Blue Heart Blessed (7 page)

Dear Harriet,

I am feeling quite feisty tonight so don’t even think of messing with me. I don’t want advice. I just want to vent. So please do me a favor and just let me do it.

I’ve decided to write a book. I’m going to title it, Rules of Disengagement. It will be a how-to book on how to survive getting dumped by your fiancé. Here’s rule number one.

Don’t let people set you up on pity dates.

Okay. Maybe that won’t be rule number one. But it’ll be up there. Four, maybe.

My mother, and you know I love her, set me up tonight on a blind date without having the courage to call it that. She met a rich, single, never-been-married, Christian man at the golf course last week and she convinced him to join us for dinner tonight under the pretense of chatting stocks with Kellen. Even Kellen saw this for what it was, a chance for poor dateless Daisy to meet a decent man. A decent, single man. A decent, single man who drives a Jag.

She denied it of course—but you should have seen her face when I asked Max to join us. She knows there is nothing between Max and me, despite her desperate attempts to play Cupid there as well, but she was annoyed nonetheless that I asked Max to join us at the last minute. And yes I know I was using Max, but I told him I was and he came anyway.

Max was supposed to sit by me; that was my hasty plan to get out of making small talk with a rich man I’m sure I have nothing in common with. But somehow Mom got her way. Marshall Maxwell Mitchell Melville sat by me. She finagled the fates and got Kellen to sit on his other side so we could continue the ruse that the Rich Single Man had been invited to talk investments with my brother. But on Kellen’s other side was my mother, which meant when she wanted to pull Kellen’s attention away from the RSM, all she had to do was lay a hand on his arm and say, “Kellen, dear…”

And that’s not the worse thing that happened.

The worse thing is that Max ended up sitting by Mia. And they had a great time. Laughing and talking and her showing delight in Max’s ability to make half-dollars appear out of nowhere. I seriously doubt Mom had any intention of fixing Max up with her granddaughter. No, what happened between them was that monstrous thing called natural attraction. It was appalling. Give me a break. We’re talking Max. And Mia. They’re like polar opposites. She is elegant, sophisticated and brainy and he is disorganized, organic and un-cerebral. He’s also eight years older than she is. He’s too old. He’s too Max.

To be perfectly honest, I think Marshall was embarrassed to have been snookered into Mom’s little plan. He had, like, this mental list of topics to discuss, and when we had exhausted those, he turned to Kellen and asked him his opinion on OTC stocks. No joke. Here was his list:

1. So, you’ve lived in Minnesota your whole life?

2. So, you graduated from Bethel?

3. So, you go to church downtown?

4. So, you’ve had your boutique for six months?

5. So, your brother was born in Korea?

I was practically hyperventilating waiting for him to say, “So, you got dumped at the altar?”

Would she have told him that? Would she?

Don’t answer that.

I bet what he really wanted to know was why I needed help getting a date for a Friday night.

That’s what I wanted to know about him.

He seemed like a nice man. He’s obviously done well for himself. He plays a gentleman’s sport—golf. He was polite, kind, and tried to make small talk with me. He’s probably a little older than me—thirty-two or thirty-three.

He’s a polite, single Christian man with money.

Does that mean he met the right girl some time ago but she died? Or he met someone who he thought was the right girl but she dumped him? Maybe he dumped her.

Maybe he’s never dated. Maybe he’s never kissed anyone. Maybe he’s kissed lots of girls. Maybe he’s a lousy kisser. Maybe he’s too picky. Maybe he wants perfection and he’s never been able to find it.

Maybe that’s why he only asked me five questions and then turned to Kellen. He probably thinks if he can’t be won over in five questions, there is no point in going on to number six.

And to top it off, Max and Mia were sitting across from me the whole time, joking and chatting like they’re old friends. Or newlyweds.

I could barely eat my General Tsao’s Chicken.

I feel like I’ve been rejected. And by a man I didn’t even want to sit by.

This is sick. I wanted the RSM to want me so that I could fend off his advances. And I don’t want Max to want me but I don’t want him to want Mia. Or anyone else. He’s my Max.

Sick, sick, sick.

I have
Sleepless in Seattle
waiting in the DVD player and I can’t seem to press play.

I wish Father Laurent didn’t go to bed so early.

I wish my dad were here.

I miss Daniel. I miss having someone to love.

And having someone to love me.

Dear Daisy,

If I were going to give you advice, this is what I would say: No man worth having drops a woman minutes after meeting her on the basis of five questions. If the RSM is indeed a decent guy, he no doubt picked up on your I-really-don’t-want-to-be-here signals and was politely letting you off the hook. You might want to think about who did the rejecting first.

Max is not yours. You don’t love Max in a romantic way. He’s nearing his thirtieth birthday just like you are and he surely wants to spend his life with someone who finds him irresistible, just like you do. Stand in the way of that and you will lose a good friend.

Yes, Father Laurent is sleeping at the moment, and yes, you still mourn the loss of your dad, but you are not left without a Father. Skip the movie and go to down to that little chapel you are so keen about and pour out your woes to someone whose advice you will listen to, since you don’t want to listen to any from me.

That’s what I would say if you had wanted my advice tonight.

But you don’t.

Harriet

W
ant to hear a love story? It’s actually the story of two loves. It’s my favorite love story. I never get tired thinking about it. Or imagining that sometime something like it might happen to me.

Once upon a time there were two best friends named Chloe and L’Raine. They had grown up in a farming community in southern Minnesota and spent their high school years wearing bobby socks and saddle shoes, listening to Tommy Dorsey and dreaming about moving to the city and going to college to become teachers. Chloe was tall and had hair the color of chestnuts and L’Raine was blond and petite. They had known each other all their lives. They knew each other’s deepest hopes and desires.

After high school, Chloe and L’Raine shared a dorm room at St. Olaf College near Minneapolis. They joined the choir because they both loved music. One evening, in early November of their freshman year, they had to meet up with the choir at a church north of the Twin Cities for a concert. Chloe and L’Raine had to leave later than the rest because they were volunteering at an after-school program and couldn’t leave with the rest of the choir. They didn’t have a car, so they were wondering how they were going to get there when they found out two other choir members would be leaving later and they had room in their car. The two other choir members were music majors. They were also brothers. Twin brothers. And their names were Owen and Warren Murien.

Owen and Warren had grown up in the Iron Range in northern Minnesota. Their father taught band at the local high school where they were raised and their mother was the church organist. They had never thought of any career other than one in music. Owen and Warren were identical twins, red-haired and hazel-eyed, and sounded so much alike that Chloe and L’Raine had a very hard time distinguishing one from the other. After they met at the campus parking lot on the day of the concert, Owen said he’d wear one of Chloe’s clip-on earrings for the rest of the evening so that there wouldn’t be any confusion. This was the 1950s, before men wore earrings, so when Owen clipped one on and said, “Let’s go.” Chloe and L’Raine couldn’t stop laughing.

The roads were icy and slick that night, and neither Chloe or L’Raine or the Murien brothers had ever been to the place where they were headed. They found the town where the church was located but couldn’t find the church. Owen, who was driving, stopped at a jewelry store just off the town’s main street to ask for directions. It was one of the few stores that still had its lights on. It was cold in the car, so Warren, Chloe and L’Raine got out, too, and went inside with him.

They were talking loud and stomping their feet when they went inside and didn’t notice at first that the store clerk had his hands up and that tiny beads of sweat shone on his forehead. An instant later, it became very clear that they had stumbled in as the store was being robbed. Directly in front of the store clerk was a man in a dirty brown parka, aiming a gun.

“Go back outside!” Owen had said and he moved his body to shield the girls behind him. Warren dropped back, too, covering the girls with his body.

“No—no you don’t!” the man yelled and he stepped back a little so that he could see all of them, the store clerk and the four choir members. “Get over here! Right in front of me. Get on your hands and knees!”

Owen moved his arms protectively around his back, and Warren did the same, shielding Chloe and L’Raine.

“Go back outside,” Owen whispered to the two women.

“I said get over here!”

“Why don’t you let the girls go?” Owen said to the man.

“Why don’t you shut up and do what I tell you!”

The store clerk started to inch his way out from behind the counter. He was eyeing the door behind the college students, judging its distance, probably. The man with the gun whipped his head around to face him. “I didn’t tell you to go anywhere!”

“Go!” Owen whispered again.

Chloe and L’Raine took a step backward and Chloe put her hand on the doorknob.

“Get over here!” the robber screamed.

“Take it easy,” Warren said and he and Owen pressed their backs against Chloe and L’Raine.

“You wanna be dead? Shut up and get over here. Girls first. On your knees. You!” he cocked his head toward the store clerk. “You empty those shelves like I told you. And the cash register. And the safe. Move!”

Chloe and L’Raine held hands and inched their way from behind the brothers and toward the man with the gun.

“Get away from that door or I’ll send you both to kingdom come, I swear it,” the man yelled to Owen and Warren.

As the women made their way to the empty space in front of the robber, and as the brothers edged away from the door, the store clerk chose that moment to spring free. He darted out from behind the counter and dashed toward the front door.

The robber yelled and aimed his gun for the fleeing man, who was now partially hidden by Chloe. She was technically more in the line of fire than the fleeing store clerk. Owen screamed “Get down!” and threw his body in front of Chloe. The gun went off and Warren dove for the robber’s legs, sending them both to the ground. The gun flew out of the robber’s hands.

“Get it!” Warren yelled to L’Raine as he fought to contain the robber.

Chloe, who had been knocked down by Owen, scrambled to her feet to see if he was okay. He lay on his side next to her.

“Are you hurt? Are you hurt?” she yelled, searching his body with her eyes. She was afraid to touch him. Something red glistened on his forearm.

“Warren… L’Raine
…” Owen said as he struggled to rise but then fell back.

Chloe glanced over her shoulder. Warren had the gun trained on the robber, who was on his knees. L’Raine was on the telephone at the cash register, dialing with shaking fingers.

“They’re okay. They’re all right. Warren has the gun. L’Raine is calling for the police,” she said. “Are you hurt?”

Warren squinted and grimaced. “I can’t believe how much it hurts.”

“Oh!” Chloe said, as tears sprang to her eyes.

“How do you gals wear these things all day?”

For a second, Chloe sat speechless and dumbfounded. Then she realized Owen was not talking about a gunshot wound. He was talking about her earring.

Which he still had clipped to right ear.

As it turned out, the bullet had grazed Owen’s arm as he fell across Chloe and lodged itself in the wallboard behind them. The wound required fourteen stitches.

The four choir members never made it to the concert that night. After giving their statements and getting Owen’s arm attended to, they had missed the event entirely. Instead they went to a diner and sat up half the night drinking coffee and falling in love— Owen with Chloe and Warren with L’Raine.

Four years later, on the day after their college graduation, the four young people were married in a double ceremony.

L’Raine and Warren eventually had three boys and lived in a little town on Lake Superior where he led a high school choir. Chloe and Owen lived in Minneapolis where Owen taught elementary band. He and Chloe tried for many years to have a child. Eventually, they adopted a little boy from Korea named Joo-Chan. They gave him the name Kellen. Many years later and to their absolute surprise, God gave Owen and Chloe a baby after all, a little girl, and Owen named her Daisy because those were the flowers he would bring to Chloe while they were dating. At night, Owen would sing “A Bicycle Built for Two” to his daughter, and she loved it. The little girl loved the line, “I’m half crazy all for the love of you.”

And they were all very happy.

Ever-after seemed wildly possible.

I know it sounds a bit more like a police blotter entry than a love story, but it
is
a love story. It’s love like I picture it in its truest form: My father saving my mother from the bullet; my mother dashing to the ground to see if he was okay; Warren toppling the bad guy and yelling for L’Raine to grab the gun; and L’Raine trusting him and reaching down to take hold of it.

That is a picture of love to me. In its most basic form.

It’s keeping the one I care for from harm, looking to this beloved’s wounds, toppling evil in its tracks, bending down in trust.

I think I knew all along that Daniel didn’t love me the way my dad loved my mother, the way Uncle Warren loved L’Raine.

And I suppose I didn’t love Daniel the way my mother loved my father. If I did, I never would’ve wanted him to marry someone he didn’t love absolutely.

It floors me still that when Daniel told me he was certain he’d be unhappy if we went through with the wedding, I still begged him to marry me.

As if his happiness meant nothing at all to me.