Welcome Reluctant Stranger

by Evelyn Journey

  “Are you afraid I might do myself in?”

  Greg peered into Justin’s eyes, “Could you? You thought about it.”

  “Naaah. Megan isn’t worth it. Besides, it’s too messy.”

  “Good. Glad to hear it. Maybe, you should take up Zen. Elise told me, she learned to practice a form of Zen when she was hurting the most.”

  “Do you see me doing that kind of thing? I’m immersed in codes all day. I want to be physical when I leave work. My sister is into mind games. Heck, her profession demands it. She’s the brain among us Halverson kids.”

  “Whatever that means, but I’m not complaining.”

  “Oh, I know. She has fire in her. I’ve seen her angry, depressed, happy, and she can carry all those to extreme.”

  Greg chuckled. “Well, you’re even-tempered, compared to Elise. Suited you fine until two weeks ago. I’m sure you’ll get back on an even keel. You’ve already started. But I’m always here, if you need a sympathetic ear.”

  “I know, bro. Thanks.”

  IV. Charmed

  Leilani started her Sunday with a visit to the gym after a quick breakfast of granola, soymilk, tea, and banana. Her Sunday mornings hardly ever varied. To her, the gym was a kind of lifeline, like soaking in her tub. She needed not only to pamper herself, but also to work off the stress from a week of helping people emerge whole from the mire they found themselves in. She wished she could work out on more days, but her schedule and unanticipated events usually allowed her to go to the gym two other days, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

  As usual, she chose a machine as far away from the television as she could get. She stepped on the treadmill, turned it on, punched in an hour, and selected her usual program for walking.

  She took her first steps, adapting her pace to the machine that slowly and steadily gained speed. Her body was now used to the rhythm of her walking program. She never let it climb to a running pace. Steady and long was how she preferred it. It allowed her mind to wander over events of the week, sometimes glimpse the beginning of an insight, or of ways to get around or solve sticky dilemmas her clients bring to their sessions.

  The night before, the guy she went out with was all that she predicted he would be—smooth in manner and smug. He was good-looking and entertaining, full of funny anecdotes about friends, family, and co-workers that he made more interesting with his gift for mimicry. He related dialogues complete with facial expressions and hand gestures, presumably of the people who were talking. Sensitive to feelings and the masks people put on to protect themselves, Leilani wondered whether he might, in fact, be ill at ease and that was his way of attracting and connecting with women.

  In his favor, he never talked about his patients. She would have walked out on him if he did. Still, he didn’t charm her as he might have wished. After the first hour, she found herself getting bored with his stories—stories that all came back to him and what a great guy he was. He didn’t seem to have noticed that she hardly said anything. Before the night was over, she decided on refusing any future invitations from him.

  Her cell phone vibrated in her pants pocket halfway through her hour on the treadmill. She didn’t take it out to glance at it, certain that the caller was her mother, anxious to hear about her date. She was reluctant to answer it, but on the seventh ring, she yanked it out. To her surprise, the caller was not her mother, but Elise Thorpe.

  “Hello, Elise. How nice of you to call,” she said. She never expected a call so soon after her visit to Elise’s house.

  “Hello, Leilani. Do you have plans for Thanksgiving?”

  “Yes, I do. It’s family time for me, like everyone. I’m going to my mother’s house the day before to help her cook.”

  “Of course, I don’t know what I was thinking.” Elise sounded embarrassed.

  “I think most people suppose that since we came from another country, we don’t follow American traditions.”

  “I’m sorry. Maybe, I did think that.”

  “No, please, don’t worry. I’m flattered you thought about me.”

  “So, any brothers? Sisters?”

  “A brother and a sister. Both married, with kids. Eight in all.”

  “Wow! Must be a lively Thanksgiving.”

  “Yes. I think my mother likes it that way.”

  “My son is the only kid in our family, until my second one comes.”

  “Sometimes I wish there were fewer in ours. Those kids can get pretty rowdy.”

  “I bet. Listen, Leilani. Can I interest you in coming to dinner sometime?”

  “I’d be happy to come. I’d like to get to know you and Greg better.”

  Elise said, “Well, me, too. I haven’t had a close friend since law school. Fact of a career woman’s life, unfortunately.”

  “I have friends from work. No one close.”

  “My best friend left for Washington, DC.”

  Leilani chuckled. “Mine lives in New York. A childhood friend from my old country.”

  “Then, like me, you must be grateful for smartphones. That’s how Leah and I keep in touch.”

  “Myrna and I visit each other about every two years. We text a lot and, once a month, we talk.”

  Elise said, “How about that. Like Leah and me, except we both seem too busy now for visits. When can you come to dinner?”

  “I’m flexible. Just tell me when.”

  “How about next Saturday, before Thanksgiving? Is that too soon?”

  “No, I think it’s perfect. What time should I be there?”

  “Can you come around six?”

  “I’ll be there. Can I bring something?”

  “You don’t have to, but do what’s comfortable for you.”

  “I think I’ll bring dessert.”

  Ten minutes later, Leilani’s phone rang again. This time, she was sure it was her mother. She still had the phone in her hand and decided it best not to put off talking to her. In the past, to stop her from asking questions or giving endless advice, she would go along with whatever her mother said. This morning, she merely wanted to put an end to her hopes that she finally found a potential husband.

  “Hello, Mamá.”

  “How’d it go last night?” Her mother didn’t bother to say hello.

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “Okay? Just okay? This boy is handsome, articulate, and he’s a doctor. He’s a great catch. Do you think he’ll ask you out again?”

  “A great catch. You think so?” Leilani couldn’t help smiling. An amusing metaphor; or maybe, a simile, she thought; a very apt one. Finding a mate was like fishing or hunting.

  “My mahjongg friends think so,” her mother said.

  “The dinner and the restaurant were nice and the night beautiful. But the doctor was boring.”

  “But my friends say he’s very charming. And he should be a good provider.”

  “I don’t need anyone providing for me, Mamá. As to charming, I can’t agree. He talked about himself all night. I don’t know how he could ask someone out again who he doesn’t actually know. Anyway, if he does—which I doubt—I’m not going out with him anymore.”

  “Why? His mother tells me many women are after him, but he’s interested in you.”

  “But I have no interest in him.”

  “So, you’re determined to be an old maid.”

  “I don’t think women here think like that, anymore, Mamá. Who knows, maybe I’ll find my true love at sixty?”

  “Yes, serves you right for having high standards. I will be sad to see you grow old alone and lonely.” Her mother sounded irritated.

  “Don’t worry, Mamá, I’ll manage. It’s just that I’m busy.” Leilani was tempted to add: And too stressed out from my job to do all the socializing it takes to meet someone. But that thought was better left unspoken.

  “You will have to live with the consequences of what you do now.”

  Her mother went on about how lonely and dismal it
was to grow old alone, what a comfort children were to a mother, and that for her: “My children are my treasure. My life is full because of you.”

  Leilani had heard it all before. When her mother finished, she said, “I know, Mamá. I have to go now. I’ll come help you cook for Thanksgiving.”

  “You’ll be here that Wednesday and stay overnight?”

  “Yes, Mamá.”

  *****

  Justin examined the bruises on his face. They had turned from black to a lighter color, something like the color of faded dark blue jeans. The swelling on his lids and his cheeks had already begun to subside.

  After a week at Greg and Elise’s place, he was eager to go home to his apartment. No matter how cozy he was in the guest suite, he missed so many things about being in a place that was not only familiar, but his very own. A place where he could find everything without asking or searching, do what he pleased on his own schedule, and when it suited him, keep quiet or let his grooming go for a day or two. He missed the feel and smell of his own beddings. He could move around now with some ease and no longer asked for help to do little things like fetching a glass of water, or picking some object up off the floor, a task that suited Goyo very well.

  Having people around who sincerely cared about him—familiar faces who, by merely being there, could distract him when he felt gloomy—had been good for his spirit. He still thought about Megan. She invaded his thoughts when he woke up in the morning and groped for a presence next to him, before he opened his eyes. But, every day—talking to Greg and soothed by his sister’s little gestures to make him feel better—Megan was plunging deeper into the locked vault in his brain of things better forgotten.

  Were it not for the dinner that evening, he would have been back to his apartment by now, but Elise had invited Leilani Torres, and she had asked him to stay another day for it. Although he would have preferred to be in better shape when he and Leilani next met, he could use this chance to thank her profusely for saving his life. That would satisfy his sense of obligation to her. After tonight, he need never see her again.

  He had already decided to show more appreciation for her Good Samaritan act. After all, if someone saved your life, didn’t you owe that person a debt that lasted until your dying breath?

  Borrowing Greg’s idea, he had arranged for a florist to send flowers to Leilani’s office for the next several Mondays, starting the week after Thanksgiving until the New Year. He had asked Elise to get her office address so he could give it to a florist nearby.

  Elise seemed reluctant. “Why don’t you ask for it yourself when she comes over for dinner?”

  “I want the flowers to be a surprise, at least the first time.”

  “I treasure the flowers I get because they come from my husband. But Leilani might wonder if you mean something more, if you keep that up for a few weeks.”

  “I don’t want to give her any impression it’s for anything more than her Good Samaritan act of the night. Would it be better if I give her, not roses, but some other flowers and say something impersonal like ‘In appreciation for saving my life’?”

  Elise giggled. “‘In appreciation’ sounds so much like ‘In memoriam.’ Ask the florist. She’ll know what to say.”

  *****

  That evening, Justin sat on a bar stool behind a hefty concrete bar that separated the kitchen from the living and dining area. The air was redolent with the savory fragrance of roasting meat, which Elise checked, in between talking to him and Greg. At precisely 6 PM, the doorbell rang.

  Greg interrupted him in mid-sentence. “Excuse me. I have to get the door. That’s Leilani.”

  “And I have to check the carnitas. It must be done by now,” Elise said.

  Justin watched Greg as he disappeared behind a wall that defined the entryway. The wall stopped two feet below the ten-foot ceiling and Justin could clearly hear Greg say, “Hello again, Leilani. Come in. We’re all in the kitchen, helping or bothering my wife while she cooks.”

  “Hello, Greg.” Justin heard a feminine voice respond. He could hardly remember Leilani.

  Greg walked back into the kitchen, followed by Leilani, cradling a covered dish on her right palm.

  Elise, with a welcoming smile, approached her from behind the stove. “Hello, Leilani. Good to see you again.”

  Leilani returned the smile. “Good evening, Elise. Can I place this dessert on the table?”

  “Go ahead. It doesn’t have to be refrigerated, does it?”

  “I think it should be okay for a couple of hours. It’s best at room temperature,” Leilani said.

  One end of the long dining table had already been set with four places. Next to a chair on one side, a child’s high chair stood, its tray set for Goyo. Leilani put the dessert in the center across from the high chair.

  Justin watched the obligatory pleasantries with some interest. He could not miss the casual way Greg and Elise—but especially Elise—received and invited Leilani into their family circle. His sister and his rescuer had apparently already connected with ease. Did that start when Leilani came to their house to tell them about the mugging?

  He pulled out a bar stool next to his and said, “Hello, Ms. Torres. Would you come sit next to me?”

  “Good evening, Mr. Halverson. You’re looking better.”

  “Getting there slowly, but surely.”

  He stared at her as she sat down and realized that he had not really looked at her on the night he was mugged. All he could remember was she had dark hair swept off her face and light brown skin. He also had the sense she was small and light. She had trouble helping him to his feet.

  He saw her now. Not as petite as he thought, a tad shorter than his sister who stood at five feet five, and a little more curvaceous than Elise before she had Goyo.

  Her features were what he couldn’t place. Mouth wide and—to his eyes—rather sensuous, nose small but not flat, and doe eyes bigger and more deep-set than he saw among Asians, the ethnicity to which he first guessed she belonged. Her hair, which she now left loose, was brownish-black, thick and straight, and hanging halfway down her back.

  Was she, maybe, Hawaiian, or Puerto Rican, or Latin American? Whatever she was, she was a beauty, an exotic one he couldn’t tear his eyes away from.

  “Something to drink, Miss Torres?” Justin said, pointing to the two bottles of wine and glasses on the counter slightly to his right.

  “Could I have some water instead?”

  Greg said, “We do have sparkling water in the refrigerator. I’ll get a few bottles out.”

  Elise said, “Justin, we’re already on a first-name basis. She’s Leilani to us and we’re Greg, Elise, and Justin to her.”

  “And Goyo,” shouted Goyo who was sitting at the other end of the dining table, playing with little figures.

  “And Goyo.” His mother corrected herself.

  “I see,” Justin said, winking at Elise. He picked up one of the bottles Greg had placed next to the wine, turned to Leilani, and repeated his offer in a more animated voice, his eyes full of mirth.

  “How about some sparkling water, Leilani? I’d pour you some in a glass, but you can, of course, guzzle it out of the bottle. If you want it on the rocks, here’s the glass and there’s an ice maker on the refrigerator.”

  Leilani giggled and answered, “Thank you, Justin. This is cold enough for me and I’m used to guzzling.”

  “Do you go ‘glug, glug’ when you do it?”

  “Of course not. I’d like to think I’m more ladylike than that.”

  “That I’d like to see. How can anyone guzzle without glugging?”

  Leilani raised the bottle to her mouth and took three swallows of water one after another. Justin watched with a broad smile on his face.

  When she put the bottle down on the counter, he said, “You win. You can do it. Silent guzzling.”

  “Well, we girls are made a little differently. Some things we do better than you and so
me you do better than we ever can. Guzzling isn’t one of them.”

  “No, you guzzle with style. But I bet there aren’t too many things we do better. Elise says you’re a great shot.”

  Elise chimed in. “I said she’s a sharpshooter. Don’t water down what I said.”

  Greg patted Justin on the shoulder. “I’m afraid when it comes to that, you’re not a match for her, bro.”

  “Okay, a sharpshooter; sorry. It seems I owe my rescue to your expert handling of a gun. Are you a female James Bond?”

  Justin was teasing, but he sensed that Leilani had tensed up. She scowled and forced a smile, but she did not answer.

  “Please ignore what I said. My clumsy way of opening up other topics of conversation. I’ve wanted since that fateful night to thank you, from my heart, for saving me from those thugs. In the conventional storyline, I’m supposed to be the one slaying dragons to save you, the princess in distress. So, you see, I feel odd being the rescued.”

  “You were very drunk.”

  “Drunk into a daze. Senseless. Unusual for me, as my favorite couple here told you.”

  Justin bit his lower lip. Why was he trying to make a good impression on this woman? Was it to convince her he had been worth the danger she had put herself into to rescue him?

  “I was at the right place, at the right time,” Leilani said wryly.

  “Great timing, from my viewpoint. Until I heard your story from Greg and Elise, I had no idea what you had to do to scare away those men. I only knew one of them had a knife and they were all kicking me while I was down on the ground, too drunk to feel the blows. I think they were disappointed to find very little money in my wallet. They took a couple of credit cards and my cell phone.”

  The expression on Leilani’s face changed. Knitted brow over sympathetic eyes replaced the look of discomfort bordering on distaste. She blinked, and the invisible veil she guarded herself with vanished. “I’m so sorry. Are you still hurting a lot?”

  “Less and less, with each passing day,” Justin said, watching Leilani’s face closely. He was touched by Leilani’s sympathy and fascinated by the shift in her manner. She looked sincere enough. She’s a therapist, he reminded himself. It’s her job to see through people, show them compassion, help them understand why they feel and act the way they do.