Emily is surprised when she answers the door, since the maid is so slow.
“Oh My God, Jonathan,” she says giving him a hug.
“Hi Emily it has been a long time.”
Jonathan is a tall Afro American, with light brown eyes and chestnut skin. Emily grew up as Jonathan’s neighbor. As a child she was adopted by a middle class family that lived south of Chicago. Her parents died in a car crash when she was only four years old.
Richard comes into the room when he hears the commotion; he sees Emily in Jonathan’s arms and is jealous.
“Well, well, look who we have here,” he says.
“Richard, old man, it has been a long time,” John says shaking his hand.
Emily grins as she remembers.
Flashback: Little Emily sitting on the front porch of her new home playing with
her puppy. John walks up and rubs his hand on the dog’s soft furry head, and the dog licks his hand. John was the first child to approach her in the neighborhood and they were inseparable after that.
Emily becomes aware that someone is speaking to her.
“I’m sorry John come in for a drink, at least.”
“Emily”, Richard says, “I just invited him for dinner and he accepted.”
“Great, let’s have a drink first.”
They make small talk as they have their drinks. Then Jonathan shares some interesting news.
“It seems your daughter is dating the son of a friend of mine.”
Emily drops her drink and Richard gets up to clean up the mess.
“I’m sorry,” Emily says in a daze.
Jonathan smiles trying not to laugh.
“She told us about Joshua but she didn’t mention his last name, of course she has no way of knowing her mother’s dating history,” Richard says looking at Emily who seems in another world.
Flashback: John and Emily playing doctor behind John’s house, and getting caught by his Mom. They were behind the shed and Emily had shown John her private place and when John pulled his shorts down, Emily looked curiously at what was between his legs. About that time his Mom had come from around the shed with a tree branch, looking for them.
“I told you two to stay where I can see you,” she said.
They run in different direction to get away from her. She always did that poor Emily wasn’t used to spankings, but John had told her his Mom’s bark was worse than her bite.
When they were teenagers they lost their virginity together in the back seat of John’s car, it was a very technical occurrence for two very naïve teenagers.
“Are you sure that’s right,” Emily kept saying.
John always encouraged Emily to go for the best, though he went to a special advanced high school, they were both Valedictorian of their respective senior classes. Also they both received full scholarships to Yale. They dated two years at Yale, then she couldn’t take the challenges of interracial couples any longer, despite her civil rights activism and she broke up with him.
She continues to attend the Yale class reunion always hoping he will show up, he had only showed up at the ten year so far. She realizes her thoughts of him border on adultery, becomes she does love Richard but in a different way.
“I actually came to the area for meeting and thought I would come by and visit,” he says.
They shared many memories of Yale at dinner, Richard and Jonathan had been in the same fraternity. Emily and John’s dating had always irritated Richard though he had been with Pinalynn Lot so he had no reason to say anything.
Emily was very quiet at dinner, listening to John’s voice and trying not to be obvious about it. She had missed him at times. He and Richard are so different, except they both are very wealthy. John was always good with his hands, a very talented artist.
“So are you still an architect?”
“Yes, now I have my own business with three locations throughout the Northeastern part of the country.
“Splendid, let’s go in the other room for dessert, shall we?” says Richard.
“Let’s,” echoes Emily.
John leaves that night with a promise to come back to see them soon.
