“Adam Mariano!” I cried, shaking his hand yet again. I hadn’t recognized him right away because the last time I had seen him, he had just been a kid. He was a freshman the year we were seniors and he looked entirely different. But the hair color and dimpled cheek were the same as his sister’s and seeing him again brought her face to my mind as well. “How’ve you been?”
“God is good,” he said shaking his head and shrugging. “I knew you lived here, big radio man and all, but I never expected to run into you like this.”
“Yeah,” I said, remembering how the sermon spoke directly to me. “It was like I was meant to be here today.”
“I know what that’s like,” Adam said, looking at me with eyes that truly understood. “Sometimes you end up on the right road without even realizing how you got there, huh?”
I shook my head in agreement. “So how’s Maria?” I asked, not wanting to dive into too many personal details, but truly wanting to hear how she was. We had dated for quite some time back in high school, after all. If we hadn’t gone to separate colleges, we might have even lasted longer. I had always figured she hadn’t been “the one” because she hadn’t put up a fight when it came time to go our separate ways. Separating had seemed easier than it should have been and so I had moved on with ease.
“She’s good, man, she’s good. She works with animals. Hey, she’s still single,” he said, giving me a wink.
“Oh yeah?” I asked, not sure what to say to that comment.
“She still talks about you,” he said and I felt a stab to my heart. I couldn’t imagine what she would have to say about me after all these years. “She lives two towns away, but we get together every week or two. Say, it would be really cool if you came with me sometime. You know, surprise her. We’re meeting tonight at a café between here and there. You know the Hole in the Wall?” Adam was rambling on without giving me much time to think. “You should totally come. It would blow her mind.”
Before I could answer another younger guy came up behind Adam and clapped his hand on his shoulder. “Come on, man!” he said and Adam raised his hand to indicate he was coming.
“Gotta go,” he said. “The band practices right after the service while the vibe is still fresh.”
I hadn’t even realized he had been in the band, but now that he mentioned it, he HAD been the one playing the drums up front during the contemporary songs.
“Remember, tonight…the Hole in the Wall! Great seeing you!”
“Good to see you too,” my voice trailing off at the end since I knew he couldn’t hear me as he walked away through the crowd anyways.
Maria Mariano. That was a blast from the past.
By the time I got home, I was sure of what I needed to do. There was no way I was going to see any girl near any hole in any wall that night. I had made that mistake. Twice. In a row. I had jumped in feet first and ended up falling head over heels…only to land on my head in the end with my heart smashed inside my chest. If I wanted to find the right girl, God was going to have to bring her directly to me.
I made a sandwich and sat at the table, thinking about the sermon. It really had seemed like it had been for me. I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to go with my life now, but I knew that I wasn’t doing a good job at choosing the roads. I needed God for help with that.
“Did you put mayo on that?” Evan asked from across the table. I jumped at the sound of his voice and he chuckled. “Sorry,” he said. “Sometimes I forget the effect I have on people.”
I held the sandwich out to him, offering the rest to him. “Just ketchup,” I said.
“Weird,” he answered as he took the sandwich and shoved a big bite into his mouth. “So, the Hole in the Wall, huh?”
I was finally over the shock of the fact that he seemed to know everything before I told him. “Yeah, but I’m not going.”
“Why’s that?” he asked through a mouthful of meat and cheese.
“I think it’s time for me to kick back and wait for the right girl to come to me. I don’t need to chase anyone down anymore.”
Evan nodded. “Smart. Mind telling me what you prayed in church today?”
I blinked. That was pretty personal. We had talked about a lot of personal things, but he had never before asked about my prayers. Not that I had every really prayed them before. I decided I didn’t have much to lose.
“I just thanked God for all sorts of stuff and asked Him to reveal the right woman to me at the right time.”
“You said that?” Evan asked, as if he were surprised.
I nodded.
“And you meant it?” Evan said, holding the sandwich in mid-air, close to his lips. “You really want God to choose for you?”
Suddenly, even more fell into place. I had told Evan in the very beginning that I wanted a family of my own, but that I wanted to choose the woman who would become my life. Now, it was all coming full circle. It was now apparent that the choice should not by mine and mine alone. I was ready to admit that I needed help.
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, gaining confidence as I spoke. “It’s not like I was doing a very good job at it myself.
Evan raised his eyebrows in agreement. “God makes people for each other and sometimes it’s really hard for people to see who is right for them and who is not.”
“No,” I said, “it’s not hard. It’s impossible.”
Evan smiled as he took another bite. I wondered if he ever got full and I decided to ask.
“Don’t they feed you?” I asked, deciding to get personal with him for once.
“They?” he questioned as he chewed.
“The people from wherever you come from,” I said, not really understanding the statement myself, but hoping he would.
“There’s not really food there,” he said. “It’s hard to explain in a way that you would understand. There’s really no need for food. But when I come here…I don’t know…I just can’t get enough of the stuff.”
He was right, he hadn’t explained it in a way I would understand, but at least he had tried. He had admitted that he wasn’t some average Joe who hailed from earth just like me. He came from somewhere else and he had so-called “spiritual authority.” I still wanted to ask him about that but he changed the subject back to me before I could get to it.
“So, after your prayer,” he said, licking the fingers on one hand. “After you asked God to take over and make your choices for you…what happened?”
I found it silly that I had to tell him what happened when he so obviously knew, but I played along. In the few conversations I had had with Evan, I had figured out that sometimes, when he asked questions, they were more for my benefit than for his. “Church was over and I came home,” I said, glancing at the few bites of sandwich that were left in my hand.
“And you made this glorious piece of art,” he said, nodding to the sandwich. I guessed that he was over the fact that it didn’t have any mayo on it. “But what happened between?”
“Between?” I thought. “Oh, I ran into an old classmate of mine. Well, not really a classmate, but we went to the same high school. He was several years behind.”
“Did he want to catch up and reminisce about old times?”
“Not really,” I said, thinking back to the conversation. “We didn’t have much time to chat.”
“But in the time you DID have,” Evan continued, “what did he say?”
“Oh, I don’t know, he asked how I’d been and told me he was surprised to see me. He mentioned his sister.”
“His sister, huh? Maria?”
Of course Evan knew her name. He also knew how the conversation played out, but that most certainly wasn’t the point. I, however, did not understand what the point WAS.
“Yeah, so?”
“Let me spell things out for you,” Evan said with a sigh, as if he had led me to the water and now he had to force me to drink. “You prayed for God to lead you to the right woman at the right time. Seconds after you said that prayer, Ada
m appeared. He told you his sister, who you dated in high school, still thought about you today. Then he invited you to meet with her that very evening when he was going to meet her himself.” Evan raised his eyebrows as if there were too many coincidences in a row for it to be coincidental.
“Are you saying…” I began.
“Ask and ye shall receive,” Evan said, finishing the last few bites of sandwich in one foul swoop.
So I was going to the Hole in the Wall after all. I was going to see Maria Mariano again for the first time in well over 15 years. And I was going because the man who kept appearing in my kitchen and eating my food told me I should.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I found myself at the Hole in the Wall café one town over early that evening, during the dinner rush. I didn’t really know what time Adam and Maria planned to meet since all Adam had told me was “tonight” and that I should come. The details were sketchy, but I knew based on my conversation with Evan that this was where I needed to be. Whether I liked the idea or not.
I sat at a corner table by the window and gazed out onto the tiny little street. The town was a small suburb and the downtown area was quaint and cute in every way. I had no idea how much time I had before Adam and Maria would arrive so I indulged myself in the past, thinking of my relationship with Maria.
She and I had met our very first year in high school and we hung out in the same circles. We were what was known as “band geeks” on the official high school chart. That meant that we hung out with other people in the band, maybe a few choir participants and that was about it. We were not in with the jocks and cheerleaders, but we were not completely unpopular either. It was a nice, in between place to be.
Maria fascinated a lot of the boys in the band because she was a percussionist. Back when I went to high school, girls didn’t play the drums. And those that did were always stuck on the mallet instruments in the pit. Maria, however, as petite as she was, managed to secure a place on the quad line her very first year in the marching band.
Quad drums are the four different sized drums that are all wired together and strapped to the front of the drummer. They are the hardest and heaviest to play. And Maria handled them like they were nothing.
Maria’s flair for the percussion section caught many people’s ears, but her appearance caught my eyes. Maria wasn’t classically beautiful. In fact, her hair color was quite plain and normal…just a sandy brown. She had wispy bangs that were all the rage in that day and she often clipped her hair to the back of her head with a banana clip so that she wouldn’t get it caught in the straps of the drum kit she wore.
It was the dimple in Maria’s right cheek that really drew me in. No matter what she was doing, whether it was smiling, frowning, or concentrating, the dimple was there. And it was so cute I couldn’t resist staring any time she came into my view. In fact, I had to switch places with another trumpeter just so I could not see her during one particular song. I tripped the whole line up when I stepped out of place because of my staring.
Maria never knew of my attraction to her and we were friendly for the first few years of high school. She was sweet and nice and I noticed her often, but I never really thought to ask her out. In fact, it was Maria that had to make the first move.
It was her 16th birthday party, which her parents had thrown at a big indoor park and we had all been having a blast. The park had slides and ball pits and everything little kids would enjoy and it was a perfect place for us all to get away from teenage life and simply be kids again.
Maria and I were clambering through a particularly long tunnel, hiding from someone who was seeking us, when we collapsed in the middle, satisfied with our spot. We were alone and it was dark and I could hear Maria breathing.
I felt a brush against my hand and at first, I wasn’t sure what was happening. After the next brush came a soft hand on top of mine. And then, suddenly, her fingers laced through mine. Maria was still quiet and I felt like I had stopped breathing.
“Do you ever, you know,” she said as I began to breath once again, “think about me?” she asked.
Before I could think about my answer, I blurted out what came to mind, as was standard for me. “All of the time,” I said and I felt Maria’s hand tighten over mine.
“Wanna go out sometime?” she asked, her thumb stroking the back of my hand.
“Are you free tomorrow?” I asked, imagining her dimple deepen as she smiled at me across the dark tunnel.
“Actually, I am.”
From that point on, Maria and I were inseparable. We were a couple, but more than that, we were best friends. We talked about our dreams and our futures, but we never really thought about how we would fit into each other’s lives down the road, if at all. When the time came to choose colleges, we ended up in different locations in two very distant states. It wasn’t something we had ever seen as a problem until the time came.
And when Maria came over for that last night, it still didn’t seem to be a problem. We were a couple, but we were friends first. And we wanted what was best for one another. When she left that night, I had hugged her hard and held onto her a little longer than usual, but when it had been time for her to go, I had no reservations. I did not ask her to stay longer; I did not beg her to go to school with me instead of across the country. Life was leading us in different directions and I had to let her go.
I never really looked back, but according to Adam, it sounded as if Maria had. And that made me curious. She was a wonderful girl back when I knew her. What would make her think of someone like me and remember our time? She could probably have any guy she wanted these days.
An hour passed and I began to wonder if I had made a mistake. There wasn’t likely another Hole in the Wall café in this town, but maybe I had misunderstood. Maybe Adam and Maria were to meet earlier than dinnertime.
As I stood to leave, the bell on the front door clanged and I turned. I caught sight of wavy, sandy brown hair entering on top of a petite woman. I wasn’t sure until she turned to face me, her face serious, and I caught sight of her prevalent dimple.
“Maria,” I whispered, taking in the rest of her as she surveyed the café, looking for her brother. She had certainly grown up well and she was now officially classically beautiful. She had always been petite and in high school, that had often worked against her. As a grown up, it was working for her.
It took Maria a few moments to glance around the room, but her eyes worked their way over me and kept going. When she returned them to my general direction, I gave her a slight, tentative wave. She squinted and frowned and her dimple grew.
It was too late to back out now. I knew I had to do something. It was my turn to make a move this time. I walked toward Maria and smiled.
“Maria Mariano,” I said and she raised an eyebrow.
“I’d recognize that voice anywhere,” she said, smiling and allowing her dimple to grow to its fullest depth. “Jared Jones!”
I opened my arms and hugged Maria with all of my strength. Her sandy brown hair brushed the bottom of my chin and I caught the scent of strawberries.
“What in the world…” she began as she pulled away and looked up at me.
“I ran into Adam at church this morning and he told me about your meeting and invited me along.”
“And that would be why he’s calling now,” she said, pulling her phone from her purse as it vibrated. “Can you hold on for a second?” she asked, flipping it open. “Where are you?” she said into the phone. After she paused for his answer she said. “No, I understand. Actually, I understand completely,” she looked at me and smiled. “I’ll talk to you later, bro.”
Maria closed the phone and tossed it back into her purse. “That was Adam. Believe it or not, he can’t make it. Are you starting to feel like this was a set up?”
“A little bit,” I said, amazed that Adam would take the chance of standing his sister up when he didn’t even really know if I would show, especially with so few details.
> “Do you mind?” Maria asked, a hint of concern on her face.
“Not in the least,” I said, gesturing to the table I had been inhabiting alone for way too long.
From that moment on, things were just as they had been in high school. I felt as if Maria and I had never been apart. We fit like two friends who had never lost contact. Things just flowed between us as we caught up.
Maria told me about her college life and how she went on to study to be a veterinarian.
“You always were bringing home strays,” I said, remembering the wet kitten she had found in the alley that one time and the baby bird she had nursed into adulthood.
“Remember the chicken?” she asked.
I laughed. Boy did I remember the chicken. She had found her when our group of friends went to the pumpkin patch. Apparently, the mother would not care for her and the farmer thought it was best to let nature take its course. Maria thought otherwise and she took the chicken home. The thing was cute and furry when it was little, but once it grew, it reeked quite a bit of havoc on her house before she turned it back over to another local farm.
“Remember when Cluck nearly took Ben’s head off when you guys were over playing pool that one night?”
“He screamed like a girl,” I chuckled, shaking my head.
I told Maria about my career in radio and she listened with fascination as I told her about the promo drive for Ian.
“This is going to be an annual event?” she asked.
I nodded, “That’s the idea. A different reason each time.”
“There are a lot of animals out there that need that kind of help…” she said with her signature smile.
The evening passed too quickly and I knew it was official. I wanted Maria back in my life. It felt as if she had never left. I wondered if I would have reached out and tried to contact her before if I had known she was so close by. Given the way we had parted amicably, I figured I would have left it alone. It wasn’t worth thinking about too hard now. The time was lost and all we had was now.
God In The Kitchen Page 18