Red Hot Reunion

“I know this is just your hurt feelings talking. Once you calm down and leave your little fantasy world you’ll see that we’re only trying to do what’s best for you.”

That was it, she was going to strangle him and the police were going to come and convict her of assault.

There was no other way, not when Steven wouldn’t listen to reason. But just then, Steven’s eyes moved over her shoulder.

“Jason,” he said, stretching his hand out and moving through the restaurant toward her lover as if they were long lost football buddies. “Long time no see.”

Jason shook his hand, but his mouth remained a firm, tight line. Emma longed to explain that she had nothing to do with Steven’s appearance, that she didn’t want him here, but there was no chance.

“Very impressive place you’ve got here. Even if it is way out in the boonies. Maybe one day you’ll be able to make the move into the city.”

Jason’s eyes were grim. “Maybe.” He turned to Emma. “Is this your ride home?”

She shook her head, desperate for him to understand. “No. He was just leaving. Without me.”

Steven gave Jason a man-to-man grin. “You know how the little woman is, she never knows quite what she wants.”

“Good thing you know for her,” Jason said, the irony thick as cream in his words.

Of course, Steven missed it completely. “I knew you’d understand. That’s exactly why I’m here. To take Emma home. I think the events of the past few months have been too much for her. With the divorce and all.” His mouth twisted into a look of derision. “Not to mention the fact that she’s left all of her clients in the lurch this week. A very irresponsible move in this economic climate.”

Jason moved toward Steven, clearly on the verge of physically throwing him out of his restaurant, but Emma slid between them, putting a hand on Steven’s arm. “Everything is under control. Besides, my business is none of yours. Not anymore. Let’s discuss this outside. Alone.”

Responding as if she were nothing more than a petulant teenager who had never shouldered a

responsibility in her life, Steven said, “Of course it’s my business. And your father’s. We’ve both been getting calls from customers we’ve referred to you.”

The unspoken subtext ofTherefore, little girl, you owe me, and your father, and better do what we both say and come back to Palo Alto hung heavy and fetid in the air.

She was furious with Steven for daring to corner her like this and with Jason for just standing there, silently judging her. But most of all, she was angry with herself for not having foreseen these events.

Most people could take a spur-of-the-moment vacation from their business. But not her. Oh no, not with Mommy and Daddy tied into every single aspect of her life, including her client base.

And whose fault was that? Emma knew the answer. It was her fault entirely. For not having made the choice to become an independent adult years ago like normal people did.

All out of options, she let go of Steven, grabbed her purse off the counter, and swept out of the door before tears of frustration could start falling.

Jason crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, running his eyes up Steven’s no-longer-fit frame.

“That didn’t go exactly as you planned, did it?”

Steven ran a hand over his heavily moussed hair. “She’ll come around soon enough. Especially when she thinks about how much sense it makes to remarry me. She was heartbroken when I left her, you know.”

Working not to register his disgust on his face, Jason merely raised an eyebrow in response.

“You can tell her I’ll be in touch,” Steven said, but just as he opened the front door, he turned and threw a parting shot at Jason. “Don’t forget,I’m what she wants,” he said. “She chose me before, she’ll choose me again. I wouldn’t make the mistake of forgetting what happened ten years ago in the quad, if I were you.”

Jason wanted to leap out the door and slam Steven’s head into the sidewalk. Hadn’t he waited ten long years for the pleasure of beating Steven to a pulp? When Emma had put her hand on Steven’s arm, asking to speak to him outside, just the two of them, his vision had gone from red to purple to black. How dare she touch that prick with the same fingers that had been loving him all week? But suddenly, he wasn’t standing in his restaurant anymore. He was twenty-one again and his world was on the verge of busting to smithereens.

Stanford University Quad, Easter Sunday, Ten Years Ago

It was a perfect, warm April weekend in Northern California. Cloudless blue skies, students playing Frisbee out on the lawn and studying on beach chairs in bikinis. Having grown up in Rochester, New York, home to the endless April snowstorm, even after three years on the Stanford campus Jason

continued to be stunned by the weather. Forget studying. He was going to surprise Emma—who’d been working hard on an Economics presentation all week—with a gourmet picnic lunch.

Jason woke up early to make sure he’d have the co-op kitchen to himself and dove into the new Julia Child cookbook he’d splurged on. Emma didn’t eat enough and he was always hoping that one day he’d find the perfect recipe she couldn’t resist. He’d tried to talk to her about her eating patterns, wondered if she had an eating disorder, but she always adamantly refused to admit anything was wrong. He didn’t know what else he could do other than continuing to cook awesome meals for her.

She was at church with her parents in the quad and he figured he’d grab her when the service let out at 11:30A.M. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing her parents again, especially not after the chilly reception they’d given him at her birthday party. They’d looked at him like he wasn’t fit to be the dirt in the tracks of her tennis shoes, but he’d tried not to let it bother him.

He didn’t care what her parents thought about him. Emma’s opinion was the only one that mattered. And she loved him.

Last night they’d been walking through the quad and he’d pressed her up against one of the thick stone pillars and kissed her until she’d whispered her love against his lips. She’d seemed especially intense for the past couple of months and he’d chalked it up to working too hard. He never quite understood why she drove herself so hard, almost as if she expected constant perfection.

No one was perfect, but Jason figured the way she drove herself into the ground to achieve more and more all the time must have something to do with her parents. They withheld affection, dangled their approval over Emma’s head like a big, juicy carrot she could never quite reach.