What a Girl Wants (31 page)

He doesn’t hold out the flowers; he just stands there. Once again, waiting for life to happen as engineers seem to do.

“Well?” I tap my bare foot in the sand.

He doesn’t say anything, but he drops the tulips at my feet and keeps his gaze upon me. His gemstone eyes against the backdrop of the ocean are haunting reminders that I haven’t overcome all my demons. Seth Greenwood still stirs my heart like the creatures in a tide pool when the ocean rushes in.

Seth’s hands reach for me and I flinch and step back. He steps forward again and I shake my head. Too much is riding on this moment for me. I stand here with all the expectations in the world, yet not one ounce of faith that any of it will happen.

“Say something,” I command him.

But he says nothing. He only bites his lower lip. I remind myself not to count on a human to fulfill me—strive to remember all that I’ve decided this day—to be happy in every day, in every moment. I start to sing a hymn out of sheer nervousness. I begin quietly, but my volume grows in harmony with the waves.

“Come thy fount of every blessing. Tune thy heart to sing thy praise. Grace and mercy never ceasing, call for songs of glorious praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above—”

“I’ve tried this once before,” he announces. So . . . he
can
speak.

I stop singing. “Tried what before?”

“You’re always in such a hurry to get somewhere. I never feel the time is right.”

“I am always in a hurry. That’s part of the reason I came to the beach today. I don’t want to rush through everything. I’m going to be fifty and still trying on miniskirts at this rate because I haven’t realized I’ve grown old. Quite pathetic.”

His hands surround my cheeks and he tips my chin upwards. Yes, I should be enjoying this moment, but I’m wondering where he saw it. Did Bond do this? Indiana Jones? Bless his heart, I know it’s not Seth’s move. It’s a suave move, and it unnerves me to no end.
Wait for it. Wait for it.

His lips press hard against mine, and I can feel the heat rise to my cheeks. My makeup has long since paled, but I don’t care. I kiss him firmly, and our passion grows more intense until we’re fully macking on the beach. I pull away and shake my head. Breathless.
Whoah, I didn’t think he had it in him.

I have to test if it’s a fluke and I kiss him again. He returns it feverishly. Now I’m really leery.

“Is this some kind of joke?” I ask.

“This is
it,
Ashley. There’s no one else coming along.” (He shrugs here.) “You’re the best I’m going to get.”

My stomach twists and I can’t stop the tears. They rush down my cheeks like the fountains in Palo Alto’s many courtyards
. This
is it? This is my moment of reckoning and romance? I’m the best he’s
going to get?

Seth picks up the flowers and holds them out to me, but I bat them away.

I’m moved, in spite of myself. I can tell he’s saying something entirely different than his words convey. But I’m also a bit miffed. This is supposed to be Our Moment! “There’s no one else? That’s your romantic plea for my heart? There’s no one else?”

“Come on, Ash. You know I’m not good with words.”

“I’m not asking for words, Seth. What do you
feel ?
Do you feel anything inside that locked box you call a heart?” I tap at his firm chest. He’s been working out.

He chucks the flowers on the sand and a rogue wave carries them away.

“I feel everything.” He bites his lip again. “I just don’t express it right, I guess. I can’t win.”

“Don’t look at me that way. I don’t expect life to be all gumdrops and roses, but I don’t want someone who feels they’re
settling
for me. Do you think that’s too much to ask?”

“I never said that I was settling. You’re putting words in my mouth.”

Which might not be such a bad idea at this point.
“All right then,” I step forward towards him. “Tell me what I’m missing. Did you not just tell me there’s no one else—and there might never be? Am I supposed to be carried away by such sentiment?”

He shakes his head. “Forget it, Ashley. You think the worst of me. I see now there’s nothing I can do to change that.” He starts to walk away, but turns back toward me. “I made a mistake with Arin. I was a fool to think some flighty young thing like her was what I wanted, but I did think that for a while. Sue me for being stupid. You knew the truth. You knew it all along.”

“Are you saying this is
my
fault because you didn’t know what you wanted?” I ask incredulously.

Seth looks angry. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen such emotion from him.

“If you knew about Arin, why didn’t you tell me rather than let me make a total jerk out of myself ? You knew what was brewing between
us
all along, yet you let me follow Tinkerbell around like a cloud of pixie dust.”

“I tried to tell you! How dare you pin this on me!”

“Maybe you did.” He shakes his head and focuses on a far-off point on the horizon. The sun is beginning to set and the bright orange and pink sky darken the ocean to a smoky gray. “I came to tell you that I’m leaving California. I got a job in Phoenix, and I leave in two weeks. I thought . . . well, never mind what I thought. It was stupid.”

I gasp for breath, for some sort of response to this. This!

“I really came here to tell you—” He stops and stares at my face. Once again, the words are in his eyes, but will not be relinquished from his mouth. He starts and stops again. I can see it when he turns away from me inside for good.

“I—I just wanted you to know that you can live in my condo rent-free. Sam got a place of his own, and I know you’ve got no place to go.”

I just shake my head, trying to process what he’s just told me. Were the flowers really a good-bye gift? Impossible. He didn’t drive all the way down here to say good-bye—something that could’ve waited until I returned tonight. But I will not say the words for him! I will not!

“I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else,” Seth says.

“Right.” I give him one more chance. “And the kiss?”

“What’s a kiss between friends?” He half-smiles at me.

What, indeed.
Everything and nothing, all at once.

“Thanks for your offer. But I already worked things out with Kay. I can check on your place if you need me to. Water the plants and all that.”

“No,” he shakes his head. “I’ll either rent it out or sell it if you don’t need it. I just thought if you needed—”

“It was nice of you to think of me.” I don’t want to let him walk away like this, and if I don’t, then everything I’ve just told myself is a lie. How can I possibly live with conviction if I give it all up for a simple kiss? If I don’t demand enough respect for myself that others fail to respect me too?

“You’re not who you think you are, you know,” Seth says. It feels like an accusation.

“I don’t understand that.”

“You’re not some over-aged woman living in the shadow of Arin and her ilk.”

Ilk? What does ilk mean? Since I couldn’t fit in Arin’s shadow, I
know I’m not living there.

He continues. “Arin’s cute. She’s sweet. You’re beautiful. And you’re real. I can ask Arin out easily and make a total fool of myself and get over it because it doesn’t matter. I don’t care what
she
thinks of me.”

I keep waiting to wake up from one of my fantasies. Now he feels free to tell me what he feels—now that he’s turning and walking away from me, now that he’s moving to another state. But does it really mean anything? I can’t make him stay with me here on the beach, in California at all, and I wouldn’t want to. Life is a series of choices. I’ve made mine. He’s made his.

For better or worse, they don’t coincide.

31

M
oving in with Kay Harding has been like signing up for boot camp. The clipboard hangs in a place of honor: on its own specialized hook attached to the refrigerator. Organization is not simply a character trait for Kay. It’s a way of life. Kay does everything as if the clipboard is her master and she must answer to its every command. She is a slave to the clipboard.

Kay does her laundry on Monday, her gardening on Tuesday . . . the list goes on. At first, I thought I’d kill her watching the dance that is folding day. It’s like those girls at the Gap folding things neatly on the board, over and over again. Something within you suddenly wants to run through the display and toss them into the air, shouting, “Quick! Make your escape!” Human nature, I suppose.

Wednesday is Reason Bible study night, and Kay made me promise that I would attend. It’s been at least a year since I bothered—figuring Sundays were enough—so I imagine it’s about time. Not with Bible study (I did that on my own) but
group
Bible study. There’s a ritual for that, too. Kay checks her clipboard and calls those who have snack the night before to remind them. She asks someone ahead of time to lead opening prayer and then she prays over the whole house just before they arrive. I like that last part, but the first time I’ll admit it freaked me out a bit. It’s kind of like a priest casting out demons. Or eating casserole. Sometimes you’d just rather not know what’s in there.

At seven p.m. the doorbell rings. It’s Jackie Cole. She’s got snack tonight and Kay takes the plastic tub of cat-shaped cookies and turns them over. “Are these for people?”

Jackie points to the writing in defense. “See, it says right there. For people.”

I smile. A snack that requires explanation that it is for human consumption is not going to create a rush to the kitchen. This will bother Kay immensely. I can see her twitching. And then she’ll want to talk about it tonight. What’s worse is that I’m starting to share her concerns.

“I’ll put them in the kitchen,” Kay says with a good effort at graciousness.

In Kay’s defense, Jackie is a vegetarian. Not just a vegetarian, but a Vegan—meaning she eats only cardboard. I can hear Kay rifling through the kitchen for the perfect Martha snack, which she will prepare and arrange in a matter of minutes.

“So, Jackie,” I say to cover up the kitchen noises. “How are things with you?”

“My job stinks. I have this idiot boss who has an issue with women, and I’m just tired of his passive-aggressive behavior.”

“I’m sorry. That must be terribly difficult.” I sit down, hoping to end the antagonistic conversation, but Jackie is just getting started.

“On Friday, he planned a beer bust and do you know he had a barbeque? It’s just like him to offend me by serving seared flesh for a work party. Him and all his cannibalistic, women-hating companions.”

Now I’ve got nothing against vegetarians. I know some perfectly normal ones, but some, like Jackie, are more vegetarian than Christian. It’s their first religion. She’s been known to rattle off how early a mother cow is separated from her calf, or how that calf is then placed in a box to become my next Veal Meal. It’s not that I don’t respect her opinions, but I desperately want a shower after talking to her. She makes me sweat. Besides that, Jackie looks so unhealthy. Her skin is sallow with a green tone to it, her demeanor angry and I can’t help but think if I forced a good truffle or iced mocha down her throat, maybe she’d cheer up and remember the Good News.

“Well, you know how men like to celebrate their barbeques,” I laugh, betting that no one has ever asked Jackie if she did the wild thang over the weekend. Maybe it’s a compliment that I’ve missed.

“Tell me how it’s celebratory to kill something!” Jackie’s hands go to where her waist should be, but it’s disappeared beneath an abundant bust.

“You’ve got me there. Why don’t we sit down?” Never mind that I’m already sitting down. I’m trying to get her off her high horse and ready to embrace the Word. The doorbell rings and I practically jump and dive for the door. It’s Seth. And he looks right past me.

“Hi, Jackie,” he says.

“Seth, can I take your jacket?” I ask. I step right in front of him and force him to look at me.

He eyes me momentarily and makes me wish I could take everything back I ever said to him. I want to start all over again with him, but it’s too late for that. The disdain in his eyes is apparent.

“No, thanks. I’ll wear it.” Ah, so he wants to
show
me the cold shoulder. I get to watch him dressed for an Arctic winter all evening.

I swallow past the lump in my throat. I want him to kiss me like he did on the beach.
Oh, Lord, leave it to me to demand more
when Seth offered me everything he could.
Why do I expect soap-opera romance from an engineer? Brea is right. It’s no wonder I’m single.

Kay comes back, and there’s a glow of sweat on her brow too. Clearly, she’s found an appropriate snack, but at some physical cost. More people arrive and we take out our Bible study on sub-mission. Again with the submission! Wasn’t that Sunday’s lesson enough? Or the twelve other times we’ve studied this?

The group recaps their previous conversations and then I read a key passage aloud, getting into the lesson in spite of myself. Isn’t that how Bible study works? It’s a pain in the keister to get there, get your brain focused, but when you do, your heart follows. That’s gotta be God. “Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully—”

“You know,” Jerry, a man in his late forties, suddenly speaks up. “This is a good passage. Slavery works in the world. I don’t know why people protest it. Look at those little gals working as prostitutes in Asia. They eat. They have a roof over their head. We should be happy in all circumstances. The Bible says that. I don’t know why we as Americans think we have any right to go into these countries and tell people how to live.”

The women are all staring at him, mouths agape, waiting for him to correct himself. (Jerry has never been married, but I suppose that doesn’t need mentioning.) Seth is shaking his head—wondering how Jerry will ever get out of this one—and Jackie actually looks ready to hurt him. She is definitely rethinking the whole cruelty to animals thing.