“Thanks, Katie. You’re the best of the best.” Nicole was beaming.
Even that was a little hard to take. While Katie agreed with all of this in principle, the loss of Rick in her own life caused her heart to sag a little.
At least he gets to take her to high-class places I never wanted to go to like the art show and the fancy restaurant.
Katie stepped into the shower and turned on the warm water. When Rick took me to San Diego, we went to the zoo and a Brazilian barbecue.
Right then and there Katie decided she wasn’t going to start a list of comparisons. If she planted a whole field of those seeds in her heart, nothing good would grow from them.
Father, clear my heart from any jealousy or unwarranted hurt. I’m not the castoff woman in this scenario. I’m a victim of your grace. You have other plans for me. Plans for good and not harm. You have something custom designed for me. So what is it? Where do you want me to live? What do you want me to do?
Katie was careful not to ask God if he had any guys in mind for her now that Rick was out of the picture. She knew that a relationship with any guy right now wasn’t where her focus needed to be. She had more important needs to be fulfilled, like housing and a job.
Returning to her room after her shower, Katie saw that she had missed a call. Jon had left a message saying he had a dove for her. She could pick up the bird anytime after two that afternoon. The price was much more than she had expected, but when she thought about it, she realized she didn’t mind paying what he asked.
Katie scrounged around her room for something to eat. Her odd assortment of snacks was depleted, and her small refrigerator held only half a tub of strawberry cream cheese and an unopened bottle of soy sauce. Not exactly a winning combination when she had no bagels or noodles.
Her easiest option was to be first in line for lunch at the cafeteria. Then she would check to see if she could do anything for Julia. After that, she would put her thoughts toward finding a place to live.
When Katie arrived at the cafeteria, she wasn’t the first one in line. But she was definitely the only graduate. It felt funny being there. Yes, it was all so familiar that she could go through the line and find everything she wanted, plus make a frozen yogurt cone from the machine, while blindfolded.
She knew that feeling uncomfortable there was more of a mental thing. In her head, she was done. Time to get a life. Time to make her own turkey sandwiches on white bread with her own jar of mayonnaise from her own refrigerator in her own apartment.
Katie had just filled her all-too-familiar plastic cafeteria cup with milk from the never- empty metal cow, when she saw Eli standing by the salad bar in his security uniform.
“So you’ve been promoted, huh? Official guard of the cherry tomatoes?” She intended to keep walking, but his serious expression made her pause.
“No, it’s the croutons,” he said with a straight face. “We had a report of unauthorized hoarding of croutons by a subversive group of disgruntled freshmen.”
Eli said it so convincingly that Katie paused before catching on that he was messing with her.
“Don’t mess with me, Lorenzo. I’m a college graduate.”
“Don’t mess with me, Weldon. I’m a college graduate, and I know the tribal call of the Masai warriors.”
“And what exactly happens when you give this tribal call of the… whatever warriors?”
“That’s for me to know and you to wonder about.”
She squinted at him and shook her head. “You’re just a bundle of mysteries. For instance, ‘Oh, surprise! Dr. Ambrose is my uncle.’ ”
“Why does that matter?”
“Well, he’s marrying Julia. My RD. My friend. I guess that means you’re going to be at the wedding Saturday.”
He nodded. “Do you have anything against my uncle?”
“No, I think he’s wonderful. Although he did give me a B- my first year here, and I think, if he had searched his heart, he could have found his way to make that into a nice solid B. But I’m not complaining. I managed to graduate anyway and choose not to hold that temporary slip in his grading abilities against him. We all have our weaknesses.”
“My uncle is an extremely generous man,” Eli said. “Maybe not in grades, but in other ways. He doesn’t know that I know this, but he found a way to pay off my tuition. All of it. He did it anonymously, but I know it had to be him.”
Katie swallowed hard and tried not to let her face show any flicker of disagreement. No way was she going to spout, “That was me, Eli. I paid for your college tuition.” This was much better all around. Let Eli think it had been Dr. Ambrose.
“Is he the uncle you lived with last summer?” Katie asked calmly.
“Yeah.”
“So that makes him the uncle who went to school here ages ago and introduced your parents to each other.”
“That’s right. You remembered.”
Katie pulled up a smile. “Well, I have to be going; I’m in a rush. As usual, I have lots to do and not enough time to do it all.”
Eli took a step toward her and looked her in the eye. “Before you run off, I want to ask you to do me a big favor.”
“Sure.” Katie felt his gaze coming at her like a wave she couldn’t escape. When Doug taught Katie to surf, he showed her how to hold her breath, dive down under the wave, and float through the less turbulent waters before popping up on the other side. Subconsciously, she held her breath and dove.
Eli said in a low voice, “In Africa we have a saying. ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’ ”
Katie popped up on the other side of her heart-dive, blinking.
That wasn’t so overwhelming. Actually, that was a beautiful saying.
Then the real wave hit her full on.
“Before I go back home, I want you to consider us, Katie. Ponder what it would be like if we went together. Not alone and fast but together and far.”
Katie had no words. No quips, comebacks, or clever jives.
When it seemed clear she wasn’t going to respond, Eli turned and walked away.
She watched him go; she was treading thoughts but refusing to call out to him.
Then he turned around. An ocean of humans bobbed between the two of them. He looked at Katie, placed his open palm on his chest, and pounded three times.
27
Katie suddenly lost her appetite. She made her way to the dishwasher carousel in the cafeteria and placed her tray of untouched food on the conveyor belt.
Making a straight line to her car, she took off, heading for Escondido. Driving helped. Driving down the hill, away from Rancho. Away from everything. Away from Eli.
I can’t do what you asked, Eli. I can’t ponder “us.” Pondering happens in the heart. I can’t go there. No, not now. You’ll go home to Africa, and you’ll see. It’s better if we don’t open any of these pondering places of the heart.
Katie turned on the music and tried to find something to sing along to. She wanted to get something else stuck in her head besides the mesmerizing image of Eli thumping his palm on his chest. Annoying lyrics would be fine.
Nothing seemed to stick.
She pulled onto the freeway and made a to-do list aloud. “Find a dress for the wedding, pick up the dove from the pet store, call Julia to see if she needs help with any wedding details, go on duty at the desk at seven o’clock this evening, maybe eat something eventually.”
Katie went on lining up a second list for Thursday. And another for Friday. She knew she could find plenty to occupy herself Saturday with the wedding. Then Sunday she would have to move somewhere. That would keep her busy. Monday she would look for a job. That probably would take a few days. By then, a full week would have passed. Although she didn’t know when Eli planned to return to Kenya, she thought a week might cover it.
Just one more week. Then he will be far away, and I’ll be able to focus on what God wants me to do next.
Ignoring the sensation of the hoof-
stomping buffaloes in her stomach, Katie kept driving. When she arrived at the old mall in Escondido, she thought of how this place used to be such a familiar hangout. Like most things in life, it had changed. Many of the smaller shops had either gone out of business or moved to another section of the mall.
Surprisingly, the old pet shop now was located in the happening side of the mall and had expanded to twice the size it had been when Christy worked there. When Katie walked in, she noticed that it still had the same rabbit-pellet and hamster-shaving fragrance.
Jon was behind the register and didn’t recognize Katie at first. When he did, he acted like they were hanging out at a party, chatting away.
“So you’re not married, huh?”
“Nope.”
“Living with anyone?”
“Jon.”
“Hey, you wouldn’t be the first one who recited all her Christian principles to me at sixteen and changed them by the time she was twenty-one.”
His statement churned her stomach even more and for reasons she didn’t want to think about. She knew she was among a small number of her friends who had stayed strong in her walk with Christ, kept to her moral commitments, and was holding out for a hero.
“Then I guess I’m one of a rare and nearly extinct breed of God-lovers who still lives and breathes what she believed back then. Only now it’s more real than ever because it’s in me. God’s Spirit is in me, changing me. Not just around me, influencing me.”
Her direct response seemed to startle him. He had no comeback.
“So do you have the dove?”
Jon pointed at the clock on the wall behind him. “It’s not two o’clock yet.”
Katie saw that it was only 1:20.
“Okay, fine. I’ll come back then.”
She went to the food court and walked by each of the fast food booths to see what her poor stomach might handle. She went for a healthy fruit smoothie with a booster of vitamin C. Then she hit the main department store and three smaller chain clothing stores before finding a classy black dress that fit and didn’t make her fidget. All that in less than two hours.
Katie felt pretty victorious when she returned to the pet store with her new dress on a hanger inside a garment bag.
“It’s after two o’clock,” Jon said with a sour curl on the end of his words. “I’ve been holding the bird for you for more than an hour.”
“Well aren’t you Mr. Sunshine? Is this how you treat all your paying customers? I said I’d be back; I didn’t say when. I had some shopping to do.” Katie held up the garment bag in case he hadn’t noticed the obvious. “So what are you waiting for, mister? Hand over the dove, and nobody gets hurt.”
Jon reached behind the counter and lifted a small cage with a lovely white dove that greeted Katie with a rapid string of coo-cooing.
“She’s so sweet,” Katie said. “I’ll need some food for her. Just a couple of days’ worth. And you are sure that she’s okay in the wild, right? I mean, when I release her she’s not so domesticated that she won’t know how to find food and take care of herself.”
“She’ll be fine.”
Katie paid Jon the agreed amount for the bird and the food. She was about to go when he said, “I think you’ll be fine too.”
Katie gave him a funny look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If you ever spring outta that cage of yours and flap your wings out there in the wild, I think you’ll be fine, Katie. You might be an endangered-species sort of Christian, but survival of the fittest, you know. You’ll hold your own in the wild.”
“Jon, that was outright poetic. Thank you. And here I thought you were turning into an old grump. Take it easy, Mr. Sunshine. I’ll tell Christy you say hi.”
“Tell her to come in and visit sometime.”
“I will.” Katie left with the caged dove in one hand and her new and improved bridesmaid dress in the other.
She felt better driving back to school than she had on the drive to Escondido. Jon’s comment about her holding her own in the wild kept floating around in her thoughts. That was a pretty nice thing for him to say. She wondered if he thought her cage was the Christian college she had been living at for the past few years. Or was he alluding to more? Like she could spring out of the comfy western lifestyle to which she was so accustomed and hold her own living in a developing country.
It didn’t matter what he meant. She was feeling pretty good at the moment, and food was sounding interesting once again.
Instead of going directly to school, she drove through a fast food restaurant and ordered a grilled chicken sandwich. Taking the long way back to school, Katie nibbled as she drove. The dove had taken to cooing from its position on the floor on the passenger’s side.
“Are you hungry too, little friend? I’ll feed you something as soon as we’re back at school. But first I need to make a stop. Here.” Katie tore off a corner of the bread from her sandwich and pressed it through the wires. The dove pecked at the bun and appeared only mildly interested.
“I’ll give you your own food soon. I promise.”
Pulling into Todd and Christy’s apartment complex, Katie went to the office. The less-than-friendly manager remembered her from when she had reported the dead cat, Mr. Jitters, last fall.
“I was wondering if you had any open apartments.”
“Not until the first of the month.”
“I’d be interested in it.”
He went through the rundown of the requirement of first and last months’ rent and what was included and not included in the rates. He gave her an application to fill out and stressed the need for her credit report to be clear.
“Got it,” Katie said. “Thanks. I’ll drop these papers back tomorrow.”
“Not only the papers, but also a cashier’s check. I don’t take personal checks. First and last plus security deposit. And it’s extra for pets.”
“How much extra?”
“Depends on the pet. Whatcha got?”
“No pets. I was just curious.”
Katie drove back to campus, counting the days before June 1. She hadn’t asked the manager, but she assumed she would be moving into Rick and Eli’s apartment. After she moved out of the dorm on Sunday, she would need to find someplace to stay until the apartment was available. Todd and Christy’s living room was an option. Going to a hotel was an option.
What if I took a vacation for a few days? That would be fun. Who would go with me? Where would I go?
She smiled to herself. I’m fully immunized. I could even take one of those sketchy old people’s cruises through the Panama Canal. Or I could lounge around at a resort in the Bahamas. That would be a nice graduation present to myself.
Glancing down at the caged dove, she heard Jon’s words about how she would be okay if she were released into the wild.
Or I could go to Africa.
Her heart beat a little faster. The pull to that corner of the world wouldn’t go away.
I could go to Africa except Eli’s going there, and even though it’s a big continent, I don’t want to look as if I’m following him to the ends of the earth.
Then, in an attempt to spiritualize her small epiphany about her draw to Africa, Katie said aloud, “But I do want to follow you to the ends of the earth, Lord. Where do you want me to go? Say the word, and I’m there.”
“Coo,” the dove sounded.
“The Land of Coo, you say. Exactly where is that, my little dove?” Katie had stopped at a light. She realized the man in the car beside her was looking at her. She pushed the button that rolled up her window.
Turning her attention back to the traffic light, she said, “Don’t mind me, Mr. Nosey. This is what college graduates do. We drive around and talk to birds that you can’t see just so you think we’re talking to ourselves.”
Heading up the hill for the university, Katie thought aloud. “I would have to sell my car if I went to the Land of Coo, wouldn’t I? You know, I could sell it to Christy. For a dollar.
I’ve heard of people doing that. That way she and Todd would have a second car and you, little Clover, would have a new family.”
“Coo. Coo.”
“I know. You’re right. I am cuckoo for even thinking about this. I’ll take Rick and Eli’s old apartment, and I’ll find a job somewhere doing something important and life-changing. You’ll see. You can fly over and visit anytime you want. I’ll put bird seed out for you the way Christy used to put cat food out for Mr. Jitters.”
Katie held the birdcage behind her garment bag when she returned to Crown Hall. She knew the rules. No animals. This was different, though. This little dove was going to play an important part in Julia’s wedding in three days. Certainly in this case an exception should be made.
She couldn’t do it.
Katie turned around and walked back to her car. She drove back down the hill to where Christy worked and left the bird in the car. Entering the bookstore, Katie found Christy stocking shelves in the Bible section.
“I need to ask a favor. Can you keep a secret and a bird?”
It didn’t take much to convince Christy to agree to birdie-sit for Katie for the next three days. The only part of Katie’s explanation that upset Christy was when Katie told Christy she had driven all the way to the pet store in Escondido and not taken her along.
“Jon wants you to go in sometime and say hi. And when you do, I think you should take him one of these Bibles. An easy-to-understand version. He needs some hope, light, and truth in his life.”
With the dove and bird food handed off to Christy, Katie returned to campus and found Julia in her room. Julia had prepared a list of small wedding tasks and was grateful that Katie offered to take care of them for her. Katie accomplished half the list while she was on-duty at the front desk that evening. She called the campus grounds supervisor to verify the number of chairs they would need to set up. She called the events rental company and left a message asking them to call back and verify that they had the right length white runner for the center aisle and that it would be delivered along with the garden arch before ten o’clock Saturday morning. The final call Katie made for Julia was to the tux rental shop. They were still open, and Katie asked if the groom and the best man had picked up their tuxes. The answer was yes.
Coming Attractions Page 24