Page 7 of The Five Stages of Courting Dalisay Ramos

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Evan says. “I’m not broken up over it.” He’s not one to get hung up on a woman, even if her eyes did sparkle like the night sky.

“At least you know,” says JM. “Now, roll for initiative.”

The second Evan turns the keys, he hears the familiar clip of Tallulah’s nails on the floor as she comes to greet him when he opens the front door.

She’s not as fast as she used to be, and she’s a lot grayer in the snout, but her tail wags high when she sees him, bringing an automatic smile to his face.

“There’s my Ta-lulu!” Evan says, kneeling to pet her. He scrubs his hands on both sides of her long body, and she whines, spinning in circles. At least she never asked him to complete five stages to show his affection for her. “Wanna go potty?”

Tallulah immediately walks over to the coat rack where her leash hangs and Evan snaps it onto her collar. He leads her out to the shared courtyard where she can sniff around and do her business in the dark, guided by solar-powered garden lights in the pathway.

Growing up, he never had pets. His mom was allergic, and his dad didn’t want to deal with the mess. Getting a dog for himself, like buying his own condo with his own money, was the next natural step for independence. His dad tried to tell him getting a dog was a big mistake, especially with his work, and traveling, but Evan didn’t listen. Tallulah has been one of the most stabilizing factors in his life.

“Go poo!” Evan says to Tallulah, unashamed of using the same voice he uses when talking to babies. He’s still jet-lagged, and practically dead on his feet. All he wants to do is throw himself into bed, but Tallulah is on her own timeline, enjoying her stroll in the courtyard garden.

His complex in a quiet part of Noe Valley has four units, all of them two-story condos with their own small but fenced-in backyard and a courtyard connecting all the condos together.Evan’s unit is closest to the alley, quiet and secluded. He often spends time on his patio among the tomato plants and sunflowers to write, read, or eat breakfast in the morning before heading to work. He’s never thought about it until now, but Evan’s is the only condo with one occupant living in it.

All the neighboring units are lit from within, warm and comforting against the night: Ramon and Stephen cuddle on the couch together, drinking glasses of wine and watching TV; the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Kang sit at the coffee table to do a puzzle together; Alexandra pauses her knitting to lean into a kiss from her husband, Andrew, as he bounces their new baby on his hip.

Evan is used to being alone. He’s used to traveling for hours, occupying himself with books, or music, eating solo at a cafe, looking out the window as the world passes below him from forty-thousand feet up. The way he sees it, every single person he encounters in airports, or in hotels, or in restaurants, is living a full life around him—the main character in their own story—and he is just a background figure, a movie extra. He’s not meant for love stories. He’s better off being alone.

“You’re the only girl for me, aren’t you, Tallulah?” he says to her with a smile.

She answers by pooping in the tulips.

CHAPTER THREE

Dalisay Ramos is a hopeless romantic. When it comes to matters of the heart, she trusts hers with everything she has. Twenty-six years on this earth has taught her that love is the most important thing in the universe. It binds everything together, keeps the world spinning. Without love of family, friends, and neighbors, what else is there? Dalisay is sure that true love is real, and it’s what makes the world worth living in.

The only problem is, she hasn’t had much luck in the love department. Her love life, much like IKEA’s winding showrooms, is a labyrinth—full of twisting turns and distractions along the way.

“How about this one?” Dalisay’s twin Nicole asks, standing in front of yet another bookcase. This one is made of wood—or the fiberboard that passes for wood in this part of the world—but would the black paint match? Dalisay tries to picture it, carefully taking in the furniture with a critical eye.

When they were moving abroad, Dalisay packed up her whole life into a shipping container. In transit, one of her two bookcases had snapped in half, and finding a replacement that matched her old one now feels almost impossible. The styles offered in America are totally different than the ones inthe Philippines. Even though she’s the only one who will see it, she cares a lot about the aesthetics of the things around her. She likes organizing her jewelry in neat boxes on her vanity, arranging the books on her shelves by authors’ last names, and sorting her writing into rainbow-colored folders on her computer. Form meets function. Dalisay’s thoughts aren’t so loud when things are aesthetically pleasing. Nicole might call her anal retentive, a neat freak, but what’s so wrong with wanting things to look nice? It makes her happy.

“Hmm,” she says, drumming her fingers on her chin in thought. “Maybe.”

Nicole looks at the name tag and laughs. “I swear, IKEA just smashes keys at this point when naming things.” She looks at Dalisay again, sees the indecision written all over her face, and slaps her hands to her sides and groans. “Oh, come on, Dalisay! It’s just a bookcase! Pick one!”

“I can’t just ‘pick one.’ It has to feel right.”

“I’m going to strangle you.”

Dalisay could remind her that it was her choice to tag along to Emeryville, but Dalisay is more grateful for the company than annoyed, though she wouldn’t share that with Nicole. It comes with the territory of being sisters.

But Nicole doesn’t understand. Nicole’s bookshelf is a rickety one they found in someone’s garbage, Dalisay noted at the time, for a reason. It’s barely holding together. One stiff breeze could knock it over. Dalisay wishes she could be as chill about anything as Nicole is.

“It’s not like you’re making a life-or-death decision,” Nicole says.

“I don’t want to regret it later.”

“It’s. A. Book. Case.” Nicole claps with every syllable. It’s always been this way between the two of them, Dalisay the one to take her time making decisions while Nicole tries to shake some sense into her. Growing up, Nicole was the one to fling herself headfirst into the metaphorical pool that is life, while Dalisay dipped her toe into the shallow end to see if the water was too warm or too cold and then decided to read under a tree if it wasn’t just right.

She’s careful and considerate, personality traits that seem to be a never-ending topic weaponized against her. She’s the good girl, the one who never steps out of line, who does as she’s told. Which is why it was satisfying as hell to reject that American guy on her first day at the new job. She’d meant to tell Nicole earlier, to see if the doctors and nurses at her hospital were as forward as apparently travel writers are.

“So yesterday at work, this hot American dude asked me out,” Dalisay says, as she slides her hand across the smooth wood. “We had literally just met.”

Nicole’s eyes go wide, desperate for a change in subject from IKEA furniture. “And?”

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