“Where’s your ring?”
“He didn’t have one. He wants me to pick it out.”
“Have you found it yet?”
“I haven’t exactly had time,” she laughed. “But that’s okay. Maybe we can find some time to go look this weekend.”
“Let’s go now! The mall is open until nine.”
“Now? We have to get those centerpieces made. My living room is like a craft warehouse!”
“We can stay up late. Come on, Lil. Let’s go look at least.”
Lily knew Rose would insist and decided to take her little sister up on the offer to go look with her. Honestly she felt nervous about going to look at engagement rings and having Rose with her would make it easier and more fun than trying to look all on her own.
By the time they got to the mall they only had about an hour. She didn’t have her heart set on finding anything tonight, but it was fun to look. They went to three places, and Lily didn’t see anything that caught her eye. She thought she would like something similar to what Rose had: a modest-size diamond with a smaller marquis cut stones on either side. But she wanted something unique also. She didn’t want to get something because Rose and the saleslady said it looked nice on her long, slender fingers.
“We can come back and look tomorrow,” Rose said, walking back to the car. “We’ll get an earlier start.”
“Rose! You have a wedding to plan for!”
“Come on, Lily. This is going to be one of the last sister things we get to do for awhile. Geoffrey and I are getting married on Saturday whether we get the centerpieces or the million other things on my stupid “to do” list finished. If you want my advice, spend more time on the important things like picking out a ring and a dress and flowers that you like and less time trying to impress everyone with your wedding-planning skills.”
“A little stressed, are we?”
“No, I’m not. I was about a week ago and then I decided it was ridiculous to be so uptight about the most special day of my life. At this point all that matters to me is that Geoffrey and I and our families are there--and the pastor. Everything else is pretty insignificant when you think about it.”
“Well, since I don’t have much time to plan and I’m going to be in California most of the summer, I think I’ll take your advice. I’ll let Mom and Cami worry about the details.”
“Yes, please do. They will whether you ask them to or not. You have the right idea with going to California for the summer.”
After Rose left around midnight, Lily went to bed and dreamed about her wedding for the first time since Peter had proposed. The reality that she had agreed to marry him at the end of the summer hadn’t quite sunk in until she had gone to look at rings. Remembering her conversation with Peter only a few short hours ago, she didn’t let herself doubt his sincerity. She knew he had every intention of marrying her in August, as crazy as it seemed.
The following day was the last day of school until it resumed in September. Lily gave Max’s parents a packet of activities and worksheets they could do with him over the summer to keep him from regressing over the break. She told them she was going to be out of town most of the summer but that she wanted to try and get together with Max at least a couple times to keep their readjustment time to one another in September at a minimum.
“I’ll call you whenever I’m here for a few days, and we’ll see what we can work out.”
“What are you doing that’s taking you away from Portland?” Cathy asked.
She smiled. “I’m getting married. My fiancé lives in California, so I’m spending the summer down there.”
“Congratulations! Are you having the wedding up here or down there?”
“Here. I’ll send you an invitation.”
“Yes, do. We’d love that.”
Lily saw an apprehensive look cross Cathy’s face. “You’re not going to decide to move to California permanently, are you?”
Lily smiled. “No. I’ll be here in September. I promise. My fiancé made sure of that.”
She gave Max a hug good-bye and told him how proud she was of him. “I love you, Max. Have a nice summer, okay?”
“Okay. I yove you, Miss Sulwivin.”
When Lily got home, Rose was waiting for her. Lily thought her sister was even more anxious to go shopping for a ring than she was. They hadn’t had much time to look last night, but Lily found herself panicking that she wouldn’t be able to find something she liked. In a way she wished she would have asked Peter to pick something out for her.
With more time at their disposal, she decided to take her time, looking in each glass case without letting the salesperson talk her into trying anything on until she felt ready. At the first place she got annoyed with the saleswoman and walked out before she had looked as thoroughly as she wanted to. But at the next store, the young man left them alone when Rose said they were just looking. She scanned the rings feeling bleary-eyed, however. They were all beginning to look the same to her. She supposed she would be going through this with selecting a wedding dress and everything else too.
“I think we should elope,” she said, sitting down on a plush seat in front of the glass counter and laying her head in her arms. “I’ll pick up a shell ring from a tourist shop in Waikiki, and we can get married on the beach.”
“Oh, that’s mature,” Rose said dryly. “Who’s the big sister here?”
“This gives me a whole new appreciation for what you’ve been doing for the past six months, and you didn’t even have to pick out a ring.”
“Yes, I did. You think Geoffrey picked this beauty out all on his own? Pl--lease!”
Waving the handsome salesman their direction, Rose took over. “Sit up and put your left hand on the glass.”
Lily did as she was told. Rose spoke sweetly to the salesman. “What’s your name?”
“Cameron.”
“Hi, Cameron. Lovely to meet you. My sister is having a difficult time finding something she likes,” she said, lifting her hand from the glass and placing it in Cameron’s large, smooth palm. “What do you think would look nice on these perfect fingers. And yes, those are her real nails.”
Lily rolled her eyes at Rose’s dramatics. This was not going to work. How could this person who didn’t even know her possibly know what she would like to wear on her finger for the rest of her life? But she played along. Rose was the one who needed to get home and finish sewing the ring bearer pillow.
“Well, they certainly are lovely hands,” the smooth-talking young man said. “What’s your name?”
What does my name have to do with it? Rose gave her a silent order to answer the question.
“Lily,” she said.
“Lily. Beautiful name,” he said with a smile. “Let’s see. I’m thinking something not too large, unless of course you’re going for shock value.”
She looked up and saw his teasing smile. “No. I think I’d like something small.”
“Did you see anything here you remotely like? We can take something we have and modify it for you; A larger stone, smaller, something besides diamonds. We have a gemologist here five days a week that will customize whatever you’d like.”
Lily looked back in the case. She pointed out one, and Cameron took it out and placed it on her finger. It was way too big size-wise but otherwise she thought it was a beautiful ring.
“We could downsize it, of course,” he said, checking the tag and the huge gap between the ring and her finger. “You must be about a five.”
Taking a ring sizer from his pocket, he checked his prediction. He was right. He suggested some changes in the setting, but she had a difficult time picturing it in her head. Sensing her disinterest, he tried again.
“Anything else? Maybe something with multiple stones so we’d have more to work with?”
Lily looked at Rose and then at her sister’s left hand. Before she talked herself out of it, she lifted Rose’s hand from her lap and held it up. “I want something like this, but different.”
“Ah-hah!” he said, taking Rose’s hand and smiling broadly. “Mmmm...hold on a sec.”
He stepped away and Lily glanced at her sister. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Mind that you want a ring like mine?”
She waited for Rose to respond.
“My sister, the one with impeccable taste wants a ring that looks like mine, and you think I’d mind that? No, Lily,” she said, smiling and wrapping her arms around her. “I don’t. I’m thrilled you’re finally deciding on something.”
“Well, I haven’t decided yet,” she said. “I still want to make it different somehow. We may be here awhile.”
“Take your time,” Rose said. “I’m in no hurry.”
Cameron came back with something to show them. He had a ring that looked similar to Rose’s but with some colored stones on the sides and a larger diamond in the middle. At first glance she liked the changes.
“This is actually a cubic zirconia which is why it was in that case over there, but we can put in a real diamond easily enough. And you could have any colored stones on the side like this.”
“I like that,” she said.
“Try it on,” Rose said. “That one doesn’t look as big as that other one.”
“No. This is a six, so it will give you a good idea,” Cameron said, holding the ring out to her.
She slipped it on and liked it immediately, except she wasn’t certain about the colors of the small side-stones.
“With your skin tones I would suggest some emeralds beside the sapphires instead of rubies. Here’s a ring with some small emeralds. The rest of the ring is different but it will give you an idea.”
“Yeah, I like the green and blue together she said, slipping the second ring on her other hand. And sapphire is my birthstone so that would be nice.”
“How about your fiancé?”
She looked up at him. “How about my fiancé what?”
“Do you know what his birthstone is? Most of them go nicely with sapphires.”
She stared at him blankly. “I don’t know,” she said.
“I can tell you. When is his birthday?”
She sat there frozen for several long seconds. Her eyes drifted to Rose, and she swallowed hard.
“What’s the matter?” Rose asked. “I think it’s a nice idea.”
Slowly she removed the two rings on her fingers and laid them on the glass counter. “Excuse me,” she said, rising from the plush bench and running out of the jewelry store.
She heard Rose tell Cameron to hold on. Lily kept walking until Rose caught up with her. “Lily? What’s the matter?”
Walking to the edge of the railing overlooking the first floor of the mall, she grabbed the iron bars and took several deep breaths. She felt like she had an asthma attack coming on, but she didn’t have asthma.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
“You don’t know what?”
Lily turned to face her sister and swallowed hard once again, staring into Rose’s large blue eyes. “His birthday. I don’t know when it is.”
“Peter’s?”
She licked her dry lips and nodded. “Rosie! I’m engaged to him, and I don’t know when his birthday is! Am I insane? What am I doing?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Rose tried to convince her she was making too much of not knowing when Peter’s birthday was, but Lily couldn’t go back and have Cameron design the ring, even if she did love the idea of having their birthstones surrounding the center diamond.
Lily drove back to her apartment and told Rose to go home and prepare for her own wedding. “I can’t believe we wasted so much time on me.”
Rose stayed long enough to draw her a hot bubble bath and make her a microwave dinner. “Relax and eat,” she said, gathering her things and heading for the door. “When you calm down, call Peter. Trust me. You are making too much of this.”
Lily disagreed. Once Rose stepped out, she burst into tears and cried for a good ten minutes. She would love to call Peter right now but knew he would be at the station.
How did I go from being a stable, sensible, twenty-seven year-old woman to someone who flies off to California every other weekend to see a guy I’ve been dating for a month and accepting his marriage proposal on a whim?
I know the birthdays of all the youth girls in my small group on Sundays and the Bible study group on Wednesdays. I know when Max’s is and most of the other kids in the class, but I don’t know Peter’s? The man I’m going to marry in two and a half months?
Come to think of it, I don’t even know how old he is. I’m thinking he must be twenty-nine or thirty based on how long he was in the Air Force, but I don’t know for certain. This is not okay!
Not knowing what else to do, she dried her eyes and blew her nose and went upstairs to take the bath Rose had drawn for her. The hot water did relieve some of the stress and kept the headache at bay she could feel coming on. She ate some of her food, but she wasn’t hungry.
She kept thinking about the ring. It had been beautiful. She could imagine it all put together in her size with all the right stones. For some reason the green emeralds stood out in her memory, and she knew they would look nice beside the sapphires, but she had no idea which month had emeralds as its birthstone or if that month matched Peter’s. It seemed like a long-shot at best.
What am I going to tell Peter when he comes tomorrow? ‘I couldn’t pick out a ring because I realized I don’t know when your birthday is?’ Does he know when mine is?
She couldn’t recall ever telling him, but she didn’t consider him not knowing as such a big deal. Men weren’t as tuned in to those kinds of details. But she was definitely the type of girl to know. She knew when Devin’s was. Her coworkers had brought a cake to the teacher’s lounge to share every year on January nineteenth. She always got him a card. And of course, she knew when Marty’s was. She had celebrated it with him several times.
She went to bed early and woke the next morning not feeling rested. Going to school as planned to help Mrs. Stewart pack away her room and talk with Sherry about some new ideas and materials to try with Max next year, she stayed until one o’clock and then had to head to the airport to meet Peter.
Walking into the terminal, she felt like a robot heading for a preprogrammed destination that she had no way of averting. She had no idea what she was going to say to Peter when she saw him. This was supposed to be a happy moment. The day they had both been waiting for, the day they wouldn’t be saying good-bye to each other ever again. But now she wondered if they might be after all. Could she do this? Should she? Had her irrational emotions and feelings led her to make some kind of crazy decision she would regret for the rest of her life?
She felt more nervous about seeing him today than she had when he had come for the first time a month ago. He would be expecting her to be happy to see him. Would he notice the fear in her eyes? The doubt and uncertainty she had been carrying around for the last eighteen hours? Should she try to hide it from him and let him believe everything was fine?
When the time arrived that she knew he should be meeting her, she felt like she was going to be sick and have another asthma attack, or hyperventilate, or whatever that strange shortness of breath sensation was she had been experiencing. One by one she watched the faces as they came by her, feeling relieved when each one did not belong to Peter. Which was ridiculous because eventually she’d be facing him, either now or two minutes from now.
The current stream of bodies ceased for a short time and then another group came in a wave. When that crowd began to thin out she still stood there, waiting. Once the flow had noticeably stopped, she began to wonder if something had happened. Had he missed the plane? Was she waiting at the right area? She checked the monitors again and saw that the flight he was supposed to be on had arrived on time, and she was in the right place. If he had missed the flight, she knew he would have called her, so she didn’t think that could be it, but she called him anyway and got
no response. She waited another fifteen minutes, but then she didn’t know what to do. Wait? Check to see if any other flights were arriving from Sacramento anytime soon?
Deciding to go ask the person at the Southwest ticket counter if she could check for his name on the passenger list and inquire about other incoming flights, she got some useful information that could explain his delay but made her feel panicked.
“According to the passenger list, he was on the flight,” the young woman said. “It arrived on time, but one of the passengers passed out sometime while they were in the air. They tried to wake him up when the plane landed, but he was unconscious. He’s being attended to now.”
“Do you know his name?”
“No, Ma’am. I’m sorry. Does the passenger you’re waiting for have any medical condition the paramedics should be aware of?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. At least not that I know of.”
Lily felt her whole body go numb. Had Peter passed out? From what? Did he have some sort of medical condition she didn’t know about? He’d mentioned having migraines a few times. Was that normal for him, or something he had only experienced recently?
Hearing the woman mention paramedics, however, kept her somewhat calm. That’s what Peter did. He could be attending to the person’s needs, not be the one in need. Going to a nearby chair, she sat down and put her head between her knees. She felt like she was going to black out. This put one more block on the stack of “Things I don’t know about Peter.” She had come up with a list a mile long since last night.
Don’t worry. Come to Me. My peace will guard your heart and mind. The words returned that had become so dear to her when she had been trying to make her decision about Marty. She had quoted them to Peter the other night over the phone. And yet here she was feeling worried sick--literally.
Choosing to pray, she knew that was all she could do at this point. Peter’s well-being and the future of their relationship were out of her hands right now. Please uphold me, Jesus. Whatever’s going on down there, whether it’s Peter who passed out or someone else that he’s trying to help, may your healing hand be upon them.
Lily Fields (Garden of Love 1) Page 26