Page 8 of Not Your Valentine
Yet no words come to me right now.
Why am I so anxious? I’ve known Taylor for years.
“How were your holidays?” he asks. “You spent Christmas with your family?”
I nod.
“How are they doing?”
“The usual,” I say. “Aside from the fact that my parents were asking me…never mind.” I don’t want to mention how they’re asking about my dating life. Not yet, anyway. And the nice thing about Taylor is that he doesn’t pry. If you clearly don’t want to talk about something, he accepts it. “How’s your family?”
“They’re fine.” He never talks much about his family, and I don’t pry, either. He doesn’t seem unhappy when I ask; he just doesn’t elaborate.
Taylor’s Chinese father came to Canada for graduate studies and met his white, Canadian-born mother while at university. They divorced when Taylor was in elementary school, and he lived with his father. Taylor looks more Asian than white, so I’m guessing he favors his dad, although I’ve never met the man. That’s about all I know; the details of his mother’s absence in his life are a mystery to me, and it never seemed appropriate to inquire further.
“How’s work?” I ask. He’s a social worker, a job that I’d be terrible at, but I can totally imagine him being good at such a thing.
“Not too bad.”
Hmm. Conversation is more stilted between us than usual. Probably because I feel nervous around him today, thanks to that question that’s sitting like a lead ball in my stomach.
I open my mouth, then promptly snap it shut. I think he’ll say yes, but still, I don’t want to ask the question too early because what if he says no and then it’s awkward? A tiny amount of doubt can have a lot more power than it should.
“Did you make any New Year’s resolutions?” I ask instead.
He raises an eyebrow. “Really? You’re asking about that? I know you hate resolutions.”
Okay, this is already a bit awkward so maybe I should just get it over with.
I decide this is the best course of action, yet I can’t get the words out. Instead, my mouth is opening and closing like I’m Lucifer—my fish, not the devil—when he jumped out of his old tank.
“Helen?” Taylor says. “You alright?”
He reaches across the table but doesn’t actually place his hand on mine. It’s an I’m offering if it would help, but I won’t touch you without your consent gesture. Taylor and I usually give each other brief hugs when we say goodbye, but that’s all.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say quickly, not touching his offered hand. “Just recovering from my sprint here.”
“You didn’t have to run. You told me you’d be late because of a raccoon. I would have waited.”
When he mentions the raccoon, I picture a giant raccoon standing in front of me, physically blocking my path, and I let out a strange guffaw.
Yeah, I’m really not myself today.
Taylor raises an eyebrow, and I look away, pretending I’m absorbed in watching the noodle maker stretch the noodles, rather than trying to get my brain under control.
At that moment, the server arrives with our bowls of steaming noodle soup, and I breathe out a sigh of relief. Now I can focus on my food. I use my chopsticks to shove some noodles in my mouth and end up burning myself.
Great job, Helen.
I should have taken all the steam coming off the soup as a Caution: hot sign, but that would have been too sensible.
“You alright?” Taylor asks again.
“I’m fine,” I repeat, then take a sip of my tea, which is now warm rather than hot.
He appears slightly skeptical but doesn’t say anything.
I think of him as a nice guy. Not one of those “Nice Guys” who whine about women not wanting to date nice guys. Taylor would never refer to himself as such, but he is, genuinely, nice.
