More Jealousy

"Who ees Amanda?"

"Amanda?" I asked confused.

“Yes, Amanda. zhat’s her name eesn’t it?” Heidi’s accent was getting thicker as she was getting angry and talking faster. “Who ees she?”

Heidi and I were having a picnic at a park near my house in Mountain View. I had prepared a basket of sandwiches, fruit, my potato salad, and a bottle of white wine (a good New Zealand sauvignon blanc) which is actually not allowed at the park. I picked her up and then went back to my house to pick up the picnic (just to keep things as fresh as possible). I noticed that there was a message on the answering machine as we went into the kitchen. I had my cell turned off - no disturbances while I'm with Heidi - so if someone really wanted to reach me they might have tried to call the house. I wasn’t worried about hiding anything from her – so I just hit the button. It was Sarah.

“Hi Rich.” Came the voice from the machine with enthusiasm. “I got your gift. Thanks so much. I really like it. Look me up next time you’re in the neighborhood. Can’t wait to see you again.” There was a pause, and then a “thanks again, bye” in a very sing song voice. Well, at least she didn’t say “I love you!” Why do I even have a land line? Why do I have an answering machine?

Heidi was very quiet as we drove to the park. I thought it was the phone call that she was unhappy about. Once we were at the park she demanded to know who Amanda was, which threw me for a loop. “Yes, zees Amanda, who ees she? I saw the mail on your counter. It was addressed to ‘Amanda’, with your house number on it. You didn’t tell me you were living with a woman.”

“Whoa, slow down. Amanda is Jason’s girlfriend. I live with Scott and Jason. Jason has a girlfriend - Amada. She has been staying over at the house a lot lately.”

“Sleeping there? Getting mail there?”

“Yes, to both questions. But she is Jason’s girlfriend. I’m not his mom. I don’t tell him who he can sleep with or when he can sleep with her.”

“So that was her bra on the sofa?”

Oh, crap. I guess I need to scrub the house before I have Heidi over. Thinking about it from her perspective I can see how this was looking pretty bad. “Yes. Well, she and Jason tend play in the living room.” It was clear that I was offending her Midwestern sensibilities. We have been dating for 3 weeks now and I’ve not so much as made it to first base yet. (Oddly, that does not bother me at all, but that’s a whole different post.)

“And who was that on the phone message?”

I inhaled deeply. “That was Sarah.” I explained about Sarah and how she had recently moved up to Seattle – and that we had been close, but broke up about a year ago. This took a while, and I think she started to calm down. (I won’t post it all here, but these posts have the history of Sarah, this post, the second half of this post and my recent weekend with Sarah.) I left out the part that we were engaged. And I really left out the weekend that we had spent together recently. But I can only think that it would have made things worse. The food was getting warm. This wasn’t the picnic I was planning on.

“Well,” she sniffed, “at least you played the phone message in front of me. You weren’t trying to hide anything.” She paused for quite a while.

“I’m sorry. It’s just…” She didn’t finish the sentence. She was jealous. I wish it had made me feel good. You know, flattered in a way because someone really cares me and wants me. Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but sometimes it exposes how we really feel. There have been times when it is nice to know that someone cares that much, even if they haven’t shown it in other ways. It just wasn’t the case this time.