Rather than think about the pathetic remnants of my life, I work until 9:00 p.m. Patents have a beautiful cadence to them, a rhythm, if you will: the hint of an idea comes like a dewy whisper to an engineer’s ear, the fruit of his nectar brought to my office for the collection of research. Then there is the budding flower of the patent application visited by the hummingbird of the U.S. Patent Office.
Clearly, I have been working too long. I’m writing bad patent poetry in my warped, caffeine-laced mind. I know I’ve gone over the edge as I think about publishing it. Engineer poetry is not exactly on the New York Times best-seller list, now is it?
“Are you ever going home?” Tracy is at my door. She looks beat and isn’t wearing any makeup, which for her is like being naked. Remember, she is the scarlet lipstick queen. “Even Purvi didn’t work this late.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “Have you been here the whole time?”
“No, I’m back for the international shift to answer phones.” She slaps her cheeks. “I’m giving my skin a breather. I didn’t think anyone but security would be here. Did you eat something?”
I have to think about this. “I’ve had a lot of coffee, and if you count nondairy creamer as food, then yes, I’ve eaten.”
“What are you doing here so late?”
“Right now? Writing bad patent poetry.”
“I’m not even going to ask.”
“Yeah, that’s probably best.”
“I heard about Seth.” Tracy stares at me as if hoping for some reaction.
“Heard what about him?”
“He got some girl knocked up, and he’s marrying her.”
“He did not get some girl—” But I stop here. Of course he doesn’t want people knowing this isn’t his baby. Duh. Pregnancy, people will understand. This situation with Seth, not at all. “Seth will make a good father. Hopefully, a good husband too.”
“Yeah. Whatever. It sort of surprised me. He doesn’t come off as the kind who could get a date. You, I understood. You like the smart ones, but a young thing sleeping with him? Weird.” She shakes her head. It’s amazing how much the admins actually see in the office. “Do you want me to get you something to eat?”
“No, I’m leaving.” I grab my sweater and slip into my heels, but my cell phone rings, and I see it’s Kevin. For the first time, I’m not sure I want to talk to Kevin, I think as my anger returns. Help me, Lord!
Tracy stares at me. “Aren’t you going to answer that?”
“Yeah.” I answer the phone, but I don’t say anything into the receiver.
“Ashley? Are you there?” Kevin asks.
“I’m here.”
“Where are you, at work?”
“Yes. I had Tracy cancel with the pastor. We were supposed to start our premarital counseling tonight. Remember?”
“Ashley,” he sighs. “I’m so sorry. I completely forgot, and I guess being across the country, I wouldn’t have been much help anyway.” He mumbles something to someone at the other end of the line. Doctor words I don’t understand. “I heard the luncheon with my mom didn’t go well.”
“You could say that.” Or you could say that Wife Swap is something your mother is hoping for, before our marriage takes place.
“Tell me what happened.”
“No. Tell me about Philadelphia and our new house. Is Starbucks down the street?” Kevin misses—or ignores—my tone and my sarcasm.
“Ash, it’s fabulous! The program is better than I imagined. This is everything I want. It’s the training I just know was designed for me. Ordained by God. Every piece of information I received today only confirmed more that this is where I’m being called.”
“Great.” And it is great. I want Kevin to be happy, but where I stand in the midst of all this is a mystery. Would I ever see him if we move across the country for a job? Or would I be sitting in a Starbucks, drinking corporate espresso, alone on my wireless Internet, getting into political arguments with complete strangers for lack of a job? “Purvi left today. They’re not hiring another general counsel. I’m it.”
“Ash, that’s great! See, you’re so good they promote you even when you fight it.”
Kevin, you’re missing the obvious.
“I don’t like being general counsel, actually. Too much politics, not enough patents. Besides, if you’re seriously considering Philly, and it sounds by your father’s real-estate ventures that you are—”
“I know you don’t like general counsel,” Kevin says, avoiding the hot house topic. “But that’s because it stretches you. It’s good to stretch, Ashley. You don’t want to be caught in a rut like the Reasons, do you?”
“Speaking of which, you should probably know that Seth and Arin are getting married.”
Silence.
“Did you hear me? I don’t think Seth wants it announced as public fodder, but I figured since it was your ex-girlfriend, my ex-boyfriend, and you and I are now engaged, all in one happy, dysfunctional Friends-like arrangement, you might want to know.”
“Well, that’s shocking. Any reason behind this odd engagement? I have to say, I didn’t think Seth had it in him to get married. I considered it a definite plus as I tried to steal away the woman I wanted from right under his nose.”
I was stolen?
“They’re getting married this weekend,” I announce.
“This weekend? What’s the rush?”
“True love can’t wait,” I say facetiously.
“Isn’t there a book called True Love Waits?”
“Well, it’s not waiting past this weekend for Seth and Arin.”
“Ashley, forget about them. What happened with my mother today? Can’t you just work on being nice? For me?”
Hey, I was nice. I didn’t hurt her! And what about the house here, buddy! “She wants a certain kind of meal. Served a certain kind of way, but oh, wait a minute! It’s my wedding. So I protested. Albeit, maybe a little too much, because it cost me a pair of eighteen-dollar fishnets.”
“It’s our wedding, and I would think you’d be grateful to my mom and sister for all they’ve done. Think about how much they’ve spent on airfare alone trying to help us out!”
They could own controlling stock in Southwest for all I care. “I don’t want a buffet, Kevin,” I say in clipped tones. “How will Eve get her food?” I ask, referring to our friend with MS.
“I’ll get it for her, Ashley. John or Brea will get it for her. We shouldn’t be designing our wedding around one guest.”
“We’re not designing around a guest. We’re designing it the way I want it. I thought you told me I had free rein. Now that your mother has spoken, apparently you didn’t really mean that. I don’t want to be standing around in my wedding gown and trying to pick at buffet food, waiting for buffalo wing sauce to stain my Vera Wang. A meal should be placed before me, like the princess I am for the day. I get dizzy when I don’t eat, and I’ll be too nervous to pick the right food. Since when did you start caring about the wedding details anyway? Free rein, you said,” I repeat, none too gently.
“I care since you’re upsetting my mom and sister with the your-way-or-the-highway routine.”
“My way? Your sister canceled my wedding dress! She’d have Confederate flag-waving skinheads with swords if I let her. Your mother is telling me what to serve for dinner and insinuated my slacks were inappropriate. She’s been in a St. John knit every time I’ve ever seen her. Do I reproach her on overall lack of wardrobe creativity? No, because I believe in personal choice. And as the bride, I believe in personal choice for moi on my wedding day.”
“Ashley, my mother has thrown society parties for my dad’s colleagues her whole adult life. Surely you can handle some advice. It’s not like you’re Kay in the kitchen.”
I gasp. “Did you just say what I think you did?”
“Are you going to deny it?”
“So what are you saying? I should learn how to be barefoot and pregnant? Maybe cook a four-course meal wearing pearls? In my dumpy fixer-upper in Philly? Are you all part of this evil plan?”
“Now you’re just being nasty. A Bridezilla, as my sister called it.”
“Bridezilla? How dare you run off to another state, leave me here to deal with your control-freak family, tell me I have free rein, and then renege on that completely when they tell you what they want. I am not going to live my entire life answering to your mother and your sister. This is apparently what will happen, because you swore you’d back me up.”
“You’ve been a fine sport, but it’s getting down to the wire now. You’re overburdened at work, and you just don’t want to give up any of the control here. I’m saying both our lives would be easier if you’d let someone else handle something.”
“So you want me to show up dressed like Scarlett? Because that’s what will happen. And I hope you look good in Rhett tails, because you’ll be dressed like a Civil War dandy! You should be thanking me for standing up for us, because you would look like a grown-up Ken doll dressed by your little sister if it weren’t for me! Rhett Butler Barbie.”
“You’re not yourself. We’ll talk about this when I get home. Do you think you can get through the floral arrangements without drawing blood?”
“Are you moving to Philadelphia?”
“I don’t know yet. I figured we’d discuss it when I came home.”
“Discuss it like here’s what you are doing, and I can choose to come along? Or discuss it like you actually might stay here, and we’ll have the life we planned? You doctor. Me lawyer. In California.”
“The latter, Ashley. This is our decision now. But, Ashley, this job is perfect for me. You can always get your license to practice here.”
“I’ve lived here my whole life, Kevin. I don’t know how to live anywhere else.”
“Maybe it’s time for a change.”
“I’m general counsel,” I say emphatically. “Isn’t that change enough?”
“You just said you hated that job.”
“But I’m important, and what was all that about being stretched? I’m a regular Gumby now.”
Kevin laughs. “You’re important whatever you do, Ash, and it would stretch you to move too. Think about it, home of the Constitution. Ashley Stockingdale, patent attorney at large.”
“Kevin, your parents bought us a house. For a job you don’t even have yet—”
“Actually, I do. They said the job was mine if I wanted it.”
The wind rushes from my lungs. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m just giving you options, Ashley.”
“Like your father gave us on this ugly house? Those kinds of options? Where you really have none. Someone else lays out the path of your life, and you just follow it. Those kinds of options?”
“My father’s gift has nothing to do with this. We can rent it out. Hire a real wedding coordinator. Will that make you happy? To have my family completely pushed out of the way?”
Hire a coordinator? Is it just me, or did that sound decidedly like Elaine Novak? “I can’t hire a coordinator.”
“Why not?”
Deep breath. “I’m broke, actually. When I bought half the house from Kay, I wasn’t aware of the tax bills that come twice a year. Outrageous, disgusting, California real-estate tax bills! Then I loaned someone some money that I probably won’t see again. I put money down for the photographer and for the swing band before you changed your mind, and a deposit for the catering, and well, it turns out that I’m broke, Kevin. The dress fairy dropped my gown out of nowhere at the wedding shop, or I wouldn’t even have a dress to get married in. Doesn’t all that sound like some kind of omen to you?”
“It sounds like small bumps in the highway. Typical for what any Christian marriage might have to go through. Do you want to get married or not?” Kevin’s normally calm voice is sounding agitated.
“I thought I did. But being married doesn’t just mean being married anymore. Now it means giving up everything I know to be married.”
“I’ll be home tomorrow. Don’t do anything rash. You tend to react, and we’re in no position for you to react.”
“Kevin, your mother doesn’t like me.” And I’m not necessarily fond of her either. “Your sister was basically trying to sabotage our wedding by turning me into a modern-day Scarlett O’Hara, and where have you been through all this? Okay, saving babies is a good excuse, but is this a battle I’ll have alone my entire life? I’m not sure I’m up for that.”
“Can’t you just put these meal decisions off until I get home? I haven’t had time to think about any of that.”
“This isn’t about a meal. Or even a house, Kevin. This is about your family and their very strong opinions about things that are our business. Is this my future?”
“If my mother’s objections were about your character or your faith, I might listen. But there’s history here. She just wants to make sure she’s respected for what she does well. And she plans parties well. You must understand, my mother and father have set up a life for themselves that works. They basically see themselves as perfect and all others as inferior. Everything they do is to prove their superiority.”
And we are supposed to support them in this? So not soothing me.
“Okay, so if I was a psychologist, I’d have a great case study. But I’m a patent attorney, and I don’t want to play these games for the rest of my life. You’re not answering my question, and it’s a legitimate question. Is this woman going to rule my future?”
“You’re a Christian. Act like it, Ashley. Suppress your anger, and learn to get along. I’ll see you tomorrow, and this will all blow over. You’re making a mountain out of a molehill.”
I gasp again. “You think standing up for myself is not being a Christian? Why don’t you just stamp ‘Welcome’ across my forehead for the doormat y’all seem to want me to be. Don’t you see your whole family has insinuated themselves into our plans?”
“So would you rather live with Kay the rest of your days and see your Tupperware numbered? Where a big Saturday night is playing Xbox with other engineers in another dateless soiree? Is that what you want? To end this?”
No, I want you, I think to myself, as much as I hate to admit it at this moment. But if I don’t measure up to your family, what then?
“Do you love me, Ashley?” His gravelly voice, always tired and stressed, has such emotional depth. I’m drawn in, unable to withstand the pull.
“I do love you, Kevin. So much. But this is really hard.” I’m so confused. Is love enough? With Christ, I can do all things, but Kevin’s family! That’s asking me to stretch a little far, isn’t it Lord? I’m not made of elastic.
“The chief of surgery is waiting for me.”
“You always have to go. Every time I have to deal with some wed ding crisis, or life crisis, you’re off to a call.” I feel guilty immediately. He’s saving babies. I’m fighting with his mother over portobello mushrooms.
“I’ll be home tomorrow,” he repeats.
“I’ll finish the flowers tomorrow with your sister before you get here. But I won’t like it.” One more day. I can handle one more day of meowing and keeping my claws bared. “We’ll talk when you get home.”
“You’re my fiancée still?” Kevin asks.
“I love you, Kevin. If they lock us up, let’s be in the same padded cell.” After I get off the phone, I scream a good scream. Worthy of any mental health ward.