“Actually, he’s cooler away from work—even has a sense of humor.” Why was she defending Nick? Especially after his grumpy behavior during the unexpected concert last night. No matter. Today, she’d let nothing stand in the way of creating her new image. “Oh, I played ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ on their Steinway. Not just any Steinway, but a grand. It’s a dream.”
“A lovely lake and a grand piano. I’d say things are looking up.”
“Looking down is more like it.”
“What do you mean?”
“They put me in an attic room that affords me an awesome view. Anyway, I originally called you because I needed you as my accountability partner.”
“Ah, ha. Another challenge. I have one for you, too. I’m going to ski down a black diamond trail before we leave, if it kills me.”
Cisney laughed. “It probably will.”
“The pun’s been good for several laughs around here. Tom complains he doesn’t want a fiancée with a broken back. He wants to know how I’ll be able to wait on him with a damaged spine after we’re married. But making it to the bottom of a black diamond is my challenge. What’s yours?”
“I have to maintain a fifteen-minute dialog with Nick, with no pauses over a minute, or I have to start the clock again.”
“I’m talking black diamond, here, and you’re talking fifteen minutes of conversation? If you want a notch on your challenge belt, make it a half hour.”
“I’ve sort of lost interest—”
A guffaw sounded in the background of Angela’s phone.
Every cell in Cisney’s body went rigid. “That laugh! I’d recognize it anywhere.”
4
Cisney pressed her cell against her ear. “What’s Jason doing there with you?” She grasped the top of one of the armchairs to steady her trembling legs.
“Making breakfast.” Angela’s voice squeaked. “Aw, Cis, I’m sorry. He sort of invited himself along at the last minute.”
“Is she there with him?”
“She’s a beautiful doormat, nothing like you at—”
“I can’t talk anymore.” Cisney dropped her cell. It landed on the cushion of the armchair. How could Jason betray her using her friends?
She dug her fingers into her hair and paced the length of the window. Her lungs labored to pull in air, and her chest ached. Did the rat know her friends were planning a skiing trip before he dumped her? Did he get rid of her so he could take Miss Beautiful Doormat skiing instead of her?
Cisney punched her fists upward. Her knuckles scuffed the inclining ceiling. Rubbing her chaffed skin, she dropped into an armchair and rocked. Her forehead knocked on the cold window glass with each forward sway. This was not happening. This couldn’t be happening.
Below where Nick sat reading by the lake, he turned a page of his book. How could he be so nonchalant down there when she’d been stabbed in the back up here?
She threw herself backwards against the chair. I can’t do this—can’t go downstairs and play gracious guest. I need to go home.
Yes. Home. By herself. She shot to her feet and looked for a phone book in the drawer of the bedside table. It housed a Bible and a small box of tissues. She pitched the Bible on the bed and peered behind the box. Nothing. She snatched several tissues and wiped at the tears drenching her face. The trunk at the end of the bed held only photo albums.
Stop! Why are you looking for a phone book? She grabbed her phone, identified her current location on Maps, and bought an online Greyhound Bus ticket leaving from Statesville, a city about twenty minutes away. In the direction of home.
****
Nick looked up from his Bible and out over the lake. A great blue heron flew overhead. He’d missed his quiet times by the lake. Lord, You have comforted me today.
Since Dana had called off their relationship, God had faithfully directed him to Scriptures that furthered his healing. What a merciful God. His Lord had not only taken care of his sins for eternity, but He cared about his daily scrapes.
Nick ran his finger over the Scripture in Second Corinthians…Who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
Was he ready to move forward? Lord, did you guide Dana to call me last week? Please lead me away from Option A if it’s not Your will for us to work together.
No thoughts or Scriptures spoke to what he should do about Option A. God’s focus today seemed to be on comfort and not on guidance for employment options. He’d just let the job situation play out and stay alert for God’s nudges.
The heron landed near the shore by the boathouse. What a perfect day to paddle around in the rowboat, or maybe take out the canoe for some exercise. His huffing and puffing up the stairs last night, carrying Cisney’s complete wardrobe, proved he needed to get into some kind of workout routine.
Was the sleeping beauty up yet? Would she enjoy going out on the lake? No need to entertain her—the family would line up for her attention as soon as she came downstairs—but he’d like to take her out and show her the lake.
He looked up at the round window of her room. The curtains were open. She must be up. He’d finish reading the Second Corinthians passage, and then—she passed by the window. He removed his glasses. Was she dancing, or practicing karate moves?
****
Cisney threw her phone onto the bed and shot her fists above her head. “Give me strength! And a ride to the bus station.” Images of Jason and his new girlfriend in trendy ski outfits snuggling on the ski lift broke into her mind. “Lord, why is Jason torturing me?”
She wanted to throw something. A pillow wouldn’t satisfy. She beat her thighs and shook her head. That helped. Didn’t she have the right to act like a mad mongrel in the privacy of her room?
A picture of Jason introducing what’s-her-name to Cisney’s friends snapped into her head. What was this? A slideshow of “Jason Betrays Cisney”? “Oohh! Why can’t the creep just disappear from my life?”
Cisney stomped to the bathroom, ducking her head where the ceiling slanted. Why didn’t Daddy see what a jerk his choice for her future was? In one sweep, she collected her toiletries, returned to the room, and then flung them into her suitcase. Couldn’t Jason be content with knocking her down, without trampling her face into the muck?
Nick had better agree to take her to the bus station. Cisney didn’t care how long she had to wait on a sticky bench surrounded by candy wrappers. In this state, she had to get out of here now, before people in holiday moods started being thankful. She slammed the suitcase closed, wrestled it to the floor, and strode to the door.
Wham!
She staggered backwards from the sloped ceiling, her hands going to her forehead. The back of her legs connected with the upright suitcase. She lost her balance and sat on it. The suitcase rolled back. She slid off and landed hard on the carpeted floor. Stunned, she sat a moment, and then made sure nothing hurt unreasonably, other than the bump surely forming on her forehead.
Calm down before you kill yourself.
She needed to get to Nick while he was still alone.
In double-time, she crawled to the landing outside her dwarfed door, stood, and listened for sounds of movement on the second floor. Handling nice people was out of the question. Detecting silence, she crept down two flights of stairs. When she reached the foyer, words drifted from the kitchen and intermingled with the conversation emitting from the living room. She stealthily made a tight turn around the staircase newel and headed down the hallway toward the back of the house.
When she reached a butler’s pantry, which opened into both the dining room and the kitchen, she scooted past, but not before making out Nancy’s voice coming from the kitchen.
“Did you see Cisney’s pearl engagement ring? They’re engaged! Did she think because her gem is a pearl we’d be fooled?”
“I hope you’re right,” Ellie’s voice said. “She’s perfect for Nick.”
Cisney clamped h
er hands to her head and dug her fingers into her hair. Pain shot to the pulsing lump on her forehead. Huffing a cry through her bared teeth, she scurried from the chatter of the gullible women. What next? Could anything else go wrong?
She escaped through the mudroom door, trudged toward the lake across the trimmed lawn—her two-inch heels aerating the grass—and planted herself in front of Nick. She dropped her gaze to the book on his lap. He was reading the Bible? Nick read the Bible?
Stay focused.
He looked up. His dimpled smile formed, and then disappeared. He studied her with sober concern.
She paced the lawn in front of him and flapped her hands. He probably thought she looked like an agitated duck. She clasped her hands in front of her. “I know this is a bad time, right on Thanksgiving Day, but I have to go home.”
He removed his glasses and stared at her. Good, he didn’t interrupt her with an inane question like, “Who died?”
Her face crumpled and tears overruled her will. “I can’t do this. I don’t want to pretend in front of your wonderful family that everything is all right. I don’t want a notch on my challenge belt by getting you to dialog for fifteen minutes. I just want to go home. I want to be alone.” She curbed an escaped wail. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean for this to sound as if it’s about you. It’s about Jason.” She stopped and faced him. “He—he is with all my—my friends in Colorado.” She punctuated her words with chops from her open hands, hiccupping between phrases. “They are my friends. I—I—I introduced him to them, and now he’s wheedled his way in on their ski trip and brought along his new girlfriend.”
Nick stared at her like a stunned bird. How could he not react to Jason’s treachery?
She clutched her handful of tissues to her face to stifle another wail. Gritting her teeth, she pulled herself together and glanced at the yellow sticky attached to her phone. “My Greyhound bus leaves at ten fifty-five this morning from Statesville. Will you take me there now? I’m all packed. You’d be back within an hour.” Please, please don’t argue.
His gaze flicked toward the house, and then back to her. He laid his Bible and glasses on the bench, stood, grasped her hand, and pulled her toward the lake.
Hadn’t he heard a word she’d said? Was he going to throw her in the lake to stop her hysterics? “What are you doing?”
“I’m saving you.”
Save? Like baptize her in the lake? She tried to free her hand.
His grip tightened, and she double-stepped to avoid falling.
“Hey, Nick! I want to meet your lovely lady!”
Cisney looked over her shoulder while trying to keep up with Nick. A barefooted man wearing black dress pants and an unbuttoned oxford shirt revealing his undershirt stood on the grass near the back patio, one hand in his pocket and the other raising a glass of orange juice.
“Later, Tony!” Nick stopped at the boathouse next to the pier.
A rowboat, whose bow bobbed a foot from shore, was tethered on the opposite side of the pier.
Nick pointed at the craft. “Get in the boat.”
“Wha—”
Tony strode toward them.
She spun to Nick. Tony’s approach seemed to infuse urgency into Nick’s escape from the harmless-looking young man. She drew the bow of the boat onto the grass. No way was she water-staining her black kid pumps. She climbed inside and, sliding her hands along the wobbly boat’s edges, moved to the back and sat. Nick took the pier steps two at a time and drew oars from hooks inside the boathouse.
Tony had covered half the distance to the pier. “Hey, man. I just want to meet her!”
Nick descended the pier’s steps and tossed the oars in the rowboat. He unfastened the rope from the pier, shoved the boat into the water, gracefully hopped inside, and back-paddled the small craft with one oar to deeper water.
Once away from shore, she caught sight of a pontoon inside the boathouse. Couldn’t Nick have chosen the stable vessel for their getaway? He could forget her using her pumps to bail water from the rowboat.
At the shoreline, Tony stopped and spread his hands. “I’ll button my shirt!”
Nick rowed. “Tell Mom we’ll be back in about an hour.”
After Tony turned and trudged up to the house, Nick helped her wobble to the forward seat as he balanced the boat. Once she sat facing him, he took the seat in the stern and secured the oars in the oarlocks.
She fastened her gaze on him, but he avoided her eyes while he turned the boat.
His maneuver completed, he looked at her and shrugged mid-row. “I didn’t think you’d want to meet Tony when, you know…” He released an oar and made little circles with his hand near his hair.
Oh, no. Where could she hide in an open rowboat? Her head-thrashing fit in her room could only mean she looked like a cavewoman. She raked her fingers through her hair, and pain exploded from her forehead. She winced.
Nick’s hand dropped to his eyes, and then down to his lips. He shrugged sheepishly.
She pictured smeared mascara and lipstick all over her face. She used her handful of tissues, now a soggy ball in her fist, to wipe under her eyes and around her mouth.
He nodded toward her. “That swelling on your forehead is turning an angry red. Looks as if you were moving at warp speed and forgot to duck. How’d the ceiling fare?”
Certainly he jested. Could her forehead have dented the ceiling?
“Now you see why I need to go home.” She hadn’t meant to sound so whiny.
“Take out your cell and cancel your bus ticket.”
“I can’t face your family. Please understand.”
“You need my family, not a three-day pity party by yourself in your apartment.”
“What would you know about dealing with a relationship gone bad—really bad? I don’t need your…philosophical…advice. I need a ride to the bus station.”
Was he going to make her miss her bus? She peered over the side. The water looked a little deep to walk to shore.
He ceased rowing and cocked his head upward. Any moment, he would say something profound from his wealth of inexperience. He resumed rowing at an easy pace. “May I ask you a few questions? You don’t have to answer them out loud.”
“As long as I don’t have to answer them, go ahead and knock yourself out.”
“Do you read the Bible?”
Oh, brother. Here came the sermon. Maybe she could head him off his track. “Yes. I don’t read my Bible as often as I should, but I’ve read through it in Sunday school over the years.” That should at least thwart him from starting at Creation.
“First question…” He swept his hand to include the whole lake. “Who created the earth—all this?”
Stating her Bible credentials hadn’t done the trick. At this rate, she’d miss her bus. A fish jumped, radiating concentric circles on the water. Admittedly, this monstrous lake did represent a beautiful piece of God’s work. “God did.”
“Does God make promises?”
“You mean, like His promise never to leave or forsake us, or like His covenant promises to Abraham and to Moses and to the Israelites and to all people?” He hadn’t tripped her up yet.
“Like both. Does God keep His promises?”
“Yes, the best being that He sent His Son Jesus to die on a cross to make a way to save us from our sins. Is this going somewhere?” Anywhere?
“Yes. Has God prophesied great historical events?”
“Yep.” A-plus comin’ at ‘cha. “God prophesied the Israelites’ exile to Babylon. The Israelites were exiled. He prophesied that Cyrus from Persia would later free them and allow them to return to the Promised Land. In God’s prophesy he called Cyrus by name. One-hundred-fifty years later Cyrus freed the Israelites, and they returned to the Promised Land.” She was on a roll now. “And, of course, the no-brainer, Jesus’s coming. We know Jesus will return because God promised that, too.” Maybe Jesus could come again now and put her out of her misery.
His head jerked backwards as
his eyes widened. “I’m impressed. I’m not sure I’d have come up with the example of Cyrus so quickly. That’s a great example of God’s sovereignty.”
Did she really look like an idiot? Well, maybe now, since she looked like a wild woman. But did she, usually?
He pulled the oars up to rest on the edges of the craft and let the boat drift. “Did God merely know these events would happen?”
“No. He planned them, prophesied them, and executed them.”
“Jeremiah gives another promise from God, ‘For I know the plans—’”
“‘I have for you…plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.‘“ If that was the Scripture he’d been going for all along, why didn’t he just say it, instead of all the questions?
“Exactly. So, sum up what all this means about God.”
“That wasn’t a question.” She was being difficult, and probably unfair, but all these questions. What did they have to do with Jason or her need to go home?
He rolled his eyes. “How would you sum up what your answers say about God’s character?”
She felt as if she were on stage for table topics at Toastmasters—make that, rowboat topics. “God is the all-powerful, all-knowing Creator and hands-on Promise Keeper, who plans and controls everything for the love and good of His people and for His glory.” The glory part should earn her a bonus point.
His jaw dropped a half-inch. “Great summary.”
She shrugged.
He captured her gaze. “So, God has great plans for His people, and God promises His plans are for their good, to prosper them and not to harm them, to give them hope and a future?”
She widened her eyes and nodded. Would he ever get to the real point?
“Do you think it’s possible marriage to Jason was not God’s plan for you? That God planned someone better for you?” He looked away toward the distant shore and plunged his oars into the water and pulled hard. “After the guy broke up with you over the phone, and then invited himself and his new girlfriend on your friends’ ski trip, maybe you should thank God for foiling your plans.”
Calculated Risk Page 5