Keeping Her Love

by Tiger Hill

  When they finally reached their stop in Concord, Rhett decided to be gallant by lifting Tula up with all of her shopping bags and delivering her to the Camaro. Rhett was glad to see that the car was all in on piece, waiting for him under the light of a lamp pole.

  Maybe I should get a cheap little Japanese car for when I go to the Bay Area, he thought as he laid Tula on the brown leather seat. Nah. I mean, we don’t come here that often. Everything seems to have gone well enough.

  Tula curled up on the passenger seat, pulling her white peacoat more closely to herself. Rhett went to his trunk, grabbed a little flannel blanket, and then gently threw it over her. She squinted her eyes briefly at him, smiled, and then pulled the blanket close to her as she passed out again. The ruby ring shone in the light next to the blanket; right where it belonged, on her beautiful finger. He shut her door, got in on his side, and then started the car up. The ride home was as quiet and peaceful as could be expected. He didn’t want to turn on the radio and potentially disturb Tula from her sleep, so instead he sat with his thoughts.

  It’s been so weird for the last while, he thought. All of it strange, I feel like everything went without a hitch when Tula and I first started dating. It was like a wonderful dream. Now… Well, things are fine between us, but the strangest things keep happening ever since.

  He stared out at the white lights on the opposite side of the freeway, wondering if he should fully form the thought he was thinking. Then he gazed at his hands on the wheel—hands that had grappled around the neck of an old woman. He tried to keep his focus on the road in front of him.

  Hopefully nothing more unusual happens. Maybe it’s just a lot of strange flukes. I feel like there’s some kind of weird government conspiracy out there watching and trying to mess with me. Why me, I don’t know. I just can’t shake the feeling that this has all been some kind of setup.

  Max… Okay, yes, Max. He’s never shown affection for me. Something in my gut tells me that he’s had something to do with all of this. The oven bullshit, the reception area cancellation, the jackhammer on Valentine’s Day morning… There’s something going on with that guy. I don’t know what’s going on in his head, but it’s super strange. Then again, I’m making huge assumptions. Tula’s parents had seemed nice enough to me when we first met, but I’m wondering if they’re having second thoughts about me.

  They were the ones who had called us about the oven. Tula’s mom is sure getting uptight about all of the wedding stuff. With all the things Tula is telling me about her crazy cousin in Sacramento, I don’t even want to know what’s coming ahead concerning the wedding planning madness. Would Tula’s mom cancel the reception location on purpose? She seemed to make a huge deal out of the Baptist church nonsense. I guess I’ll have to keep an eye on her.

  And then there’s Tula’s dad. I don’t have a lot of dirt on him yet. Hell, he could have done any of those things, though I guess I think of him mostly in the context of what happened this morning. I’m sure he doesn’t like the thought of a man nailing his daughter, especially under his own roof. Tula and I have been so good this whole time, though. We haven’t actually done anything wrong. At least, nothing sexual. Not that there’s anything wrong with sex.

  Rhett sighed again as he ran all of this through his head.

  I don’t know. I honestly don’t want to think about it. I want it all to blow over. No more bad things. I’m making giant assumptions about Tula’s family, and that’s totally unfair. Max kind of acts aloof around everyone, but for the most part he’s never around. Tula’s mom has been super kind to me, and has gone out of her way to help us find a place for the ceremony and reception. And Tula’s dad… He makes small talk with me and is generally a nice guy. I can’t go mentally pointing fingers at people. It’s not fair.

  Chapter 4

  From February on to April, not much of importance occurred. But then again, Tula and Rhett were so busy with their lives that they didn’t see much of each other. Someone had up and quit at the garage, causing Rhett to pick up more than a few double shifts. Karma’s Bakery had been given a spotlight in a big-name magazine, meaning that the little joint was often in high demand. Subsequently, Tula was often asked to come in early and leave late to handle the recent demand. When Karma passingly mentioned something about opening a second shop and putting Tula in charge of it, she was put in a crossroads of sorts.

  She entered Rhett’s room as soon as he had gotten home after an exhausting day at work. They both had grey patches under their eyes and walked like zombies, but still enjoyed being in the presence of one another.

  “What should I do?” She asked him, some marzipan stuck to her hair. “This could be really great for me—more responsibility and a pay raise. But I’m afraid that I’ll be so caught up with Karma’s business that I won’t have time to start my own.”

  Rhett shrugged, sitting back in his leather computer chair as he faced her. “It’s something you have to figure out for yourself. Karma’s Bakery is the way it is, for the most part, because of you. It would be more of a risk to open your own place, but it would be all yours. If you want to remain a manager for Karma, you’ll be able to go home every night without having to worry about everything.”

  “I already do worry about everything,” she said with a sigh as she sat down on the firm, plain bed. “I don’t know how I’m going to do this. Managing gives me good experience, but I don’t want to get too worn out working at that place. Karma is a great guy, but he already asks a lot of me. And I still haven’t told him that I want to open my own place. I don’t even know how I could tell him at this point. I feel like it’d break his heart to hear it.”

  Rhett couldn’t much argue with that. Putting himself in Karma’s place, there wasn’t much else he could feel about a worker wanting to leave the roost and go into open competition. “Business is business, Tula. You can’t let emotions get in the way. If something were to happen to the bakery, he would let you go in an instant. And anyway, if he can’t be happy for your success, he wouldn’t be a very good friend, would he?”

  Her lower lip pouted a little and she gazed down at the grey comforter. “I don’t know how I could get through this. I feel like I’m getting in deeper and deeper with him. Once I leave, he’s going to have a hard time keeping everything up to the standard that I had. No one at the bakery has the skill I do. And then he’s going to have to worry about all of his customers potentially coming to my shop instead of his.”

  “Karma will be okay. He’s no dummy. I mean, he was smart enough to hire you.”

  Tula sent him a compromising smile.

  “You’re not planning on opening your own bakery for a year from now, right? And we don’t even know where we want to start our life together. Stop worrying so much. Do what you have to do to make your own life happy. You don’t need to worry about keeping everyone satisfied.”

  Another questioning look shot his way.

  “Don’t look at me like that! Some selfishness would do you good. You can’t be nice all the time. Nothing would ever get done.”

  She laid back on the mattress, staring up at the ceiling. “I suppose you’re right. I can be a little too nice, can’t I?”

  Rhett joined her on the bed and crept up towards her. “It’s one of your best qualities, but also something that holds you back a bit. Don’t forget that you deserve to get the things you want in life. As long as you’re being as tactful as possible, it’s not wrong to want to spread your wings and do as you wish. Right?”

  This time her smile was gentle and at ease. “You’re right. It’s why I love you so much, Rhett—I feel like I can come to you with any problem on my mind, and you’ll be able to solve it right away.”

  “I do my best.”

  Her arms reached up to wrap around him, and they embraced side-by-side on the bed. They held each other for no longer than two minutes before an irritating voice was followed by footsteps.

  “Oooh! What are you two up to? No extra snuggling allowe
d, hehe!”

  Both of them let out a little groan. A new person was living with them temporarily—Tula’s cousin, Layla Peterson. She was rail-thin, wore trendy clothes with wild patterns, and had a thick set of braces on her teeth. She often sounded like she had a few marbles in her mouth, and her voice was otherwise as high as a parrot’s. Her parents were renovating half of their house, practically having bulldozed it down, and chose to live in an RV across the street. Layla, having a difficult time with the noise and close quarters to her snoring parents, had decided to inquire about living with her aunt and uncle. The house was already full, but being the kind and generous people Mr. and Mrs. Florian were, they offered her their large L-shaped couch to sleep on for the next six weeks.

  Layla wasn’t a terrible person to live with, per say. She could be nosy and a bit authoritative about things a guest shouldn’t be, especially concerning how things were organized in the shared bathroom. She was also wedding crazy, a thing that didn’t necessarily bother Tula too much since she liked having someone to go over details with. There was one other particular thing about Layla—she was head-over-heels in love with Max. Max didn’t seem to exactly share the same sentiments as his teenage cousin, and had tried to ignore her since she had hit puberty. Even from the beginning, she hadn’t exactly concealed from ever-lasting love for the blond heartthrob who was five years her senior. She showered him with affection and syrupy prose, hoping to win him over every time she saw him. Every Christmas and Valentine’s Day, Max received a specially-signed card from her. He almost always threw the show of affection straight into the garbage.

  Rhett couldn’t blame the guy for throwing the stuff out and generally being a bit callous—from what he had been told, Max had made it as clear as possible to Layla that he wasn’t interested in a relationship of any kind. What else could he do besides outright yell at her? But in a way, Rhett admired Layla’s determination, however irritating it must have been for Max to go through it. Now that Layla was living at the house, Max had made himself very scarce.

  Coming back to the present situation, the couple put a few inches between each other, not wanting rumors to fly around the house about inappropriate behavior happening. Tula had already gotten a warning from her father about the amount of attention she and Rhett had given each other during a steamy Friday night movie.

  “Hi, Layla,” said Rhett in a flat tone.

  Layla stuck her tongue out at him in a playful manner. “Tula, I have a picture of the most beautiful wedding dress on the planet. I found it in a magazine that I picked up today at Fry’s. You have to come see it right now.”

  Rhett raised an eyebrow. “What were you doing in an electronic store like Fry’s?”

  “I can go to a place like Fry’s if I want to, Rhett,” she responded in a sassy tone. The few words they shared together often had a spicy element to it. Their relationship with each wasn’t aggressive so much as like a game of handball. “Anyway, you have to come see it. It’s an A-line, just the shape you like. Satin, pearls, bling… You just have to see how great this thing is.”

  Rhett could have sworn he heard her groan as she got up from the bed. As he laid there, just thinking about what he had talked about with Tula, his tiredness got the better of him and he passed out. When he woke up, Tula was on his computer, staring blankly at the large monitor.

  “Hey,” Rhett said, sounding like a frog was in his throat. He slowly lumbered himself into a sitting position, rubbing the stars out of his eyes. “What time is it?”

  “Nine,” Tula responded without turning.

  He cleared his throat and looked around the room. “Wow, I was asleep for three hours? I wonder what happened there. I guess I’ve been working too hard.”

  Tula didn’t respond and continued to stare at the screen.

  “Something wrong, love?” He asked, scooting closer. Once he got a better look at his fiancée, he saw that her eyes were red and irritable. “Oh shit, what’s the matter?”

  She waved him away. “Don’t ask. It’s stupid.”

  Now that he was closer, he could sense that her nose was backed up a bit. She had been crying. “No, tell me. What happened?”

  She turned, not exactly locking eye contact with him. “Well, remember how Layla was asking me to look at that stupid magazine of hers? I didn’t mind, of course—I like it when people are thoughtful, and she was being nice—but when I told her that I didn’t exactly care for the dress, she told me that I had tacky taste and didn’t know what I was doing when it came to planning this wedding. I brushed it off, because she was being a little facetious when she said it. But then we kept flipping through the magazines she brought, and every time I pointed out something that I liked, she had to undercut me in some way. I just feel terrible.

  “It’s ridiculous, because she probably isn’t even thinking when she makes comments about how she doesn’t like my taste, but it gets to me. She’s been saying stuff like this ever since she found out that we were getting married. I kind of wish that she wouldn’t butt her nose into our business, because I almost never ask her for her opinion. Between her and my mom, I halfway wish that I were just planning this whole thing by myself. With them, I do get help and support, but it feels like I spend twice the amount of time figuring things out because I have to gain their approval. A part of me just wishes that I could have some kind of crazy wedding with Halloween decorations or something just to piss them off.”

  She sighed, then gazed up to his wide-eyed expression. “I’m sorry, Rhett. That was a lot to just land on your lap. I guess that I’ve been thinking about it a lot these past few weeks. I love my family, but they certainly can get on my nerves sometimes.”

  He took her hands. “It sounds like you’re going through a lot of stress lately trying to please everyone. I bet you wish that you could get away for a bit.”

  She let out an exasperated laugh. “Yes, that would be nice. I did enjoy the trip to San Francisco. But we can’t go on any extended trips. We have bills to pay for the wedding and the business I want to open.”

  “We don’t have to go anywhere far. Your birthday is coming up soon, and I want to treat you. Let’s go somewhere like the ocean. We could go to Big Sur or somewhere up by Humboldt. Would you like that? We could leave early in the morning, have a barbecue, start a bonfire at night, and then listen to the waves as we fall asleep.”

  Her eyes lit up—something he hadn’t seen happen since he proposed in the garden at Sacramento. “Yes, that sounds wonderful!”

  “Your birthday is April twenty-seventh, right? We’ll just get away from everyone next week. No wedding worries, no talk about your job or the business. It’ll just be waves, birthday cake, and maybe some of that pink champagne you like.”

  Tula got up to hug him, and in that moment, he felt like they didn’t have any worries in the world.

  A few days passed after that, and to both Tula and Rhett’s surprise, Layla had some interesting things to report.

  “Tula! You will not believe what I have to tell you!”

  It was a Thursday evening and Layla was walking through the front door with a blaring pink skirt that featured rainbow suspenders. Tula was lounging on the couch with Rhett, relaxing after a long day at work. “What is it?”

  “Okay, well…” She plopped herself on the couch, and they noticed that her makeup was a little more bright and colorful than usual. “You know that in the past that Max wasn’t so into me, right? Well, all that time of sending him love notes has finally paid off!”

  Tula’s mouth dropped. “He’s agreed to go out with you? Really?”

  “Yes! Isn’t it amazing? I knew he would eventually give in to me. I mean, who wouldn’t want a bodacious babe like myself? He’s just finally opened his eyes.”

  Rhett and Tula traded a look.

  “And I know we’re all going to have so much fun when we spend that weekend at the beach!”

  “What?” Tula asked.

  “The day at the beach. It’s your bir
thday, right?”

  “Yeah, but…” Rhett could see that she was trying to back track things in her mind. “How did you know about that? I don’t remember telling you.”

  “It was on your calendar. I just assumed that you’d want to invite some people. I am invited, right? I wanted to bring Max, too. We bought the nicest present for you the other day. You just have to let us come—I’ve never been to a bonfire before, and I’m so excited to spend a night under the stars!”

  Another look was traded between Rhett and Tula. Rhett wanted to pretend to vomit in front of Layla, but that wouldn’t exactly have been proper manners.

  “I mean, I guess you can come,” said Tula. “You do know that we’re going to be sleeping in tents, right? Does that bother you?”

  “Not at all!” Responded Layla with a smile that bared all the metal in her mouth. “I have a spare tent at home that Max and I can use. It’s a little small, but I don’t think that’ll bother either of us. Hehe!”

  Double vomit, thought Rhett.

  Not able to further push the issue, Rhett kept his mouth shut concerning this addition of people to the birthday weekend. Internally, he was certainly grumbling about it, but he wasn’t going to burden Tula with his objection to the addition of her annoying cousin and withdrawn brother. The most that was said about it were a few traded words of wonder on how Layla had found out about it. She was a rather nosy girl, they both agreed. It was certainly not out of the realm of possibility that she would find out and then invite herself.

  So that Saturday morning they all loaded into Tula’s hatchback sedan and headed for the beach. Rhett volunteered to drive so that his fiancée would be able to relax through the early morning ride. Layla was about as tired as her cousin was, her head laying against the seat as she napped for the first hour of the ride. Max did not fall asleep after making himself comfortable in the car. Rhett felt on some level that he should make conversation, but considering that the girls were asleep, he thought it best to just keep conversation to a minimum. He felt a strange mixture of eeriness and thankfulness at keeping his eyes on the road and attempting to avoid thoughts of Max. Every once in a while Rhett would sneak a look through the rear view mirror at what was going on in the back seat. Max would always be looking through the window wistfully, resting his chin in his hand.