Gorilla Dating

by Kristen Ethridge

  I roll out of bed, pull from my closet what I need in order to get dressed, and head for the shower. The minutes I spend in the shower are truly my favorite moments of the morning. Obviously, there’s something nice about being clean, but it’s more than just bath gel and a scrubby.

  I seem to do my most clear thinking in the shower. I don’t know if it’s the steam or the shampoo…or something else entirely. Either way, I have thought a lot about my thinking, and I believe it mostly has to do with the fact that I’m in the shower. I’m distraction-free. There’s no TV, no radio, no phone. Just the constant slapping of water-on-porcelain and the feeling of relaxation as the streams of liquid sluice over my scalp and shoulders.

  I didn’t exactly sleep well last night. Thankfully, I wasn’t dealing with insomnia, but the sluggish heaviness in the core of my limbs tells me that my rest was not entirely fitful. I have no doubt that my subconscious continued to dwell on Jack Cooper and yesterday’s conversations, because even this morning, my conscious mind can’t seem to do much other than that. I’m truly bothered that the memories appear to be still on a closed-circuit loop in my brain.

  I chuckle, a brief wry snort of ironic amusement.

  Even the fact that I’m bothered by what happened yesterday bothers me. In short, I’m bothered by being bothered.

  I squeeze some mint-scented shampoo into my palms and then begin to lather up my hair. The vapors float on the steam and every breath I take tingles with coolness. I inhale again, deeply. Mellowing out feels good.

  At once, a word settles into my tired, scrambled mind.

  Focus.

  When I get out of the shower, I flip on the TV and turn the channel to one of the Sunday morning news programs so I can catch up on current events as I get dressed, dry my hair, and put on my makeup. I actually get through with everything in the space of half an hour, including hearing all the day’s headlines. Multi-tasking for the win.

  I grab a muffin, pour a glass of orange juice in the kitchen, then snatch up my things and go officially on my way—with a smile on my face.

  Church is about half an hour from starting, and already it is buzzing with beehive-like activity levels. I wave at Suzanne and Ben, my friends at the welcome table, and start to head over to the sanctuary, where the band will be warming up in just a few minutes. As I turn the corner down the hallway, I run smack into Paul White.

  “Kate!” He leans in, hesitates, pulls back, sticks out his hand, pulls it back, and finally stops his greeting-dance and settles on a little wave and awkward laugh. “Hi. How are you?”

  “I’m good, Paul. Has your holiday weekend gotten off to a good start?”

  “It has. But I have a feeling my weekend will be great after tonight.”

  Awww. He seems excited about our date. That’s great, because I am too.

  “Well, I certainly hope so, at least.”

  “I’m looking forward to our evening out. I haven’t been to a concert in a while. My ex and I used to go to them all the time.”

  His ex? The bridge of my nose wrinkles a bit. Of course, everyone’s dated other people, but isn’t it a little strange to say to someone that you’re looking forward to going out to a concert with them—then mention how you used to go to concerts with your ex, in the next breath?

  Hmmm. Maybe it is, or maybe it’s not so strange. I mean, I guess hiding the fact that you’ve dated before is both silly and unrealistic.

  “Hey, I know you’ve got to go sing, but I’ll see you tonight at 6:30 at your place, right?”

  I give my future date a smile before walking into the sanctuary to rehearse with the band. “Absolutely.”

  “Well, look who’s here…” Josh Taylor, our worship leader, is always joking, and since I’m the last person to get to our short pre-service run through, he’s certainly not going to miss an opportunity to layer on the sarcasm—thickly, with all the subtlety of a circus barker. The band breaks into a round of applause. I stop in the aisle in front of the stage and do a dramatic curtsy, complete with dramatically gesturing arms.

  “Come on, little diva. Just get up on stage so we can get rolling.”

  I walk over to my microphone. As usual, prankster Josh has extended the mic stand as high up as possible, making me look even shorter than I usually am. I unscrew the knob on the side and push the pole downward, making it a suitable height for a five-foot-four singer, instead of a six-foot-four basketball player.

  Once everyone’s settled, Jeremy counts off the beats and Zach and Josh let their guitars rock. The song sounds great, and we run through the other three songs, as well.

  A few minutes later, the doors to the sanctuary open to allow churchgoers to come in and find a seat. That’s my cue to exit stage right and wait until the service begins.

  I wind up spending twenty-five of the thirty minutes before church starts out in my car, trying to get really well warmed up for the performance and practicing the a cappella part Josh asked me to sing on the spur of the moment. I don’t know why I’m so freaked out. I’ve done solos with the band about once a month for the last year, and I sing backup about every other week. It’s not like I’ve never done this.

  I make it back inside just before the band heads out to the stage. I force myself to take a deep breath and remind myself that as long as I focus on why I’m truly here, nothing can distract me.

  Not even the presence of Jack Cooper himself on the third row.

  What is he doing here?

  He sees me looking (okay, staring) at him and he smiles and waves at me. I don’t want to wave back at him. I’m still annoyed with him about how everything ended yesterday. I try to do an unobtrusive wave—a wiggle of the fingers, really—at him. Of course, Paul is sitting just across the aisle from Jack and thinks I am wiggling at him. Paul waves back at me, except that I hadn’t waved at him in the first place.

  This is a mess. But there’s no time to think about any of it. Just as he did in practice about forty-five minutes before, Jeremy counts off the beats and the band begins the first song. I decide the best thing to do is just to sing. Not to think.

  And certainly not to look on the third row of the congregation…on either side of the aisle.

  When the time comes for me to sing my solo introduction, I focus on my breathing, just like my voice teacher always told me to do, and through grace, I come out okay. Josh was right. It did set the song off perfectly and made the song start really well. After singing, all the members of the worship team go take our usual seats at the back of the far right section, near the door.

  From my seat, I have a great view of the backs of the heads of both my former crush and my future date. This makes for a really uncomfortable way to spend church. I really want to concentrate on what our pastor is saying, but I feel like I’m wrapped in a thick blanket of brain fog.

  Why is Jack Cooper here? If he wanted to go back to church after fifteen years, why wouldn’t he go with his dad? I can’t even hear the words of today’s message because there’s too much static in my head, and once the service is over, I try to get out of the sanctuary quickly. But I’m derailed, stuck in a human traffic jam of old and young, handshaking, hugging, and deciding where to go for lunch.

  “Kate!” I look towards the voice coming from my left. It’s Paul.

  “Kate!” I look towards the voice coming from my right. It’s Jack.

  Sometimes you just have to remind yourself to go with the flow. Especially when you’re in far, far over your little head.

  “Hi.” I decide one greeting will work for all parties involved.

  Paul responds first. “Great job. I have to run and meet up with my dad, but I will see you tonight, okay?” He leans in and gives me a tight hug. It vaguely brings to mind a memory of Jack’s arms pulling me close in the kitchen of the ranch yesterday.

  But I dismiss that. My kiss with Jack Cooper is part of my past. This embrace with Paul White is part of my future.

  “Hey, Kate.” I spin to my right, and Jack is st
anding next to me. He’s so close that I can smell his woodsy cologne and see the pupils of his eyes, blending in effortlessly with the deep blue surrounding them. As always, Jack Cooper doesn’t just stand, he surrounds. He’s still the Silverback Gorilla, even here in the entryway at Lake Shore Church. “You were fantastic this morning.”

  “Thank you, Jack. That’s nice of you to say.”

  “I mean it. I’m glad I came.”

  “It was a shock to see you sitting there, I’ll freely admit.”

  “It was because of you.” I know that there are hundreds of people swirling around us, but all of a sudden, I can’t hear anything but the sound of Jack’s voice. “Our conversation yesterday kept me awake all night. You were right. I ran away from the people who cared about me and the things they cared about. What you said made me realize that the time to change that was now.”

  Wow. I knew what we’d talked about yesterday was deep, but I had no way of knowing how it was impacting him. All I’ve been able to think about is my feelings…especially after that unexpected kiss and everything after.

  “Well, I’m glad you were here, Jack.” Even though I haven’t forgotten how Jack’s dismissive attitude cut me yesterday, I say the words and I truly mean them.

  “Me too. I had to do this, and it was good to know a friend would be standing by.”

  A friend? I can’t get too close to Jack. He’s a client. Just a client.

  Focus, focus, focus, Kate.

  “Hey, Kate, would you like to have lunch with me?”

  Jack Cooper is all that is confusing and confounding in my life these days. But can we be companions?

  Jack just extended the olive branch to me, and whether or not I intended it, I was the other party in what was obviously a life-changing conversation for him. He acted on the prompting in his heart and set foot in a church. Maybe I should act on the prompting I’m feeling and quit questioning everything.

  After all, who can’t use more friends?

  “Sure, Jack. Where would you like to go?”

  We decide on a local Mexican restaurant that has a patio overlooking the hills in the Westlake area of town. The parking lot there is small, so for convenience, I decided to ride with Jack. And that is how I found myself on a very windy Sunday afternoon in a Jeep Wrangler with no roof and no window panels on the door.

  Normally, I’d probably worry about my hair turning into a tangled poofball, but Jack’s observations about yesterday’s barbeque keep me laughing instead.

  “Every time she thought no one was looking, Laura Lynn kept sneaking huge puddles of queso on tortilla chips. It’s a good thing you brought those scoop-style chips so she could hold all the cheese without making a mess. What made it so funny was that she’d look from side to side and make sure no one was looking, and then she’d shove this overloaded chip into her mouth and chomp down, all in one bite.”

  I let out a full-fledged whoop. “Oh, wow, what a visual.”

  “Kate, it was as though she was in Mission: Impossible or something, as covert as she was trying to be.” Bright, sparkling rays bounced off Jack’s aviator-style sunglasses when he looked over at me. “Unfortunately, I think I caught her every single time she tried to be stealthy. I don’t think the CIA will be calling her soon.”

  “I doubt it. But she does have her top-secret Apple gizmo. And her daddy owns the Rangers.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said with an overload of sarcasm. “I think she mentioned both of those once or twice.”

  We both double up with laughter, despite the force of the wind blowing in our faces as we drive. Sitting next to this handsome man, with the breeze tossing around me and a smile on my lips, I realize that I feel something.

  I feel free.

  For a solid twenty-four hours, I have been unsure of Jack—angry with him at times, even. He was distant, he seemed to be too interested in Laura Lynn for my preference, and worst of all, he made me second-guess my emotions. For the life of me, though, I can’t explain why I have had a change of attitude today.

  A spot on the front row near the sidewalk opens up just as we turn into the parking lot and then Jack all but hops out of the Jeep in order to make it around to the passenger side and open my door before I have a chance to do so. This little token of kindness further improves my mood for the day. Even though this is just lunch between friends, it’s so refreshing to see that good manners have not died.

  When we get to the door of the restaurant, Jack opens it as well. We’re greeted by a blonde teenager in a navy-colored shirt that says “Keep Austin Weird” on the front.

  “Mr. Cooper. It’s good to see you this afternoon. How many are in your party?”

  “Two. And can we have a table on the patio?”

  “Certainly, Mr. Cooper. Right this way.” As we are immediately ushered to the patio, we pass several groups of people with restaurant-issue pagers, waiting on tables. Does everyone in Austin know Jack Cooper? It certainly looks that way—even a teenager at a casual Mexican restaurant is basically rolling out the red carpet for him.

  After sitting down, we each order a glass of iced tea. For a few moments, it’s silent at the table. I can’t think of anything clever to say, so I just look out at the scenery stretching out before us. The hills that roll out toward Lake Travis and are dotted with thousands of oak and cedar treetops, which from this distance look like green cotton balls. Our waiter reappears shortly with our drinks and a basket of chips and takes our order.

  “I’d like the veggie fajitas—but no serrano peppers— and with flour tortillas please,” I say.

  Jack follows. “And I’ll take the beef fajitas with flour tortillas.”

  Manuel, the waiter, thanks us and says the order will be out in about 10 minutes. The silence is now broken. “Copycat.” I playfully stick my tongue out at Jack.

  “I did no such thing. You’re eating grilled strips of onion and red, yellow and green bell pepper. That’s not a meal, that’s a salad bar. I’m a Texan, and I got red meat. There’s a huge difference.”

  “I love the veggie fajitas.”

  “Kate, it’s not a fajita. You make fajitas out of a skirt steak, emphasis on steak. I hate to tell you, but you’re just eating roasted vegetables.”

  “You’re making my lunch sound really boring.”

  “Well, it kind of is. At any rate, it’s not like that expertly grilled hamburger you had yesterday.”

  “Ha. This is true. The grillmaster was definitely in rare form.” Whatever else happened at the ranch about twenty-four hours ago, I can’t deny the fact that the eating there was awfully good.

  “Thanks. We never did get to finish talking about your ideas for the zoo opening.”

  “Oh, are you sure you really want to talk business on a Sunday afternoon, Jack?”

  “Kate, if you’ve got to talk business, don’t do it in a stuffy boardroom. Do it in a setting like this,” he says as he waves his hand toward the panorama just beyond the balcony. “Besides, I meant it yesterday when I said I thought your ‘The Zoo Is You’ idea was very astute. It intrigued me and got ideas going in my head. I’m sorry that we got cut off from discussing it further.”

  Maybe it’s because there’s no pressure of any Chimps or bosses or co-workers around, but today’s discussion of the zoo campaign just feels so much different than yesterday’s. Now I want to talk about this with Jack almost as much as I wanted to maintain some artificial distance and a tiny semblance of dignity at the ranch.

  “Well, I was up at the office late the other day, putting together the whole PowerPoint presentation for Cindy, and I started thinking about what having a zoo in Austin would mean to me. I realized that the zoo brought back so many great memories of my childhood.”

  Jack nods in agreement and I continue on. “I’m sure it’s not just me, either. Lots of people probably have great memories of zoos, and lots of children will be able to create their own memories at this new zoo.”

  Manuel and another server walk up to our table
with two sizzling plates of food. They set down the fajita skillets in front of each of us, then fill the rest of the space on the small table with cheese, sour cream, guacamole, pico de gallo, and flour tortillas. My stomach lets out a pre-dining grumble of acceptance of the fare before me.

  “Eat up, veggie girl.” Jack points at my lunch and dramatically, savorily puts a strip of beef fajita in his mouth. I can’t help but smile at how silly he looks.

  As he rolls fajitas and fixings in a tortilla, he continues. “I think you’re exactly right. So, how do you propose to execute this theme at the grand opening? Lots of hands-on displays?”

  “That’s exactly it. If people adopt an animal that they support financially, it would be nice if they could get a ‘behind the scenes’ tour and meet the animal. Make it less of a black-tie event and more of a safari-hat and khaki shorts event.”

  “I think that’s all great. I’ll start talking with Martin Tate, the zoo director, about making that happen. It’ll probably take some advance planning, especially from the standpoint of keeping both the people and the animals secure, but I’m sure that something like that can be done. And it will definitely be memorable.”

  “I’m glad you like the idea.”

  “I do. And speaking of black-tie events, have you received an invitation to the Zoo Donors’ Gala next week?”

  I shake my head. “No. I didn’t know there was any such thing.”

  “There is. It’s the final fundraiser before the zoo opening, and a way to thank people who have already donated. My father can’t make it, so I’ll be attending for him.”

  “Oh, is Lone Star coordinating this event?”

  “No, my father’s a donor to the zoo. It’s something he did as a private individual. It doesn’t have anything to do with Lone Star Consulting. He’s the naming donor of the primate area. Actually, he’s naming it after my mother.” Jack smiled an easy smile at the mention of his mother’s name, so different than his reaction to talking about her just yesterday.