CHAPTER FIVE

Pulling into the parking lot of The Chancel Cafe, Didi spied Pat’s forest green SUV in the back row. They met at the café door, and Pat squeezed her in a quick hug. The coffee shop had garnered a lot of publicity lately, and Didi had been meaning to check it out. The creative spirit that had transformed the church into a coffee bar, not to mention the exquisite lines and antiquated splendor of the old building, filled Didi’s soul with awe.

The modest church featured three Gothic stained glass windows on each side and two windows on the back wall. As they walked into the sanctuary, the striking scene at the front of the church caught Didi’s attention. On this mild April day, the large triptych window shone with a glorious light that took her breath away. A merciful Jesus knelt in a tranquil green meadow. In His arms, he cradled a newborn lamb. The colors were soft, warm, and soothing.

Pat waved her to a secluded spot. “Why don’t we sit in the balcony area? It looks like a quiet place, and we get a view of the sanctuary.” Out of Pat’s suitcase-sized purse came a supply of tissues and a bar of jumbo-sized chocolate. Did she understand a woman’s needs or what?

“Thanks, Pat.” Didi hoped she wouldn’t need the tissues, but she could always use the chocolate. As Pat fingered her pearl necklace, Didi wished she had the same kind of style and grace. Who else could wear pearls with a sweater?

Pat gave her a warm smile. “Pick a table while I go order. Do you want anything in particular? Maybe a healthy salad to make us feel good about ourselves?”

“I like most anything as long as it doesn’t have anchovies, so you can choose. Oh, and if they have hazelnut lattes, that’s always good, but anything’s okay.”

Pat traveled back down the stairs to order their lunches while Didi soaked in her surroundings from her cozy chair on high. The ceilings were painted tin. The floors were of old heart pine. With mismatched, eclectic furnishings, the décor was shabby comfortable. Settling in, she basked in the wealth of a caring friend. Didi nibbled on her chocolate bar and welcomed the peaceful moment, the stillness a welcome relief.

Pat soon returned carrying two cups. “Our lunches are on their way. I hope you like grilled chicken salad.” She smiled and took a seat. “The special of the day.”

“My favorite.” Right now, chicken salad and a hazelnut latte was the best lunch in the world.

“Shall we sit a while longer and simply be, or do you want to tell me what’s upset you?” The empathetic expression on Pat’s face was an invitation to tell all.

Didi slumped and hung her head. “Kevin.”

“Ah, man problems. I thought as much.”

“Sad, but true. Do you want the executive summary or the lengthy monologue?” Didi broke off another square of the chocolate and savored the candy melting on her tongue.

“Tell me as much as you feel comfortable with. Today I don’t have anything to do but listen to you.”

Suspecting the last statement wasn’t entirely true, Didi gave her friend a grateful smile. She would take it as the gift it was meant to be.

Before she could begin, a young waitress brought their salads. Pat said a quick prayer of thanks for the food and fellowship and prayed God would give them wisdom for the conversation to come.

Since she’d been given permission to bare her soul, Didi sipped her coffee and prepared to launch into her story. She appreciated the opportunity to get it all out. “To give you some background, Kevin and I have been together for a year and a half. We were talking about the future. Then this.” Didi drew in a quick breath and gnawed on her lower lip. Was she ready to tell all?

“I’d heard you were getting serious.” Pat reached over and patted her hand. “Are his parents in the picture?”

“They divorced when he was a teenager. He doesn’t think much of his dad. Kevin calls him a weakling, but he worships his mother.” Didi dipped a morsel of chicken in a pool of salad dressing and swished. “I mean, he used to. His mom died shortly after we started dating.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I only met her once. She was a small woman, but her presence filled the room, if you know what I mean.”

“You mean like a female Napoleon?”

Didi smothered a smile. “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Kevin doesn’t mention her much. It’s kind of strange, come to think of it.”

“Now, there’s food for thought.” Pat sipped her coffee. “By the way, had you dated much before you and Kevin started going out?”

Picking up her fork, Didi thought a moment. “Not much. I had a couple of boyfriends in college, but the relationships never went anywhere. Then Kevin came along. I guess I thought I knew him inside and out, ’cause we’ve been together so long.”

“Was your relationship good for the most part?” Pat dribbled dressing on her salad.

“Sure. He gets angry occasionally, when I’ve done something he doesn’t like. And he can be so jealous sometimes. He hates it when I even talk to another guy.” She paused and bit her lower lip. “I just realized how ironic that is. Anyway, we’ve always managed to work it out. At least, I thought we had…”

She hesitated again and gazed at the window with Jesus and the lamb. Exposing her soul was hard, really hard. Her fork clattered to the plate, and she squeezed her eyelids shut as a wave of nausea crested.

“Take all the time you need, Didi. We’ll get through this.”

She inhaled a few deep breaths and regained her equilibrium. “At Christmas when Kevin finally asked me to marry him, I can’t tell you how excited I was. Since then, I’ve been making all of these wonderful plans for the wedding and the honeymoon.”

“And Kevin was helping with that?”

Didi massaged the tense muscles at the back of her neck. “Well, no. We hadn’t nailed anything down yet, and I didn’t want to rush him. He’s been kind of resistant to setting a date, so I was making all the plans. I thought that’s just how guys were.” Sighing, she closed her eyes.

“I surmise Kevin didn’t seem as interested as you might have liked.”

Didi’s eyes popped open. “Well, he wouldn’t have asked me to marry him if he wasn’t ready, right?” She brought her coffee cup to her mouth but set it down without taking a sip. Why were her hands shaking? “I know you don’t know him very well, Pat, since he’s only been coming to church with me for a few months, but he can really be a sweetheart when he tries. And he’s such a gorgeous man. Every time I see him, his big brown eyes make me melt. And do you know how smart he is? He passed the bar on his first try.”

“Well, the few times I’ve talked to him, I’ve never doubted he was bright. And I couldn’t help noticing he’s certainly a charmer.”

Didi shoved her plate away and crossed her arms. “Yes, he’s Mr. Smooth, and he can talk the hind end off a donkey. Must be the lawyer in him. But he knows so much more than I do about, well, everything. He’s thirty-three, a few years older, and he’s so wise and so out of my league, you know? I was flattered when he noticed me and asked me out, and I guess…I guess he swept me off my feet… That must count for something in a marriage, right? The “chemistry,” or whatever it is you call it?”

The waitress appeared at the top of the stairs. “Can I get you ladies anything? More coffee?”

“Yes for me.” Pat raised her eyebrows in question.

“And me too, please. Do you have any chocolate cake?” Didi said.

The server’s face lit up. “Oh, yes. Double fudge with chocolate sprinkles, and it’s delicious.”

“Great. Two slices please, but give us a few minutes, okay?” Pat was going to get dessert too, whether she liked it or not.

The waitress nodded and clomped back down the stairs.

Pat dabbed her lips with her napkin and looked Didi in the eye. “It sounds like he paid a great deal of attention to you when you first began to date. What happened yesterday?”

Didi toyed with her salad, fishing out the cucumbers one by one and depositing them on a saucer. Nasty things. “A couple of days ago, Kevin asked me to go out to dinner with him on Friday, uh, last night. He never asks me out on a Friday, because that’s poker night with the boys. Saturdays are when I get to see him—and it’s our normal date night—so though I was pleased, I wondered if something was up.”

Pat’s forehead wrinkled as she rested her elbows on the table. “You’ve been seeing Kevin one night a week? Were you satisfied with that?”

“Well, occasionally he’d go to church with me, and then we might have lunch. Sometimes he’d come by my place for dinner on a Wednesday. That is, if he wasn’t too busy.”

“And last night, it sounds like you were free...as usual.”

Didi chewed on her bottom lip. “Well, of course I was free. I always changed my schedule to fit his. I wanted to be with him every chance I got.”

“You never made plans of your own, just in case he wanted to see you?”

Sheepishly, Didi admitted, “I never thought of it like that. He always told me he had important things to do. Weekends were the only time he would commit to seeing me. He told me he was busy lawyering…or something like that.”

“So you went out last night, and he obviously said something that hurt you. What happened?”

“He didn’t have time to pick me up, so we met at Chez Monte Carlo. I knew something was wrong, because all during dinner he hardly looked at me. The tension was awful. Neither of us ate much. At least, I didn’t. That’s when he told me he’d been seeing someone else.”

Didi fidgeted in her chair. Taking a deep breath, she described the ghastly evening with Kevin. The exchange played out all too vividly in her mind.

“I can’t believe I sat there like a brainless zombie. I was so shocked I could hardly say a word.” She narrowed her eyes. “Pat, how come he’s the one who cheated on me and I’m the one who’s supposedly not acting like an adult?” A tear slipped down her cheek.

Pat handed her a fresh tissue, her face the picture of compassion.

Didi sniffed and released a deep sigh. She might have been close to speechless last night, but if she had it to do over again, she’d give him an earful. Why was it she thought of delicious comebacks after the fact?

Didi closed her eyes and rolled tense shoulders.

Pat tiptoed over and slung a comforting arm around her. “I’m so sorry, Didi. No wonder you’re upset.”

Thankfully, they were still quite secluded in the upper reaches of the coffeehouse. They sat that way for a while in companionable silence. Pat’s voice broke through the hush as she prayed softly for her dejected friend.

Taking a deep breath, Didi dabbed at her eyes and strained to smile. “Dubuque. Can you believe that? I researched Dubuque on the Internet. I doubt she’s the unsophisticated country girl Kevin says she is. Did you know almost 60,000 people live there?”

Pat chuckled. “Who knew? It doesn’t sound like you think too much of ‘Miss Iowa,’ though.”

“Would you?” Didi clenched her jaw and leaned forward. “How could she do that to me?”

“Well, she might not have known he was engaged or even dating.”

“I suppose you’re right. He didn’t tell her. I believe his exact words were, ‘Why should I?’ I guess it doesn’t make much sense to hate her because she’s twenty-four and undoubtedly has the body of a swimsuit model.” Didi laughed again, a real one this time. “I’ll try to quit calling her ‘Jezebel’ in my head.”

“If you had to pick something, what’s the worst part of all of this?” Pat gently placed her fork on the table.

“Imagining them in bed together. I can’t seem to get that picture out of my mind. I may not be the brightest star in the sky, but from what I understand, there’s no sleeping with other persons allowed when you’re engaged.”

“It’s not encouraged where I come from.” Pat finished her coffee. “Did Kevin say if he planned on seeing her again?”

“Apparently so, since it’s no big deal.” Didi stifled a yawn. She hadn’t gotten much sleep last night, and she needed a nap. “I didn’t think to ask him. I was so rattled.”

“Anyone would be shaken. I’m really wondering, though. Do you have any idea why he told you? Why would he volunteer his indiscretion?”

“That question crossed my mind too, but I figured he was suffering from a guilty conscience and couldn’t lie anymore.”

“Um…perhaps, although I’m glad he did tell you. How much worse would it have been if you’d found out by accident?”

Didi’s gaze strayed to the distant altar. “Finding out this way was bad enough. I can’t imagine it could be any worse.”

When the server brought their cake, Pat asked for some fresh coffee and the check.

After the waitress had gone, Pat continued. “Was there any impression at all he wants to reconcile?”

Didi dipped a finger in the icing on her cake and licked it off. “I don’t think he understands we’ve broken up. Of course, I didn’t actually tell him that. Not yet, anyway.”

“Is that what you want to do?”

Didi took a moment to ponder. “I think so. How could I ever trust him again? The whole thing was bizarre. He had the oddest expression on his face before I came to my senses and stormed off. He sure didn’t look guilty. He looked, well, I’m not sure how to explain this, but he looked sort of triumphant. Smug, if you know what I mean.”

“Any idea why he’d act that way?”

“I’ve no idea except I swear he seemed proud of himself.” Didi remembered again how he had glared at her with disdain. “Does that make any sense?”

Pat took one last bite of cake and continued to listen.

“I’m not sure I want to talk to him. I don’t understand what I did wrong, and I don’t have a clue how to fix this. Or if I even want to. Do I want to?”

“Only you can answer that.” Pat’s eyes softened.

“I’m totally confused, but I know I need some space to figure out what I’m feeling before I see him again. Aren’t I a first-class idiot?” Didi’s lower lip trembled. Her reasoning powers were so off course they needed a GPS to find their way back.

“Hon, you’re not the one who’s an idiot.” Pat gently touched her arm.

With that, Didi rested her elbows on the table and her head in her hands. She was done, for now, squeezed dry. But she could call on Pat in the future to help her make sense of all this.

They both reached for the check at the same time, but Didi snagged it first. “Oh no, you don’t. Lunch is on me. It’s the least I can do.”

The conversation took a light turn as they discussed Maisie and Pat’s dog, Chester. Didi managed another laugh when she heard about the sheepdog’s latest antics. She had no idea Border Collies were the Mensa candidates of the dog world.

As Pat stood to leave, her face lit up. “Hey, do you have plans for tomorrow night?”

“Well, if I did, I guess I don’t now. Why?”

“I’m sure you’ve heard there’s a youth rally coming up. Several of the churches in the area are getting together, and we hope to have a couple of hundred kids show up. Any way you could help out?”

“Sure, I’ll be there. Why not?”

As they made their way down the stairs and out to the parking lot, Pat filled her in on the details. Sounded like fun, and right about now, she needed some fun in her life.

Didi headed toward home with new hope. She was glad she’d called Pat, a friend she could trust to help her see things clearly. At least she wasn’t quite so forlorn. And as an added bonus, now she had something to do tomorrow night.