Valentine’s Day 1999: “Excerpt” from Never Stop Dancing: A Memoir
I’d never worked on a book before, let alone a project like Never Stop Dancing: A Memoir. My friend and author, Robert Jacoby, interviewed me the year after my wife Amy died in 2010. The interviews became the source for the book. As hard as that experience was, I really had no comprehension of what would come next: editing, re-writing, sending the manuscript out to editors, agents, and publishers for rejection, and so on.
One early bit of feedback we received from an agent was that the reader doesn’t get to know Amy very well. The whole narrative naturally focused on my grief and then with getting on with life without Amy. It was thin on stories about Amy. So, I went back and interleaved into the narrative reflections and memories of Amy. Then, as we were getting closer to publishing, we were guided by an editor to cut the word count down from 120,000 to about 90,000 which is the target word count for most memoirs. A round or two of edits followed. One of the stories that didn’t make it into the final draft was the story of our second date: Valentine’s Day 1999.
Here it is:
Our second date turned out to be a perfect second date. It was also Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day is bad enough on its own, but for a second date? Talk about pressure.
It gets worse: It had been two weeks since our first date. I was eager to see Amy again as our first date went so well but our schedules conspired against that. During a phone conversation as we carefully danced around our schedules and desires, Valentine’s Day, February 14th started to emerge as the most likely opportunity. But with a catch: she had already made plans to go to a late afternoon concert, a classical music thing at George Mason University, followed by an early dinner with another guy! She and I had only had the one date so far and the expectation of exclusivity was not there yet. Amy did her best to convince me they were “just friends.” Hmm. Maybe. None-the-less, I felt I needed to play my hand carefully.
And I wanted to get it right. Our emerging relationship was looking quite promising. I really didn’t want to wait another week. Who knows what can happen with “just friends” you know? But Valentine’s Day for a second date? What to do for Valentine’s Day for someone you’ve just started dating? Or were we actually “dating?” We’d been on ONE date. My wheels were turning.
Valentine’s Day was on a Sunday in 1999. And the following Monday was President’s Day and Amy had the holiday off from work. And I knew from a phone conversation, and that first date, that she was a big Simpsons fan. So, here was the plan I presented to her on that phone call: enjoy the concert and dinner with your “just friend.” Stay at the restaurant, wish him farewell, and I’ll meet you there for dessert. Then we’ll drive back to my place, hang-out, and watch the Simpson’s at 8:00 p.m. I’ll walk you to Metro afterwards. You get two dates with two guys in one day. How does that sound?
She said yes.
But there was more I had to think through. We had a plan but can I just show up empty handed on Valentine’s Day? Even if it’s just a second date? How about chocolates! What woman doesn’t like chocolate? What about roses? Roses are complicated. There is all this messaging with roses. A red rose? No, that might say too much. A white or a yellow rose? Maybe that doesn’t say enough! Sigh.
I went to the drug store and found one of those kid’s valentines, like you’d see elementary school kids exchange. It was a little naked Bart Simpson as Cupid, with wings, from the backside so you could see his butt. He was looking over his shoulder with a grin while holding a little bow and arrow. Turn it over and it says: “Will you be mine, man? Happy Valentine’s Day.” I scratched out “man” and wrote “Amy”, then wrote my own “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
Sunday, Valentine’s Day arrived, and I drove to Old Town, Alexandria and met her at Union Street Public House. I went in, told the hostess I was meeting friends, scanned the dining area, and saw them. I walked over, exchanged pleasantries with her “just friend.” He left, Amy and I hugged, and I sat down. It was as simple as that.
I was so glad to see her again. And she was smiling. A big full happy smile. She had perfect lips and her smile was no different. I no longer worried about her “just friend.”
We exchanged pleasantries, had coffee, paid, then drove to my apartment in the Ballston neighborhood of Arlington. It was a little before 8:00 p.m. I poured us some wine and we settled in on the couch.
As we waited for The Simpson’s to start, I gave her the card and a little box with four Godiva chocolates I had gotten. That was her “Happy Valentine’s Day”. I decided against the rose — too complicated. She seemed to like it, gave me a mischievous grin and kissed me. Later on, she admitted that I nailed it.
After the Simpson’s we remained on the couch and started talking. Quickly we got into the “So-what-is-someone-who-is-apparently-fairly-attractive-with-high-market-value-unattached-in-your-early-30s doing” conversation.
She was recently divorced, which I knew already. From college and grad school at University of Michigan she moved to Florida for work, then from Florida to Minneapolis, and then back to DC. She had moved with a guy from Florida to Minneapolis, married him, then moved back to DC with the thought he wanted to move back here too. He was from the DC area. Turns out he didn’t want to move back, at least not then, “Plus,” she said, “I wanted to have a family, but he didn’t want to have children.”
I said, “Yeah. That’s the same thing that happened in my most recent serious relationship. We were together three years.”
She looked at me, a little taken aback: “You mean you don’t want to have children?”
I said, “No. She didn’t.”
There was a long pause as we stared at each other. Had you been a fly on the wall I’m sure you could see the wheels turning in our heads making sense of what had just been spoken. In that moment we zoomed forward with an understanding of who the other person was and what we were looking for next: someone to create a family with. There we were, halfway through the second date already having cleared a big piece of information that I had wrestled with for a couple years with my prior partner. Amy and I were moving fast.
I then shared with her my fantasy — and I still have this fantasy — of wanting to spend my retirement driving around in my Winnebago, occasionally dropping in on the grandkids.
She just looked at me and said, “I really like that.”
We started making out on the couch then moved to the bedroom. She spent the night.
