#concept chat

1987: their first valentine’s day as a Real Couple rather than awkward, hot-and-cold middle schoolers. lucas is super hyped and spends the weeks leading up to it bragging to the rest of the party about his grand plans. max pretends she doesn’t care but secretly she’s really excited. she knows from the old cosmos that her mom keeps stacked in the corner of their living room that the guy gets the presents for the girl, not the other way around, but she feels weird about not getting lucas anything when they’re both supposed to be in the relationship, so she ends up buying him a cool sweatshirt she knows he’s been eyeing for a while. she also gets him one of those “teddy grams” at school—the fundraising gimmick where you can have a miniature stuffed animal delivered to anyone you want—because she thinks he’ll find it funny. (and he does!) they go their separate ways after school, but at 6pm sharp lucas picks max up and drives them both to the next town over for dinner. they talk and laugh and briefly debate seeing if they can get away with ordering something alcoholic, but ultimately decide against it. the restaurant isn’t “fancy,” per se, but it’s nicer than the shitty diner off main street—dimmed lights and real candles and exotic-looking wallpaper and wood flooring instead of linoleum—so they’re a little dressed up. they sit across from each other and eat their mature-seeming meat-based entrees and feel more grown up than they ever have before. later, when they’re done, they return to hawkins and lucas sneaks max into his room via the old-ass tree that is conveniently located adjacent to his bedroom window. when they wake up the next morning, it’s saturday, cold and sunny, and they have the whole, shining weekend to do whatever they want.

1992: seniors in college. by now max is over her whole “too cool for love” thing, so she’s just as hyped as lucas. they’re both attending schools in the chicago area, which makes planning easy. they’re saving up for their capital-F Futures so they decide to keep it low-key and affordable with an evening at the local arcade followed by pizza at max’s apartment, but they both surprise each other with bottles of real wine instead of the shitty boxed stuff they agreed they would pick up together on their way home from the arcade :) they eat their pizza and get wine-drunk on the couch with a tape from the blockbuster around the corner playing on the (tiny) TV but they get derailed about halfway through the movie and never finish it

1997: max and lucas’ first (and only) valentine’s day as an engaged couple! (when the party hears the news, they’re shocked because they all feel so young still; when max’s grandmother hears the news, she tells them to hurry up, because when she was their age she had been married for years with two kids. so after averaging it all out they feel pretty okay about the timeline of their relationship.) by this point lucas is well into his first year of his pediatrics residency and max is just out of law school, so they’ve both been crazy busy lately and consequently decide to go all-out for the holiday. they dress up real nice and go to a steakhouse, because that feels like the thing to do. lucas gets max flowers, and max buys him about a pound of chocolate. it’s a little like their valentine’s days as teenagers, but they’re actual adults this time, adults with jobs and wedding plans and a shared apartment with a front door they can walk into at the end of the night.

2003: valentine’s day, Everything Is More Difficult With Small Children edition. they get a babysitter, but she’s only available for an hour. they scarf down tacos at a frantic pace at the place around the corner. the aforementioned babysitter gives the kids a metric ton of valentine’s day candy, so they come home to two sugar-crazed toddlers bouncing off the walls. no sex is had thanks to the sugar-crazed toddlers; their usual friendly bickering has a sharp, exhausted edge to it as they get ready for bed. all around, probably one of their worst valentine’s days. they still say “I love you” before they fall asleep.

2014: valentine’s day, Everything Is Way Easier And Simultaneously More Difficult With Middle Schoolers edition. the kids are in eighth grade—the same grade max and lucas were in when they met, a fact which doesn’t make them feel any less old as they send them both off to their school’s valentine’s day dance. max and lucas consider going out, but it’s cold as hell, so they cancel their reservation and cook at home. over the years they’ve developed a good rhythm in the kitchen: neither is particularly gifted, but together they make a decent team. they bring out the good tablecloth and the holiday dishes and drink really good wine they can afford now that they have middle-age, middle-career money. it’s a good night.

mostly because As A Jew I know multiple families who are/were so ashamed of their jewish identities that they assimilated/WASP’d themselves into oblivion and well. god isn’t “represses meaningful aspect of one’s heritage, identity and personal value system in the pursuit of conformity to what rural 1980s indiana finds acceptable and appropriate” the most wheeler thing you’ve ever heard??