Love’s Complications

How humiliating!  Her younger sister was engaged.  Where did that leave Riley? Just two words seemed to fit:  Old Maid!  The card game they played as kids was obviously prophetic.

Riley knew the word she was looking for was “envy.”  There were eight years between Eden and her, so as children Riley was more babysitter than sister.  They had never been close as far as sharing confidences growing up because of the age difference.  And Riley, being firstborn, was probably subject to over-parenting, while Eden was left to grow up willy-nilly.  Both she and Frank always called Eden the “whiner.”  But now someone was willing to put up with her and she was getting married?

That perhaps shouldn’t surprise Riley.  She disparagingly believed Eden was always in a holding pattern with her career, willing to give it up for a man.  Now she found one.  But did this really mean that Riley had to drive across Pennsylvania, endure the traffic mess around New York to reach Scarsdale and meet Eden’s intended?  She didn’t think so.  Yet her mother was insisting.  Like it was a quick drive there and back?  No, Mother, it isn’t.  Riley thought of the trucks along I-80 and considered her own survival.  What about “work is pressing?”

She called Eden to congratulate her because they were still sisters.  But why was Eden surprised to hear from her?  “Mom told you what?” Eden shouted down the phone.  “I’m not engaged. Yet.  I just told her to be prepared to maybe meet someone I’m dating.   Honestly.  She must be desperate to see one of us married.”

Relief flooded through Riley.

“Steve and I are only semi-talking about the big M, in a very round about way,” Eden admitted.  “He’s in Kenya now.  But if his feelings haven’t changed when he returns, I’m going to force him to drive up to Scarsdale and see Mom.  I had to suffer through his mother, he should get an equal dose.”

“Already mother-in-law problems?  I hope he’s not a mama’s boy.”

“Hardly.  He just laughs her off.  His father’s nice.  I haven’t met the rest of the brood.”

“So there is someone, this Steve guy.  Mom wasn’t mistaken about that at least.”

“Yeah, there’s someone all right,” Eden said with a slight chuckle.

“So, is it love?”  Why was the following pause so long?

“Oh, Riley, you’d have to meet Steve to understand what it is.  He’s—different.  I think I amuse him, which can be annoying as hell.  But he’s generous and fun.  Love?  Am I swooning?  No, it’s like something that’s sort of crept up on me, on both of us, I think.  There’s a warmth with him I’ve never felt with anyone else.  I know I can make a life with him and he’ll always care for me.  Anyway, he hasn’t officially asked yet, so, who knows?  Cart/horse, better to wait and see what develops.  Now what’s with you?”

Riley wasn’t about to lay her life at Eden’s feet, just in case Eden might mention something to their mother, who then might mention something to Riley about—Mike.  So she said, “Work’s exciting and keeps me very busy.  I’ve joined a trivia team. We are so so bad.  But it’s a fun group.”

“I mean—have you met anyone?”

Now she was the one with a long pause.  “Silence is golden, Eden.”

“Okay, so this is a one-way street. I tell you about Steve but you keep your secrets.”

“It’s complicated,” Riley concluded.

But was it complicated?  It should be fairly simple.  Boy meets girl.  They both have good jobs.  They’re both in their middle thirties, never having been married before.  They make love at least twice a week.  Mike seemed to have no Irish Catholic hang-ups about sex.  But so far neither had discussed marriage.  Was it just a relationship of convenience and was that all Riley wanted?  She didn’t know.  But one thing she did know was that she wasn’t going to be some long-term girlfriend, who was dumped when the man she was seeing found someone he really wanted to marry.

The problem was you had to make time for marriage.  A binding relationship takes as much nourishment as a job you love.  Add to that children because she was almost sure that Mike, coming from a large family, would want at least one child.

Then there was her biological clock.  Did she feel it ticking?  Not yet.  Mainly because she was too busy, scrambling to do her job right. But she knew there would come a time when her job wouldn’t be enough to sustain her.

Life was such a quandary and what did Eden’s pause mean when Riley asked about love?  What does love consist of?  That was too philosophical.  Did she love Mike?  Right now, she’d have to say—no.  Did that mean she should break it off with him, even though the sex was rewarding?  Their relationship, she decided was too much a matter of convenience.  And looking down that long road, it was going nowhere.

But—if she broke it off with him, what about her new friends from trivia?  When she could make it, they were such fun nights.  Switch teams?  There was one even worse than Mike’s team.  Buzzers at dawn?

Okay, she knew in her heart she should have never gotten involved with one of Mary Ahern’s relatives and yet she went ahead anyway.  Now she’d have to face the consequences.