Parker took the book. “This is the first course in Econ,” he said.
Austin nodded.
“The initial course is designed to give you a taste of the entire field of economics.”
Austin nodded.
“After this there are other courses that will deal with only a single portion of what’s in this book.”
“Well, I don’t plan to enroll in any more.”
Parker laughed. “I felt the same way when I took my first course.”
“But you went for more?” The young man questioned his sanity.
Parker smiled. “I did. After a while I became interested specifically in the way money worked and how it could be analyzed.”
“This isn’t money,” Austin said. “I mean it isn’t real money.”
“Oh, believe me, it’s real.”
Parker saw the young man frown.
“There are micro and macro principles involved, currency issues and things like GDP, which involve huge sums, and the means by which it all changes hands is complex and fascinating. Even things like a loan through a bank are tied up in it, too. And small amounts, like when Americans go to a foreign country and spend their dollars or foreigners come here and do the same. Then there’s the stock market, that’s definitely about real money.”
Austin leaned back in his chair. “You know a lot about this?”
Parker smiled.
“So why are you pushing a broom on a Friday night instead of drinking an expensive wine at a faculty party?”
Parker tipped his head back and chuckled. “It’s about the money,” he said. “I’m on an adventure and working part-time.”
“So your real job is an economist?”
Parker thought a moment. “You could say that. I’m a professor at the University of Chicago.”
“No way,” he scoffed, slouching back in his chair and crossing his arms. “Wait a minute. If you’re an economist, you should be rolling in dough and not need to be a part-time janitor.”
“Now, that’s a long story and for another time. Why don’t we concentrate on your studies right now?”
* * *
MCKENNA LISTENED FROM the doorway. She’d never seen Parker teach before. His technique was flawless. Lydia had said Parker’s students loved him, that his office hours were generally standing room only. At the time she’d wondered if it was all women waiting for some face time with a handsome professor. But now she understood his appeal.
He’d put the student at ease, got him to talk about his problem and then offered to help him with it. She learned more about Parker every day.
The two men stood at the blackboard. It looked nothing like McKenna remembered when she was in school. It was covered in charts and graphs and they were deep in conversation. McKenna didn’t want to interrupt. They were engrossed, but she had the only car and their motel was too far away for Parker to walk. Slipping inside unnoticed, she took a seat near the door. Remaining quiet, she studied them while they talked for ten more minutes before the younger man saw her.
Parker turned around. “McKenna, I didn’t know you were there.”
“You two were so involved, I didn’t want to disturb you.”
Parker glanced at the young man. “This is Austin. He’s having trouble with his economics class. I was giving him a few pointers.”
“Hello,” McKenna said.
Austin nodded acknowledgment. “It was more than a few pointers. The way he explains things, it’s easy to understand. Almost fun.”
“Good to hear,” Parker said. “We won’t be long,” he told McKenna.
“That’s all right,” Austin said. “We’re done.” He looked at Parker. “Thank you very much. I have a better understanding of it now.” He offered his hand and the two shook.
“How about we meet here on Monday, same time?” Parker’s eyebrows rose in question. “I’m willing to help you as long as I’m here.”
“I don’t want to impose.”
“It’s up to you. I’ll be here regardless.”
“Then I’ll see you Monday.” He smiled and gathered his books. “Nice to meet you,” he said to McKenna before leaving them alone.
“He seemed very satisfied.”
Parker retrieved the broom and went back to sweeping the floor. “He’s a nice kid. Just needed a little direction.”
“You were wonderful,” McKenna said.
Parker stopped and faced her.
“I’ve never seen you teaching before. You were so...” She was lost for a description. “So you,” she finished.
“What does that mean?”
“You were passionate about it. I could see it.”
“You don’t think I’m passionate about anything?”
McKenna knew she’d touched a nerve. Why didn’t she think before she spoke? “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“Just how did you mean it?”
She stood up, feeling at a disadvantage sitting in the small desk. “I meant that you don’t show your feelings. You hide everything inside. This was the first time I’ve seen you in a situation where your love of something comes through. You obviously love teaching.”
He stared at her for a moment, but then his shoulders dropped. McKenna let out a slow breath.
“You don’t know me, McKenna. There are many things I’m passionate about.” He ended the sentence there and returned to sweeping. She knew a door had closed between them just then. It was her fault, but she didn’t understand why. What had she said or done that was so wrong? She might have bungled her words, but she meant no insult.
It seemed with Parker, she could never stay on the same level. One day they were friends and suddenly they were not. Or she couldn’t figure out what the problem was between them.
“Can I help?” she asked softly.
He sighed. “You can erase the board.”
McKenna moved to the board and picked up an eraser. Instantly she was back in grade school, when erasing the blackboard was an honor. The smell of chalk hadn’t changed even in this digital age.
“I meant it, Parker,” she said as she started removing Parker’s handwriting from the second board. This one was full of graphs with notations along the sides.
“Meant what?”
“I meant it when I said you were a wonderful teacher. I could tell by the way the two of you were so into discussing the gross national product.”
“Thank you,” he said. McKenna noted the deepness of his voice. He was touched by her comment, but like his usual behavior, he held it inside.
* * *
DENYING THAT HE had cold feet about jumping from an airplane and falling through the sky would be a lie on Parker’s part. He wanted to go skydiving. He’d been thinking about it for a month. Ever since McKenna asked him what he most wanted to do and since their drive into Phoenix, he’d wanted to see what it was like to free-fall. Now the day was here, but Parker was unsure if he was ready for it.
The jump would be a tandem jump. He would be with an experienced jumper, not alone between the sky and the earth. Yet fear and sweat vied against the control he was clinging on to. McKenna had saved every penny she made that wasn’t spent on food for them. At some of her temp jobs, they even provided breakfast for the employees.
One job took her to the US Airways Arena where the Phoenix Suns played basketball. As a perk, they’d given her a blanket with the team logo on it. She used it to sleep under on the sofa.
Parker marveled at how she could remain steady on the course she’d set. It was months now since they’d left Chicago and she’d done whatever was necessary to keep going, even to the point of playing the role of his wife—in name only, he added. Most people with her ability and access to her income and lifestyle would have given up this idea and re
turned to the soft cushion of their former existence. But not McKenna Wellington. She was soldiering onward. Parker loved that about her. In fact, he loved her. He’d always loved her. But only he knew it.
They reached the airport at noon. Parker refused to eat any lunch before the jump.
“Scared?” she asked as they got out of the car and headed for the plane.
“If I said yes, would you think less of me?”
“If you lied, I’d think less of you.”
“All right, I’m scared.”
“You took the course. You know what to do.”
“Theory and practice are separate and sometimes unequal things.”
McKenna laughed at his sarcasm. She took his arm and stopped him. Looking at him, her expression serious, she said. “I won’t think any less of you if you don’t want to go through with this.” She looked as if she was a little scared, too.
Parker pecked her on the cheek. “I really want to do this.”
Thirty minutes later he was in the plane, strapped to a stranger as if he were a giant baby and McKenna was on the ground, waiting. Then he was out the door and the ground was coming toward him fast. McKenna had insisted on including a second parachutist to make a recording of the jump. Parker was petrified until the parachute opened.
Once the parachute deployed, he was floating and had the chance to really look at the scenery, marvel in the beauty of the earth until his tandem partner took control of a soft landing.
“What a rush,” Parker shouted as he reached McKenna. Someone had come and unhooked his harness, allowing him to walk, abeit on shaky legs.
“Did you like it?” she asked.
“It was the best thing I’ve ever done. I loved it!” Excitement tinged his words and Parker gathered McKenna in a great big hug. He was over-animated and he knew it, but he couldn’t help himself. He felt like a little boy again, enthusiastic in discovering the world and how much there was to see and do. He tended to be conservative, but that personality trait was totally forgotten in light of a fall to the earth.
“You have got to try this,” he said, swinging McKenna around. “Thank you for talking me into it. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“I see it’s going to take a while for you to calm down,” she said. “Don’t you think you should put me back on the ground? You’re the one who was airborne.”
He set her down as if he’d forgotten he was holding her.
“I don’t think I’ll ever calm down. I was scared to go up, really scared. But this was the best, incomparable.”
McKenna listened to him patiently for the entire drive back to the dorm. He had the video of the jump and couldn’t resist playing it on his computer. McKenna watched the less than five minute feature with him and oohed and ahhed in all the right spots.
“I wish you’d been up there with me. It was just the best experience.”
“Maybe one day,” McKenna said.
He went on telling her about his experience until darkness fell and she was clearly exhausted. It was as if skydiving had opened a door for him and he couldn’t close it.
“I guess today was worth all the previous days of working, pain and unexpected experiences,” she said.
Parker sobered. “I wouldn’t miss any one of those days, if given the choice. And if I had to do them over, I’d do it without complaint.”
He didn’t smile or give her any indication that he was anything but genuine. He could see the fright in her eyes and the small movement of a vein in her throat that told him her heartbeat had increased.
“It’s a shame we have to follow up a day like today with our jobs tomorrow,” she said.
Parker nodded. “I’ll let you go to sleep.”
He rose and started for the bedroom. Once inside, he quietly closed the door. He didn’t want to leave her. He wanted to stay and talk. He wanted to sit on the sofa, holding her to him, slipping his fingers through her hair. He wanted to tell her he loved her.
It had been a wonderful day. Still, he wanted more.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING they drove the final four hundred miles to the Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica. The Pacific Ocean welcomed them with soft waves and sounds that were like relaxing music to their ears. McKenna stood next to a large rock and smelled the salt and sea. Parker came up beside her.
“We made it,” she said.
“With only a few mishaps.”
“Those were adventures.” She grinned, correcting him. “I had a wonderful time. I’m sorry it has to end. The car’s running like a dream, as smoothly as if it was being serviced by a professional pit crew. I feel like it could go another 3,000 miles easy before we’d need to stop again.”
“I’m sorry to see the trip end, too,” Parker said, sounding sincere. “But we knew we had to get to this day.”
McKenna inhaled a deep breath and released it. “It seems like it was only a few days ago I was arguing with you in my driveway.”
He squatted down, picking up a couple of pebbles and stared at the water. “I did it, McKenna.”
“Did what? Are you back to skydiving again?”
“I called my father. It was after the skydiving. You went to sleep. I went to my room and I contacted him. We talked for several hours. You were right. We did need to sort things out between us.”
“Are you going to see him?”
“When we get back. I won’t postpone it.”
“That’s wonderful, Parker. You’ll find it’s good to have your parents to talk to.”
“So now what?” he asked. “We turn around and go home?”
It had been her thinking from the beginning. She explained, “I was going to have the car shipped back to Chicago, and Lydia I would fly home.”
“I don’t want to go back. At least not to the life I had,” Parker said. He stood up and faced her.
“What do you really want to do? It’s your life, Parker. You can do whatever you want.”
“Then how about we drive back to Chicago?”
“You’re not tired of the road? And me?” McKenna asked.
A gull cawed overhead and they both looked up at it. It swooped into the water and out again.
“I could never be tired of you. And the road has less bumps if I have you along.”
A smile spread across her face. “I’m game if you are.”
“I have one condition,” Parker said.
“What is that?”
“We go back by way of Las Vegas.”
“Why Vegas? Neither of us is into gambling.”
“I could be. I’m gambling that if I ask you to marry me, we can tie the knot in a small little chapel in the biggest, brashest town on earth.”
McKenna stood up straight. “You’re not kidding me, are you?”
He shook his head. “It’s right there on my bucket list.” Opening his hand, he pointed to his palm as if there was a piece of paper with something written on it. “Marry McKenna.”
She rushed toward him. Parker reached out and caught her. He steadied her, but didn’t let her go. McKenna felt the warmth of him, his strength, his presence. She looked up, intending to say something, but the softness, the kindness in his eyes, that was reflected there, dried her throat. The entire world seemed to change.
The sun shone brighter. The sea swelled. The birds sang. Yet the world around them faded as they were the only inhabitants in the universe.
McKenna tightened her arms around him and accepted the comfort he offered. His mouth found hers in a searing kiss that was undeniable. When he broke contact, he looked at her with a question in his eyes.
“What?” she asked.
“Do you feel guilty that I’m not Marshall? That my kisses are a substitute for his?”
Her arms
circled him, feeling they belonged there. “I learned something on this trip.” She stared deeply into his eyes. “I loved Marshall with my whole heart. I said goodbye to him at the mountain that morning when you took me there. But I find the heart expands when it needs to. I will always love Marshall. But I love you now, and the love, while the same, is different. It’s not something you can explain or put a name to. But when I kiss you, when I tell you I love you, there are no ghosts between us.”
Parker kissed her again.
EPILOGUE
WHILE MCKENNA AND Parker had taken months to drive Route 66, they took the highway back to Chicago. They decided not to go to Las Vegas, after all, since Parker wanted his parents to attend the wedding. Detours took them to see Joanna, Sherry and Zeke and they’d invited them to the nuptials once a date was set.
A rousing homecoming welcomed them in the Windy City. McKenna’s once-skeptical friends were all assembled and thrilled to hear of the adventures she and Parker had had. Most were slightly jealous of her for acting on a dream, and said they were now considering doing the same. Lydia’s leg had healed, although she relied on a cane, which Adrienne whispered was for sympathy only.
Squeals of happiness rose when Parker announced their engagement. Of course, Lydia took full credit for the outcome due to her accident.
Parker realized they should have gone to Las Vegas and married. With the three women all trying to plan a wedding, a circus would surely ensue. But he’d have McKenna and she was worth it.
“Well, what’s next for you two?” Lydia asked. “The Cumberland Trail in a covered wagon?”
“As soon as McKenna builds the wagon, we’re off,” Parker teased.
“The Cumberland Trail,” McKenna said, her eyes wandering upward as if she were considering the thought. “A covered wagon. What a great idea. Wouldn’t that cause a fight on the way west?” McKenna asked.
Parker caught her and pulled her into his arms. “Only after the honeymoon is over, sweetheart. Only then.”
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