I Picked You

by J C Hartung

  “So are you going to tell me who it was?”

  Her head tipped as she examined her youngest child. She hadn’t missed the way he’d seemingly checked his phone every so often over the past two days. She decided he looked very much like a kid who’d just come off a roller coaster; he was thrilled and waiting to get back on.

  “A very pretty girl thought I was worthy of her call!”

  “Linc, you and I both know you have never been a stranger to pretty girls’ calls,” she tried flattery to get the information. Though it was true he was no stranger to pretty girls, his reaction to this one was new. And it set off warning bells in her head.

  He laughed and reached over to squeeze her hand. “Maybe, but I have a feeling this one might be different.”

  “Are you going to tell me about her?”

  “There’s nothing to tell,” he said, with a quick shake of his head as he picked up his own menu. She didn’t need to know how true that was. That he knew nothing about her, but couldn’t stop thinking about her or seeing her eyes when he closed his own.

  “What’s her name?”

  His eyes swung up to hers and they bounced the light from the candle on the table back at her. “Raina.”

  She nodded, “What does she do?”

  “Mom, you know I’m highly trained in combating persistence. I learned from the best!” He winked at his mother. “You’re not getting the info. When there’s something to tell, you’ll be the first to know!”

  “If that’s the best you can do!”

  “It is. Now what are you wanting me to build you for your new project?” He smiled over at her and raised his glass to clink against hers. She was a piece of work, and there was no one better to have in your corner.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Raina took the kids to the beach. With only days left of summer vacation it was the perfect way to spend the day. If she was going to take shameless advantage of Shanna’s presence, she thought she had to do something fun to compensate.

  They’d stayed up late doing each other’s nails, watching movies and talking; with Shanna there was always talking. Before the night was over Shanna confessed to Rae that the boy she’d talked about earlier in the summer had kissed her the week before and she really thought she was in love.

  The day had exhausted Oliver and when Raina left them at the house to put in a few hours at The Bakery, he was nearly asleep on the couch watching a movie.

  She wasn’t planning on being late, but she had a hard time leaving them after such a wonderful day of fun. Shanna knew she had a bit of work to do and that she was going out with a friend after, but if she thought it was weird that Rae put on a bit of makeup and changed her clothes, she didn’t comment.

  Getting ready for what she was terrified to call a date turned her stomach inside-out and upside-down. She thought she’d smoothed over the twisted edges of her nerves throughout the day but the concept of a date was proving stronger as the hour drew near. She was hesitant to acknowledge how nervous she was. Nervousness wasn’t something that she was well acquainted with. In the past it wasn’t something she would have given a second thought to, and even now she wasn’t sure that it was even nerves that was bothering her. What she did understand clearly was that she scheduled the hours alone in her kitchen to calm herself.

  She unlocked the door to the kitchen and immediately lost herself in mixing, whipping, and rolling. She didn’t notice the time fly and when the alarm on her phone sounded, she felt better for having the distraction.

  She set the finished creations on the metal shelving to cool, hung up her apron and took one last look at herself in the mirror. Without a fuss, she thought it was too late to change anything at that point, she walked around to the front of the shop and sat on a bench to wait.

  This would be the first date she’d been on since the accident. Even more absurd to her was that it would be the first first-date she’d had in almost ten years.

  He spotted her, sitting on a bench in front of The Bakery before he found a parking space, and before he noticed that the shop wasn’t even open. She stood when he crossed the road. He’d cut his hair and shaved since she’d seen him and when he stopped in front of her, her heart fluttered when his fingers brushed gently down her arm.

  “Hello!” He smiled when he saw the quick flash of wariness in her eyes.

  “Hi.” She smiled in return as she worked to convince herself to relax.

  Thinking he could give her a minute to catch her thoughts before they scattered, he glanced up into The Bakery window. “I thought when you said to meet here, this is where you wanted to eat. I’ve been dreaming about those cookies all day,” he said, with a disappointed smile as he pointed towards the back wall where the glass cabinet was filled with goodies.

  She looked up at him and returned his smile. She hadn’t seen him in the shop and because she took pride in being hands on in all areas of her business, she just had to ask.

  “Have you eaten here before?”

  “No I haven’t, but I had some family visiting a few weeks ago and we ate a lot of take away. Whoever makes the pies here is some sort of magician!”

  She laughed, and he found himself pleased that she was more relaxed than she had been the other night. It also hadn’t escaped his notice that her skin had been recently kissed by the sun, and though her authentic style still looked easy, he wanted to believe she had taken some time to put in a bit of extra effort for him.

  “So, now that my pie-dreams have been crushed and my grand plans are spoiled, is there anywhere else to eat in this town?”

  “Sure!” She bumped her head in the direction down the street and towards the beach. “How do you feel about a burger on the beach?”

  She started walking down that way and he followed in stride. “Are they any good?”

  “They’re greasy, juicy, and you can load them up. Do you need anything else?”

  “Other than pie, I guess not!”

  A short while later they sat at a picnic table with a feast of burgers and fries in front of them. Neither of them hesitated to dig in.

  “So, Lincoln, what brought you here?” she asked between bites.

  “Just Linc, please.”

  She leaned forward on her elbows, surprised to find she was enjoying herself.

  “The space. The air. The silence.”

  She grabbed a fry, dipped it in a small puddle of mayonnaise and took a bite. “Descriptive and cryptic at the same time! So what do you do that allowed you to pick up and move here, of all places? We don’t get many permanent imports.”

  He thought about what he did. He’d always had a problem trying to put himself into a few short words, actually he hated doing it and he hated it more when other people tried to do it for him. He did more than one thing or the other, and he loved most of all never being sure where it would take him. He decided how he wanted her to see him and he told her.

  “I create things.” He punctuated his answer with a satisfied and mysterious smile. Raina smiled back, understanding according to her own vision what that meant.

  “How about you?”

  She smiled and when it hit her eyes he couldn’t have imagined the way it made him feel; vague acceptance was more soothing than food to a hungry stomach.

  “You could say I create as well.” Her eyes met his for a brief, yet strong two beats of his heart. “When you’re done with your burger we could go for a walk and I’ll show you.”

  Absolutely captivated with her, he didn’t give a second thought to finishing his food. Quite suddenly, he felt that nothing was as important as learning everything he could about her. He grabbed a clean napkin, wiped his hands and rose.

  They walked along the short boardwalk and up a different street from which they’d come.

  “This is such a pretty little town,” he noted, as they walked. They passed storefronts filled with flowers, and entrances to shops punctuated with vibrantly colored flower pots. The whimsy, the evening air, the company, an
d the setting sun were whispering a story he patiently waited to hear.

  His hand brushed down her arm and his fingers laced with hers. She looked at their woven hands. It was odd, and new, and terrifying. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it, it was like there were two different women fighting a battle inside of her; the carefree woman she wanted to be, and Mark’s wife.

  Had he imagined the expression on her face when she examined their linked fingers? She had seemed at ease while they ate. Their conversation had been light and easy too, he almost forgot the fragile tension he’d felt from their first two meetings. But now she seemed to be jumping back over to the uncertain side, he could sense it in her posture, even if she wasn’t denying him the contact.

  “So where are you taking me? You haven’t got a dungeon where you keep out-of-towners have you?”

  She laughed now quite easily, and feeling better for it, she gave his hand a squeeze. “Yes, have my size and strength given me away?”

  He laughed with her, and with a new understanding that it was the key to keeping her relaxed, he accepted the task.

  “We’re almost there!” She pointed up to the left where a pretty lane took them to the back of a shop. There was a fenced area around and there was a park not far. When she unlocked and opened the gate he knew where he was. It was the patio area of The Bakery.

  He looked at her and she smiled. “Are you still interested in that pie?”

  “Would you believe me if I said no?”

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  She laughed again and she unlocked the door. She opened it and he held it for her to walk through. She locked the door again behind him and threw the keys on the counter. He followed her past the tables and through the counter into the kitchen.

  She stopped next to a tall industrial shelving rack. She pulled out a large pan that held six pies all with different covers. She slid the pan easily onto the counter.

  “I didn’t get a chance to make the cookies before you got here, but you can have your pick of the pie, it’s still warm!”

  She was the cookie-making fairy-doll. He pushed his hand through his hair and his gaze darted between her and the pie. He laughed to himself, as his first thought was, wouldn’t Diane just love the irony of this situation.

  “Did you change your mind?” She grinned over at him.

  He shook his head. “No, I’ll have one of each!”

  “Nothing is that good!”

  “Which one are you having?” he asked, as he watched her reach under the counter and pull out a plate.

  She walked across the kitchen and grabbed a fork and a serving knife. “I don’t usually eat what I make.”

  If he hadn’t appeared slightly gob-smacked before, he certainly was now. “Whoa, whoa, wait a minute.” He reached across the shiny counter and braced his fingers around her wrist. “You don’t like pie? Or you don’t like your own pie?”

  She looked at his large hand on her tiny wrist and she felt that faint flutter in her stomach again.

  “I’m not sure anymore.”

  He looked so startlingly confused that she couldn’t help but indulge in a small laugh.

  “Explain.”

  “Okay,” she said, startled by his intensity.

  “Please,” he added softly, when she looked surprised at his demand.

  “I spend every day making pie and everything else in here. I smell and taste and touch food all day long. I guess maybe I’m bored of it because I already know what everything tastes like or what to expect.” She shrugged because she didn’t know what else to say, she hadn’t spent a whole lot of time thinking about it. She just did it, because she had to.

  His eyes bore into hers as he weighed her words. He leaned over the counter again and he watched her eyes suddenly cloud over and fill with all the secrets that disappeared when she laughed.

  “Do you still love it?”

  That wasn’t something that anyone had asked her in a long, long time. Later when the night whispers clawed their way into her head she’d allow herself to see that everybody in her life, for the most part, avoided asking her anything about herself at all. They settled when she gave them the simple answer that didn’t really tell them anything at all, but satisfied their need to try to understand her.

  She pulled another stool from under the counter and sat beside him, offering in a small voice what she believed to be true. “I think I’m starting to again.”

  “Fair enough. Let’s try something, alright? Don’t think, just answer. Which was your favorite before you became the guru-of-pie?” That drew a smile and added some substance to the hollowness in her eyes.

  She looked at the tray in front of her and said without hesitation, “apple-rhubarb”.

  “Are one of these apple-rhubarb?”

  She stood and pointed to the one with the crimped lattice crust. The syrupy juice was an inviting shade of pink. “The rhubarb is from my own garden!”

  That drew an impressed grin from him and she relaxed again. “That’s the one then! Carve it up!”

  She cut a good size slice and put it on a plate. “Would you like ice cream?”

  She slid the plate over to him and he shook his head as he picked up the fork. “Nope, I imagine the pie can hold its own.” He sunk his fork into the triangle tip on the plate in front of him.

  “Sit,” he instructed, and when she raised a defiant eyebrow, he added. “Please!”

  “You’re a bit bossy,” she accused, and found herself sitting as they both laughed.

  “I am. I had a spectacular teacher.”

  He pulled his stool closer to hers and embracing a desire he’d felt the first moment he’d seen her. He touched her cheek ever so gently and pushed the hair that hung in a long chord in front of her shoulder to her back. Her hand flew up to mess with her bangs and a lovely color flooded her face.

  “Close your eyes.”

  “What?”

  “Close your eyes, please.” The wariness was back, but that was fine, it only seemed to push him to want to know more.

  “I’m not going to touch you,” he assured, and raised his hands to wave them in the air by his sides. She gave him one hard look, then breathed out and closed her eyes.

  “Imagine the first time you ever tasted this pie. Maybe you were in a cooking class, or a restaurant, or--”

  “My Grandma’s kitchen, it’s her pie.” He smiled when she did and he knew she was back there.

  “Do you remember what your Grandma’s pie tastes like?”

  With her eyes closed she smiled at the memory as she nodded.

  When she smiled, he nearly broke his word and touched her. He gave her a moment with her memory, and himself one to memorize her face.

  “Raina, open your eyes.”

  She opened her eyes and she wondered who he was, and how he could so easily make her see things she hadn’t for so long.

  He pushed the plate of pie towards her and she ate the bite that was already on the fork.

  “So?”

  She smiled, covered her mouth, and laughed so musically, his heart sung.

  “It’s good,” she said, her mouth full of crispy, sticky, delicious pie.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Thursday night she was up late making the food for the party on the weekend. The list of dishes she’d planned was extensive; she’d need a lot of food to feed both sides of her family.

  After her night out she’d been inspired to pull out her old binders full of recipes from the restaurants she’d worked in.

  With Shanna lounging in the living room watching TV, she sat at the kitchen table and flipped through the pages. She came across one that had a napkin stapled to the page. The napkin was ringed with long dried red wine stains and a list of ingredients written by Mark’s hand.

  He’d taken her out to dinner for their fifth anniversary. At the time Mark was working at a popular radio station and she was running her own catering company. He had booked reservations in a wonderful restaurant, and
while she ate her meal she’d dictated to him the ingredients she imagined were in the dish. After dinner they’d wandered the hip city area before they went to a gig where they danced till dawn.

  The memory was sweet. And as she remembered how free they’d both felt, she got up and walked around her little house. First, she noticed the clutter free and organized shelves that lined the walls of the living room. The neat and orderly way the DVD’s were lined up. The boxes of toys that slid under the coffee table that sat properly in their place.

  She walked back to the kitchen and sat down. This wasn’t her she realized all too suddenly. She’d felt something pushing in herself over the past few weeks, but the feeling inside of her now was rattling, she laughed because she couldn’t stop it.

  This wasn’t her. She wasn’t quiet or neat or tidy, and apart from her work station, she had never been accused of being organized or efficient. She liked to shout and be surrounded by noise. She was messy and she loved to sing and dance, and even in her disordered chaos she had always been able to function. Where had she gone?

  She sat in a trance-like state until Shanna’s laughter startled her back to the moment. She stood and walked back to the living room.

  Shanna noticed Raina hovering under the arched entrance to the living room. She paused the TV and waited for her to say something.

  “Is it too loud, Aunt Rae?”

  Raina was looking at her funny, and her eyes were scanning the room in a very strange way. Shanna hoped she hadn’t done anything to upset her.

  “No. Do you think it’s too loud?”

  “Not really, but I can turn it down.”

  Raina shook her head and walked to sit on the edge of the sofa. “Shan, don’t you ever listen to music?”

  Shanna smiled sheepishly, and Raina didn’t really understand.

  “Of course. I’m always listening to music!”

  “I haven’t heard you this week.”

  Raina leaned back into the couch, and watched Shanna curl her knees to her chest. She didn’t want to lie to Aunt Rae, but she didn’t want to make her sad either.