Page 8 of The Five Stages of Courting Dalisay Ramos

“I told him no.”

Nicole squeezes her eyes closed, making a disappointed sound. “I knew you’d say that.”

“What! I was flattered, sure, but it’s so bold! He put me on the spot.”

“That’s just how Americans are. They see what they want, and they go for it. Did you tell him about the Five Stages?”

“No,” she says, running her hand along the edge of another bookcase. “I didn’t see the need.”

“You should have said something. You can’t keep expecting people to be mind-readers.” Nicole sighs and throws herself onto a nearby couch, with one leg thrown over the back, and the other draped over the armrest, getting a little too comfortable on the model furniture. Dalisay half-expects Nicole to take off her scrubs and sprawl out like it’s movie night, just as she does at home. There’s no way anyone, even a stranger, could confuse the two of them despite being identical.

“What’s this guy’s name?” Nicole asks.

“Why, so you can hunt him down?”

“Maybe.”

Dalisay would pay money to see that happen, even though Nicole is all bark. “Evan Saatchi,” she says, then adds, shrugging, “Besides, I was thinking about the list …”

Nicole bursts into laughter and opens her mouth to start singing.

“Don’t you dare!” Dalisay exclaims, but she’s laughing too.

“Handsome and sweet,” Nicole chants, pumping her hands like a cheerleader with pom-poms. “And he likes to read—”

“Stop!” Dalisay cries, trying and failing to plaster her hand over Nicole’s mouth.

“Modest, respectful, can’t be neglectful—”

Dalisay successfully clamps her hand over Nicole’s lips, silencing her. “I know! I know! Shut up!”

When she was in middle school, Dalisay crafted a list in her journal meticulously detailing the perfect guy she would marry. She hasn’t seen the journal in years; it probably got lost somewhere in the chaos of going to university, then her father’s death, then moving to San Francisco, but Dalisay still knows the first few entries by heart.

The heading on the lined page, detailed in bubbly flowers, read:Dalisay’s True Love List

1.Handsome

2.Sweet

3.Likes to read

4.Modest

5.Respects his family

When she caught her working on it one day, Nicole teased Dalisay relentlessly for it. She even made up that annoyingly catchy song that the whole family ended up singing for years. As they grew older, and Dalisay’s list grew longer, Nicole said that no guy would be able to meet all her criteria, but maybe, Dalisay thought, that was the point. She knew what she wanted, and she wasn’t going to settle for less. That was the hopeless part of being a hopeless romantic. Besides, the one time she didn’t follow her list, she’d had her heart broken. His name was Luke, and they were nineteen and dumb and she thought she was in love. If it hadn’t been for her older brother Daniel, it could have ended a lot worse than it did.

To be fair, though, based on first impressions, Evan didn’t seem at all like the mistake that was Luke. Unlike Luke, Evan has a certain steadiness about him, a kind of gentleness that makes her feel comfortable and quick to laugh, which makes her feel steady too. Luke barely made her laugh, which should have been a red flag from the start.

Just thinking about Evan still makes her heart race. The way he smiled at her, the sound of his voice, the way he simplylooked at her … If she were more like Nicole, maybe she wouldn’t have shot him down so quickly, but a little voice in the back of her head—one that sounded a lot like her father’s—reminded her:remember where you come from.

Tradition, for someone like Dalisay, is in her blood. Literally. It’s as important to her as it is to the air she breathes. And the Five Stages is the kind of tradition that Dalisay has always wanted to experience. It reminds her that even though she is separated by time from her ancestors, they took the same journey she will in finding true love. It’s like something out of the epic romances or a fairy tale from her grandmother’s books. All that, plus it’s downright romantic.

That’s how her parents met. Dalisay loved listening to her father tell the story about how he had to win her mother’s heart. It seemed like something out of a fairy tale, straight from the pages Dalisay devoured throughout her childhood. Even when the cancer progressed, and he couldn’t sit up in bed, her father would recount how much he loved her mother. Dalisay wanted that too. She wanted the kind of love that lasted. Even after you were gone.

And when her dad died, it was important for her not to be a burden on her mother. She had to be the older daughter, the example, the responsible and mature one who would be helpful to her family. She’s set in her ways, sometimes to her own detriment, for the sake of everyone else. Her love life had to take a back seat.

Perhaps she is a little picky, but then again, she wants to be sure she won’t make a mistake. Not again.

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