Echoes (16 page)

“Let me guess,” Teri whispered. “You’ve moved up the wedding date.”

Lauren paused before saying, “Actually, Jeff and I broke up. I should have told you sooner, but I didn’t realize until I received your Christmas card that you didn’t know.”

“Oh, Lauren, I’m sorry!” Teri finally said.

Lauren didn’t know if it was the emotional drain from the theft or the memories of Jeff that had slightly thawed when she saw the gazebo today, but she felt all her defenses melt when she heard Teri’s response. “I am, too,” Lauren said in a whisper laced with pain.

L
auren recovered quickly from her brief display of grief over Jeff. She wrote to KC about her experience with the homeless man but flew to her parents’ home in Victoria, British Columbia, for Christmas before she heard back from KC. She had a wonderful time with her parents and Brad and more than once nearly told them about her correspondence with KC. Each time, something stopped her. What she and KC had was so close, so private, that she wasn’t ready to tell anyone in the event that person might spoil it for her.

When she arrived back in Nashville, four electronic letters were waiting for her. All from KC, all warm and tender. He said he had thought about her on Christmas Eve:

Through the rest of the winter and into the spring, KC and Wren continued to echo each others’ hearts. He seemed to be traveling more, and she was holed up in her apartment nearly every weekend with her homework, reading with Hawthorne on her lap and sipping Irish Breakfast.

In March, KC sent a letter telling Lauren about a devotional book his brother had given him called
My Utmost for His Highest
by Oswald Chambers. KC referred to the entry for March 22, which was based on a portion of Luke 24:32, “Did not our heart burn within us …?” KC asked Lauren if she could buy the devotional book and tell him what she thought of that entry.

Lauren stopped at the Christian bookstore the next day on her way home from work. Not only did she buy a copy of the book, but she also bought three CDs, a gift book, a Bible study guide, and two novels. With all her studying, she had read little for pleasure. The time had come for an evening in the tub with an inspirational romance novel and a new CD.

She read the devotional first that evening. Both the entry for March 22 and the one for that day, March 23. The words hit her right where she had struggled in the past—with controlling her emotions. She had plenty of thoughts to communicate to KC on the topic and wrote him before indulging herself with a bubble bath and one of her new novels.

During the following two weeks they wrote each other every day, always commenting on the devotion for that day from their shared book. It struck Lauren as romantic to know
that when she was reading the Scripture for that day, somewhere in the world KC was on the same page, reading the same words. Often their thoughts coincided on the daily reading. Many times one or the other would bring up a new thought, and so they sharpened each other spiritually.

The intense spiritual discussion was broken in April when KC went on a business trip and didn’t e-mail Lauren for nine days. She felt lost without his correspondence and afraid of the level of intensity to which their relationship had risen. She thought it was time to evaluate where they were in their relationship. However, KC didn’t see the need to dissect “them.” So she backed off.

Then, as a wave that has receded returns, cresting higher than the last time, their intimacy began to build during the end of June.

On July 6, Lauren drew up all her courage and wrote:

Lauren reread her words, and something in the pit of her stomach began to churn. Did she truly want to meet him and end the masquerade? So many times she had thought about what it would be like to finally meet. So many times she had written something to that effect in one of her letters, only to erase it before sending the letter. She always ended up deciding it would be better to wait. Wait for what? She wasn’t sure.

Perhaps wait for KC to initiate the meeting. Or for it to somehow just happen.

Whenever she thought about it logically, Lauren found she had no complaints about how nice and slow everything had gone. It gave her time to do some important things. First, she had gotten over Jeff. She still felt twinges of hurt every now and then. But she wasn’t afraid of them. They were only evidence of healing, KC had once written to her. He said scars still tend to pinch even after they’re healed, if they’re pulled the wrong way.

Second, she had finished school. She had filed the final paperwork two weeks ago and was now qualified to teach. However, she wasn’t ready to leave her job at the bank just yet. Not since she had received a raise two months ago. Also, Lauren wasn’t sure she wanted to teach in a public school in the city. She still held to her dream of living in a small town. Her preference would be to teach at a small school. Someday.

And the third reason Lauren was glad her relationship with KC was correspondence only was because she had gained weight. Ten pounds since Christmas and a total of nearly fifteen since Jeff broke up with her last summer. It had been a cold winter, and she had comforted herself by the fire with cookies, sweets, and lots of Irish Breakfast with milk and sugar. Lauren had also spent most of her evenings and weekends studying and had exercised little. She had finally given in and accepted her new shape at the beginning of the summer, forcing herself to buy some clothes that fit, even though she wasn’t happy with her thickened waist.

The worst part was that no one seemed to agree with her that she had gained too much weight. They all, including Brad, said she had been too skinny before. That idea was a struggle for Lauren. She had lost ten pounds when she started to date Jeff and had consciously tried to keep herself thin because she
knew that was how he liked her. Now she was more rounded. More average looking.

It was funny, but she had dreamed more than once that she and KC met and she looked the way she used to, with her long blond hair and cinched waist. She never could see his face in her dreams, and she would awaken each time, groping in the darkness, desperate to see his expression. Was he disappointed that she was an average woman with average short blond hair and average features? What always pulled Lauren out of the emotional bog those thoughts sent her into was that she liked herself so much more than she had liked the old Lauren who was always apologizing and feeling like a failure.

Returning her attention to her letter, she went back and deleted the part about meeting and concluded the letter with:

The letter was sent, and Lauren asked Hawthorne if he wanted to go with her to pick up the mail. Hawthorne, who had grown into a fat, sassy plutocrat, stretched on his front haunches and yawned as if to show his disinterest. He had turned into a lazy old house cat and had little desire to venture outside his air-conditioned domain.

Lauren slipped on a pair of sandals and went to the mailbox alone. The summer afternoon sky canopied her in vivid blue. It was hot. Sticky hot. Lauren unlocked her mail box. Inside were two fancy white envelopes sitting side by side. She guessed they were wedding invitations.

One, she surmised, would be from Justin and Amy. They had announced their engagement several months ago in front
of the career group at church. Justin said in front of everyone he would always be grateful to Lauren for bringing him and Amy together. Lauren was fine with that. Over the months she had enjoyed the company of both Justin and Amy as friends. They had come over for dinner a few times, and Lauren had even doubled with them once when Justin’s cousin was in town. That turned out to be a mistake. But her friendship with Justin and Amy as a couple was comfortable and important to her.

On her way up the stairs, she opened the first invitation. It was from Justin and Amy, all right. It looked like something Amy would choose: embossed flowers with a pink tinge and a matching pink liner inside the envelope.

The next invitation had a return address of Escondido, California. Lauren slid her fingernail under the seal, wondering who she knew in Escondido, of all places. She couldn’t think of anyone.

Entering the apartment and breathing in the cooled air, she pulled out the simple yet elegant parchment invitation and scanned the script for a familiar name. There it was: Teresa Angelina Raquel Moreno.

“Teri?” Lauren said aloud, dropping into the nearest kitchen chair. Hawthorne came over and rubbed against her leg. “I can’t believe it, Hawthorne. Even my old college roommate is getting married! I talked to her at Christmas, and she didn’t say anything about dating someone.”

Lauren read the invitation again. “Gordon Thomas Allistar. How’s that for a name? Where did she find this guy? What’s happening to me, Hawthorne? All my friends are getting married!”

Jamming the invitations back into their envelopes, Lauren returned to the computer, muttering, “That does it, Hawthorne. I’m going to tell KC it’s time we meet. Put up or shut up, that’s what I’ll say.”

She tapped out a letter which sounded more like an ultimatum than a romantic invitation to a rendezvous, and immediately erased it. Her anniversary letter had been sent. That was enough for one day. She needed to focus her mind on something else.

That was the problem. For so long she had had reading assignments, papers, and exams hanging over her head every evening and weekend. Now she was done, and her free time was filled with too many unscheduled hours.

Turning off the computer, Lauren opened the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out a white, three-ring binder full of papers. They were all KC’s letters. She had printed them out about three months ago and put them, nice and tidy, in a binder. If Mindy or Brad or her parents ever knew about this, they would think she was nuts. That’s why her secret had remained her secret and probably why it was such a sweet one.

W
ith her treasured collection of love letters in her lap, Lauren turned to the front page. There she had made long lists of what the initials “KC” could possibly stand for. The wildest option was “Kevin Costner” and the quirkiest possibility was “Kamlish Castleman,” a boy who had sat behind her in third grade and had come to the States from Fiji. She remembered his long fingers and the strange foods he used to bring in his lunch.

More likely KC was someone she had never met who had a nice normal name and came from a nice normal family. That’s what she wanted to believe. Desperately, she wanted to believe that.