Will was in the kitchen when I walked in. As soon as he saw my face, he was at my side with a look of pure concern. “What’s wrong, baby?”
I let out a along sigh. “I think Jenny had a miscarriage; she’s at the hospital now.”
He narrowed his eyes. “No… no. Oh no, that’s awful. We have to go.”
I nodded in agreement.
As we gathered up our things to head out, the phone rang. It was Carol saying that Jenny had indeed had a miscarriage and they weren’t going to keep her at the hospital. She said everyone was tired and wanted to get home and put an end to the horrible day. I told her to tell Jenny and Tyler we loved them and that we’d come by the next day.
On our way to Jenny and Tyler’s the next morning, Will and I stopped at a market where we argued for ten minutes on what to buy them. I had flowers and Will had chardonnay and chocolate. “Flowers would be an appropriate gift, Will, especially at nine o’clock in the morning.”
“It’s Jenny. Trust me, this is what she wants.”
“Fine, we’ll get it all.”
When we got to Jenny’s, Tyler opened the door. He looked devastated. I hugged him and told him how sorry I was, then moved past him to Jenny, who was on the couch with a box of Kleenex and big cozy quilt. I handed her the flowers and bent over to give her a squeeze.
“Thanks, girl,” she said in a low voice.
“I’m so sorry.”
“I know,” she said. She seemed to be keeping it together pretty well.
Will came over and without a word he set the chocolate and chardonnay on the table and then knelt down in front of her. She glanced at the gifts and then looked him in the eye and smiled before breaking down into sobs and burying her face in his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and swayed slightly from side to side whispering, “Shhh. It’s okay, shhh.”
He was so tender and warm toward her that she was able to completely let go and accept the comfort he was offering. Watching Will like that made me want to be a better person. It made me want to be more like him and I knew that was definitely a sign I was falling completely and deeply in love with him.
Will held my hand in the cab on the way home.
“You were really sweet with Jenny, I know they both love you,” I said.
He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed it gently. “Thanks, baby. They love you, too.” He seemed contemplative before he said quietly, “My sister Regina and her husband tried to get pregnant for two years and then when they finally did, she had two miscarriages back to back. They were devastated. They eventually had three kids, but my sister worried through each pregnancy. It was like she was waiting with bated breath for nine months. It really changes a woman. So I guess we just need to remember that for Jenny.”
“You’re sweet,” I said, squeezing his hand.
“Wanna sleep in my bed tonight?” he said with a crooked smile.
“Not a chance, Wilbur.”
He shrugged, laughing it off.
Track 14: Wait, What?
We flew to Detroit on Christmas Eve. Will was a neurotic head case about flying, so I made him a playlist and bought him some fuzzy socks. He tried to convince me to make out with him, saying it was the only thing that would calm his nerves; I knew it was a ploy. After we landed, he stood up to remove his guitar from the overhead bin and I noticed the girl across from us eyeing him. He winked and shot her a sexy smile and then looked at me with feigned confusion and mouthed what? We headed out to the curb and waited for his sister to pick us up.
“So, do you have a lot of ex-girlfriends in Detroit?”
“A couple. I had one girlfriend in high school… Brenda. She dated me as a cover.” He flashed a small, mirthless smile. “Yeah, she was having an affair with our history teacher; I had no idea at the time. She was my first and said I was hers, but she knew very well what she was doing and didn’t seem too satisfied with my amateur ways, if you know what I mean.” He chuckled and then grinned from ear to ear. “The summer after we graduated, she turned eighteen and broke up with me that very day. I think her and the teacher are married now. I would have been totally heartbroken except that I had already met Kate… who was a lot of fun. She was a nurse and ten years older than me. I learned a lot from her. We dated off and on until I moved to New York. She’s married now but we’ve kept in touch. That’s it really. I dated girls in New York but nothing serious.”
“Were you in love with Kate?”
“In a way I was, but we both knew it wouldn’t work. We just had fun with it. She said she loved my guitar hands. She’d let me practice all kinds of things on her.” I rolled my eyes at him and simultaneously thought Kate was a very wise woman. “What about you? I bet you had lots of admirers in Ann Arbor?”
I flushed. “Not at all. I didn’t have sex until college. I didn’t even have a boyfriend in high school. My first time was with a soccer player at Brown. He told me he loved me after one date, then he basically stole my virtue and stopped calling me.”
“Guys are dicks, Mia, stay away from ‘em.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulders to keep me warm while we waited.
Will’s sister Reina pulled up in a mint-green minivan. She rolled down the passenger window and yelled, “What up, homie!” Will flashed her a peace sign. I could tell she was a character. She wore a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt and mom jeans and her hair was a wild nest of curls sprouting out of a high ponytail. Her only resemblance to Will was her dark, deepset eyes. She reached over to shake my hand as I hopped in the back. “Hi, Mia! We’re so glad to finally meet Willie’s girlfriend.” I nodded and smiled at her and then turned and shot a peeved look at Will, who was loading our bags. He shrugged and mouthed, go with it.
I squeezed between two little kids and leaned forward. “Thanks, Reina, I’m really happy to be here.” The little boy and girl I was sitting between were beautiful with red hair and freckles. They looked to be four years old and they were seated in matching car seats. “I’m Mia, what’s your name?” I said to the little girl.
“Maddie.”
“Oh. Is this guy your brother?”
“No… I don’t know that kid,” she said flatly.
Reina chimed in. “Yes, they’re twins. That’s Conrad.”
I turned toward Conrad. He smiled and said “Hi” in a tiny monster voice.
I looked back at Maddie and leaned in toward her. “I like you,” I whispered.
“I like you too,” she said. “Let’s be friends.”
“You bet.”
Will jumped in the passenger seat and then turned around. “Hey, Freckles. Hey, Bam Bam, what’s up?”
“Hi, Uncle Will,” Maddie said.
Conrad started giggling when he saw Will’s face.
We drove to Will’s parents’, which was located in a little Detroit suburb. After their kids all moved out, they downsized from what Will called the six-bedroom craphole he grew up in to a modest three-bedroom tract home. The first thing I noticed when we pulled up was that there was an inordinate amount of Christmas lawn ornaments scattered across the snow-covered yard. The driveway was full of cars, so we parked five houses away and carted our stuff up the street while Reina dragged the twins along. When we got to the front door, people started pouring out toward us. Will turned to me and raised his eyebrows. “Are you ready for this?”
I nodded. It would be a very eye-opening experience to spend the holidays with such a huge family. I felt the warmth spilling out to us as his family members embraced him with twenty minutes of hugs and kisses.
The next several hours were a blur. There were a hundred kids running around and no real organized meal, just a bunch of food on a table for people to graze. Will’s mom, Rita, was a sweetheart—she complimented me over and over and seemed truly happy that Will had brought someone home. She said the next morning would be a quieter time for us to get to know each other, but she did tell me they used to worry about Will when he was younger because one of the sisters dropped him on his head as a baby. “
He just always seemed different than the other kids,” she said.
He clearly didn’t fit in with the rest of the group. His dad was quiet and somewhat unsocial. He basically sat in a recliner while all the kids jumped around him. He was kind when Will introduced us, but he made very little effort to talk to me after that. Will’s brother Ray was literally his polar opposite. I could see immediately why they weren’t close.
“Mia, this is my brother Ray. Ray, this is Mia.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, holding my hand out. He shook it robotically while Will stepped away to get us a drink. Ray stood a tad taller than Will and was about sixty pounds heavier. What was left of his severely receded hair was very short and if it weren’t for his dark eyes, the family trait, he would have looked nothing like Will. All the family members dressed in a kind of typical suburban, conservative attire. Compared to his family, Will seemed very edgy with his tattoos and silver-studded belt, but to me it was just Will, my sweet and sensitive Will.
“So you’re the girlfriend?” Ray said, smiling. “Are you a bartender, too?” He spoke sincerely, but I could tell right away he was one of those people who always had a hint of condescension in his tone.
“No, I’m not. I own a café in the East Village and… I’m a musician, as well.” My own admission surprised me, but I wanted to remind Ray that Will wasn’t just a bartender.
“Ah yes… the music. Kind of an oddball thing to pursue, don’t you think?”
“Why is that?” I said with a smile.
“I don’t know, just seems like more of a hobby.”
I waited a long beat before responding. “Well, I disagree. I’ve studied music most of my life and your brother is by far the most talented musician I’ve encountered. It would be a crime if he didn’t pursue a career in music… And really, there is nothing odd about it.”
He studied my expression. “Hmm. Well, he’s always had a knack for it; I’ll give him that. So what do you play?”
“Piano,” I said and he nodded with a smile.
Will appeared and threw his arm around my shoulder after handing me a glass of wine. “Watch out, Ray, this one’s a firecracker,” he said as he kissed me on the forehead. Ray smiled warmly at both of us. I knew he meant well, but I wasn’t sure if anyone in Will’s family would truly appreciate the magnitude of what he was about to tell them.
Will glanced around the room and then cleared his throat loudly. “Ahem. I have an announcement to make.” Everyone immediately quieted. I noticed several sets of eyes surveying me, first my left hand and then my stomach. Clearly most announcements in this family were either engagements or pregnancies.
“Everybody, I want to let you know that Mia here… has never had turducken.” Huh? The first thing I thought was that Will was right, I had never had turducken; he told me it was his family’s Christmas Eve tradition to roast a deboned chicken inside of a deboned duck inside of a turkey. It sounded disgusting to me, but that wasn’t the point. I thought he was going to announce his record deal—instead Will threw the attention to me and then stared off smugly while his entire family started talking at once about how much I was going to love the freakin’ turducken.
I elbowed him and then narrowed my eyes. “You’re in trouble,” I whispered.
“What are you gonna do to me, sweet thing?” He grinned.
I yanked him away into the bathroom and shut the door. “What was that? Why didn’t you tell them about the deal?”
“Mia, did you see how many little kids were running around out there?”
I shot out my hands. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“In my family… it’s just kind of a funny thing when one of the couples goes into the bathroom and locks the door.” He smirked devilishly.
I gasped, appalled. “Oh my god. First of all, we’re not a couple and second, that is ridiculous.”
He just shrugged and held his shit-eating grin. “Will Ryan, I am mad at you.” I stomped my foot like petulant teenager. “And furthermore, you still haven’t answered my question.”
He leaned in, dropping his head down near my cheek and putting his hands on my hips. Any inkling of a gap between us was closed. I took in a sharp breath and shut my eyes as I felt his body against mine. His lips grazed my jaw and then his mouth moved up along my neck. He tugged at my ear with his teeth and whispered, “We’ll talk later, okay, baby?”
I pushed his shoulders away. “You have to stop touching me like that!”
He took a step back and gazed at me sorrowfully. “I thought you liked it.”
“I do.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I just don’t want to complicate things, Will, that’s all.”
“By letting me touch you?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Listen, I changed my mind. I’m not going to tell them about the record deal now. I don’t want to have to explain all the fine details to every member of my family on Christmas Eve. Let’s just be together… okay?”
He looked so pathetic standing there, rejected. He corrected himself a couple of times when his body made involuntary movements to reach out and touch me. He was fighting the urge to just simply take my hand or kiss my cheek. I didn’t know why I was being so harsh; he hadn’t really crossed the line, although the soft kisses on my neck were certainly testing the limits. The charade and the constant touching created so much confusion. I couldn’t tell anymore what we were to each other.
Maybe Will wanted me to come home with him and meet his family just to pretend for a few festive moments that I was his girlfriend and he was just like the rest of them… loved. I buried my head in his chest and hugged him around the waist; he wrapped his arms around my shoulders. “Okay, you’re right, let’s just enjoy this time off. And we can hug… like this, all you want. This is what friends do,” I said and he squeezed me tighter.
When we returned to the living room everything was back to usual business. Rita displayed the cut-up turducken and everyone cheered. I wasn’t sure what all the hype was about—it tasted like turkey, duck and chicken. No surprise there, but it was charming how the entire family got so excited over it.
After everyone left, Will’s dad went off to his bedroom and Rita and I cleaned up while Will made a bed on the pullout sofa.
“Will, you’re almost thirty years old. I think your father and I will be okay if you and Mia want to sleep in the guest room.” Will looked over and waited for me to make a decision. It wasn’t like sleeping in the same bed was anything new for us, but I think after the episode in the bathroom he didn’t want to make any assumptions.
“That’s fine, thank you, Rita.”
She looked at me and then cupped my face and said, “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Thank you. I’m glad to be here.” I truly meant it. I studied Rita’s features. She had the same dark eyes as Will and the same full lips. She wore round glasses and her gray hair was in a bob. She was much older than my mother, but she had a youthfulness about her that I was sure Will had inherited.
In the guest room Will stripped down to his boxers, slid into bed, and rolled away, facing the window. I dug through his bag and pulled out one of his white T-shirts and slipped it over my head.
“Night, Will.”
“Night, buddy.” He said with a tinge of irritation. He made no attempt to touch me.
The next morning, I woke up to an empty bed. I threw on some sweats and went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth. When I got to the living room, Rita yelled out, “There she is. Merry Christmas, Mia!” Will’s parents were dressed in matching red pajama sets and Santa hats. His dad did not seem the least bit amused; it was clearly his mom who was the festive one. Will had on flannel pajama bottoms that I had never seen—they really made him look domestic and I think it turned me on. His white T-shirt was a stark contrast against his tattooed forearm and his hair was wet and brushed back away from his face. He looked unreasonably handsome for first thing in the
morning.
There was a fire going and the lights on the Christmas tree were twinkling. I sat down on the couch next to him and put my hand on his leg. “Merry Christmas, honey,” I said softly and then I puckered my lips. His parents’ eyes were glued on us. Will focused on my expression as I gave his thigh a squeeze.
His eyes kissed mine and then he let out a barely audible sigh as he leaned over and pecked my lips. “Merry Christmas, baby.” His mom gave me a steaming mug and I wrapped my hands around it and folded my legs onto the couch, curling up into Will as I sipped my coffee.
Rita sat back on her heels, next to the tree. “Okay, it’s time to open presents,” she said as she handed me a box with a big red ribbon on it.
“Thank you so much—you didn’t have to get me anything.”
I tore the wrapping open and lifted the lid to find a gray, high-necked cashmere sweater. I put it up to my face. “Wow, I’ve never had cashmere, this is beautiful. Really, it’s too much.”
“Don’t be silly, Mia. Will has never brought a girl home for us to meet, we’re thrilled to have you here and we wanted to get you something you would like. I sent Will a picture of the sweater and he gave me the thumbs-up,” she said, giggling. She looked at Will, who was smiling at her with love.
“Thank you so much.” I got up and handed Rita the present I’d bought for her and Ray.
“Look, Raymond, a French press! I’ve always wanted one of these. Thank you, Mia.”
Will and his parents exchanged some gifts; he bought his dad a Civil War anthology and a baseball documentary DVD box set… very Americana stuff. For his mom he had a book called How to Write a Cookbook and a gift card to Williams-Sonoma. When she opened it he said, “You have to do it, Mom. Write the book, people will love it!”
Rita looked over at me and said, “I’ve been saying I wanted to write a cookbook since before Will was born.”
“You should, Rita, you’re a fabulous cook. Will has made so many of your dishes for me and I can’t get enough. I’m really going to miss it when he’s gone.”