Home Sweet Alaska

by Beth Carpenter

  “Oh, yeah. I’d forgotten about that.”

  “There are several more Mexican restaurants but they’re probably just as crowded. Besides, I’m still technically on call and can’t be more than fifteen minutes away from the airport. But I have another option, if you trust me.”

  “You know I do.”

  “Then I will get us tacos.” She steered toward home. At one point, the two-way road divided into two one-ways, leaving an awkward triangle-shaped lot between them with a tiny flamingo-colored building in the middle.

  Volta pulled up in front of the drive-through menu. “I’ll have combo number three,” she enunciated into the speaker, “with a side of guacamole and chips.” She turned. “Scott?”

  He was scanning the sign. “Taco Cheapo? Really?”

  “You said you’d trust me.”

  “All right then. I’ll have the number seven, extra salsa.”

  Volta repeated his order into the speaker and the disembodied voice crackled, asking them to pull forward to pay and then park in spot number two. Five minutes later, a teenage boy delivered the bag to their car, and Volta resumed driving.

  “It smells good,” Scott admitted. “Too bad I can’t get a take-out bottle of Mexican beer to go with it.”

  “I’ve got you covered.” Volta pulled up into her own driveway. “Leith left some in my fridge last week.”

  Scott smiled. “It’s all coming together.”

  He followed her into the house and set the take-out bag on the kitchen counter. She opened the refrigerator and took out a beer. “Oh, look. I even have a lime.” She sliced the lime, perched it on the mouth of his beer and handed him the bottle.

  “A dream come true,” Scott said. “Aren’t you joining me?”

  “No, I’m still officially on call, remember?”

  “Oh, right. Tough to be you.”

  “Just enjoy your beer.” She set the kitchen table with plates and forks. Then she swiped the tiny cactus growing on the window ledge and set it in the center of the table. “There. Ambience.”

  He looked at the table and then across at her face. He smiled. “Beautiful.”

  She poured herself a glass of water and distributed the contents of the take-out bag. They sat down to eat. Scott tried his first bite of taco. “This isn’t bad.” He chewed for a moment. “In fact, that’s a darn good taco.”

  “I know.”

  He ate another bite. “So why do they call themselves Taco Cheapo?”

  She shook her head. “Taco Cheapo has been there for, I don’t know, thirty years? Their tacos used to taste pretty much the way you’d think they would. I don’t know how they stayed in business for so long, unless it’s that they’re literally on the drive home for so many people.”

  “Teenagers, maybe, when cheap and filling is the biggest draw?”

  “I ate at Taco Cheapo once as a teenager and I said I’d never go back. But about six months ago, someone told me what good tacos they had. I didn’t believe it at first, but after someone else mentioned it, I tried them again. It seems they have a new owner. He raised the prices, but it’s still cheap by Anchorage standards. I asked if he was going to change the name, but he said he doesn’t want to shell out for a new sign.”

  “So, it’s your secret source.”

  “Not exactly secret. I’ve been telling everybody I know. I want this guy to stay in business, so I can keep getting his food.”

  Scott finished his first taco. “I agree. Remember that little hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant a couple of blocks off Kapiolani?”

  “Do I! Their mu shu pork melted in my mouth.”

  “And their spring rolls.”

  “Oh, yeah. I would kill for their spring rolls.”

  “We ate there, what, three times? And then they just disappeared.”

  “I remember. And not like there was a closed sign on the door. We couldn’t even find the door.”

  “I never was absolutely sure if we were on the wrong block, or if someone had remodeled the facade of the building.”

  “Or maybe the restaurant got sucked into another dimension.”

  Scott nodded. “The dimension of impossibly delicious spring rolls.”

  “I wanna go there.”

  “If I find a portal, I’ll bring you with me.”

  “You’d better.” And suddenly the silliness struck her. Volta snorted and coughed and then discovered she couldn’t stop.

  Scott grinned at her. “What?”

  “I don’t know,” she gasped. “I’m just...picturing a wormhole—” she took a breath “—like the ones with clocks they used to have on cartoons when they went back in time, but with flying egg rolls and chopsticks and plates of lo mein.” She gulped some water.

  “I can see it.” Scott chuckled. “Oh, and flying prawns and those little white dishes of sweet-and-sour sauce twirling around.”

  Volta burst out laughing before she’d managed to swallow her water. Fortunately, most of it went back into the glass and not out her nose. She jumped up from the table and blotted up the spill. “Okay.” She held up her hands in surrender. “Stop.” After a moment she was able to continue. “I need to eat my tacos before they get cold. Don’t be funny anymore.”

  “I’ll try to control myself,” Scott promised, but he couldn’t stop grinning.

  After pacing around the kitchen for a minute or two, Volta was back in control. She sat down and finished her first taco. Scott smiled and took a bite of refried beans. As Volta spooned hot sauce onto her second taco, she shook her head.

  Scott chuckled. “It’s been a long time since anything I said provoked a spit take.” He shrugged. “It never gets old.”

  “I can’t say I agree with you there. I think spitting water all over my kitchen would get old in a hurry.”

  “It’s a comedy classic.”

  Volta finished her second taco. Scott leaned forward. “You have some hot sauce right here.” He pointed to the corner of his mouth.

  She picked up a napkin and dabbed. “Did I get it?”

  “No, to the left.”

  She tried again, but he shook his head. He leaned close, bringing his face to within inches of hers, and wiped with his napkin. And then, before he drew away, his lips brushed across hers, so lightly she almost thought she’d imagined it.

  It all felt so familiar. He’d done the same thing so many times when they were dating. He was always teasing her about her messy eating habits and then using the opportunity of wiping away a dribble to steal a kiss. She suspected there hadn’t always been anything to wipe away.

  They both froze for a second. Then Scott returned to his chair and unwrapped another taco, staring at the wrapper with the sort of concentration he might have used to make a surgical incision. Volta fiddled with her plastic fork. This was nothing, really. Not even a real kiss, just the lightest touch. It might even have been an accident.

  She decided the best course was to rewind to earlier in the evening, before things got awkward. “I can’t believe I got the giggles like I did. I haven’t had one of those uncontrollable laughing fits in years.”

  “How many years?”

  “I don’t know,” Volta said. But she did.

  “Eleven, maybe?”

  “Why would you say that?” Volta picked up a chip and dipped it in the bowl of guacamole between them, concentrating on creating the perfect chip to dip ratio. It was safer than looking into those warm brown eyes.

  “Because that’s how long it’s been since anyone found me funny enough for a spit take.”

  “Maybe you should work on your material.”

  “Or maybe I should be more selective of my audience.”

  Volta crunched the chip to avoid having to answer. After a moment, she replied, “We shouldn’t be doing this, you know.”

  “Eating tacos
?”

  “Remembering old times.”

  “What’s wrong with remembering? Those were some of the happiest days of my life.”

  “Were being the operative word.”

  “The past can’t hurt you.”

  She looked up at him in shock. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  He stole a chip off her plate and dipped it in the guacamole. “I believe that while the past may have shaped us, every day we have the opportunity to start over. We make choices.”

  “And then we live with them. So our choices in the past can very much hurt us today.”

  He set the chip on his plate before looking up at her. “You mean like your choice to have dinner with me that day at the gardens?”

  “Yes. And a whole series of choices I made after that.”

  “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

  “You say that, but you wouldn’t have changed anything. You aren’t sorry you broke up with me because it gave you the freedom to pursue the career you wanted, without being weighed down with the burden of someone who loved you.”

  “You make me sound so cold.”

  “I never thought so. Not until the day you told me I was less important than your plans.”

  “There are a lot of people in the world who need medical care and aren’t getting it.”

  “Yes, there are.”

  “They need people like me.”

  “No argument there.”

  “Besides, it worked out for you. You fell in love and got married to someone who could be there with you, not traveling all over the world, occasionally calling you at three in the morning because he’s lost track of time zones.”

  “Yes.” Volta straightened her shoulders. “Yes, I was married. Wade loved me very much.” Probably more than she deserved. He was thoughtful and sweet. But he’d never induced a fit of giggles she couldn’t control. Still, he had married her and given her everything he had to give, including an amazing daughter. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it was all for the best.”

  Scott crunched the chip between his teeth. “I could say I’m sorry I started dating you, but that would be a lie. I’m glad you were in my life, even if it wasn’t meant to be forever.”

  “Well, that makes one of us.”

  “So you wish, that first day when I spotted you among the hibiscus blossoms, looking as pretty as any flower there, that I would have kept walking?”

  Did she? It would have saved her a truckload of pain. Not to mention guilt. Because if she’d never been in love with Scott, she never would have known her love for Wade was lacking. She never would have felt like a terrible wife, because even though she loved her husband, she didn’t feel the sort of finish-your-sentences connection she’d had with Scott. She hoped Wade had never known that she was capable of a deeper love than they’d shared.

  Was ignorance bliss? Volta didn’t know. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? What happened, happened. You told me about your plans with DEMA that very first night. I knew what I was doing, and I could have bailed at any time. But I didn’t. You had to be the one strong enough to end it.”

  “Why didn’t you finish your degree?”

  “Because I couldn’t stay in Hawaii, not after what happened. And then I met Wade, and he loved me. We’d only been dating two months when he asked me to marry him. And it felt so good to have someone who wanted me in his life that much that I said yes. I decided to stay in Alaska with the man who loved me. Is that so hard to understand?”

  “No. No, it’s not hard to understand at all.”

  “I had a happy marriage. And now I have Emma, and she is the light of my life. So, yes, you did me a favor. Because if you hadn’t broken my heart way back then, I wouldn’t have my life now. Thank you, Scott. You made the right choice.”

  * * *

  SCOTT TYPED A comment from Molly, the pregnant health aide, into his notes. He thought back to what she’d said about traveling for health care while pregnant and wishing air taxis had bathrooms. Volta had joked about her pregnancy at that point, saying she wouldn’t have fit inside an airplane bathroom anyway. And they’d laughed together.

  He could imagine Volta pregnant. Her skin and hair even more radiant than usual, her blue eyes soft, her belly swollen with promise. Singing to the baby. Making plans. Volta had always faced each day with gratitude, like a gift to be cherished. She was never cocky, but confident in her abilities. He remembered how she’d struggled in her physical chemistry class, but she’d never doubted she would pass if she put in the effort. And assuming she’d passed her final after they broke up, she had.

  Yet her life had taken a different path than what she’d planned. Would she tell him if he was the reason she hadn’t gone into physical therapy? She’d said it wasn’t, but then, she’d always been kind.

  It was clear that her family meant the world to her. But he hadn’t been able to answer his biggest question: Was she happy?

  She’d looked happy last night. She’d smiled and laughed the same way she had when they used to be together. Sitting at the table with her, it was almost as though they’d gone back in time. It was that illusion of living in the past that had led to that kiss. A kiss they were both pretending never happened.

  Why had he done it? It wasn’t as though she’d encouraged him. She hadn’t flirted, hadn’t done anything to attract him except be herself. That was all it had ever taken.

  He’d felt that way the first day he ever met her. He’d convinced himself it wouldn’t hurt to date for a while. After all, he wasn’t in the market for a lifetime commitment. He’d already made one of those to DEMA. He was up-front about it. And yet, the more time he’d spent with Volta, the more he wanted. She had this undefinable quality. A warm glow that drew him like a fire on a chilly day.

  But he hadn’t realized how dangerous that pull was until the day he’d walked past a real estate office and saw a picture of a little island cottage on Kauai, known as Hawaii’s Garden Isle. He could still see the place in his mind. White, with a brilliant pink bougainvillea climbing over the porch and a sago palm in the yard. A fenced yard, good for dogs and kids. There were two wicker chairs on the porch, and he’d pictured himself in one of them and Volta in the other, sipping lemonade and laughing. And that was when he knew he had to break up with her before he went and did something stupid.

  Last night in Volta’s kitchen, he’d felt that pull again.

  He wouldn’t be surprised if she refused to work with him anymore. She would be well within her rights to file a complaint against him, although he doubted she would. Volta had never been one to go through channels if she had the choice of dealing with a problem directly. He should have apologized. He only hoped she gave him another chance. Otherwise, he might never see her again, and Scott didn’t want to think about that possibility.

  * * *

  “EMMA, ARE YOU READY?” Volta called up the stairs.

  “I can’t find my boots. I thought I left them in the bathroom.”

  “I put them in your closet, where they belong.” Always the last place Emma looked. But why would she? She never put anything there.

  While she waited, Volta unloaded the dishwasher. In the top rack, she found the salsa bowl from her dinner with Scott. She rubbed her forehead. What had she been thinking, bringing him into her home? Her memories of Scott were all tied up with sand, palm trees and the scent of plumeria. This was the home she’d bought together with Wade. Scott didn’t belong there.

  And yet he fit. It felt so right, even the way he’d wiped the hot sauce off her mouth. He was always doing that. It was a running joke. As was the stolen kiss.

  That simple brush of his lips across hers was more devastating than a long, seductive kiss would have been. This was a kiss between lovers who knew each other, who felt comfortable in a relationship. A quick reminder that there would be time later for long, dee
p kisses. A secret joke.

  Volta blew out a long breath. Maybe that was all it was. A joke. Nothing to get excited about. No reason to tell her supervisor to find someone else to accompany Scott on his village visits. She cared about this study, and she wanted to stick with it until he was finished. She just needed to draw a clear line between their past personal relationship and their current professional one.

  She put the salsa bowl in the cabinet. A minute later, a stampede sounded as Emma galloped down the stairs in her cowboy boots and burst into the kitchen. “I’m ready,” she announced, holding out her arms in a diva-worthy declaration.

  “Then let’s go. You don’t want to lose any riding time.”

  Emma climbed into the car and buckled in. “Do you think Cait will let me trot today?”

  Volta backed out of the driveway. “I don’t see why not. She did on your last lesson.”

  “Do you think she’ll let me jump?”

  “I’m not sure about that. Jumping looks fairly advanced to me.”

  “Cait said I need to learn to check my horse’s hooves. Why do horses have hooves instead of feet like dogs?”

  “Um.” Volta remembered something about this from an exhibit in the children’s science museum when Emma’s class took a field trip. “As I recall, prehistoric horses had toes, but over a long, long, long time, their middle toenail grew bigger and stronger until it developed into a hoof.”

  “A horse’s hoof is a toenail?”

  “Yes.” At least, Volta thought so, and if she sounded positive, Emma was less likely to bombard her with more questions.

  “Mooses have hooves, too.”

  “Yes.”

  “But their hooves have a line in the middle. Uncle Leith showed me moose tracks and they don’t look like horse tracks.”

  “I guess moose evolved to have two toes, but horses only have one toe on each foot.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to look it up.” They pulled in at the riding stable. As they crossed the parking lot, Volta’s phone rang. She wasn’t on call today, but she checked the caller ID just in case. She smiled. “Oh, it’s your grammy Hannah.”