Whispers (25 page)

“I guess you’re right,” Teri said. “At least I feel as if I’m leaving my class in good hands.”

“You need to stay,” Jessica said. “We’ll continue to pick up your mail. I have a box of it here already. Why don’t I just send it on to you? There’s nothing pressing that you have to return for. Just stay, okay?”

“Okay,” Teri agreed. “Do you have Mr. McGregor’s phone number?”

“Why don’t I make those calls for you?” Jessica suggested. “I can do it a lot easier from here. I’ll call you back in a couple of days and let you know how everything turns out, okay?”

“Thanks, Jess. Did I ever tell you that you’re one in a million?”
The minute the words were out of her mouth, Teri wished she could suck them back in. Jessica hated any reference to her money. Teri hadn’t meant it that way, and she hoped Jessica didn’t read flippancy into the remark. Before Jessica could respond, Teri said, “My neighbor has a key to my house. Why don’t you tell Kyle to pick it up and make good use of some of those tamales in my refrigerator? The ones in the freezer are okay, but the ones in the fridge should be eaten. Maybe he can treat the guys down at the station.”

“Great idea,” Jessica said. “By the way, have you seen Scott since you’ve been there?”

“No. I haven’t even asked about him. It’s been such a crazy schedule.”

“I hope you don’t mind my asking about him.”

“No, of course not. It is kind of funny, though. I haven’t thought of him more than two or three times since I’ve been here. And I don’t feel anything for him. Is that normal?”

“Don’t ask me! It’s probably a sign that everything is resolved between you so you don’t feel loose strings are hanging.”

“I hope you’re right,” Teri said. Gordon walked into the waiting room just then and gave Teri his familiar little half wink. “I better go, Jess. Gordon’s here.”

“Gordon?” Jessica repeated. “The one who proposed to you at the restaurant that one night?”

Teri felt her cheeks begin to blush. She hadn’t remembered that she had recounted that incident to Jessica. “Yes,” she said in an even tone.

“Has he been around a lot?”

“Yes,” Teri said again, not wanting to let on to Gordon that she was talking about him.

“Are you seeing Gordon with new eyes yet?”

Teri didn’t answer. What was Jessica talking about? Was
she trying to tease Teri because of the proposal incident?

“I’ll talk to you in a couple of days,” Teri said. “Thanks for making those calls for me.”

“No problem. I’ll talk to you later, and you can fill me in on all the details. Bye.” Jessica hung up first.

Teri returned the phone to the corner of the table and turned to Gordon. He sat down next to her but seemed to have misjudged the distance because he ended up close to her. She guessed it must be his balance problem.

“I saw Dan. He said they finally named her. Did you hear?”

“Yes, Grace Malia. My grandma likes that they gave her the Hawaiian version of Maria for her middle name,” Teri said. “Or did she already tell you that?”

“She did,” Gordon said with a smile. “She also told me that you share her middle names: Angelina Raquel.” His smile broadened, and he repeated Teri’s full name as if it were a poem he had memorized, “Teresa Angelina Raquel Moreno.” To him it was no longer unlisted.

I
t’s a mouthful, isn’t it?” Teri said dryly. “And what’s your middle name?”

“Thomas. Gordon Thomas Allister. Has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?”

“Yes, it’s very nice,” Teri said. It seemed odd to her that his name didn’t bother her the way it had when she first heard people calling him “Gordo.” She always called him Gordon, and it now seemed to carry a certain dignity to it.

“Besides your middle name, your grandmother also told me she’s planning to leave tomorrow with your mother. Are you going too?” His eyes looked into hers.

Teri looked away. She wasn’t prepared for him to see into her soul as he had before. She gathered up her purse and address book from the table and said, “No, I’ve decided to stay awhile longer. A friend of mine is going to make the arrangements for a long-term sub for my classroom.”

“Jessica?” Gordon asked.

Teri glanced at him. “Yes, how do you know about Jessica?

“You’ve mentioned her before. Seems like a good friend of yours.”

“Yes, she is. Well, I suppose we should tell Anita we’re ready to go. I think she said she was going to stay here until Dan came after work.” Teri and Gordon walked down the hall to the nursery. Mom and Grandma were standing at the window talking. They motioned to Anita through the glass that they were about to leave. Anita was dressed in a sterile gown, gloves, and hat and stood in the corner talking to one of the nurses. She waved good-bye and blew them a kiss.

Gordon offered Grandma his arm, as Teri had often seen him do, and they headed for the car. Grandma loved the attention. It seemed she loved Gordon, too, because she raved about him constantly. “He’s such a fine man. So considerate. So selfless in his love for others. Mark my words; the hand of God is on that man.”

Teri overheard him asking Grandma if she had ever smelled a tuberose before. He said he had something in the car for her. She chortled and squeezed his arm like a school girl. His words reminded Teri of how Gordon had bought the lei for her in the restaurant. That was a tuberose lei. She loved the fragrance from those flowers.

When Gordon opened his car door, that wonderful sweet fragrance met her nostrils again. He had three tuberose leis, one for each of them. He looped the first one over Grandma’s fuzzy white hair and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Grandma kissed him right back on both his cheeks. Then he placed a lei around Mom’s neck and offered her a kiss on the cheek.

Teri stood waiting for hers and felt her heart beating.
Is he going to kiss me, too?
She knew it was the island’s custom and not at all unusual, but for some reason the sudden anticipation
of being kissed on the cheek by Gordon Thomas Allister gave her butterflies.

He placed the lei over her head and looked into her eyes with an intensity stronger than he had ever used before. When he looked at her, it was as if no other woman had existed in the world before or ever would after. He let go of the lei and pulled away without kissing her.

But Teri felt as if she had been kissed—and kissed but good. The intimacy that had grown between them was much more powerful than anything she had ever experienced with a man. Yet aside from his hand on her shoulder after her “baptism” and the embrace in the crater, Gordon had never touched her.

Teri slid into the backseat beside her mother and remained silent as Gordon drove them back to Lahaina. He and Grandma kept up a lively conversation, and Mom kept saying how wonderful the flowers smelled.

“It’s too bad you didn’t get to see much of the island,” Teri said.

“We’ll have to come another time. I need to convince your father to come,” Mom said. “He hasn’t taken a real vacation in years. Once I get him here to see his granddaughter, I have a feeling he won’t want to leave.”

“Maui can have that effect on you,” Teri said. “Now you can see why I’ve thought about moving here.”

As they drove past the sugar cane fields outside of Lahaina, the sun was about to set in the late afternoon winter sky. Like busy little maids in waiting, the frilly white clouds gathered around the top of the Moloka’i mountain, preparing to tend to the sun before it made its way down the celestial aisle and gave itself to the ocean.

“I was wondering if you would allow me to treat you to dinner tonight,” Gordon said.

“Oh, how thoughtful of you,” Grandma said. “You don’t need to do that for us.”

“Well, to be honest, I’ve already done it.” Gordon turned off the road into a gravel parking lot alongside the beach. It had a picnic area with tables, a restroom, outdoor showers, and a row of wind-bent coconut trees. He parked the car and came around to the passenger side, opening the door for Grandma and offering her a hand out. Then he opened the door for Teri and her mom. Gordon popped open his trunk and gathered in his arms all kinds of beach gear: a blanket, two folding beach chairs, an ice chest, and a guitar.

“Do you need some help there?” Teri asked.

“Could you grab those two shopping sacks? That ought to do it.”

With his arms loaded, Gordon motioned with his head and said, “Follow me, ladies. Your sunset luau awaits you.”

Teri started to giggle until it turned into an outright laugh. She sort of sounded like Gordon with his tickle-laugh. Everything had been so serious and so intense for the past week that this seemed crazy. She felt like a child being let out for recess in the middle of final exams.

They took the little path to the beach with extra caution. Perhaps Gordon was going slow for Grandma’s benefit. Or maybe he was being cautious because of his tendency to trip, especially with his hands so full. A few people were enjoying the sunset on the beach, but not many compared to the beaches in front of the hotels and condos.

Teri had never been to this beach and thought it was a beautiful hideaway. She had driven past it dozens of times but never guessed such a gorgeous strip of white sand stretched along the shore.

Gordon stopped in the sand and unloaded all his gear. He spread out the towels and set up a chair for Mom and a chair
for Grandma. They were delighted. The man could do no wrong, as far as they were concerned. Teri placed the grocery bags alongside the ice chest and had a peek inside. A bag of marshmallows, a bag of taro chips, some hot dog buns, a bag of charcoal, and a roll of paper towels greeted her. This was going to be one unique luau.

“All right, ladies,” he said. “I have some Hawaiian drinks for you here. Who would like papaya coconut?”

Grandma Maria cheerfully accepted the bottle of cold juice from the ice chest and set her sights on the evening sunset show going on directly in front of her.
“¡Que bonita!”
Grandma said. “What a perfect, perfect evening!”

“I only take you to the finest of dining establishments. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to put the shrimp on the barbey, as they say.” He pulled a package of hot dogs from the ice chest and grabbed the grocery bag with the charcoal and matches. “Help yourselves to those drinks there.”

“Go help him,” Grandma Maria said, nudging Teri.

“Help him what? He doesn’t need me.”

Grandma rolled her eyes heavenward and clutched her chest with her hand. “Oh, Teresa, of course he doesn’t need you. But he wants you. This is a woman’s dream.”

Teri shook her head at her dramatic grandmother and reached into the cooler for a pineapple-mango juice. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you had a crush on that man,” she teased.

“Well, at least one of us admits it!”

Positioning herself between her mom and grandmother, Teri sat down on the blanket with her back to Gordon. She hoped he hadn’t heard any of their conversation. “What a beautiful sunset.”

“Why can’t you see that Gordon is the one man for you, Teresa?”

“Grandma, why are you even saying that? It would never
work. He’s nine years older than I.”

“Your grandfather is seven years older than I.”

“This is ridiculous! The man is from a different culture, he’s different from me, and he came from a wild background. He doesn’t fit my list of qualifications at all, Grandma.”

“Perhaps you need a new list—like the one God wrote.” Grandma Maria began to quote 1 Corinthians 13 in Spanish, stating how love is patient and kind and never jealous or conceited. Looking meaningfully at Teri, she completed the recitation with the statement that love never gives up.

Teri glanced over her shoulder at Gordon, who was several hundred yards away roasting the hot dogs. How could she tell her grandmother that she needed fireworks, and she wasn’t sure there were fireworks with him?

Teri had to admit, even though he had never touched her, she felt as if he had with his eyes, if not with his hands or lips. The sensation those few times had been powerful.

Still, it was crazy. Her and Gordon? Never.

“You talk some sense into her,” Grandma said, giving up and passing the baton to Teri’s mom.

Mom’s soft expression showed that she was on Grandma’s side before she even said a word. “I believe he would make you happier than you can even imagine. And I think you would make him the happiest man in the world. He’s in love with you, Teri. It’s obvious by the way he looks at you and the way he treats you. This is not the crush of a young boy. His is a solid, mature love that will make your heart sing, if you would open yourself to it.”

“Did you two have a little conference with Gordon and set this all up?” Teri was beginning to feel trapped and annoyed that everyone had come to such conclusions about her life without checking to see what she thought.

“Of course not,” Mom said. “When have we had time? This is the first we’ve talked of it.”

“You both need to know one minor detail,” Teri said, lowering her voice. “I’m not in love with him. Isn’t that a prerequisite for marriage?”

Mom and Grandma exchanged sly smiles and nods.

“What?”