft and encouraging.

  She shrugged even though he wasn’t looking at her. “I don’t know. I don’t want to, I guess.”

  “You’ll feel better. I don’t know exactly what’s getting you down, but I know you’ll feel better if you get it out there. My bad news was probably less traumatic than whatever you’re going through, but airing it out in front of someone I know I can trust made all the difference.” He squeezed her hand. “You can trust me, Emily. I only want you to be happy.”

  “You just met me.” Emily’s hackles raised in self-defense as she spat out her snappish rebuttal. He was pushing her toward something she didn’t know if she was ready for and she was reacting the only way she knew how. “What does it matter to you?”

  “I don’t know.” Ezra remained calm, his voice still soft and even despite the obvious agitation emanating from Emily. Her skin was hot and her muscles tense. “I guess I just do.”

  Everything Emily was feeling – the woe, the sympathy, the newly stoked irritation, the attraction to the man seated beside her – created a whiplashing storm of emotion in her head. Her thoughts were at war with her other thoughts and suddenly it became too much to bear.

  “If I let go of my grief, what will I have to remember her by?” She didn’t mean to holler, but she almost did. The clear agitation in her loud voice alerted Walt, and he peeked his head around the corner to check on her.

  “Who?” Ezra asked as he stroked the back of her hand with his thumb in soothing circles that would have done more to calm her if she hadn’t been on the verge of an emotional breakdown.

  “My mom,” she said, much quieter now. She’d breached the vault where she kept all her painful memories and feelings surrounding Ginny Scott’s death.

  “What happened to her?”

  Emily let out a heavy breath, not sure if she could get through the story without dissolving into a puddle of tears. “She was in a car accident on her way home from work. Someone drove into her two-door sedan mid-text message. My dad called me from the hospital. I drove out as soon as I heard. Even though she was pronounced dead at the scene.” Emily paused, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth and squeezing her eyes shut. Tears leaked out the sides and ran down her cheeks in a steady stream.

  Before she could react, Ezra patted her cheeks with one of the cotton napkins she’d set out and had never used. She took slow steady breaths and let him take care of her. Ezra had been right. Getting it out had already started to make her feel better.

  Once she’d mellowed enough to speak in coherent sentences, Emily continued. “I remember when we got home from the hospital. The flowers Dad had bought for Valentine’s Day were on the kitchen counter like a symbol of what the night should have been. When I left to go back to school a week later, the flowers were still on the counter, shriveled up and dead. That’s one of the memories which haunts me the most.”

  The legs on Ezra’s chair screeched against the floor as he scooted closer to her. Seeking more of his comfort, Emily rested her head on his shoulder. Before long, she felt the warmth of his arm snake around her back.

  “What about your dad? Is he okay?”

  He was likely dining with Helen at an expensive restaurant without a second thought of the woman he’d once loved. It bothered Emily that someone else had usurped the position of Pete Scott’s wife, but deep down inside she knew it was irrational. He deserved to be happy.

  “He’s re-married. We used to spend Valentine’s Day together every year, but he’s moved on.”

  “You said before that if you stop grieving over your mom, you’ll have nothing left to remember her by. I don’t think that’s true.”

  “She’s dead. Gone forever. I couldn’t live with myself if I treated February 14th like any other day,” Emily said, panic rising again in her voice as she swiped an errant tear from her face with the sleeve of her duster.

  “But it’s not any other day, so no one would expect you to treat it like one. It’s the anniversary of the day your mom passed away, and that’s awful.” Emily couldn’t believe the bold way Ezra talked about the subject, insistent he could help her plow through the insurmountable sorrow she felt. For the first time eight years, she felt like she might finally be ready to let it go. She didn’t know what surprised her more: the fact that she might be able to move on or that she was driven to do so by the compassionate stranger seated beside her. Yet, it felt odd to think of Ezra as a stranger. They were middle of the deepest, most honest conversation she’d had in ages. “But it’s also an opportunity for you to celebrate the good memories you have of her rather than reminiscing about the bad. Your mom’s legacy is so much more than that fateful day.”r />
  “So, what am I supposed to do?” she asked, feeling lost.

  Ezra pointed to the casserole dish in the center of the table. “Making that was a good way to start. Judging by your reaction earlier, I assume the recipe came from her family.”

  Emily nodded. “I could read her favorite poems, too.”

  “Your mom is the one who instilled a love of poetry in you?” Ezra asked, a hint of surprise in his voice. They’d talked about poetry all day and she’d never once mentioned her mom.

  “She loved every poem she ever read. Especially anything by Emily Dickinson.”

  “Your namesake?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, let’s do it,” Ezra remarked, untangling his hand from hers and gently slapping her thigh as he moved to stand.

  Emily’s brow furrowed. “Do what?”

  He offered her his hand. “Read some of Dickinson’s poems. I saw you had a few volumes on your shelves.”

  She looked at the lasagna, no longer steaming in its glass dish. “What about dinner?”

  Ezra shrugged and reached to lift a hand off her lap. “We’ll pop our plates in the microwave when we’re done. You said it tasted better when it’s reheated anyway.”

  7:30 PM

  Ezra settled down on the sofa as Emily perused her bookcases for the Dickinson volume she used to read with her mom. After she pulled out the black-spine book and handed it to Ezra, he was struck by how worn it was. The gritty lettering on the front had nearly faded into nonexistence, and the pages were splotched with food. He envisioned a young Emily sitting in the kitchen and reading with her mom as she prepared the infamous lasagna.

  As he flipped through the pages, he asked, “Where should we start?”