| |
“When’s the last time you had a date?”
Susan dug her fork into her tortellini and tried to act like she was really concentrating on impaling one of the fat noodles. She knew she couldn’t avoid the question forever. She raised her fork and found him waiting for an answer. “I’ve been divorced for six years and was married for three. So, I guess nine years.”
“Nine years?” Mark said, almost in awe. “That’s a long time.”
Susan swallowed. “I guess. I haven’t thought about it much.”
Mark cut off a piece of steak. It was rare and Susan thought it looked disgusting, but he was obviously enjoying it. He swallowed. “I haven’t dated much, either, since the deal with Amy. Have you tried dating sites?”
“I signed up for one, but when I got the third picture of a guy’s junk, I deactivated it,” Susan said, then looked around nervously to see if anyone had heard her.
Mark grinned at her. “Yeah. I’ve heard guys can be awful on there. Most of the women I talked to turned out to be bots, or they started asking for money. I went on a couple of first dates, but never a second.” He shook his head. “Dating just isn’t all that easy anymore.”
“No,” Susan agreed.
“Sometimes you have to drive halfway across the country to meet a nice girl.” He looked at her as he said it, but as soon as the sentence was finished, he took a long drink of his sweet tea and averted his gaze.
“I guess so,” Susan said. “I hope you meet one.”
He choked a little as he laughed. He put his glass down and wiped at his mouth with his napkin. “You don’t think you’re a nice girl?” he asked. “Do you have some horrible secret you haven’t told me?”
“Of course,” Susan said. She leaned forward to tell a secret. “I like pineapples on pizza sometimes.”
Mark’s eyes widened in astonished horror. He leaned back against the booth seat and shook his head. “I hope you’ll excuse me, ma’am. I can no longer be seen in your company.” He made as if to scoot out of the booth.
Susan watched, thinking he was joking, but he seemed like he was really about to leave. “Only sometimes,” she said, then felt like an idiot when he chuckled again and relaxed back into his seat.
“Susan, will you do me a favor this evening?” he asked, and the laughter was gone. He looked serious and hopeful but also a little nervous.
“I do owe you a few favors,” Susan said. “But what is it?”
He made a gesture as if waving away a fly. “You don’t owe me anything. Don’t say yes because you think you owe me. If you don’t want to, just say no.”
“Now I’m really nervous,” she said. She smiled, but she really was nervous about what he wanted from her. “What is it?”
“Well, this will sound corny, I guess, but the sky is clear and the moon is full and I’m going down to the beach,” he said. “It’s something I’ll always remember, but it would be even better if I had someone with me. You know, to share the experience?”
“Is this like a date?” she asked.
He smiled, but it was almost sad, like he took her question for a rejection. “I’ll admit I would like to hold your hand while we walk, but you don’t have to do that. Just being there would be nice. Do you ever go out and look at the stars at home?”
Susan felt as if she had already hurt him. The more he talked, the more he seemed to give up on the idea, and by the time he finished it was like he regretted asking her to join him and was trying to just change the subject. His hands were loose fists on the table on either side of his plate. She thought of how helpful he’d been, how kind he was, and looked at his hands. The loose fists were just a perfect symbol of his mix of manhood and boyish charm. She didn’t even realize she was reaching for his hand until she saw her own pushing between his fingers and palm, then closing around him. He held her hand lightly and his grip was dry and warm.
“I used to lay in my backyard on a quilt my grandma made and stare up at the stars,” Susan said. “It was a long time ago, though. I was just a girl.” She hesitated, then committed. “I’d love to go see the moon and stars and listen to the waves with you tonight.”
Mark’s smile was huge. “I wonder if it’s legal to build a fire on the beach.”
“I have no idea,” Susan said. “We better not risk it.”
“Then dress warm. It’s pretty cold out there, especially at night. I might have gone down there last night,” he said as if it was something to hide.
“I know,” Susan said. “I saw you.”
His thumb was rubbing the back of her hand and it felt very natural. He watched that for a moment, as if transfixed by the sight of her small hand in his bigger one. “You probably think I’m pretty weird, huh? Some backwoods Okie with a fixation on the ocean.”
Susan tightened her hold on his hand. “Not at all,” she said. “I think it’s pretty cute, actually.”
He laughed. “I don’t really want to let go of your hand, but we should probably finish this food.”
“There’s a chance I might let you hold it again later,” Susan said.
“I hope so,” Mark said. He released his grip but didn’t pull his hand away. Susan pulled her hand back and immediately missed the warmth of his grasp.
“Tell me about your students,” Susan said as she took another bite.
Mark started cutting off another bite of his steak, a smile pulling at the corners of his lips. “They can be little hellions,” he said. “They’re all attitude and hormones, wanting discipline and order but fighting it at the same time. It’s such a weird age.”
“Do you have a favorite?”
“Of course not,” Mark said, but his eyes said differently. “I tell them I love them all equally. Not at all.”
“But you do love them, and you do have a favorite. I can tell,” Susan said.
“I guess,” he admitted. He dug a bite of baked potato out of the brown skin. “There’s a girl named Alina. Hispanic girl. Kinda nerdy. She’s incredibly smart, but the best thing is that she’s curious. The hardest thing about teaching is getting kids to think for themselves. They’d rather just write what you tell them or copy off the internet. But Alina wants to run experiments and write reports and compare what she finds to what others do. You get a kid like her maybe once every five years.”
“Who was your last one?” Susan asked. The glow in his face as he talked about his job was just one more in what was becoming a collection of things she found adorable about this man she hadn’t known existed thirty-six hours ago.
“Michael. He’s a sophomore at the University of Oklahoma now. He’s studying chemistry and wants to work in the energy industry,” Mark said.
“You stay in touch with your students all the way to college?” Susan asked, surprised.
“Some of them, and only if they want to, and their parents are okay with it,” Mark said. He blushed a little, then admitted, “Michael blames me for his career decision.”
Susan couldn’t help but smile and wanted to reach for his hand again, but stopped herself. “That is so cool,” she said. “You’re really making a difference in people’s lives.”
“That’s the good part of teaching,” he said. “It kind of makes up for the long hours, low pay, the bad kids, the faculty meetings, constant professional development, and lack of care from the legislature.”
“I guess it’s all give and take,” Susan said.
“What’s the best part of your job?” Mark asked.
“I get to work in my pajamas if I want to,” Susan said, laughing. “I work remotely most of the time. Sometimes I have to go to meetings, but mostly I get to stay home. I sleep in, get up and make coffee, then do some work for a while, go shower, eat brunch or lunch, depending on the time, then work for a few more hours.”
“That sounds nice. What do you do with all the rest of your time?”
“I read a lot and do some volunteer work with a literacy group for adults at the library. And I knit. Like a little old lady.”
“Really?”
“Yes. My grandma and my mom both did it, so I was always around it and as a little girl I had to do what they were doing so I could feel grown up,” Susan said.
“Are you good at it?”
“I’m passable. I’ll never be as good as Grandma was,” Susan said.
Their waitress came with the check and Mark took it again. Susan protested, reminding him that he’d just complained that teachers didn’t get paid enough, but he said she’d spent too much on tires and he wanted to do this for her. She gave in, felt guilty, but also a little relieved. The bill paid, they decided to leave and went out to the parking lot. They had parked their cars next to each other.
“Can you tell any difference in how it handles?” Mark asked.
“Yes,” Susan admitted. “I barely move the steering wheel and it throws me across the road. I guess I’d let it get pretty bad.”
“Well, the important thing is that it’s better now,” he said. “Meet me at the stairs behind the hotel at about eight?”
“I’ll be there,” Susan promised.
There was an awkward pause in which she knew if they’d been a confirmed couple they would kiss before parting. She saw that Mark felt it, too. He grinned and nodded at her. “I’ll see you there,” he said.
Susan was behind Mark for some of the drive, then she decided to stop off at a Walmart to buy another sweatshirt for the evening. All the way back to the hotel, she wondered if she’d made the right decision to see Mark that night. She’d held his hand and basically promised he could hold it again later. There was no denying that this would truly be a date. The dinners and the day together could be dismissed as simply two people spending time together, but this was a date on the beach to watch the sunset and the moonrise.
He lives in Oklahoma. I live in Wyoming. Nothing can come of this.
But there was no denying she liked him. Susan thought of how his face lit up as he talked about his students and she couldn’t help but smile. She was convinced that Mark Preston was a nice guy.
But, what did that mean? Was she in the middle of a vacation fling? Would she be his Oregon girlfriend, never remembered after he went home.
She remembered what he’d said about the silly shell bracelet she’d given him.
“Damn,” she muttered. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
That didn’t stop her from taking a long, hot bubble bath when she got to her room. She told herself it was to relax and think, but a part of her knew it was because she wanted to be clean and smell nice when she saw Mark again. She pushed that away, though.
Susan dressed in jeans, an undershirt, and her new navy sweatshirt, with a cardigan over that. For shoes, she put on sneakers first, then took those off and went with flip-flops since she’d be on the sand. Her feet might get cold, but that was better than having sand in her sneakers until she finally couldn’t stand it and threw them away. As she was riding the elevator down to the lobby, she had a thought and hurried out the front door of the hotel to her car, where she retrieved an old fleece blanket she used to cover her windshield during Wyoming snowstorms. She went around the hotel to find Mark waiting for her at the top of the stairs leading down to the beach.
To the south, the lighthouse was already sending out its beam of light and lonesome call. To the north, the surf pounded against the cliffs. The sun was just above the horizon, large and burning orange, reflected in a long, sparkling line across the surface of the sea.
Mark stood in front of that scene in khaki pants, sandals, a crimson hoodie under his denim jacket, and a black baseball cap on his head. The smile when he saw her completed the picture and Susan knew she had made the right decision to come down here and meet him. She joined him beside the steps and indicated the blanket folded over her arms.
“So we don’t have to sit on the sand,” she said.
“Good thinking,” he told her.
“Should we worry about the tides sweeping us away?” Susan asked.
“No, the tide’s going out,” Mark said. “It’ll be low tide in a couple of hours.”
“Of course you know the tide schedules,” Susan teased.
“Just about twelve hours apart,” Mark said. He indicated the wooden steps. “Shall we?”
They walked down the steps side-by-side. The sound of the ocean washing over the sand increased as they descended. The lighthouse horn moaned into the night about every seven steps. Susan noticed the noise of the gulls was absent and wondered if they went somewhere at night. She thought about asking Mark, but the mood wasn’t right for it.
A few feet away from the steps and onto the sand, Mark stopped and turned to her. Susan stopped and looked up at him expectantly. “You said something about letting me hold your hand again,” he said. “Is that offer still good?”
Susan grinned at him and turned away and continued to walk. Without looking over her shoulder, she said, “Be bold, Mr. Preston. Try taking it and see what happens.”
In an instant he was beside her and had caught her dangling left hand in his right. He laughed as she laced her fingers between his and they continued to walk.
“The sunset here is just amazing,” Susan said.
“It’s incredible,” Mark agreed.
They came to the edge where the dry sand met the wet sand that was still being washed by the incoming waves. Mark asked, “Do you want to spread the blanket here?”
Susan shook out the blanket and they flattened it out on the sand, then sat down beside each other and looked at the sun that was now blood red with the bottom edge already dipping into the water.
It felt so normal that Susan hardly noticed when Mark reached over and took her hand in his again. When she realized it, she glanced down at their entwined fingers and smiled, then looked back at the horizon. The water was turning orange and the few puffs of clouds were as pink as cotton candy against a sky going purple.
“This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Susan said, her voice almost a whisper.
“I would say second most beautiful,” Mark answered.
Susan turned her head and found that he was looking at her. Something like a jolt of electricity raced through her body. She was almost afraid to ask, but did it, anyway. “What’s the first?”
“This sunset reflected on your face. In your eyes,” he said. “At times today your eyes were so dark they were almost black. But now, with the sun in them, they are like drops of honey. The light softens your features and makes your skin glow and it catches in your hair and shows off highlights.”
Susan tried twice to answer, then finally managed a tiny, embarrassed laugh. “Shows off strands of gray?” she asked.
He smiled at her. “I wish you could see yourself like I do right now.”
Susan felt an irresistible attraction to the man beside her. His words weren’t a come-on or pickup line. Everything about him was sincere and she found that she was – had always been – hungry for such words. “If you don’t kiss me right now, Mark Preston, I will never forgive you,” she said.
As he leaned toward her, the arm closest to her slipped around her waist. Susan tilted her head up and lifted her own arm so that her hand was on his shoulder. Their lips met, touched, came apart, hesitated, then moved together again with more confidence. He was firm but gentle, intense but tender. Susan’s hand slipped along his shoulder to his neck and then to the back of his head and she pressed his lips tighter against her mouth, parting her lips for his warm, exploring tongue.
When he pulled away from her, Susan found that her breath was coming in short little gasps and that her heart was hammering in her chest. She giggled a little. “Is that how you kiss in Oklahoma?” she asked to fill the silence.
His smile was quick and shy. He shrugged. “I can’t say I’ve ever had a kiss like that,” he admitted.
Susan wanted to say something about having another, but that was just too forward. The sun had nearly sunk into the sea. She lay back on the blanket and Mark lay down beside her. Their hands now naturally came together. A few tiny stars sparkled high above them.
“The moon will be up soon,” Mark said.
“Ummhmm,” Susan agreed.
“I wish we could just stay here,” Mark said, and there was a wistfulness in his voice. A sadness. Susan couldn’t face him yet.
“When do you leave?” she asked.
“The day after tomorrow. Early morning flight.”
“I guess that’s when I’ll leave, too,” she said.
The waves came forward, as if urging them to continue, then retreated in disappointment. More stars peaked from the dark sky.
“Will you stay in touch?” Mark asked. “I don’t want to get clingy. But ... I felt something and I just wish there was more time to explore it.”
Susan considered trying to say something funny, but didn’t. His voice was earnest, and she had also felt the spark between them. She didn’t want to be separated from him. “Of course I’ll stay in touch.”
His hand gave hers a soft squeeze.
“Long distance relationships are easier with technology,” Susan mused aloud.
“Yeah. Not as good as being close.”
“No, but we can talk and text and video chat,” she said.
“This is true,” he agreed.
“We can get to know each other better that way, then ...” she trailed off.
“Then decide to buy a house here and raise a family,” Mark said, but his voice was lighter now and she knew he was teasing.
“Slow down, mister,” she said. “But, you know, if we still like each other after a while, my job is remote, and I don’t have any family holding me in Wyoming anymore.”
His hand squeezed hers again. “We’re sitting as close as I can figure I was standing when you ... you know, covered me in ashes.”
Susan’s laughter was sudden and loud on the evening air. “Really?” she asked. “I’m still so embarrassed about that.”
“Do you believe in fate?”
Susan turned her head to look at him. “Is this going to be our first deep conversation?” she asked.
He turned to look back at her. There was a mischievous gleam in his eyes. “Probably not.”
“Okay. Sure, I believe in fate,” she said.
“Good.” He winked at her. “I think your parents settled on me so that we’d have to meet before they went on to Yellowstone and the St. Louis arch and all those other places.”
Susan smiled again and her heart was warm and light. “Is that what you think? That part of my dad went down your throat so that you’d date his daughter?”
“Well, it just sounds weird when you say it like that,” Mark argued.
Susan rolled onto her side and put her hand on Mark’s cheek. She looked into his eyes and read his emotion and she returned it. “Dad would have picked you,” she promised.
Mark pushed himself up and his lips found hers again. As the full moon peeked over the bluff behind them, Mark pushed Susan onto her back, her arms around his neck. The kiss was deep and warm and blotted out every other sensation for a long while.
The End