“Sure, Ashley. If you need anything at all, you call. I’m worried about you.”
Her concern is back. I’m leaving this trail of panic-stricken people behind me because I’m taking one day off. What does that say about me?
“Brea,” I say to the phone. She answers.
“Now you’re home,” I chastise.
“Of course I’m home. I was looking at cribs this morning. Did you call me on my cell?”
“Yes, but in the cavernous crib store it probably didn’t work. Would you get a decent phone?” I lambaste her.
“I was only in there for an hour.”
“It was an hour I happened to be in jail.”
“What on earth?”
“I hit a police officer. Long story, but he grabbed my Prada. That’s history. Now I’m going to the beach. I’m moving in with Kay Harding tonight—just wanted to let you know I would be at your house to get my stuff and then I’m outta your hair. That should make John happy.”
“Cut it out. John loves having you here.”
Yeah, like one loves caring for a neighbor’s angry caged cat.
“You want some company for the beach?” she asks.
“Nah, thanks though. I’ll call you tonight.” I hang up the phone and make one final call. The call I’m dreading the most.
30
The winding, snaking highway through the Redwoods to the beach is treacherous and beautiful all at once. Speeds often reach upwards of seventy-five miles an hour, and with the hairpin turns, it’s inevitable that crashes happen. The asphalt on Highway 17 is covered with black skid marks and a plethora of paint colors tint the guardrails—kind of like a sick art experiment.
I’m not focusing on any of that for long though. I can feel the sun on my face, even though my heater needs to be on full-blast to ward off the January chill. My mood is uplifted by the majesty all around me. To think of the stories that these trees could tell from their lifetime—a lifetime stretching to when Jesus walked the earth. This roadway, cut through the forest is like a slice of heaven on earth, except for the accidents of course.
I’m so entranced, that I put off my phone call to Kevin, to tell him there’s no future. There’s no sense in ruining a perfectly gorgeous day. I’ve left my problems back in Palo Alto with the top of my convertible.
These petty issues have consumed my life for years. Things like my coffee shop running out of “real” whipped cream and having to settle for the canister pre-whipped stuff. Or my dry cleaning not being back before a trans-Continental flight, or something really terrifying: not getting a patent secured in time for a product to go on the market.
I’m suddenly struck with the Ecclesiastes idea that they mean nothing. I can’t sit and state that anything I’ve accomplished will be remembered.
As I exit the highway, I can smell the ocean. Its fresh salty scent reaches for me and I obey its call toward crashing waves and dramatic, rocky cliffs. I drive through town, past all the weirdos that make Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz.
I pull into a parking lot and take in the expansive view and just listen to the thunder of the rolling waves for a while. The constancy of it, the expectation always fulfilled. The color of the water overwhelms. It’s where spas get their color themes.
I grab my notebook because this is a day for remembering. Tossing my Prada in the trunk, I walk onto the beach and watch an enormous gray pelican swoop and pluck a fish from the sea. The bird, which seems like something out of prehistoric times, soars gracefully over the crest of the wave, as if showing his catch to those lucky fish left behind. Letting the school know they could be next.
I sit on the dry part of the sand and gaze toward the vast horizon. For a long time I think about everything from what I’ll wear tomorrow and what type of bathing suit is most flattering to God’s divine plan for my life. Taking out my notepad, I decide to approach life the way I would any new patent. I listen, and I take notes in case I forget something.
The new Ashley Stockingdale will:
1. Dance at my brother’s wedding, and embrace his new life.
2. Take a vacation and learn to relax—if it kills me.
3. Spend ten minutes of every day rejoicing in my surroundings.
4. Take chances. Maybe even wear Lilly Pulitzer to work one day.
5. Not ever, and I mean never, watch The Matrix again.
6. Not make fun of Reasons. I am one.
When I look up, the brilliant blue sky against the backdrop of the Pacific captivates me. There’s a biplane kite in the air with vibrant neon colors, and I wish I could soar with such ease. I also realize I’m hungry. I’ve been here for three hours and never noticed a minute tick. I stand and pad barefoot toward the water and kick my big toe in the edge of an icy wave.
“Ashley!”
I laugh at the sound of my name, but it comes again.
“Ashley!”
I look up and see Seth walking toward me. He’s carrying a bouquet of flowers, and they’re tulips, my very favorite. Pink tulips. I blink and shake my head. Maybe I have been drinking and forgot about it.
I wait for him to reach me, to see if I’ve been in the sun a bit too long. Kind of an oasis thing going on, but it is Seth. He’s probably here to ask me if I think Arin or Kay will like these tulips, or because he feels guilty about my material possessions.
“Hi, Seth. Did you think I’d lost it?” I can’t think of another reason he’d be here.
He doesn’t hold out the flowers; he just stands there. Once again, waiting for life to happen as engineers seem to do.
“Well?” I tap my bare foot in the sand.
He doesn’t say anything, but he drops the tulips at my feet and keeps his gaze upon me. His gemstone eyes against the backdrop of the ocean are haunting reminders that I haven’t overcome all my demons. Seth Greenwood still stirs my heart like the creatures in a tide pool when the ocean rushes in.
Seth’s hands reach for me and I flinch and step back. He steps forward again and I shake my head. Too much is riding on this moment for me. I stand here with all the expectations in the world, yet not one ounce of faith that any of it will happen.
“Say something,” I command him.
But he says nothing. He only bites his lower lip. I remind myself not to count on a human to fulfill me—strive to remember all that I’ve decided this day—to be happy in every day, in every moment. I start to sing a hymn out of sheer nervousness. I begin quietly, but my volume grows in harmony with the waves.
“Come thy fount of every blessing. Tune thy heart to sing thy praise. Grace and mercy never ceasing, call for songs of glorious praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above—”
“I’ve tried this once before,” he announces. So . . . he can speak.
I stop singing. “Tried what before?”
“You’re always in such a hurry to get somewhere. I never feel the time is right.”
“I am always in a hurry. That’s part of the reason I came to the beach today. I don’t want to rush through everything. I’m going to be fifty and still trying on miniskirts at this rate because I haven’t realized I’ve grown old. Quite pathetic.”
His hands surround my cheeks and he tips my chin upwards. Yes, I should be enjoying this moment, but I’m wondering where he saw it. Did Bond do this? Indiana Jones? Bless his heart, I know it’s not Seth’s move. It’s a suave move, and it unnerves me to no end. Wait for it. Wait for it.
His lips press hard against mine, and I can feel the heat rise to my cheeks. My makeup has long since paled, but I don’t care. I kiss him firmly, and our passion grows more intense until we’re fully macking on the beach. I pull away and shake my head. Breathless. Whoah, I didn’t think he had it in him.
I have to test if it’s a fluke and I kiss him again. He returns it feverishly. Now I’m really leery.
“Is this some kind of joke?” I ask.
“This is it, Ashley. There’s no one else coming along.” (He shrugs here.) “You’re the
best I’m going to get.”
My stomach twists and I can’t stop the tears. They rush down my cheeks like the fountains in Palo Alto’s many courtyards. This is it? This is my moment of reckoning and romance? I’m the best he’s going to get?
Seth picks up the flowers and holds them out to me, but I bat them away.
I’m moved, in spite of myself. I can tell he’s saying something entirely different than his words convey. But I’m also a bit miffed. This is supposed to be Our Moment! “There’s no one else? That’s your romantic plea for my heart? There’s no one else?”
“Come on, Ash. You know I’m not good with words.”
“I’m not asking for words, Seth. What do you feel ? Do you feel anything inside that locked box you call a heart?” I tap at his firm chest. He’s been working out.
He chucks the flowers on the sand and a rogue wave carries them away.
“I feel everything.” He bites his lip again. “I just don’t express it right, I guess. I can’t win.”
“Don’t look at me that way. I don’t expect life to be all gumdrops and roses, but I don’t want someone who feels they’re settling for me. Do you think that’s too much to ask?”
“I never said that I was settling. You’re putting words in my mouth.”
Which might not be such a bad idea at this point. “All right then,” I step forward towards him. “Tell me what I’m missing. Did you not just tell me there’s no one else—and there might never be? Am I supposed to be carried away by such sentiment?”
He shakes his head. “Forget it, Ashley. You think the worst of me. I see now there’s nothing I can do to change that.” He starts to walk away, but turns back toward me. “I made a mistake with Arin. I was a fool to think some flighty young thing like her was what I wanted, but I did think that for a while. Sue me for being stupid. You knew the truth. You knew it all along.”
“Are you saying this is my fault because you didn’t know what you wanted?” I ask incredulously.
Seth looks angry. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen such emotion from him.
“If you knew about Arin, why didn’t you tell me rather than let me make a total jerk out of myself ? You knew what was brewing between us all along, yet you let me follow Tinkerbell around like a cloud of pixie dust.”
“I tried to tell you! How dare you pin this on me!”
“Maybe you did.” He shakes his head and focuses on a far-off point on the horizon. The sun is beginning to set and the bright orange and pink sky darken the ocean to a smoky gray. “I came to tell you that I’m leaving California. I got a job in Phoenix, and I leave in two weeks. I thought . . . well, never mind what I thought. It was stupid.”
I gasp for breath, for some sort of response to this. This!
“I really came here to tell you—” He stops and stares at my face. Once again, the words are in his eyes, but will not be relinquished from his mouth. He starts and stops again. I can see it when he turns away from me inside for good.
“I—I just wanted you to know that you can live in my condo rent-free. Sam got a place of his own, and I know you’ve got no place to go.”
I just shake my head, trying to process what he’s just told me. Were the flowers really a good-bye gift? Impossible. He didn’t drive all the way down here to say good-bye—something that could’ve waited until I returned tonight. But I will not say the words for him! I will not!
“I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else,” Seth says.
“Right.” I give him one more chance. “And the kiss?”
“What’s a kiss between friends?” He half-smiles at me.
What, indeed. Everything and nothing, all at once.
“Thanks for your offer. But I already worked things out with Kay. I can check on your place if you need me to. Water the plants and all that.”
“No,” he shakes his head. “I’ll either rent it out or sell it if you don’t need it. I just thought if you needed—”
“It was nice of you to think of me.” I don’t want to let him walk away like this, and if I don’t, then everything I’ve just told myself is a lie. How can I possibly live with conviction if I give it all up for a simple kiss? If I don’t demand enough respect for myself that others fail to respect me too?
“You’re not who you think you are, you know,” Seth says. It feels like an accusation.
“I don’t understand that.”
“You’re not some over-aged woman living in the shadow of Arin and her ilk.”
Ilk? What does ilk mean? Since I couldn’t fit in Arin’s shadow, I know I’m not living there.
He continues. “Arin’s cute. She’s sweet. You’re beautiful. And you’re real. I can ask Arin out easily and make a total fool of myself and get over it because it doesn’t matter. I don’t care what she thinks of me.”
I keep waiting to wake up from one of my fantasies. Now he feels free to tell me what he feels—now that he’s turning and walking away from me, now that he’s moving to another state. But does it really mean anything? I can’t make him stay with me here on the beach, in California at all, and I wouldn’t want to. Life is a series of choices. I’ve made mine. He’s made his.
For better or worse, they don’t coincide.
31
Moving in with Kay Harding has been like signing up for boot camp. The clipboard hangs in a place of honor: on its own specialized hook attached to the refrigerator. Organization is not simply a character trait for Kay. It’s a way of life. Kay does everything as if the clipboard is her master and she must answer to its every command. She is a slave to the clipboard.
Kay does her laundry on Monday, her gardening on Tuesday . . . the list goes on. At first, I thought I’d kill her watching the dance that is folding day. It’s like those girls at the Gap folding things neatly on the board, over and over again. Something within you suddenly wants to run through the display and toss them into the air, shouting, “Quick! Make your escape!” Human nature, I suppose.
Wednesday is Reason Bible study night, and Kay made me promise that I would attend. It’s been at least a year since I bothered—figuring Sundays were enough—so I imagine it’s about time. Not with Bible study (I did that on my own) but group Bible study. There’s a ritual for that, too. Kay checks her clipboard and calls those who have snack the night before to remind them. She asks someone ahead of time to lead opening prayer and then she prays over the whole house just before they arrive. I like that last part, but the first time I’ll admit it freaked me out a bit. It’s kind of like a priest casting out demons. Or eating casserole. Sometimes you’d just rather not know what’s in there.
At seven p.m. the doorbell rings. It’s Jackie Cole. She’s got snack tonight and Kay takes the plastic tub of cat-shaped cookies and turns them over. “Are these for people?”
Jackie points to the writing in defense. “See, it says right there. For people.”
I smile. A snack that requires explanation that it is for human consumption is not going to create a rush to the kitchen. This will bother Kay immensely. I can see her twitching. And then she’ll want to talk about it tonight. What’s worse is that I’m starting to share her concerns.
“I’ll put them in the kitchen,” Kay says with a good effort at graciousness.
In Kay’s defense, Jackie is a vegetarian. Not just a vegetarian, but a Vegan—meaning she eats only cardboard. I can hear Kay rifling through the kitchen for the perfect Martha snack, which she will prepare and arrange in a matter of minutes.
“So, Jackie,” I say to cover up the kitchen noises. “How are things with you?”
“My job stinks. I have this idiot boss who has an issue with women, and I’m just tired of his passive-aggressive behavior.”
“I’m sorry. That must be terribly difficult.” I sit down, hoping to end the antagonistic conversation, but Jackie is just getting started.
“On Friday, he planned a beer bust and do you know he had a barbeque? It’s just like him to offend me by serving
seared flesh for a work party. Him and all his cannibalistic, women-hating companions.”
Now I’ve got nothing against vegetarians. I know some perfectly normal ones, but some, like Jackie, are more vegetarian than Christian. It’s their first religion. She’s been known to rattle off how early a mother cow is separated from her calf, or how that calf is then placed in a box to become my next Veal Meal. It’s not that I don’t respect her opinions, but I desperately want a shower after talking to her. She makes me sweat. Besides that, Jackie looks so unhealthy. Her skin is sallow with a green tone to it, her demeanor angry and I can’t help but think if I forced a good truffle or iced mocha down her throat, maybe she’d cheer up and remember the Good News.
“Well, you know how men like to celebrate their barbeques,” I laugh, betting that no one has ever asked Jackie if she did the wild thang over the weekend. Maybe it’s a compliment that I’ve missed.
“Tell me how it’s celebratory to kill something!” Jackie’s hands go to where her waist should be, but it’s disappeared beneath an abundant bust.
“You’ve got me there. Why don’t we sit down?” Never mind that I’m already sitting down. I’m trying to get her off her high horse and ready to embrace the Word. The doorbell rings and I practically jump and dive for the door. It’s Seth. And he looks right past me.
“Hi, Jackie,” he says.
“Seth, can I take your jacket?” I ask. I step right in front of him and force him to look at me.
He eyes me momentarily and makes me wish I could take everything back I ever said to him. I want to start all over again with him, but it’s too late for that. The disdain in his eyes is apparent.
“No, thanks. I’ll wear it.” Ah, so he wants to show me the cold shoulder. I get to watch him dressed for an Arctic winter all evening.
I swallow past the lump in my throat. I want him to kiss me like he did on the beach. Oh, Lord, leave it to me to demand more when Seth offered me everything he could. Why do I expect soap-opera romance from an engineer? Brea is right. It’s no wonder I’m single.
What a Girl Wants Page 24
