Mommy had great expectations of me too, only her aspirations were necessarily lower. In our case I had come too early, and to her alone, when she was just seventeen. I used to think that Luke and I becoming friends had been like some kind of natural experiment in sociology, a kind of testing of the American hypothesis that all men—and women—were created equal. It sure sounded good in spite of the evidence.
Mine had been, and still was, the bleeding heart determined to hold fast to the roots that let me completely identify with the people I wanted to work for. For me, it had always been, and still was about justice. Luke, on the other hand, could afford to see it as charity.
“You can count on my support for your causes,” he had informed me during one of our philosophical debates. “After all somebody’s got to pay the utilities.”
“You’re going to be my sponsor, is that it?” I had asked, dubious of his capitalistic compassion.
“Every day of the week.”
“And then claim it as a tax deduction, I suppose.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Republican,” I had charged as if it were a dirty word.
Which to Mommy and me, it was sort of. We were both devoted, determined, defiant Democrats in a land that had already canonized Ronald Reagan and pronounced itself Bush Country. But maybe Luke had been right too. Sometimes when I wrote a check to some kind of United Way/Red Cross/Big Brothers Big Sisters/Save the Children organization, I would think of him, imagining him doing the same, just able to write bigger checks without hesitation.
A sleekly dressed hostess came to meet me, flashing a smile nine out of ten dentists would gleefully display on their office brochures.
“Table for one?” she asked. “Or would you prefer the bar?”
I supposed that did happen, single women eating dinner alone in a public place, though I had never done it. When I was by myself I got take-out.
“I’m meeting someone,” I smugly corrected her impression.
When she saw who it was she would be surprised, the way college classmates used to be; the what’s-he-doing-with-her question apparent on their faces and occasionally even asked out loud.
Lucas James Sterling would undoubtedly be wearing twenty years like an expensive tailored suit. Tonight I had done my best to be seen with him and I hoped that I was wearing the years okay too. Not disclosing to anyone why, I had taken a half-day of leave to go home and get ready. I had chosen a very business-looking blue suit to wear, pairing it with a white oxford shirt to make it look like I had just come from the office because he shouldn’t know that I had dressed-up for this. I was even wearing navy pumps with two-inch heels instead of my barely-heeled wedges, since I had never forgotten Mrs. Sterling’s comment about my calves. On the way to the restaurant I had turned the car vents to blow cold air directly onto my face until I was shivering so that my makeup might be as faultless as his mother’s, and I smelled of Juniper Breeze,
“Sure,” the hostess kept smiling. “Do you see them?”
Casually I scanned the room like I was just meeting a bunch of my girlfriends even though my heart threatened to pound through my chest. Then I saw him, and my heart stopped beating, and flew up to my throat on the wings of butterflies. Luke was seated at one of the tables in the middle of the room towards the back. He must have been watching me, waiting for me to see him, because when I did, he smiled at me, and nine-out-of-ten-dentists would have been very proud.
And I was as much in love with him as I had ever been. As if twenty years, a failed marriage, and too many fruitless relationships had never happened. I was a college sophomore again, and he was waiting for me after class so that we could go to the Student Union for lunch. I was still incapable of believing that it was true, and I was thrilled.
Except that it really had been twenty years. Time had taken its toll on my never-was-perfect figure. Resilient optimism was not the same as innocent idealism. I wasn’t fresh anymore. Nevertheless I went forward, forcing my feet to walk calmly, confidently, gracefully.
Oh please, God, don’t let me trip.
Luke didn’t stand up to greet me and an instant later I saw why. He couldn’t. The chair he sat in had wheels, shiny silver ones, with spokes, and black rubber tires. Yet I managed not to freeze in place, continuing towards him, bolstering my smile to conceal shock and a rising tide of sadness.
Not Luke.
“Hello, Luke!” I said as if it was the most normal of reunions.
“Rachel Cunningham,” his voice, sweeter than music, arrived at my ears, entering my head reconnecting memories, reviving them. “Look at you!”
His tempting smile, his enticing eyes, they were the same, and now my hand was in his again, the heat of his touch traveling throughout my body with the speed of light. Luke. The gorgeous frat in my English Lit class who had immediately become the man of my dreams, and ultimately the reason I couldn’t get on with my life. Luke. Squeezing my hand in his. Had I ever crossed his mind? Perhaps when Clinton had won reelection? Or maybe when his oldest daughter had had her first crush? I hadn’t been his first, and more than once Luke had accused me of being too sentimental. “First can be overrated sometimes,” he had told me. “Being last can you staying power.” I wondered if he still thought that.
“It is Cunningham again, right?” Luke asked while holding my hand.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s wonderful to see you, Luke.”
“I’ve missed you, Rachel.”
I blushed and almost thanked him for his kindness. Luke grinned, and his dimples, now accompanied by laugh lines, deepened. Strands of gray seasoned his black hair but his Hershey-brown eyes twinkled. Abruptly I bent down and kissed him on the cheek. He had changed his cologne. It was not Calvin Klein’s Obsession anymore, and I should know given that I would sometimes stop at department store fragrance counters to just to re-experience. Suddenly my legs went wobbly and I grabbed for a chair to sit down, taking my hand away from him.
“How are you, Luke?” I asked in a shaky voice, meaning the question and fearing the answer.
“I’m good,” he replied lightly.
I looked at him. My kiss had left behind a faint smudge of lipstick, and without thinking I reached to wipe it away, but my hand went still on his cheek. Beneath my fingertips there was the initial scratchiness of a beard.
“You marked me,” Luke said as another smile spread over his face.
Was I stroking his cheek? Embarrassed I snatched my hand away.
“I’m sorry,” I replied quickly tucking both my hands under the table to hide that they were shaking.
“Okay by me,” he added easily. “I’d ask you how you’re doing too, but the evidence speaks for itself.”
Breathing deeply, I smiled again.
“It’s really wonderful to see you,” I repeated myself. “I’m so glad I ran into your mother at the mall. Imagine that. Does she shop there all the time? I think I must go there every week, and around that time too, but I’ve never seen her before.”
Luke sat back in his chair, watching me, listening to me chatter.
“I’ve always seen her as the Chanel No. 5 type. Bath & Body Works seems a little too earth-mothery. But the candles are really nice,” I babbled on. “Is that what she likes? They have these wallflower things that are really popular.”
“Is that right?” Luke finally interjected.
“Yes. And nice lotions and bath washes too. Lavender. I bet she likes their lavender. It’s supposed to be very calming, but kinda new-agey.”
“She didn’t tell you, did she, Rachel?”
“No,” I said and because I knew intuitively what he was talking about my eyes filled with tears. Mortified, I tried to blink them away and hastily took a drink from the water glass in front of me. “I’m sorry,” I squeaked.
Luke sighed.
“Let’s do this,” he said glancing down at his watch. “It’s about a quarter to eight. How about we take until eight-fifteen to let you get used t
o it.”
“I’m-I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I-I don’t mean to—”
“Hey,” he cut me off. “It takes some getting used to, believe me,” he allowed.
“I’m sorry, Luke,” I said again.
“Me too. Now that we’ve got that established—”
A waiter appeared and asked us what we would like to drink. Reaching inside his jacket for a pair of reading glasses, Luke transferred his attention to the wine list on the table.
“I’m thinking a bottle to share, what do you think?” he asked me.
I nodded.
“White zin or Riesling?” he followed.
I remembered that neither was his preference. With two decades passed, they weren’t mine anymore either.
“Maybe something red,” I suggested.
“May I recommend the French pinot noir?” said the waiter.
“Well-well,” Luke grinned again. “Gone hardcore, have we?”
“People can change,” I replied, sounding a little petulant.
“The South African shiraz is also quite good,” the waiter added.
Luke closed the wine list and laid it on the table.
“So I see,” he said. “But not too much I hope.”
“A number of our patrons prefer the house merlot,” the waiter reported.
“We’ll have the pinot noir,” replied Luke, not taking his eyes off me.
“Very good sir,” the waiter responded and left us.
For something to do, I moved my handbag to the seat of an empty chair at our table.
“Okay that probably took about two minutes off your time,” Luke smiled. “So let’s stay on topic until eight-twenty.”
I just looked at him.
“Car accident,” he added.
“Excuse me?” I asked confused.
“A teenager with a predilection for texting behind the wheel. That’s the how. People usually want to know that. A seventeen year old lost control of his car and his life, and I happened to be in the way. We both wound up at the bottom of an embankment. I’m told I was lucky. Comparatively speaking.”
The waiter returned with the wine. I took another drink of water. Opening the bottle with theatrical flair the waiter poured a small portion of the dark red into one of the large goblets he had also brought with him, then handed it to Luke, who assuming his role in the performance, sniffed and tasted the wine, and gave it his approval.
“Will you be having a starter?” asked the waiter as he poured our wine.
“We’ll let you know,” Luke told him.
“Very good, sir. The chef has prepared some extraordinary specials tonight. May I go over them for you?”
Luke nodded, and the waiter proceeded, detailing items that were not on the menu as if God, Himself, had descended to earth to be the chef in the St. Ives’ kitchen. Luke seemed to listen attentively, but I couldn’t distinguish one dish from the other, being at the bottom of an embankment tangled up in the images of crushed metal and shattered glass. Finally the waiter was done with his scene and he left us again to let us consider what we might choose.
“To old friends,” Luke said raising his glass.
“To old friends,” I agreed, lifting my own glass.
We touched our goblets together. The wine was good, smoothly going down my throat, warming me a little, and calming my nerves.
“T-12 incomplete,” Luke said returning his glass to the table.
“I’m sorry?” I replied setting my glass down too.
Gripping the wheel rims of his chair he lifted himself a little.
“My injury,” he explained. “T-12. Lower thoracic. Incomplete, which means I’ve got some function.”
“So you can walk?” I asked hopefully.
“No.”
My eyes once again threatened to embarrass us both. I looked down at the table, toying with the goblet stem.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured.
“I think Mother has some sort of magical thinking going on about it,” Luke continued. “Where there’s life there’s hope, right?”
I looked up at him again. When we had spoken last night, he hadn’t told me either. I supposed there was no easy way to bring it up, and our conversation had been relatively brief. I had barely been able to talk sensibly. Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. Paul’s promise to the Galatians had lost all of its assurance. Luke could never deserve this.
“Life’s not always fair, Luke,” I had told him once.
“Okay. But what are the options?” he had asked.
The twenty-something Luke had been flippant sometimes. To his mathematical mind, all full of formulas and equations, everything had always added up. Trend lines were predictable, and what mattered most was the slope of the line. Luke had had a lifetime of good slopes. Until now.
“Your mother loves you very much,” I offered up in Mrs. Sterling’s defense. “It must be… very hard to-to—”
“Get used to it?” he finished for me.
I nodded a little.
“Seven years, Rachel,” he said.
I was quiet.
“People usually want to know that too,” he added taking a drink of wine. “How long.”
I brought my own glass back to my lips too. Had Christina been with him? She hadn’t left him because of it, had she? Was that the source of Mrs. Sterling’s doubts? In my work I had counseled families coping with catastrophic illness and injury. It wasn’t always like the movies. Such a thing didn’t necessarily make heroes and heroines out of the people going through it.
A teenager texting. I was sad and angry at the same time, but I tried to concentrate on the flavor of the wine and not the steady gaze of Luke’s dark eyes. At least he was alive. Comparatively lucky. A silly dumb kid doing childish things, and ruining lives as he took his own. Meet me at the mall, Rihanna is hot. Trivialities and tragedies. I had never been able to make much sense of Luke’s trend lines anyway. It was too hard to focus on their slopes when the graphs had so many points that they looked like scattershot.
“Maybe we should order?” Luke suggested putting on his reading glasses again. He picked up one of the dinner menus.
“Yes,” I agreed, picking up the second menu.
“Been here before?” he asked.
“No, but it looks really nice,” I replied making the transition with him to the easier conversation. “Is this one of your hang-outs?”
However, I was trembling.
“You could say that,” he said from behind the menu. “They’re famous for their steaks. The plank salmon’s also good. As is the stuffed chicken breast.”
Out of habit I looked at the menu prices, knowing that it didn’t matter. In the entire time that I had known him, Luke had never let me pick-up a restaurant check. At times his generosity had made me feel like a moocher but he would dismiss that as ridiculous. “If you’re so worried about it, put an extra donation in the offering plate on Sunday,” he had once said.
“What are you having?” I asked, studying the list of entrees.
“The tenderloin,” he replied, closing his menu and placing it back on the table.
“Oh wow,” I murmured when I read the price.
“It’s a special occasion,” he smiled. “Right?”
I closed my menu too and laid it on top of his.
“Yes,” I smiled back.
Luke signaled to the waiter and he returned to take our orders for the beef tenderloin: one prepared medium for Luke, the other one well-done for me. A busboy refilled our water glasses, and the waiter quickly arrived with salads and hot bread. Lowering my head, I gave thanks for my food before beginning to eat.
“Nice to know some things haven’t changed,” Luke said.
“What about you?” I asked more lightly than I felt. “Got Jesus?”
“We’ve had some discussions,” he answered while he buttered a piece of bread. “Contract still needs a little work though.”
According to Luke, the Sterlings had bee
n social Christians. They had belonged to an Episcopal Church, but they had seldom attended. “So much for separation of church and state,” he had said. “Just try getting elected without a church membership on your resume.” Getting hurt had probably not been good for contract talks.
“No, Rachel,” Luke added as if he could read my mind. “God didn’t break my back. And I don’t expect Him to fix it.”
But God could if He wanted to. Couldn’t He do all things? The Bible was full of miracles. Surely no one was more deserving than Luke. Did social Christians ever pray? Seven years was not too long to hope. I had spent at least twenty doing it.
“It was an outlier,” I said, reciting one of Luke’s lessons back to him.
“You got it,” he agreed.
“Follow the slope of the line.”
Luke nodded, raising his glass.
“Generally speaking mine’s been pretty good,” he said.
Except for the divorce and a teenager with a cell phone, but still I smiled a little, loving him a lot.
“Okay,” Luke said looking at his watch once again. “Eight-thirty. Time to move to a new topic.”
My smile brightened anyway.
“Let’s talk about you,” he continued. “What’s Rachel Cunningham been doing with herself the last twenty years?”
Saving a cassette tape, I thought.
FOUR
The tenderloin was superb, the wine wonderful, and the conversation eventually as if we were back in Luke’s Trans Am on our way home for the holidays. People always said that this was the way it was supposed to be between old friends. You should be able to pick up where you had left off, the years, the events, the outcomes notwithstanding.
Generally speaking, the slope of our friendship had been good if we regarded the sex part as an outlier, nothing more than just a very brief blip that hadn’t really changed what had been between us before. I could learn to do that. Although maybe that was only the wine talking. In any case it was pretty clear that that particular point in time was no big deal to Luke. It was like we were both back in college, and he was enjoying his little sister again, having fun with his faithful sidekick.
Walk on Water Page 3