Chapter 2: Evolution

Craig Warren was happy with the date at the zoo. As much as he enjoyed -- needed -- the making out at the end of their dates, he understood that Alicia was less comfortable with it in the late afternoon.

On the other hand, he had her company for a longer time, and she’d held his hand in public. “This is my woman,” even if it was in front of a bunch of total strangers. More than that, she had been obviously happy.

When he called that night, he had the movie for next Friday selected. Alicia said yes.

The rest of his life was also going well. He had started work with a student debt that he thought of as “More than an eighth of a million dollars.” His salary was also more each month than he’d ever made in a summer. He’d decided to put aside $20,000 a year for servicing that debt, putting everything over interest into paying down principal.

When he got a significant raise after his first year, he’d raised the debt-service part from $833.33 per pay period to a nice, round $900 per pay period. With his last raise, he’d set aside $950 per pay period.

As the principal went down, of course, the interest did as well. He expected his student debt to be less than his annual salary before Christmas.

Despite his expenditures to reduce the debt, his bank account was looking solider than he’d ever expected it to. Then, too, it looked as though his car would last longer than the car payment did. Come the next August, he would have more coming in -- he’d begun to take the annual raise for granted -- and less going out.

Some time in his relationship to Alicia, he’d gone from asking whether she was the one to thinking that it was too soon to propose. He had no idea about her financial situation, and thought it improper to ask until he did propose. Still, she must pay rent. Even if they couldn’t live in his apartment, and that would be close to her niece which was a positive, they could certainly get an acceptable place for less than the sum of their current rent bills.

And, if they were to start a family, the median family income was something like $50,000 a year. He made a lot more than that now. They could get by on his earnings.

Al enjoyed Friday’s date. The movie was a romance, and Craig hugged her shoulder tight during the intimate scenes. They didn’t exactly play footsie in the restaurant, but Craig stretched out his long legs, and their ankles crossed.

“When you get to your sister’s place tomorrow,” he said, “why don’t you call me? I’ll walk you from there.” At the time, it seemed perfectly reasonable.

She used the facilities before leaving the restaurant. Craig’s first kiss was as desperate as ever. Then he nibbled her ears and all over her neck. He lifted her to kiss her breasts through the blouse. Her hard nipples could feel the suction through blouse and bra.

They now stayed in a dark corner away from the stairway, and people in the building didn’t object. She was shocked, though, to discover it was after midnight when she went to bed. How long had they made out, anyway?

She called Craig from Deb’s when the last book was found. He came running up behind them before they got to the second corner. She turned around when she heard the steps, and her jogger’s judgment was that he had nice form.

“Cray!” said Anne. “Pome.”

“They aren’t pomes. They are poems. Can you say ‘po-em’?”

“Poem.”

“May I please have a poem?” she put in.

“Cray, may I please have a poem?”

He swung off his back pack and extracted the sheet. “You have to be very careful and hold both our hands while crossing the street.”

“Okay.”

Craig handed over the poem, and Anne -- prompted by Al -- thanked him. He took the books she was carrying and put them with his in the back pack. When they got to the next street, Craig grabbed Anne’s wrist. She was still clutching the paper.

She thought his concern for Anne’s safety endearing. So, for that matter, was his emphasis that she pronounce ‘poem’ correctly and ignore her missing the G in his name. She was finding way too much about Craig endearing these days. She’d seen where that got Mom -- where it got Deb for that matter.

Craig was a damn sexy guy. She’d push this making out further when she got the chance. Hell! She’d never intended to die a virgin. If this thing with Craig lasted long enough, she’d take him to bed. What she would not do was pin any hopes on making it permanent. She had her life, and it did not depend on any man. And it never would. She’d seen where that led.

Much as she loved Anne, she did not envy Deb one bit. Because she loved Anne, would love her own even more, she wouldn’t bring a baby into the world to raise it as a single parent.

Meanwhile, they walked together to the library. Craig was enjoying himself, enjoying Anne, and -- really -- enjoying being with her.

Saying that he was better than Pete was damning with faint praise, but one contrast with Pete was that Craig was a happy guy. She’d been suspicious when Craig enjoyed Anne, but Craig enjoyed most things.

“Tell me,” she asked suddenly, “do you enjoy programming?”

“It has its ups and downs. It’s not really like sudoku or a jigsaw puzzle. Those are designed by somebody to have one right answer. But, like them, you struggle and sweat and then something clicks.”

After a long while he said, “You like kids. Sure, the preschool has frustrations. Some kid cries inconsolably; another is violently aggressive. You haven’t spoken about lice infestation, but they must happen. Still, why would someone go into a field they didn’t enjoy?”

“That’s true.” Really, though, people did work they didn’t enjoy all the time. Deb was a perfect example, though she used to enjoy sitting on the other side of bars. The Craigs of the world didn’t do work they didn’t enjoy partly because they enjoyed a lot of things -- and partly because they were good at a lot of things.

“If you had to teach, what would you teach?” she asked.

“Probably math.”

“But you read so much. Why not teach English?”

“I don’t read that much. They distinguish between literature and fiction. Besides, I was always better in math. You know, studies suggest that something like 40% of college graduates don’t crack book one after graduation. Apparently, that includes novels.”

“Well,” she admitted, “I haven’t read anything since I graduated ... unless you included ‘Green Eggs and Ham.’”

“‘Hop on Pop’ is definitely the better book. Well, you’re a recent graduate. This includes people who got out of school years ago. Even so, they can’t count children’s books. All parents read to their kids, at least.”

She wasn’t so sure. Deb read to Anne, but would she have done so if Al hadn’t brought books into her apartment. Pete never had, but Pete was a parent only in the biological sense.

Still she had her answer. Craig enjoyed programming. He would enjoy teaching English -- teaching was frustrating, but he’d enjoy teaching the subject. He’d enjoy teaching math more. They’d never hire him to teach pre-K, but he would enjoy that. He enjoyed reading; he enjoyed watching plays; he enjoyed eating a wide range of cuisines.

Some things, like plays and zoos, many people enjoyed. Craig, though, enjoyed life.

At the library, Craig returned the books, hers as well as his. She and Anne went into the children’s area while he got his books. Soon after he joined them, thunder that sounded like the crack of doom shook them. Even Craig jumped. Minutes later, rain lashed the windows.

“Well,” Craig said, “if you have to be stuck somewhere, this at least has enough books.”

And, for a time, it was fine. Craig sat on the floor with Anne on his lap and a book on the low table in front of them. She left them there long enough to call Deb from the entryway. Deb was at the laundry. She had enough coins to dry without coming back, and she’d stay there until the rain stopped or Al called again. She took Anne to the ladies’ when she needed to go.

“If you don’t like Chicago weather, wait fifteen minutes,” Craig said. They waited fifteen minutes; they waited forty-five minutes. “Look, I live close,” Craig finally said.

“If Anne goes out in this, she’s going home where she can change her clothes.”

“I should have said that I park close. If I run home and get the car, can you handle my back pack?”

“Sure.”

“Okay,” he said. “Wait in the entranceway. If your cell rings look out before answering it.”

She shouldn’t have been so certain about his back pack. It weighed a ton even before she got Anne’s book and the much-crumbled poem inside. Still, there was a shelf in the entranceway it could rest on until she heard Craig’s special ring tone. Then she looked out, and the back door of his car was swinging open.

They ran for the car, and she got Anne inside.

“Cray,” she said. “I’m hungry.”

“Well, we’re going to get you home where you can have a warm meal and dry clothes. Before we can, however, you have to fasten your seat belt.”

She got Anne’s belt and her own fastened. “All secure,” she said. Craig tossed a plastic bag over the back of the seat and swung into traffic.

“Know where your sister is?” he asked. “The bag’s for your books.”

“Probably at the laundry.”

“I’m already wet. If I could offer her a ride, I wouldn’t get any wetter. Why don’t you call her and ask whether she’d like it. You could vouch for me ... If you think that’s honest, that is.”

So, they did it his way, though she had to smile at his picture of Deb’s being reluctant to get in a car with a strange man. Pete had picked her up in a bar, for heaven’s sake.

She had Anne stripped, toweled off, and into new clothes except shoes when Deb came in.

“Your guy hauled the laundry up the stairs,” she said. “Nice guy, and built. Totally vanilla, though. Called me ‘ma’am.’”

“He worried about you being unwilling to get in a strange car. I prefer him with a few illusions about my family.”

“Well, you told me what the car looked like, and he had my number. I wouldn’t have gone with a stranger.”

“Comfy?” Craig asked when he called that night.

“Getting there.” She was alone in the apartment -- it was Saturday night, after all -- and she settled onto the most comfortable chair in the living room.

“Because I have all sorts of issues. First, did you like the zoo trip?”

“It was marvelous,” she said. “I told you that.”

“Yeah. I had thought you enjoyed it, but that might have been projection. Anyway, would you be up to another Saturday excursion, this time to a museum, the Art Institute?”

“That would be fine.”

“Pick up same time?” he asked.

“Great.”

“Second, Anne seemed to crumple the poem. I’m printing them on my computer, and two copies is the easiest thing in the world. How about I give her one copy at the beginning, and give you another copy for permanence at the end of the visit?”

“You’re too generous.”

“Two pages every two weeks. That’s 52 pages a year, a ream a decade. Before that happens, she’ll either lose interest or get her own e-mail account and I can send them without paper.” He was thinking of being in contact with Anne for a decade. Did he think that he and she would last a decade? Ken had been her only romance which had lasted a year, and that included a summer of three letters on his part.

“That doesn’t say you’re not being generous.”

“You said something, albeit something negative, about the two of you visiting my apartment. My horror wasn’t based on the general idea; it was based on my picture of how my apartment looked. Well, with a little prep time, it could look as though I lived neatly. Two weeks would be plenty of time to clean up. Would you consider bringing her back here after the library trip? We’d walk right past a pizza place, and we could eat when we got here. We could read her books, and your sister would have time to finish the laundry.”

“Now, you’re being more generous.”

“I’m not inviting her here alone. No, seriously, with your chaperone present, you’d be perfectly safe. If you do not approve of pizza, you could give me a shopping list, or your sister could.”

“I’ll think about it, and I’ll ask Deb.” She’d dream about it, and the dreams wouldn’t involve Anne.

The Art Institute trip was better than she had expected. Craig didn’t try to drill culture into her, and there was much more than she had expected.

At dinner, she broke the news that everyone was fine with pizza at his house. “Of course, I didn’t really raise the question with Anne. Between pizza and Cray, though, her acceptance is guaranteed.”

“I love the way she says my name. Well, I’m glad. I’ve been vacuuming, and I wouldn’t want that effort to go to waste.”

“Got a hiding place for all the Playboys?”

“Welcome to the Internet age. There’s not a Playboy in the apartment. I understand that the magazine is really feeling the competition from all the free porn. But all my downloads are encryption protected. Even if Anne types away at the keyboard she isn’t going to find anything not age appropriate.”

Again, she used the restaurant facilities to make sure that her bladder didn’t interfere with their parting petting.

The next date was another play on Friday night. This time it was a dysfunctional family, and they sat so close that she felt almost part of it. The audience applauded at the end. Presumably, it was more fun for those from functional families.

They did their usual at the library. Then, on their way back, Craig stopped at a pizza shop.

“Anne,” he said. “Would you like to get some pizza and eat it at my place?”

God! She had forgotten. Still, that was a totally rhetorical question. Craig decreed that she would choose the toppings, probably trusting her to know what selection made Anne sick. She didn’t, but judged conservatively. They walked to a place that was closer to Deb’s place than either was to the library. Craig let them in, and escorted them up to the third floor.

There were three doors off the living room; the kitchen was sort of closed off, but there was no door. He hung their coats in the closet, and that was one door. He told Anne that she had to wash her hands before eating, and he opened the door to the bathroom. When Anne saw the toilet, she obviously needed to use it. Al shut the door with them inside. For that matter, she needed to relieve herself again. Probably her bladder had swollen so large that night that it hadn’t properly emptied itself the first time.

When she came out, there was one door that hadn’t been opened. That was his bedroom, and she flushed at the thought. Somehow, bedrooms and Craig were an embarrassing combination.

Craig served up the pizza on plates but without silverware. Anne really dug in, but she was the first finished.

“Are you totally finished, Anne?” Craig asked. Anne nodded. “Then we need to wash our hands again. Then we can read a book.”

What Craig announced as the “Official Warren-family method” of reading “Hop on Pop” was for him to lie on his back on the floor with Anne sitting on his stomach. Al suspected that his mom hadn’t allowed that method right after lunch. Well, she’d be embarrassed if Anne barfed on Craig’s carpet. If he did it himself, it would be his own fault. She ate more and more slowly, finally finishing Anne’s second piece.

“I think we need to go now,” she said when the second book was finished. She washed her hands. When she came out, Craig had Anne into her coat.

“Want a doggie bag?” he asked.

“I think I have used up my month’s diet allotment for pizza.”

The walk wasn’t long, and her two companions were perfectly happy. She should have been, too, but she was getting too involved with Craig. This guy was destined to break her heart.

Craig called that evening. He always called on Saturday evening, even when they had spent the afternoon together.

“Love you,” he said. He closed the call before she could respond. For that matter, she couldn’t figure out her response before she went to sleep that night. She did love him, but she suspected that what she felt for him wouldn’t satisfy him.

She woke to her alarm Sunday morning. So she could have the disorientation of the much earlier rising on an off day instead of a work day. She ran, but her time was way off.

The next date was fun although they probably both felt awkward. She dropped his hand three times in the museum. On the way to the restaurant, she heard a ring tone that she didn’t recognize.

“Have to take this,” he said. He turned into a side street and parked in somebody’s driveway. “Yes, darling,” he said. She got immediately jealous. Did he think she’d been too demanding? Was this his way of blowing her off? If so, why the “I love you” so recently.

“Now, then,” he was saying. “You adored him nine years ago, and he’ll be your protector nine years from now ... Sure, but don’t talk as though it’s permanent ... Look, it’s a one-bedroom apartment. Even with your mother’s permission, you and I would have to tread carefully around each other. You think making your bed now is an imposition, consider making up a bed on a couch each night and stripping it completely each morning ... Don’t you think it’s a little one sided. You say that you love me, and you say that if I loved you I would wait on you hand and foot. Well, once I changed your diapers, but you needed that then. Today, whatever you think, you need structure, discipline, and some jobs to do ... Well, Mommy feeds you. On the street, meals cost five bucks, probably closer to ten, each. Three a day, that’s upwards of a hundred five a week, and that doesn’t count the snacks and soft drinks you gulp down...

“After a week without a bath,” he continued after listening for a long time, “you start to smell as though you hadn’t had a bath in a week. Grocers are suspicious of that sort of character. Well, after you got arrested, you’d get your bath and your food compliments of the county. You might not like the menus, though ... And I love you,”

“Life is tragic when you’re thirteen,” he commented when he’d put his cell away and started them on their way again.

“Maybe life is always tragic, and we feel it more when we’re thirteen.”

“Well, we feel everything more when we’re thirteen. Her brother is ten, and she hates him. Her mother -- my sister -- wants her to clean her room and make her bed, and she thinks it’s slavery. It is, but not in the direction that she thinks. Sis is ten years older than I am, and I was something between a playmate and a parent to the kids.”

“I stopped being jealous,” she said.

“Because I said, ‘I love you’? Well, you love Anne, and I don’t get jealous. I love you, and I love her, and -- for that matter -- I love Anne. They’re different sorts of love.”

There was that declaration again, and she couldn’t respond. They got to the restaurant, one in the loop with high prices.

“Can you really afford these dates?” she asked.

“Darling, I’m paying for them in cash. People who pay with credit cards might not have the money, but people who pay cash clearly do. I told you I program computers, didn’t I?”

“Yeah.”

“Pays better than early-childhood education -- not counting the hugs.”

“Well you don’t have to take me to high-end restaurants every time.”

“I don’t,” he said. And, while they hadn’t eaten in McDonald’s, he hadn’t taken her to a restaurant that expensive before.

Craig was overjoyed at her concern. If she worried about his spending, she was considering them as a couple with a couple’s resources. She was seeing him as someone with whom she shared a future, and after the last week, he’d been worried.

Well, if it was too early to propose, it was way too early to discuss joint budgets.

“Did you really change diapers thirteen years ago?” she asked out of the blue.

“Not thirteen years ago. For one thing, I was just twelve that Christmas. For another, infants are rather delicate, and their parents feel that they are even more delicate. They don’t trust infants to grade-schoolers. Teddy, on the other hand, was born in February. He was nearly a year old when I met him, and they trusted me to change him. I was fairly experienced by then. The family only gets together at Christmas.”

“Plays cost more than movies don’t they?” she asked.

“Generally. I think both cost more downtown.”

“Well, you don’t have to take me to plays at all. The truth is that I enjoy movies more.”

“Well, that’s decisive then,” he said. “I can afford the plays, but that was an experiment. We learned from that experiment. If you hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have learned, and I’m the guy who’s doing the choosing. Your knowing that you’re not going to enjoy the experience doesn’t do us any good if I plan the date. Maybe you could participate more in the planning.” We are a couple, and the more that Alicia thought that, the better they would be. Well, the better Craig would be.

“I’m not sure. You take me to all these restaurants, different sorts of restaurants. And I’d never have thought of the museums.”

“Okay, they were both successful experiments. We learned that plays don’t interest you that much, and we learned that some museums do. The zoo was a great experience, but a little late in the year. It’s an outside event, and it’s turning cold.”

“You’re more cultured than I am,” she said.

“Sweet, I walked by those store-front theaters for three years without buying a ticket. I just wanted to be with you, and the city doesn’t provide dances like campuses do.”

He parked as close as he could, which wasn’t very close. When he’d opened the passenger-side door and helped her out, she allowed him to take her hand. He let go so she could use her key on the two doors, and they both turned to their corner. He held her face in his hands for the first kiss, and he could feel her mouth smile.

He stroked down her face, her shoulders, and her breasts. He lifted her by her waist, and pressed her against the wall while still kissing her. She was wearing slacks for the museum, and she put her legs around his hips. He broke the kiss and lifted her more. Her legs went around his waist, and he kissed her breast.

Holding her against the wall with his body, he dropped a hand to her ass and scratched across it. She grabbed his hair, and he got the other hand on the breast he wasn’t kissing. He sucked one nipple and tweaked the other.

When he grabbed both hips and moved back from the wall, she was slow to relax her legs. He set her down, turning her as he did. Then he turned her to face the wall and lifted her again. He pressed himself against her sweet ass until that supported her weight. He grasped both breasts.

He kissed down the side of her neck until she jerked in response. Then he kept kissing there and stroking his fingers over the peaks of her breasts. She tried to wiggle, but his arms were close enough to her sides so she couldn’t escape.

When he lowered her again, he turned her to face him. He held her face while his tongue explored her mouth. When her hands went around him, he took her breasts in his hands again.

When they finally broke, he watched her go up the stairs. Her ass clenched at each step, and she almost staggered.

Then he took himself home and took care of the hard on, if not of the desire which caused it.

“Love you,” he began his call. “I’ve been thinking. We gave Anne pizza for the first visit. If we do two in a row, it becomes the pattern and breaking the pattern will disappoint her. If you want a healthier menu, then we need to do it this Saturday. Why don’t you consult with her mother and send me a shopping list. Warning! Almost anything beyond opening a can is beyond my culinary skills. I do the shopping, but you do the preparation. Second warning. Send me a list of what you’d buy, but also send me a list of what is needed but every cook already has. Do you have my e-mail?”

“No.” He gave it to her.

“Well, you’d have to think about that before you send it. That takes care of the practicalities, but the real reason I call is to hear your voice. How have you been?”

“I had a great trip to the museum this morning,” she said.

“What a coincidence, so did I. I had much better company, though.”

“Now, you’re fishing.”

He said, “No, the Aquarium is for week after next. Seriously, Hollywood keeps churning out movies, but there are only so many museums in Chicago. This one was fun, but is it worth a repeat? Not soon, but someday?”

“I think so. We only saw a fraction of it.”

“Well, we only saw a fraction of the Art Institute, too. But...”

“You’re so sensitive,” she said, “and so accepting of my ... intellectual dullness.”

“Darling. You’re many things, but dull isn’t one of them. I take you to a place, and you think I’m showing you one of my favorites. The truth is that you saw the Art Institute in your first year in Chicago, and I saw it only in my fourth year in town. Even then, I paid less attention to the pictures than to the pretty girl walking beside me.”

“You read more than I do.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. He read almost compulsively. “And I cannot understand how you get a degree in early-childhood education without reading ‘Winnie the Pooh.’”

“Well, we read Doctor Seuss in my practice-teaching.”

“But sitting on chairs. That’s not the canonical method.”

She laughed. “I hate to break it to you, but your family’s methods haven’t penetrated the pedagogical curriculum.”

“I love you.” And he hung up before she needed to lie.

She sent him a shopping list, Central was hamburger meat and buns. That -- he replied -- he could cook. He could probably follow the directions on the frozen peas, as well. She’d sent directions on how to prepare the salad before heading to the library, but she’d written that she would toss it. He got all the ingredients on Thursday.

Friday, they went to romantic comedy. Not only did she allow his arms around her shoulders, they held (left) hands as well.

Afterwards, she was wildly responsive. He managed to leave her without violence and to get home without disgracing himself. He didn’t bother with Internet porn. He merely had to close his eyes to see a sight sexier than the sexiest pose on the ‘net. Maybe a minute later all his desire shot out of him, and he flushed it down. Alicia was the sexiest woman he’d ever dealt with, and he hadn’t even had her clothes off yet.

Al was really enjoying her dates. Some of the movies were better than others, but all of them had Craig’s arm around her and her hand in his. Some of the museums were more interesting than others, but all of them were with Craig and they seemed to hold hands through most of them.

The drives and the meals meant a great deal of conversation, having him appreciate the small triumphs and large concerns that punctuated a teacher of pre-K classes, listening to him speak and getting insights into a stable family, two stable families his parents’ and his sister’s. He avoided describing his job, and -- when he slipped -- she saw why.

Part of the pleasure of the times with Anne was having a partner in entertaining her and exposing her to the pleasure of books. Craig called it seducing her into reading.

One pleasure which the times with Anne didn’t allow was the “good night kiss,” which had evolved into long sessions making out while standing -- Craig -- leaning against the wall or being lifted -- her. The weather had turned cold enough that they wore heavy coats, and she got to her room dripping with sweat. Still, the experience was worth it, and the wettest part of her anatomy was never her armpits. She finished those nights hugging her pillow and imagining that her finger was his.

Of all of the museum trips, the Planetarium was nicest. They sat way back in soft theater seats and held hands while being educated. She was in a great mood until they got to the restaurant and had ordered. Then Craig broke it.

“Look, I have some news,” he said. His tone made her think he was going to break it off. His news was probably that his college fiancee had moved to Chicago and he was going back to her. “I think I’ve told you that my family spends Christmases together...”

He was never going to get to the point. “Look, Craig, is this good news or bad news?”

“I hope you think it’s bad news. I’m going to Denver for Christmas. It’s really only two weeks, but it’s three weekends. I made the reservations months ago. You have to when you fly around the holidays.”

Well, it wasn’t good news, but it was better than she had thought. “When do you leave?” she asked.

“Late December 16th. I get back the afternoon of January second. I probably should have told you sooner, but that would have sounded like taking our dates every weekend for granted. I have to tell Anne, too, but I don’t want to tell her until the last time before I leave.”

“She’ll be devastated.”

“Her time horizon is shorter than yours,” he said. “You’ll know that I’ll come back to you, if only next year.” The joke was too feeble to deserve a response, even a comment on how feeble it was.