Red Hot Reunion

Jason almost laughed at his buddy’s transparency. But the thing was he couldn’t head back to Palo Alto.

He wasn’t ready to see Emma yet. He hadn’t figured out a plan of action. If he was going to win her back he needed to act with finesse, make her see that she couldn’t live without him. He’d been trying to choreograph a big romantic reconciliation scene for the past twenty-four hours but nothing he came up with was any good.

Roses were cliché.

Getting down on one knee and proposing to her was just plain stupid, especially since she couldn’t stand the sight of him.

He’d even thought about trying to get her out to a baseball game, saying he was sorry on the huge screen above the stadium, echoing it with a Goodyear Blimp trailing a sign that said, “Please forgive me, Emma.

I love you. I mean it.” But since neither of them were baseball fans, it just plain didn’t make any sense.

What was the point of a big gesture if it didn’t reference their history together?

Rocco stepped in right then and saved Jason from himself. “I can see your overeducated Stanford brain going a million miles, boss. Maybe for once you should turn that thing off.”

Rocco was right. Jason’s plans sucked.

“Might not be a bad idea,” Jason agreed, and then Rocco grinned and turned back to peeling a stack of green apples.

Twenty-Four

Emma showered and joined Kate in the kitchen for a cup of coffee. “You look a whole lot better all of a sudden,” Kate remarked.

“Funny what a huge epiphany and a bagel will do for a girl,” Emma said with a smile.

“Oh thank God, you ate. I was wondering if I was going to have to tie you down and force-feed you.”

Emma groaned. “Not you too.”

“Look, honey, you know I was worried about you not eating enough in college and you seemed so much better recently, but then this stuff with Jason happened. I thought that maybe it would set you off again.”

“Does everyone think I’m so fragile that they can’t tell me when I’m screwing up my life?”

Kate bit her lip. “Would you hate me if I said yes?”

“Of course I wouldn’t hate you. It just feels like things would have been so much better all along if everyone had been honest with me.” She took a sip of coffee. “Actually, being honest with myself might have been a good first step.”

Kate raised an eyebrow. “I take it this has something to do with your epiphany?”

“Only everything.”

“Care to share?”

Emma grinned. “What? And miss out on watching you try to pull it out of me for the next week?”

Kate stuck her tongue out and Emma laughed. “I don’t know why I’m laughing. It’s not funny. Not at all.

Basically, I realized this morning that I’ve lived my entire life for other people.”

“To try and win their approval, you mean?”

“Jeez, maybe I should have asked you what was wrong with my life. I could have saved myself a good decade or two of misery.”

“A lot of people are looking for approval,” Kate said, obviously trying to make Emma feel better. “Oprah and Dr. Phil have made millions off it.”

“Thanks for trying to soften the blow. But it’s more than that. I wanted to make everyone happy.

Everyone but myself, that is.”

“And now?”

“Well, at least I know I’m sick of doing that.”

“It’s a good start,” Kate said, refilling their cups.

Emma nodded. “Something else is really bothering me. Something I need to deal with right away.”

Kate guessed, “Jason?”

“Glad to know you’re not psychic after all.”

“Not Jason?” Emma almost laughed at the surprised look on her best friend’s face.

“Eventually, you’re right, I’m going to have to deal with him.”

“Because you still love him, right?”

“Can we not go there quite this moment?”

Kate held up her hands. “Sorry. I got carried away. So what’s your next step then, if not Jason?”

Emma put her cup down. “My mother.”

Yet again, Jason found himself driving ninety miles south from Napa to Palo Alto. Three times in one week he’d been down these freeways, these bridges. Each time because of Emma.

To be perfectly honest, he wasn’t at all certain this trip was a good idea. He doubted she was ready to see him; twenty-four hours was not nearly enough time for her to cool down.

He’d been a prick, an utter jerk in every way, and he still didn’t know what he was going to say. What he was going to do. The only thing he knew was that he had to see her.

Even if she ran from him, he’d come back. Over and over, until he wore her down, until he made her see just how badly he needed her, that nothing was right without her in his life.

On the drive from Napa to Palo Alto last Saturday, on his way to the reunion, he’d had only one thing in mind: Getting even. Now, everything was reversed.

He needed Emma’s forgiveness. And her love.

Some things never changed and Emma was one hundred percent certain that her parents would be sitting on their back porch, eating Saturday lunch.

Strangely, she wasn’t particularly nervous about the upcoming confrontation. So much else had changed in one week. Last weekend at Sunday brunch, she’d been a completely different woman. Uncertain, off kilter, with no sense of who she was. Or what she wanted.

One week later, she was armed with so much more. A new perspective. A budding self-confidence. And the knowledge that before she could possibly have a better relationship with her parents, she needed to have a frank discussion about everything that had transpired during the past thirty-two years first.

She used her key without ringing the doorbell, wanting the element of surprise in her corner. Walking through her parents’ house, the house she’d grown up in, she took in everything in a different light.

For the first time Emma could see how she’d done little more than mimick her mother’s decorating style in her own house. Not that there was anything wrong with Jane’s furnishings—they were perfectly nice, quite comfortable, even—but they were all wrong. At least forEmma. From here on out Emma was going to live in a house that bore her individual stamp with rooms that were bright, creative, and made her happy.

She honestly hoped this house made her mother happy. And that’s when she realized: Maybe Jane had been a product of the same rigid upbringing. The same all-beige, drab, perfect world. Maybe it was all Jane knew.