by Nancy Radke
Delighted to have heard from her, he went out and played his best game of the season. He’d have to get her to call early on game days more often.
5
Her interpreting work finished for the day, Alison came out into a particularly heavy September shower. A true Seattle dweller, she didn't bother with a rain hat or an umbrella. They were a nuisance to carry around, and if the rain did come down hard, a person just waited a few minutes until it lightened up or quit and then went on about one's business. Or else made a mad dash from building to car like Alison was doing right now, head down, hunched body protecting the book she was carrying, feet splashing through the shallow puddles.
It had been nice and warm and lovely out that morning—clear blue skies—so she hadn't even bothered wearing a coat. But her white cotton blouse and flared apple-green skirt wouldn't be hurt by a little water. And neither would she.
Unlocking her car door and flinging it open, she dove in headfirst, reached out to pull the door shut, and found Logan there, water pouring off him as he held the door open and looked inside.
She jumped. “Oh!”
“Sorry. Didn’t want you to drive away without knowing I was here. Anyplace we can go to talk?”
He was drenched. He must have waited for her in the parking lot, standing in the rain. His dark hair, plastered down, was dripping wet; raindrops still clinging to his face and hands. No coat or hat, and his clinging wet polo shirt revealed the depth of muscle tone she had only guessed at before.
It had been two weeks since she had seen him, two days since they had last spoken on the phone. He hadn’t mentioned coming to Seattle.
“The teacher’s lounge.” She thought about walking with him through the halls, still full of students, past some of the boys she saw every day, and decided against it. “No. Let’s go to another restaurant. A fast food place.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll follow you.”
“I sent my cab away. Didn’t know how long it would take.” He pulled out his cell phone. “You’ll have to wait.”
“Shut the door and get in,” she said. “We can talk in here.”
He nodded, closed her door and sprinted around to the other side. He was getting wetter, if possible, by the second.
Her door was still locked on that side and it took a second for her to realize that and click the switch, another second to toss her book onto the back seat and pull her purse over on her lap. Her purse with the Mace in it.
He dropped in beside her. “Thanks. I hoped you weren’t going to leave me out there.”
“A little rain won’t hurt you.”
“No. But that rain is not lit...tle.” He stopped speaking, looked out the window. The rain had stopped. He tossed his wet head sharply to fling away the droplets still running down his face. “I guess it was a little rain.”
He was fogging up the interior and she turned on the engine, then the defrost and heater. She turned the air on high.
“I’d just as soon not stay here in the parking lot,” she said, “since there are lots of curious young men who will entertain themselves with remarks about you for the rest of the school year.”
“Anywhere you want to go,” he said.
She pulled out onto the road and drove along, trying to keep her mind on her driving and not on the hunk sitting near her. Spotting a gas station she pulled in.
"I'm out of gas." It was a true fact—she had planned to fill up on the way home. The marker was touching the E.
He opened his door, got out. “I’ll fill it.”
It gave her time to figure out what she wanted to do. She pulled up the small lever to open the tank lid, then handed him the keys to unlock the cap. “Thanks. Regular.”
She hadn’t had anyone fill the tank for her since she had last been in Oregon. He used his credit card, and was soon filling her tank, while she was still trying to figure out where to go. Not to her apartment. One of the malls? They could walk along and talk.
She looked up at the bright sun peeking through fast-moving clouds. They would dry off sooner outdoors. A park? No. The zoo.
She hadn’t been to the Woodland Park Zoo for several years, but it made a perfect place to get to know someone. Plenty of people around. But he vetoed her idea.
“I found a place when I was here last time, near the Alderwood Mall. I had to turn around or would have ended up driving to Canada. We can sit in the car and talk—leave the doors open so I’ll dry out.”
She headed north on the freeway, past the green highway signs with their white letters, the Scotch Broom growing in bunches on the sides of the road, over the long bridge which spanned the ship canal. It was too early for heavy homeward traffic, but she still appreciated his silence as she drove.
He directed her onto a freeway off-ramp at Alderwood, down a narrow side street...then off that into an unused lane overgrown, tree-lined, and deserted. The car bumped slowly along and she stopped just off the road; the stillness complete when she turned off the engine. They could have been a hundred miles from civilization instead of less than a few hundred feet.
"That's better." Logan said, opening his side door and turning towards her. "I didn't realize I was getting so wet. The rain here is deceptive."
Small talk; it didn't tell her anything...or was he trying to put her at ease?
"It's been raining for two days," she agreed, opening her door and turning slightly on the seat to face him. Her purse was open on her lap. She rested her hand inside as she spoke, found the can of Mace with her fingers and made sure the nozzle was pointed in the right direction.
Overhead the clouds looked to be clearing completely.
“Let’s walk,” he said, bending forward, and she registered the words just in time and kept her fingers still.
“Okay.” She gathered the purse closer and scooted outside.
They left the car and walked up the lane a short distance to a large fir tree where they continued to talk. Actually, where he asked questions and she answered. She hadn't learned very much more about him than she had at the lake, although now he had a background.
Pleasant, congenial...with a smile that flashed now and then, able to laugh at himself...a virile man who was apologetic for disturbing her, yet stubbornly determined to get to know her...and too persistent to leave after being rebuffed.
He had a forceful personality; a man used to getting what he went after. While answering some of his questions she felt like she was being interrogated...for when she hesitated or tried to slide past what he wanted, he brought her up short and hammered at the point until he had an answer.
Maybe he was a policeman, after all. An undercover agent or an investigator, used to learning all he could about a suspect. He could certainly say he was getting to know her. She hadn't told anyone this much about herself at one time...ever.
"I'm running out of time; we'll have to go in a few minutes," he finally stated, reluctant to bring their meeting to a close. He drug his toe across the ground, rumpling up the carpet of fir needles. "Would you let me kiss you, please? Just once?" he asked and waited, gazing at her with such a hesitant-hopeful look that she had a hard time keeping from smiling.
By this time she felt more comfortable with him, but she wasn't yet ready to grant him that favor. It would have been more in character if he had just helped himself, like he had to the rest of her life, but perhaps he felt he had intruded enough.
If he meant her no harm, let him wait and prove it.
"No." The single word was curt and decisive, and came out much more harshly than she had intended. The hurt disappointment flashed briefly in his blue eyes before he lowered them.
"Sure. I understand." The sound of his voice revealed his acceptance—for once. He took a deep breath and let it out, visibly shaking off her rejection, then quickly pushed for something else. "But would you...do you think...could I come see you again?"
Alison didn't want him to beg, that hadn't been her purpose in refusing to kiss him. She
didn't want to hurt him particularly either; he had done her no harm.
"Oh...I guess that would be okay." She tried to act like she was still pondering it, but he could see she was faking it.
"I'm not the villain anymore?" he asked, an upswing to his manner, suddenly teasing, his blue eyes gleaming with a hint of mischief.
She smiled in return. She had given him a pretty hard time. His middle name must be perseverance. "If you forgive me for Macing you."
“Certainly. I don't blame you. Although I did check to see if you had a can of Mace in your hand before I got in the car."
She wasn’t going to tell him how close he’d come to being Maced a second time. "I'll see you whenever you get to Seattle...if you wish," she added as an afterthought.
"I wish."
"As long as you behave yourself."
For answer he swept her a low bow and deepened his Tennessee drawl. "Scout's honor, Ma'am. Now I'd better let you get home."
Turning back toward the road, they could see the suns rays were reflected off a quaking aspen whose branches spread out over the car. The wet leaves acted like tiny mirrors, shimmering in the gentle breeze, flashing on and off like a thousand heliographs. Their beauty caught Alison's eye as she turned and she stopped to take it in.
"Look." She pointed. "Diamonds."
"Yes." His voice told her he appreciated the sight as much as she and they stared silently for a moment before walking back to the car. This, more than all the things he had done today, eased Alison's mind. Anyone who was attuned to the beauty of nature couldn't be bad, could he?
Logan walked around to the passenger side and folded his legs in carefully. "Let's head out. I've a ways to go and need to catch a taxi to the airport. I just need an address so they can find me."
"I can drop you off at Alderwood Mall."
“Great.”
He did not ask to kiss her as he left, but silently touched his finger to his lips, then to hers, in a gesture of affection more stirring than many kisses she'd experienced.
From there she drove to Chantal's. The heavy traffic slowed her down and it took a while to make her way across to the Ballard area. Her heart was beating normally again by the time she reached her friend's place.
"Logan came again," she announced dramatically as soon as she entered the apartment.
"He did?" A multicolored smock covered Chantal's shirt and jeans and a streak of blue paint was smeared across her chin. She removed the smock and stuck her paintbrush in some thinner while Alison shut the door. Together they moved out to the kitchen table.
Alison put her bent forefinger to her lips as she sat down, contemplating her new feelings. The act brought back vividly his manner of parting from her and her eyes softened in remembrance. "Actually—"
"Oh, no...don't tell me," Chantal said, quickly reading Alison's dreamy expression. "After all your doubts, now you like the guy?" She filled the tea kettle, plunked it on a burner and turned on the gas. From an upper cupboard she fished out two tea bags and two cups.
"He explained, sort of. Logan moves around a lot. That's why I don't see him very often."
"I see. Is he a traveling salesman? Or a truck driver?"
"He didn't say. I thought his job had something to do with welding. Then again, that could be a decoy. He's so confident, and yet... I can't help but feel he's in some kind of trouble."
Chantal pulled up a chair and joined her, her dark eyes fixed with interest on her friend's troubled face. "Why?"
"He avoids letting people see him." He hadn't said anything. It was more a feeling caused by a certain action on his part. She could be wrong. "Doesn't that sound suspicious?"
"Maybe. Why do you think that?"
"I took him to Alderwood and he ducked his head down and retied his shoe as we drove past people. He wouldn't get out of the car until I drove forward out of the crowd; then he pulled his collar up around his face and put on dark glasses. And nobody needs dark glasses today."
"Hum. It does sound strange." Chantal sprang up to remove the whistling kettle. "I'd like to meet this mystery man of yours and see what I make of him. Do you think he'll see you again?" She put the tea bags into the delicate china cups and poured water over them. The cups had been Alison's birthday gifts to her, a new cup each year as Chantal, like Alison, had a love for things beautiful and delicate.
"Yes, definitely. I told him I’d see him when he was in town."
"You think its wise to encourage him?"
"It seemed like a good idea at the time. Then he acted so strangely at Alderwood, I'm uncertain all over again. I don't know what to think. Thanks," she added as she took the cup offered her. The minor incident had unsettled her anew— why had he acted so suspiciously?
Chantal put forth the question Alison had been asking herself all the way over. "Are you looking forward to seeing him?"
"Yes, and that's the funny part. I've gotten to know Ross pretty well by now; he’s in my apartment complex, you know. We've been jogging together a lot lately, but I don't particularly look forward to seeing him. He's comfortable to be around, but if he told me he was moving to New York or somewhere, it wouldn't bother me a bit."
"And Logan?"
"Logan? The end with Ross could be the beginning with Logan. He seems to have so much more...depth...or something to his character."
"Maybe once the mystery's solved, you'll lose interest in him."
"Hum." Alison sipped the hot tea slowly, considering Chantal's point. "Meaning that it's the unknown element that intrigues me, and not his personality at all?"
“Yeah."
"You could be right. I'll have to wait and see."
"He's probably safe to be with if he hasn't tried anything by now."
"I hope so," Alison said, and then added wistfully, "I'd like to know his whole name."
"Ask him next time you call him."
"Sure. Simple." She stirred her drink, breathing in the lemony aroma, then took another small sip. It was an herbal tea, made of lemon grass and mint and was particularly soothing. Just what she needed, Alison thought, as she began to ask Chantal about her painting.
When she met with Ross the next afternoon, she tried to analyze the difference between him and Logan; finally deciding it was partly the way they listened. Ross didn't.
What he had to say was of such importance to him that it overrode everything else. He could barely wait until she finished so he could make his point. He appeared to ask questions only out of politeness. Then, after she answered, he rarely commented on what she’d said but went on with whatever he had been thinking.
Logan listened attentively, as if gathering in each idea to examine or comment upon. Although he had a dominant personality, he did not try to dominate the conversation...other than to keep questioning her.
Ross talked about himself. Logan rarely did.
It was pouring down rain the next Tuesday when Logan came, again joining her in the parking area of the high school. He had called briefly Sunday night, asking her if he could come. She warned him to wear a raincoat as it had been raining continuously since their last meeting.
She looked for him as she came out of the school, feeling a sense of anticipation. Her interest in him had mushroomed despite her concern as to what he did.
He looked refreshed and full of energy and her tiredness vanished as she walked up to him. "Hi."
"Hi. I was hoping we could go on a picnic or something, but like you said, everything is soaked. Any ideas?"
"Are you limited for time?" He nodded. "Then let's go to a fast food place and eat a bite in the car. We can talk just as well there as anywhere."
"Fine."
She handed him her keys and directed him to a seafood drive-in near Northgate that she had found took a little extra care with their cooking.
He drove carefully, matching his speed to that of the general flow, eyes assessing the traffic pattern. He drove using his mirrors, maintaining a safe distance behind the cars in front of him and to
the sides. When first one and then a second car cut in front of him, he quickly and without ire dropped back to maintain his distance. A safe driver herself; she marked up points in his favor.
The parking lot was full, and after collecting their bags of food, Alison readily agreed to return to the lane at Alderwood for a picnic in the car, with one exception:
"The fries smell too good...let's eat them as we go."
She fed him as he drove, one fry at a time—three for him and one for her—making the hot fragrant potatoes last until they reached the lane. He had ordered what seemed to her an enormous amount of fish but he was completely capable of eating both his and hers, as she saw when she couldn't finish her last two pieces.
"Those were good; I'll have to remember that place."
"You can see why the parking lot was jammed."
"It's nice here. Do you want to walk and see how far this goes?"
"What if there's a house at the end?" she asked, unwilling to invade someone else's privacy.
It didn't bother him. "Then we'll turn around and come back. But there's no mailbox by the road."
He was right. The wire fence had been left to decay and it was more down than up so there was probably no one living at the end. As had happened last time, the rain stopped and the sun shone brightly on the aspen leaves.
"All right. Let's go. I want to look at this tree again," she said, pointing to the quaking aspen, which was now filled with autumn colors.
He took off his tan raincoat and tossed it into the back of the car.
"I don't know if that's wise," she cautioned. "Our showers don't give up easily." She almost added..."just like you," but didn't.
"Leave yours on if you want to," he said cheerfully. "It just seems a nuisance to wear one when the sun's shining."
Knowing that she'd likely regret it, Alison threw hers in beside his, then closed the door. She kept her purse with the Mace inside it in her hand. "Let's go."
He took her other hand carefully in his large beat-up one and they walked together, past the spot where they had stopped last time and a little farther, around the corner, to where they could see what lay ahead.