by Diane Barnes
“What’s that on your sweatshirt?”
He looks down at his chest and then looks me in the eye. “Blood from the last girl I helped.” His eye contact does not waver. I swallow hard and take my phone from my pocket again.
“Relax, I’m joking.” He smiles, revealing teeth that a cosmetic dentist would consider a gold mine. “I cut my hand at work.” He takes off his big black glove to reveal a bandage between his thumb and wrist. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
His apology seems sincere, but still I’m not taking any chances. I dial Luci’s number. Her phone goes straight to voice mail. “Hey, it’s me. I got stuck on Route Thirty, but this very nice man named Gregory, driving a blue Jeep, a Cherokee, is giving me a ride.”
I feel him watching me. I turn to look. His eyes, which are incredibly blue, sky-blue, are twinkling. I notice a long scar running vertically through his right cheekbone. It’s sexy in a dangerous sort of way. He has a cleft chin. I can’t decide if I think he’s handsome or scary. If he got his teeth fixed, I would definitely go with handsome.
I put my phone away while he reaches into his pocket and takes out his. He presses a button. “I’m going to be late,” he says. “I’m helping out a stranded motorist. She hasn’t told me her name, but she was driving a red Mazda with the license plate 123456 and got stuck on Route Thirty. See ya in about an hour.” He puts his phone back in his pocket and winks.
I laugh. “I’m Gina. I really appreciate your help.”
“Well then, sit back and relax. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m trying to help.” I realize that I literally have been sitting on the edge of my seat. I slide back until I reach the backrest and let out a deep breath.
There’s an intersection with a traffic signal a few feet ahead. The light is green, and Gregory approaches it cautiously. A car appears from the other direction and starts to turn left in front of us, but the driver loses control. The car spins counterclockwise into our lane. Gregory swerves into the other lane to avoid a collision, and we end up sliding across the intersection. He mumbles something under his breath and steers back to the right side of the road.
He looks over at me. “Are you all right?” I nod. For the rest of the ride, Gregory keeps his eyes on the road and focuses on his driving. We finally make it to my apartment. I live in the top floor of a house that is divided into three apartments.
Gregory pulls into the spot on the driveway where I usually park and cuts the engine. “I really have to use the restroom. Would you mind if I came in?” He couldn’t hurt me while he was driving, but alone in my house, he could do anything. God, I hate it that I have this thought. I can’t help it, though. Growing up in a neighborhood where little boys are snatched from their front lawns on beautiful summer days will do that to you. Gregory notices my hesitation. “It’s okay. I’m sure there’s a gas station nearby. I’ll figure something out.”
The man has gone out of his way to be kind to me. “Of course you can come in.” I open the door and get out of the Jeep. After hesitating for a moment, he opens his door and gets out, too. We trudge through at least a foot of snow on the walkway to the back of the house and then climb the snowy stairs that lead to my door. “Who’s supposed to shovel the stairs and the walkway?” Gregory asks when we get to the top of the stairs.
“Me.”
“You should probably keep a shovel at the bottom of the stairs.”
“Actually, my shovel is in my car.” I open the door, and he comes inside and takes off his boots. He throws his gloves on the table and heads toward the hallway with the bathroom. It’s the only hallway, so it’s pretty obvious that’s where the bathroom is.
When he returns to the kitchen, he looks at the pictures of my family and friends on the refrigerator. “Your parents?” he asks, pointing to my mother and father. I nod. “Your mother is beautiful.” My entire life people have told me I look just like her. I don’t see the resemblance, other than the coloring and curly hair. “Do you live here alone?”
“Well, there’s a family who lives on the other side of the house and a couple downstairs.”
“But you live in this apartment by yourself?”
I nod reluctantly. Now he knows he can terrorize me and no one will be coming home to rescue me. Okay. That’s a ridiculous thought. Calm down. “Do you want a drink or something to eat?”
“I’d love a cup of coffee.”
As a single woman, there is no appliance I love better than my individual-sized coffeemaker, which allows me to brew my caffeine infusions one cup at a time. As I fill the water reserve and grab a pod from the cabinet, his phone rings.
After saying hello, the next thing he says is “You’re kidding? Where?” Next I hear him say, “I’ll be right there.” He disconnects and puts his boots back on. “I have to go rescue another motorist in distress. Can I take the coffee to go?”
I give him a travel mug. He is out the door before I can thank him for the ride. I watch him descend the back stairs. He waves good-bye with his big black glove and disappears around the corner, leaving me looking down over the railing yelling “thank you.”
Back inside, my apartment suddenly feels cold. I grab a blanket and a book and lie down on the couch. I turn the pages but have no idea what I’m reading. I can’t stop thinking about Gregory’s blue eyes and cleft chin.
Chapter 6
Friday morning I wake up at seven and call the weather hotline at TechVisions. The recorded message states that the company is closed due to inclement weather. I let out a “Yippee!” Same as I did when I was a kid and heard my town listed in the school closing announcements. I go back to bed, and a few hours later wake to the sound of shoveling on the stairway. Maybe my landlord is pitching in because the storm was so big? I throw on a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, and my Red Sox cap and open the door. I have to look twice. Gregory is shoveling my stairs.
I stand silently watching him, not sure what to say and wondering why he’s here. He finally notices me. “Good morning, Gina.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Nice to see you again, too. I came to return your cup and remembered you don’t have a shovel so I thought I’d help out.” I notice the travel mug I gave him yesterday sitting on the railing. “Do you want a ride back to your car?”
It’s stopped snowing, and the plows have been by a few times. I figure I can get my car home safely. “Yes, please.” He finishes shoveling the stairs and walkway while I go back inside to get ready.
When we get to the convenience store where we left my car, we can’t see it because it’s buried by snow. Gregory retrieves two shovels from the back of the Jeep, and we both get to work digging out my vehicle. We shovel on opposite sides of the car in relative silence. About a half hour later, my car is free. Gregory and I stand awkwardly by the driver’s door. “Thank you for your help,” I say, extending my hand toward him. “I feel like I should do something more than just say thanks for all the help you’ve given me.” As I’m talking, my stomach rumbles. I’m sure my face is already red from the cold and wind, so Gregory can’t tell how embarrassed I am. I ignore the rumbling. “Can I pay you or something?”
He smiles. “Have breakfast with me, and don’t you dare say you’re not hungry.”
We take separate cars to a small diner up the street. There are a few plow trucks in the parking lot but no other cars. We have our choice of seats and pick a booth near the window. The waiter, a twenty-something with a silver hoop through his nose, tosses two menus on the table and walks away without saying anything. One of the plow drivers watching the interaction rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “The food is better than the service,” he promises.
When the waiter returns, Gregory tries to make friends by commenting on his nose ring. “Looks good. I’m thinking of getting one myself.” He winks at me. “Did it hurt?”
“Just for a minute.” The waiter studies Gregory, probably trying to figure out if he’s serious about wanting a nose ring. “I don’t t
hink you could pull it off.” He turns toward me. “You could get away with it.”
I think he means it as a compliment, but still I’m insulted. I ignore his comment and order hot chocolate and chocolate chip pancakes. Gregory orders coffee and a western omelet.
“What’s with you, Rossi?” Gregory says. “You order a kid’s meal and drive a kid’s toy for a car.”
I never told him my last name. “How do you know my last name?”
“I know everything about you. For example, you have trouble sleeping.” I stare at him, wondering how he could possibly know that. “Don’t look so worried. There was a prescription bottle of sleeping pills on the sink in your bathroom.”
“So, what’s your story, Gregory? Why did you come back to shovel me out?”
He laughs. “Because I dig chicks who call me by my last name.”
I stop to think about it. I saw Gregory written on his toolbox and assumed it was his first name. He’s not in elementary school. It’s not his lunch box. He wouldn’t write his first name on it. “What’s your name?”
“Ethan.”
In all the ways I have fantasized about meeting Ethan, it was never like this. I thought I would recognize him instantly. I imagined him shorter. I pictured his hair darker, his features more chiseled, his teeth white, straight, and evenly spaced. We’d both be dressed elegantly, certainly not wearing old sweatshirts and baseball caps. I never imagined we’d be breathing in the greasy fumes of bacon or the sugary scent of syrup. I assumed I’d be sipping Chianti or champagne, not slurping hot chocolate. Sometimes I even envisioned fireworks in the distance exploding in a star-filled sky, not sand trucks whizzing by a diner window on a dismal gray day.
I never figured out exactly what I would say, but I knew it would be something corny like “I knew you would come” or “You were worth the wait.” And he wouldn’t think it was weird. He’d know exactly what I was talking about.
Here in the actual moment, though, I just stare across the table and try to repeat his name, but it gets stuck in my throat.
“Let me guess. Your ex-boyfriend’s name is Ethan?”
Not my ex-boyfriend. My future husband. For just a moment, I consider saying it aloud, telling him about Ajee and her prediction, but then I imagine him sprinting for the exit before I can get all the words out.
“It’s my favorite name,” I finally say.
He shrugs. “I didn’t pick it.” He looks at me for a moment. “So, do you have a boyfriend?”
I shake my head. “How about you?”
“No, I don’t have a boyfriend.” He laughs. “I do have—”
The waiter interrupts. “Anything else?”
“Just the check, Smiley,” Ethan says.
We both laugh as the waiter storms off. We stop giggling. Ethan continues to stare at me. Right into my eyes. He’s staring so intently that I wonder if he can see through to the thoughts bouncing around my mind. I look down at my lap. Ethan reaches across the table and touches my hand. The contact is brief, but I feel as though I stuck my finger into an electrical socket. He grins, but it’s different from his regular smile. It’s a confident expression that, along with his intense eye contact, says I know I’m sending shock waves through your body right now. I feel myself leaning across the booth toward him. He bends forward toward me. “So, why are you single?” he asks in a lower voice.
Because I’ve been waiting for you. He touches my hand again, but this time he keeps his finger on it. “I just mean you must have guys swarming all over you.” Now his finger traces a line on the back of my hand. “You’re beautiful.”
He thinks I’m beautiful! Ethan thinks I’m beautiful. I wish I could be cool and simply say thank you, but I don’t trust myself to speak. My face feels like it’s on fire, and I can feel my chest and neck getting splotchy. His finger slows, and he pulls it off my hand. I look down, expecting my skin to be singed it’s burning so badly. I look at him again. He rubs the stubble on his face while giving me that confident grin of his.
The waiter approaches and throws the bill on the table without saying anything. Ethan reaches for it, but I am quicker.
“The girl’s not supposed to pay, Rossi. Give me that.”
I shake my head. “It’s the least I can do after everything you’ve done for me.”
“Well, next time’s on me,” he says.
I smile. There’s going to be a next time.
Chapter 7
The next day the ringing phone wakes me from a deep sleep. The only light in the room comes from the glowing red numbers of my alarm clock, which reads 6:30. Considering how much trouble I had falling asleep last night, I should be furious, but I feel myself smiling as I reach toward the nightstand. Ethan can’t wait to see me again. That’s why he’s calling so early.
I clear my throat and practice saying hello aloud a few times before picking up the receiver. I don’t want to sound like I just woke up because then he might feel bad for calling so early. When I’m sure all the sleep has left my voice, I pick up and say hello as brightly as I can.
“Good morning, Gina.” It’s my father. Of course, it’s my father. Ethan knows better than to call this early. Everybody else in the world knows better than to call so early on a Saturday morning.
“Crikey, Dad. Do you know what time it is?”
“I’m on my way to the course. I want to be sure everything is okay at the house. I saw pictures of the storm on TV.”
“Everything’s fine.”
“When’s the last time you were there?”
“I don’t remember.” Truthfully, I haven’t been there since my parents left. But if something had happened, the Murphys would call. They don’t miss a thing that happens on Towering Heights Lane.
My father sighs. “You haven’t been there at all, have you?”
“I’ll go today.”
“Really, Gina. Make sure you do. It’s the one thing we ask of you all year.”
Traffic is light in the afternoon when I make the drive to Westham. I reach my parents’ house in thirty minutes instead of the usual forty-five. This year, rather than hire a plow truck, my parents are paying the eighth-grade boy down the street to shovel. I was skeptical about their decision, and my skepticism was apparently justified. Let’s just say I’d have a better chance of keeping my balance walking across a tightrope from my car to the front door than across the ice and snow blanketing the steep driveway and stairs. Miraculously I make it to the door without leaving an impression of my face in the snow.
Inside, the house is a bit cold, but everything appears to be in order. I make my way to the family room, where younger versions of myself smile back at me from various photos taken through the years. My mother refuses to take them down or update them with more recent pictures. “I’ll replace them with pictures of my grandchildren,” she says each time I suggest she remove them. So, as I do every year when my parents are away, I take the photographs from the wall myself and place them in a box, where they will stay until my mother returns.
I pause as I reach for the last picture. It’s of six-year-old Neesha and me in a small plastic pool in the Patels’ backyard taken before Ajee moved in. It’s my favorite. Even with three or four bottom teeth missing, I have a huge smile, still too young to be self-conscious. Neesha, on the other hand, has her mouth closed, but already she has the mischievous expression that would become her trademark. Neesha’s mom took the picture. It was before she got sick, or at least before the diagnosis. By the following summer, she was gone, and Ajee was a permanent fixture in the Patels’ home.
During those first few weeks after Mrs. Patel died, I didn’t want to leave my mother’s side, afraid that she, too, might disappear. Neesha also preferred to be at my house, and my parents went so far as to replace my single bed with bunk beds to let her know she was welcome anytime. We were inseparable back then. No one would have ever believed we would lose touch. It’s been almost a month since I mailed the sympathy card, and she hasn’t responded.
I finish checking the house and then navigate the slippery slope down my parents’ driveway. As I do, a red SUV pulls into the Murphys’ driveway. The driver gets out and we make eye contact. Her hat is pulled down to her eyebrows, her coat zipped so high the collar reaches her lower lip. “Hey, Gina.” She waves, and then immediately ducks her head and trots up the Murphys’ front stairs. Before I can figure out who she is, she disappears into their house.
I refocus on plodding my way to my car but lose my balance and end up sliding to the bottom of the driveway on my back. On my ride home, I try to think of someone I can call to plow and sand at my parents’. And that’s how I figure out who the woman is at the Murphys’. Patricia McAllister, whose husband, Sean, owns a landscaping/plowing company. In the business world, she’s still known by her maiden name, Patricia Ryan. When the weather is nice, her name, face, and phone number appear on signs planted in front lawns of homes scattered throughout Westham and its neighboring towns. More often than not, those signs also say SOLD.
A Realtor appearing at the Murphys’ house a few days after I meet Ethan can mean only one thing: Ajee’s third predictions for Neesha and me are about to come true. I have to admit, I’m just as excited by the prospect of being reunited with Neesha as I was to finally meet Ethan.
Chapter 8
Monday I get to work ninety minutes early because I’m so excited to tell Luci about Ethan. I tried calling her all weekend long, but she didn’t pick up her phone or return my calls. Other than my parents and Neesha, she is the only person who knows about Ajee’s prediction. I told her a year ago at the company holiday party after my third glass of Chianti. She was trying to convince me to ask Cooper Allen to dance. “He’s been watching you all night,” she said.
I looked over at Cooper. He was across the room, sitting alone checking his BlackBerry. Luci nudged me in his direction, and I thought, Why not? Emboldened by liquid courage, I marched across the room. When I reached his table, he looked up from his phone and smiled. Until that moment, I had never noticed he had dimples. Beautiful dimples.
