He and Nick were on their way to a party at one of the dorms in Brittany Hall when Bobby spotted Gina. Looking back, he can’t pinpoint what about her caught his eye. She hadn’t been wearing anything special: blue jeans and a white T-shirt. She was petite, with short brown-red hair that ended just below her ears, and a button nose. She was pretty, but not in an obvious sort of way. She was talking to a much-taller girl, her arms moving freely as she relayed something that was funny—they were both laughing. She looked like a butterfly, spreading color with every flap of her wings.
“Don’t even bother,” Nick had said after following his gaze. “She doesn’t date, let alone hook up.”
“You know her?” Bobby had felt as though she was casting a spell on him from afar.
Nick had shrugged. “Just a friend.” He turned on a corner and walked away from the mysterious girl.
The very next day, Bobby ran into Gina again, this time at a bookstore on campus. She was holding three literary giants in her hands—Faulkner, Twain, and Joyce—while balancing a pencil in her mouth and trying to reach a top shelf. Bobby had stretched his arm and picked up a volume of William Shakespeare—The Complete Works.
“Doing some light reading?”
Gina had muttered something incomprehensible because of her pencil balance-beam act. “You’re not Nick,” she said, when she removed the pencil from her mouth.
“No.” She was the first person to be able to tell them apart like that, instantly and without a trace of doubt.
Falling in love with her was the easiest thing he’s ever done. Gina was smart, eloquent, and kind. She had an endless supply of personal interests: literature, track and field, poetry, musicals, unusual Christmas tree ornaments, handcrafted jewelry. She was constantly busy because she worked two jobs, ran track, and studied diligently for all her classes, but he didn’t mind being squeezed into her life. He admired her work ethic, her do-it-yourself approach to things. He could’ve fallen in love with any of her qualities, but it was her gusto for life that made him want to call her his girlfriend. Being around Gina was like being around an ice cube that never melted in the middle of summer. She was different from any woman he had ever met: she never complained, never had a bad hair day, and never lost her temper. The fact that she was a virgin proved to be frustrating, but it also made Bobby respect Gina in a way that almost made him feel ashamed of his old-fashioned ways.
Most people thought they got married because Gina got pregnant, but, in reality, Bobby proposed because of shirt buttons. In early 2004, he had decided to surprise Gina and took the train from Boston to New York City without so much as packing a bag, thinking that he’d borrow clothes from Nick. Except when he arrived on campus, he discovered that Nick was away for the weekend and it was too late to go out and buy anything. “We’ll get something tomorrow,” Bobby had said. He was feeling proud of his spontaneity. But when they were about to head out to a birthday party for one of Gina’s closest friends, Bobby realized that not one, but two buttons had fallen from his shirt. It was one of those small things that, at the time, seemed to sum up everything that was wrong with his life.
Intellectually, Bobby knew he was lucky. He was a young, soon-to-be Harvard graduate, heir to a profitable company, and he was dating the girl of his dreams. But he had been in a mood for the past week. He had a ton of work to finish before flipping the ceremonial tassel, he missed Gina all the time while he was in Boston, and his father had started hinting that Nick was the one with CEO potential. Nick: the brother who majored in beer pong and who hadn’t managed getting into an Ivy League school.
No matter how good Bobby’s life was, he always seemed to fall short. And the two damn buttons popping off his shirt was basically the universe’s way of saying he’d always draw the short straw when compared with his brother. He knew his straw was longer than everyone else’s, but his only competition in life had been with Nick.
Bobby had been about to say that he preferred to skip the party when Gina had eyed the empty spaces where the two buttons were supposed to be. She had walked over to her tiny dresser and removed a box from the top drawer. Bobby had watched as she selected a needle, some thread, and found two buttons that were nearly identical to the ones he had lost. He was transfixed at the sight of his girlfriend sowing his shirt like it was the most normal thing in the world. She was humming a song as she sewed, oblivious to his stare.
“There you go,” she’d said, handing him the shirt.
In that moment, Bobby saw his future with Gina. He saw a life of small, earthly pleasures, of Sunday pot roasts, and marathons of their favorite TV shows. He saw picnics in the summer at Hildegard Park and a house full of children that smelled of apple pie and cinnamon. Bobby knew his mother cared for him, but Tish had never been homey or affectionate, especially as he grew older, and especially not to Bobby.
Bobby knew he looked ridiculous, standing in the middle of her dorm room, shirtless, with his mouth agape, but he couldn’t take his eyes off this magnificent creature who had shown him everything he wanted out of life, everything he hadn’t even known he wanted.
“Will you marry me?” he’d asked.
At first, she’d laughed, thinking he was being facetious. Then, she thought he was proposing so
