Changing Her Heart

by Gail Sattler

  Randy leaned down. “So sharing is good, even though it’s not always fun at the time. I think it would be nice of you to take Kaitlyn after lunch and show her how to build something.”

  “I don’t wanna make stuff with Shawn,” Kaitlyn whined. “I wanna play with my puppies.”

  Lacey turned to Randy. “She doesn’t mean real puppies. She has a family of toy dogs that she’s quite attached to.”

  Susan smiled weakly. “We can’t have a real dog right now. We might get one in a few years, after Kaitlyn is in grade two.”

  Randy lost his smile. “I know what you mean, but if I can stick my nose in where it doesn’t belong, please don’t promise them a dog, and then not get one when you said you would. My parents told me the same thing. Except that when I finally did get old enough, they came up with another reason. The reasons kept changing until I just gave up. I just wish they would have told me no, if they had no intention of keeping their promise. Of course I certainly understand why you don’t want a dog now, and I certainly agree. I’m just saying, don’t get their hopes up if you can’t deliver.”

  Eric nodded. “Don’t worry. We mean it. One day we’ll have a dog. Just not yet.”

  They left the dishes, and Susan stayed in the kitchen to make coffee while everyone else moved to the living room to talk.

  Lacey wished the conversation would have moved to something that could help Eric, but with the children playing at their feet, then Randy moving down to the floor to build more onto their ever-expanding airport complex, conversation topics were limited to what was acceptable for the children to hear. It didn’t take long before Kaitlyn settled into Randy’s lap, asking for help, which he gladly gave.

  After the fleet had been expanded to include two more planes, Randy lifted Kaitlyn off his lap and set her onto the floor beside him.

  “I hate to cut the afternoon short, but I have to start thinking about having an early supper. I have to be back at the church early to get ready for the evening service.”

  Lacey stood, as well. “You’re right. We should go.”

  At her “we” reference, Randy hesitated. Now that they were back at Eric and Susan’s house, she had her own car, so she could have stayed if she wanted to. It was just that she really didn’t want to.

  Susan and Eric escorted them to the door together. Randy very politely thanked Susan for the lunch, reminded Eric of their scheduled meeting for the next evening, then followed Lacey to her car instead of going to his own.

  “I have an idea. Instead of going out to a restaurant, how would you like to do something else?”

  “I guess. What do you have in mind?”

  “I want to take you to the lagoon at the park.”

  “The lagoon? Whatever for?”

  “Summer is almost over, and I want to take advantage of the last of the good weather. They have great hot dogs at the concession, and I would really like to walk around the lagoon and feed the ducks.”

  “I don’t think ducks eat hot dogs.”

  He smiled.

  Something in Lacey’s stomach went haywire, making her think that maybe she was starting to get hungry again.

  “The hot dogs will be for us. I was going to stop off at a convenience store and buy bread for the ducks. I figure we can make it once around and still have plenty of time to get to church for the evening service.”

  Lacey turned toward the street, although she didn’t know why, because she couldn’t see the park from where they were.

  Randy was right. The children had all gone back to school, and already the temperatures were cooler. The leaves had already begun to change color. As far as she knew, the swans were gone, but the last of the ducks had not yet begun their migration south for the winter. Today was sunny and still warm, but even for tomorrow, the forecast was calling for cooler temperatures and rain.

  Lacey inserted the key into the lock. “That sounds like a great idea. But what are we going to do about my car? It doesn’t make sense to take both cars, but I don’t want to leave it here.”

  “We can go the long way and drop it off at the church, and take my car from there. If that’s okay with you.” He lowered his voice. “Assuming that you want to come to the evening service with me.”

  “Of course I do. Let’s go.”

  When they arrived at the park, true to his word, the first thing they did was buy hot dogs, and they immediately set out toward the lagoon.

  Because it was Randy’s idea to feed the ducks, he carried the loaf of bread in one hand while he ate his hot dog with the other.

  Once they reached the circular path around the lagoon, they slowed their pace.

  “Here. Go feed this to those ducks over there, and I’ll take your picture.”

  Lacey’s feet froze on the spot. “Picture? What are you talking about?”

  He pulled his cell phone off his belt. “I never go anywhere without my phone.”

  In the back of her mind, she recalled Randy’s skewed reference to the cell phone’s abilities to take pictures when he was talking about his various gadgets to Eric.

  “I don’t like having my picture taken.”

  “Why not? This isn’t for a fashion magazine. It’s a permanent record of a fun day. I hope we’re going to have fun, anyway.”

  “Okay, but only if you make sure you take the pictures of the ducks, not of me. I’ll just throw the pieces and let them walk up to me as close as they dare, and you can take pictures of them at my feet.”

  “I can live with that.”

  As she said, Lacey crumbled up a slice of bread, dropped the pieces on the ground, then backed up so the ducks would come onto the shore and Randy could take their picture.

  Lacey turned to look up at Randy just as a particularly large duck came within a few feet to check out what she’d dropped. Instead of taking the picture of the duck, the phone looked suspiciously like it was aimed at her, while she just happened to have her mouth open, and not at the duck who was on the ground at her feet.

  “Hey! You said you weren’t going to take any pictures of me.”

  “Sorry. I couldn’t help myself. But don’t worry, it’s not a big deal. It’s just for fun. No one will see it except me.”

  Immediately, she felt churlish. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m just not used to having my picture taken.” More than that, no one had ever wanted to take her picture, except at Shawn and Kaitlyn’s birthday parties, and then, most of the pictures were of the children, which was as it was supposed to be.

  He lowered the phone, aimed it at the duck and pressed a button. “There. I got one of the duck, if that makes you happy. Want to see?” He pushed a few more buttons and turned the phone so she could see the picture that displayed in the small screen. First he showed her the picture of the duck, then the picture was of her, which actually did have the duck in it, except it was just the duck’s head.

  She couldn’t help but smile. It wasn’t a great picture, but it was good enough to recall the day together, which was the point of taking pictures in the first place.

  After the duck ate the bread, they continued on their way. They hadn’t gone far when Randy’s hand slipped over her own, and his fingers intertwined with hers.

  Part of her wanted to pull away, but part of her was actually enjoying his gentle touch, especially when they passed other couples who were also holding hands while they walked.

  “Lacey, I was wondering—”

  Suddenly Lacey stopped, pulling Randy to a halt, as well. She pointed to the water, where a bright-colored mallard and his brown-colored mate floated serenely in the water side by side. “Look! Aren’t they beautiful?”

  Randy smiled hesitantly. “Yeah, I guess so.” They both turned, still hand in hand, and facing the lagoon, watched the ducks together.

  “You know,” Randy said, “I should get a picture of this. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a mated pair like that together, just the two of them, and been so close. In a way, it’s kind of romantic.”

&n
bsp; “R-romantic?” Lacey stammered. “They’re ducks….”

  “I know geese mate for life. I think swans do, too. I’m not sure about ducks. I think some do. I’ll have to look it up on the Internet when I get home tonight.” Randy pulled his hand away, and immediately Lacey felt the loss. Randy unclipped his phone from his belt and walked to the water’s edge. Lacey followed him.

  He turned his head and grinned at her. “Watch. This is how it’s done.” He showed her the sequence of buttons to push to take the picture, then handed the phone to her.

  Following his instructions, she took the first picture she’d taken in more years than she could remember.

  She couldn’t help but smile. “Maybe it’s time I bought a camera. But I mean a real camera, not a phone disguised as a camera.”

  Randy smiled as he studied the small screen. “For a phone, it still takes fairly good pictures. I just got a great idea.” He pulled a slice of bread out of the bag, laid the bag on the ground and stepped beside her. “I’m going to feed them. Press this button right here when they take it out of my hand. This model does a streaming video, but it only goes for fifteen seconds, so don’t start too soon. Or you can just press it real fast when you want to take a picture. Then it will take only a couple of frames at a time, and I can use those for single photos.”

  Lacey stepped back and positioned the phone so she could watch Randy and the ducks on the view-screen at the same time, but the ducks didn’t move closer. Instead, they only started to float away. “I can get you and the ducks in the same picture, but from here, they’re only little dots.”

  Randy stepped forward until the tips of his shoes were nearly in the water. He leaned forward and extended his arm as far as he could, holding out the piece of bread. “Maybe they’ll come back,” he muttered.

  Lacey stepped back and took one picture that included both Randy and the ducks. “It’s okay. I’m sure you’ll remember that those dots are the ducks.”

  Randy straightened. “Wait. I’m going to try something. I need to get closer.” Cautiously Randy stepped onto one of the large rocks protruding from the water.

  “What are you doing?!” Lacey gasped.

  He stepped onto the next rock, then slowly, balancing on his toes, turned to face her. “I said, I’m going in closer. They’re starting to move away. If this works, it will be great. There’s a demo printer at the store that prints photo-quality pictures. For a while I thought about buying one, but that would tempt me to print every picture I took, so I’ve been storing all my photos on CD’s. With a picture like this, especially out of the phone, which isn’t as good as my digital camera, I can see how good the printer works because this will be a real shot, not something doctored up from the demo package.”

  Lacey shook her head. In a skewed way, she not only followed what he’d just said, she agreed with his logic. It was a scary concept.

  He stepped out farther and farther onto the rock, then turned around, looking down as the ducks swam closer to him, probably wondering what a human was doing in the middle of their pond. Slowly Randy bent down until he was squatting. He tore a piece off the slice of bread and held it out.

  Lacey shuddered. “Aren’t you afraid they’re going to bite you?” she called out from her safe position on the shoreline. “They may be used to people, but they’re still wild animals.”

  “They’re just ducks, not mountain lions. Shh. Here they come.”

  Time dragged in slow motion as the ducks slowly approached Randy as he remained motionless on the rock, the piece of bread extended at arm’s length.

  Lacey felt she should start taking pictures, but she wanted to get the best one, which would be of a duck actually taking the bread from Randy’s hand.

  “You should see what this looks like,” she said softly as she concentrated on the viewfinder. “It looks like you’re standing on the water.”

  “It almost feels like I am,” he said softly, but not softly enough. The ducks stopped their approach. Just in case they didn’t come any closer, Lacey pushed the button for her second picture of the day.

  “Here, ducky ducky,” Randy whispered melodically, reaching farther over the water with the piece of bread. “I have a yummy snack for you.”

  Lacey pressed the button, meaning to take a few frames, but suddenly the male duck spread its wings, causing the female duck to do the same. With the unexpected movement, Randy jerked back.

  Lacey’s finger froze on the button as the ducks flapped their wings, beginning the sequence to take flight. At the same time, Randy flailed his arms, but he wasn’t getting ready to fly—he was attempting to regain his balance.

  The piece of bread flew up into the air as Randy continued to fail his arms. He started to straighten, then extended one leg to hop back onto the larger rock in an attempt to get more solid footing. He jumped, but with all his movement, instead of landing firm, his shoe slid forward and he toppled backward.

  The ducks rose above the surface of the water just as the splash resounded below.

  Chapter Eight

  Randy sputtered as he rose out of the cold water. His clothes stuck to his skin, his hair was plastered down over his head and water streamed down his face, causing him to shudder.

  “Randy! Randy!” Lacey screamed from the safe, dry shoreline, her arms waving in the air. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” he called out. No, he thought.

  He’d done a lot of stupid things in his life, but it had been a long time since he’d done something this stupid.

  This was even worse than when he had to buy Carol a new pair of panty hose. And that had been in front of Lacey, too.

  He didn’t know what lesson God was trying to teach him. He couldn’t remember praying for patience, or humility, but he was receiving big lessons in both.

  He stared at Lacey in silence. She quieted, lowered her arms and stared back.

  Neither of them moved until a gust of wind blowing over the water caused Randy to shiver. He gathered his composure and began to make his way back to the shore, wading through the thigh-deep water.

  The closer he got to the shore, with the water becoming increasingly shallow, the more it sloshed and splashed around him.

  When he reached dry ground, he stood before Lacey. Her eyes were wider than he’d ever seen. She held his cell phone at her side with one hand, and raised her other hand to cover her mouth, which was gaping open.

  “That was fun,” he grumbled sarcastically.

  “Are you okay? You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?” she asked, her voice muffled from behind her hand.

  “Nothing’s hurt except my pride.” Not to mention any last semblance of dignity. “I hope you at least got some good pictures.”

  “They were just ducky,” she said as she lowered her hand.

  Randy stiffened and stared at her. “Ducky?” Another drip of water ran down his face. “Oh, har dee har.”

  Lacey snickered.

  Randy watched as she thought about her own words, and it seemed that the more she thought about it, the funnier they became, because she suddenly burst out laughing.

  She lowered her voice. “The photos are just ducky, luv,” she said in a very bad fake British accent. As soon as she finished her poor rendition, she started laughing again.

  Randy didn’t laugh. Instead, he shivered. “I might laugh about this tomorrow, but right now I’m really cold.” He sniffled, then pushed back his wet hair off his face. “And I don’t know what’s in that water, but I don’t smell too good, either.”

  Her laughter suddenly faded into a gasp. “I almost forgot! You have a church service to go to! We have to hurry and get you back home!”

  He raised his wrist, looked at his watch, with its now-blank digital window. He tapped it, although he knew it wouldn’t make any difference. He looked down at his soggy clothes and pulled his dripping keys out of his pocket, along with his drenched wallet. “Maybe you should drive,” he mumbled, then shoved his wallet back into his pocket
and handed her the keys.

  She held out the phone, but then stopped before he touched it, and stared at his dripping clothes. “I think I’d better keep this for a while,” she said as she dropped the phone into her purse. “Let’s go.”

  While they walked back to the car, Randy listened politely without really responding as Lacey talked about the scenery, the path, the traffic, even how much she enjoyed the hot dog. She talked about everything except ducks, which Randy greatly appreciated. It was going to be a long time before he wanted to see another duck.

  Besides the annoying squelching sound as he walked, the disgusting feel of soaked socks and the water that seeped between his toes at every step, he wondered if the sensation of the extra weight was similar to what Bob complained about when he talked about what it was like to wear heavy, steel-toed safety boots all day long.

  By the time they got back to the car, Randy couldn’t stop his teeth from chattering, and nothing he could think about could distract him from how uncomfortable he was in his wet clothes. Worse than how he felt, he didn’t want to think of what he looked like. His clothes were sticking to him in some places and hanging in baggy lumps in others. After being completely submerged, he didn’t want to think of what had happened to his hair.

  The electronic switch to unlock the door wouldn’t work after being submerged, so Lacey had to insert the key and turn it.

  “Do you have a blanket or towel or anything in the car? Or better yet, a plastic bag?”

  “I don’t know.” Randy tried to control the chattering of his teeth long enough to answer.

  At his words, Lacey turned to him suddenly. Randy didn’t move as she raised her hands and pressed her palms to his cheeks. “Oh! You’re freezing! You should take off all that wet stuff.”

  He shook his head. “No. It’s not that bad.” A sudden chill racked his body from head to toe, completely negating his words.

  Lacey shrugged out of her sweater. “Quit trying to be brave. Take off your shirt and put this on. Or at least wrap it around you. You might look a little silly, and I can’t do anything about your jeans, but this is better than nothing.”