Page 80 of Come Back to Bed
18
Matt
Two weeks into dating, and it looks like I’m going to get a front row seat to Bernie’s psychological makeup.
It’s Saturday morning. An hour after she’s left my bed for her apartment, I hear her running around. I knock on her door to see if she’s okay. She is almost frantic when she tells me that she called her parents to check in on them since they hadn’t been replying to her texts or emails for a few days, and the guy who’s living with them answered the house phone and said that her parents are at the hospital because her dad fell off a ladder.
I’ve never seen Bernadette like this before. She’s not crying, but I can tell how hard she’s trying to keep herself together. Helping her is the only thing that matters to me now.
“I need to go. They never answer their cell phones, even if they have them on them. I have to get to the airport.”
“Where are they?”
“The hospital’s in Burlington. Farm’s just outside the city.”
“Have you bought a ticket yet?”
“No, I was about to go online for that.”
“Don’t fly there, let me drive you. We can take Daisy.”
“What?” She genuinely doesn’t seem to understand what I’m saying.
“I can rent a car. I’ll drive you.”
“Matt, it takes like five and a half hours to drive there!”
“Is it imperative that you get there immediately?”
She exhales. “I guess not. I just want to be there if they need me. God! Why can’t they just answer their fucking phones like normal people?!”
Yeah, she needs to calm down, but I know better than to just tell her that.
“It would still take about four hours just to find a flight, get to the airport, deal with all the airport crap and fly there.”
“I guess.”
“It’s a pretty nice drive, right? And this way you’ll be able to keep trying to call them. You wouldn’t be able to when you’re on a plane. Do you need to come right back or is your plan to stay there to help out?”
“Well…I don’t know yet. It depends what’s going on. Sebastian’s in Hudson Valley this weekend so I don’t expect him to need anything, but I can’t ask you to take that kind of time out of your schedule.”
“You don’t have to ask. I’m offering. I don’t have any meetings on Monday. Daisy and I can get a hotel room in Burlington.”
“No. No, you don’t have to do that. They have five bedrooms. I mean, I have no idea how many people are staying with them right now, but there’s plenty of room at the house. It’s not fancy or anything…I’d love for Daisy to run around the farm.”
“Okay, then. Daisy can stay with you and I’ll get a hotel room.”
“No, I want you to stay there too.” She laughs a little and takes a deep breath. “Thank you. Okay, I guess this is happening. You’re going to meet my parents.”
In less than half an hour, we’re in a rental car headed north. Daisy’s in Bernadette’s lap, and I’ve got a premade Spotify road trip playlist on with the volume turned down low. This is not how I saw my weekend going, and I certainly hope her dad’s okay, but so far I’m pretty shocked by how happy I am. Me and my two best girls are on a little adventure. What more could I possibly want?
Information.
I want information.
I’m going to extract it from her in as painless a way as possible.
“So…your last name is Farmer and your family owns a farm?”
