Emily (Part Six)

A week after the hospital ordeal, Emily was feeling much better. We decided to have dinner -- this time at my house. I was getting sick of driving all the way to her place, so getting her to agree to dinner at my place was a minor victory.

"What do you want me to make?" I asked.

"You cook?" was her reply.

"Of course I cook," I said. "I'm not a totally helpless bachelor."

"I don't eat frozen foods," she said.

"But we had ice cream last week," I pointed out. "That's frozen."

"Ice cream doesn't count - it's supposed to be frozen."

"Ice cream does count," I argued. "You never said anything about its virgin state."

"Whatever," she said. "I don't eat frozen foods. No frozen chicken, no frozen vegetables, nothing like that."

She never did explain why...

"Okay," I said, and proceeded to throw out a few recipe ideas. Enchiladas. Pizza. Spaghetti.

Her answer was the same each time: "No."

"What do you want then?" I asked.

"I really like pizza from Richie's," she said. "We get it at work all the time."

"Richie's?" I asked. "As in the place that's halfway across the county?" I desperately hoped that there was some other place called Richie's three blocks from my house.

"Yeah, that's the one," she said, confirming my fears.

So much for my minor victory -- I now had to drive an hour, round-trip, to pick up a pizza from this place. And, to make matters worse, Richie's isn't anything spectacular. In fact, I would go so far as to call it underwhelming. It fails to whelm.

Plus, Richie's was expensive -- $18 for a medium pizza.

The evening was already a loss. An hour of driving -- past no fewer than a dozen excellent pizza places -- to buy an overpriced, mediocre pizza, that would undoubtedly be cold by the time I got it back to my house.

Shit.

"I'll make brownies," she said.

Suddenly things were looking brighter.

I drove to Richie's, picked up the pizza, and got home mere seconds before Emily arrived at my door. She carried a round pan. An empty round pan.

"Where are the brownies?" I asked.

"I'm going to make them here," she said.

"With what?" I asked, as she walked into my kitchen and began going through my cabinets.

"Where's your flour?" she asked.

"I don't have flour," I said, surprised that her idea of "making brownies" involved coming to my house and using my ingredients.

"How can you not have flour?"

"It's easy when you don't buy it."

"Sugar?"

"No sugar, either."

"Eggs?"

"I've got eggs."

"I guess it would be a stretch to think that you would have unsweetened chocolate and vanilla extract," she said.

"You guess correctly."

"Where's the grocery store?" she asked. I gave her directions, and she left.

Forty five minutes later, she returned. In her bag was one item -- a store-brand brownie mix.

"How did that take you 45 minutes?" I asked.

"Don't worry about it," she said. "Let's eat!"

The pizza, now just slightly above room temperature, had been sitting on the table the entire time.

"Didn't you put that in the oven to keep it warm?" she asked.

"I didn't think it would take you 45 minutes to get back," I said.

We microwaved some pizza and put the rest in the refrigerator. If Richie's pizza was mediocre when fresh, it was downright repugnant when reheated.

After the pizza, Emily began making the brownies. She measured the oil and water and cracked the eggs. I couldn't be trusted with anything beyond stirring.

"Do you want to lick the spoon?" I asked.

"Lick the spoon?" she said, "who on earth does that?"

This was the exact moment I knew Emily and I would never amount to anything. I have only a few requirements of the women I date -- they have to have at least three of the five senses, they must be employed, and they have to lick the spoon (salmonella be damned.)

I kept my mouth shut as she put the brownies in the oven and set the timer.

"Do you want to watch a movie?" I asked.

"Sure," she said. "What do you have?"

"Have you ever seen Roger & Me?" I asked.

I figured since things between Emily and me were going nowhere, it would be the perfect opportunity to watch a documentary that is definitely NOT a date movie.

I didn't warn her.

"Pets or meat?" she said, reading the sign in the movie. "What does that mean?"

THUNK

"OH MY GOD!!!"

"Oh, yeah," I said casually, "I forgot about that part."

DING

"Brownies are done!" I got up from the couch and poured myself a glass of milk.

Emily sat on the couch, her hands covering her eyes.

"Is it over yet? Tell me when it's over! Pooh! Tell me when it's over!"

It would be over soon enough.

TO BE CONTINUED...