The Icing on the Cake (5 page)

The six women, ranging from age thirty-nine to sixty-five, meet three times a week to do Jazzercise in the gymnasium inside the church building in Monterey. Afterwards, they reward themselves with smoothies at various cafés and smoothie shops in the area. I knew this group because one of its members, today dressed in a lavender warm-up suit and bright white sneakers, was my mother. And I also knew that if I showed up in the café with Isaac by my side pandemonium could quite possibly ensue. So I had to act quickly.

“Isaac, it looks pretty crowded in there,” I said. “I don’t, uh, really have a lot of time for lunch today. So maybe we should try somewhere else.” I took a few steps away from the door of the café.

“There isn’t even a line inside,” Isaac said, opening the door for me.

I stood in place and tried again. “But I think I’d like someplace more quiet.”

Isaac let the door close and stepped to the side. “It’s up to you.”

I nodded and looked around for an alternative lunch location. And just when I had spotted a restaurant that didn’t have the best food, but was attractive due to its lack of pastel-sweat-suit-clad women, I saw six hands waving wildly at me from inside the café. For a second I thought about ignoring the hands and dashing toward the other restaurant, but Isaac interrupted that thought.

“Do you know those people?” he asked.

“Yes,” I responded with a sigh. “And you’re about to.”

As we walked into the café, I heard the sound of blenders and coffee grinders behind the counter and the buzz of six women greeting me and Isaac. I approached the Jazzercisers’ table, and bent down to hug Mom. Her shoulder length curls brushed against my face.

She looked from me to Isaac and then fixed her eyes—which are nearly the exact shade of maple-syrup brown as mine—on me. “What happened to you?” she asked.

I ignored the question and introduced Isaac to Mom. I told her he was the photographer assigned to a new article I was working on. Mom and Isaac shook hands. Then I went around the table introducing the rest of the women: “Loraine, Lynn, Suzanne, Maria, and Janet.”

“Why don’t you two sit down,” Mom suggested immediately. Lynn and Maria borrowed two chairs from a nearby table for us to sit in. I tried to gauge Isaac’s reaction to everything, and thought he was handling the estrogen overload quite well.

“So, Isaac, where are you from?” Mom asked the second Isaac and I were seated.

Isaac set his camera case beneath his chair. “Originally I am from a little town in the San Joaquin Valley called Los Banos, which is where I met your daughter.” Isaac smiled at me. “But I live in Monterey now.”

“Oh, and what brought you to Monterey?” Mom asked.

Isaac paused for a moment before answering. “My younger brother was in an accident. My parents moved out here to live closer to my uncle, who is a doctor. I decided to move out here too.”

I looked at Isaac, and was tempted to ask for more details about what happened to his brother, but I knew it wasn’t the right time or setting to ask.

With the where-are-you-from stuff taken care of, Mom and her friends dove in on Isaac like vultures. They asked him about his family, his education, his job, and even—I’m telling you these women are shameless—his dating status.

I listened in.

He had twin sisters who were in high school, and Ethan was his only brother. He double majored in business and photography at San Jose State. He worked for a newspaper in Los Angeles and then moved to Monterey, where he does mostly freelance. And as for his dating status: single. I listened carefully to that part.

As Mom and her friends interrogated Isaac, I watched him carefully, waiting for a get-the-questions-to-stop signal, but he never sent me one. He was the picture of graciousness.

Finally Mom hugged me and said in a tone that made my cheeks turn pink, “Well, I guess we’d better leave you two alone.” Then she turned to Isaac. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”

“Good to meet you too,” Isaac replied genuinely. He then nodded toward Mom’s friends. “It was good to meet all of you.”

The women took turns bidding me and Isaac good-bye and giving me little he’s-a-cutie looks behind Isaac’s back, and then they were off in one pastel swoop.

“I’m so sorry about that,” I said once Isaac and I were alone.

“About what? They were great.”

“They sure liked you,” I said.

“Your Mom’s real nice. Now I can see where you get it.”

I looked down at the floor. “We should get some food,” I said quickly. I picked up the leather-bound menu that was on the center of the table and began looking it over.

“So, this place isn’t too crowded for you after all?” Isaac asked with a grin.

“No, it’s just right,” I answered meaningfully.

Isaac and I looked over the menu and decided to split a turkey croissant sandwich.

As we ate, we made small talk and then talked about the article. Then, as we sipped on smoothies—mine a Pineapple Mango Delight, Isaac’s a Strawberry Banana Dream—the conversation turned more serious.

“Can I ask you a question?” I asked Isaac.

“Okay.”

I tried to form the question in my mind before asking it, so it didn’t sound like I was prying. “Can I ask what happened to your brother?”

Isaac leaned back in his chair. “Sure you can ask that. When he was on his mi—I mean, when he lived in Guatemala for a couple of years, he got hurt trying to save a girl during a flash flood.” Isaac managed a weak smile.

I carefully chose my next words. “That must have been terrible.”

“Yeah, but he’s a rock. He’s handled it better than I ever could have.” It was obvious in Isaac’s voice that he really admired his brother.

I nodded silently.

“Thanks for coming to lunch with me,” Isaac said, sounding pretty eager to change the subject.

“Thanks for the invitation.”

“Will you have dinner with me sometime?” he asked out of nowhere.

I played with the straw in my smoothie as I considered the question.

Annabelle, you’re setting yourself up to get hurt,
my brain immediately piped up.
No sense dating a guy if he can’t take you to the temple.

Everyone has to eat,
I told my brain.

I could eat dinner with a work colleague if I wanted to. And if he just happened to be gorgeous and charming, well, there was nothing I could do about that now was there.

“I would like that very much,” I answered.

“How about tomorrow night?”

“Tomorrow is perfect,” I replied, still playing with my smoothie straw.

“Pick you up at six?” Isaac looked over at me in a terribly adorable way.

I listened carefully to my feelings. In this day and age a girl can never be too careful, and Dad has always told me to exercise caution when it comes to letting men pick me up at my home. Luckily for me, I didn’t have any uneasy feeling about Isaac. In fact, I had some pretty good feelings about him.

“Six would be wonderful,” I said. I wrote my cell number and address on a sugar packet and resisted the urge to draw a big heart on it before handing it to Isaac.

“Great,” Isaac said as he simultaneously put the sugar in his pocket and stood up from the table. He offered me his hand and helped me out of my chair.

I moved toward the door, and Isaac followed close behind, opening the door for me. I’ve found that this is a tricky maneuver for most guys, but Isaac handled it perfectly.

Outside the café, Isaac told me he was going to go to a nearby store, and I explained that I was heading back to La Bonne Violette to get my car. Then I stood still on the sidewalk for a moment trying to figure out how to say good-bye. Should I hug him? Should I shake his hand? Should I give him a little punch on the shoulder? I finally settled on a nice, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” accompanied by a wave and a warm smile.

Isaac reciprocated with, “I’ll be looking forward to it,” and a wave and smile of his own.

I spun on my heels and walked away. And then when I just couldn’t stand it anymore I turned around to look back at Isaac.

He was watching me walk away.

H
ello?” I answered my cell. “Hello, Annabelle, this is Miles speaking. I was calling to inquire what you are doing this evening.”

I think this is a good time to mention that Miles talks properly all the time. Sometimes it almost sounds like he has an English accent, which I know is impossible because he’s from Idaho.

“I’m on my way to have dinner at my parents’ house,” I answered.

“Excellent. Thank you very much. Good-bye.”

“Bye.” I hung up the phone, furrowing my brow in what-was-that-all-about confusion.

When I arrived at my parents’ house, Mom and Dad were sitting on the porch swing in front of the single-story, pale-blue home they have lived in since before I was born. They were holding hands and gazing out at the glittering ocean in the distance.

I approached them and sat down next to Mom on the swing. I could immediately smell the scent of the freesia fragrance she wore.

“Hi, hon,” Mom greeted me.

“Hey,” I said, putting my head on her shoulder.

“Hi, Bellie,” Dad said. That’s his nickname for me. It’s short for Annabelle, and has no reference to my stomach—just so you know.

“Hi, Dad.” I lifted my head off Mom’s shoulder and smiled at him.

“I’m going to go check on dinner,” Mom announced, standing up from the swing.

Dad and I followed Mom into the house, which smelled delicious, as it always does around dinner time.

I was washing my hands in the bathroom next to my old bedroom when I heard Mom’s voice call out to me. “Annabelle, someone is here to see you.”

My heart stopped. More than once when I’ve come to my parents’ house for a casual Friday evening dinner Mom has invited an acquaintance of hers to join us. A single, male, twenty-something acquaintance.

There was the stockman from the grocery store who to everyone’s surprise turned out to be a seventeen-year-old stock-kid.

There was the pool guy who announced during dinner that he hoped to marry a rich woman so he could quit his job and try to sell the collection of bugs he removed from his clients’ pools over the years.

Then there was a guy I actually liked. Mom had met him at church in her and Dad’s ward. He was cute, interesting, and had no overt quirks. We went on a couple of dates, and I thought things were going well. Then he came to attend church in the singles ward with me, took one look at the cute redhead who was leading the music, and was gone. The two of them were married last month. Mom and I made some chocolate dipped strawberries for the reception.

“Annabelle, where are you?” Mom called out again.

What was Mom up to? Had she decided that Isaac was not suited for me when she met him at the café, and gone out in search of a replacement man? I thought about locking myself in the bathroom, but before I could, Mom appeared in the doorway.

“Miles is here,” she announced.

Miles. Oh, thank goodness
.

“What is he doing here?”

“He needs your help with something,” Mom replied, sounding like she had a very juicy secret.

“Oh.” I bit my lip in puzzlement.

I smoothed my hair as I followed Mom into the living room. Dad was sitting comfortably in his recliner, which is just about as old as me, and Miles was sitting on the well-worn plaid couch. Mom perched on the arm of Dad’s recliner, and I plopped down on a giant bean bag on the floor and listened carefully to Dad and Miles discussing homerun records and traded baseball players. Since knowing baseball facts can sometimes give a single girl like me an advantage in the dating world, I listened carefully.

“Hey, Miles,” I said in a break in the conversation. “Mom says you need my help with something?”

“Yes, indeed. I need you to accompany me as I go ring shopping.”

“Why don’t you ask Carrie to come with you?” I asked dumbly.

Two seconds later, I figured it out. “No way!!” I screeched. “Are you going to . . . I can’t believe you’re . . . Does Carrie know about . . . Of course I’ll come shopping with you!”

“I was considering going tomorrow morning.” Miles spoke calmly as if to demonstrate that he was completely cool about this whole thing, not at all screechy and unable to form sentences like I was.

“Yeah, sure,” I agreed. I tried to catch my breath. “Where do you want to meet?”

Miles reached into his pocket and took out a neatly folded piece of linen paper. He handed me the paper. “I have a list of jewelry stores I have researched,” he said. “I think we should meet at the first one on the list.”

I looked at the paper. John Wilfred was first on the list. I swallowed hard. John Wilfred is
the
place to buy jewelry in the Monterey Bay area.

“What time do you want to meet?” I asked.

“Would ten o’clock be suitable for you?”

“Yeah, ten is great.” I returned the list to Miles.

“Splendid,” Miles said.

Miles started to get up from the couch and Mom immediately objected. “Sit down and stay for a while, Miles. I’ve just finished dinner, and you’re welcome to stay.”

“Thanks for the invitation Marjorie, but I have dinner plans with Carrie.”

Mom shot Miles a disappointed look.

So, being the kind guy that he is, Miles said, “On second thought, it would be quite a pleasure to stay a while.”

“Great,” Mom said before disappearing into the kitchen.

Miles and Dad started right back in on their baseball talk, and I quietly considered the information I had just been given. I couldn’t believe it. Miles was going to ask Carrie to marry him, and of course she was going to say yes. I couldn’t have been happier for anyone in the world.

Then, suddenly, I found myself wishing Miles was my boyfriend. Okay, not technically Miles, no way, but a Miles of my own. I wished I were at my parents’ house with a guy Dad could talk with, a guy Mom would invite to stay for dinner, a guy who wanted to buy me a John Wilfred diamond ring. I was happy for Carrie and Miles, I really was. But couldn’t I be happy for them and sorry for myself at the same time?