14
They arrived at nearly the exact same moment: Detective Ian Smith and Call-Me-Matt Valasquez, walking down the church aisle with their arms practically brushing, and yet seemingly unware of one another. Both looking directly at Rachel.
She nearly had a coronary.
Spotting the two men, Lynn reached out both hands, one to grip Rachel and one to grip her husband. She convulsively squeezed their elbows.
Startled, Alex swiveled his head in all directions, seemingly looking for a threat.
Ann merely smiled a Cheshire Cat smile and leaned back as if all her life had been leading to this moment.
Unfortunately for Ann, the chances of prospective entertainment took a slight dip when Craig Lewis, the young associate pastor, intercepted Detective Smith halfway down the aisle, unwittingly leaving Call-Me-Matt with a clear field. He limped forward at a brisk pace, lips curling in a warm smile.
Rachel stood and stepped into the aisle as he approached, not caring to have him come halfway down her row and loom over her.
She straightened her back and lifted her chin. It was fine. This was a new day, and she was a new Rachel. A Rachel wearing new boots. A Rachel who could run two miles. Well, mostly run two miles.
Apparently, Matt took her coming into the aisle and smiling as definite signs of encouragement. He stepped into her personal space and slipped a hand around her elbow, leaning in to kiss her lightly on both cheeks.
As this happened, Rachel glanced over Matt’s shoulder and made eye contact with Ian Smith. He seemed distracted from his conversation with Craig Lewis, mouth open as if paused mid-speech. She held his gaze just long enough to witness his eyebrows twitch together. Her face went up in flames. She snapped her gaze away from the detective and stepped back from Matt.
Matt moved away only fractionally, keeping his hand on her elbow. “You’re back.” He smiled, speaking as if her road trip had ended just the previous day.
“So are you,” she noted.
He laughed, his eyes warming. She stepped back further, forcing him to drop his hand from her elbow. He shifted his weight forward. She moved slightly sideways to create more space between them, since backing up didn’t seem to work.
Lynn and Ann were no help. Upon Matt’s arrival at Rachel’s side, they’d turned inward toward each another as if sharing a cozy, intimate chat.
Rachel harbored no doubts as to what they were discussing.
Matt told Rachel that he’d missed her, a ridiculous statement considering how little time they’d actually spent together. Since she’d spent more than half of their acquaintance believing he might be a serial killer, she found this particularly ludicrous. Even more ludicrous was Ian Smith’s sense of timing. He walked up just as Matt said how much he’d missed her.
She felt her face stiffening, but she determined to handle the situation with as much poise as she could muster. Which didn’t seem to be much.
Fortunately, the music for the first worship set began. Matt slid into the row next to Alex, gesturing for Rachel to join him. Rachel, her face still glowing like a Roman candle, slid in next. Ian Smith stepped in behind her, leaving her effectively wedged between the two men.
Ridiculous.
The sermon was completely lost on Rachel. It seemed to be something about expectation versus reality in the Christian experience, and if ever a topic had spoken to her actual experience in the moment, it was probably this one. Really, it was too bad that she couldn’t concentrate, because not one single aspect of her life seemed to be meeting her expectations at the moment.
But how could she concentrate with Call-Me-Matt on one side, occasionally brushing her arm with his as he turned the pages of his Bible or pushed up his little wire-rimmed glasses, and Detective Smith on the other side—straight, tall, and quiet—as he scrolled through the verses on an iPad with a soft leather cover.
What had Detective Smith been thinking when Matt leaned into her and kissed her cheeks? Maybe he hadn’t thought anything. Maybe he was just back at church to have a further conference with Craig Lewis. Then again, the last time he’d visited, Lynn and Rachel had invited him to lunch “next time.” Was he planning to come with them after church? Should she invite Matt too, in order to make her invitation to Ian Smith seem less personal? Although it might solve one problem, it could also majorly backfire by encouraging him. Would it matter? He seemed to behave the same toward her whether she encouraged him or not. Rachel took a moment to consider what an encouraged Call-Me-Matt would look like and shuddered.
Matt scooted close. “Are you cold?” he murmured. He slid an arm across the back of Rachel’s seat. He didn’t touch her, but she could still feel warmth radiating from his arm. His fingers must have brushed Ian Smith’s shoulder, because Rachel felt him twitch beside her.
“I’m fine, thank you,” Rachel tried not to hiss too loudly, but she also tried to ensure that everyone around her knew that the arm-across-the-back thing was not happening at her invitation or with her approval.
The sermon stretched into infinity. How much could the pastor possibly have to say?
Finally, the congregation stood for a final song and the benediction.
Matt’s arm swung back as he stood, his fingers brushing against hers seemingly by accident.
Rachel snatched up her arms and crossed them over her chest, knocking her festive fall scarf askew. Her face heated again, and she wished, not for the first time, that her life weren’t so ridiculous.
The moment the last amen sounded, she turned to Ian Smith, determined to brazen out the awkwardness.
Ian Smith, however, was already engaged in conversation with Miss Graciela, who had appeared out of nowhere.
Matt tapped Rachel on the shoulder. “Excuse me, Rachel.” He rolled the R in her name for a disproportionate length of time.
“Yes?”
“I was wondering if you would give me the favor of your company at lunch?”
“Well,” Rachel fumbled, forgetting the smooth line she’d spent most of the sermon crafting. “I don’t know.”
Matt’s gaze flicked past her to rest on Detective Smith’s straight shoulders. She noted the tiny muscles around his eyes tightening, but his smooth smile didn’t falter. “I see,” he said.
Maybe, Rachel thought, I’ve been seeing this all wrong. Perhaps this awkward situation could be leveraged to her advantage. Seeing her with Detective Smith might actually throw Matt off in a way that five months of avoidance and discouragement hadn’t. She lived in hope.
“I might already have plans,” she said. It was true. She always had standing lunch plans with Lynn’s family and Ann. Nevertheless, she slanted her eyes suggestively toward Ian’s back.
Speculation flickered in Matt’s eyes, but he behaved like a gentleman. He told her he’d see her next week and leaned in to kiss her cheek.
She had to interrupt Ian Smith’s conversation with Miss Graciela in order to step out into the aisle and let him leave, and she was fairly certain the detective couldn’t have missed how Matt brushed her fingers with his on his way past.
Miss Graciela spotted a new baby across the auditorium. She clapped her hands and scuttled off, unwittingly abandoning Rachel in her time of need.
Willing her blush to recede, she turned to face Detective Smith. Since Matt wouldn’t have made it far up the aisle, Rachel turned up her face to the man before her and addressed him with more brightness than was warranted. “Hi! It’s so good to see you!” she chirped, flipping her hair over her shoulder. Considering that they’d been sitting side-by-side for the past hour, this was possibly the stupidest greeting she could have offered. No time to think about that now. She cut her gaze toward Matt to see if he had overheard, but somehow she’d lost track of him.
Detective Smith’s face was impassive. “Your friend Lynn invited me to lunch. She said I should drive you.”
Rachel’s brain short circuited. She looked to Lynn for aid, but Lynn was currently in the act of ushering everyone else out of the row as quickly as she could. The traitor.
“I thought I’d let you drive yourself.” Detective Smith folded his arms across his chest. He watched her closely. “I don’t have to come at all if you’d rather I not.”
Rachel could barely look at him. “Why wouldn’t I want you to come to lunch?”
“I don’t want to complicate anything for you.”
“Complicate…lunch?” She let out a light laugh. It was cowardly of her to seek refuge in playing dumb, but she didn’t have any other cards to play. In that moment, however, she could see that she’d misread her hand. He could see right through her. For a panicked moment, she thought he might lose his cool.
But when he spoke, his voice was calm. “This is my fault. I gave you my number and told you to call me if you wanted to. You didn’t call me, and I came here anyway. Part of that was coincidence—I did need to meet with Craig Lewis last week. But coming back this week was my idea, and I can see it was a miscalculation. I knew it might be a bad idea, but I still did it.”
Rachel looked up at him, forcing herself to hold eye contact even as her face flared. “It wasn’t a bad idea.” It was embarrassing, but it seemed important that he know this.
“It was. You obviously have other fish to fry.”
“First of all,” Rachel gestured toward the aisle down which Call-Me-Matt had just disappeared, “Matt is not a fish.”
Although Ian Smith didn’t respond, his face relaxed slightly.
Rachel took shallow, even breaths. “Second,” she continued, “it’s just lunch, and technically Lynn was the one to invite you, not me, so if you’re going to refuse, refuse to her face.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” he deadpanned.
Rachel laughed.
He still didn’t do the eye-crinkle, but his gaze thawed.
Perhaps one day, scientists would produce a special cream to protect the public from Rachel’s radiation-level blushes. Only then would she endure situations like this with some semblance of dignity.
Face hot as the surface of the sun, Rachel turned to lead Ian toward her group.
~*~
To Rachel’s surprise, nobody tried to maneuver her into sitting next to Ian Smith. Instead, she found herself flanked by Lynn and Ann, with Alex sitting next to his wife, Ann sitting next to Detective Smith.
Ethan was positioned on the far side of the round table with an empty seat on either side. He set up two folding menus to form a divider between himself and the rest of the group and proceeded to carry on what sounded like quiet conversations with himself behind it. Kids.
Alex watched his son with affection. “As long as he’s happy, we’re happy.”
Lynn signaled for coffee.
Meanwhile, Ann carried on low-toned conversation with Ian Smith. Apparently the two shared interests.
Rachel would have been jealous if it were anyone but Ann—or if she weren’t so relieved at not being forced to make awkward small talk with him herself.
Rachel stirred her coffee, betting that she and Ian Smith had exactly nothing in common. Well, other than both being human beings. Oh, and Christians. And having tried to solve the Memento Killer case last year—Detective Smith successfully and Rachel somewhat less so.
Clark took their orders, dimples flashing. After Ann and Detective Smith had ordered and returned to their quiet conversation, Clark flicked his gaze back and forth between the two. He wiggled inquisitive eyebrows at Rachel.
If he only knew.
~*~
Rachel and Ann walked across Stu’s parking lot.
“I think that went as well as it could have,” Rachel said, relieved that the pressure was off.
Detective Smith had taken a call on his cell phone, announced abruptly that he had to go, said his goodbyes, and left.
Rachel assumed that it had been police business, “But you never know,” she said to Ann. “Maybe it was just a telemarketer, but he took the chance to look important and let us assume.”
Ann snorted. “Because that’s exactly the type of person Ian is.”
Ian, Ann called him—just like that. Meanwhile, Rachel’s inability to decide how to address him had left her floundering. She’d spent most of the meal dithering over it, and as a result, barely spoke at all. Perhaps that had been for the best. At least she hadn’t said anything stupid. “I can’t believe he and Matt both came to church on the same day.” Rachel shook her head and took short steps to favor her right leg, which had not enjoyed the high-heeled boots.
“All we needed was Lee to show up to complete the trifecta,” Ann said.
“I don’t want talk about Lee.”
“I wonder what he would have thought about Matt and Ian both showing up on the same day.”
“I don’t want to talk about them either.”
“It’ll be hard to have this conversation without talking about either of them.”
“I don’t want to have this conversation,” Rachel said. “So that works out.”
~*~
On Monday morning, for the first time in weeks, Rachel felt alive. Her body resumed normal digestive functions and her right leg stopped throbbing. Best of all, her first-hour class had reached one of her favorite acts of one of her favorite plays in Shakespeare’s First Folio. Things were looking up. She didn’t even bother brewing any Sneaky Coffee. She felt that good.
Then the students arrived and the illusion collapsed. Several of them hadn’t completed their essays. One of the slackers was Chris, which frustrated Rachel more than the rest of the idlers combined. Chris might act like a goofy show-off in front of the class, but he was smart and capable, and he liked academics. His papers were generally among her favorites to grade.
“If you don’t turn it in tomorrow, I’ll be forced to give you all zeros,” Rachel told the students, at her most severe. She then cleared her throat. “Now,” she slapped her hand against her copy of Much Ado About Nothing, “it’s time to dive in with Act III.”
“The worst act,” Shayla muttered.
Rachel widened her eyes at this.
“This is where everything goes wrong!” Shayla said. “Up to this point everybody is just dancing around, acting cute, fake fighting, and flirting—then all of this awfulness happens. I don’t like it. Can’t we go back to the fake fighting? And the flirting? Mostly the flirting.”
“But if nothing went wrong, we wouldn’t have a story,” Rachel reminded her.
“If that meant we get to listen to Benedick and Beatrice fighting and flirting some more, I’d be OK with that.”
“Anybody else?” Rachel asked.
Half of the hands in the room went up.
Ryan disagreed. “No way. I’m ready for somebody to stab somebody.” When his classmates scoffed at this, he shrugged. “What? It’s Shakespeare. You know somebody’s getting stabbed.”
Chris leaned forward in his seat, bouncing. “We need to get Tybalt up in here. Then we’d get some real stabbing.”
“I thought you were hoping for less stabbing this time around,” Rachel said.
“I think John the Bastard’s doing well enough causing a ruckus all on his own,” Alice put in from the back. “After all, there are plenty of ways to hurt people other than stabbing them.”
Rachel nodded, greatly encouraged to hear Alice speaking out and secretly enjoying the surprised looks on the faces of the other students. “That’s an excellent point, Alice, as well as a perceptive one, especially in light of what we know is going to happen.”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Ryan, looking lost.
Chris, who had been staring into the middle distance ever since Alice had spoken, lifted a hand. “I don’t buy it.”
“You don’t buy what?” Rachel asked. “Please enlighten us.”
“OK,” Chris said, obviously gathering himself. “Like…you know how people say that sticks and stones may break their bones and names would never hurt them? Well, that’s stupid. It does hurt when people say stuff. But if I had to choose between overhearing something awful—even if it were that my fiancée was cheating on me, like Claudio thinks Hero is—and getting stabbed by a sword? I’d rather not get stabbed.”
Ryan nodded. “Getting stabbed is way more painful—real pain. Besides, a misunderstanding can get cleared up right away, but if you get stabbed…I’m pretty sure it’s going to hurt no matter what.”
Shayla snapped her fingers. “Exactly! That’s what I don’t get.”
Rachel blinked rapidly, aware that somehow their brains were now clicking in unison and outpacing her. She reached for her Sneaky Coffee and then remembered she hadn’t brewed any. “Explain.”
“Claudio!” Shayla crowed, nearly coming out of her seat.
“I know, right?” Jessica Potts, for once not looking disdainful of someone else’s comments, nodded along. Jessica Potts forming an alliance with other girls in the class? This really must be something that resonated with all of them.
“Tell me what you mean,” Rachel said.
Jessica Potts ran her hand through her silky hair. “If I suspected that somebody I planned to marry was cheating on me, you’d better believe we’d talk about it privately before the ceremony. I wouldn’t wait until the day of our wedding and get all dramatic in front of everybody. But that’s exactly what Claudio does to Hero! That’s not love. You don’t embarrass the people you love and shame them in front of everybody. Claudio’s a jerk.”
“He must love her a little, though,” said Ryan. “Otherwise, it wouldn’t make him so upset to find out that she was cheating.”
“OK, let’s clear something up,” Shayla said. “The girl wasn’t cheating. Which Claudio would have known if he had bothered to—I don’t know—talk to her about it.”
“He couldn’t talk to her about it because he felt so betrayed! Because he loved her,” Ryan defended.
“Look where that sort of love got her!” Jessica protested. “With Friar Francis saying Come, lady. Die to live.” She sniffed. “No thank you.”
“I get what you’re all saying,” Rachel said, “and I totally agree. But should this surprise us about Claudio? That he’s so quick to believe the worst, I mean. Don’t you remember what happened in Act II when Don John tried to trick him into thinking that Don Pedro had betrayed him? He believed it right away.” She paused. “That’s the thing about people. They always give you hints about who they really are. The trick is to pay attention and pick up on the clues before the crisis comes.”
Pay attention and pick up on the clues before the crisis comes. The irony of lecturing the students on this topic was not lost on her.
She thought she’d known Lee. Even though things had been awkward between them at the end of last year, she’d assumed that a summer of separation would allow their relationship to return to equilibrium. She thought she had a fairly good handle on what type of person Lee was. He was just Lee: solid, dependable, supportive. He was young, yes, a little immature, but warm and funny and true as steel. And she missed him.
If only she were as good with life as with literature; as wise about real people as about literary characters; and as good at relationships as she was at teaching.
I hope I can figure it out, before the next crisis comes.
~*~
That afternoon, while walking backstage after play practice, Rachel spotted fresh graffiti. Leaning forward to scan the lines scoured into the planking, her stomach sank.
Fumbling for her phone, she snapped a picture and sent it to Yolanda Martinez. Then she did the last thing she’d ever expected to do. She fished a business card from her wallet and flipped it over to find the digits scrawled on the back. Her fingers shook as she dialed the personal phone number of Detective Ian Smith.