Until Tomorrow (13 page)

Christy knew Todd was being wise and using good discernment, but she couldn't help feeling a twinge of disappointment. The suite was incredible. Staying there would be a treat. But Christy knew that being alone in such a place could easily awaken dreams that needed to stay asleep in innocent bliss. This would not be the right time to give those dreams a place to unfold.

“You're right,” Christy said. “That's what we should do.” They exited the room and headed for the elevator.

“Do you have the room key?” Christy asked.

“Right here,” Todd said, patting his pocket. “I hope they have fish at that café. Doesn't fish sound great right now?”

“I take it you didn't get enough while we were camping.”

“I can never get enough fresh fish,” Todd said as they reached the elevator and pushed the button.

“Or mangoes,” Christy added.

Todd gave her a surprised look. “How did you know I like mangoes?”

“I take notes.”

“You know,” Todd said after they had stepped into the elevator and began going down, “that's what amazes me about you. You know me, Christy. You probably know me better than anyone else. Even better than my mom and dad. You know me, and yet you still want to be around me. That amazes me.”

“I feel that way about you, too, Todd. That's what I was trying to say about the lights and Molokai. I keep thinking that the closer you get to me and the more you get to know me, you'll see what I'm really like. When that happens, I'm afraid you won't want to be around me anymore.”

“No.” Todd shook his head for emphasis. “It's not like that at all. The closer I get to you, the more you amaze me.”

“But we're so different.”

“Haven't you ever heard of opposites attracting? Besides, I
don't think we're completely different. We're alike in a lot of ways. You're good for me, Christy. And I think I'm good for you.”

As the elevator reached the lobby level, Christy did something she had thought of many times before but never had allowed herself to do. She leaned over and kissed Todd tenderly on his stubble-covered cheek.

Just then the elevator door opened, and before them stood Katie. Frazzled, red-in-the-face Katie.

“Oh well!” Katie exclaimed, holding up a hand for dramatic emphasis. “Don't let me interrupt anything between you two. I'll just go back to being lost for a few more hours.”

10

“Katie! What happened?” Christy exclaimed as she and Todd both rushed to hug their friend.

“Don't ask. You won't believe me when I tell you. Have you guys eaten yet? I'm starving.”

“We were just on our way to a cafe we saw earlier,” Christy said. “I'm so glad you're here. Are you okay?” Katie nodded as Todd pulled her pack off her back.

“I'll take this up to our room for you, and then we can go get some food,” he said.

Christy led Katie to a couch in the elegant lobby. Katie motioned toward the desk clerk and muttered, “That guy sure isn't going to win any awards for his love for Americanos. Even though I dragged it out of him that you two were registered here, he wasn't real thrilled about letting me join you. Didn't you tell him I was coming?”

“Yes, he knew. Don't worry. It's all fine. Thanks to Marcos and his dad, all three of us are the honored guests of the hotel manager. We get to stay here for free.”

“Free?” Katie spouted way too loudly.

Christy nodded, hoping Katie would lower her voice.

“Awesome! What a God-thing! Good ol' Marcos!”

“I know,” Christy said. “Good ol' Marcos.”

“Hey, I'm sorry I said all those things this morning about
your flirting with him. By the way, what was going on with you and Todd?”

“What do you mean?”

“I saw you two snuggling and kissing in the elevator. That's a little more, shall I say, ‘expressive' than you two usually are. What did I miss?”

Christy nodded, feeling shy about divulging any of the details. “We had a couple of good talks. I had misunderstood a few things.”

“Oh, like that has never happened with you before,” Katie said. “What was it this time?”

In years past Christy had told Katie almost everything. But Christy didn't want to share all the details from her latest roller-coaster ride over Todd. She wanted her exchange with him to be between just the two of them, especially since part of Christy's inaccurate imaginings had involved Todd's being interested in Katie.

“It was nothing, really. I realized I need to stop trying to have everything in life figured out. I need to trust God more and not always be worried about having a plan.”

“Yeah, well, I've certainly changed my opinion about having a plan on this trip,” Katie said, stretching out her legs. “Plans are our friends. I'm telling you, I am a reformed traveler, Christy. If we hadn't had a plan to meet up here, I don't know where I'd be right now.”

“What happened? How did we miss you at the train station?”

Todd arrived in the lobby just then, so Katie waited until the three of them were seated at the cafe and had ordered before jumping into her crazy story. She described, with great detail, how she had decided to use the rest room on the train right before they pulled into the Naples station. She had leaned her large backpack outside the door of the bathroom stall, and when the train came to a stop, her backpack fell
against the door, locking Katie in the stall.

Christy tried not to laugh too hard. “What did you do?”

“I yelled and pounded until poor Marcos had to come into the women's rest room to let me out.”

“We thought you got off the train before we did and that you went straight to the first bus and took off,” Christy said.

“Hardly! Marcos and I barely jumped off the train before it pulled out of the station. He took me to the bus stop and waited with me for the next bus. Then a huge car accident happened about a block away. It was awful! You could hear the metal as it crunched. Marcos went down there, and when he came back he said no one was hurt. But it took forever to clear the road so the bus could get through. I think I caught the last boat out of Naples. Marcos wrote down the name of the hotel and gave me his home phone number, too. He was really great about watching out for me.”

“I'm glad you got here okay,” Christy said.

“Well, I hate to admit it, but you were right, Christy. We did need a plan. I'm glad we did, otherwise I don't know what would have happened. Marcos is going to meet us tomorrow in Rome. He wrote down all the information. Like I told you, I'm a reformed traveler. From now on, we stick together, and we always have a plan.”

Christy smiled at her friend, but her smile wasn't prompted just by Katie's admission that Christy was right. She was smiling because Todd had reached his arm around the back of her chair and was fingering the end of her hair. She was thinking of how far their relationship had come in this one, very long day.

She was still thinking about it after Katie had fallen asleep in their luxurious bedroom. Katie had gone crazy over the free, first-class accommodations. She treated herself to a bath and crawled into bed still commenting on every gorgeous detail of their room. Sleep found Katie when she was in mid-sentence
and took her away someplace very quiet.

Christy lay in the silence, smiling. She tiptoed over to the window for one last glimpse at the sky on this enchanted evening. Curling up in the chair next to the large picture window, Christy tucked her bare feet under her and wished she had a new diary so she could record all her feelings about being a woman and knowing she was in love with Todd. She leaned back and gazed into the heavens.

What an amazing night, Father! All those stars! It looks like you embroidered a thousand twinkling diamonds to the velvet train of midnight's sweeping cape
.

She thought of when she was on the boat and God had felt so close that she could feel His breath.
Sweep over me, God. Breathe on me. I always want to feel as close to you as I do right now. And I always want to trust you completely
.

Christy closed her eyes and fell asleep in the chair. She woke sometime later with a stiff neck and cold feet. Padding back to bed, she slept and dreamed deep, luxurious dreams.

The next morning, Katie woke early. Christy could hear her on the phone trying to order eggs and Italian sausage for breakfast. When Katie noticed that Christy had her eyes open, she said, “Do you want the same thing?”

“Sure. Tell them to bring three orders. I'm sure Todd will want to eat, too.”

They rose and dressed, still in awe of their glorious surroundings. Todd was the one who answered the knock on the door when room service arrived. He was dressed, packed, and ready to embrace the new day.

Christy ate the huge breakfast too fast and felt her stomach doing flip-flops as they arrived at the Marina Grande and boarded a motorboat that took them to the entrance of the Blue Grotto. They were instructed to transfer two at a time into small, narrow rowboats that would enter the cavern. A guide wearing a blue-and-white-striped shirt manned each
boat. The men also wore straw hats with blue ribbons hanging down the back.

Christy could tell this was all daily tourist business for them. But as she stepped into the boat and settled herself in front of Todd, she felt as if she was about to experience a dream come true. For some reason, the Blue Grotto represented the end of the world to Christy. She thought of it as the ultimate I've-been-someplace-rare-and-exotic-and-now-I-measure-my-life-with-a-different-ruler experience. She didn't know exactly why this remote corner of the world had come to represent so much to her, but she was ready to have her horizons expanded. Leaning back against Todd's chest and ducking as the guide paddled their boat through a small opening in the rock, Christy felt tingles on the back of her neck.

After a moment, her eyes adjusted from the brightness of the morning they had just exited to the muted light of the grotto. The guide paddled them to the center, giving them the dimensions in English, German, and Italian. Christy caught that the cavern was almost one hundred feet high and about fifty feet wide. But she didn't care for any more details after that. All she wanted to see was the water, the clear blue-green water that caught its light from refracted sunshine as it poured itself on the ocean and slipped under the rocky overhang.

Christy squinted at the wonder around her. The light really did seem to rise up from underneath them, from the water itself, illuminating this cave that otherwise would have been deathly dark.

“It's like my life,” Christy whispered to Todd.

“Like your eyes? Yeah, that's what I've heard.”

“No, like my life. It's like the way God's light shines in the dark places of my life, and He makes it come alive.”

Todd wrapped his arms around her and put his lips right
beside her ear. “And that's what I see in your eyes. I see His light shining through you.”

Christy's heart soared.

Their guide tilted his chin to the roof of the grotto, and in a rich, reverberating voice he sang, “
O Solo Mio
.”

They spent less than five minutes inside the Blue Grotto. By 10:30 the three of them were on the modern hydrofoil jetting their way back to Naples, where they would catch a train at noon so they could meet Marcos in Rome at two.

Katie remarked again about how unmonumental the Blue Grotto was in her opinion. “I still can't believe we came all this way just to duck into some little cave and listen to a fat guy in a straw hat sing to us. We should have stayed in Rome with Marcos.”

Christy didn't respond. She was still smiling. And still feeling euphoric over her experience in the Grotta Azzurra. Not even Katie's sarcasm could spoil the event.

In every part of her being, Christy felt as if she had connected with God in a deeper way during the past twenty-four hours. She felt as if she had stepped into womanhood with both feet. God held the “tour book plan” for her future, and she was ready and eager for whatever happened next.

What happened next was Rome.

After an uneventful forty-minute ride on the hydrofoil and a smooth train ride from Naples to Rome in first class, Christy, Todd, and Katie made their way through the gigantic, ornate train station in Rome and caught a taxi to the hotel where Marcos told them to meet him. Even though the front of the hotel was unassuming, Christy suspected it offered five-star lodging like the Villa Paradiso.

“Is it just me,” Katie asked as they entered the lobby, “or is anyone else beginning to guess that Marcos's family has a little more money than Antonio's?”

“I hope Marcos and his dad are buddies with the manager
of this hotel, or we're going to spend a whole lot of money tonight,” Christy said.

“We don't have to stay here,” Todd said. “We can find the youth hostel and stay there.”

Christy was thinking about how nice it would be to stay in a fancy hotel again. They could stay on cots in a youth hostel anytime. Before they could discuss their options, Marcos came toward them, looking dashing in a dark business suit with his hair combed straight back.