by Rob Mclean
“Your mother said I could find you here,” he went on, by way of explanation, “so here I am.”
“So here you are,” she repeated, still looking around. She found that Chelsea was watching them from behind the counter. She grimaced and moved John over to the clothing section, out of sight of the goth voyeur.
“Look, I…” she began, but John saw that she was uncomfortable talking to him in the store.
“Did you want to get some lunch?” he asked, hoping that she would feel more at ease someplace else.
“Sure,” she smiled.
Angela called to Chelsea to say that she was going out for lunch.
“I should join you,” Chelsea said with a coy grin.
“No, that’s okay,” Angela replied. John raised an eyebrow at Angela questioningly, but she waved away his concerns. “Besides, who’ll look after the shop?”
“Alright then,” she conceded, “but I might drop by later, okay?”
“Okay,” Angela agreed. “We’ll just be at Gino’s.”
They had left the shop and had gone a way along the street before Angela explained that Chelsea was her boss as well as her friend. John didn’t need any help from his father’s voice to decide that there must be more to the two girl’s relationship.
A few shopfronts later, they reached Gino’s, a lively, independent coffee shop that did a range of meals, but mostly of the Italian variety.
John ordered ravioli bolognaise with garlic bread, Angela, a chicken focaccia. They both ordered cappuccinos. When it came to paying for it, John asked her to let him get it.
“No, we’ll split the bill. I don’t want to be any more indebted to you than I already am.”
John let it go. He didn’t want to argue with her. He was just happy that she chose to spend some time with him.
They found a table outside on the sidewalk, but under the shade of the veranda. The midday sun was out; the vast blueness of the sky was undiminished by any clouds. It was another glorious west coast summer day.
Angela fished around in her bag for a pair of sunglasses and put them on. They hid her stunning blue eyes. He remembered how much he wanted to open her eyes the first night he saw her, but daren’t, lest he wake her. Now they were hidden from him again. He wondered what else she was keeping from him. ‘When she’s ready, son,’ his father’s voice assured him. John took a deep breath and tried for some small-talk.
“Did you see our President on television this morning?” John asked.
“No, I was busy. What has she done?”
“She made an address to the nation declaring that the US of A is still a God-fearing nation. You know, ‘in God we trust’ and stuff about the founding fathers.”
“So she should,” said Angela.
“Except that she is only really speaking for her own party and not for the nation as a whole.”
“Do you think so? They were elected, weren’t they? So don’t they represent the people?”
“For a start, some political experts on television were saying that, since voting isn’t compulsory, not everyone voted…
“That’s their problem,” she interrupted. “Maybe they’ll take more interest next time.”
“They sure will, but there’s also division within her party. You see, some states are apparently said to be going against the party line. It seems not all Republicans are full-on Christians.”
“So? They’ll just have to wait until the next election, won’t they?” Her tone was terse and short.
“Sure,” John agreed, “Unless there’s some sort of in-party revolt before then.”
“This is America,” she said as if speaking to a small child, “not Bolivia. Those sorts of things just don’t happen here.” She crossed her arms, sat back and looked over his shoulder back along the street towards her shop. She must be looking out for Chelsea, he thought, and again wondered what it was with her and the goth girl.
John frowned and nodded. “I hope you’re right. Things could get nasty if it all gets out of hand.”
Angela sat there silently, hidden behind her sunglasses, but John felt from her posture and tone of her voice that she was angry about something. He hoped it wasn’t him.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “I’m getting bad vibes. Something wrong?”
She flashed a sad smile at him. She picked up a napkin and nervously tore little pieces from it. He waited, following his father’s voice to give her time. After a few moments, she stopped and looked around briefly before saying quietly, “Someone sprayed graffiti on our shopfront last night. It read ‘God is dead.’ And they signed it ‘ET.’
John felt anger well up inside. “Why would they need to do that?” he asked. “Being funny, I suppose?”
“I hope that’s all it was,” Angela said, but John could see that by her the mangled napkin in her clenched, white knuckled hands that she was both angry and worried by it. He also realised that she was probably indirectly annoyed at him for being ‘one of them.’ He put his hands on hers. They were cool, despite the warm day and trembling slightly. She didn’t pull them away, he was glad to see.
“I’m sorry that some mindless idiots thought it would be fun to harass you and Chelsea,” he said looking into the darkness of her sunglasses. “I’m sure it wasn’t personal.”
“She was pretty upset…”
“Yeah, it would be scary.”
“Her family owns the shop, but she was more worried that I might get hurt.”
“She seems nice,” he tried to sound sincere. Angela took her hands back from his and continued to unravel the napkin.
“I doubt you would like her.” A note of bitterness put an edge to her voice. “For a start, she’s a Christian, despite appearances.”
John smiled, “Some Christians are more likeable than others. Present company included.”
He caught a crooked smile from her, before she added, “She’s also Zeke’s sister.”
“Okay, that explains her trying to gatecrash our lunch,” John said.
“Uh huh. And you thought it was just your manly good looks, right?” Angela said with a half smile. He couldn’t help but copy it.
“So aren’t you worried that she’ll be reporting back to him about you having lunch with a strange man?”
Her smile vanished. She turned and stared out to the street. Her elegant profile was marred by her lips pressing hard together. She shook her head before fossicking a tissue from her bag. She turned to face John. “I really don’t know if I care anymore,” she said, lifting her chin defiantly.
John nodded. It sounded encouraging, he thought, but he wondered if it were to do with the graffiti or the alien’s announcement or was it more about what was going on in her life with Zeke.
He remembered back to the Friday night, less than a week ago, when he had first seen her in the nightclub. The things she was wearing, the stilettos, the stockings; he now knew were totally out of character for her. What was she thinking that night? Had it been all for Zeke?
“Maybe Dad’s right,” she continued, “maybe Zeke is no good…”
“Maybe?” John said incredulously. “Just what is it with that guy? What on Earth do you see in him?” John couldn’t help himself. He knew he was being rude and abrupt, but he couldn’t understand how a trance-inducing beauty like her could be so taken with a creep like Zeke.
“We have history, Zeke and I. You see, I have always wanted to marry Zeke from as far back as I can remember.” She looked away and spoke as if John wasn’t there, confessing to an imaginary mentor. “It has always been my dream, as a little girl, to be with him. I have wished for nothing else.”
John said nothing. He knew that whatever he was to say now would not be nice and would most likely stop her from confiding in him evermore. He tried to be a good listener.
“We have promised ourselves to each other.”
“So why aren’t you married then?” he asked as gently as he could.
“He has said that we are supposed to be
getting married,” she faltered. Her jaw clenched as she swallowed down the tears that threatened, “except that he’s not ready.”
“It is a big commitment…” John said, deciding to play the Devil’s advocate.
“That’s just what he said,” she jabbed her finger accusingly at him. Her cheeks reddened as her anger flared.
“It’s not something you do lightly,” John said, “but then, nor is promising yourself to someone. That’s sort of like an unofficial marriage in some ways.”
“That’s how I saw it. He said that it was such a big commitment to each other that we should be sure of what we were doing.”
“Can’t fault that.”
“He suggested that we have a rumspringa,” she said as if it explained everything.
“A what?” John asked.
“The Amish have a tradition where their young people go out into the ‘world’ and experience everything that they want. It is supposed to help them resist the temptations the world has to offer during their latter married life, if they have done it all already.”
“I see,” John said. “Something forbidden is always more alluring than something you already know about?”
“Something like that,” she said, “except that it is only supposed to be for a year.” Her head dropped and her shoulders drooped as she fiddled with her hands in her lap.
John wanted to ask her more, but was interrupted by the meals arriving. The food looked delicious and his stomach growled to let him know what it wanted.
He thanked the waiter and asked after the cappuccinos.
Angela lifted her head and said, “Let’s eat, while it’s hot. I only have a lunch half-hour.”
John needed no encouragement. He attacked his pasta and offered Angela some garlic bread. She declined, saying she didn’t want to bad breath for her customers.
It was only after he had been eating quietly for a few moments that he realized what she had not started her meal, so he asked her, “Were you praying just then? Before you eat?”
“I was saying Grace, if that’s what you mean,” she replied, “and you should too.”
“How do you know that I didn’t?”
“I assumed you didn’t.”
“Well, I thanked the waiter and I’ll leave a tip by way of thanking the cook, so…”
“Saying Grace isn’t only about thanking God for the food,” she said. “It’s also about acknowledging that we only have it and all the other good things in the world because of God’s gracious generosity.”
“So we don’t say Grace for your graffiti artists?” he asked with a smile on his face.
“No, not the ones that deface our shop,” she replied returning his smile. “We’re supposed to pray for those ones.”
“They would be the ones praying if I caught them,” he said, taking another mouthful of bolognaise. Angela said nothing in return and started on her focaccia. They both ate in silence.
After John had finished his meal, he saw that Angela had barely eaten a quarter of hers. She had pulled her meal to pieces and played with it absently while he had demolished his.
“Something wrong with it?” he asked.
“No,” she answered, “just not that hungry.”
“I don’t know how girls do that,” he said. “How do you get by on just a mouthful of food all day? I’d be starving.”
“Just not hungry,” she repeated. Her voice trailed off. She sounded tired, or maybe sad John thought, but she didn’t elaborate.
“The rumspringa thing,” John asked suddenly, having remembered their earlier conversation. “What happened with that?”
She pushed her meal away and wiped her mouth with the remains of her tattered napkin. She took off her sunglasses, put them back into her bag, then gazed searchingly into his eyes. She took a deep breath. She leaned forward and John could see that she had wanted to talk to someone, to unload her story for quite a while. He was glad that he had asked the right question. ‘Good call, son,’ his father’s voice said quietly in his head.
“At first it was a lot of fun,” Angela began. “We went to a lot of places that we had never been allowed to go to before. We saw a lot of people that we would never have met if we stayed secluded away from the world. At first it brought us closer. We were exploring a whole new world together, one that we had only ever heard whispers of. One that existed alongside our own world, but until then, forever out of bounds and out of reach. It was liberating and exciting. We felt free and suddenly grown-up.”
“Sounds like a lot of fun,” he said. He imagined Zeke and Angela together having a wild time and hoped his jealousy didn’t show.
“It was,” she nodded in reply, but didn’t go on. John felt he knew what was coming.
“But…” he prompted.
“But,” she continued, “As I said before, it was only meant to be for a year.” She laughed ruefully at her memories, “But we were both having too much fun. We decided to extend it a little.”
She took another napkin and started to work on it with nervous energy. “Actually, it was my suggestion,” she said. “My parents didn’t mind, as I was with Zeke and they knew him to be a good Christian boy. Truth be told, my mother was happiest of all. Good Christian boys are hard to find, you know and I had one of the best- and he is a rich one too. His family owns a building business. They bought the bookshop for Chelsea, to give her a job until she too found herself a good Christian husband.”
She shook her head. John wondered if it was at the thought of the radical goth Chelsea finding a ‘good’ man. He further wondered if the whole goth look was her way of keeping good Christian men away. He tried not to smile at the thought.
“So they didn’t mind you messing around for a while because it would all be okay in the end, if you married the right guy?” John stated, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
“Well, Dad wasn’t entirely happy with it, but Mom talked him around,” she admitted.
“He didn’t seem too happy with Zeke the other night.”
“I can’t say I was happy with him either,” her eyes glazed over as she became lost in her thoughts. She fiddled with the menu, repeatedly running her fingers over the corners, making them look dog-eared. John was certain there was more she could say, but after a pause, all she said was, “It’s been almost four years now.”
“Four years?”
“The rumspringa,” she said. “He just keeps on wanting to do new things, pushing the limits. Probably what the drugs were for the other night…” She bowed her head and pressed her lips together tight. “He says he’s just not ready yet.”
John reached across the table and held her hands still within his. She looked into his eyes and he could see her anguish.
“I don’t know what’s going on in his head; he’s obviously got problems,” said John. “I can’t see why he wouldn’t want to be with you every waking moment of his day.”
He searched her face, looking for a sign of encouragement as he said, “I know I would.”
Her eyes widened. John saw her expression soften and a shy smile widened across her face.
“I…” she began, “I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to lead you on or give you the wrong impression…”
“But,” John prompted, fearing the worst.
“As I said,” she paused, “I have promised myself to Zeke.” Her eyes looked down and away as she dropped her chin to her chest.
John reached across and gently lifted her chin. She looked into his eyes. He saw a simmering flame of hope that emboldened him. He knew that he had wanted her from the moment he had laid her to sleep on his bed. He had seen her exquisite but vulnerable beauty then and he saw it now in her eyes. He knew that he wanted her, to be with her and feel her divine body against his and to cherish and protect her forever.
He worried that if he were to let her know the full depth of his longings for her, she would think him mad and even be frightened of him.
He did not want to let her
go and for her to waste her life with a man who did not value her, so his words had to be tempered by his respect for her wishes.
“I just want you to know that if ever you change your mind about Zeke, I will be waiting for you.”
Her eyes welled up and her lips pursed. John could see that she was holding back a flood of emotion. He just hoped they were good ones.
Angela opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by the arrival of Chelsea. She wore a triumphant smirk across her face.
“Well, look at the two love-birds,” she teased. John could hear the darker tone to her taunt. “I sure hope I’m interrupting something.”
Angela snatched her hands back from John’s hold. Her cheeks turned scarlet.
“So, Mr. Glove Puppet, do you have a name?” Chelsea asked. She did not hide the way she looked him over.
“John Hunter,” he said, “and you’re Chelsea, Angela’s boss and Zeke’s sister.”
“And Angie’s future sister-in-law,” she gave Angela a possessive hug around her shoulders.
“Did you want to join us?” John didn’t wait for an answer. He added, “I’ll get you a chair.”
“Can you check on the coffees while you’re at it?” Angela asked.
“Could you be a hero and get me one too? To go?” Chelsea put in. John nodded and went away on his mission.
“So who is he?” Chelsea asked as soon as John was out of ear-shot. “He’s cute and he’s got such a hot bod.” They both watched as John walked into the shop. Angela had to admit that he did have a cute butt.
“He’s a security guy from the nightclub that Zeke took us to last Friday night,” said Angela. She hadn’t told Chelsea about the drink spiking and surmised that neither had Zeke. ‘Figures,’ she thought.
“Yeah, but what are you doing holding hands with him?” she demanded. “Is there something going on?”
“No, nothing,” Angela said quickly. “At least nothing from my end.”
“Looks like he’s sniffing around though,” said Chelsea.