Rachel lifted her mug and blew into the steam. The couple across the booth seemed to have momentarily forgotten her. She cleared her throat. “So. Wedding venues.”
Sharon jumped. She turned a delicate shade of pink. “Yes! Wedding venues!”
“Do you have any ideas?” Rachel set her coffee on the table and fished in her bag for her phone, fully prepared to start an internet search. “Are you looking for indoor, outdoor, or what?”
Lee shrugged. “As long as we wind up married, I don’t really care—”
“Shush,” Rachel tutted. “I already know you won't be of any help.”
“I mean, I don’t want to get married underwater in scuba gear—”
Rachel sighed. “Here we go.”
“—because how could anyone hear the vows?”
“Not to mention that no dive mask will seal over your hairy face. You’d have to shave for sure.”
Lee ran a hand over his grizzled chin. “Never!” He squeezed Sharon tighter against his side. “Cross ‘underwater ceremony’ off the list.”
Sharon fluttered her eyelashes adoringly. “What list?”
“OK,” Rachel interrupted, pulling her Resolutions Notebook from her bag and flipping to the blank pages in the back. “Let’s make one.” She drew three columns, labeling them Yes, No, and Maybe.
“Why write them down if we know we don’t want them?” Sharon asked, reading the columns upside-down and blinking hard.
“So that you can remember which ones you definitely eliminated and keep yourselves from going back to them later.”
“That’s smart.” Sharon gazed at Lee. “Now I see why you wanted to ask her.”
Rachel drew dividing lines between her columns, head down to keep Lee from spotting her satisfied smile.
By the time the sun had set, they’d filled each column with possibilities. Sharon and Lee divided between themselves the responsibility of making calls to check if any of the possibilities were available on the date they’d set.
“Which you really should have done before setting the date,” Rachel told them, “although I suppose it’s too late to talk about that now.”
Lee swirled the dregs of his coffee. “For someone who’s never planned a wedding before, you seem to know a lot about this.”
Rachel sniffed. “It’s common sense.”
Lee closed his eyes, flared his nostrils, and drew in vast quantities of air.
Sharon bit her lip, her eyebrows drawing together. “I’m sorry if this is tedious for you,” she said, voice thinning. “Oh, dear. I didn’t think—”
Rachel swallowed hard. She had to find a way to backpedal before Sharon started to cry.
Lee placed an index finger on Sharon’s forehead, right at her hairline. He traced it toward her eyebrows, down her nose, over her lips, to her chin. By the time he reached her neck, Sharon was giggling. Lee’s whiskers twitched in an answering grin.
Rachel half expected their eyes to morph into throbby little cartoon hearts. Where should she look? She picked up her coffee, took a test sip, found the contents stone cold, and gulped them down anyway. Anything to distract from the show across the booth.
She’d walked into this situation ready for anything: ready to worry over the future of their friendship; ready to force herself to dismiss such feelings; even ready to fight her innate mother-hen protectiveness toward Lee.
Instead, Rachel experienced the last emotion she’d expected.
Jealousy.
~*~
Lying in her bed that night, jiggling her foot to the throb of her upstairs neighbor’s music, Rachel sorted through the tangled threads of her emotions.
She hadn’t read Anne of Green Gables obsessively as a girl for nothing. She knew there was a book of revelation in everyone’s life.
This was hers.
She was jealous.
She rolled over, pulling the duvet with her.
It’s not that she was jealous of Sharon and Lee specifically. She didn’t want Lee. Not in that way. Regardless of what he may or may not have felt for her over the course of their relationship, her feelings for him had always been clear. She wasn’t jealous romantically. It was more complicated than that.
She saw Sharon beaming, with her head tucked into the crook of Lee’s arm, happy and content. She watched Sharon smoothing Lee’s hair. She traced the tip of Lee’s finger as it trailed down the center of Sharon’s face. That comfortable protectiveness—that safe and giddy warmth. Had she ever felt that?
Rachel rolled the other way.
Caught in the endless cycle of school and church and Lee and Ann and Lynn, Rachel had never worried about dating. Now, with Ann living across town, Lynn increasingly busy, and Lee getting married, she recognized a void.
She wanted someone.
It’s not that Rachel didn’t have options. She could have had Call-Me-Matt if she’d wanted him, but something hadn’t been right there. Much like Myla’s dad had started doing recently, he’d had an alarming tendency to turn up when she least expected him. But even though Matt had turned out to be perfectly safe and normal in the end, she still hadn’t wanted him.
She wanted someone she could feel comfortable with. Someone whom she could make laugh, whom she could take care of, and who felt safe with her. Someone who was easy for her to read, who made her laugh, took care of her, and made her feel safe, too. Someone who was a bit further along spiritually and could help her grow without being condescending or making her feel dumb.
But why would someone like that—someone who had it all together—want someone like her?
Ian had wanted her—once upon a time. Unfortunately, he hadn’t contacted her lately. Perhaps that ship had already sailed.
She rolled over again, her legs twisting in the sheets. Reaching for her phone where it rested atop her Resolutions Notebook on the nightstand, she checked the time. She really should be asleep by now. Replacing the phone on her nightstand, she sank backward against the pillows, groaning as the upstairs neighbor switched to a new music track—one with a huge drop and heavy baseline.
She sat up again. This would never do.
Flicking on her bedside lamp, she flopped her legs over the side, jammed her feet into her slippers, and shuffled three steps to her bookshelf. She ran her fingers sideways across the spines of the well-loved volumes. Dickens, Hardy, Wharton, Hawthorne, Austen—not tonight. Too much work. Sayers, O’Connor, and Parker she likewise pegged as too brainy for a sleepy-time read.
Then her finger slid across side-by-side copies of Jane Eyre, one well-worn and one new and uncreased. She tapped the spines lightly. In the past, this book had been her go-to relaxation read. Unfortunately, certain events last fall had poisoned it, possibly forever. She could no longer think about Jane or Rochester or even Grace Poole without calling to mind the whole self-induced juggernaut of embarrassment involving Lee, Call-Me-Matt, the Memento Killer, and Detective Ian Smith.
She had broken her ankle, suffered a life implosion, put the worst possible spin on a series of anonymous gifts, assumed a serial killer was stalking her, and nearly torpedoed all her personal relationships at the same time. Then had come the actual drama surrounding the school drama, Murder Came Knocking. Rachel had steamrolled through rehearsals while nearly missing a suicidal student’s cries for help. Along the way, she’d miscommunicated with almost everyone in her life and had hardly managed to hang on to some semblance of a relationship with Lee.
And now here she was, once again facing an emotional crisis. At least this time, she was actively working for a different outcome. With the Resolutions guiding her, she had not pitted herself as the central character in some imagined drama or jumped to any relationship-ruining assumptions.
Not yet.
Abruptly, her upstairs neighbor’s music shut off. Heaving a sigh, Rachel retreated to bed without a book, reaching instead for her Resolutions Notebook. She ran her finger down the list of resolutions.
Resolved: To stop reading into situation
s and creating groundless, alternate storylines in my head.
So far, so good. She hadn’t managed to turn Lee and Sharon’s wedding into her own personal drama. Nor had she overreacted to running into Maya’s dad repeatedly. So…check.
Resolved: To start paying better attention at church.
Check…ish. Her mind still wandered during sermons, but she was scratching down most of the points in her notebook and thinking about how to apply them. It wasn’t a perfect system, but she showed progress.
Resolved: To master the flying teep kick.
Definitely still a fail. But she hadn’t given up. That had to count for something.
Resolved: To sort out my romantic relationships and finally settle down with a good man.
Rachel couldn’t even pretend to give herself any credit here. In fact, until she’d seen Lee and Sharon canoodling in the coffee shop, she’d sort of forgotten about it.
It didn’t help that the men in her life weren’t cooperating. Ian Smith never made a clear move, Lee was getting married, and Call-Me-Matt had rendered himself ridiculous with his smothery attention and constant barrage of over-the-top flirtation. Even if he did one day come back to church and somehow manage to change her opinion of him, she would always remember that at one point, she’d considered him a serial killer. That probably wouldn’t serve as the foundation for a healthy relationship. Although it would make for an entertaining story when people asked how they'd met: “Actually, I thought he was stalking me and possibly a serial killer who wanted to choke me to death with a pair of my own leggings. But then it all worked out. Haha!”
As for Myla’s dad—no. She had The Resolutions to keep her from obsessing over what running into him repeatedly over the past few days might mean. Not that she worried about him the way she’d worried about Matt. Craig Crocker was a known quantity.
Safe, but not an option for her. She wouldn’t date a recently-divorced former student’s parent, no matter how winning his smile. So she didn’t need to worry about it.
What a relief.
Rachel closed the notebook, snapped off her bedside lamp, and buried her face in the pillows. If she were to have a prayer of keeping this last resolution, she needed to be more proactive.
The problem was that she really didn’t know that many single Christian men.
She didn’t know many single men, period.
In that moment, she had an epiphany. She rolled back over, snapped the light back on, snatched up her Resolutions Notebook, and scrawled down a sub-resolution.
Under Resolution Four she scribbled a note.
Try internet dating.
8
Rachel would rather light herself on fire than seek advice on internet dating from another human being. Floundering in confusion seemed infinitely better than anyone finding out what she was up to and—horror of horrors—asking her how it was going.
For the first few days, Rachel accomplished nothing more than a few furtive internet searches. Her first task: narrow down her options. She faced such a wide array of prices and services that she almost despaired. Were matchmakers like the Yenta in Fiddler on the Roof still a thing? If so, how could she hire one without anyone knowing?
In the end, she narrowed her search to three online dating sites. One, a slick and expensive site called Lockstep, offered a wide array of services and protections. While the initial fee seemed steep, the site was all-inclusive. This was probably the most effective use of her money, but she couldn’t believe how much she’d have to sink just to get the ball rolling. Another site, Just Dates, offered a free start-up service with paid options tacked on. On the bargain-basement end of the spectrum was Groove, whose tacky website amounted to little more than a searchable database. Rachel never actually considered Groove seriously, but she liked the name—not to mention the fact that the fee was only ten dollars a month. Then again, the fee was only ten dollars a month. She imagined a string of middle-aged, unemployed man-children who lived in their mother’s spare rooms. She crossed Groove off the list.
That left Lockstep and Just Dates. While the first one was more expensive, it promised more security protocols and did not allow members to troll the database personally, opting instead to send them a set number of potential “dance partners” per day. Rachel actually found the limited options appealing—they would keep her from feeling overwhelmed by the fear that she might overlook someone special. Not to mention the fact that her profile wouldn’t be searchable by anyone who happened to be on the site—meaning she was much less likely to be discovered by anyone she actually knew. Not that she expected to bump into acquaintances on a dating site. Or the parents of former students. Or former students themselves. Horror upon horror.
Not that anyone should judge her for using an online dating site. Couples had to meet somehow, and the internet had become the modern-day equivalent of the public square. If singles didn’t go to bars or clubs, and if they hadn’t met anyone at church; if their towns didn’t have many public spaces like museums and galleries where people met and mingled; if they hadn’t hit it off with any of the set-ups their friends had offered them over the years; and if they felt themselves swiftly approaching middle age and were seeing their students grow up and start marrying off—well, then, what else were they to do?
After nearly a week of dithering, Rachel finally decided on Lockstep. On Friday, she scrounged up the courage to register, gritting her teeth as she typed her credit card information into the website. She was actually doing this.
Then, with the easy part out of the way, she quailed before the terrors of filling in her dating profile.
It wasn't that she didn’t know the answers to the questions. It was all about her own life, habits, preferences, and routines, after all. Still, the idea of detailing her sad little personal life for all to see made her want to throw up. Perhaps this is how her students felt when faced with end-of-year exams.
Surely not.
Exams never had so much riding on them.
After taking nearly half an hour to choose and upload the perfect profile picture—one that showed her looking good, but not as if she were trying too hard, and also in which her hair was only moderately ridiculous—she ran out of time. Leaving the rest of the profile blank, she powered down her laptop, changed into her favorite jeans and most comfortable shirt, and escaped to meet Ann and Lynn for a much-overdue girls’ night out.
~*~
Rachel stared unblinking at her surroundings. Clusters of fake grapes and plastic ivy dangled from a trellis next to their table. On the opposite wall, faux frescoes depicted wood nymphs and Greek maidens frolicking joyfully in fields. “What’s all this?”
Across the dark-wood table, Ann shrugged prosaically. “I made a judgement call. We’ve been in a rut.”
“I like our rut.” Rachel lifted a menu, peeling apart the folds with deep suspicion. After a moment’s silent perusal, she turned it over in her hands. “Where’s the breakfast food?”
Ann waved a hand through the air. “This is a Greek restaurant. It doesn’t even open until lunch.”
Rachel’s mouth dropped open. No.
Ann spelled it out. “There is no breakfast menu.”
No bacon? No eggs? No perfectly crisped breakfast potatoes? She blinked. “Then what am I supposed to order?”
Lynn slid into the booth next to Ann, giving her a one-armed hug. “What did I miss?”
“You’re right on time for Rachel’s first freak-out of the evening.”
Rachel shot Ann a look that would have sent her students into voluntary lockdown. “I’m not freaking out. I’m just wondering why we’re meeting here instead of going to Stu’s like we normally do.” She peered at the menu as if deciphering the Rosetta Stone.
Ann shrugged. “Now that I’ve moved out to State Road 47, this location is more central to all of us. And we’re going to Stu’s Sunday after church anyway, so why not branch out a bit on other nights?”
As if she didn’t have enough new things
going on in her life, now Rachel had to learn an entirely new menu of entirely new foods. This was too much. She tossed the menu onto the table. “I don’t even know what half this stuff is.”
Ann picked up the menu and squared it in front of Rachel. “How about some milk? Because you’re being a giant baby.”
Rachel spluttered.
Lynn leaned forward, pointing. “Look, you can get a baked potato. You know, instead of hash browns.”
“Excuse me?”
Ann nodded. “I mean, it’s the same basic substance, isn’t it? And look, you can get a fruit cup. That’s somewhat breakfasty.”
Did they even know her at all? “A fruit cup.”
“Or a side of rice.” Ann skimmed the list of sides.
Rachel sniffed. “Rice isn’t a breakfast food.”
“It is in Asia.”
Rachel briefly considered whapping her sister in the face with the menu. Fortunately, their waiter appeared in that moment and circumvented the squabble. Since the restaurant did, in fact, serve hot coffee, Rachel settled down and resigned herself to the inevitable.
Whoever had trained Stu’s wait staff hadn’t made it this far across town. It was twenty minutes before their waiter reappeared with their drinks and deigned to take their orders. Rachel settled on a chicken pita. At least she recognized all the ingredients. “Chickens produce eggs, and pitas are sort of like tortillas. It’s the closest thing I could get to a breakfast wrap.”
Ann yawned and twirled her straw in her glass, rattling the ice. “Another stunning display of Rachel Logic.”
“Don’t listen to her, Rachel. You’ll like it.” Lynn pushed back her bangs. “So. Tell me about your weeks. Alex is picking up Ethan from jiu jitsu and dropping him at an all-night paintball lock-in, so we have plenty of time.”
“I got thrown from Tyler while we were cantering down the trail this week and almost landed in a palmetto head,” said Ann.
Rachel choked, spitting coffee. “You got thrown?”
“A plastic bag blew across the trail. Tyler spooked.”
Rachel snatched the napkin proffered by Lynn and wiped the dribbles from her chin. “Horses are so weird.”
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