Page 3 of Cupid Loves Curves

“Um… Do you cook often?” There’s a hesitancy in her voice.

“Me? No. This is a one-off thing for me. I like the idea of cooking, but as you just tasted, the reality of my cooking is rudimentary.”

“So, can I ask why you were cooking, then? Are you trying to learn?” She asks, sipping her wine. There isn’t a harsh judgment in her eyes or her voice, and it immediately makes me think that she’d be an excellent and encouraging mother. Whoa. Less than thirty minutes with this woman and I’m already visualizing the way our life will go. But when you know, you fucking know.

“Well yes, for this one dish. Thing is, my grandmother comes back just after Valentine’s Day and she always had this on the with my grandfather on Valentine’s Day. It was something special that they did. This is her first year without him, because he passed last April, so I wanted to surprise her and make lasagna for her. I wanted to continue the tradition, even though it won’t be until after Valentine’s Day. I’m sure the reason she took this trip this year, was so that she wouldn’t have to be here and be reminded of what she’s lost.”

“That’s really sweet that you’re doing this,” she says, giving me a smile that makes me feel like she’s looking deep in my soul. She has this quality and I keep checking to make sure it’s real, that I’m not imagining it. We just click.

I’ve always had this image of what the woman I’m going to marry will look like and be like, and Bernadette is exactly that woman. No other woman I’ve ever met comes close to Bernadette. Of all the ways I thought that I would meet the woman of my dreams, I never thought she would just knock on my door.

“I’m thinking I should order delivery or hire a chef to do this for me. This is the fourth time I’ve tried this, this week.”

“Four times!” Her mouth drops open, and then she busts up into the purest laughter I’ve ever heard in my life. She wraps her arms around her pillowy chest and I’ve never been so jealous of another person’s arms, ever. I’m already fantasizing about what her spectacular, large breasts look like and how her nipples will feel on my lips. It’s been a long time since I was with a woman. But watching Bernadette is making my body war with civility and incredible need for her.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, wiping a tear from her eye as her laughter starts to quiet down. “I don’t mean to seem like I’m making fun of you, but it’s…”

I smile and marvel at her frankness, but also at her sincerity.

“No, it’s okay. Truly, it is. I know I’m not a chef. I want to do something special for my grandmother.”

“I understand. I would’ve done anything for my grandparents, anything.” She pauses and looks at me for a long moment. “If I can ask, what do you do?”

“Sure, I don’t have any secrets. I just finished my final tour and am home to build a civilian life.”

“Oh! You seem so…so…”

“Not what you’d expect for a soldier?”

“Something like that. You seem so happy. I always think soldiers must be so serious.”

“A lot are, that’s true. And it’s not always fun and games for me – some things you just can’t leave behind, even when youtry with everything you got. Anyway,” I say, wanting to change the subject. I have plenty of black days, but that’s not what you talk about when you’re trying to impress the woman you want to marry. What I want to focus on right now is Bernadette, not the carnage I left behind. “Tell me about you.”

“Oh, I’m boring. You don’t want to hear that.” Bernadette looks away, and I feel frustrated that she feels this way. How does she not realize how special she is?

“Bernadette, I really do want to know about you.”

“Okay, you asked for it. I’m a copywriter at an advertising firm, downtown.”

“That’s incredible! I’ve always admired people who can write, because I feel like I can barely put an email together. Why are you shy about what you do?” I refill her glass of wine, hoping it will loosen her tongue a little bit. I want to know everything about her.

“Sorry,” she says, looking up at me with her large, blue eyes. “There’s a big corporate dinner two days from now, and I’m dreading going to it. I heard that I was shortlisted for an award, but I surely won’t get it. Other people are doing much more highly regarded work that I am.”

“Why are you dreading going? Are you scared of not winning the award?”

Bernadette sighs and a rush of emotions cross her face. I want to reach out and wrap her in my arms, but something tells me that it’s too soon for that. I don’t want to scare her off.

“It’s going to sound really stupid, but it’s the truth. I don’t want to go because I don’t have a date. It feels like everybody showsup to these things, all partnered up, and then I feel like the third wheel everywhere.” Bernadette blushes and looks away. “Anyway. Sorry. I shouldn’t be complaining to you. Let me show you the letters that I found.”

I don’t say anything as she opens her purse and pulls out a bundle of letters. I immediately recognize my grandfather’s handwriting.

“You have no idea how happy these are going to make my grandmother. I know they wrote letters a lot, back during the war. I know we have email now, but my grandmother would also write to me when I was deployed, and I cherish those letters. I still have them.”

“I’ve always loved letters, too,” Bernadette says, her voice becoming animated. “I wish people wrote letters more today. We don’t think to save emails, but we would save a letter that somebody took the time to write by hand. When I was a kid, I had a pen pal and she would draw me pictures on the sides of her letters. You can’t do that with email.”

I love that Bernadette is old fashioned like this. She’s smart and modern, but she also appreciates tradition. Tradition and family mean everything to me.

“You’re probably going to think that this sounds crazy, but I’m dead serious. Let me take you to this dinner. I would be honored to be your date. What do you say?”

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