A bouquet of half wilted roses. A cheap silicone coated whisk. A pint of heavy whipping cream. A package of fresh basil.
John couldn't believe he forgot the basil. The whipping cream, he was OK with, he hadn't figured out what to do for desert until late this afternoon, but basil? He'd had the recipe pinned to his fridge for the last two weeks, had skimmed the ingredients list every morning when he pulled out the milk jug. Oh well, he had forgotten it, but the important thing now was that he remembered it. He shouldn't spend so much time chiding himself. He had more pressing matters to focus on.
He had tried not to think about tonight all day. Actually, he had tried not to think about it all week. His nerves were all twisted in knots. It was exactly one year tonight since he first met Jenny.
Peter had invited him out on his parents' boat. The weather had cooled a bit, and Peter wanted to get some friends together before summer ended and everyone went their separate ways again. It was just an casual day trip. Everyone was asked to bring a potluck dish, and Peter told John he should bring his fishing gear. "Maybe we could have a fish fry? Kara makes a batter that is the bomb."
Jenny was Kara's best friend from high school. Peter knew Kara was still a little uncomfortable around his friends and had encouraged her to bring one of hers. John was thankful to Peter for that. Peter drove him nuts sometimes, but he always watched out for the people close to him. John was selfishly glad that Kara had someone to look out for her because he never would have met Jenny any other way.
The two hadn't really hit it off right away. Jenny was a chemistry major at a small university the the northeast. Although he had taken a few chem classes as an undergrad, he never really liked the subject. He didn't really like any of the hard sciences. He was much more content to sit at a computer, writing code, than he was working in a lab. Jenny never could, and still couldn't, understand how he could stare at a screen that long, deciphering gibberish.
About a month after Peter's party, Jenny messaged him out of the blue. "A friend asked me if I knew anyone who could answer a programming question she has. Would you be willing to take a look?" She attached a screenshot of the code snippet in question. After emailing back and forth about the problem over the next couple of days, their conversation quickly expanded into unrelated topics, and before he knew what he was doing, he wrote, "Would you like to Skype tomorrow night? I have some time between my discussion sections and I figured we could continue our discussion then."
That was the start of weekly Skype sessions that soon became almost daily. They got to see each other maybe once a month, although the winter break had afforded them several weeks together. Jenny had been working all summer at a lab in Tennessee. She had just gotten into town this afternoon, while he was meeting with his advisor. Under the pretense of needing to spend a few more hours on his dissertation, he had finished cleaning his apartment and rearranging the furniture. Now, he just had to finish dinner and arrange the roses on the table before he went to pick her up from Kara's apartment. He just needed to not dwell on tonight for a few more hours.
Part III coming December 9th!
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