by Ellis, J. J.
Russell physically and emotionally braced himself for fireworks from his daughter but thankfully none came. Of course, she was disappointed, but she handled it so much better than usual.
“Well kiddo, we might as well get set up, and hopefully Uncle Dylan will get here soon.” From 10 to 11 o’clock, everyone socialized and set up their picnic spaces, and then lunch was enjoyed from 11 to 12:30. The real festivities began at 12:45 p.m., with a carnival and a series of outdoor concerts and entertainment.
Russell and Miranda spread out their picnic blanket on the thick green carpet of grass and put their basket of food in the middle. They sat down to wait. Miranda read as usual and Russell texted the manager of one of his restaurants. Without modern technology, running the corporation from afar would be virtually impossible.
An occasional old neighbor or friend stopped by to welcome Russell back to town and meet Miranda. He almost got a warm and fuzzy, down-home feeling about it all. Almost was the key word though. One sure thing could be said about the citizens of Harper’s Rock - they absolutely knew how to make people feel welcome. Russell didn’t have time to dwell on the unusual feeling though because a special delivery of donuts soon arrived from Harper’s Grocery and Pharmacy.
A couple of donut holes and some good conversation later, it was going on 11 o’clock and Russell was starting to worry about his youngest brother. He wasn’t worried that he was hurt or anything like that, but that he was standing them up for some girl. It was time to try to call him. And as usual, Dylan and his attitude picked up on the second ring. “Hey big brother. Why are you bothering me?”
“Where the hell are you Dylan? We’re waiting for you at the park.” He didn’t hide his irritation for his brother’s seeming nonchalance about his promise to be at the park, for Miranda’s sake. He was in no mood for his younger brother’s usual games.
“Believe it or not, I’m stuck in traffic here on I-90. There was a pretty bad accident up ahead.” Russell could hear horns and sirens in the background. “I’m not sure when I’ll be there, bro. Tell Miranda I’ll bring Rizzy over for her to play with sometime next week if I don’t make it to the park today.”
“Alright, just drive safe.” It figured he’d had to call Dylan, his youngest brother wasn’t the most considerate person on earth. If he hadn’t called him, they probably wouldn’t have known what was going on until he showed up - or not - hours later. Russell couldn’t help but wonder why he’d had been on I-90 as it was quite a way out of town. He’d probably been visiting the girl of the moment in another town.
“Miranda sweetie, I don’t know when Uncle Dylan is going to make it. He said he’d bring the puppy by next week so you could play with her.” He braced himself for the tantrum that was sure to come this time.
“Okay Daddy, I guess I can wait. At least I got my donuts even if I don’t get to eat them with Uncle Logan.” She smiled at him and went back to reading the book she always carried with her.
Russell was so taken aback by Miranda’s calm behavior that he didn’t hear delicate footsteps approaching until they were right next to him and he heard the voice calling his daughter’s name. His heart started racing, a million emotions flashed through his mind and that ever annoying sense of doom was there too, albeit briefly. Emily Zane had indeed shown up for the picnic. Russell hadn’t seen her since their kiss over a week ago, but she didn’t look like she was holding it against him now. He felt oddly relieved even though he shouldn’t care less. Their delicious, passionate kiss was a mistake never to be repeated.
“Hello Miranda, how are you today?” Miranda dropped her book and hurried to give her school counselor a hug. Emily returned it. “Hello Russell.”
“Emily,” he nodded his greeting to her. He wasn’t sure what else to do, he felt like a school kid whose crush had just found out he liked her. But that couldn’t be right because he didn’t like her, he’d just been momentarily physically attracted to her. Russell Harper wasn’t capable of liking or even loving anyone right now. His daughter was his life and there was no room in it for anyone else.
“Miss Emily, can you have a picnic with us, please?” Miranda looked adoringly up at her new favorite person.
“I’m here with my mom, sweetheart. We have our own picnic, but I think we’ll be setting up real close to you, right over there.” She pointed not two feet away. “I bet after lunch you could come over to my spot and have some of my mom’s famous chocolate chip cookies with me.”
“I guess I could do that,” was her quiet response. No tantrum though, so all was well. Miranda skipped back over to her spot on their blanket and picked up her book again.
“She seems to be doing well,” Emily stated as she was spreading her blanket on the ground.
“She is. Here, let me help you,” Russell leapt up and grabbed one side of the blanket to help her get it spread out evenly. “She still has a multitude of problems, but she seems to have evened out a bit. There aren’t so many ups and downs.”
“I’m so glad. I think she is actually starting to like school and that makes a world of difference.”
“It does,” he agreed as he watched a tiny blond woman of about sixty walk up beside Emily and grab her hand.
“Oh, Russell Harper, this is my mother Margaret Zane. I don’t know if you remember her.”
He held his hand out to the pleasant looking woman. “Let’s see, Margaret Zane...ER nurse extraordinaire, helped me through a broken arm, a bloody nose, a sprained ankle and many other childhood mishaps.” He ticked the incidents off on his fingers one by one. “Oh yes I certainly do remember her. How are you Mrs. Zane?”
“Please, call me Margaret, and I’m just fine. How are you?”
“I’m good ma’am, all in one piece and have been for quite a while. Sweetie, come here,” he called to his daughter. “This is my daughter Miranda. Miranda this is Mrs. Zane, Miss Emily’s mother.” The little girl looked at her feet and mumbled a hello.
“It’s nice to meet you, Miranda,” the woman said with a smile. Thank goodness Margaret Zane had kept it short and sweet so Russell could let his daughter sit down and read again.
“Well Emily, Margaret, it was great to see you, but Miranda is probably getting hungry so I’d better go see about getting her some lunch. Enjoy your picnic.” He turned to walk back to where Miranda was.
“You too Russell,” Emily smiled.
Her voice made his heart skip what seemed like a hundred beats and his hands shook the whole time he was setting out the dishes for their mini-feast. Russell worked diligently to get all of their food put out and the two plates filled with fried chicken, his mom’s famous potato salad, and garden fresh veggies and baked beans.
“Mind if I join you after all?”
Russell’s heart was doing that strange skipping thing again as he looked up into her eyes. He quickly looked away so she couldn’t work her evil magic on him again.
“My mother got called to the hospital. There was a pretty bad accident on I-90 and they are taking patients to all hospitals within a fifty mile radius.”
Russell nodded. “Yeah, I’m not surprised, my brother Dylan is stuck behind that accident.” His emotions were involved in a tug of war. Should he say no, should he say yes? In the end, politeness won out. “Please, sit down.” He moved over so Emily could sit between him and Miranda. He couldn’t very well have said no, he wasn’t raised that way. This definitely wasn’t going to be his idea of fun though, it was more like extreme torture. But he knew this development had just made his daughter one really happy little girl. “That is if you think you can handle us. We’re pretty loud some times.” Russell smiled, resigned to his fate, as Emily laughed quietly.
“Can I help you get your food out of your basket, Miss Emily?” Miranda asked politely.
“I would love it, sweetie.”
Miranda dug into the basket and pulled everything out so Emily could make herself a plate.
Russell laughed. “Great minds think alike.” Their m
others had packed the same things for them except for dessert. Emily had her mother’s famous chocolate chip cookies, and Russell and Miranda had his mother’s famous apple pie. Plus there were plenty of Logan’s donuts to share.
With everyone’s plate filled, they all dug into their food, talking about everyday things like school, work and even the old standard - weather. Especially with steady snowfalls just around the corner. But mostly the tasty homemade food was the star of the show. Any silent moments were filled with enjoying the good food and were far from uncomfortable.
Russell and Emily were cleaning up after lunch, when they received a visitor. “Hello everyone.” Miranda’s teacher Mrs. Platski appeared before them. “Russell would you mind if Miranda came with my daughter and I over to the Carnival? The girls would have a great time together.”
“Can I Daddy?” Miranda asked excitedly, which was highly unusual, she always shied away from leaving his side. She must really like Mrs. Platski.
“Uh, yeah, I guess so darlin’, go ahead. Here, take this.” He pulled some money out of his wallet and gave it to her. “Don’t lose it”
“Yay.” The little girl jumped up and walked toward the carnival with her teacher. “Bye Daddy! Bye Miss Emily!” she hollered over her shoulder.
Russell let out a breath he’d been holding for way too long. He found himself gasping for breath.
“You worry about her a lot when she’s not with you, don’t you?” Emily’s voice was sympathetic.
“Yeah, I just can’t help it.” He looked toward the mountains that still had a slight white stain of snow from the surprise storm. “What if she has a tantrum and no one knows how to calm her down? Oh hell, I even worry when she’s with my mother, or even now when she’s with her teacher, someone who knows what she can be like.” He ran his hands through his dark hair in a gesture of frustration.
“It will be fine Russell,” Emily comforted, reaching over to take his hand. Her hypnotic powers must have been at work because he suddenly felt better. Not one hundred percent, but much better, anyway.
He laid back on his elbows and crossed his legs. “I know she’ll be okay but…” he shrugged his shoulders and glanced toward the carnival. Quiet stretched on though not completely uncomfortable. He was suddenly at a loss for words. Without Miranda there he didn’t know how to keep the conversation going. Plus the heat of Emily’s body and her sweet vanilla scent mixed together to scramble his mind. He really felt like he’d been going through a second turn as a teenager the last week or so. But finally he thought of something to say, he just hoped it would make her laugh so he could hear that sweet sound again. “Here I am making you talk about your students again. I’m so sorry I keep being so rude.”
Emily laughed and smiled at him. “I accept your apology. But you know, I really don’t mind talking with you about Miranda. She is a wonderful little girl. If you need to talk to someone about what you go through with her, you can always come to me. As a friend, not a counselor.” Russell nodded his thanks and smiled at Emily. He suddenly felt an almost overwhelming need to change the subject.
“You know, the other day you said you would tell me about your reasons for coming back to Harper’s Rock. And well, here we are, together with no one else around.”
“Ah, so you have a good memory. I was kind of hoping you didn’t.” Emily looked down at her hands.
“I’m sorry, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he said, concerned that he was making her uncomfortable.
Emily smiled. “No that’s okay, I’ll tell you. It really does help to talk about it sometimes. But remember this isn’t a long and boring story. It is quite short and quite tragic,” she practically whispered.
He sat up quickly to give her his full attention. “That bad, huh?”
Emily just nodded and took a deep breath.
“Remember, you don’t have to,” he reminded her, but his eyes begged to hear it.
“I know, but I really should talk about it more often. It’s good for the psyche,” she smiled.
The sadness he’d caught glimpses of before was overwhelming this time. “Well then, whenever you’re ready, I would love to hear your story. You know, to compare notes.”
Her smile brightened a bit, remembering she’d said almost the same thing to him. Emily took a deep breath and started “Well, as I told you before, I went to college in Seattle. It was a dream come true.”
Russell saw just happiness in her eyes for a moment and then it was gone. “Kind of like how I felt when I moved to Denver and even more so when I moved to Vegas probably.”
“Probably,” Emily agreed. “Anyway, after college, I couldn’t imagine coming back here. I was having a wonderful time in the big city after growing up so sheltered here in Harper’s Rock.”
“Single in the big city. Ah, fun times,” he said reminiscing about his own college days.
She laughed her magical laugh and it affected him more than usual this time. Maybe because he was becoming more in tune with the deep-rooted pain she was going to tell him about.
“Well, because of the inheritance that my grandfather left me, I was able to start up my own counseling practice after working in a clinic for only a year. I was over the moon with happiness, yet another dream come true.” She paused, seeming in no hurry to continue so Russell didn’t push her even though he was dying to hear more.
“I was building up a great clientele. I saw individual kids, kids with siblings and parents, and I had a social skills group, kind of like the one Miranda is in at school. It was everything I’d ever wanted to do with my career.” A bitter laugh escaped from between her lips and she was momentarily embarrassed by it. “And then all my dreams came crashing down.” She paused again as if contemplating exactly how to say the painful part to make it a bit less painful, if possible. Her voice lowered when she continued. “I was going to take the kids to the museum of natural history. We decided to meet at a local restaurant. I was running a bit late because my alarm clock had picked that morning to go kaput.” She shook her head. “It was a miracle for me, but not so much for other’s that day. While the kids and their parents were waiting for me at that restaurant, a young man who’d been fired as a cook the day before, took a gun he stole and decided to get revenge on the restaurant owner. The owner survived. Three of my seven kids died and two of the parents did too.”
Russell reached over and took her hand. “It wasn’t your fault, you know.”
Emily turned to look at him. “I know that deep down inside, but I still can’t stop myself from feeling like I’m to blame sometimes.” Her eyes were filled with tears that she was holding back.
“It’ll take time and then every part of you will realize it,” Russell put in.
“Hey buster, who’s the counselor here,” she laughed, wiping a lone tear from her cheek. She was a bit embarrassed that her emotions always got so out of control. Right now though, Russell was with her and for some bizarre reason that seemed to help. She couldn’t quite figure that one out, after all she hardly knew him.
Russell laughed along with Emily. He could feel that part of her burden had been taken off of her shoulders, and he knew a little bit more would be taken off every time she could bring herself to talk about her tragedy.
“So, the pain was just so bad that you couldn’t stand to stay there anymore?” he asked curious to have her finish explaining her reasons for coming home.
“No, that wasn’t it.” She chose her words carefully. “I didn’t just blame myself. I blamed the city. This kid who took all those innocent lives had been a product of the city. Street kid, drugs, guns, violence at every turn.” Emily’s smile now was bitter and not genuine at all. “I loved every one of those kids. They had so much potential, they were responding to the therapy, they were going to be okay. Now the ones that survived are scarred, and two kids are now missing a parent which doesn’t help them heal their problems at all. I just couldn’t be a part of that anymore. I needed safety and a socie
ty that still teaches kids values. I needed to be someplace where I felt safe. So, I sold my practice, took some classes to become a school counselor and here I am - starting over and finally becoming happy.”
“Small towns can be dangerous too. It isn’t only big cities,” he pointed out to her. Russell hated to think she might be living with a false sense of security.
Emily smiled brightly at him. “I know that. It could happen anywhere, but in my mind, it is less likely to happen here. And if it does, at least I have friends and family to help me deal with it. I have this wonderful community that would pull together to survive something like that. You know after two or three days, I didn’t hear another word about the incident. It seemed Seattle was happy to go on about its business and not help these families heal. It just seemed wrong to me.”
Russell smiled at her. “You know, as much as small town life seems to stifle me, I can’t seem to argue with you there. This town would pull together and they would come out better for it.” Until now, Russell never realized that a sense of community was just as important as his ambition to be obscenely successful. He couldn’t ever remember having a sense of community anywhere but here in Harper’s Rock. His world was tilting on its axis and he felt it down to his toes.
“Are you okay, Russell?” Emily laid her hand on his bicep in a gesture of comfort. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”
“I don’t know, I just had some sort of epiphany or something I think. Maybe it will become clearer over time. I just know that I am starting to think that I might just be able to be happy here in Harper’s Rock.”
“Good, that makes two of us!” Emily looped her arm through his and they sat like that for a while as the world buzzed around them. Carnival music played, people chatted, animals from the petting zoo made their various calls.
Russell felt the sudden, crazy urge to kiss the beautiful woman beside him, again. Only this time, he didn’t have an almost stronger urge to stop himself. “Would you consider me a jerk if I said I wanted to kiss you, you know, so soon after you bared your soul like that?”