Changed Somehow

by Chloe Flanagan

  “I’m sure you can. But sometimes when the ladies are around, guys like to show off their muscles ... even the homely guys,” he finished with a self-deprecating tap to his chest.

  Natalie laughed, and reached out to brush his sleeve. “Any man who helps with the dishes is an Adonis, as far as I’m concerned.”

  He glanced down where her hand touched his arm for a second, then quickly looked up again. “I like that. Did you see it on a sampler somewhere?”

  “No, it’s something an old friend of mine used to say,” she answered. It was only her first day as camp cook and she was already channeling her former employer, Betty.

  After depositing another bowl in the sink, Glenn surveyed the stack of plates and pots and gasped. “Boy, would ya look at all those dishes! Just from sandwiches and soup?”

  He combed his hand through his hair. “Listen, the kids are supposed to watch a movie and I gotta go set things up, but what if I send a couple of them in here to help with cleanup? It’d be good for them, I think.”

  “No!” Natalie replied so sharply that Glenn’s jaw dropped and he took a step backwards.

  She winced inwardly. Kindness. Kindness. Kindness.

  Assuming a more relaxed pose, she leaned her elbows on the countertop. “Thank you. I really appreciate your concern, but ...”

  What could she say? I’m sorry, Glenn, but I don’t really get along with kids? That would probably sound like the polar opposite of kindness to someone like him. She needed to improvise an explanation for her objection, and fast.

  Looking down at her hands, she continued. “I was raised by a single mom. She worked in the evening quite a bit and, a lot of times, I was left to get my own dinner, do my own laundry, and things like that. But sometimes I would go to Betty’s. Whenever I came in, she would bring me the daily special plus a big piece of pie, and basically way more food than I could ever eat by myself. Then she’d take the dishes away to clean and leave me to mess around with the old jukebox she kept in there and … well, I felt cared for.”

  Glenn moved forward and leaned on the counter across from her. She sent him a smile. “I guess I’m trying to say that the kids probably do need to learn life skills, but for now, we should just let them be kids. Just let me …” she hedged. Let her what? Care for them? That was a laugh. “Let me take care of it,” she finished.

  His face was solemn and intense as he watched her. Being on the other side of his dark brown eyes when he was cheerful had been disconcerting from the first. But this was another level completely. He seemed to be gazing into her heart, as if the memories and sadness she’d just shared were playing out before him. Finally, he nodded. “You’re absolutely right. I’ll let you handle it.”

  Then he reached over and gave her hand the lightest of squeezes. “Thanks for sharing that with me.”

  With that, he was gone from the kitchen and off to help the kids with their movie time.

  12

  The secluded natural beauty of the camp, which had seemed so striking earlier that day, became less charming that night once Natalie realized there was virtually no Wi-Fi or cell phone service.

  Sitting on her bed in the room she was sharing with Darla, Natalie held her phone in the air and moved it from side to side a couple of times in an attempt to get more bars, but it was futile.

  “Yeah, we probably should’ve warned you about the terrible service out here,” Darla said from across the room, where she sat writing at a desk.

  A snarky rejoinder settled on the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed it back at the last minute. She was supposed to be kind, after all. Schooling her face into a pleasant expression, she said, “Well, we are pretty far away from town. I probably would have realized it would be like this, if I’d paid closer attention.”

  Darla stood up and went to the closet where her suitcases were stored. “I brought some books with me. Not exactly Book of the Month stuff, but you’re welcome to borrow any of them.”

  She crossed the room to Natalie‘s bed holding a stack of books. “These are from a class that I will be facilitating at church next fall. Have a look.”

  “Thank you.” Natalie made a show of examining each book’s title so as not to appear ungracious. As might be expected from a church class, all the books were about the Bible and religion. She finally selected the one that had the thinnest binding and most colorful cover and thanked Darla again.

  “No problem,” Darla said with the easy brusqueness that Natalie was starting to get accustomed to. “Hit me up if you need another after you finish that one.” She took the rest of the books and returned them to her suitcase.

  Natalie flipped through her chosen book. It appeared to survey the spiritual meaning behind the so-called sacraments of church tradition—or the type of tradition that Glenn and Darla belonged to, anyway. The terminology about things like baptism and Communion would all be completely foreign to her were it not for the few times she’d visited Betty‘s church. In that regard, this could be interesting reading. Most of what she had seen in Betty‘s church had been a complete mystery to her. She could picture her old friend’s shock the next time she visited her when, after reading this book, she could intelligently discuss some of the pomp and pageantry.

  After delving in, she found that, despite the book’s small size, it was far from an easy read. Honestly, she was gratified and a bit surprised that Darla believed her capable of comprehending it. For most of her life, Natalie’s looks and personality had given many people low expectations of her intellect. That didn’t bother her anymore. In fact, she had used it to her advantage on more than one occasion. But for some reason, Darla didn’t seem to make any such assumptions, and it was kind of nice.

  Darla couldn’t know that Natalie had actually been a good student in high school, even though she’d downplayed it when it didn’t seem to get her as far as her other attributes did. And even now, in her career as an actress, she often read books and watched documentaries as research for certain roles. Why should this be any different?

  The book’s introduction began by talking about human nature’s endless longing and desires—from the most basic physical ones to deeper, emotional ones. Nothing too foreign about that. But the author’s next suggestion caught her off guard: God used these endless longings as a way to eventually bring people to him.

  Natalie reread that part. Looking up and, without really thinking, she said, “Darla, listen to this.” Then she read the passage aloud.

  While Darla absorbed the words, Natalie asked, “Do you really think that’s true?”

  Darla chortled, in a rare display of amusement. “I have to say I do. But, boy, is that a tough lesson to learn. I spent years fighting my way up the ladder at my company. Always thinking I’d be happy once I got another office, a larger salary—I don’t know—some actual respect from my male colleagues. If only I could just get a little bit more.”

  She stood up from the desk, stretched, and shuffled across the room to her own bed, where she sat down and scooted until her back rested against the wall. “And I’d gotten pretty far, if I do say so myself. That’s when I got one of those phone calls. You know, the ones you never seem to be ready for. The doctor saw something amiss in my blood work. After more tests, they found out I had thyroid cancer.

  “I knew they’d caught it early, it has a high survival rate, and there was a clear plan of action, but it still shook me up. What if they hadn’t caught it? What if it had been something worse? The whole thing made my life feel so … empty.”

  Darla rubbed her eyes and released a sigh. “I’d gone to church off and on out of habit for most of my life, but after all that, I started going for answers.”

  Natalie sat forward, intrigued. “And did you find them?”

  Darla chuckled. “No, not always. Sometimes I wound up with even more questions. But what I did find was better: I found God’s love. Walking in that love—or trying to, at least—completed me in a way I never thought possible.”

 
“Wow.” It was a simplistic response, but Darla’s frank reminiscence had truly floored her a little.

  “I guess it is kinda ‘wow.’ So was the absurd number of years I wasted before I figured it out,” she added ruefully.

  “But it wasn’t all a waste, right? I mean, it sounds like you accomplished things. If nothing else, I’ll bet you made things a little easier for the women in your company who came after you,” Natalie offered.

  Darla sent her an honest-to-goodness smile. “That’s sweet of you to say. I hope so. At the very least, I hope they can progress without being such rhinoceroses about it, like I was.”

  Natalie choked. “Rhinoceroses?”

  “You know: rampaging, tough skin, perpetually angry-looking.”

  Their ensuing laughter lightened the mood, but it didn’t prevent Natalie from thinking about Darla’s story long after they’d turned out the lights to go to bed.

  13

  The next morning, Natalie rinsed out an empty milk jug to recycle and studied the narrow vase of yellow and pale pink snapdragons that someone had placed on the kitchen windowsill. She had no idea where they’d come from, but they seemed to make the drab kitchen come alive.

  The clamor of screeching chairs and chattering voices disrupted her thoughts and announced the children’s arrival in the dining room. Peeking out the kitchen door, she watched as they rushed at the buffet line of scrambled eggs, sausage, and pancakes she had set out.

  After Glenn and Darla managed to herd them into an orderly line, the kids swept through, piling their plates high, as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks.

  Natalie shook her head and returned to the kitchen for more food. They had massive appetites, as might be expected from growing kids, but this was something more. Some of them probably didn’t get enough to eat at home.

  Her mind drifted back to the previous night’s reading and conversation with Darla. As the book had suggested, Natalie had been longing all of her life. Longing, at first, for some semblance of maternal affection. No wonder she’d always sought out Betty’s perpetually welcoming nature.

  Once she had gotten older and received her first tastes of masculine attention and audience appreciation, she’d craved more of both. Some mixture of all these desires, it seemed, went a long way in defining who she was now. When she thought of it like that, the image was a dismal one.

  Yet it was human to desire more—even the apparently spiritually enlightened author of the book admitted that, and she thought the answer was God. Darla and Glenn clearly thought the same thing.

  That was a conundrum all in itself. Maybe they were right. Maybe God had showed up for them, but if he was in the business of doing that sort of thing, Natalie had never experienced it.

  Maybe He just wasn’t a fan of hers. Not that she could blame him, now that she’d engaged in a little introspection. But she hadn’t always been like this. She’d been innocent and young once and, even back then, “our Father in heaven” hadn’t seemed any more interested in her than her earthly dad had been.

  “No! I don’t wanna hear it!”

  Natalie jumped at the outburst and hurried to the window opening in the kitchen that allowed her to see and converse with people in the dining room.

  One of the boys was standing in a corner of the room crying and flailing his arms at Glenn, who seemed to be trying to comfort him.

  “It’s all a bunch of—”

  “Easy! Take it easy. Come here.” Glenn’s voice was firm but soothing as he put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. Bending low, be murmured something inaudible, but whatever it was made the boy stop squirming. The shaking of his shoulders was now the only thing to indicate his lingering agitation.

  “Okay, kids, we’ve got a lot to do. Take your trays up front, then head outside.” Darla deflected the rest of the kids’ attention from the scene with the calm authority of a general mustering her troops.

  Eventually, they all piled up front to dispose of their trays, then bustled out the door.

  Glenn continued to talk to the boy for a minute before releasing his hold and saying, “Go wash up, Kendrick, then come back out and talk to me, okay?”

  Kendrick nodded and trudged away.

  Glenn watched his departure and heaved a sigh. When he turned, his gaze fell on Natalie, and he sent her a sad nod.

  “Is he okay?” she asked.

  He approached the window where she stood. The dining room side of the partition had tall bar stools, so he pulled one out and sat down.

  “He will be, I think. It’s just that his father has been in prison for a few months for a drug deal he was only barely involved in. He was supposed to get a deal for helping break up the whole thing, but it still hasn’t panned out. Kendrick just found out he won’t see his dad for another six months.”

  Glenn took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Back when it first happened, I kept telling Kendrick to trust the system. Then this happened, and now he feels like ...”

  “Like nothing matters anymore,“ Natalie finished for him.

  Glenn’s eyes flew open and met hers, their intensity catching her off guard even more than usual, now that the barrier of his glasses was removed. “That’s right. He’s frustrated because he feels so helpless. That makes two of us.”

  He rubbed his face again. “He’s a really good kid, but I don’t know how to keep encouraging him to stay that way when everything is stacked against him.”

  Something about seeing his despondency made her words and breath get all tangled up in her throat, and she didn’t know how to improvise a good response. “I –I don’t know. Maybe it’s enough that there’s somebody there who wants those things for him.”

  She almost cringed at her own banal response. If she had ever read a script with a line of dialogue like the one she’d just delivered, she probably would’ve ridiculed it. Yet Glenn lifted his head, and he sat up straight at her words. He seemed to latch onto her paltry encouragement like it was a firefighter’s ladder, sent to deliver him from a flaming high-rise.

  Something occurred to her then: he seemed so eager to encourage the kids. How often did anyone really take the time to encourage him?

  After replacing his glasses, he sent her a crooked smile that slid through her like hot coffee. “Thanks, Natalie. You’re absolutely right. I just gotta be consistent and keep being here for him through all this.”

  His concern for the kids showed in nearly everything he did: the way he fussed over them, and the kindness and affection in his interactions with them.

  “Glenn, why do you do all of this?” she asked him abruptly. Probably too abruptly. “What I mean is, how did you get into it?”

  His face grew thoughtful, and he folded his arms. “It’s kind of a long story.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll keep working.” But instead of cleaning up the breakfast dishes as she’d first intended, on a whim, she went to the freezer and pulled out a container of ice cream.

  Glenn began, “I had older parents. My dad was in his fifties when he had me, and my mom was just a few years behind. I was a surprise.”

  Natalie moved the ice cream to the sink so it could soften and so she could hide her smirk. Glenn, the surprise. That made sense.

  “Then Dad died of a heart attack when I was four, and Mom passed a couple of years later,” he continued. “The only other relative around was an older cousin. He wasn’t too crazy about having a dumb little kid around, so he pretty well ignored me.”

  She flinched at that last statement, but not so much that he would notice. Sending a coy smile over her shoulder, she said, “Ignore you, Glenn Valenti?”

  He responded with an amused grin. “Yah, it was easier back then; I was quiet. Anyway, I was feeling pretty alone and sorry for myself, and probably would have kept right on like that if it weren’t for my math teacher, Mr. Perkins. He was a kind older man, pretty close to retirement age and he … well he seemed to notice what was going on with me. He’d let me come to his place and do hom
ework, watch his old movies, and read his books.”

  Glenn paused, and she looked up at him from the drawer where she was searching for an ice cream scoop, but he wasn’t looking at her; he appeared to be lost in the past. “It was more than that, though. He taught me things about honesty and honor. He had a lot of ideals about what a man should be: honest, fair, giving others the respect you wish you could have. I don’t know what I would’ve done without him or who I would be.”

  Natalie didn’t interrupt his story, even to encourage him to continue, since he didn’t sound like he needed it. She located the kitchen’s large blender and assembled it.

  “I thought I did all the things he taught me. I grew up, studied hard, got a good job and worked my way through the corporate finance world, all while trying to be fair and honest, which ain’t easy, let me tell ya! But that was basically my whole life. Then a couple of years ago, Mr. Perkins got sick. He was well into his 80s by then, so I went back home to see him.”

  Glenn stared down at his hands. “I’m ashamed to say it had been many years since I’d been back. When I visited, I told him all the things I’d been doing. I thought he would be proud. But for some reason, sitting there telling the man I admired most in the world all about my business success made me feel kinda hollow.”

  With a rueful shake of her head, Natalie scooped ice cream into the blender pitcher and returned what was left to the freezer. Hollow. That she could relate to.

  “He died a couple of days later, and at his wake, lots of stories came out about the things he’d done for kids like me. The ones he’d given rides to school. The boy he’d taught how to tie a tie. The girl he’d taken to the father-daughter dance because her dad had been a cop killed in the line of duty … all kinds of things. It made me realize that I’d done a lot of the stuff he taught me, but I wasn’t much like him. Yet I wanted to be.”

  Natalie added milk and chocolate sauce to the ice cream in the blender, but didn’t turn the machine on yet, since she was too caught up in his story to interrupt.