“That wasn’t how I…”
“Whatever. Fine. Let’s get it over with.” She puts the laptop down and lies back on the bed like a cold, dead fish.
“Wow, that’s certainly hot, but I think I’ll wait until you’re actually interested.”
Emily sits back up and rolls her eyes, grabbing her laptop, her attention back on her email.
An hour later, she’s in a little black dress, her hair still up in that fussy bun. I compliment her for about the tenth time, telling her how beautiful she looks and how much I’ve missed her as we’re led to our seats at the restaurant. It’s on the sixtieth floor of a hotel, looking out at the Strip, lights twinkling around and below us.
“Nice view,” she says flatly.
“I mean…”
She gives me a half smile as she sips her water. “There are views like this in Montreal.”
“Of course, there are.”
“Nick and I went to Trillium Park not too long ago,” she says as the waiter comes to take our drink order. Em orders iced tea. I encourage her to share a bottle of wine with me, and she says primly, “No, thank you. You know how you get when you drink.”
“Excuse me?”
The waiter shifts from one foot to the other, face pinched. “Shall I come back?”
“No. I’ll have a Stella. The lady just wants iced tea.”
I stare at Emily as the waiter walks off. “Really?”
She shrugs. “You have very little filter even when you’re sober, Calum. I’m not in the mood to babysit you if you get drunk.”
There is no part of me that wants to have an argument with my girlfriend when she’s only just arrived. I have missed her, missed the comfort of having someone around who knows me well.
“So why did you go to Trillium Park?” I ask, trying to change the mood.
Emily is looking at her phone again. “Hmm?”
“You said you and somebody went to Trillium Park, but the waiter came, and you didn’t finish your thought.”
She looks up. “Oh. Nick. The guy in my cohort? We went one day a week or two ago. The weather was as amazing as that view of the skyline. I love Montreal; it’s just the best.”
This feels like a dig. We’re looking down on an iconic view of the Strip in Las Vegas. There are lights of all colors, fountains, and every kind of structure imaginable. It’s not like the skyline of Montreal, that’s true, but it is special in its way. A view I’ve started to value in a different way. The thought of my hometown’s cityscape hurts my heart a little, though. I miss home and she knows it. To remind me of a place I can’t be right now seems cruel. Still, I’m less interested in picking a fight about that than I am in finding out why she was with some other guy in the park.
So, I go for it and ask, “Why go to the park, though? How can you get research done in a park?”
“We were actually just reading case studies,” she says, tight-lipped. “I don’t need to justify it to you.”
The waiter returns with our drinks. Emily glares at my bottle of beer as if it has caused her a great disrespect. She manages a thin smile as she orders a salad for dinner.
“You could have anything on the menu and you’re getting a salad?”
“I’m not very hungry,” she says, looking out the window.
My nostrils flare as I breathe in and breathe out. “I’ll have the sirloin medium, and a baked potato,” I tell the waiter, handing him my menu.
After he leaves, Emily hits me with what’s really on her mind. “Why do you have to make everything so uncomfortable?”
“I’m not trying to make things uncomfortable.”
“I mean, even now, you’re acting like a child.”
I hold her stare until she shakes her head and looks back out the window.
We sit in silence for at least five minutes; the time straining between us. Finally, I attempt to make peace for a third time or maybe the fourth at this point. “What are you working on for your thesis right now?”
Emily brightens a bit at this. She is a true academic, and she’s likely to go on to her Ph.D. next. She never passes up an opportunity to talk about her work and she doesn’t disappoint now.
“Well, remember before you left, and I was working with the local school systems to survey kids regarding their interest in and access to counseling and psychological services?”
“Vaguely.” Now, less than enthused.
“Well, the responses were pretty wild, especially when I compared them to the same survey to their parents, regarding how they felt about mental health care when they were their children’s ages.”
“What is your plan with all of this research?”
“Really?” Emily folds her arms across her chest. “I’ve only explained my goals like six billion times, Cal.”
“I mean, I know you want to get this degree so you can go on to the next one, and then you want to teach at the college level.”
“But the research is important. I’m trying to correlate the changing attitude toward mental health care to the too-slow growth of the counseling and psychological services industry.”
“And how will that help anyone? I mean, it’s not like you’re going to take your Ph.D. in social work and then go help people with it. You’re going to study it, write a paper, and then go teach people about something you’ve never once done in practice. It’s weird.”
“Cal,” she says, her jaw tense with warning, “you don’t need to say every little thing that pops into your head.”
“What? We’re talking about your studies. I’m just trying to understand. What is the point of all of this?”
“See? This is why I hang around with people like Nick, who understand what this work is all about and why it’s important.”
“Nick again. Nick’s a real hero, I suppose.”
“Don’t be an ass.”
“I’m the ass? Emily, you keep talking about this guy like he’s a god or something. I’m starting to feel like maybe I should be worried. What’s going on between you and this guy?”
“Nothing’s going on,” she snaps. “He’s in my cohort. We share similar research interests. I find him interesting.”
“More interesting than your boyfriend, the professional hockey player who flew you in for the weekend because he misses you?”
“You miss your routine more than you miss me,” Emily says.
“No, I miss you.” How many times do I have to fuckin’ say it! “I’m the one calling you all the time, not the other way around.”
“To complain and tell me how much you hate Las Vegas.”
“You’re my partner, Emily. You’re the person I’m supposed to be able to talk to about these things.”
“And yet, you never allow me the same opportunity. You can’t even tell me what my career goals are, even though it’s tantamount to every important thing in my life right now.”
“Well, it sounds like this Nick guy is pretty high on that list right now, too. And I need you to focus on me and not some other guy, especially when I’ve just spent the money to bring you here.”