His Secret Virgin

2. Emma

2

EMMA

On my twentieth birthday, my dad had terrible news. Instead of coming home with the usual: a chocolate birthday cake and a bouquet of balloons, he came home empty handed. The look of despair on his face told me that there were more important things to worry about than a missing cake.

“Dad, are you okay?”

He shook his head and looked around the living room. “Where’s Mom?”

“In the kitchen, cooking shrimp alfredo for my birthday dinner.” I didn’t like the way my father was acting. He’d never looked so bad. “What’s wrong?”

Walking past me, he said, “Come on, I only want to say this once.”

I followed him to the kitchen where my mother took one look at him and then dropped the spoon she’d been stirring with. She walked straight to him, hugging him tightly.

“Sebastien, what’s happened?”

“The warehouse is shutting down.” He sighed deeply. “The company went bankrupt. No one from corporate ever mentioned anything about any financial problems. I just got a call from the main office; I was told to tell my people that today is their last day, and that it’s my last day too. Someone came from the bank to lock up the warehouse. It’s been repossessed.”

The shock made me feel numb. My father had been with that company since before I was born. I didn’t understand how an entire company could just up and go out of business like that.

“I guess I should tell Laney at the boutique that I need to work full-time.”

Mom let Dad out of the hug and looked at me with drooping eyes. “Yes, Emma, we’ll all need to do whatever we can to make ends meet until your father can get another job.”

“Celeste, you know I’m not going to find a job that’ll pay me as well as the warehouse.” Slumping over, he made it to a chair and sat down. Putting his head in his hands, he groaned. “I’m forty-six years old; no one’s going to hire me.”

“Well, that’s ageism,” my mother remarked. “I’m only a year younger than you, and I bet I can get a job. Besides, I’m sure there are a lot of managerial positions at any number of companies around here.”

“Not one that pays what mine did.” He lifted his eyes to look around the kitchen. “The mortgage payment alone will wipe out what’s left in our bank account. Then there are the three car payments. The other bills will have to be paid too. I’m afraid we’re going to lose everything, Celeste. You, Emma, and I can all go to work doing whatever we can, but it won’t be as much as I’ve been making.”

“You’re talking like we’re doomed, Sebastien.” Mom went back to the stove to stir the sauce.

I jumped in to help her as I could see from her expression that Dad’s words were weighing heavily on her despite her attempt at optimism.

“Here, Mom, let me help you.”

Handing me the spoon, she went to the fridge and pulled out a beer. Popping the top, she placed it on the small kitchen table in front of my father. “Here, drink this. Hopefully, it’ll settle your brain a bit. We’ll figure things out, honey. I know we’ll be fine.”

After chugging the beer, a thing I’d never seen my father do, he put the empty can on the table. “Not the way we’ve been living, we won’t.”

“So, we downsize,” Mom said with a positive attitude. “It won’t kill us to trade our cars in for cheaper ones. Or better yet, we can trade all three in and just get one.”

Dad looked like he wanted to cry. “I don’t want you and Emma to lose your cars.”

“I don’t mind,” I chimed in. “I’ll do anything to help out, Dad.”

He smiled, albeit weakly. “You’re a good girl, Emma. My little baby girl.”

“I’m kind of not a baby anymore, Dad. I did turn twenty today, you know,” I reminded him.

“You’ll always be my baby girl, Emma Hancock.” Getting up, he hugged me and kissed the top of my head. “Happy birthday, sweetheart. I’m sorry I forgot to pick up the cake and balloons.”

“There’s no need to apologize. I understand completely.” I kissed his cheek, which was bristly with a five o’clock shadow.

Letting me go, he went to the fridge and pulled out another beer. “I wish I could tell you that I’ll make it up to you, but we’re going to have to watch every penny until I figure something out.”

After a solemn birthday dinner, I walked next door to visit my best friend, Valerie. She and I were the same age and had lived next door to each other forever.

She met me at the front door with a small pink bag in her hands. “Happy birthday, Emma!” She held it out to me. “I got you a little something.”

I felt lucky that my birthday had fallen on a Friday. Otherwise, Emma would’ve been at her dorm at Columbia University in New York and not at home. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

Placing the bag in my hands, she went on, “I know that. Just open it.”

I pulled out a small box and opened the lid to find a charm for the bracelet she’d given me when I’d turned fifteen.

“An angel?” I looked at her for an explanation.

“Yes, I wanted you to have an angel to look over you.” She ran her arm around my shoulders and then pulled me to walk with her to the back patio of her parents’ house. “You see, Emma, I feel like you need some type of guardian in your life. You seem to be kind of stunted.”

“Stunted?” I asked, feeling a little surprised by her words.

“Yes, stunted.” She let go of my shoulders to take a seat at the patio table.

I sat down as well and then looked at the little angel with a sparkling clear crystal set in the middle of it. “This is very nice, Val. Thank you so much.” I was trying to put an end to this conversation, wanting to move on from that awkward ‘stunted’ comment.

But she came right back to it. “Emma, what do you want to do with your life?”

And there it is.

“I work at the boutique, and I like doing that.” I put the angel back into the box and back into the pink bag before placing it on the table, feeling a little prickly.

“Working at a boutique isn’t a career, Emma.” Her hands settled on her lap, psychiatrist style—not that Valerie took those types of classes at Columbia. She was majoring in English with the goal of becoming a teacher.

“And what does that mean, Valerie?” I knew what she meant; she meant that I should go to college too.

“It means that you need to broaden your horizons, and that means getting an education.” Her dark eyes peered into mine. “If you don’t want to go the traditional route, you can always get some type of certification. That never takes long.”

“I don’t have anything I want to get certified in.” Then I thought about my father’s job predicament. “Plus, Dad lost his job today. He can’t pay for me to take any classes right now. I don’t have any money saved, and even if I did, I would use it to help out my family.”

She looked shocked. “Your dad lost his job?”

“Yeah.” Fingering the fringe of my cut off denim shorts, I felt an odd sensation in the pit of my stomach. “I think there are a lot of changes ahead for my parents and me.”

“I’m so sorry, Emma.” She looked genuinely sorry, too. “If I would’ve known that, I wouldn’t have brought this up. It’s just that you’re twenty now. A grownup. Not a kid anymore, you know?”

Valerie had always looked out for me. I knew she meant well, but she didn’t understand me for a person who’d known me nearly my entire life.

“I know I’m not exactly a kid anymore. I just don’t know what I really want to do with my life yet. I like where I work now. And Laney lets me help out, ordering the merchandise. I really like that part of the job. Besides, some people do work in retail their whole lives—and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Slowly, she nodded. “Maybe you could be a buyer for a larger store like Macy’s or something?”

She always did think big. But I’ve never cared about flash or grandeur. “I like the size of the store I’m working for now. You might not believe it, but making sure I pick out things that will sell in that small of a shop isn’t exactly easy. The pressure of buying for a department store like Macy’s would just be too much.”

“Pressure isn’t such a bad thing, Emma.” She looked over the thick black frames of her glasses, giving me the teacher’s expression she was starting to perfect. “Sometimes pressure helps build perfection.”

“You just made that up, didn’t you?” I laughed as she shrugged. “I knew it.”

“All I’m saying is that pressure is inevitable in life. Stop running away from it and embrace it.” She pushed the glasses back up on her nose. “I think that’s why you’ve kept all the boys at a distance, too. You’re afraid of the pressure they’d put on you if you let any who’ve made googly-eyes at you over the years do more than speak for two minutes.”

Rolling my eyes, I had to correct her. “I give them all at least three minutes of my time, Val. You know that.”

Shaking her head, she laughed, but she wasn’t done with me. “A guy needs more than three minutes to get to know you—or you him for that matter.”

“I haven’t wanted to get to know any of the guys I’ve met like that. And I don’t want any of them to get to know me.” Besides, there was a bit more to it than that. I sighed. “First of all, you should know something—I haven’t talked about it because frankly, it’s embarrassing. I promised my father that I would let him talk to any guy I find myself interested in before ever going out on a date.”

The look of pure confusion on her face told me that most girls didn’t have the same problem I had. “Why would you make a promise like that, Emma? What is this, the 1950s? Are you insane?”

“No.” But the way she looked at me had me rethinking that assessment. “Look, Dad knows me. He trusts me, and I trust him. And I do believe he has my best interests at heart.”

“You’re fooling yourself, girl.” She leaned back in the chair, fanning herself. “You’re a grown woman now, Emma Hancock. You’re a beautiful young woman, too.” She leaned up, propping her elbows on the table then her chin on her palms. “Maybe it’s time you start embracing that. Hell, you’re twenty, and I haven’t even seen you wear makeup. Let me put some on you before you leave.”

“Oh, no.” I shook my head. “Dad would have a fit.”

Rolling her eyes, she added, “I bet he would. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t wear it if you want to. Do it a little at a time and I bet he won’t even notice it.”

I knew he would. “No. Especially not right now. I’ve never seen him look as awful as he did when he came home today, Val. I mean it. I can’t go shaking things up now.”

Her lips pulled up to one side as she scrutinized me. “There will come a time when you will have to shake things up, little Emma Hancock.”

Well, today will not be that day.