Their pizza preferences couldn’t have been more opposite. Cara piled the pineapple from half of ‘her’ slices onto the slices she ate and relished the combination of flavors while Jonathan looked on utterly disgusted—almost shuddering at the sight of fruit on pizza. Cara stared at his plate and asked, “How can you taste anything? It’s just a bundle of homogenous flavors.”
The movie ended, the guy got the girl, but Jonathan’s and Cara’s ninety-seven minute escape from the reality of his rapidly approaching departure disappeared with the credits. Smiling weakly, Cara whispered the classic line, “I want my two dollars” as if it made any sense.
~*~*~*~
All around him, clocks ticked like little bombs waiting to explode. He thought if he heard another second hand shift, he’d lose what little sanity he’d clung to for the past hour. He didn’t want to leave, he couldn’t stay, and Cara maddeningly seemed oblivious.
“Can I ask an irrelevant, premature, and very rude question?”
After an hour of silence, Jonathan’s question seemed to startle her. “Well, um—of course.”
“Could you ever choose a man over your clocks?”
She started to laugh but a glance at Jonathan choked it. “Are you serious?”
“I don’t think I could sit in my living room night after night and hear the crazy ticks of clocks without losing my mind.”
“Because we’re sitting here now going insane with repressed chemistry or because you truly hate clocks?”
Jonathan groaned. “Because I had this picture of cuddling with my wife in our living room while talking about our days and I couldn’t hear what she said because clocks were counting down until they all exploded in unison in my brain.”
“Oh, good.” She wiped her brow in dramatic exaggeration. “For a minute, I thought you were serious but then I heard you say talking about your day.”
He didn’t laugh. He watched as she looked for the familiar twinkle in his eye, a twitch of the lip, or the inability to meet her gaze, but he returned her gaze without flinching. He didn’t communicate via thought, expression, or word. He simply looked.
“Are you serious? My clocks bother you that much?”
“They do right now.” Misery flooded him. “It’s rude and insensitive of me but—”
Cara sighed. “But they bother you.”
He nodded. “A lot more than I realized.”
“Are you saying I have to choose you or my clocks?” Her expression told him she considered the notion absurd.
“Not exactly. I mean, they’re just clocks. I—I don’t know what I was asking. Maybe I should go.”
Cara stared at him in abject shock. “You’re kidding me. I’ve spent a week investing in getting to know you because I knew we had something going between us, and you’re ‘dumping’ me over my clocks. This is ridiculous!” She jumped to her feet, ranting about the ludicrosity, which Jonathan was fairly certain wasn’t a word, of falling in love with a man who lives hundreds of miles away in a sterile environment. “Me! I can’t believe I did this,” she shouted to no one in particular and then reached for her water bottle as her voice cracked on the last word.
“Cara mia…” the earnestness, the blatant affection in Jonathan’s voice might normally have melted some important organ or another, but in the midst of Cara’s raving, it vanished.
“Don’t you Cara mia or youa or any otheruh me. I’m mad.”
She stalked into one of the bedrooms down the hall and returned with a box. All around the room, she gathered clocks. The mantle clock she said she’d found at a little antique store in Fairbury, the mini clocks made from pewter and studded with marcasite, and the porcelain beauties that, according to her raving commentary, she’d found on every one of her childhood vacations all piled in the box willy-nilly. Jonathan watched in horror for a minute before he rushed to stop her.
“No, Cara. Don’t. You’re going to break something precious to you—”
“Apparently, I have to choose preciousnesses. I chose you. Aren’t you proud?”
“Stop.”
She ranted for a dozen or two more seconds before she whirled and glared at him. “Did you just order me to stop?”
“I just gave you the equivalent of a verbal slap. I don’t strike women, but you are hysterical, and I had to do the next best thing.”
“Hysterical! I’ll show you hysterical! It’s hysterical that I spent a week falling for a guy that is obviously not who I thought he was. Hysterical!”
With that, she collapsed into her favorite chair, clutching an embroidered pillow and nearly tearing it with frustration. Before he could move toward her, she threw the pillow at his legs, laughing sheepishly. “Sorry. I think I’m a bit out of it today. Mom would say, ‘high strung.’”
“I think we both are.”
He knelt beside her, hesitated, took her hand in his, covered it with his other hand, and just held it. For several minutes, they didn’t move, didn’t speak, breathing only when their lungs demanded it. At last, Jonathan’s voice rasped, “I don’t want to go, Cara.”
“I don’t want you to go either.”
“There’s tomorrow…”
She groaned. “I forgot. Mom wants me to bring you, and if you can, your children, to church with me and then to their house for Sunday dinner.”
Jonathan sighed. “I want to meet them—well your father—and see your mother again, I do. I just hoped to spend some time with you tomorrow…” He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to find words that wouldn’t offend. “We have so little time on Monday—just the trip to the station.”
“We’ll have most of the afternoon and all evening. It’s not the same as all day, but it’s more than we’ve had each day this week…”
“But you said Sunday dinner… we can’t just eat and run…”
Laughing, Cara shook her head. “Sorry, you don’t know my mom. Southern thing. Dinner is lunch. Supper is dinner. Monday through Saturday, we eat dinner last meal of the day, but on Sunday, it’s the meal after church.” She stared at him. “You live in Atlanta. You should know this.”
“Will they be offended if I don’t bring the children?”
“Of course not, but why not?”
He sighed. “My children become very attached to people very quickly. I think it may have something to do with not having a mother around. Just from the forty-nine or so seconds I had with your mother, and all you’ve said about your father, I know my children will love them. I try to avoid allowing them to make unnecessary or premature attachments. Does that make sense?”
“Will you want to spend another day apart from them?”
“My parents are spending all of their time immersing them in our family. I’ll take them to breakfast, drop them off at Sunday school, and then come over to Westbury Community—that’s where you go, right? Vince Lanzo’s church?”
“Vince would slug you for that—or at least preach for an hour or two.”
“Dinner with your parents?”
She smiled. “A walk in the park afterward?”
“Supper somewhere quiet?” At her nod, Jonathan whispered, “See you in the morning. I’ve got to go.”
Cara squeezed his hand before she let him go. “You’re coming back—even after I flipped out on you?”
“You’re letting me come back—even after I insulted your collection?”
Laughing, she pulled herself to her feet and walked him to the door. “A match made in heaven.”
Jonathan walked halfway to his car and turned around, jogging back to her door. He unlocked the door and peeked his head inside, calling into the darkness that already enshrouded the living room, “This match would almost be heaven, Cara mia.”
Chapter Thirteen
Whispers around them made Jonathan and Cara more than a little self-conscious that Sunday morning. The church at Westbury had always been a close-knit family. When their teens were abducted on the road to camp several years in a row, the church banded together to wee
p, pray for, search for, and help heal the emotional and spiritual scars. When one of their members lost her memory in an unexplained medical anomaly, they wept and prayed again. Seeing their most “commitment phobic” single woman sitting beside a strikingly handsome man, her parents beaming with joy, told them more than introductions ever could.
Vince, their beloved pastor for over fifteen years, stood to announce their primary text for the morning when he caught sight of the source of the morning’s excitement. He stumbled through the passage, skipping several words and repeating others. Jonathan leaned down to ask Cara if something terrible had happened that week and started an unexpected chain of events. Vince broke down weeping as he watched the visitor show gentleness and attentiveness for one of his favorite people. Cara’s welcoming response intensified his emotional reaction.
Seeing the familiar occurrence, the congregation smiled at their emotional shepherd. The elders came forward, one whispering something in his ear, and another led the congregation in a few of the more contemporary “devotional” songs often sung by the teens in their prayer times.
After the third round of singing Lamentations 3:22-24, Vince took his familiar place behind the pulpit, shrugged sheepishly, and grinned. “You know me too well to be surprised. When I see something that touches me, I weep. God is good—let’s open His Word and try again.”
After the service, Cara turned to Jonathan hesitantly. “Okay, here’s the real question. Do you want me to introduce you to Vince or not?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“You saw him,” she said, blushing again. “He’s already emotional about the fact that I came with a man. If I introduce you—”
“I met him two years ago at a wedding in Brunswick. My friend, Nolan—”
“But you’re here with me today. That’s tantamount to taking you home to meet the parents.”
“I am going home to meet the parents, Cara,” Jonathan teased. “Let’s ‘meet’ the pastor too, shall we?”
Vince’s eyes lit up, excitement shining in them. “Cara carina!”
“Vince, you’ve met Jonathan Lyman I believe?”
“You look familiar but I meet so many people…” Vince, in his typical, frank fashion, didn’t even try to hide his curiosity.
“I met Jonathan at Julia’s wedding. We’ve spent most of the week together.”
Surprised to hear Cara volunteer information, Jonathan nevertheless stood a little straighter, squared his shoulders, and confidently returned Vince’s questioning gaze. “I believe the last time we met you were getting your picture taken by Nolan Burke’s photographer at his wedding.”
Nodding, Vince now recognized the man standing before him. “You told Chuck Majors to stop tormenting a little boy. Something about kissing a girl…”
“That was my son, and yes, I did let some idiot have it for—”
“When it comes to Chuck, just his name explains the problem. So, where is your son today? Does your wife have weekend custody?”
Mortified, Cara hurried to explain before Vince made an awkward moment worse, but Jonathan laid his hand on her shoulder, effectively silencing her. “My wife is with Jesus, and my children are at Rockland First Church with my parents this morning.”
“Oh, I am grieved to hear that. Rejoicing for her, of course, but…”
For the first time, Jonathan believed someone when they said they were grieved for him. He could fully believe that someone like Vince could both rejoice and grieve for another person so empathetically. “I work hard to help my children focus on the blessings of a mother no longer in pain, at the feet of Jesus, and waiting and praying for them.”
“How long—”
“Nearly three years.”
The amused couple watched Vince process this time frame, calculate the odds that he was sufficiently through the grief process to be ready for another relationship, and come to an indeterminate conclusion. “Oops. I’d love to talk more, but Lisa’s giving me her evil eye, which means I’m being rude. So glad to meet you, and I hope to see you next week, Jonathan.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible. I go back to Atlanta in the morning, but it was great to be here and meet you. I appreciated your sermon this morning.”
Cara nudged him toward his car, waving at Vince as they walked away. As she glanced back at him, her pastor held his fingers up to his ears in the universal “call me” sign. “Oh dear, I’ve opened a can of worms. Vince is telling me to call him.”
He opened her door but stood close, preventing her from sitting. “Give him my number too.” He reached to brush away a tendril from her cheek, but pulled his hand back reluctantly. “He may need further reassurance.” At the look of frustration in Cara’s eyes, Jonathan smiled. “He’s doing his job, Cara. Be glad. Too many elders and pastors are detached from their people these days.”
~*~*~*~
While Cara and her mother put the finishing touches on “dinner,” Russ Lass tried to learn more about Jonathan. To no one’s surprise, least of all Russ’, a decided attempt at nonchalance ensured the most blatant grilling Jonathan had ever endured. From family, to education, to work experience, Jonathan good-naturedly answered every question, expounded where appropriate, and reassured the concerned father that, if in his power, Cara wouldn’t be hurt.
“I sure wish you’d have brought your children. Cara is just in love with them; she’s told me so much about each of them,” Diane murmured wistfully after the prayer of thanksgiving for the meal.
“Mom!” Cara’s face flushed miserably.
Unusually oblivious to her daughter’s distress, Diane continued her rambling monologue. “Riley is quite a charmer, isn’t she? Cara says she is absolutely delightful. Oh, and Bryson! I hear he’s the most precocious child—very intuitive, according to Cara.”
“Well,” Jonathan agreed, somewhat taken aback but definitely amused. “I think they’re wonderful, but they are my children. I can’t imagine anyone would expect me to think anything less of them.”
“So what do you do in Atlanta, Jonathan?” Russ sounded determined to give Jonathan a break—by adding to his previous interrogation.
“I’m the CCE—Chief Communications Executive of Delta Advertising in Atlanta.”
“You’re one of those Lymans?” Diane’s eyes grew wide. “Are you the advertising genius nephew who is being groomed to take over as CEO when Weston Lyman retires?”
“That would be me,” Jonathan admitted, “but I don’t think I can be expected to own to being a genius and still be expected to be taken seriously.”
Even Cara was impressed. They’d never discussed his job in detail, but now she looked at him curiously. “I heard Wyngate Corp has a big meeting with your company in early July. Curtis Brighton is working up a new campaign for their west coast division.”
“Curtis is good. I’ve never been disappointed in anything he’s done.”
Russ listened, interested in Jonathan’s job. “Curtis works for you?”
“No, he’s at the Rockland office. I’m in Atlanta. I’m getting my on the job training, so to speak.”
“Just what does a Chief Communications whatever do?” Diane smiled as she refilled her glass.
“Honestly, I’m a glorified marketer. It’s my job to make sure that we’re convincing clients to come to us in the first place.”
“Do you like it?” Cara couldn’t imagine Jonathan in such an interactive position. He must spend hours talking on phones, to clients, to employees…
“Actually, I do, and if it isn’t too arrogant, I’m good at it. I spent my childhood watching my uncle, and he’s the best in the business.”
“Who are some of your most interesting clients? Anyone we know?” Diane was growing more fascinated every minute.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Laas. Professional courtesy demands that I keep the names of my clients confidential. To discuss them openly would be indiscreet at the very least.” He winked. “However, if you did a Google search for our company and
added ‘client list,’ then whatever information came up there is not inappropriate for you to know. People cannot expect complete privacy when they are not as careful with their information as we are.”
Jonathan spent the next hour discussing his church, his travel, and his disdain for airlines. It occurred to him that Cara had probably learned more about his daily life during the meal than she had all week, but he also knew she saw very little of his personhood. When he thought he couldn’t take another moment of conversation centered on himself, he caught Cara giving her father a silent plea for help.
Russ pushed out his chair and stood. “Well, Diane. We’d better get changed if we’re going for that walk in the park. I’m very glad to meet you, Jonathan. I only wish you lived closer.”
“As do I, Mr. Laas.”
After her parents left the room, Cara stood. “Do you have plans for us this afternoon?”
“Not really. We have a few hours before dinner—or supper.” He winked. “What did you have in mind?”
“Paddleboats on the lake. We could stop by my house, I’d change…” She glanced at him skeptically. “Then again…”
“I have jeans and a shirt in my car.”
In less than two hours, they paddled across Lake Danube, enjoying the warm spring afternoon. Cara sighed. “I love this lake. The island in the middle is so pretty to paddle around, and then there are the water skiers and the fishermen…” Cara’s voice drifted lazily around them as they peddled near the overhanging willow boughs.
Their quiet camaraderie had returned somewhere between Cara’s home and Fairbury and continued as their feet pushed the pedals and Jonathan steered the rudder back and forth as he maneuvered around the little island. Trees rustling in the afternoon breeze, the occasional put-put of a small fishing boat coming in from the day’s catch, and the lapping of the water against the boat lulled Cara to sleep, causing her hat to slip off her head and into the lake.
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