He nods at me, as though he has no idea what I do.
“I write patents.”
He starts to laugh. “It’s okay, I understand. I’m an engineer by training.”
“An engineer?”
“Mechanical engineer. But I found I didn’t get to work with my hands enough. So here I am, designing bathrooms and kitchens, and doing what I love.” He grabs the hammer with gusto. He’s looking at me with those wide brown eyes, and I’ve just forgotten where I am. Good thing Rhett is here to lead me like a guide dog.
“The telephone!” I say, realizing it’s ringing again.
He nods like I’ve got a screw loose upstairs, and you have to wonder.
“Hello?”
“Ashley? It’s Kevin.”
I think I let out a groan here. “Kev . . .”
“I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for days. Are you avoiding me?”
I’m silent. Just the sound of his baritone makes me feel guilty. My stomach tingles at the sound of his voice, and I realize Colin in there is just another way for me to avoid what’s at hand. My heart is galloping toward Kevin, and I’m grabbing the reins hard trying to halt it.
“Ashley, you there?”
“Uh-huh. I’m here.” Your parents are bigots. Your parents are bigots. Just spit it out.
“Is there something going on?”
“Yes, actually there is.” I am breathing hard here.
Colin asks me for a drink of water.
“Is there someone there, Ashley?”
I look at Colin, who I’ve pointed to the kitchen. “Just the contractor. I think it’s something we should discuss in person, Kevin. There is something I need to tell you.”
“There’s something I need to tell you, too, Ashley. Are you busy this afternoon? Could we meet on your lunch hour?”
“I have no lunch hour. I’m not working at Gainnet any longer.”
He says nothing about the job. “Good, then can we meet at ten thirty at Evvia?”
“How about one o’clock at Fresh Choice? I promised to take baby Miles out for a few hours to give Brea a break from her mom.”
“One at Fresh Choice. I’ll be there.” He pauses for a minute. “Oh, and Ashley, since you’re not working, you’re going to be wearing jeans, right?” He makes a clicking noise.
Now I wonder. Should I change so I don’t look like I was trying to impress him?
Gulp. I come out of the hallway and see Colin swallowing water like he’s a camel. He lets out a belch, and then sees me. “Sorry about that. I thought you were on the phone.”
“Can I leave the dog here? Will he bother you?” I ask the hottie pseudoengineer with bodily function issues.
Colin takes a gander at Rhett, and then at me. “Suit yourself. Your house.”
Perhaps that’s what Seth felt for Arin. Just a momentary rush that makes you question everything you know to be true. Kevin is true, but not necessarily for me.
33
Ashley basks in the warm Hawaiian sunlight, the gentle lull of the ukulele’s strings bringing her in and out of a restful sleep. She inhales deeply and slowly turns over to allow the rays to reach the bottoms of her feet and the backs of her legs.
“This is the life,” Ashley coos.
“Would you like something more to drink?”
Ashley shoots up from her reclining position. “Kevin?” The elegant doctor is clad in Hawaiian shorts, carrying a slushy strawberry drink with a tiny umbrella in it.
“I’d love something to drink.” She reaches up for him and Kevin takes her hand.
“Wouldn’t you rather have a plain iced tea?” Seth appears, also clad in Hawaiian shorts, and Ashley turns away to avoid the flash of white in her eyes. He removes her hand from Kevin’s and takes it into his own, but Ashley is concerned.
“Seth? You better get some sunscreen on.”
Seth ignores her warning. “I’d go to the desert for you, Ashley. You don’t want that sugary-sweet thing. Simple is what it’s all about, Ashley. Simple is what you prefer.” She takes the proffered iced tea, and Seth squeezes a lemon into the drink, careful not to splash any on his black socks. She then places the drink on the table beside her without touching it.
“She needs something stronger. A good margarita with a touch of salt at the brim.” Colin, the very brawny contractor, appears out of nowhere, flexing his double six-pack stomach and strong legs in flip-flops, clad in black shorts with a purple shark.
“What she needs is a touch of the European. A wine spritzer, perhaps?” Hans, dressed to perfection in his Armani suit, holds out a glass of bubbly wine on a silver tray. The crush of ice is heard as he holds the bottle out to fill Ashley’s drink to the brim.
Ashley shakes her head. “No, I want water. Pure, filtered water.”
Ashley looks to her suitors. “Over crushed ice.” All of the men stare at one another, unsure of where to get the simple offering. Then, in a flash of light, everyone looks skyward and shields their faces from the sun. “Never mind.” Ashley pushes through the men. “None of you has what I want.”
“Ashley, get out of your dream world and come in and get Miles. Brea’s waiting.” Mrs. Browning is tapping her toes, as I sit behind the wheel of my convertible, lost in a better world than this one.
My mind is far away from Mrs. Browning’s moving mouth. I mean, I wish I really looked that good in a swimsuit. I have one of those special mirrors in my dreams. That’s a nice place to be.
“You didn’t bring that mutt with you, good.”
And then my dream is magically gone. Lost in Mrs. Browning’s angular face. Brea’s mother has the pointiest nose you ever saw. You almost expect it to start growing as she speaks, like Pinocchio. Not that she lies. It would almost be a blessing if she did because what she really thinks is so much worse than something she might temper with a kind white lie.
“It’s nice to see you too, Mrs. Browning,” I remark, grabbing my bag and getting out of the car. I’m not in the mood for falsehood this morning, and if Mrs. Browning can’t be bothered, neither can I.
“Don’t get smart. I’ve been waiting around all morning, and I’d like to get to the club and work on the Christmas party. Brea said you were coming, and I count on you. Not that I shouldn’t know better.”
Something in me snaps here. “You know, Mrs. Browning, every parent I have ever met loves me. Even boyfriends who dumped me in high school, I still get Christmas cards from their parents. What on earth makes you hate me so?”
Her lips purse together like an angry bird in a Hitchcock film. “I don’t hate anyone. I’m a Christian. And as such, I feel there are certain standards to be upheld. Ashley Stockingdale, do you have any idea what time it is?”
I’m scratching my head here. Not only do I know what time it is here, I also happen to know what time it is in Taiwan, India, and England.
“I’m not late, Mrs. Browning. I’m actually early. I told Brea I’d be over when the contractor arrived.” I shut the car door.
“Hmmph.” She starts for her Infiniti and looks back at me.
“Your own husband loved me,” I remind her.
“I love you too, Ashley. I just don’t appreciate you at times. You’re self-absorbed.”
I nod. “I’ll give you that one, but then again, who isn’t?” I mean, the country club Christmas craft fair? I hike up the steps to Brea’s house, and she meets me at the door. “What are you doing up? Get back in bed.”
She lets out a deep sigh. “I’m supposed to move a bit to keep the blood flowing. Poor Miles, he is bored to death. He wants to go see the pretty Christmas lights and maybe Santa.”
“Santa?” I ask incredulously. “Santa is definitely something he should do with his Mama.”
“It’s his first Christmas, Ashley. He needs his photo with Santa and I can’t go. Unless you want to push me in the wheelchair and Miles in his stroller—and my mom will take him to a cheap strip mall Santa.”
I enter through the screen door and
see Miles on the floor gumming a teething ring and looking at his feet. “All right. What’s he wearing?”
Brea shows me a little green and red plaid velvet suit. “Heart-strings,” she says, spouting a brand I never heard of.
“Darling.”
“So you’ll take him to the mall?” Brea says like a question, but it’s really more of a command. “Stanford. They have the best Santa.”
“I have to meet Kevin for lunch at one. Lucky for you, that’s where we’re meeting.”
“You better get moving then. I’m going to keep him in his sleeper, and you dress him there so he doesn’t get dirty, okay?”
“Okay, Brea.”
Her face relaxes and a peace overcomes her. “His diaper bag is filled with everything you’ll need. He needs to eat about eleven.”
“Check,” I say as Brea hands me the baby bag that would house half the free world. I place Miles in his little carry bucket seat. “Brea, you shouldn’t lift this bag. My goodness, what do you have in here?”
“Make sure you comb his hair before the picture. Use the diaper in there to wipe up any spittle before the picture, and Ashley . . .”
“Yes, Brea.”
“Thank you. I know John wouldn’t comb his hair, and when he got to the mall and saw the traffic, he’d just turn around.”
I’d do anything for Brea. She knows that. She’d do anything for me. It’s a mutual fan club. “No problem. If there’s one skill I have accomplished in life, it’s maneuvering the mall. Keeping a job? Not really my thing, apparently.”
“If you marry rich, maybe you’ll only need to know the mall.” Brea winks at me.
“Yeah, well, don’t hold your breath. I have yet to meet the man who can keep up with my spending habit.”
We both laugh, and Brea gets all serious. “I used to say that I cared about money, and then I met John. I tell you, I’d live in a hovel to be with him.”
I hold up my hand. “Don’t even go there with me. Seth had money. They say marrying rich, you’ll earn every penny. And I believe them.”
“Kevin doesn’t live like that.”
“Kevin’s just a friend,” I say, forcing myself to avoid the obvious. The last thing I need is to be falling for a guy at this point.
“You’ll figure it out. I know you will.” Brea smiles knowingly.
I’m not sure I believe that, but sometimes it’s nice just to live in a little fantasy world. One where I look like a bachelorette in a swimsuit, minus the sleaze factor, and the qualified men are four-to-one.
The mall is frenzied, since it’s the week after Thanksgiving. Stanford is always busy, but when there’s an actual reason to shop, other than being well-dressed and/or metrosexual, then it’s ridiculously overcrowded.
After circling for an eternity for a parking spot, I pull Miles out of the car in his baby seat and plug it into a stroller contraption. Takes me thirty minutes to figure this out, and I’m a patent attorney, quite accustomed to schematics and all that. Miles just gurgles during my incompetence, and I swear if I could find a man this calm, I’d marry him in a second.
We make our way across the parking lot with our gear, packed as though we could survive a surprise winter storm, though it hasn’t snowed here since I was a baby. We get to the Santa display and the line forms in a zigzag direction that makes Lombard Street in San Francisco look like an easy downhill hike. I look down at Miles and realize he still needs his little plaid outfit.
“Let’s go find the bathroom,” I soothe.
He gives me a small squeal as a reward. We enter the bathroom, and I see I’m not the only one with this brilliant idea. There is a line for the diaper changing table. As though the ladies’ rooms of America aren’t busy enough, now we have to share them with infants and strollers and diaper bags swelled with designer baby items.
Our turn finally arrives. Now, changing a baby sounded easy to me, because the last time I changed Miles, he was ill and didn’t struggle against the plan. Today, however, he is like a little bag of moving bones kicking at the indignity of being changed on a plastic table. I have put down his Gymboree blanket, so he’ll have no idea where we actually are, but babies are like mountain lions, they understand their environment well.
After what I like to call “the plaid fiasco,” we get in the line of screaming infants, tantrum-throwing toddlers, and particular mothers, most with nannies in tow. Santa is currently on his break and the long line isn’t even moving. I mutter to myself, “Brea so owes me. She owes me big.”
“Ashley!” I hear my name and turn around to see Arin heading toward me without her bindi dot and sari. She actually looks quite cute in a black sweater over a big white collared shirt. Very professional for the likes of Arin.
“Hi, I thought you were in India.” I say this as nicely as possible so as not to imply, I thought you were in India taking off the finishing touches of Seth and his overwhelming fear of commitment.
“No, not yet. I’m staying through Christmas. My parents are coming out from Boston, and they wanted to spend some time with me first.”
I grin dumbly. So Seth is alone for Christmas. When I think of poor lonely Seth in the big country of India . . . okay, I can’t help my smile, truthfully. Revenge, while I know it’s the Lord’s to dole out, really does feel good sometimes. We’re sinful creatures. But then my heart gets the better of me, and I feel sorry for him all by himself. No job is worth being away from the life as you know it, unless you’re an adventurer. Which I’m not. And neither is Seth, really.
The line starts to move, and I inch away from Arin, but she just follows behind me.
“Is this Miles?”
I nod.
“He just gets cuter and cuter. How’s Brea feeling?”
“I think she’s getting a bit tired of the bed rest, but she’ll need it when she’s got two babies to care for. She’s still not keeping food down, so they have her on fluids. I can’t believe how much work one of these little guys is.” As we’re talking, I take out Miles’s baby brush and start to comb his auburn locks. This baby is idyllically cute.
Arin clears her throat. “I think Seth is coming home from India.”
My world just collapsed. “What do you mean, for Christmas?”
“I mean, he doesn’t like it there. He’s coming back home. He said he tried to tell you over the phone, but you didn’t seem all that interested.”
“I’m glad for him if that’s his choice.” Who wants to hear you have to avoid your ex at church again?
“From the sound of it, you’re not interested in Kevin either, so what does interest you, Ashley?”
“Why do you say that? That I’m not interested in Kevin?”
“Are you?”
Very good question. He’s to-die-for good-looking, chivalrous to a fault, and our chemistry is overwhelmingly magnificent. So I’m at least a little interested. But I have to say, my history with Seth has me questioning the whole need for male companionship in my life. And Kevin’s racist parents seem to be the Tupperware lid of closure on the deal.
“Time will tell, I suppose.”
Arin nods. “And Seth? Where does he stand?”
“Somewhere in the state of Punjab, I imagine.”
Arin seems awfully interested in my love life, and considering how pathetic and paltry it is, I wonder what she finds so fascinating.
“He loves you, Ashley.”
“Who loves me?”
She gets this look on her face, like she’s going to spill her guts, and I brace myself.
“Seth does. I thought he and I had the same dynamic for ministry. I misread God’s guidance. Actually, I think I didn’t listen to it. Seth and I are wrong for each other.”
“Didn’t you stand in front of me and tell me this same thing about Kevin? That he loved me? You know, if a guy loves me? I’m just going to have to figure it out on my own.” I switch hips with Miles, “By the way, here’s a surefire clue that it’s not God’s will. When you have to arrange everythin
g to your will? That’s whose will it is.”
She shakes her head. “I didn’t think you two were really in love.”
Can’t help my smile here. “No one knows what an engineer in love looks like, I imagine.”
She nods her head, smiling at me. “I’m sorry. I toyed with Kevin’s heart, and then yours. And here I stand, alone and getting sent to a foreign country to serve. I wanted to know I had a place to fall.”
One can’t help but feel for Arin, with her brilliant blue eyes and Ivy League education. She’s been so used to having her way in life, it just never occurred to her that God would change her course. I’m with her. I hate that too. Is there anything worse than discovering you can’t really control anything? That you just have to dive into God’s current, and enjoy the ride?
Miles starts to cry, and I switch him to the other hip and wrap his blanket about him as I face him toward the colorful, glittering Santa display.
“I’m apologizing, Ashley. Not too well, but I got in between you and Seth. On purpose.”
“If Seth truly loved me, nothing could have kept us apart . . . if that had been God’s will. It wasn’t. I assure you with all I know to be true, Seth had to go searching. He had to cut bait.”
“What?”
We get to the front of the line, and Miles spots Santa. He watches the red suit and scary white beard and starts to whimper as if to say, I’m not going up there. Don’t you make me go up there. He looks up at me with his eyes wide and his nose red, as if saying NOOOO! like Luke discovering Darth Vader is his real father.
“I thought you should know,” Arin finally says. “It’s you Seth loves, not me.”
I laugh. “Seth loves himself, Arin. He’ll do whatever he has do to protect himself from the likes of me and real emotions. Learn this lesson young, Arin. If a man doesn’t want you? Move on, because God has something much better planned for you.”
“You’re so mature, Ashley. I hope I’m like you when I grow up.”
“I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”
“Which package would you prefer, A, B, or C?” an overly enthusiastic elf asks me, and Miles starts to scream at the sight of her.
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