by AnonYMous
That day, when I finished driving my second tour, my job wasn’t over. It was the night of the full moon, and on those nights, my uncle scheduled a third tour up to the top of the mountains. I was driving one of the Jeeps in that tour too. When I arrived at the hotel to pick up the tourists, I discovered that Roy was with them.
“I meant to tell you last night that I had bought a seat on this tour,” he explained, “but with all the excitement of the fire, I forgot.”
I made Blue scoot over beside me so that Roy could share the front seat.
“There’s an old Indian legend,” I told the group when we reached the top of the mountain, “that if you stand on this mountain under the full moon and stare at the valley below, you will see what your future will hold.”
As they stood there silently, staring into their futures, Roy took me aside. “I’ve been thinking about doing this all day,” he whispered, and he put his lips to mine.
Too soon, it was time to drive back down the mountain. Instead of driving the tourists back to the hotel, I dropped them off at the ice cream parlor a block away.
“Can I buy you a cone?” Roy offered.
We sat together on a bench on Main Street, licking our cones and looking up at the moon.
“The Fourth of July is just a couple days away,” Roy commented. “I was wondering if you would be my partner in some of the competitions.”
“Like the three-legged race?”
“Yeah, like that.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
The next morning, as I was getting into my uncle’s Jeep, Geoff drove into the parking lot in a rental car. I was more than surprised to see him because I hadn’t given him a thought for several days.
“Jill,” he called out to me. He looked tired and upset. I’d gotten used to seeing him in suits, but today he was wearing old jeans and a T-shirt. His clothes looked like he’d slept in them.
“I came to say that I’m sorry,” he said as he walked up to me. “I made a terrible mistake. Everything in my life started to go wrong after we broke up.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Geoff,” I told him, “but I really have to go. I have to pick some people up.”
“I’m staying at the hotel,” he went on. “Please say you’ll have dinner with me. We have to talk.”
I didn’t really want to have dinner with him, and I didn’t think we had anything to talk about, but I agreed mostly to get rid of him so that I could do my job.
I drove out to pick up the fishermen I had dropped off a week before. They were tired, happy, and excited about all the fish they had caught.
“We really don’t want to leave,” one of them confided, “but you know how it is. We’ve got jobs and families. Who knows when we’ll get the chance to take a trip like this again?”
For the rest of the day, I had a hard time concentrating. I was dreading seeing Geoff, and I was also dreading hearing whatever he had to say.
Geoff smiled when I walked into the hotel dining room. “I wasn’t sure you’d come. I’m so glad to see you.” He leaned forward to kiss me on the lips, but I turned my head, and his lips brushed my cheek.
He looked offended for a second before leading me to a table. “I have some news for you. My company became part of another corporation in a hostile takeover last week. They’re downsizing, and the rumor is that my job will be one of the first to be eliminated. Hopefully, they’ll offer me a severance package. One way or the other, I’ll be quitting. After you left, I realized that I’ve had my priorities in the wrong place. I want us to get back together, Jill.”
I looked into his eyes. “I don’t think so, Geoff. You and I want different things out of life.”
He sighed. “Look, I know I treated you rottenly, but I miss you, Jill. Remember all the fun we had in college? We could have fun like that again.”
The waitress came and we placed our order.
“Say you’ll let me have another chance,” he said after she left.
“I don’t think so, Geoff.”
He spent the rest of the meal reminding me of different times and places where we’d had fun. It didn’t work. If anything, it made me see even more clearly that Geoff and I weren’t meant to be.
As we finished our meal and got up to leave the table, I saw Roy walk through the dining room. Our eyes met, and he nodded at me.
“I’m going to hang around town for a few days and see if I can get you to change your mind,” Geoff told me as I got into my Jeep. “We were good together.”
I drove away trying to remember when exactly we had been good. Maybe for a little while in college, but even then Geoff was on the fast track to success. I was convinced that when Geoff had recovered from his company’s takeover, he would find another high-powered job and get back on that track again. In the meantime, I decided I would try and avoid him.
That didn’t work, because he had bought a seat on my afternoon tour in the mountains the next day, and when I picked up the tourists from the hotel, he was among them.
He started to get into the front seat with Blue and me, but I stopped him.
“See that blonde with the flowered hat?” I asked him. “I heard her say that she’s afraid of narrow roads and drop offs. The road we’re going on will probably scare her to death. Would you sit next to her and help ease her fears?”
To my surprise, he agreed.
The blonde’s name was Alice, and Geoff was so witty and charming that she didn’t seem to notice how dangerous the road we were driving could be. In fact, from where I sat, it looked like Geoff and Alice were hitting it off. I was relieved that I didn’t have to spend the entire tour explaining why I didn’t want to get back together.
When I dropped the tourists back off at the hotel, Geoff asked me to have dinner with him. He didn’t seem too upset when I declined, and I wondered whether that was because he was hoping to make a date with Alice.
Tom was waiting for me when I got back to the office. “You didn’t tell me you had dinner with your old boyfriend last night.”
“No, I didn’t,” I admitted. “How did you find out?”
“Roy said he saw you, and when he described the man you were with, it didn’t take a genius to figure out who it was.”
He’d always been more like a brother than a cousin, and I answered the question in his eyes. “We’re not getting back together, if that’s what you’re asking. Geoff wants me back, but it’s over.”
“Good, because I’ve been thinking, if you’d be interested in staying in Megalith, you could keep working here. We could expand the business. Dad’s been talking about retiring, and when he does, you and I could be partners. With your business degree and my brilliance, we couldn’t fail. What do you say?”
I said I’d think about it, but Tom knew I was interested. He grinned and told me he’d talk to me later. He had to get ready for a date, and his girlfriend was picking him up in a half an hour.
The next day was the Fourth of July. The town of Megalith always had a parade in the morning, followed by a picnic in the town park and a fireworks display in the evening.
Uncle Joe was driving a Jeep in the morning parade, and I had thought I was too, but at the last minute my uncle had decided that I should take the day off and watch the parade from the sidewalk. So I put Blue on a leash and we walked through town.
The parade consisted of a few floats provided by local businesses, the sheriff’s posse on horseback, the 4-H kids, also on horseback, and children riding bicycles they had decorated. At the end of the parade, Roy and two other firefighters followed in the fire truck.
As the firemen drove slowly down the street, they threw candy to the crowd on the sidewalk. I was watching the parade when Geoff walked up to me.
“Pretty nice festivities for a podunk town like this,” he commented.
I shrugged. “I guess so. People come from all the neighboring towns to join in. If you stay for the fireworks, you’ll see a display that rivals that of most big cities.”
Just then, I s
aw the fire truck turn around for one last pass up Main Street. I knew what was coming, and I stepped back into the doorway of a store behind me. Geoff wasn’t paying attention when the firemen cranked up the water truck, so he was right at the edge of the street when they passed, spraying the crowd with their water hose.
It was a hot day, and most of the crowd screamed with delight, but Geoff wasn’t delighted. He threw a fit.
“What are they doing?” he shouted at me. “I’m all wet!”
“It’s a Megalith tradition,” I tried to explain. “The fire department always sprays the crowd. It’s ninety degrees, Geoff. You won’t catch a cold. Most people love it.”
“Well, I didn’t. I noticed that you backed up out of the way of the water. Nice of you to warn me.” He stalked off angrily.
I suppose I should have warned him, but it was just a harmless prank, and no one else was throwing a fit because they got wet—everyone else was laughing.
A little later, Blue and I made our way to the city park where we caught up with Roy.
“I noticed you got out of the way of the water,” he said. “Too bad about the guy you were with.”
“Yeah, too bad.” I giggled. “So what competitions did you enter us in?”
“I haven’t yet. I thought you might be doing something else with someone else.”
“If you mean Geoff, then no. We used to be together, but we’re over. So go sign us up for the three-legged race, and the wheelbarrow race, and—”
He laughed. “Okay. Okay. Will you go to the fireworks with me tonight? I always get a good seat since I’m the fire chief.”
We did pretty well at the picnic. We even managed to win the wheelbarrow race.
Geoff came up to me later that afternoon as I was walking back to my uncle’s. “I’m leaving in a few minutes, and I wish you would come with me, but I know you won’t. I’ve been watching you, Jill, and I understand now. You belong here. You’re happy with these people and with this kind of life.”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you, Geoff. Everybody doesn’t want the same things. Take care of yourself, and let me know how you’re getting along.”
He gave me a sad smile. “I’ll survive, I guess.”
“I know you. You’ll do more than survive. You’ll be a millionaire before you’re thirty.” I gave him a quick hug.
“Well, I’d better get back to the hotel,” he said. “I promised to give Alice a lift to the airport in Phoenix.”
I smiled and wondered whether Alice would turn out to be the right woman for him.
“I’m staying, Tom,” I told my cousin when I got back to the house. “You’ve got yourself a partner.”
He grinned. “I knew you would.”
Later that evening, when Roy picked me up for the fireworks, I told him about my decision.
“I’m glad to hear that you’re staying,” he said. “I was looking forward to going to the Fourth of July picnic with you again next year. And in the meantime, there’s Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s—”
When he kissed me at the fireworks display, I forgot all about what was happening in the sky. The real fireworks were in my heart. THE END
Tee for Two
LOVE . . . THE SECOND TIME AROUND
I thought I’d die alone with my grief—until a very persistent suitor flirted his way into my heart!
What would I have done without a friend like Janice?
I think I spent the first year after George’s death dodging her, until it got to be more work dodging her than letting her catch up with me.
Poor old Janice. Her one aim in life is to make sure that she knows everything and everyone and always gets her two cents in.
After I gave up dodging her, I let her drag me here, there, and everywhere for the next couple of years. She meant well, I know. But I really just wanted to be left alone.
I loved my home and I had enough to keep me busy, but Janice insisted that I had to make new friends. In Janice’s words: “You need to meet people who’re more like you.” I took it to mean people who were in the nursing homes, because that’s where she took me four times a week.
What I did learn was that some of the folks in the nursing home had it a lot more together than I did. I got to where I really enjoyed it, actually, but just when I was finally content visiting the nursing homes four times a week, Janice decided that I should learn to play golf.
Golf? Why, I couldn’t even play table tennis! How was I ever going to learn to play golf?
“You’ll meet the nicest people,” Janice insisted.
“Thanks, but I already have nice friends—the ones I made at the nursing home,” I told her.
Well, Janice being Janice, she just wouldn’t listen. So off we went and my training began.
If you’ve never played golf, don’t start.
If you have, then more power to you.
I’d been learning for about six months. A group of Janice’s friends and I were on the green—that’s what you call the grass where you chase a little white ball around for hours on end. The whole group was far ahead of me.
I’d just put my ball on the little white stick that’s called a tee—it looks like an oversized toothpick that you push into the ground and balance the ball on top of. Yes, I know it does sound stupid; but believe me, grown men believe it takes real talent to play this game. I was talking to the ball and telling it to be nice and not to move till I hit it. All of a sudden, a deep voice asked, “Are you having trouble?”
“Do I look like I’m having trouble?” I asked in an angry voice. I turned around to look at the person who’d asked the question, and I was so taken aback when I saw that the voice belonged to a tall, gray-haired, very handsome gentleman. I felt my cheeks turn red when I realized he must’ve overheard me talking to the ball.
Looking at me very seriously, he said, “Don’t bother talking to the ball; it never helps. It’s the tee—that’s what you have to talk to.” He handed me that little white stick that looks like a toothpick. “Now, if you warm it up in your hands before you stick it in the ground, it’ll like you a lot better. Try it,” he said, handing me another one of his tees.
Oh, dear, I thought. He’s even nuttier than I am and he’s such a nice-looking man!
Just then, Janice called to me. I backed away from the stranger—and almost fell over my own feet. I didn’t pick up my ball; I just left it there, and I know my voice quavered as I said, “Thank you for the advice. Now, you take care.” I walked very fast away from him, almost running over to Janice, and said to her, “Let’s have a drink.”
“But—you don’t drink!” she exclaimed.
“Today I do,” I said.
Janice and I sat at the bar and I was about to tell her about the good-looking crazy man I’d met on the green when she yelled out, “Hi, there!”
I turned to see who she was looking at—and there, coming toward us, was Mr. Crazy himself.
“Do you know him?” I asked Janice. Now, why should I be surprised that she knew Mr. Crazy? After all, Janice is far from all there herself!
He came over then and handed me the tee and ball that I’d left behind on the green. Janice blurted out, “Dr. Staten, I’d like you to meet my friend, Violet Milland. Violet’s husband, George, died almost three years ago. I’ve been trying to get her out and about ever since. Now, I’m trying to teach her how to play golf. It’s good for the mind, don’t you think, Doctor?”
“Oh, yes, excellent for the mind,” he replied. I could see his eyes were full of mirth. “Nice to have met you,” he said as he walked away to greet some people who’d just come in.
Well, to say I felt stupid is an understatement. I wanted to whack Janice over the head for making me sound like I was as nutty as she was!
Well, who cares? I thought. I’ll never have to face him again.
And thank goodness, too, but I was curious as to what kind of doctor he was, so I asked Janice.
“Oh, he’s a
brain surgeon. Lost his wife ten years ago. I was after him myself years ago, but he was just too shy for me. All my friends are crazy about him, though—he’s a very smart man,” she said.
“Right. He sounded real smart,” I said sarcastically, as I eyed the tee and ball he’d given me.
After that, I gave up golfing and went back to visiting my friends at the nursing home.
Christmas rolled around and Janice insisted I go to a party she was having. I didn’t want to go, but making excuses to Janice was pointless, I knew, and Janice did serve great food at her parties.
I was sitting on the davenport with a plateful of goodies when a voice said: “You going to eat all that by yourself?”
I looked up, and there was Dr. Staten, standing right in front of me, holding a plate with twice as much food on it as I had.
“Yes, I’m going to eat all this—and I may just go back for more,” I said tartly, turning red.
He laughed and plunked down beside me. “Then I’ll sit down while there’s still room,” he said.
“You’re not funny,” I said, trying to sound like I couldn’t be bothered.
Lord, I felt like a schoolgirl! I just picked at my food, but what I really wanted to do was wolf it down. He made short work of his and went back for seconds. While he was gone, I stuffed as much as I could into my mouth, thinking he’d at least be gone long enough for me to swallow. But, no—he was back immediately, saying that there was a line up at the buffet table.
He looked at me and said, “You shouldn’t eat so fast.” He raised his brow and shook his head.
“Now what?” I asked, wondering if there was food all over my face.
“I seem to upset you, Violet. Why is that?” he asked.
“Because you make me feel so self-conscious,” I said.
“Now, I wonder why,” he said, giving me a teasing wink.
“Look, Dr. Staten, there’re some women here who came for the attention. I’m not one of them. I came to eat.”
He looked at me and started to laugh as he said, “You could call me Edward, and I came because your friend, Janice, said you wanted me to.”
“And you believed her?” I exclaimed as I jumped up, the food on my plate spilling onto my dress. My plate would’ve hit the floor if he hadn’t grabbed for it.
