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Porter
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I ENTER COSMIC GEMS in a rush, I hate it when I’m running late. I had my foot practically out of the door when a lady walked into the ER with her teen son who’d fallen out of a tree and smashed one side of his face on the concrete of their driveway.
Everyone else was busy, so I got stuck helping out until one of my colleagues could take over.
I spot my brothers and my mother huddled in front of a counter and it’s immediately obvious that they’re engrossed in an animated discussion.
“I think we should stay traditional and go with a diamond.” I hear Blake say.
“But look at that blue sapphire ring. I think that would look stunning on Magnolia’s finger.” It’s Max’s opinion.
“I like that pink diamond,” Mom chimes in. “It’s so girly and you know pink’s Magnolia’s favorite color. After all remember that it’s her engagement ring and she’s gonna wear it, not you two.”
I approach them cautiously, I’ve just finished a double shift and I’m tired. Truth be told, right now I wish I could go home, eat dinner and have an early night with my girl in my arms.
There’s no better feeling than the weight of Magnolia’s head on my chest and her touch. It doesn’t matter what kind of day I’ve had but having her in my arms always makes everything right in my world.
Mom’s the first one to spot me. “Hey Por Por. You all right, baby? You look tired.”
Never one for subtlety, my mother. But she’s right, so I don’t take offense and wrap her in my arms instead.
Our relationship has improved tremendously since she finally buried the hatchet and accepted my feelings for Magnolia and I’m always delighted to see how well the two most important women in my life get along.
I immediately spot the ring I want to get to propose to Magnolia: it’s a huge amber mounted on a rose gold band.
“But amber is a semi-precious stone, darling. It’s hardly engagement ring material,” Mom objects immediately. “What about that gorgeous pink diamond? I’m sure Magnolia would love it.”
“Aww, Mom!” I groan in frustration. “We invited you along to help us out of our standstill and be the tie breaker. Not to add another option to the fucking list.”
“Porter Adam Stevens!” Mom immediately scolds me. “There’s no reason for that foul language. I’ll get your point all the same if you express yourself with the manners I know I taught you.”
“Ha ha, dispshit.” Blake gloats but I can’t help a smirk when Mom narrows her eyes at my best friend.
“The fact that your own mother isn’t here doesn’t mean that you can dispense with manners, young man.”
I can’t hide my satisfied smirk when Blake lowers his gaze and mutters a contrite, “Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you two done fighting like cats and dogs?” Max intervenes and then turns to Mom. “Debbie, that’s exactly why we asked you here. We can’t decide on the perfect ring to propose with. We know we want to spend the rest of our lives with the woman of our dreams, we agree on everything but the fucki— sorry, the actual ring. We’ve been back and forth countless times and I think by now the shop owners must be sick of seeing us come here to argue about it. This is why we decided to enlist a woman’s help and since you and Mags have become quite close ...”
Debbie’s expression suddenly turns serious. “You boys never fail to shock me, I swear to God. You argue about the ring but have you thought about the fact that you can’t all marry her? That only one of you can do it? Or has that not crossed your minds?”
I wrap one arm around Mom’s shoulders. “Yeah, we know that Mom. We’ve decided to have a commitment ceremony, something that will bind us together regardless of the law.”
She looks disappointed. “So none of you will actually marry her?”
I shake my head. “No, we will. Once we propose, if she says yes, we’ll discuss this with Mags. If she has a preference on who she wants to be legally married to, we’ll go with that.”
Mom still looks skeptical. “But what if she can’t choose? Seriously baby, that girl has the biggest heart I’ve ever seen. God knows I was worried about your unconventional situation but I’ve been around you four enough to see that she truly loves each of you with all her heart. I don’t think it’s fair to ask her to choose.”
I see her point but this isn’t how the guys and I see it and I explain. “It’s ok, Mom. We don’t really expect her to choose but we don’t want to take the choice off the table in case she has a preference on whose name she wants on the marriage certificate. But if like you say, she won’t be able to choose, we have a way to let fate decide.”
Mom closes her eyes, shaking her head at our antics. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to play rock, paper, scissors at your wedding.”
I chuckle at her concern. That’s how we used to settle any dispute when we were kids.
“No, Mom. We’ve decided to let fate choose for us. We’re keeping score of how many times each of us rescues Magnolia from her frequent little mishaps. The one who has the highest score by our wedding day, gets to be her husband on paper.”
“Strange but fair, I guess.” She sighs. “So, since you boys are so “zen” about the most important thing, how is it possible that you can’t decide on a ring? And have you considered the possibility of proposing without one and then bringing Magnolia here and letting her pick her favorite ring?”
I sigh. “We discussed it at length, Mom. We want to have a ring, it doesn’t feel like a real proposal without one. And since the actual ceremony won’t have any real legal value aside from the one of us who’ll get to sign a marriage certificate, we don’t want her to feel that this isn’t real for us. A ring will be something tangible from the first moment, something to tell our woman that we really mean it.”
Mom thinks about it for a moment. “How about a ring with three stones? One stone to represent each of you.”
“We thought about it,” I explain, shaking my head. “The stones each of us likes are too different. They don’t match and I’ve seen what kind of jewelry Magnolia likes. She’s pretty traditional and she likes understated chic. So we want the stone to be a solitaire.”
“Well, unless the three of you can find a compromise, it looks like you’re stuck. If you really can’t agree with one another, I suggest you go with the classic and choose a diamond ring.”
“Ha! Told ya!” Blake beams at my mother and I’m about to retort something when one of the shop owners finally approaches us.
Cosmic Gems is owned by a set of triplets and God help me, I can never tell if I’m looking at Saphi, Ceru or Azu.
“Gentlemen, if nothing in store finds you in agreement, have you considered a custom piece? We can design and have made pretty much anything.”
We explain our dilemma and Saphi – I finally spot his name tag – has just the perfect solution.
“I think you want one of our “mood rings”.”
I immediately protest. “I’m not proposing with a ring I can get from the claw machine at the arcade. We need something—”
“Let me explain, sir. You’d get a diamond ring, with a diamond certificate and everything. The special feature of our mood ring is a microchip in the ring shank. Normally we calibrate it to change color according to the wearer’s mood but since I understand you have an unusual “situation”, we could program it for the stone to change color depending on which fiancé is at your loved one’s side. You can have the stone turn an amber color when you’re with your fiancée, it can be a clear diamond when Officer Hunk is with her and a sapphire when—”
We all love the idea and make arrangements to have the perfect ring made. We just come to a standstill when it comes to ring size. None of us has any idea of what’s Magnolia’s size. We just know that she has small, delicate hands.
“Not to worry, boys.” Mom smiles. “I just have the perfect way to measure her finger without her suspecting a thing.”
We leave the store excited about having made a decision. My heart is full of hope that Magnolia will want to marry us and I can’t wait to ask her.
I voice my excitement. “I have the perfect romantic spot to ask her,” I say as we walk back to our cars. “The hot springs at the Katsura gardens, where we had our first kiss.”
Of course I shouldn’t be surprised when Blake immediately disagrees. “Hold on a second, dude! Why should we propose where you had your first kiss with her? I took her to the new sky bar and we had a blast. She loved that place, we danced on the table and it was a magical night. We should take her there at sunset and buy a bottle of their best champagne and—”
Max decides to chime in. “Well fuck, what about me?”
“What, do you want to give her the ring during an ambulance ride?” I snap and he immediately retorts.
“Ha ha, so funny. That was the first time I saw her naked. Come to think of it, I kissed her on her doorstep for the first time. But how about we choose a place that’s new for each of us?”
“Or,” Blake offers ever so stubbornly, “we could play rock, paper, scissors and the winner gets to choose the venue of the proposal and to actually present the ring.”
And so just like that, we play rock, paper, scissors in the parking lot like a bunch of doofuses.
***
Magnolia
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“MAGNOLIA MARIE KINSELLA,” my mother says on our weekly phone call, when I try to broach the subject of wanting to specialize in neonatology. My hopes that my parents would help me pay for the extra schooling I need is quickly and mercilessly slashed by her next words. “I think your father and I did right by you so far. We allowed your every whim, including moving away to study. But you’re going to be twenty-three soon, child—” she says twenty-three as if in reality she meant seventy-eight. “—and you don’t want to really get past your prime before you settle down with a suitable husband. It’s been over a year since you let Tripp slip away from you and he’s moved on. He and his wife just welcomed a baby last week.”
My immediate reaction to my mother’s mention of Tripp is an exasperated eye roll, thankful that Mom hates technology and sticks to old fashioned phone calls rather than FaceTime or Skype and she can’t see me.
Every week, she’ll mention her disappointment about the end of my relationship with Tripp and her concern about my “single status”.
Who needs a biological clock ticking when my own mother has taken up that very role?
Of course all it would take for her to at least ease off her nagging a little bit, would be telling her that I’m not single. I know I should tell her that I’m happily attached but can you blame me if I’ve kept quiet so far? How the heck do I tell my mother that I was blessed with the best three men in the entire world? So I stalled. I never mentioned my new relationship status. Until now, that is.
Normally Mom will say her spiel and then move onto different areas of my life that she finds lacking, but tonight she just won’t let go. I guess Tripp having a baby really did push her over the edge.
So my normal monosyllabic responses to her unsolicited advice just don’t cut it.
“You could try speed dating, Magnolia. Your third cousin Sara Jane met this math teacher—”
“I do have a boyfriend, Mom. I’m dating a doctor at the hospital.”
There. I regret my outburst even before the words have done leaving my pie hole. But there’s only so much a girl can take, right?
“Oh my! That’s fantastic news, baby girl.” Mom coos, her voice turned into a soft, warm blanket. “Tell me everything about your new beau. Your mama needs all the details.”
Another eye roll. I really regret telling her now but hopefully once she gets enough to satisfy her curiosity, she’ll leave me alone.
“His name’s Porter, Mom. He’s handsome and smart—”
“Duh! Of course he’s smart! He’s a doctor, darling. But tell me, is it serious? Have you met his family?”
I sigh and explain that Debbie is actually my supervisor at work.
“Oh, I see,” Mom muses. “And do you get along with his mama?”
And that’s where I make a huge mistake, letting my guard down. “We didn’t at first. But things have changed and Debbie and I are good friends now. She even helped me redecorate when I moved in—”
Oh, fudge. Fudgity, fudgity, fudge. Me and my big mouth. Mom’s outraged screech tells me just in how much trouble I am.
“You moved in? As in, you live with your doctor boyfriend? In the same house?”
My eyes will fall off if I roll them one more time, I swear.
“Magnolia Marie Kinsella!” I groan, but the only person I can blame for this is myself and my big mouth. “Have I not taught you anything? Am I such a huge failure as a Mama? That was a rookie move, child! How’s your doctor supposed to buy the cow if you’re giving him the milk for free?”
I cover my face with one of my hands wishing for a time machine so I could slap my five-minutes-ago self for telling her about Porter in first place. “Mom, it’s ok. I don’t—”
“Not another word, Magnolia,” she interrupts me. “This is all my fault.”
What?
“You’re an independent woman,” she says independent like an insult, “but I should’ve known that a young woman needs her mother’s sound advice.”
I resign myself to the lecture that’s about to begin but I don’t realize how bad this is until it’s too late to stop the train wreck that my life has just become in the last five minutes. Because the lecture I was dreading never comes. It’s bad. Much, much worse. DEFCON 1 bad.
“I think it’s time for a visit. Your father has all this vacation time he hasn’t used. Get your guest room ready, Magnolia. We’ll be in Silver Springs in two weeks.”
Guest room? Can this possibly get any worse? I try to dissuade her from staying with us but it’s a last ditch, desperate attempt to at least mitigate the force of the incoming hurricane Harriet.
“Mom, wouldn’t you be more comfortable in a hotel? Or a B&B? We have roommates and—”
“Roommates?” Her screech goes up another notch. “You definitely need your mama. We must get rid of the roommates, darling. They aren’t conducive to marriage.”
So just like that, my mom is visiting me in Silver Springs for the first time since I moved here three years ago. And not only do I have to tell the guys that she’s staying with us, I just realized that she’ll be here the weekend of Jen’s engagement party.
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NURSE KINSELLA TO THE orthopedic department, please.
I finish swaddling a super cute baby girl that’s due to go home with her proud parents today. “There you go Emily, I’ll miss you, cutie. You’re gonna be a good girl for your mommy and keep eating and sleeping like a little sweet angel, right?”
She smiles at me and my heart does a happy leap in my chest. The rotation in neonatology is definitely my favorite so far.
I walk toward orthopedics thinking that I doubt that my parents will be inclined to help me financially but maybe, if things go well during their visit, I could change Mom’s mind.
If she thought that Porter approves of me continuing my studies, that could definitely sway her.
“Oh there you are, Mags. Thank you for joining us, I need your help with today’s class.” Debbie greets me with a professional smile but winks at me at the end. The times in which she’d stand in front of my hospital bed with a whole group of students, hoping to look at my vagina are thankfully long gone.
“What can I help you with, Nurse Stevens?” I ask in my most respectful and professional tone.
“We’re doing bandages and splints today and we need someone to help us practice.”
I look at her, surprised that she needs me for that. Normally the students can practice on each other, so I don’t see why I’ve been asked here.
“Let’s begin with fingers.” She smiles. “If Nurse Kinsella was to break a finger, how would we bandage it?”
She starts working on my ring finger, building an elaborate bandaging with some soft metal caging of which I totally don’t see the point, since we have splints.
“There! This is what you would do if we were short on supplies. It’s rare but it almost happened during the blizzard that hit our town last Christmas. It’s good to be prepared for all eventualities. While you practice on each other, I’ll set Nurse Kinsella free from the splint.”
We sit down at her desk and she begins undoing the bandages. “Thank you for helping Mags.” She smiles. “Oh and I can’t wait to meet your mom.”
I almost fall off my chair at the mention of my mother. I haven’t even had the chance to tell the guys yet. “How— How do you know?”
“Oh, she followed me on Instagram last night and we’ve been messaging. She’s so excited to meet Porter.” My shocked expression makes her pause. “What’s up? Have I done something wrong by accepting her friend requests? She also friended me on Facebook.”
My expression softens. “No, Debbie. I’m not mad at you but I’m a little shocked. My mom has never been on social media.”
Our eyes meet as she’s done taking the bandages off and begins removing the thin rings of metal she used to immobilize the length of my finger. “She must be just dying to meet your boyfriends, that’s all. I don’t blame her.”
I fess up about the fact that I didn’t tell Mom that I’m also dating Max and Blake. A pang of guilt squeezes my insides at the thought. “Debbie, I don’t know how to tell the guys. I don’t want them to think that I don’t love them. I said what I said hoping to get Mom off my back about being single. I blurted out that I’m dating a doctor because I knew that would appease her.”
Debbie puts a comforting hand on mine. “Mags, if someone understands you that’s me. I was that mother that you had to lie to until very recently. Until I realized how with my behavior, I was pushing Porter away and I owe it to you for showing me the error of my ways. I’m grateful for your forgiveness and so happy that I got to know you. So, trust me when I tell you that those three men of yours love you with all their hearts and would do anything for you. Just tell them the situation and you’ll see that they’ll understand. But if you want my advice, I’d find a way to tell your parents the truth. They might get mad and maybe not understand your relationship but it’ll be much worse if they find out later down the road.”