Stealing Grace (34 page)

“Well, I will remember that for later,” Alex chuckled, nibbling her neck.

It was almost their turn to order and normally Elena thought she would have been embarrassed to be hugging and kissing in public, but with Alex, not at all. In fact, she was a little perturbed when he had to let go of her to order the food and pay.

They walked back to their seats with the two trays of food and drinks, Elena thinking it was a miracle they made it without spilling anything in this tight crowd. They ate and laughed and listened and watched the people around them.

The things people wore to concerts amused Elena to no end. And she was all too happy with Alex when a girl in front flashed the crowd before being toted away by security, Alex had turned his head to look at Roger instead of ogling like every other male in the joint.

Luckily for her, the guy in front of her with the fake purple Mohawk wig had taken it off just as Journey took the stage and ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ began to blare, the crowd going nuts and confetti falling all around them.

They all loosened up a bit and stood, clapping and swaying with the crowd. This was the most fun that Elena had had in a very long time, and seeing Alex have fun made it so much better.

The spark showers and confetti continued through the show. The band was awesome to Elena, just as she imagined, energetic and alive. Alex offered to take Elena for an autograph but she knew that’d be a long wait and Amy was already getting tired, you could see it by looking at her.

They left during the last song, trying to beat the crowds. Everybody was a little worried about Amy trying to push herself through the mob so they thought it’d be better that way.

Once back in the truck, Elena thanked them all for her birthday surprise as they waited in the very long exit line for the parking lot. Then headed back to the new hotel rooms and said their good nights going into their once again adjoining rooms.

Elena was kinda hungry, thinking that hotdog earlier hadn’t been all that filling even though it was $7. More surprises came as Alex pulled the small cooler into the room with their suitcase. He had packed a jar of green olives, a small cream cheese cake and a small tub of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. The cake read ‘Happy Birthday El’.

Chapter 14

The house Amy and Roger looked at was more than enough room for two people, with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, huge kitchen and a pool with a deck. Actually, after learning about the house Roger was headed to look at had a pool, he had asked if they could switch appointments and houses.

He didn’t feel comfortable with that and the new baby coming in a few months. It didn’t matter to Elena or Alex, this was just another temporary placement and was more than happy to accommodate.

Elena laughed at Roger to herself.
Oh how he has changed. He’s hilarious and wonderful.
As Elena ran her hands down the granite countertops in the kitchen, loving the blue walls and stone floors, once again agreeing to herself that it didn’t matter what the house looked like. It was home.

She just wanted a place to feel safe, with Alex until they could be free, for real free, and decide where they wanted to go and stay forever. The thought of buying a house or building one gave way to smile on Elena’s lips. She imagined Alex banging nails and placing shingles, shirtless and tanned. She chuckled to herself at her daydreaming.

That thought of course brought back her back to the reality that Alex was upset with her, or maybe not. He had taken her and their friends out to a concert the previous night to celebrate Elena’s birthday. She just realized she hadn’t thought about their baby tiff they had the whole evening.

She couldn’t wrap her brain around why he was so hell bent on making a date to have a baby. Did he not enjoy her company all to himself? Did he not understand the stresses and total loss of closed doors and privacy once a baby comes in?

Even as Elena tried to talk herself out of it she was already seeing Mitchell’s face. Sweet Mitchell with so much of his school yard wisdom he bestowed upon her that day. The mental picture of Alex’s face watching pigtails wasn’t helping either to win her argument.
Mommy. I just don’t see it. I can’t imagine those words being spoken to me. Daddy. Now that, I can see. Alex would love being called daddy.
It isn’t fair.
Why does he have to be so certain?

Elena always struggled with indecisiveness. She could barely place a fast food order on the spot without getting butterflies in her stomach. She adored the fact that Alex enjoyed surprising her with restaurants, movies and concerts.

She didn’t like making decisions about where they would go and where they would eat. It didn’t make sense really. Most women liked to be in control of things like that, but not her.

She opened a cabinet door as they continued to peruse the kitchen gadgets and nooks. She knew Alex would love it, especially the pool. Moving would be a breeze what with five boxes of items and clothes to their name.

She turned to him with an agreeable smile letting him know they answer would be ‘yes’.

“You like it really then?” he asked hopeful.

“Yes. Though like I said, I’m not picky. I know we aren’t gonna stay here forever. It’s a great place though. Aren’t you glad Roger switched with you?”

“Us,” he corrected, “and yes, I am. I love the pool!”

Elena smiled knowing this fact.

“Ok, Mr. Brooks. Point me to the dotted line.”

Alex picked her up in his arms, her feet off the floor and twirled her a couple times before kissing her softly on the lips in agreement and adoration.

* * *

Elena wasn’t hard to please. She genuinely was happy when others were happy. That didn’t always sit well with Alex, which is why he tried to surprise her all the time. He wanted her to be happy herself and not dependent on others for that happiness.

But that’s what you get when you marry a compassionate, Alex thought. But he would not stop trying to rouse interests in her, to find something that set off a visible spark and he would know then and there that this was hers and she wanted it regardless of anyone else.

* * *

Roger and Amy had apparently the same luck. Amy was ecstatic with their house, only 6 miles away from Alex and Elena’s and both out of the way. They met with the realtors and got every signed and squared away in now time.

These houses weren’t furnished. Alex and Roger were already full steam ahead on the job front. Alex was slightly stingy but smart when it came to money but he knew their stash would dissipate quickly.

Roger was gonna work at the lumber yard and Alex had an interview at a tax law firm. Elena remembered Alex’s grimace when he told her and spoke the word ‘tax’. She assured him it was only temporary. Elena was thinking about work too, part time.

She had seen an ad in the paper for the florists only a couple blocks away. Alex wasn’t too keen on the idea but soon realized he wouldn’t be able to take her to work with him anymore. He rescinded and decided, maybe it best she wasn’t in the house alone all day.

He would worry about her enough as it was, though Agent Wright had assured them they would all be fine with their new identities and had even overlooked the fact that Alex had originally obtained illegal fake I.D.’s.

They grabbed some lunch and headed back to the motel. They’d pack up their little bit of stuff and waited for clearance from Wright. Probably Tuesday morning he had told them, would be the day they could leave. For the four, Tuesday couldn’t get there fast enough.

Elena and Amy had spent most of that Monday making lunch for the deputies who had watched over them in the motel parking lot and court and everywhere else they went, day and night, mostly Wright and Parson, and the motel manager. He had even let him use his motel kitchen for their culinary splendors, with him standing guard of course.

After carrying and driving and dishing out containers of grandmas’ ziti and garlic bread along with homemade peach cobbler, they went back up to their rooms to spend their last night in that dreary motel.

Although this town now held the memory of Elena and Alex’s official wedding, their first fight and make up, and the happiness of seeing the community brought down, it held no physical value to any of them. To them, this town was despair and loss as the women’s center was located two exits down and the courthouse, where they had watched the condemned men grit their teeth at a society that dared to interfere with their personal lives, only two blocks down.

Elena had been uneasy with that fact, being so close to the men on trial while they were at the courthouse. Alex had brought her back with the old saying ‘Keep your friends close, enemies closer.’

We all can’t get much closer than this, Elena had thought.

* * *

Alex was trying frantically to get a fuzzy news channel to come in on the television rabbit ears. They finished off the leftover ziti and were now biding time until the morning. He had tried reading but was distracted.

Elena was wearing his green button up oxford, again, her legs stretched out on the bed as she licked her cobbler fork. Unable to take it another second, he inched his way out of the chair and crawled across the bedspread, pulling it as he went forcing Elena to be pulled towards him. She laughed and giggled as she settled under him.

His book, the TV Guide and her purse, perched on the bedside, went crashing to the floor, spilling the contents. In no time Alex’s shirt was off and on the floor as was the one Elena was wearing. It didn’t take Elena long to get lost, as usual, as she made her customary glance trail up his body to his eyes and not being able to move hers from them after that. Elena thought, he had to know what he was doing to her, but actually he said the same thing about her.

She dazzled and didn’t even know it.

Morning came and went. Trucks loaded and goodbyes said, short and sweet. Agent Wright promised them that he would keep in touch with new information and for them to still lay low and blend in for a bit longer. They still hadn’t found the main trafficking cell which irked them all.

All four of them had been in one of them, it wasn’t the source for the operation though. And apparently the ‘boss’ Elena had made assumptions about the day she was kidnapped was nothing more than a common lackey.

Alex told her he thought that Agent Wright seemed to have an idea of who he thought this might be linked to, but had no intentions of telling them, probably not to varnish a reputation if he was wrong.

* * *

The drive was short to Elena it seemed and she was anxious to get out and do some shopping for necessities with Alex. The first priority; a bed. Then living and dining room furniture, but they could live without those for a while. A bed, they could not.

After a quick unload of their pitiful excuse for personal belongings, they headed to the local furniture store to look around. Elena wanted to check out some yard sales when the weekend rolled back around, which Alex didn’t seem to eager about. Elena didn’t know why these things still shocked her.

As they walked around, Elena tried to reason and coerce on the yard sale debate.

“I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t been to a yard sale before. Nobody in the community had junk to get rid of?” she teased.

“I guess not. I’ve never even heard of it actually until you brought it up. Seems like a good idea though, I guess. Not very safe walking around people’s yards you don’t know though.” Alex was always the cautious one.

“Yeah, maybe you’re right. Yard sales are pretty hard core.” She laughed trying to get the words out.

A lady near them had heard them and was trying to stifle a giggle as she turned away.

“Hey! I was sheltered, what can I say? If you think this ‘yard sale’ is a good idea, then we’ll do it. Your wish, my command.” He hugged her from behind as they were still eyeing mattresses.

“That one I think.” She nodded to the one in front of them. “I really like the bed we had before. Any idea what brand it might have been?”

“Uh, no. Lay down and see if you like it,” he said.

She did and sighed.

“I’m not a very good subject right now. Everything feels like heaven compared to hotel beds.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Well, I guess we’ll take it.” He told the clerk who hadn’t drifted far from them, following them like a buzzard after a dead animal and about as friendly as one too.

He answered him in monotone boredom and general hatred for his job.

“Well, sir, I can ring that up for you right now if you like. Unfortunately, since we are a small town, these are all demo mattresses. We don’t actually keep any in stock. It’ll be about 2 days for delivery. Will that be cash, credit or charge.”

“Hmmm. Well that doesn’t really help me now, does it? Ok, credit card I guess.”

As they went to work out all the delivery details, Elena waltzed over to painting section running her fingers down the fabric of couches along the way. She rubbed her finger along the rim of the lamps shades. Choosing furniture wasn’t particularly fun for her, but it had to be done.

The idea of choosing things for
their
home, a home with Alex, all brand new and not tainted with community artifacts, not inhabited by the sweetest roommates anyone could ask for was fun though.

They would finally be a normal couple, happily married and alone. Elena was so lost in thought she bumped into a nightstand and almost knocked the lamp to the floor, so it took her a minute to see, to process.

There it was.

The realization took her breath as she stood frozen and wide eyed. The Franz Oerder “Magnolia” painting that had hung in her grandma’s living room every since she could remember.

She had never thought twice about that painting. It wasn’t particularly appealing to her, but here she was, crying in the middle of a small town furniture store like a baby.

She wanted to snatch it and run to the truck with it, feeling an onslaught of memories and grief at an unexpected moment.