Waterfalls

by Robin Jones Gunn

  “Your hair is really red?”

  “It’s brown with a deep red sheen to it. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s a strange, unnatural color. I couldn’t stand it as a kid.” Jake pulled off the freeway and stopped at a red light in a business district lined with tall buildings.

  “Mine’s a dull, mousy brown,” Meredith suddenly confessed. “I started coloring it when I was in eighth grade, and my mom threw a fit. She got over it quickly, though, because I was the youngest of four daughters, and I think she and Dad had run out of steam when it came to upholding the family image. I colored it again four months later an even lighter shade of blond, and it’s been this color ever since.” Meredith felt her cheeks beginning to blush. “I can’t believe we’re sitting here telling each other about our hair-coloring histories.”

  Jake laughed. “You forget, I’ve seen you in the middle of one of your coloring rituals. It wasn’t a secret to me.”

  Meredith laughed, finding herself more embarrassed over the circumstances of their initial meeting than she had been at the time.

  “I think,” Jake said, pulling into a parking lot and waiting for the attendant to come to the car, “anyone who colors her hair has great imagination.”

  Meredith liked his words. She liked his stories and his easygoing style. She especially liked his hair. “Let me get your door,” Jake said, reaching for his black leather satchel.

  He opened Meredith’s door and took the ticket from the parking attendant, leaving his keys in the car. They walked a few short blocks past small shops and cafés with outdoor seating.

  “Where are we?” Meredith asked. It seemed to her this street could be downtown Whidbey Island, yet the tall buildings looming in the late-evening sky behind the cute shops made it feel as if they were in a little hollow of the big city.

  “Rodeo Drive is that way,” Jake said, motioning with a nod of his head. “This is Beverly Hills.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Not what you expected?”

  “I’m not sure what I expected.”

  “I don’t hang out here much, so I won’t be a very useful tour guide, but I have been here for cheesecake, and it’s worth the trip.”

  Meredith noticed the clusters of people sitting outside the cafés they passed and strolling along window-shopping in the cool night breezes. She was dressed just right. People were flashy here, well dressed and stylish. One woman they passed wore a wide straw hat, a black shorts outfit, and sunglasses, even though it was dark. She had on gold sandals with spiked heels, and her tiny white poodle was on the end of a silver leash. It was hard not to stare at people as they walked by.

  Jake opened the door to a restaurant, and they approached the hostess station to put their name in. People were everywhere, standing and waiting to be seated.

  “It’ll be about fifteen minutes, Mr. Wilde,” the hostess said.

  For a moment Meredith was impressed that the girl knew who Jake was, but then Meri realized he had given the name when he had asked for a booth. She couldn’t help but glance around. The place had to be crawling with well-known people. She thought of trying to sneak a peak at the waiting list to see if she recognized any names. But it didn’t appeal to her the way it would have several months ago. Her image and her thoughts about movie stars were different now. They deserved a night out for a slice of cheesecake without being made a fuss over, just like anyone else.

  “Would you like to wait outside?” Jake suggested.

  “Sure.”

  They slid through the crowd, and Meri noticed his black satchel again. Was this supposed to be a business meeting? Meri tried to rein herself in. Everything about their ride over had felt like a date. She was enjoying every minute of being with this man.

  Don’t put your heart out there so quickly. Slow down. Be cautious. He’s never indicated he’s interested in this being anything more than a business relationship, has he?

  Meredith’s counterego chirped up, “He said on the phone message that he was looking forward to seeing you.”

  Yes, she argued back, but Helen says that, too. That could be a business line.

  A moment of silence fell on the battlefield of her mind, and then her counterego fired its fastest cannonball. “Do mere business associates usually leave a grape on your pillow?”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  They were seated at a window booth about twenty minutes later. Meredith felt nervous. Their conversation outside had been about a dozen unrelated things, like what kind of warranty she got with her Explorer and how her parents were doing since her dad’s resignation.

  The menu was handed to Meredith. It was a tall, extensive listing of all kinds of foods.

  “Have you had dinner?” Jake asked.

  She couldn’t remember. At the moment she didn’t feel very hungry.

  “Please, order whatever you’d like. It’s my treat.”

  Meredith scanned the long list and stopped at the bottom with a grin. “They have muffins, Jake,” she said, looking at him over the top of the menu. “I still owe you a whole, unsmashed one.”

  Jake’s smile spread across his face. He leaned forward and said, “Do you know that you are the only person in the world who has ever caught me with a prank like that?”

  “Really?” Meredith sat up straighter and squared her shoulders to demonstrate how proud she was of her success.

  “You’re quite original.”

  She made a smirk. “So I’ve heard.”

  “You don’t think of that as a compliment?”

  Meredith shook her head. “It ranks right up there with ‘but she’s got a great personality.’ ”

  Jake laughed. “No, not at all,” he said. “Do you know how few creative people are left in this world? So many conformists and imitators. You’re genuine. Original. It’s very rare.”

  “So now I’m rare,” Meredith teased. “Do you want to cut right to the bottom line?” Her nervousness and insecurities were putting her mouth into gear before her mind had a chance to review and approve the words. “Go ahead. Say it—I’m the strangest person you’ve ever met. I walk around looking like a green-faced alien; I do puppet shows on the floor of truck cabs; I smash food in people’s faces; I dance with blow-up mannequins. What did I leave out?”

  “You play a very convincing ditz in conference skits.”

  “Yes, I play a very convincing ditz.” Meredith felt insecure. She would give anything to appear sophisticated and elegant like the people around her in this restaurant.

  “Those are all things you do,” Jake said, leaning forward and warming her with his kind, brown eyes. “That’s not who you are.”

  Meredith swallowed his words. They went down hard. He was right. Before she had a chance to respond, the waiter stood before them.

  “Have you decided?”

  “I’d like a cappuccino,” Jake said. He looked at Meredith.

  “I’m afraid I haven’t had time to decide.”

  “Something to drink, then?”

  “Um, yes. I’ll have a latte. Decaf with skim milk.”

  “A ‘why bother,’ ” the waiter repeated.

  “A what?”

  “A ‘why bother.’ That’s what we call decaf with skim milk.”

  “You’re right,” Meredith said quickly before he walked away. “That’s too boring. Could you change that to one of these?” She pointed to a list of specialty coffee drinks at the bottom of the menu. “How about a Black Forest?”

  “Sure. That’s a mocha latte espresso with cherry and whipped cream.”

  “Sounds like a lot of bother,” Meredith said. “I’ll take it.”

  Jake seemed to be covering his grin with his hand as he examined the back side of the menu where the dozens of flavored cheesecakes were listed. “I’ve had the lemon raspberry,” he said. “That was killer.”

  “Look at this list!” Meredith silently read all the kinds of cheesecake and settled on chocolate chip. Jake ordered the key lime. The waiter brough
t their coffees, took their orders, and returned a few moments later with two huge slices of tall, fluffy cheesecake.

  Meredith took a bite and said, “You’re right. This is a close second to Rondi’s cheesecake.” She went for a second bite and nearly choked on it when she saw who was stepping up to their table. It was Clint James.

  Clint had been her favorite movie star when she was in college. He appeared in five films during her four years of college, and she had seen every one of them at least half a dozen times. What put Clint at the top of her movie-star list was that he had appeared as a child actor in her favorite sitcom. Every Friday night when she was growing up, Meredith would plant herself in front of the television at eight o’clock and wait for her weekly “fix” of Clint James. She had spent her hard-earned allowance on posters of this teen star, who was at least seven years older than she. The posters were purchased from her friends at school and sneaked home, where she hid them in her room, begging Shelly to keep her secret. The Graham daughters weren’t allowed to waste their time or money on such “idol worship.”

  Now, here the flesh-and-blood idol stood, right next to their table. Clint slapped Jake on the back and said, “I thought that was you, Wilde. What are you doing slumming around these parts?”

  “Clint,” Jake responded, putting out his hand to shake. “How have you been? I heard that deal with Left Coast Productions looks like it’s going through for you. Congratulations.”

  “We’ll see,” Clint said, turning his focus on Meredith. “Final papers haven’t been signed yet.” He let out a string of four-letter words. “They don’t know what they’re doing over there. I don’t think there’s half a brain between the whole lot of them.”

  More expletives came spewing from his mouth, and then, with his finely chiseled face turned toward Meredith, he asked, “And who is this?”

  “Clint, I’d like you to meet Meredith Graham. Meredith, this is Clint James.”

  Meredith found she felt no frenzied awe at meeting and shaking hands with Clint James. His breath smelled of alcohol, and he held her hand way too long for a simple handshake. She actually had the urge to wash her hand after he gave it back.

  “Did Jake tell you yet that he owes his success to me? I’m the one who got him the part on Falcon Pointe.”

  Meredith smiled politely. “He hadn’t mentioned that yet.”

  “Come on, Jake, you’re turning into a big disappointment.” Clint put his arm around Jake’s shoulder and placed a few punchy cuss words on the table before saying, “You’re sabotaging a perfectly good career. I hand you Hollywood on a silver platter, and you turn down the sequel. You’re an ingrate, that’s what you are.” The swearing went on for two more sentences as Clint roughed up Jake with his accusations about throwing away the opportunities of a lifetime to write some cheesy screenplay for kids.

  Meredith was amazed at how well Jake took the chiding, which was loud and obnoxious.

  Clint turned his attention back to Meredith. “Is he showing you a good time? Because if you’re ready to dump this loser, you can come with me, pretty Meredith. We’re headed down to Malibu. Jake never wants to go to these parties with me, but a beautiful woman like you shouldn’t be stuck all night with a loser like Jake.” Clint reached for Meri’s hand in a gesture of persuasion.

  It had a negative effect on her. She pulled her hand away and said calmly, “I’m afraid I’m a bigger loser than Jake. You see, I once admired you, Clint James. I even thought I wanted to meet you someday. That was before I knew you were a drunken, swearing womanizer. Thanks for the shot of reality.”

  Clint looked shocked. Meri turned away from him and concentrated on her cheesecake as if he weren’t there.

  She could hear Clint slapping Jake on the back and saying, “You sure know how to pick ’em, Wilde.”

  Jake remained silent. Meredith could hear Clint walking away. She wondered what the people around them were thinking. It didn’t matter. She didn’t care what anyone thought. This had been a crossroads in her life. All the directness and confidence she had when it came to publishing matters had found their voice in the everyday side of her personality. Helen would have told her she was “empowered.” She felt free, free to be her original self without being controlled by what other people thought. At this moment she believed she could even stand up to her mother.

  When Meri finally looked up at Jake, he was watching her. It seemed he was still trying to decide if he appreciated her reaction or if it bothered him.

  “There aren’t a lot of Christians in this industry,” Jake said slowly, speaking with kind, quiet words. “Most of the people I hang out with are a lot like Clint.”

  “And that makes it okay?” Meredith challenged.

  “I guess what I’m trying to say is that not everyone has the same standards or lifestyle that I do, but I’m still good friends with a lot of them. Sometimes they open up and ask me about my faith. It gives me a chance to tell them about my relationship with Christ.”

  Meri felt convicted for her brashness. “I apologize if I was out of line. Do you think I just ruined a friendship for you?”

  “No. I doubt he’ll even remember meeting you. No offense. It’s not because you’re not memorable, because you are. It’s because he’s a little too high to have recollection of this by tomorrow morning.”

  Meredith put down her fork and looked at Jake. Memorable. Original. Are these the only feelings he has for me?

  It suddenly occurred to Meredith, in the wake of her newfound freedom from being awed by movie stars or controlled by other people’s opinions, that she could control her feelings for Jake. She didn’t have to go around spouting her emotional interest in him, as she had done last night. Or teasing him by telling him he was crazy about her but not willing to admit it.

  She could hold back and have a little discipline in this emotional area of her life, too. She had held off for a lot of years from trusting a guy enough to offer him the key to the garden of her heart. Why should it be any different now just because her heart pounded, her spine tingled, and her breath left whenever he entered the room?

  Those are chemical reactions, Meredith told herself firmly. Jake was right. Shelly was right. I can tell Clint James to bug off. I can hold my own with a swarm of writers at a conference. I can live by myself and plant my own vegetable garden. I can certainly grow up emotionally and stop making a fool of myself with Jacob Wilde.

  “You have some business you want to discuss?” Meredith said, taking Jake by surprise.

  “Yes, I do. We don’t have to jump right into that unless you want to.”

  “Might be a good idea,” Meredith said.

  “I have some questions on one of the points of the contract,” Jake said, reaching for his briefcase. “I was going to send it to Helen, and I still can, but I thought since you were right here, it might be helpful if I heard it from you.”

  “Fine,” Meredith said. The gushy, being-out-with-Jake, just-the-two-of-us feelings she had experienced on the way over were quickly dispersing as she took on her acquisitions-editor role and Jacob became only a client to her.

  He pulled a few papers from his satchel, and they went over them line by line. Meri explained the franchise clause of the contract to the best of her ability and wrote down the phone number for Dan, the legal advisor at the publishing house.

  Jake finished his cheesecake. She ate about half of hers and drank most of her Black Forest coffee. It all seemed to have lost its flavor when she rebuked her feelings and toned down her approach with Jake. She felt heavy. Maybe a little sad.

  After Jake paid the bill and she properly thanked him, they headed back to the car.

  “Are you okay?” Jake asked.

  “Yes, fine.”

  “It just seems like you became quiet after Clint left.”

  Meredith walked beside Jake another half block and then stopped. He stopped, too. They were in front of a beauty supply store, and Jake looked in the window of the closed shop as if Mere
dith had stopped because of something she saw in the window. Then he turned to look at her face.

  She tried to keep a cheerful smile there to greet him. “I started thinking about what you said at my house about relationships being based on logical commitments rather than emotional responses.”

  “Yes,” Jake said, looking confused.

  Meri looked down and then back up. “I agree with that. I’ve been giving in to my emotional responses far too many times. The flirty things I said to you last night, the way I ripped on Clint. I don’t need to be so controlled by what I feel. I’m ushering in a new era in my personality.” She spread her arms open. “This is the new, improved Meredith Graham. A wiser, less ballistic woman.” She slapped her forehead with her hand. “What am I doing?”

  “What are you doing?” Jake asked.

  “I’m trying to …”

  Jake waited for her to finish.

  “You don’t know what it’s like to …”

  His eyebrows went up, and he waited.

  Inside Meredith a volcano was about to explode. She wanted to tell this man that she was crazy about him, she loved being with him, and she wanted to kiss the little bird’s nest on his jaw and make all kinds of commitments to him. But if that was all a chemical reaction, then, according to Jake’s philosophy, it was invalid.

  She was telling herself not to listen to her feelings and to take slow, steady steps of logical relationship progression. Let God work out the details.

  Besides, she pointed out to herself, how could a woman of such passion ever be happy with a cold fish head like Jake? But he wasn’t cold. He was really kind, tender, and caring about his drunken movie-star friends.

  Maybe it was she. Jake just wasn’t interested in her the way she was in him. She didn’t make his heart zing the way he did hers.

  It was exhausting work to keep a volcano from erupting.

  Meredith drew in a deep breath. “I don’t know what I’m saying. Don’t listen to me. Let it go.”

  “Are you sure? It seems like something is really bothering you.”