Home on Apple Blossom Road (Life in Icicle Falls) (16 page)

The downstairs bathroom was occupied, so she went upstairs, where she was sure she’d find another, feeling as though her head was floating behind the rest of her. She hated feeling buzzed. No more beer. Ever. She only drank the stuff to be polite. She really wasn’t fond of the taste.

After the bathroom, she started down the hall and encountered Arthur coming in the opposite direction.

“Having fun?” he greeted her.

“I think I drank too much.” In fact, she was sure she’d drunk too much. It was either that or some giant was spinning the frat house.

“Whoa there,” he said, putting an arm around her to steady her. “I think I need to cut off the booze.”

She laid a hand on his chest and blinked at him. “We’re spinning.”

“We’d better call the boyfriend.”

“We’d better.” That was so thoughtful of Arthur to watch out for her. “Arthur, you’re sweet. Has anyone ever told you that?”

He shook his head. “You shouldn’t say stuff like that to a man who’s in love with you.” He touched a finger to her lips. “Are you sure it’s serious with Colin? ’Cause if it isn’t...” He didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he lowered his lips to hers. Oh, this was not a good idea.

She was about to say so when someone called her name. Colin. His angry voice broke them apart, although Arthur kept a steady hand on her arm. “I think she’s had too much to drink.”

Colin glared at him. “You giving her a breathalyzer test?”

“No, I just bumped into her.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Insecure,” Arthur murmured. “I wonder why. After all, a man can trust his woman if she really loves him.”

Colin grabbed Mia’s hand and began towing her toward the stairs. “Come on, Mia. Let’s go.”

“Don’t let him bully you,” Arthur called after them.

He
was
bullying her, wasn’t he? Acting like some kind of crazy caveman when she hadn’t done anything wrong.

Outside the house revelers were standing on the porch, sitting on the steps, gathered on the lawn. Someone called Mia’s name, but she couldn’t tell who. Colin was leading her away so quickly she didn’t dare turn her head for fear of throwing up.

Even though her head didn’t seem to be attached, her brain was working well enough for her to get angry. “I didn’t do anything, you know. Why are you mad at me?”

“Didn’t do anything? You were about to kiss him. What, you couldn’t keep away from each other, even for one weekend? Is that it?”

“No.”

“What’s really going on between you two?”

Okay, Colin wasn’t being rational. “How much have you had to drink?”

“No more than you, and you didn’t see me groping someone the minute your back was turned.”

“I wasn’t groping anyone!”

“Damn it, Mia, I came all the way out here to be with you and instead of us being together, I wind up stuck at a party with a bunch of strangers while you’re flirting with some other guy, the same guy I’ve been hearing about practically since you got here.”

She hadn’t talked about Arthur any more than she had Angie or anyone else. And when she’d told Colin about the party two weeks earlier, he’d said it sounded like fun.

It hadn’t been. “Why are you spoiling this weekend?”

“I’m not the one spoiling it. I’m not going around kissing other people.”

“We didn’t kiss!” Okay, they almost had. What had she been thinking? She should’ve pushed Arthur away instead of standing there like a wench in the headlights. Oh, she didn’t feel well. “I don’t want to talk about this.” She just wanted to find some bushes and barf.

Colin sighed. “Aw, Mia.” He reached for her.

But she had more pressing needs than making up. She waved him away and staggered off. “Leave me alone.”
Let me go puke in private
.

“Fine,” she heard him snap.

“Fine,” she echoed. What a silly argument. Of course they’d make up in the morning. But tonight... Oooh, she didn’t feel well.

She found the requisite bushes and upchucked. Then she staggered back to the frat house, plunked down on one of the front steps and put her head in her hands, trying to anchor it back on her neck.

“There you are,” said Angie, sitting down next to her. “Hey, you don’t look so good. Where’s Colin?”

“I don’t know,” Mia muttered. “He’s off having a tantrum.”

“Lovers’ quarrel, huh?”

“He doesn’t need to be jealous. Arthur and I are just friends. I wasn’t going to kiss him.”

“Uh-oh. What happened?”

“Nothing. I don’t feel good. Where’s Arthur?”

“Stay right there,” Angie said and disappeared.

“Stay right here,” Mia agreed. Except she should go find Colin. Where was he? Could he make his way back to the dorm?

A moment later Arthur was beside her on the steps. “I thought you’d gone.”

“We had a fight.” She and Colin never fought. They shouldn’t have fought tonight. She could feel her lower lip wobbling and the tears spilling from her eyes.

“Hey, now,” Arthur said, wiping away the tears. “Don’t cry.”

His words had the opposite effect. Another tear dripped down Mia’s cheek. And since Arthur’s shoulder was so conveniently there, she used it to cry on.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and put an arm around her.

“I’ve loved him all my life.”

“I don’t know why,” Arthur said. “He seems like kind of a jerk.”

A jerk wouldn’t have picked her for his softball team when they were kids, even though everyone knew she couldn’t catch and she couldn’t hit a beach ball, let alone a softball. A jerk wouldn’t spend his allowance getting her penny candy from Johnson’s Drugs. A jerk wouldn’t be there for her when her dad left. Wouldn’t save her from the likes of Adrian Malk. Wouldn’t send her candy from home her first week away at school.

“You have to come with me and explain that we’re just friends,” she insisted.

“He doesn’t deserve you.”

“Arthur, please.”

“Okay, okay. Come on.”

But Colin wasn’t at the dorm. Had he gotten lost?

“Don’t worry. I’ll wait for him,” Arthur promised.

“Thank you, Arthur,” she said. “You’re the best.” She threw her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek. And now she needed to go ride the porcelain bus. She staggered back to her dorm room, leaving Arthur downstairs to watch for her lost boyfriend. Yes, Arthur was the best.

Somewhere she could hear voices, male voices, angry male voices. But she had an important appointment in her bathroom. And after that she had to lie down on her spinning bed. She’d just lie here and wait for Colin to get back. But shortly into her wait, someone pulled the curtain of sleep and she was gone.

The next morning she was alone in her dorm room. The only proof that Colin had, indeed, found his way back was the piece of paper lying on Angie’s bed that said, “We’re done.”

December 27, 2005

Dear Emmaline,

Thank you for the lovely presents. Gerald enjoyed his cheese and sausage, and I very much appreciated the dusting powder. Chantilly is still my favorite fragrance. Gerald did get me that computer, and Colin has promised to turn me into a computer genius. Who knows? Maybe the next missive you get from me will be electronic.

Our Christmas was a little subdued this year. We missed Mia. Colin smiled and joked with Gerald, but there was such sadness in his eyes. So different from last year when he and Mia were kissing under the mistletoe! It reminded me of how sad Dylan was after Lauren left. Dylan still maintains that this is a case of two young people growing up and growing apart. I find that hard to believe. Colin and Mia have always been special to each other. I’m sure they’ll sort things out.

Meanwhile, poor Bethie is not at all happy. Mia has been like a daughter to her all these years and not seeing her either at Thanksgiving or Christmas was hard. Mia sent presents and she called both of us on Christmas morning, but it’s not the same. There’s talk of Bethie flying out to see her next month, though, so that will be good.

On a brighter note, Gerald and I have big plans for New Year’s Eve. We’re having a party. Amy and Edgar Appleton are coming over along with my dear friend Sarah White and her new husband, Peter. We’re going to celebrate on East Coast time, however, as no one wants to stay up until midnight.

I assume you and Joey will be going to the Elks as usual. I hope he’s not driving. He’ll kill you both! Forgive me for being a bossy big sister, but really, dear, I think it’s time to take away his car keys.

Gerald’s calling me. I’d better close. Happy New Year!

Love,

Justine.

Chapter Thirteen

L
oud as the roar of the cascading water was, Colin felt sure he could hear Rebecca Cane whispering over it.
Every choice has a consequence. In the end, the only one to blame is yourself
. He didn’t need the lost bride to tell him that. He’d learned it firsthand.

* * *

Colin returned home from his disastrous visit to New York with a chip on his shoulder. No, make that a log. Hell, make it a tree, an entire forest. Furious, hurt, unhappy, there was no word big enough for the giant thing inside his chest.

Mia had once said that all she wanted was him. Obviously, that wasn’t true. She’d decided she could do better with some rich frat boy who threw around hundred-dollar bills like they were tens. His dad probably owned some monster company and had a whole pack of lawyers just like Dad working for him. How could Colin compete with that?

The answer was simple. He couldn’t.

His family did okay and that had always been enough.
He’d
always been enough. Until now.

The memory of Mia throwing her arms around Arthur in front of her dorm had kept him company as he waited for his flight. He’d tried to shake it off with Jack Daniels, drunk too much and gotten sick on the plane. He’d slept fitfully, and that hadn’t improved his mood. Starbucks had gotten him through the long drive from SeaTac airport to Icicle Falls. What was going to get him through the rest of his life?

Dad, ever the touchy-feely guy, ignored his thundercloud scowl when he walked in the door, and when he opted out of going over to Gram’s for Sunday dinner merely said, “Suit yourself.”

Left alone, he spent some time tormenting himself by watching
The Princess Bride
, which he’d found when he was surfing the cable channels, sniveling all the while like a five-year-old. Guys didn’t do that. They went out and punched something. Sitting around watching an old movie you and the woman you’d loved had watched when you were kids—it was such a chick thing to do. All that was missing was the quart of ice cream.

He turned it off halfway through and went for a run, sweated and swore up a storm, told God how pissed off he was. Then he went to the orchard and sat under a tree to feel sorry for himself.

The apples were long gone now, and the trees were nothing but empty branches. He’d never really stopped to think about what a desolate place the orchard was this time of year. It hit him now, though. All these trees, stripped down to nothing, mirrored his soul. He, too, was down to nothing. He was never going to find another girl like Mia.

Maybe that was a good thing, since Mia had just chopped his heart into a million pieces. Remembering how she’d thrown her arms around that dopey Arthur made him grind his teeth.
Just friends
. Yeah, right. How stupid did she think he was, anyway?

It wasn’t only Arthur, though. Colin had seen this coming, had felt it approaching like an avalanche. She loved school, loved the city. She hadn’t simply fallen for a guy; she’d fallen for a new life, one that didn’t include him. Back there, he’d been nothing more than the redneck country kid from Valley Community College, a nobody lost in a sea of city sophistication. Her new life was a puzzle to him, and he couldn’t make himself fit into it.

Memories of the times he’d spent here with Mia danced around him like ghosts, taunting him. Then came the biggest ghost of all, the memory of when Dad had caught them here together half out of their clothes and so absorbed in each other that they never heard him coming. Some events in a guy’s life seem comic in retrospect. This one might have, if it hadn’t humiliated Mia so much. Maybe she’d always had issues and he’d never noticed, maybe the interrupted moment that should have rocked their world was the final push that had made her look at herself differently. Who knew? All
he
knew was that afterward she had to do more, be more. It wasn’t enough that she had a 4.0. She had to go away to an impressive college, rule the world.

Well, now she could. She’d rule it from New York City with her new friends. With Arthur.

New York, what a place—overcrowded, overpriced, overhyped. He couldn’t believe she liked it so much. Okay, so it had parks and museums. What work of art could compare to the sight of the Wenatchee River sparkling in the sun or the mountains buried and silent under snow? One bite of the Big Apple, and she’d fallen into some goofy hypnotic state that uprooted her from the people and place that should have mattered most.

Well, screw New York and screw her, he thought bitterly as he left the orchard. She could keep her museums and her parks and her fancy restaurants and her frat boys.

Back in the house he showered, grabbed a bag of corn chips and then settled in the family room with his favorite
Mission: Impossible
movie. Mission: Impossible, that about summed up his visit to New York.

He was halfway through the movie when Dad returned. He sat down next to Colin on the couch and watched as Tom Cruise saved the world. “Nobody runs like that guy.”

Colin nodded and shoved a handful of chips into his mouth.

“So, I guess things didn’t go well in New York,” Dad said.

Colin answered with a grunt.

“Competition?”

“There shouldn’t be any competition,” Colin growled. “We’re as good as engaged. Well, we were,” he amended.

“So you guys broke up. I figured as much.”

Colin locked his jaws tightly together, determined to keep his emotions under control, and they both sat there staring at Tom, running for his life.

“That man’s had his share of woman trouble,” Dad finally said, accentuating his statement with a shake of his head. “Can you imagine losing Nicole Kidman?”

Now here it came, the fatherly lecture. That was the downside of living at home while you went to college. Colin braced himself.

Sure enough. “He doesn’t have any trouble finding new women,” Dad pointed out.

“I don’t want to find a new woman.” There was the problem. Angry as he was, Colin still wanted Mia. The fact that he couldn’t have her anymore was irrelevant.

“I guess you’ll be stuck where you are, then.”

What was this, shock therapy? “Like you?” Colin retorted. Okay, that had been a crappy thing to say, but who’d asked Dad, anyway?

“I’m not stuck, son. I moved on.”

If he’d moved on, how come he was by himself?

“Shit happens, and it happens a lot with women. She’s found a new life. You need to do the same.”

What kind of new life would it be without Mia?

“It’s up to you to decide what it’ll look like,” Dad continued as if reading his mind. “She’s going places. You can, too. Don’t let this stall you.”

The old man wasn’t getting it. “Dad, I love her.” They’d always been a part of each other’s lives. How could she break them apart like this?

“I understand. Mia’s a great girl. But if she wants to go, you’ve got to let her. Hanging on will only make you miserable.” Dad stood up and laid an encouraging hand on his shoulder. “Tom’s got it right,” he said. Then he left Colin to keep Tom company while he finished saving the world.

It was the deepest conversation they’d had since Mom had first eased back into his life, wanting to visit him when he was nine. That one had been equally short. “I’ll take you to Seattle if you’d like to visit her. I know you’re curious. But remember, she’s not the woman who raised you. She doesn’t get to wear the Mommy badge. That belongs to your grandma and Aunt Beth. Got it?”

He did get it, and while he’d managed to grow a shallow relationship with the woman who’d abandoned them before he was old enough to say
Mama
, he’d known where his loyalties lay. Mom had disappointed him a few times, canceled weekend meet-ups, and her on-and-off attempts to snag a larger piece of his life often confused him. But she’d never been able to hurt him badly, probably because she wasn’t that important to him. Now he saw that she had been to Dad what Mia had been to him. While Dad talked a big talk, he himself was still stuck in the same leaky love boat. There was a part of his life that was missing. Mom had hurt him badly, and his heart had atrophied.

What, Colin wondered as the days bled out, was going to happen to his heart? Was he going to end up like his old man?

Hell, no, he finally decided two weeks later. This was all wrong, and he needed to fix it. Mia had been drunk, and he’d jumped to conclusions. That was all. He’d apologize and they’d make up. She’d come home for Thanksgiving, just like they’d planned, and everything would return to the way it should be.

He called at a time when she’d probably be in her room studying and waited impatiently for the phone to stop ringing so he could hear her voice.

Another voice, much lower than hers, answered.

“Who is this?” Colin demanded. As if he didn’t know.

“What, are you back to hurt her all over again? You didn’t do a good enough job the first time around?”

Rage roared inside Colin, started a buzzing in his ears like a thousand hornets. “What are you doing there?”

“None of your business.”

Colin could hear Mia’s voice in the background. “Let me talk to Mia,” he said through gritted teeth.

“No way. She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

Then the voice was gone and Mia was on the phone. “Colin, why did you leave?”

Why?
Seriously? She was asking that when the reason was right there in her dorm room. “What’s
he
doing there?”

“Some of us are going out to eat.”

“Some of us,” Colin sneered. “Why didn’t you ever call me?”

“After you ran off for no reason and left that awful note?” She sounded hurt. Offended.

Well, he was the one who’d been hurt, and now he was the one who was offended. “No reason? Are you kidding? You and your pal Arthur gave me plenty of reason.”

“I can’t believe you’d trust me so little,” she said, her voice shaky.

“I was coming back when I saw you through the dorm window wrapping yourself around that douchebag!” And here he’d been trying to tell himself that he’d jumped to conclusions. His eyes hadn’t lied.

“I was just thanking him! Honestly, Colin, if you can’t trust me, why are we together?”

“Good question. Why are we? You know, I called thinking there was a chance for us, but I was wrong.”

She didn’t argue, didn’t protest. Instead, she greeted his accusation with a long silence. All he could hear was his blood pulsing in his ears. He opened his mouth to say never mind, that he’d been stupid, that he didn’t care what she had going with Arthur, that he loved her, anyway.

Too late. “I’ll send back the ring,” she said. Then the connection died.

He started to call her back but stopped halfway through. Like his dad had said, Mia was moving on. Without him. Friday night and she was going out with
some of us
. He’d be staying in with Jim Beam.

He found nothing to be thankful for as Thanksgiving approached. The ring he’d given Mia came back, and he learned she wouldn’t be. She was probably going to spend the holiday weekend with Arthur, he thought bitterly.

Both Gram and Aunt Beth were convinced this separation was temporary. “Your grandfather and I had a little tiff when we were young, but then he got drafted and that brought everything into focus,” Gram said. “Things will come into focus for you and Mia, as well, I’m sure of it,” she added, patting his arm.

He’d made the mistake of asking for seconds on pumpkin pie, and while Dad and Uncle Mark were already out in the living room watching the ball game, he was now trapped at the kitchen table with her and Aunt Beth, the cheering squad for Team Colin and Mia.

“You two were meant to be together,” Aunt Beth insisted.

Yeah? Then how come Mia had never called or emailed after he’d left? How come she’d given back the ring? History, that was what they were. He needed to move on. And he would. There were plenty of cute girls out there.

The problem was that none of them were Mia.

* * *

The lost bride was right. There was only one person to blame for the fact that he and Mia were standing here side by side but not together. “Do you ever wish you could go back in time and do something over?” he asked, studying her face for some sign of regret over how their story had ended.

She bit her lip and moved away from him.

“How come you’re not with someone?”

“Maybe I don’t believe in settling for just anyone.”

He felt the jab. “You think I’m doing that with Lorelei?”

“Are you?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know about a lot of things.”

She said nothing to that, merely stood with her arms wrapped around her middle, frowning at the waterfall.

He pointed off to the side. “Do you remember where we made love?” he asked softly. That seasoned her expression with wistfulness. “It was the first time for both of us. You saw the lost bride,” he couldn’t help adding.

“You didn’t,” she said with a sigh.

“I wish I had. Maybe it would have doubled our chances of...” He stopped himself. What was wrong with him, anyway? What was the point of talking like this? They’d both turned their lives in other directions. She was a hotshot, climbing the corporate ladder, and he was stuck in limbo. With Lorelei.

For a moment he thought she was going to say something. And if she did...

Instead, she began looking for their next clue.

Yeah, there was no point in thinking about it. Just like there was no point in this treasure hunt. What the heck had Gram willed them, and was it worth all this aggravation and...pain? There was no other way to put it. Hanging out with Mia and reliving their past hurt. He glanced at the falls one final time. He’d never come back here again.

As if to mock him, a shadow moved behind the cataract. The bride? No, couldn’t be. He stared harder. Yes, that sure looked like...something. He squinted. Yes, it looked like a woman. Wow. Really? He blinked.

And then there was nothing. Well, that was the power of suggestion for you.

Shaking his head, he turned to help Mia search, peering under the little picnic table to see if there was a pink envelope taped there. Nothing. He straightened and saw that she was looking at the falls.