Amber's chin

I am nervous at times about bringing Amber out in the evening. In her own words, she becomes grumpy when she misses her 9:30 PM bedtime. I want her to be happy and knew that, owing to her professor springing a paper on her, she was stressed.

Still, she remained interested in going to this murder mystery dinner with my parents and brother. I promised to leave her alone for the remainder of the weekend. It is not as though I am not behind in my writing deadlines, having not updated my Patreon in weeks. (I am working on worldbuilding so that I can prevent other interruptions.)

Outside the Mahoney's Irish Pub, waiting for my family, Amber is fun and flirty, beckoning me over several times so she could kiss me. There was some playful suggestion that she might kick me instead, though it is all kisses. She hangs on the wrong side of a staircase outside. I had been clinging beside her for a while until she jokingly shoved me, at which point I stated that the two-foot fall would surely be my end.

We try the bar, considering getting a drink to while away the time, but a musical duo there is doing their best to sing to a roomful of people who were either ignoring them or dully fixated. They are giving it their all but may not be the musicians one would hire for one's wedding or bar mitzvah.

It has been years since last I set foot in a bar -- so long that the bar has not existed in years -- but I remembered them hipper. This may be the typical Friday evening at a bar sharing a parking lot with the train station. The establishments I have been acquainted with were all in college towns, the clientele thereby thirty years younger than the median age here tonight.

Instead, Amber nestles on a bench at the bottom of the stairs outside, studying a red, hardbound book a thousand pages thick. When my family arrives after half an hour, they peer down at her, ask if she is indeed studying outside a bar, and shrug it off as characteristic. If anyone were going to do something like this, it would be Amber.

The week before, Amber and I had gone to my parents' house for Easter egg dyeing. Then, because all the niblings are in Texas or Boston, we had what passes for an adult Easter, meaning a middling brunch (under purple lights that changed all the mediocre food to unappealing, deceptive shades) and to the Dia Museum. I did not feel a connection to Amber in these things, particularly the museum, though we had gone there for our first date of our formal relationship.

She wandered about the art, largely separate from us. When I tried to make remarks, she did not engage with them as I wished, so I offered these sparingly. She wanted to interface with the art in a way that would not be accessible in the presence of my parents and brother and, by dint of this, me.

Now, I did not feel anything like this. We were closer than when we were in bed every night before sleeping, far more intimate than during the meals I make us.

With my family in tow, we managed to convince the waitstaff to allow us to sit before salads and water glasses. They want to tell us not to bother anything, but I make clear I have no intention of touching anything to which I was not invited, though I poke at my appointed salad when they turn away. I do not waste time when they take our drink orders and bring warm dinner rolls. I am unaware of when next they will feed us. I've never been to such a dinner.

The dinner theater itself has five actors hamming it up and chewing the lack of scenery; in other words, it is entirely charming. They had schmoozed at tables before the play proper, giving us clues and slips of paper with lines for us to say. Seeing them all, I suspect who the killer must be an hour before anyone was shot. Frankly, seeing them bundling out of a car in the parking lot an hour earlier, I had a strong suspicion and am proven correct eventually. The theatrical aspect, at least, was worth it.

Amber giggles as she pulls the eraser off the pencil that she had been given to take notes, carefully putting it in the shell of my ear. She laughs as we deliver our lines. I expect she might turn to abrasiveness as the hour grows later, particularly without proper food. Still, she remains bright even when we return home later than she would like -- but no later than was made necessary by the activity behind us. In the shower the next night, she will bring the eraser again and mentions it a few other times as a charming threat.

Sometimes, long-lasting love no longer feels like a great adventure. I have chased and been chased. I have ached and longed. I have followed my lovers further than I ought to have. Amber and I get locked into routines where we are too busy truly to see one another. Our hours are accounted for -- Amber's more than mine (my workday ends at 3:30, and I learn independently and only to better my writing craft). It is a matter thereafter of not bucking too hard against the clockwork. We don't have these minutes of play between us as before the dinner, the ground on which the foundation of our relationship was built. She does not have the extra headspace for frivolity, only work and more concrete rest.

We talked days before about going on a trip. She said as though for the first time (but perhaps not) that I need only tell her when so she can take off. She notes that we had a trip planned to visit Daniel and Kest when they still lived in Maryland, canceled by the first lockdown. I would not need anywhere extravagant, only a place where we are free of the burden of obligation and could again see one another as we do outside a bar in Poughkeepsie. We need proper dates where nothing is pressing or overdue.

I try to keep out of her way throughout the rest of the weekend, working in my little cushion nook while she studies and types.

Still, we find time to connect again. Walking back from dropping her car off to charge, we pass the fire station where they are having an open house. It is mainly directed toward kids and the parents of kids. She suggests bringing our cat, who would hate all the noise, even if he might be interested by the people. When we get home, she says she would like to return and have a hot dog for lunch. I think at first that she is kidding, but no. I am tired and covet some leftovers in the fridge but must admit that a hot dog at a fire station has more promise of memories than chicken drumsticks.

We gather a hot dog each, chips, and a soda. I suggest sitting on the lawn, away from the area cordoned off for children to spray a soccer ball into a makeshift net using a hose, but she wants to do this properly. We sit at the plastic-covered table where a firetruck had been a few hours before. Amber looks over a printout taped there for a touch a truck event. She figures out the logistics, suggesting that she would like to do one of these, though not this one in specific.

"I can stay awake a long time. I bet I could do it."

She nixes the suggestion of a dance-off. She would like to be still.

I tell her the story of Jennifer Strange, possibly not the first time, who died from water intoxication from a "Hold your Wee for a Wii" contest.

"She should have worn a diaper."

I sip my soda. "I assume that was against the rules."

I know that some of my feeling of disconnection is simply that her schedule harries her. She talks about going to maybe three days a week at her job rather than the four she has been working. As we are not hurting for money -- her biggest monetary complaint is that she might only be able to buy $5000 in bonds rather than the entire $10,000 -- I suggest that this might be a good idea. She needs hours that are not consumed by school and work, and the extra day off a week can only help with that. I want to preserve her as much as possible, as she has to sacrifice things that she enjoys to get the best grades and work overtime on surgeries.

There is no limit to how often I want to be reminded of my love for Amber, which requires the shaking from our everyday existence. I occasionally peer over at her, adoring her silhouette, but she invariably says, "What?" and rolls her eyes, though with a smile. She knows why I am doing it and has the time to want to hear me say it again.

last watched: Disenchantment
reading: Guns, Germs, and Steel