She stared at the magazines spread out in front of us and then scooped them up in her arms and walked out of the room. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” I asked as I followed behind.
“We’re going to have a look-see, do some research.”
“Research?”
“Yes. Here. Sit down.” She pointed to the couch in the family room. “Make yourself comfortable.”
“Why? What are you doing?”
“I’m going to read through these weeklies and ask you what’s bilge.”
“Well, that could take all day.”
“What else do we have to do? We’re both pitiful human beings with no lives, remember?”
I fell onto the couch and put my feet on the coffee table in front of us while she sat crossed legged on the other end, put the stack of magazines between us, grabbed a pen from the sofa table behind us, and then picked up the magazine at the top of the pile.
“‘Ten Fun Facts about Cab.’ This should be profound,” she teased.
“Uh-huh.”
“Fact number one. You hate cats.”
“False. I actually like cats, but seeing as how I don’t have a house, I don’t have any place to put one.”
“I like cats too, but my mother was allergic, so I was never permitted to have one. Then I moved to Africa, and well, they don’t have cats, or at least domesticated ones anyway.”
“Shame.” I picked up a magazine and started looking through the pages. I skipped over the ones that were about me.
“Fact number two. Your favorite color is blue.”
“It’s green.”
“Strike two.” She crossed through both “facts” and then moved to the next. “You’re a football fan.”
“That’s true.”
“They got one right. I’m a football fan as well. I’ve even been to a few large matches down in Kampala.”
“Are you talking about football or soccer?”
“Oh, yes. I suppose I’m talking about soccer.”
“I’m not a soccer fan. I don’t really get it,” I said.
“Then we don’t have that in common after all.”
“Bummer.” I loudly flipped the magazine page.
“Next. You don’t believe in love at first sight.”
“False. I do.”
“Really?” She looked up at me, eyes wide. “That surprises me about you.”
“Why?”
“You don’t seem like the overly romantic type.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Am I?”
“You have no idea how romantic I can be if I have someone to feel romantic for.”
Her body leaned forward from the waist. “And have you…felt romantic toward someone before?”
“When I was younger. It was a girl in high school.”
“What was the most romantic thing you did for her?”
I went back to looking at the magazine as I talked. “I walked to her house in six inches of snow, in the middle of a blizzard, just so we could watch movies together on our day off from school.”
“That’s pretty sweet.”
“Oh, and I stopped at the 7-Eleven and got her chocolate on the way.”
“That certainly would have earned points in my book, especially the chocolate…or sour wormy things.”
“What’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for you?” I asked, looking back at her.
“We’re talking about you, not me.”
“Oh no. You aren’t getting off that easy. You’ve gotta tell me.”
“Romance? Me?” she muttered.
“Yes.”
“Being romantic isn’t high on the scale of importance where I come from. I don’t believe I’ve ever had anyone do something romantic for me.”
“You don’t think or you know you haven’t?”
“I know I haven’t. And admitting such out loud has suddenly made me feel even more pitiful than usual.”
“Why?”
She shrugged.
“You don’t have a boyfriend back home?”
“Not a boyfriend exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“There’s a boy who’s a friend, and he is hoping to be more than friends. But…”
“But what?”
She shrugged again.
“You don’t like him back?”
“Griffin’s very nice. We have a lot in common, similar goals in life. You know, that sort of thing.”
“But?”
“But nothing. We aren’t talking about me. We’re talking about you.”
“Not right now we aren’t. Right now, we’re talking about you and your non-boyfriend.”
“Our parents are encouraging us,” she practically whispered as her shoulders rose and her head lowered.
I was shocked. “An arranged marriage? Do they do that there?”
“Not an arranged marriage. More of…perhaps…a convenient one, one that makes sense.”
“To who?”
“The parents…and Griffin, I suppose.”
“But not you?”
“It isn’t quite how I’d imagined it all to be.” She stared blankly out in the room. “Certainly nothing romantic, I can assure you.”
“Are you attracted to him?”
Her attention came back to me and she shrugged. “He’s a nice-looking fellow. But we aren’t sneaking around behind huts to have our way with each other. I’ll put it that way.”
“Would you if you were?”
“Would I what if I were what?”
“Would you have your way with him if you were attracted to him?”
“Of course not…but I’d at least like to want to feel that way about someone if he was attempting to court me.”
“But you don’t feel that way about him?”
“Not so much. My mother says that the more you like a person, the more attracted to them you become.”
“Sounds a little boring.”
“It is. Trust me, it is,” she admitted. “But boring is safe, and all my parents want for me is to be safe.”
“So are you against any kind of physical contact before you’re married?”
“You mean like snogging and nobbing?”
I nodded. “Snogging and nobbing. Yeah.”
“Snoggage is fine. I’ll be waiting to nob, I can assure you.”
“What is your opinion of people who don’t wait to nob?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Really?” Now I was leaning toward her.
“If it doesn’t affect me, why would I choose to care?”
“What if it does affect you?”
“How would two people nobbing affect me?”
“If someone you cared about had nobbed with someone else?”
She folded her arms across her stomach. “That won’t happen.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t nob, Cabot. What are the chances that a bloke who nobs is going to want a girl who doesn’t?”
“The real question is if a girl who doesn’t nob would want a guy who has.”
“Don’t most people want someone who believes as they do about those types of things?”
I looked back down at the magazine, turned the page, and shrugged.
“Otherwise, it all becomes too difficult. Wouldn’t you agree?” she asked.
“Sometimes people make the choice to nob when they’re young and hormonal. Maybe they don’t realize that by doing it, they might miss out on someone later on down the road who believes differently.”
“I just know for myself that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to be with a bloke who’d nobbed, because I’d worry all the while that he was upset that we weren’t nobbing as well.”
“Shame,” I muttered. “You never know who you’re ruling out.”
“I’m not ruling out anyone. I just can’t imagine an instance where someone who doesn’t see nobbing as something special would want to be with someone who does.�
��
“What does that mean?”
“Take you for instance. You and your co-star are nobbing. You said you don’t really fancy one another. Therefore, I would presume you don’t place the same value on the act that I do.”
“It has value if it’s with the right person,” I tried to explain.
“I don’t see it that way. I see it as something that is valuable and, therefore, you only share it with someone who is also valuable. Something can’t keep its value if it’s continually given away for free or easily.”
“Well, just for the record, no matter who you’re with, he’s going to want to nob with you whether he’s ever nobbed with anyone else or not. So if you think you’ll avoid all that by only dating non-nobbers, you’re lying to yourself. All guys want to nob. All guys are upset if they aren’t nobbing. Some are willing to wait, sure. But they’re still thinking of nobbing even when they know they won’t actually be doing it. We’re guys. It’s what we do. We think about nobbing, and we especially think about nobbing girls we care about.”
“And apparently girls you don’t even care about,” she added.
“I guess.”
“Like I said, we’re from two different worlds, Cabot. We probably won’t ever understand where the other is coming from.”
“I understand where you’re coming from. Trust me. I understand.”
“Very well.” She uncrossed her arms. “May we go back the weeklies?”
“Please do. I’ve never used the word nob in my life, and now I’ve said it about fifty-five times. I’m starting to hate the word altogether.”
She picked up the magazine again. “Next, it says you wear a size ten shoe.”
“False.”
“Why would anyone be interested in what shoe size you wear?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Oh…okay. Moving on. Your favorite food is Mexican.”
“Chinese.”
“Bugger!” she shouted. “Doesn’t anyone do fact-checking?”
“I bet they sent in a list of questions and someone from my agency just made up a bunch a crap and sent it back.”
“Why not just ask you? Why make up information?”
“I’m either traveling or shooting all the time. I don’t have time to sit around and answer questions like this. I don’t think you realize how many magazines or celebrity websites or shows there are. If I tried to answer all their questions, I wouldn’t have time to make movies. Plus, you have to admit, the questions are lame.”
“I’ll give you that.”
“Keep them coming. We’ve got a lot more to get through.”
“It says you enjoy working out.”
“That’s insane. Who likes working out? Besides, you’ve seen me run. How much does it look like I enjoy that?”
“Not at all. As a matter of fact, you seem to be in agony the entire time.”
“See what I mean?”
“Okay. Number seven. You don’t want children.”
“Not true at all. I want lots of kids.”
“How many is a lot?”
“Four or five.”
She gasped.
“What?” I threw the magazine onto the table and turned my full attention toward her.
“Your poor wife. Good thing you can afford some help around the home.”
“What about you? How many kids do you want?”
“I’ve never really thought about it.”
“Really?”
“Really. Number eight. You’re a mama’s boy,” she said with a fast change of topic that I didn’t fail to notice.
“True.”
“Number nine. You enjoy shopping.”
“Nope.”
“Number ten. You prefer blondes.”
I glanced at her hair. “Not anymore.”
“Broadening your horizons?”
“You could say that.”
She finished marking through all the incorrect answers and threw the magazine onto the table. “That’s all the questions. They had a twenty percent accuracy rate. A little higher than what you said it would be.”
“Wait until you get into the articles. It’ll get worse. I promise.”
“Looking forward to it.” She picked up another and started flipping through the pages.
“So when are you going to ask me the big question?” I asked.
She stopped page flipping and looked up at me. “Some things are better left shoved away, never to be discussed. Your nobbing life would be one of those things. Do what you want. I don’t care.”
“That’s not what I was talking about.” I laughed. “Although I would explain it to you some more if you wanted to know.”
“Trust me. I don’t.”
I stayed quiet and glared at her.
“Fine then,” she huffed. “So tell me, what big question are you talking about?”
“Whether or not I have the same religious beliefs you do.”
“Why would that be my business?” she asked.
“You’re a missionary. Isn’t knowing people’s spiritual fate what you live for? Don’t you want to try to convert me?”
“Do you want to be converted?”
I shrugged.
Her neck and jaw tensed up. “Since you keep throwing the word out there, why don’t you tell me what it means to you? Tell me, Cabot, what is a missionary?”
“It’s someone who goes door to door—or hut to hut, in your instance—and tries to convert people to Christianity, or whatever religion it is they believe in.”
“Are you daft?” She jumped from the couch, causing magazines to fall on the floor. She also slapped my leg and kicked my thigh, and when she did, I grabbed her shoe and wouldn’t let go. “For someone so put off by people’s perceptions and assumptions of what they’re like, you don’t have any problem stereotyping me.” Balancing on one leg, she finally yanked her foot out of my grip.
“Is that not what you do?”
“Not even close.” She kicked my legs off the table, stepped over them, and stomped to the staircase.
“Wait.” I followed behind. “Look. I’m sorry I offended you.”
She ignored me and continued on her path toward the bedroom. I stayed close at her heels.
“Explain it to me. If I’m wrong about you, then tell me what it is you do. Help me understand.”
She spun on her heels, practically bumping into me. “I don’t care what you think of me, Cabot Stone. And if what I do makes you uncomfortable or you’re concerned that I’m going to do some sort of voodoo on you, that’s your problem, not mine.”
“Do they teach you voodoo? Maybe I do want to try your religion.”
“Bug off!”
She turned, opened the door, went inside, slammed the door behind her, and left me standing alone in the hallway.
I hadn’t had anyone completely blow me off in over a year, and while I should’ve been ticked or insulted, I actually liked it. It was refreshing. Kei was miffed and honestly didn’t care whether I liked her or not. Not caring if I liked her only made me like her and want her friendship even more.
I opened her door and walked in.
“Don’t you knock?” she screamed.
“Would you have let me in if I did?”
“Of course not.”
“That’s why I didn’t knock.”
She stood glaring at me, foot tapping in annoyance as I looked around her room. Stacks of books littered the floor around her bed, which sat on the wall opposite the door. I walked over and picked up a few. Most were travel books. One was a book about France, another Versailles, and the last a biography.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d leave.”
“No thank you,” I said with a laugh, causing her to groan. “So, you’re a Marie Antoinette fan?”
“I find her fascinating, yes.”
“Hmm.” I walked around and looked at more of the books, partly out of curiosity but mostly to tick her off. I enjoyed getting a rise out of her. “Lond
on…Scotland…Spain.”
“Why are you acting like this is new information? You already know that Europe intrigues me.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught her grab a bra off the end of the bed and shove it under a pillow.
“Where’d all these books come from?”
“Oliver purchases them for me.”
“That’s nice of him.”
“Cabot, can you please leave my room? I’ve got unmentionables lying around.”
“It’s just underwear. No big deal.”
She groaned again.
“Fine.” I turned to go and noticed that the wall was covered in hundreds of photographs. “That’s amazing.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Did you take all of these?”
“Yes. I-I send the files to Oliver, and he has someone print them so they are ready for me when I arrive.”
“You’re very talented,” I continued, ignoring her earlier request for me to leave.
I looked over my shoulder just as she kicked something under the chair and threw the covers over a stack of clothes at the end of the bed.
I walked closer to the wall and stood staring into the eyes that looked back at me. “These are the children you were talking about?”
“Some of them. There are some adults up there too.”
“They look happy. You’d never guess they were fighting for survival.”
“It’s the fact that they’re still alive and able to fight that makes them smile. They might not own anything, but they know what’s most important.”
I felt her walk up behind me. My heart beat like mad.
“Cabot, just because I’m a missionary doesn’t mean I shove my beliefs down people’s throats. I serve them. I help them or I pray with them if they ask. My dad provides trauma counseling, and we visit people when they’re sick and dying or in hospitals. Or we go to them in prisons where they’ve been accused of crimes they didn’t commit. My actions should draw people to the God I serve, not my sales pitch. If people want what I have, they’ll ask me how to get it. If not, that’s their business.”
“I see.”
“There’s more to me than the missionary title you keep throwing out there, just like there’s more to you than what people see on the front of weeklies. Maybe what we do isn’t normal, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to live as normal a life as possible. People’s perceptions don’t define who we are. Don’t limit me by constantly referring to me as a missionary, like it’s a derogatory term; and I won’t limit you by refusing to see past all the gossip.”
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