Rick broke the silence first. “So you here on vacation or a new resident?”
“Neither. I inherited a house. I’m kinda blown away. Nine thousand square feet, right on the ocean. I’m here to check it out, check out the area, then get the thing on the market. Should get some decent coin for it.”
“You don’t like it?”
“Love it.” Micah coughed. Where did that come from? He’d never even admitted it to himself.
“But you’re selling it?”
Micah wiped the combined sweat and rain off his forehead. “Probably going to. Haven’t made the final decision yet.”
“Ah.” Rick took off his Windbreaker and tied it around his waist. “It’s a wonderful house.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“If I’m thinking of the right one, I watched it being built. Just a few houses south of Arcadia Beach State Park, right? Finished a month or so ago?”
“That’s the one.”
Rick smiled without a hint of jealousy. Intriguing. Micah had gotten used to those around him smiling on the outside while the green monster of envy inside them snapped at his money and fame.
“I’ve looked forward to meeting the owner.” Rick smiled his massive grin again, his eyes almost disappearing. “Small-town ocean life agreeing with you so far?”
“It’s turned out better than I thought it would.” Micah rubbed his cold arms and gazed at the surf. “Even with this kind of weather.”
Rick nodded. “There’s a saying around here about the beach:
Where ocean breezes storm the soul,
Where love of strife grows quickly old,
Where the touch of God is beheld in power,
Where the spirit finds rest, in its darkest hour.”
Micah wasn’t into poetry, but that one struck a nerve. Rest. Simple word. So elusive. And his hours? They certainly seemed to be moving his spirit toward darkness, thanks to Uncle A.
Silence.
He looked at Rick out of the corner of his eye. There was an intimidating confidence about him, and Micah was never intimidated. He easily spotted people’s insecurities hidden under their posing and posturing. Most of the CEOs he dealt with, no matter their age, were scared little boys inside who covered themselves with a false confidence. Rick? His self-assurance was genuine.
Three minutes later the rain stopped. Rick shook Micah’s hand, said good-bye, and ambled down the beach. Micah walked five paces in the opposite direction before he turned back.
“Hey, Rick! I’ve got a car mystery for you. Mine gained sixteen thousand miles overnight. That possible without someone messing with it manually?”
Rick’s eyes shifted from playful to serious. Intense. A moment later they shifted back. “It’s rare, but yes, I’ve seen it happen.”
“What’s the cause? Bad odometer?”
“A much deeper issue than that.” Rick turned to walk away. “Maybe we’ll bump into each other again, and I’ll have a chance to explain it.”
CHAPTER 7
Micah arrived at RimSoft early Monday morning with Rick’s enigmatic response still swirling through his mind. Deeper issues? With a car? Explain it when? Maybe next weekend he’d try to find Rick’s station and get an answer.
Micah pushed the mystery out of his mind for the moment and booted up his computer. Getting to work at five o’clock meant he could get a majority of his work for the week finished before the inevitable fires started.
By the time Shannon arrived at eight, he’d plowed through all of his work slated for Monday and Tuesday.
He stretched, stood, and strolled over to his window to watch gray clouds roll in, painting a dreary ceiling for the ferryboats chugging across Puget Sound.
He returned to his desk. Next on his to-do list: Call Rafi Cushman about the phone system. After twenty seconds of listening to an instrumental song that should have been shot, Rafi came on the line.
“Hi, Rafi, Micah Taylor. Wanted to follow up on our talk at J. B. Olson’s party two weeks back.”
“Uh, I remember John having a party, but I don’t remember meeting you, Micah. I mean, I know who you are, of course, but—”
“We talked about both graduating from UDub the same year. And we both played Les Paul guitars back in high school.” Micah whistled inwardly. Did the guy want RimSoft’s business or not? He should have had Shannon call him. This was a waste of time.
“Wow, sorry, it’s just not clicking for me. You’re sure it was me?”
“You probably met a lot of people. I just wanted to see your proposal for a new phone system.”
“Sure, I’d love to develop a plan for you.”
Micah wrapped up the conversation and shook his head. Unbelievable. The guy couldn’t remember a conversation from two weeks ago that could result in a sizable account. Must have been drunk.
By the time six o’clock rolled around on Wednesday evening, the week was wrapped, delivered, and under control, so he left for the beach a day early.
||||||||
Thursday the sound of the surf woke him at seven-thirty. He rolled out of bed, grabbed coffee, and took a long look at the waves as they tossed milk-bubble foam up on the beach.
After firing up his laptop and checking RimSoft’s stock price, he pulled up his e-mail and breezed through fifty of them in half an hour. Then he answered Julie’s three e-mails. Done in two minutes. He probably should have taken more time, but he signed each one with “I love you.” He hoped that would be enough but knew it wasn’t.
After checking ESPN for anything interesting, Micah headed into town for groceries. He glanced at his fuel gage. Almost empty. Perfect excuse to stop by Rick’s gas station to pick up on last week’s conversation.
Rick’s Gas & Garage stood out in forest green letters on top of a building that looked its age, even with the fresh coat of paint, which tried in vain to hide decades of soggy Oregon Coast winters.
He got out of his BMW and watched a towheaded kid, who couldn’t have been over five foot two, pump his gas.
Micah wandered into the garage and found Rick underneath a late-model Lexus. Before he could say hello, Rick rolled out from under it and announced to the vehicle in his deep baritone, “Done with you forever.”
Micah started to reintroduce himself. “Hey, Rick, we met last—”
“Great surprise to see you, Micah!” Rick sat up with a grin. “What are you doing right now?”
“Right now?”
“Yep, right now.” Rick yanked a clean rag from his back pocket and wiped the oil from his hands.
“Grocery shopping.”
“Starting or finishing?”
“Finished.”
“Excellent.” Rick waved his thumb at the Lexus. “Now that I’ve got this emergency handled, I gotta make a quick trip into Seaside. Wanna come?”
“Well, I, uh . . .” Micah almost laughed.
“Sorry, gotta go now. You coming or not?”
Rick’s piercing eyes were hard to resist. Plus it was a chance to ask about deep odometer issues. “Why not.”
“Terrific.” Rick finished cleaning his hands and strode out of the garage, hardly looking as he tossed the rag twenty feet through the air into a large, rusty drum filled with oil-covered cloths. When he reached his ’89 Ford, he gestured toward it. “It’s not luxury like yours, but I guarantee it won’t break down.”
As they pulled out, Rick called to the gas-pumping kid. “Devin! You’ll let the Petersons know their Lexus is ready? And if Micah’s keys are in his ignition, could you move his car away from the pump?”
Devin flashed a grimy, grease-covered thumbs-up.
Micah opened his eyes wide.
Rick winked. “Don’t worry; he’ll clean up a bit first.”
As they pull
ed onto Highway 101 and headed north, Rick said, “So is romance a part of Micah Taylor’s life these days?”
Too big of a part. Too much complication. Too many questions with no answers. Why did Julie have to put the full-court press on him? He loved her. She loved him. Couldn’t it stay that simple for a while longer?
“Yeah.”
“Care to expand on that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sorry if I hit a nerve.”
Micah rapped his knuckles on his knee. “Been going out for a year, been business partners for six. Great business partner.”
“You see a long-term future together?”
Wow. The guy didn’t mind going for the throat à la Barbara Walters. “Not sure. I was handed an ultimatum ten days ago. She wants a ring.”
“Do you want to give her one?”
“I love her.”
Rick adjusted his Rams hat. “That’s not what I asked.”
“I’m not sure.” Micah shifted in his seat. “That’s a lie. I am sure. I’m positive I’m not even close to ring-ready. I want to be. Part of me, at least.” Micah loosened his seat belt. “I should be ready. But the idea of getting engaged makes me . . .”
Micah stared at the yellow lines in the middle of the road as they zipped under Rick’s truck. Strange. He barely knew the guy, yet here he was spilling out his Julie problems all over the front seat of Rick’s Ford.
“‘I feel as if I’m in a room screaming and no one even looks up,’” Rick said.
“What?”
“It’s from Titanic. Kate Winslet describing her life before Leonardo DiCaprio frees her. You feel like Rose?”
Micah turned toward the passenger-side window. He wasn’t ready to spill everything. He turned back to Rick. “Pretty good quote. Where’d you come up with it?”
“I’m a bit of a movie-trivia buff.”
“Really. Want to take me on?”
“Absolutely.” Rick grinned. “Ready?”
“What decade should we focus on?”
“How ’bout the one you were born in?”
“Fine.” Micah nodded.
“Top-grossing movie of ’86, and you’re only getting one clue.”
“I don’t need one, Maverick.”
Rick burst out laughing. “Impressive! All right, name two movies Tom Cruise made before Top Gun sent him into the stardom stratosphere.”
Micah tapped his forehead in mock concentration. “Wait, wait. How ’bout The Outsiders and All the Right Moves.”
“Not bad.”
Micah volleyed back. “Staying on the same path, name at least three actors or actresses in The Outsiders who went on to stardom other than Cruise.”
Rick turned left into the parking lot of an auto parts store that looked even older than his garage. He hopped out with a quickness belying his age and linebacker-sized body. “I’ll just take five minutes to get these parts.”
“Whoa. Sorry, Charlie, no tuna for you till you answer the question.”
“No time-out to pick up the parts?”
“No way. You might pull up IMDb on the computer in there,” Micah said.
“IMDb?”
“The Internet Movie Database. Playing dumb doesn’t work with me.”
Rick laughed, propped his elbows up on the open window, and stuck his head inside. “Okay. Would you count Diane Lane, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, and Matt Dillon as having had a little time in the sun?”
Rick slid into the parts store and Micah shook his head. He was drawn to the man, as if he were at the end of a bungee cord stretched to its limit. Confident. Well spoken. Intelligent. Why did this guy run a gas station in a tourist town? Every ounce of him spoke of more than oil changes and alternators. Micah suspected his list of accomplishments went beyond working on cars. And yet as much as he searched, he couldn’t find an ego hinting at hidden fortune or fame.
As they pulled onto Highway 101 and headed back toward Cannon Beach, Micah said, “You want to tell me about the deeper issues of life surrounding odometers that gain sixteen thousand miles?”
Rick stayed silent for more than a minute before he spoke. “In every moment we make choices. Those choices ripple out and affect every area of our lives. A butterfly flapping its wings can cause a hurricane thousands of miles away.”
“I understand the Butterfly Effect, but, uh, what are you talking about? Isn’t this about my car?”
“Not really.”
“Okay.” Micah stared at Rick. “What is it about?”
“Your life.”
“What about my life?”
“Choices.” Rick kept his eyes on the road. This time the silence was only ten seconds. “More to come later. Give it time, okay?”
It wasn’t a question; it was a command.
The guy was magnetic, but Micah couldn’t get rid of a wariness that flitted around the corners of his mind. More a feeling than anything concrete. Until now. Talk about cryptic. Something about the man made Micah feel like he was immersed in an episode of LOST.
The rest of the way back they talked sports, local politics, and Cannon Beach history. When they shook hands good-bye, Rick said, “Can we connect up again soon?”
“Sure. I’d like that.”
“Me, too.” Rick clapped Micah on the back and strode into his gas station. “Don’t worry.” He turned back to Micah. “Answers will come.”
||||||||
Back at the house Micah lost himself in The Fellowship of the Ring so thoroughly that by the time he stopped reading, the sky had turned from misty gray to the sooty blackness of a foggy April night. He headed toward the master bedroom more relaxed than he’d been in years. Despite the unanswered questions and being within miles of where his heart had shattered, he felt at peace.
He didn’t wake on Saturday morning till nine. When was the last time he’d done that? Too long. His RimSoft life never allowed it. But didn’t he own the company? He could choose to get off the hamster wheel. Was he running RimSoft, or was RimSoft running him?
||||||||
Taking the next three Fridays off turned into taking the next six Fridays off, which followed a consistent routine. He worked ten to twelve hours a day Monday through Thursday, made a late-evening drive down to Cannon Beach that night, then spent the weekend exploring the area, running, and having breakfast on Saturdays with Rick at Morris’ Fireside.
Sunday afternoons he filled up at Rick’s before heading back to Seattle. His quick stop to refuel always turned into an hour plus of conversation about the ups and downs of RimSoft, his relationship with Julie, and the lure of Cannon Beach. Rick always listened with genuine interest, quick to clarify a comment to make sure he understood the situation, slow to give advice unless Micah pressed him.
After Micah’s final, “I gotta go,” they each tried to stump the other with a new movie-trivia question. It never worked, but they promised next week they’d find one that would.
Rick had moved into a position in Micah’s life that few people occupied: friendship with no strings attached. It felt wonderful. Pursuit not because of his money or fame but simply because Rick enjoyed knowing him.
It only bothered Micah slightly that Rick somehow seemed to know him much more thoroughly than Micah knew Rick.
||||||||
During the week at RimSoft, work was packed with meetings on the new beta version of their flagship product. It was a roller-coaster time, not knowing if the testers, and by association the critics, would go into rapture over the new software or try to bury it, and Micah loved every second of the ride. It was RimSoft’s Super Bowl, and it never failed to give him a rush.
Julie and he had dinner on Tuesday or Wednesday night each week, but her frustration at his new weekend life grew.
The Wednesday after his sixth wee
kend in Cannon Beach, they went to Palisade, the lights of West Seattle blinking at them from across Puget Sound. As soon as they were seated, Julie folded her arms and tossed Micah on the grill.
“So what’s your answer?” she asked.
“About?”
“Don’t insult me.” Julie smacked her menu against the table. “You said this dinner was about our future.”
“Can’t we order first?” Micah studied the restaurant’s specials.
“No.” She waited till he looked up. “I asked for an answer in four weeks. It’s been six. That place has you hook, line, and heart.”
“So does Seattle.”
“Seattle includes me. Cannon Beach doesn’t.”
“It could.” Micah slid his finger down the side of his water glass, then wiped the moisture on the tablecloth.
“Do you love me, Micah?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to marry me?”
Micah sucked in a deep breath and held it. Five seconds passed. He knew it was far too long. That question required an instantaneous answer. “Yes.”
Julie folded her russet cloth napkin into a neat triangle, set it on her plate, and pressed down the crease with two fingers. Then she stood.
“What are you doing?”
“You can’t have both.”
“Both what?” he said.
“Don’t play dumb.”
“It’s just a beach place.” Micah motioned for her to sit back down. “I won’t be spending a bunch of time there much longer. Things will get back to normal. I’m going to sell the place like we talked about. Seattle’s where I belong.”
“You’re obsessed with the place. You said you couldn’t stand Cannon Beach even though you won’t tell me why, but you keep going down there. It makes no sense.” She put on her coat and buttoned it all the way to the top. “I need you to decide. Very soon.”
A rush of heat filled his face as Julie strode away from the table. Micah wasn’t sure if it was from the stares of the people sitting around him or the lie he’d just told her about wanting to get married.
After insisting on giving Palisades money for occupying a table for ten minutes, he got in his car and stared out the window seeing nothing.
Jim Rubart Trilogy Page 5
