“Honeymoon.”
I pressed my palm to my eyes. Honeymoon.
Mom and Dad were going to die.
I could maybe handle the situation with a lot of prayer and by living in Sweden, but…my poor parents. How would they handle this? “Is gay marriage legal in Scotland?”
“I haven’t the foggiest.” A deep crease formed between Isaac’s eyes.
I decided to keep on texting. “oooh!!!” I would have said more, but I was basically speechless.
“I know right?” Drew was answering so quickly, she must be stuck in line somewhere. She definitely wasn’t riding on the back of the motorcycle.
I took a deep breath and started again. “Metaphorical or literal?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Yes! Yes I would like to know! But I didn’t type that. Of course I wanted to know. If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t have missed the last week of school trying to find her.
“Dani, you have some decisions to make.” Isaac had his professor voice on. I fully admit I loved his professor voice. “I came down here to help you find your sister and keep her safe, but you know what? She’s fine.”
I nodded. Then I texted, because Isaac had paused and it didn’t seem rude. “R U OK?”
She responded, again immediately, “Im completely insane.”
“Obviously. Who did you marry?”
“Ha ha!”
Ha ha? What did that mean? I was starting to shake with anger, so my next text was such a fat-fingered mess it autocorrected to “Pies let me bow tie R Dairy Queen.” I sent it anyway.
“U R totally insane 2!”
I slowed down and tried again. “Please let me know U R safe.”
“Not safe, but good.”
I hated when she referenced C. S. Lewis instead of answering my questions.
“Okay, here’s the deal.” I was ready to respond to Isaac finally. “She’s in Calais, she’s stuck somewhere, in a line or having breakfast or something. We might be able to figure out where if we’ve got any good Instagrams.”
He shook his head. “But we don’t know where anything is in this town.”
“But Google image search does.”
He nodded. “Not a bad idea.”
I checked her Instagram. The most recent pic was of a really pretty blonde girl with bright red lips on the deck of a ferry, with the white cliffs behind her. “We may have to be a little patient, though. She hasn’t posted anything since she got to town.” I showed him the latest picture.
“Do you think that’s Marissa?”
I shrugged.
“I think she’s just messing with you.” Isaac’s voice went from professor to…friend. Nothing bossy or superior at all. He sounded kind.
“But how can you be sure?”
He hesitated. Then he laughed. “Because I caught her in Carter’s dorm room after hours, two weeks ago.”
I blushed. How embarrassing.
“I hate to cast aspersions on her honor, but they were alone and weren’t wearing all the clothes they had started with.”
“I find that strangely comforting. And yet…”
“I know what you are thinking, I think. But don’t let your heart be troubled, yes? Even this can be handled with prayer and petition.”
“Finally!” I sat up. A warm, summer feeling filled me up and spilled out. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say something like that?”
He squared his shoulders..
“I was so worried about your salvation. You don’t even know. I mean, what kind of Bible teacher doesn’t tell a student to pray about her missing sister? Did you realize you hadn’t suggested that?”
“You’ve made it very clear you don’t think I’m saved.” He bristled like a scrub brush.
“But, you said it now. It’s like a dark cloud has been blown away.”
“You’ve got it all wrong.”
“Oh, probably, when don’t I? But you were all messed up inside, and now you seem to be all brightened up. After the week I’ve had, it feels good.”
He sat silently. He was good at that.
“You have to admit you haven’t been the most fundie of fundies at the school.”
“Whoever said I was a fundie?”
“Don’t be silly, Isaac. You believe the Bible is the inspired word of God. You believe in traditional values. Fundamental truths in the classical 1950s sense. Not plural marriage and shunning. Just because the world wants the word fundie to mean all sorts of weird, bad things doesn’t mean it does.”
“Dani…I know you don’t want people to see you as young and naïve, but in a few years you will be a totally different person. Even you will face serious disappointment someday. And when you do, you will have your Job moments, when the world seems to be full of people telling you to curse God and die.”
“Maybe I won’t.” I squirmed. I had had a little disappointment already. Of course I had. Who was he to say I hadn’t? And I hadn’t given up on God or anything.
“We all think we won’t. So what? Since when does what we think have anything to do with reality? Just listen, for a minute, without trying to think of the best response.”
I nodded. My stomach was beginning to hurt.
“When Jane dumped me, I was broken. I did everything I could think of to prove I was better than she thought I was. And you know where it got me?”
I shook my head.
“It got me here: fired from my job, stuck in Calais with a girl barely out of high school, hunting down a nut job who doesn’t want to be found, and wondering how I will ever show my face to my father again.” He turned red. Maybe he had said more than he wanted to.
“Does it help that I’m not technically barely out of high school? I mean, I never went to school.”
“No.”
I shrugged.
He narrowed his eyes. “Did you get your GED?”
“My what?” I picked at the hole in my jeans.
“What did your parents do to you?” It wasn’t a question for me, I could tell, but it was still rude.
“They educated me.” I sat up straighter. “Without the constraints of the system.”
“And what did they expect you to do with this education? Are you some kind of trust fund kid?”
“Hardly. My parents don’t even have electricity at the cabin, much less overseas bank accounts.”
“Did they give you any advice at all about what to do with the rest of your life? Apart from, say, following your bliss?”
“Of course they did.” I crossed my arms. They gave me great advice, but I was not keen to share it with him. I had a feeling Mr. Education would just scorn it.
The silence seemed to be endless.
“Any new word from Drew?” He ignored my ignoring him. I hated that.
“My parents helped me sort out what kind of college would be best for me and then helped me apply for them. They helped me study up for tests, and they proofread my essays. They were a lot of help when they thought I was ready to move on from their nest.”
“And yet you ended up at Tillgiven?”
“It was that or Barnard.”
“Where?”
“You know, in Manhattan. The girls’ school. I really liked some of their programs, and of course, the opportunity to live in Manhattan is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing.”
“Right, that Barnard.” He talked big, but I had a feeling he hadn’t heard of it.
“Yeah, one of the seven sisters. The idea of a historic all-women’s school was really, really up my alley.”
“And a student with absolutely no academic history is right up theirs?”
“Apparently so, but I declined my acceptance.”
“You what?”
“They accepted me, but I decided not to go.”
“You were accepted at…Barnard, but you decided to come to Bible college instead?”
“Yup. I’m very smart.” I sounded like an idiot, but he was just picking an
d picking at this. My parents warned me it would be like this, but I hadn’t expected it from the professor. He had been so cool when he talked about his homeschooling life and finishing all his schools so early. I had totally thought he’d get it, and, if I’m honest, that was half of his charm.
“If you were accepted to Barnard, why on earth would you come to Tillgiven?”
“Why on earth would you teach here?” I had to turn the tables on Mr. Superior. This fight wasn’t helping us find Drew, and I was sick of his attitude. Like no one else on earth had ever been disappointed in love, or had brains.
“Bible school is great, but it’s just a year of, of, of electives,” he stammered. “What are you going to do after this?”
“What’s an elective?” I completely hated when he used education jargon. It was like he was doing it to prove he was better than me.
“An elective is a class you take because you want to.”
“Shouldn’t all your classes be things you want to take?” If all professors were like this one…
“No, you have to, to, to learn things.” A vein in his temple was throbbing. At least this exchange was as painful to him as it was to me.
“But you can’t elect what you want to learn? What a waste.”
“Having a core of knowledge is not a waste. I can’t imagine how you function in the world without one.”
“I function pretty well. You should have seen the scholarship Barnard offered me.”
“But you didn’t take the scholarship, which just shows how ignorant you are.”
I gripped the door handle, ready to pop it open and jump out. How dare he call me ignorant!
“That is not what I meant.” His voice was stiff. “I’m, uh, sorry.”
I bit my tongue. What I wanted to say was not the thing you are supposed to say when someone apologizes.
“I’m clearly the last person you should take career advice from.”
I exhaled slowly.
“But, why didn’t you take the scholarship?”
“Because—” The answer stuck to the roof of my mouth. The time to be completely honest was now, even if I wanted to say something brilliant about God calling me overseas or something. “Because I was scared. Four years in Manhattan at a big, hard, liberal school. Do you know where I grew up?”
He shook his head.
“In a cabin in the Wallowa Mountains with no electricity. And sometimes in my grandparents’ RV. And for the last year or two, traveling all over the States with friends and my sister, and my grandparents. It was the best ever, but Manhattan was going to be too much. Tillgiven, on the other hand…”
“A small, conservative Bible school in the rolling hills of southern Sweden?”
“Quiet, beautiful woods. One hundred kids or so. Time to figure out what I wanted to do with myself.”
“Why did Drew come?”
“Because I begged her.”
Isaac leaned his head back. “She wants something different from life than you do.”
“It would seem.”
“Are we just waiting for her next Instagram post?”
“I guess so.”
“Then I’m going to take a nap.” He reclined his chair and shut his eyes.
He no longer had the blustery urgency he had had before he flew Si to school. I supposed that was because he had already lost what he was trying to save, be that his reputation or his job or Si’s health, or whatever it was exactly. I didn’t know. But his goal was gone, so he was napping.
But if his goal was gone, what was he doing here with me now?
Isaac Daniels 11
Young, naïve, impulsive, vulnerable, lovely, scared. But not ignorant. Even if, deep down, I couldn’t help but think someone who hadn’t even bothered to get her GED or a homeschool diploma was ignorant, it was absolutely, 100 percent, not the thing I meant to say. Especially since she had been accepted to Barnard College. I may have gone to a pretty spiffy private school, but it wasn’t Ivy League. She clearly wasn’t ignorant.
And she wasn’t a shrinking violet either. More like a wildcat. She defended herself with a vigor that would impress my law-practicing family members.
My mom would probably hate her. Jane was way more Mom’s type. But this kid. Man. She had a fire in her spirit.
If she were just ten years older.
If she were ten years older, she would be older than me.
Why did I feel so old all of a sudden? Worn out, spent, exhausted. It was like I was running against the wind. If I wasn’t supposed to be at Tillgiven, why had God provided the job just when I needed it? If I wasn’t supposed to have gone after Si, why did Stina tell me to?
If I was supposed to have done all those things, why had it all turned out so rotten?
I didn’t really want to take a nap, but I had a feeling Dani was going to chew me up and spit me out if I kept talking. What was left of my manhood was on the line, and only shutting down the chatter could protect me. Why had I told her I was afraid to go home? There was no telling.
I had noticed it at school too, though. The way people said things to Dani that she didn’t appear to have expected. The guys and the girls all sort of confided in her. It was a burden, I suspected, to have everyone’s deepest-held secrets laid out like that. The last thing she would want was my secrets.
“Isaac?”
I sighed. Every time she said my name, my knees turned to water. The way she called me “professor” was cute too. “Yeah?” I didn’t open my eyes.
“Do you really think Drew hasn’t, um, run off with a girl, you know…”
“I’d bet Carter doesn’t think she did.” Or Hector, or Josh. But Dani didn’t need to know exactly how many boys her sister had been caught with. “No matter how off her rocker she is, I don’t think Drew is the kind of girl who would just up and get married. She seems too ready to party for that.” I kept my eyes closed. I didn’t know how well Dani and Drew knew each other. But from what I had seen, I was right. Drew could get herself in all sorts of trouble, but she wasn’t likely to get married.
“Thanks.”
I wondered about the girl thing, as I sat there, not sleeping, with my eyes closed. Kids who wanted to rebel sometimes went all out. But if I could keep Dani from freaking out, I would.
“Oh!” Dani let out a girlish squeal, then started the car.
I popped my seat up again too far, and scooted it forward so my knees rammed the dash. I took a deep breath and straightened the seat out. I couldn’t lose what little cool I had left. “What?”
“This.” She pointed her phone at me. The Instagram pic was the vaulted glass ceiling at the train station.
“We don’t even need Google image search to know where that is.”
“Nope. Now if we can just get there before she gets on a train.”
Dani gunned it and only took a few really wrong turns. I was impressed. I also translated the signs. It was a pity her parents hadn’t unschooled her some foreign language.
She parked at the train station and hesitated. “What do we do if she’s already gone?”
“Wait?”
“For how long?”
“I’ve got two weeks to kill.”
She laughed, almost lighthearted. “Have I apologized yet?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Matters to me. I feel awful that I got you fired.”
“So what are we looking for?” I had to change the subject. I didn’t want her begging forgiveness, not after I had been such a jerk. I had a position of authority over her, sort of, and I had already made as big a mess of that situation as I possibly could. I had two weeks of disciplinary leave to get through. If I could get both girls and the car back to the school, and then hide at Stina’s place for the duration, I could possibly redeem the situation.
Which made it sound like I was the kind of guy who believed you had to work for redemption. Which I have never been. Not even when I work the hardest I can to stretch the students in their faith do I ask
them to think they can work their way to heaven. But, I did think there was a chance I could work my way to, say, a paycheck. That wasn’t so hard to believe.
“She went blonde. And two hours ago she was wearing blue jeans, boots, and a vintage leather jacket. Black.”
That wouldn’t make her stand out in a crowd of European women, but she was only about five feet tall, so if I kept my eyes low, I might see her blonde head pop up.
We rushed into the station but then took it slowly, taking care to pay attention to where we were and what we saw. She had the picture on her phone, but it wasn’t any good for locating which part of the station we were in.
“She’s feeling talkative. Why don’t you text her again?”
“Yeah, okay.” Dani looked over her shoulder and then paused to send a text.
We found a bank of televisions with schedules and tried to make sense of the options. “So, you think she went to Scotland to get married because of the Jane Austen books, right? Where did couples go for their honeymoons?”
After a moment’s pause, Dani shook her head. “The Continent. But they tended to end up in Italy, at least for part of it. If she’s reenacting a Regency romance, she must be headed there.” Dani paused, her face lifted, staring at our one, useful clue. “What if a lot of these train stations have the same glass ceilings?”
“Then we might as well go home.” She wasn’t looking at me, so I stared at her. She was pretty young. Five years younger than me. She had dark shadows under her eyes, and her face looked thin. She wavered on her feet. “When was the last time you ate?”
“I had breakfast.”
I doubted it. Not that she was a liar, but I knew her in the morning, and a cup of coffee wasn’t a meal. “Let me get you lunch. We’re not going anywhere until she posts something else on her Instagram. Deal?”
We left the train station, and I drove her to the first French-feeling café I could find. The world of ferries and trains was so international and corporate we could have been anywhere for the last hour, even back home.
I ordered for her, which wasn’t a chauvinist thing. I just wanted to make sure she had real food and not a crepe or some useless thing like that. The waiter brought us each a croque monsieur. I had a feeling the ham and creamy sauce had about as many calories in it as she had had all week, which was why I ordered it. I had hopes that that and espresso would keep us going, because the next meal was going to have to be the “euro” menu at McDonald’s.
Hard to Find: A Tillgiven Romantic Mystery Page 14
