“You don’t mind then?”
“I want to stay. I’m good at this, Daisy, and I love it. I’m happy here.” She’s near tears, as if I’m going to take something away from her.
“You can stay. I don’t mind. I just wanted you to know I’m leaving and to make sure you didn’t feel abandoned. You’ll be the only girl left on the overnight staff.”
“Libby’s here.”
That didn’t matter when I was the only girl, but I suppose for the perfect Queen Esther, Libby will make an exception. “Yeah. I’ll be at your hotel with my parents. You’re sure you’ll be okay without me here?”
“It doesn’t sound like I have a choice,” Claire says.
True. “Not if you want to finish.”
“She’s welcome.” Libby interrupts me. “She hasn’t given me a moment’s trouble, and she’s the best actress we’ve ever had in a role for the kids. They love her, and I’d be crushed if she left now.”
The kids start to tug on Claire’s robe as though she’s Jesus himself. She smiles and bends down until she’s surrounded by little figures glomming onto her. “I couldn’t leave now.”
“Then I have to run. There’s something I have to do.”
Libby’s eyes narrow at my words, but I figure nothing I say would surprise her now. She probably thinks Max and I are off on a romantic tryst. But it doesn’t matter what she thinks. J.C.’s secret is keeping Libby safe, even if she doesn’t know the truth. God knows the truth.
Claire nods. “I’ll call you when the work week here is done.” She bends down to the kids’ level. “It’s important to finish what I started.”
“Yeah.” I try to comprehend how Claire found the experience here to be so fulfilling while it was like serious dental work for me the entire time. “Call when you’re ready.”
Libby smirks at me, as if she’s won over my best friend like we’re in a bad junior high girl fight. I pray to find the right words and inner peace. “Thank you for your hospitality, Libby. I hope you have a wonderful and fruitful week here.”
“Just remember, spiritual pride is a terrible character flaw to battle in this lifetime. I’ll pray for you, Daisy.”
“You do that,” I say with all the sarcasm I can muster. I rush across the field to Max and get into the already running car. He doesn’t even look at me, he just starts backing out.
As we’re leaving, my parents pass us, pulling into the dirt lot in a rented yellow vehicle. “It’s my parents! Max, stop the car.”
He looks genuinely ticked off, but he stops the car. “Why don’t you take your stuff and go with them?”
My mouth dangles open. “Max, you know why. Are you bailing on me?”
He sighs his annoyance. “Just hurry up. That guy is going to miss his flight.”
I run to the passenger window and pant my desperation. I know what they must be thinking about me taking off with Max in the middle of my work week. “Mom, Dad.” I motion for them to roll down the window.
“Daisy, I have the best news!” my mother shouts.
“Mom, not now. Please listen. You have to trust me, but I have to go and I can’t explain why right now. Libby kicked me out of the program, and I’ve got to get back to America and work full-time for the food bank to cover my ministry requirements. But there’s something else I have to do before I go back to the hotel. Max is going to take me on an errand, and I need you to trust that he’s the man for the job. And that I’ll be safe with him.”
“What do you mean she kicked you out?” My father shuts off the engine and steps out of the vehicle. He’s staring at me over the roof of the car. He looks like he’s ready to have Libby for lunch, and he starts to march across the field.
“Dad,” I call after him. “Don’t. You’ll only make things worse, and Claire’s staying. Please. Just trust me, I’ll explain everything later. I promise, Max and I won’t be alone for long, and this has nothing to do with us. We’re not even a couple. Please believe me.”
“What you’re doing isn’t dangerous, is it?”
“No. Not anymore. I just need to go.”
Mom grabs my arm, and I notice she’s wearing a silver ring decorated with her first initial. “Where did you get that?”
“Your father bought it for me in town. Isn’t it beautiful?”
It’s not, really, but my mom and I have never agreed on the definition of beauty. “Nice job, Dad. Tell me all about it at dinner, all right?”
“What time will you be back at the hotel? We’ll head there now,” my dad says.
I look at Max and then back to my parents. “I’ll be there by six at the latest.”
“Take our phone so we can reach you and we don’t have to worry. You can call the hotel and leave us a message if you’re delayed for any reason.”
I nod and take the proffered cell phone. “Thanks Mom, Dad. Thanks for trusting me.” I clutch the phone in my hand and walk toward Max. If I wanted closure, I sure did a good job of opening up yet another can of worms with J.C. And would Max remotely care about me if J.C. weren’t in the picture?
I stare at him, trying to decipher his thoughts as I get into the car. His deep, dark eyes reveal nothing.
12
My skin feels like it’s crawling with scorpions as Max and I hurtle toward town on the scarcely paved road. I figure I have precious few seconds to work this out with Max before J.C. comes into the picture. It’s not exactly the prime place to have a DTR (define the relationship) conversation, especially when I think that definition is about who broke up with whom.
“Max, just so I know, if you dumped me, can you tell me why? I have this insane need to learn from my mistakes. Or yours, as the case may be, but I want to learn anyway.”
“I don’t know that we were really . . . you know, dating, to say dumped. That’s a strong word.”
“As in being left waiting for a gentleman caller who never came.”
“Touché.”
I’m feeling more desperate for answers as he speeds toward the hospital. “Can you slow down, Max? I’m trying to talk to you.”
“I can’t be late for your boyfriend. He’s going to miss his plane.”
I slump in my seat. I give up. Max is impossible, and maybe, just maybe, it’s totally him and not me at all. Without closure, that’s the way I choose to see it. The dude has issues.
“If J.C. is my boyfriend, I made pretty fast work of him. I closed that deal quickly.”
“Sarcasm noted,” Max says. “I assumed I’d see you when you were back in town. You know I have a job, right?”
I would have assumed that too if you’d said it, rather than “I’ll be out to see you.” But I don’t say this. It sounds too volatile, too angry, as if his visit meant far too much to me. Let him wallow in the fact that J.C. was present. I don’t want to chase a guy like Max makes me chase him. It’s pathetic and it’s not feminine, in my opinion.
“There’s the hospital,” I tell Max. “Are you coming up with me? Or do you want me to get J.C.?”
“I’ll come. If you have to translate anything to get him out, you two will be forever.”
All about him. What took me so long to see that about Max? Maybe because when he liked me, he didn’t act like this. At least, I don’t remember him acting like this.
“For the record,” Max mumbles, “you didn’t seem very interested in seeing me when I picked you up, and I assumed since you made no effort, you dumped me.”
I push a strand of loose hair over my ear, as if trying to ensure he said what I think he said. “Let me get this straight. I’m in a foreign country—your foreign country—and yet you didn’t think I made enough of an effort? Did you expect me to propose?”
“I got nervous. Something about your attitude made me nervous.”
“Which is not really my fault, right?”
“I thought you’d want to go out with your parents and me if you weren’t ashamed of me.”
“If that’s the case, you don’t seem very heartbroke
n. Is your heart broken or is your ego bruised?”
Max turns and stares at me, then back at the road before him. “Both, I suppose. The final insult being you thought of me only to pick up J.C., which means you never considered me a boyfriend. You didn’t ask your parents, Claire—any of them could have rented a car to get your boyfriend to the airport and not messed up your mission work.”
“There’s a reason that I called you. I—”
“Did you want me to be jealous?” His eyes narrow as if he expects me to be guilty.
“What? No!”
“I see how it is now.” Max grins like he’s just finished a successful tango on Dancing with the Stars. He’s got this aura of self-satisfaction that makes me want to slap the expression from his face. But then again, that only proves his point, as though I was trying to make him jealous, so I don’t protest further.
“Max, I wouldn’t wish that feeling on my worst enemy, so I can assure you, that was not part of my plan. You give me a lot of credit for planning ahead, and I’m not that organized. I called you because J.C. is pretty beat-up and he didn’t want my parents to see him like that. He didn’t want Libby to know the particulars for her safety—”
“Because you two were where you weren’t supposed to be and you got caught?”
I sigh. “Because the man who hurt J.C. could hurt Libby if he found out J.C.’s connection.”
Max exhales. “I knew it. This guy is going to be just like Chase, no? He’s got you believing he’s saving everyone. The big hero, like Mr. Air Force Academy himself,” he says, referring to my childhood crush.
“You are jealous.”
Max opens his mouth to speak but shakes his head instead. “Never mind. Where are we picking this guy up? Do you have to check him out?”
“I thought I’d just go to his room and check his status.”
The conversation is so shallow. Both of us want to avoid the real work of having an emotional conversation, I suppose. If Max was/is jealous, he’s going to keep it to himself.
As we pull up to the hospital, Max drives into a parking spot and I notice J.C. seated on a red bench outside the building. I know it’s now or never with Max. “Whether you did or didn’t, I felt dumped by you and discarded on the side of the road.”
“That’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it?”
“Maybe, but it’s how I felt, and I thought you should know before you toss someone else aside. Girls have feelings, Max, and when you tell someone you love them, they expect it to show. All I’m saying.” I reach for the door handle. “J.C.’s waiting. I’ll be back with him.”
Max tugs at my shoulder. “Daisy, wait.”
I turn back toward him.
“I shouldn’t have said I loved you.”
I nod. “Consider it unsaid.”
“Not because I didn’t mean it. Because . . . it’s complicated and I don’t know how to say it.”
J.C. rises from the bench as he sees me.
“It’s all right. The explanation will probably hurt worse than the lack of one.” I tug the door handle.
“I suppose you want me to help him limp to the car.”
“Do whatever you’d like, Max.” I push open the car door and hike my purse over my shoulder, though it has no money in it—that’s still on my person. Still, it seems stupid to leave the bag in the car as a temptation for someone.
J.C. leans against the bench, a crutch under one arm. His blond hair is tousled, and he’s got one eye still bandaged, a bruised, bulbous lip, and his left arm in a cast. “What are you doing here? I told you not to come so you didn’t screw things up with Libby.”
“I’m here. Let’s leave it at that for now.”
“That’s Max?”
“Yeah.”
“Decent of him to come.”
“He thinks I invited him to make him jealous.”
“Did you?”
I turn and cross my arms in front of me, forcing J.C. to stop walking. “Not you too! Did you not ask for Max?”
“Yeah, but since you’re here, I have to wonder. Did you put your scholarship in jeopardy so you could make sure Max hadn’t forgotten about you?”
I sigh. “Just get in the car. I’m done with guys. When I get home, I’m going to get my first cat. That’s it. Just me and the cat. No guys to complicate my life. No one to make me feel inferior or stupid or accuse me of provoking people. Nope, from here on out, it’s just the cat. They purr when they’re happy, they screech when they’re not. Very simple creatures, and clearly all my IQ can handle at this point.”
“Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed,” J.C. says. “Did you get kicked out of the mission?”
“Yes,” I say as we start walking again.
“I knew it. She was just waiting for a reason. She doesn’t know about Pablo or his stepfather, does she?”
“No, and let’s just say keeping her safe was not the highest of my priorities when I left there.”
“I don’t have a free hand,” he says, looking at one arm holding the crutch and the other in the cast. “But if I did, I’d applaud to tell you how proud I am of you.”
“Save that thought. You might need to relay it to my parents via video chat when the swelling on your face disappears.”
“What the heck happened to you?” Max asks him. “I’d shake your hand, but it looks like someone else has already shaken everything.”
“Very funny. Thanks for coming to get me.”
“When Daisy calls, I come running.”
“Like when you were supposed to bring the candy to the mission?”
“I had to work.”
“In America, we call our girlfriends when we can’t show.”
“Daisy didn’t have a phone with her.”
“You could have called the mission.”
“Her parents told me not to, that she needed to concentrate on the work if she was going to get her paperwork signed. In my country, we honor thy parents.”
“Yeah, well, in my—”
“Shut up! Callate!” I shout. “Both of you. What time’s your flight, J.C.?”
“Three. I’m supposed to be there by one.”
“That’s only two hours from now!”
“That’s plenty of time,” he says. We pile into the car, and Max fires up the engine. He turns on the radio and we sit listening to the Latino polka-sounding music, each of us lost in our thoughts. As Max turns onto the highway, we drive past the mission and onto the high desert landscape that leads back to the city.
Max is focused on driving, and every once in a while he aims those gorgeous brown eyes at me in the rearview mirror. In the meantime, J.C. looks out the passenger window, and the three of us remain silent. No doubt each of us is thinking what an odd threesome we are and lacking the words to say what probably should be said.
I’m thinking about speaking when at that second there’s an explosive sound in the car, as if a bomb has gone off. The car lurches to the side of the gravel road and hurtles toward a ditch. The short moment where the car is airborne feels eerily silent, and as I see the ditch rising to meet us, I brace myself against the front seat.
The car slams into a mound of dirt and pushes off to land in the ditch, where we come to a hard stop. The airbag deploys, and Max slumps over it. J.C. groans in agony, but otherwise the silence overwhelms us.
“Max?”
J.C. has hold of his own arm. “I think he’s unconscious.”
“Max!” I grab him from behind, wrap my arm around his shoulders, and lift his head off the steering wheel, then immediately realize I shouldn’t have moved him. “Max!”
“His forehead is bleeding,” J.C. says.
I hold Max’s chin in my hand and he twists toward me. A wide grin spreads across his face.
“See, you like me best. You were worried.”
“Aargh! You are exhausting! Your forehead’s bleeding.”
He presses his fingertips to his forehead and feels the gash, then brings his bloody fingers towar
d me. “I’m all right. Heads bleed a lot.” He turns toward the windshield and the reality of our situation seems to hit him. “How are we going to get out of here?”
“What happened?”
“We had a blowout.” Max uses a red rag to blot his forehead and presses against the cut to stop the bleeding. “I hope no one stole the spare tire out of the trunk lately.”
“That’s sick, dude,” J.C. says, staring at the grease-stained rag.
“You should talk. If you hadn’t passed on your luck to me, we wouldn’t be in this mess.” Max gets out of the car, and his gait doesn’t look much more stable than J.C.’s. All of the windows are down in the heat, and the gravel road above us is free of any traffic. Or help. Max walks around the car on top of the ditch and surveys the damage. “We’re stuck good. Your boyfriend isn’t going to be able to help, so I think you have to get out, Daisy. We have to get the car back on the road before we can change the tire.”
“Get out and do what?”
“Push. This car ain’t going to move itself down here, and I need to change the tire.”
“How long will that take?”
“Longer if you don’t get out of the car quickly.”
“I can help,” J.C. offers and claws unsuccessfully at the door.
“J.C., just stay here. It’s my day to be the hero. I’m a lot stronger than I look,” I tell him.
He half grins. “I know that. I knew it before you did.”
Max opens J.C.’s door, but it jams into the side of the ditch and he slams it shut again. “You have to try and steer. Think you can manage that? The door won’t open. You have to climb over there.”
“Yeah,” J.C. says with more bravado than I’ve heard from him before.
The ditch is not huge, more like a rut of three feet or so, but we’re at the end of it, so we’re going to have to push backwards before we can actually try to get out of the rut, and even then it’s going to take a lot of momentum to push the tiny vehicle out of the ditch. The tire is shredded, with pieces of it littering the dirt road behind us.
“We’re not going to make J.C.’s flight,” I say.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
Perfectly Ridiculous Page 14
