Sealed with a promise

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Sealed with a promise Page 27

by Mary Margret Daughtridge

“Not en­ti­rely. I can’t sing the last ver­se. Li­te­ral­ly. When I co­me to ‘Be ne­ar me Lord Jesus/ I ask Thee to stay/ Clo­se by me fo­re­ver/ and lo­ve me, I pray’ I start cho­king up-” Her vo­ice crac­ked. “-just li­ke now. By the ti­me I get to ‘Bless all the de­ar chil­d­ren/ In Thy ten­der ca­re’ I can’t cro­ak out a no­te.” Em­mie snif­fed and la­ug­hed self-con­s­ci­o­usly. “I can’t be­li­eve I ha­ve such a sen­ti­men­tal stre­ak, but the­re it is. My gu­ilty sec­ret.”

  Ten­der la­ug­h­ter thre­ate­ned to stop his he­art. She was so co­ura­ge­o­us, so un­wil­ling to com­p­la­in, he do­ub­ted if she knew what she had just re­ve­aled. She had la­ug­hed ear­li­er abo­ut wan­ting her mis­si­onary pa­rents to be de­di­ca­ted to her, not to God. Em­mie had be­en the twel­ve-ye­ar-old exi­le who beg­ged for so­me­one to stay with her fo­re­ver and lo­ve her. With one hand he stro­ked the sil­ken sof­t­ness of her wet che­ek.

  Emmie la­ug­hed aga­in and rub­bed away the evi­den­ce of her vul­ne­ra­bi­lity.

  “Did you see the dis­hes set on the war­ming tray?” She chan­ged the su­bj­ect. “They we­re all glu­ten-free dis­hes pre­pa­red for Pic­kett. Dres­sing, rolls, gravy, ever­y­t­hing! Pic­kett and I al­most had a mel­t­down over that. We co­uldn’t lo­ok at each ot­her, or we’d start baw­ling.”

  “How did that hap­pen?” Do-Lord tho­ught he knew. He’d ha­ve to ask Jax the next ti­me they pop­ped a be­er or two.

  “I don’t know who­se idea it was. Se­ve­ral pe­op­le sa­id they had bro­ught a dish and as­ked her how she li­ked it.”

  “Okay,” Em­mie as­ked af­ter aw­hi­le. “Are we go­ing to talk abo­ut Char­lot­te and Vicky sho­wing up to­night?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Right.”

  After that they tal­ked abo­ut the fo­od. Do-Lord as­ked abo­ut pe­op­le he had met. To­get­her they won­de­red abo­ut re­la­ti­on­s­hips, re­told funny in­ci­dents that had hap­pe­ned.

  Ses­soms Cor­ner was abo­ut twenty mi­les off the in­ter­s­ta­te that wo­uld ta­ke them back to Wil­min­g­ton. The­irs se­emed to be the only car on the two-la­ne co­untry ro­ad. The he­avy mo­is­tu­re in the air thic­ke­ned to pat­c­hes of swir­ling mist and then to a driz­zle, and the­ir vo­ices ro­se and fell aga­inst the slap-swish bac­k­be­at of the win­d­s­hi­eld wi­pers.

  A fan­tasy sto­le in­to Ca­leb’s mind. He was dri­ving thro­ugh a ra­iny night, dri­ving ho­me with Em­mie, sle­epy chil­d­ren in the bac­k­se­at, tal­king abo­ut the party at Aunt Lilly Ha­le’s… sud­denly, not fi­ve fe­et from the car, the­re was a de­er in the mid­dle of the ro­ad-

  He co­uld see the up­right ears and wi­de sta­ring eyes of the de­er so cle­arly. He bra­ked hard eno­ugh to ca­use his sho­ul­der har­ness to tig­h­ten. Ti­me slo­wed. He felt the an­ti­lock bra­kes sen­se each whe­el’s trac­ti­on on the wet sur­fa­ce and send mo­re or less bra­ke flu­id. Things slid aro­und on the bac­k­se­at.

  “Wha- ?” Em­mie sa­id.

  The­re was no de­er in the ro­ad. For as far as the he­ad­lights co­uld pe­net­ra­te the sil­ver cur­ta­in of ra­in, the­re wasn’t any ha­zard on the shiny blac­k­top. But the fe­eling of ti­me split in two con­ti­nu­ed. He ig­no­red the in­ner vo­ice (that was in what he knew was re­al ti­me) yel­ling at him for let­ting his ima­gi­na­ti­on run wild. He was in the ot­her ti­me. No po­wer on earth wo­uld ha­ve ma­de him let up on the bra­ke, un­til the truck was stop­ped.

  With a tiny errk the truck hal­ted. The se­cond it did, not fi­ve fe­et from the bum­per, a lar­ge buck bo­un­ded on­to the hig­h­way, fol­lo­wed im­me­di­ately by two smal­ler de­er. So­met­hing thum­ped on­to the flo­or from the bac­k­se­at. He ho­ped it wasn’t the tin­fo­il-co­ve­red pla­te of lef­to­vers.

  Ti­me went back to nor­mal.

  He had the truck mo­ving aga­in, its big mo­tor pur­ring, the ti­res swis­hing on the wet pa­ve­ment, be­fo­re Em­mie bro­ke her si­len­ce.

  “How did you do that?” In­ten­se cu­ri­osity vib­ra­ted in her to­ne, but not a tra­ce of fe­ar. “You stop­ped the truck be­fo­re the de­er ap­pe­ared.”

  He co­uld tell her he had gre­at pe­rip­he­ral vi­si­on. She might be­li­eve it.

  He co­uld tell her the truth.

  So­me guys in the te­ams co­uld han­d­le it. So­me co­uldn’t.

  It was funny. Jax had psychic abi­lity him­self. He knew what pe­op­le co­uld do. Do-Lord had se­en it too many ti­mes to do­ubt he was using so­me sort of ex­t­ra sen­se. Jax didn’t deny it, but he had ab­so­lu­tely no cu­ri­osity abo­ut it. When Jax as­ked Do-Lord to vi­su­ali­ze pla­ce­men­ts, they both knew what he was as­king Do-Lord to do-but they had ne­ver dis­cus­sed it.

  Lon knew. He, him­self, had what he cal­led a fe­el for things. He had a deg­ree of in­sight in­to pe­op­le and the­ir mo­ti­va­ti­ons that was not­hing short of un­can­ny.

  He’d ne­ver tal­ked abo­ut it with eit­her man.

  From the pas­sen­ger se­at, Em­mie mu­sed, “Pe­rip­he­ral vi­si­on, with he­ad­lights in the front of the vi­su­al fi­eld and dar­k­ness at the si­des, is prac­ti­cal­ly use­less.” Well, the­re went that ex­p­la­na­ti­on. “With the win­dows rol­led up and the wi­pers go­ing, I can’t ima­gi­ne you he­ard them.” Scratch that one too. “It wasn’t gre­at ref­le­xes. You re­ac­ted se­ve­ral se­conds be­fo­re the de­er we­re the­re.”

  She didn’t so­und up­set. And he felt the way he of­ten felt af­ter­wards. At­h­le­tes cal­led it “in the zo­ne.” A fe­eling of per­fec­ti­on, of sur­pas­sing ease-li­ke yo­ur li­fe had po­wer ste­ering-or­di­nary ru­les and con­di­ti­ons we­re tran­s­cen­ded. One of tho­se mo­ments when you co­uld ask for an­y­t­hing and get it.

  Emmie twis­ted in her se­at to lo­ok at him. “You do know so­met­hing hap­pe­ned, don’t you?”

  He la­ug­hed. A gre­at, big, free la­ugh that sho­ok so­met­hing lo­ose in his belly. He lif­ted her hand from her lap and bro­ught it to his lips.

  He li­ked the sa­tiny-co­ol fe­el, the slight le­mon scent. He li­ked it so much he kept it the­re and rub­bed it aga­inst his lips.

  “If you’re com­mu­ni­ca­ting in sign lan­gu­age, you ne­ed to know I can’t re­ad it.” Em­mie’s dry hu­mor car­ri­ed a to­uch of as­pe­rity.

  Her to­ne let a bit of the he­li­um out of his bal­lo­on. God, he didn’t want to blow this. Psychic stuff sca­red the hell out of so­me. She was a sci­en­tist. She ad­mit­ted she de­alt with lo­gic bet­ter than fa­ith. He tri­ed to cal­cu­la­te which way his chan­ces with Em­mie we­re bet­ter- talk or don’t talk.

  What the hell. Talk.

  “So­met­hing hap­pe­ned,” he ag­re­ed, and sud­denly he was la­ug­hing aga­in. “Shit. It’s al­most im­pos­sib­le to put in­to words. It so­unds so lu­dic­ro­us.”

  “I was the­re. Re­mem­ber? Not­hing you say will be less be­li­evab­le than what I ex­pe­ri­en­ced.”

  “You’ve got a po­int. Okay. I saw a de­er in my mind’s eye.”

  “You me­an, be­fo­re you slam­med on the bra­kes. Was this what they call pre­cog­ni­ti­on?”

  “Pre­cog­ni­ti­on is an af­ter-the-fact la­bel. It do­esn’t des­c­ri­be the ex­pe­ri­en­ce. When it hap­pens, the­re’s no awa­re­ness that I know the fu­tu­re. It’s li­ke the­re’s this split in my con­s­ci­o­us­ness, and I’m in two re­ali­ti­es, two pla­ces in ti­me, at on­ce.”

  “You’ve had ex­pe­ri­en­ces li­ke this be­fo­re? This is fas­ci­na­ting.” In his pe­rip­he­ral vi­si­on he saw her shift in her se­at so she co­uld lo­ok at him fa­ce-on. “How do you know you’re not ima­gi­ning things?”

  Whe­ne­ver he’d tri­ed to dis­cuss his ex­pe­ri­en­ces,
that qu­es­ti­on had be­en as­ked, usu­al­ly with a skep­ti­cal im­p­li­ca­ti­on that he co­uldn’t tell the dif­fe­ren­ce bet­we­en what was ima­gi­ned and what was re­al. The in­qu­iry was usu­al­ly a pre­cur­sor to dis­mis­sing ever­y­t­hing he sa­id. Em­mie hadn’t fre­aked out yet. And now that he tho­ught of it, pe­op­le fre­qu­ently as­ked him how he did it-just as Em­mie had-but no one had ever as­ked him if he was awa­re so­met­hing had hap­pe­ned. That was Em­mie. Se­e­ing events in her own uni­que way. He won­de­red now

  280 Mary Mar­g­ret Da­ug­h­t­rid­ge

  why he had be­en wor­ri­ed that she wo­uld re­j­ect him or his ex­pe­ri­en­ce.

  “The­re’s a fe­eling…” He strug­gled to find the words. “I knew the­re wasn’t a de­er in the hig­h­way in this now. But I knew the­re was in that one.”

  “The now… whe­re… the de­er… was.”

  Ca­leb grin­ned at her strug­gles to un­der­s­tand. “See how stran­ge the sen­ten­ces get? I war­ned you.”

  “It’s a com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on chal­len­ge, all right.” Em­mie sho­ok her he­ad and gig­gled hel­p­les­sly. “He­re,” she held out her hand. “May­be we sho­uld go back to the sign lan­gu­age.”

  God, she was a dar­ling. Ot­her pe­op­le fre­aked out when they en­co­un­te­red so­met­hing be­yond the­ir fra­me of re­fe­ren­ce. Wan­ting her rat­c­het­ted up anot­her turn. “Got a bet­ter idea.” He felt for his pho­ne, un­c­lip­ped it and to­uc­hed spe­ed di­al. Em­mie’s pho­ne rang.

  Emmie shot him a glan­ce and pul­led the pho­ne from her pur­se from the bac­k­se­at whe­re she had tos­sed it. “Hel­lo?”

  “Is this Em­mie?” he en­qu­ired po­li­tely.

  “Spe­aking.”

  “Is it re­al­ly you?”

  Emmie slan­ted him a puz­zled smi­le. “Um… yes?”

  “It’s just that I’ve be­en wa­iting for a chan­ce to call you for ho­urs. I can’t be­li­eve I fi­nal­ly got you. The­re’s so­met­hing I ne­ed to ask you.”

  She glan­ced at him aga­in, out of the cor­ner of her eye. “You cer­ta­inly ha­ve my com­p­le­te at­ten­ti­on, now.”

  “Okay. I’ve be­en at this party all eve­ning. I was ho­ping-I know it’s last mi­nu­te to ask for a da­te-the thing is I was ho­ping you wo­uld go out with me.”

  “When?”

  “To­night.”

  “To­nig­ht- to­night? This night?”

  “Su­re. It’s not la­te. I can be at yo­ur ho­use in twenty mi­nu­tes.”

  “What a co­in­ci­den­ce,” she ob­ser­ved dryly. “I’ll get the­re at the sa­me ti­me.”

  She sho­uld ha­ve known she co­uldn’t rock him-not at his own ga­me.

  “Hey! Per­fect ti­ming! What do you say? Is it a da­te?”

  Emmie gas­ped. She con­nec­ted the dots. “I get it. If I say ‘yes’ this will be our third da­te.”

  “Y- y-y-y-y-ep!” He drew the word out and ex­p­lo­ded the p with the self-con­g­ra­tu­la­ti­on of a man pop­ping the cork out of a bot­tle of cham­pag­ne.

  Chapter 27

  Do- Lord pla­yed with a pi­ece of Em­mie’s ha­ir. On­ce at her cot­ta­ge, they had ag­re­ed they didn’t want to go out and op­ted in­s­te­ad for glas­ses of Ba­ileys. Now they we­re en­s­con­ced in the big blue cha­ir aga­in. The­re was only the one cha­ir, so he had pul­led Em­mie in­to his lap, which su­ited him just fi­ne. “What’s yo­ur fa­vo­ri­te co­lor?” he as­ked.

  “Prus­si­an blue.”

  “What co­lor is that?”

  “A de­ep blue that has no hint of red. The che­mi­cal na­me is iron fer­roc­ya­ni­de. It was the first synthe­tic pa­int pig­ment. Li­ke a lot of dis­co­ve­ri­es, it was the re­sult of an ex­pe­ri­ment go­ne bad. The che­mist was ac­tu­al­ly trying to cre­ate a synthe­tic red. This cha­ir is pretty clo­se to Prus­si­an blue.”

  “What was yo­ur mot­her’s ma­iden na­me?”

  “Cren­s­haw. Thank God, my pa­rents don’t fol­low the tra­di­ti­on of gi­ving girls the­ir mot­her’s and gran­d­mot­her’s ma­iden na­mes-li­ke Pic­kett’s fa­mily do­es.”

  “Is that how she got the na­me Pic­kett?”

  “Um- hmm. Her gran­d­mot­her on her mot­her’s si­de was a Pic­kett.”

  “Is Eme­li­na yo­ur first na­me or mid­dle?”

  “First. My mid­dle na­me is The­odo­ra.”

  “Eme­li­na The­odo­ra?”

  Emmie ga­ve one of tho­se bubbly chuc­k­les he lo­ved. “I’ll bet you’re won­de­ring why I think Cren­s­haw wo­uld ha­ve be­en wor­se, aren’t you?”

  “Eme­li­na, gift-of-god,” he tran­s­la­ted.

  “That’s what my mot­her sa­id. They tho­ught they might be unab­le to ha­ve chil­d­ren.”

  “Whe­re we­re you born?”

  Emmie cra­ned her neck, at­tem­p­ting to see his fa­ce. “What’s go­ing on? Are you trying to gu­ess my pas­swords? I’m war­ning you, the­re’s not eno­ugh in my bank ac­co­unt to ste­al.”

  He kis­sed the top of her he­ad, hi­ding a smi­le. As usu­al, she had kept track of ever­y­t­hing he sa­id. “I just re­ali­zed the­re was a lot you know abo­ut me, and I don’t know much abo­ut you.”

  “Okay. I was born in San Fran­cis­co. Whe­re we­re you born?”

  “Ro­se Hill, Ala­ba­ma.”

  “That so­unds li­ke a ni­ce pla­ce.”

  “The best thing abo­ut it is that I don’t li­ve the­re an­y­mo­re.” Eno­ugh with mi­nu­ti­ae. He had Em­mie in his arms, true, but she’d be­en the­re twi­ce. Just when he tho­ught ever­y­t­hing was a go, the­re was anot­her con­di­ti­on to be met. Ti­me to ask for the da­ta he re­al­ly ne­eded.

  “Emmie, the last guy you we­re with. How long did you know him be­fo­re you had sex?”

  “That wo­uld be Blo­unt.”

  “Blunt? Li­ke blunt-for­ce-tra­uma?”

  “B- L-O-U-N-T. It’s hard to say. I’d se­en him aro­und cam­pus for abo­ut a ye­ar. Af­ter all, we we­re in the sa­me de­par­t­ment. Then our class sche­du­les co­in­ci­ded, and we star­ted chat­ting for a few mi­nu­tes so­me­ti­mes.”

  “Okay, how long, co­un­ting from yo­ur first da­te?”

  “We ne­ver had a da­te.”

  “I tho­ught you sa­id-”

  “He ne­ver as­ked me for a da­te.”

  What the hell? She had all but in­sis­ted on a no­ta­ri­zed con­t­ract with him. Every at­tempt to un­der­s­tand her ma­de him un­der­s­tand less.

  “We ran in­to each ot­her fa­irly fre­qu­ently, and he li­ked to talk. And then we’d get to­get­her at his apar­t­ment so­me­ti­mes. One thing led to anot­her. “

  She went to bed with the joker tho­ugh, of­fi­ci­al da­tes or not. “Okay, co­unt from whe­ne­ver you li­ke.”

  “Fi­ve months. Six months. May­be se­ven.”

  It was as bad as he tho­ught. A guy li­ved in her world. Had all the right cre­den­ti­als. Co­uld see her every day. And it to­ok him se­ven months. Fi­ve mi­ni­mum.

  “Did you fall in lo­ve with him?”

  “Now that I’ve had ti­me to think abo­ut it, strictly spe­aking, it wo­uldn’t be ac­cu­ra­te to say that I fell in lo­ve. It was mo­re li­ke… wan­de­red off.” Em­mie chuc­k­led. “Ye­ah, that’s it. I stra­yed in­to lo­ve. Oh, wa­it… I mis­di­aled in­to lo­ve.” Em­mie threw back her he­ad, la­ug­hing. She wo­uld ha­ve tip­ped over bac­k­wards if Ca­leb hadn’t bra­ced her with an arm aro­und her sho­ul­ders. “Oh! Oh! I’ve got a bet­ter one: I got on the wrong bus in­to lo­ve!”

  She was ado­rab­le. He drop­ped a kiss on her ha­ir. Thank God, she wasn’t nur­sing a bro­ken he­art over the chump. “When did you no­ti­ce yo­ur mis­ta­ke?”

  “The­re was a de­par­t­men­tal din­ne
r. A com­mand per­for­man­ce. We didn’t go out to­get­her fre­qu­ently, but I as­su­med, in­cor­rectly as it tur­ned out, that we wo­uld go to the din­ner to­get­her. No­pe. He was go­ing with so­me­one el­se.” Em­mie snor­ted. “Sin­ce he sa­id our fri­en­d­s­hip”- Em­mie ma­de fin­ger-qu­otes-“ ‘tran­s­cen­ded the man- wo­man thing,’ it ne­ver oc­cur­red to him he ought to sha­re his plans with me.”

  Okay, the guy was a jerk. One who didn’t know shit abo­ut the fa­mily va­lu­es Miss Lilly Ha­le tal­ked abo­ut. Didn’t me­an Ca­leb co­uldn’t le­arn from his mis­ta­kes. He was se­ri­o­us abo­ut Em­mie. To ma­ke the most of the­ir ti­me to­get­her, they ne­eded to talk over the­ir plans and get on the sa­me pa­ge.

  “Just so you know, I’ll be tran­s­fer­red to San Di­ego in Janu­ary,” he sa­id.

  Con­fi­dent he wo­uld sup­port her, Em­mie le­aned back to see his fa­ce. She pres­sed aga­inst his arm and grin­ned. “Are you trying to set me up for the gre­at ‘be­en ni­ce kno­wing you’ spe­ech?”

  That stung. Ma­inly be­ca­use she co­uld joke abo­ut it. He’d got­ten mi­xed sig­nals from the be­gin­ning, but the one cle­ar sig­nal, that she had in­sis­ted on ma­king cle­ar, was that if they had sex, a se­ri­o­us re­la­ti­on­s­hip was on the tab­le. She was out of li­ne, way out of li­ne, to sug­gest he was set­ting her up for the kiss-off.

  “No, I’m just tel­ling you now. I’m wor­king on a ga­me plan to get things star­ted be­fo­re I le­ave in Janu­ary. I’m sa­ying, Em­mie, I don’t want to rush you. I’ll gi­ve you all the ti­me I ha­ve, but I don’t ha­ve ti­me for cof­fee to­get­her two or three ti­mes a we­ek and chats bet­we­en clas­ses for se­ven months. I ne­ed an es­ti­ma­te of how many da­tes it’s go­ing to ta­ke.

  “And I pro­bably bet­ter warn you. I don’t think we’ve got a chan­ce of tran­s­cen­ding the man-wo­man thing.”

  Chapter 28

  “Um… da­tes.” The pho­ne calls to es­tab­lish a re­cord abo­ut the num­ber of “da­tes” they had. And she had men­ti­oned Pic­kett’s ru­le abo­ut ne­ver ha­ving sex on the first da­te. “Are you tal­king abo­ut a ti­me­tab­le for when we ha­ve sex?”

 

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