This morning had not been the first birthday surprise That had been the day before. She had insisted we spend Saturday night at my place. Our Saturday night hadn’t been so different from others, a pizza dinner while we snuggled up to a movie, The Graduate, which to her astonishment, I had never seen. Of course, she had chattered through the movie prompting me to remind her why we couldn’t see movies in the theater.

“Oh, it has nothing to do with your preferred movie watching position, you couch hog.”

“Hey, those seats don’t provide enough leg room for me. Besides, at the movies we can’t hit pause while we do this.”

That’s when I rolled her over and pinned her underneath me, for an intermission from the strange, dreamlike movie, perpetrating a make-out session that would have been a little too racy for the theater.

As soon as the movie was over she had suggested we go to bed. At the time I hadn’t understood why she had wanted to call it an early night since we usually liked to watch a little SNL on Saturdays. Perhaps it was our amorous mid-movie break that made her want her get to the bedroom sooner. In the end, it didn’t matter how early we got there; we were still up really late due to the languid nature of some extended bedroom fun.

Currently, as I stood under the massaging jets of the morning shower, the warmth of the steam and relaxing effect of the penetrating spray lulled me back to the dream state of this morning. How different it was this year with Pam in my life, waking up with her by my side, or in this case on top of me, instead of having to leave her behind in my dream as I woke up alone in my bare, Connecticut apartment with only memories to wish me a happy birthday.

Yesterday morning I woke to a dream, nowhere near as strange or quite as sexy as the one I awoke from this morning, but it had still been nice enough for me to be irritated when it was disrupted by the grating hum of the alarm, not normally set on weekends. I closed my eyes and it was yesterday again, my first birthday with Pam was just beginning.

---

Why on God’s earth is this on? Did I set it?

I had been dreaming, of what I had no idea, it was gone the minute I heard the buzz. The only part I could remember was Pam, but she was always in my dreams, had been for 4 years now. Only now, when I woke up, she was still there with me. Only this morning she was not.

Pam was not necessarily an early bird, but she certainly was an earlier riser than me, today being no exception. But it was strange she was already gone from her side of my bed. I suppose, she’d snuck away to prepare for some birthday surprises away from my prying eyes.

Ah yes, my birthday.

As a kid, I got super-jazzed to celebrate with a party and presents and cake. But now that I’m in my late 20s, this my last year in my 20s, I think of it like any other day. Before last year’s birthday, by far my most subdued to date, the last few I’d celebrated were pretty tame; dinner with my folks, drinks with friends, calls from my siblings. Really the only big deal that was made was at the office and usually entailed a party that included an ear-splitting rendition of Happy Birthday sung in various discordant intonations by my co-workers and a visit from the blow-up doll that normally took up residence in the warehouse downstairs. This year will be interesting, among the festivities will be the debut performance of Andy and Michael’s competing falsettos and my cake will probably say Happy Birthday Jimmy. Plus, with the camera crew so laser focused on Pam and me, now that they knew, they could wind up exposing the secret we managed to keep hidden from our co-workers the whole summer.

But this year would also be different because I have Pam to celebrate it with me, and not just at the office. In past years on my birthday she went beyond everyone else, was the first one to wish me well when I walked in for the day, gave me her own cute card in addition to the one the whole office signed and often gifted me with a gag present, but all these gestures were still just those of a friend.

Not this year, this year she was really mine, my girlfriend. I’m sure she was planning something special for me. She was probably going over the top with some unnecessary and overpriced gift, and I had a idea what it was. Truth be told, the best present I’d been granted this year was her at last, and it was the best present I could ever have wished for. So yeah, maybe I was in fact anxious for the day, now that the birthday wishes I’d made in the last few years had finally come true.

Still in my early morning stupor, my eyes blurry with sleep, I blinked them open to read the time and calculate how many more hours I could snag before Pam would start calling me lazybones and harass me to get out of bed so we could get a jump-start on the day’s activities. With weekends so fleeting, we tried to soak up as much time together as we could fit into our 64 hours away from DM, not wanting to waste too much time in bed, the exception being the time we spent exploring each other’s bodies and consummating our new relationship. That accounted for about half the time. The rest we tried to find other ways to have fun. We went to the beach and the outlet mall, played mini-golf and tried tennis (not our thing), visited the zoo and had picnics.  Sundays however, we usually took our time to get up, having some of our best talks while whittling away the morning hours in bed.

What time is it anyway? 

The sun was just beginning to creep into the room so it had to be around 7, early even for her, especially on a Sunday. I tried to read the clock on her night table but it was blocked by a small notecard, on it a hand-drawn sketch of a golf ball atop a tee. Her talent amazed me, only recently was I granted a more intimate peek at her artistry, the oeuvre of the delicate fingers through which she expressed herself.

Below the sketch, in her messy scrawl, for someone who’s artistry was so graceful, her handwriting was surprisingly not, she had written:

As an early birthday surprise, I’ve arranged a Tee Time for you at Wilkes-Barre. Your dad and Tom will be here soon to pick you up so hop in the shower and join me for a quick breakfast before they arrive.

---

At first, I thought I would have preferred to stay home with her in bed, but in the end the golf was turning out to be a nice treat. The weather was perfect, one of those late September days, where Mother Nature forgot Fall had already made its entrance. The sky perfectly clear, the unseasonal warmth of the sun offset by a gentle cooling wind. It was great to see my brother and spend time with him and my dad on the links. My game had been falling off lately, as the abundance of time I previously had for golf was now occupied with a spunky, copper-headed cutie who didn’t play at all, unless you count mini-golf­­, which I didn’t, especially how she played. It was cute to watch her face scrunch in frustration as the ball went soaring past the hole as she tried to sink it from less than 2 inches away, but it made for games that lasted almost as long as 18 holes on a real course.  And she insisted on taking every stroke, never letting me convince her to take the ‘gimmes’ I tried to let her.

Today’s game had a little more pace to it, and I shot a 104, a nice little comeback for me after some really poor games the last few times I played.

Tom had to skip off right after our post game lunch, he had already missed a very important T-ball game to join us and would get skinned by his wife if he wasn’t home for some family time before dinner but he pulled me aside before he left.

“Hey, happy birthday Bro. Glad I can spend today with you. Call me tomorrow after you do it.”

I looked at him in disbelief. Being the younger brother, it was him and Pete, that I picked up most of my knowledge of sex from —they had told me everything and then some before my father even sat me down to have the talk, but we hadn’t discussed our sex lives since I was an inexperienced teenager and I wasn’t about to start now. This had to be one of his stupid pranks. He was always pulling them, but quite honestly, they were never all that good. I was so much better at them, even my mom thought so.

“What are you talking about”?

“Tomorrow’s the big day? You’re gonna pop the question, right? That’s why you had to get the ring so soon, isn’t it?”

So that’s what this was about. Relieved I wasn’t going to be victim of a weird birthday trick I let him know I wasn’t planning on that just yet. Not that I wasn’t ready to get down on one knee and ask what I’d wanted to almost since the day I met her, but I guessed she would think it was a little too soon. It wasn’t that long ago she had been engaged to someone else and I wanted to give her time to just be, before I asked her to be mine.

Things were going great, we were absolutely, without a doubt, in love, but we hadn’t even shared our relationship outside of our families and our close friends yet. Pam had still been hesitant to come out at work, although she did finally blurt it out to the documentary crew, but really, there was no way around that because they’d caught us in the act. Frankly, I was surprised it took them as long as it did.

But my brother got me thinking. Maybe it was time.

I thought about how great things were going as my dad and I drove back to my childhood home together. My mom was there preparing a birthday meal that Pam would join us at later. I’d brought her home to meet them once before and like me they loved her instantaneously. Of course, I had been talking her up for four years and they knew how happy she made me so there really was no chance they wouldn’t.  As we neared Linden Ave, my dad told me how it was Pam who had coordinated the whole golf outing.

“We were really surprised when we got the call from Pam last week. She was quite shy the first time we met her. But we were really happy to hear from her, especially your mom.”

I knew Pam had been hesitant to meet them at first; she’d admitted she was terrified of what they thought of her with all that happened last year; that they knew it was her fault I took off for Connecticut and they would hold it against her.  As much as I tried to assure her, I could tell she was still on edge as I introduced her to my parents for the first time. But by the end of the night she had finally relaxed and was able to become her regular cheerful and charming self and they saw just what it was that made me fall for her.

“You know how your mom always is thinking about the women her boys wind up with. How concerned she always about having a good relationship with whoever you chose to be with. Not that she’s had any problems with Marcie or Julia but well you know how she gets. Plus, I think she’s been missing the family connections now that Pete’s so far, Tom’s so busy with the kids all the time and Larissa’s away at school.  I can’t even begin to tell you how excited she was to get Pam’s call.”

As we pulled onto our block, I spotted Pam’s car already in the driveway and couldn’t hide my joy knowing she was already there waiting, spending time with my mom and integrating into my family life.

“She’s been here all day, you know. When I spoke to mom earlier, she said they were having such a nice time getting to know each other.”

“I can only imagine the stories mom is telling her.”

But no matter what secrets she may have been sharing, I was still delighted. There was something just monumental in knowing that she was becoming part of my family. Maybe it was time to make that official.

“She’s really something special isn’t she,” my dad said to me as he noticed how my eyes brightened and my cheeks glowed and not just from the day’s sun.

“Yeah, she’s the one,” I said and now I wished I had brought the ring with me today.