Your Chariot Awaits (2 page)

“God can bring good out of the worst of situations,” Joella said. “Maybe you'll find an even better job.”

Joella P. Picault. The P was supposed to be for Pilar, but I suspected it really stood for Pollyanna. And yes, this was one of those times when I wanted to pick her up and shake her. And I could do it. Okay, I'm not exactly a powerhouse of lean muscle . . . there are those jiggly thighs. But I mow my own lawn, and I do it with a push-type mower, so my five-foot-six 134 pounds definitely outmuscles Joella's five-foot-one 120. With her blonde hair, blue eyes, and pink cheeks, she looks like the girl on top in a high-school cheerleader pyramid. Albeit a considerably pregnant one.

“God doesn't care about my situation,” I informed her firmly.

“How do you know? Did you ever talk to Him about it?”

I waved a hand dismissively. Joella and I don't really argue about God. I kind of think He exists, out there somewhere, but I'm not on
Hi there, God, how're You doing?
terms with Him, the way Joella seems to be.

“What about Jerry?” she asked.

I wasn't surprised that Fitz immediately cut in with, “Who's Jerry?”

“When I have time, I'll send you a cast list of everyone in the program of my life,” I snapped.

“I'd appreciate that.”

“He's the boyfriend,” Joella explained. “He works at F&N too.”

At my level of sixtyish,
boyfriend
seems a much too adolescent term, but I suppose it's as accurate as any.

“I haven't talked to him yet.” I glanced at the ceramic rooster clock on the wall of the shop. “He'll probably call later.”

I needed some commiseration time with Jerry. The down-sizing at F&N would surely hit him hard. He'd been in line for a position as head of the finance department, if Mr. Findley ever retired, but this corporate change would sink that possibility. He wouldn't have Joella and Fitz's rose-colored-glasses view of the situation.

“Look, how about if I buy you one of the great new peach smoothies, and we'll talk about the job problem?” Fitz suggested.

I wasn't interested in discussing my job problems with a stranger, but the peach smoothie sounded appealing. I was just about to accept when my cell phone played that hard rock thing Rachel programmed in when she was here at Christmas. It always gives me a little jolt, but I haven't changed it because it reminds me of my granddaughter.

As if just thinking about Jerry a minute earlier had made a connection, his voice on the phone said, “Hi, Andi. Hey, I've got a little time and thought I'd run over for a minute. I need to talk to you.”

“I'm down at the Sweet Breeze rereading my you're-fired-have-a-nice-day letter. Want to join me?”

“This is kind of private. I'd rather come to your house.”

“Sure. I'll head on home. Want to barbecue burgers later?”

“No, I have some things to do.”

“See you in a few minutes, then.

“Jerry,” I said to Joella as I returned the phone to my purse. And to Fitz too, of course, since he seemed as interested in my phone call as he was in my correspondence.

Joella looked mildly disapproving as I headed for the door. She doesn't actually say anything against Jerry, but she tends to avoid him, and once she said that he seemed “a bit insensitive.” I hadn't asked her to elaborate, but I think it had to do with a mean crack he made about an overweight woman when we were all at a neighborhood barbecue. I'm sure he didn't really mean anything by it. It's just that Jerry runs and works out, and his lean physique shows it, and he hasn't much sympathy for those who don't take such care of themselves. And Joella is prejudiced toward some guy, Dean somebody, at her church that she wants me to meet.

“I'll see you at home later,” she called. “And don't forget, we
are
going to celebrate your birthday this weekend. I'll bring the cake.”

“With sixty candles?” Fitz looked interested, as if he might like to be invited to the blaze.

“We'll think about the birthday.” Given my coming unemployment, even hitting the big six-o had dropped a notch on my worry list. Although age and employment status were probably a combination problem. No matter what Fitz said, sixty is not prime time for finding a new job. “See you later.”

“Maybe we can have that peach smoothie some other time,” Fitz called.

I gave him a noncommittal wave.

“We're heading out on a charter trip tomorrow, but when we get back, I'll give you a tour of the
Miss Nora,
and you can meet my son.”

Right. Like I'm going to rush over and give Nosy & Son, Inc., a chance to rummage around in more private details of my life.

2

J
erry's car wasn't parked at the duplex when I turned onto Secret View Lane. I felt a fresh thunder of panic when I pulled into the double driveway between the two units.

What if no job and a financial crunch forced me out of my home? I loved my little place. I loved my green grass and daisy flower beds. I loved my patio out behind the house and the huge cedars and forsythia and more daisies along the back line, and the squirrels that stole seed from my bird feeder. I loved my cozy kitchen with the sunny yellow curtains I'd made myself.

Maybe it wasn't much compared to the big house I'd had to give up after Richard pulled his wife-switcheroo act. No expansive lawn sweeping down to the tidewaters rushing through Hornsby Inlet, no expensive powerboat tied to a picturesque dock, no view of the shining waters of Vigland Bay in one direction and distant Mount Rainier shimmering in the other.

My only view here, in fact, was of the house across the street and the forested hillside above it. A house where, as usual, old Tom Bolton was parked in a lawn chair on his deck, keeping watch on the neighbors. I couldn't see his binoculars at the moment, but I knew they were there. Once I'd seen him jot something in a little notebook when Moose, the Sheersons' spotted dalmatian, was running down the street, and later the Sheersons had a stern visit from Animal Control.

But in spite of meddlesome old Tom, the potholes in the street, and the critters that kept mounding up piles of raw dirt on my lawn, I loved this quiet lane and my little duplex. But I repeat myself.

Inside, I changed to denim shorts, a pink shell top, and flip-flops. The late spring day was unusually warm, though I wasn't in a mood to appreciate blue skies and sunshine.

I made lemonade while waiting for Jerry. From fresh lemons, of course. Jerry doesn't like the frozen kind. I expected him any minute, but a half hour went by. An hour. Two.

I kept peering out the window, watching for him. Joella got home from work and waved as she struggled out of her old Subaru, looking tired after being on her feet all day.

Where could Jerry be? He runs a Web site–design business in addition to his position in the finance department at F&N—but if work was detaining him, he could have called. I bounced between annoyance and worry.

Finally, almost three hours after I'd gotten home, I heard his Trans Am pull into the driveway. He didn't look the way I felt, down and discouraged, as he slid out of the car and headed for the front door. In fact, he looked quite jaunty. His combination of jeans and black T-shirt molded his muscles, and he looked sophisticated and a bit dangerous. A combination that can tingle even an almost-sixty heart—even though, now that I saw he was okay, I was exasperated with him for not calling. I let him ring the bell before I opened the door.

“Hi, babe. Hey, you're looking good!” He grabbed my upper arms and gave me a quick kiss.

Jerry Norton is the guy I've been dating for almost four months now. Granddaughter Rachel shudders at the term. No one
dates
anymore, she says. But it still works for me. Anyway, Jerry is my first maybe-serious relationship in a long time. No spoken commitment here, but neither of us was dating anyone else. We like hiking together, and he has a little sailboat he keeps at a friend's dock. We take it out on the bay or inlet, sometimes out into the rougher waters of Puget Sound. He cooks up a mean slab of salmon on my barbecue, he loves my fried chicken, and we both enjoy finding new places to eat out. He's hardworking, ambitious, fun, and good-looking, with curly, dark hair and a smile and lean body that look especially good braced against the mast of the sailboat. I have that photo on the nightstand in my bedroom.

With the proper nudge, I think I could be in love with Jerry. Maybe I am anyway, but unwilling to admit it to myself just yet. Maybe just a wariness that comes with this time of life, combined with a bad marriage experience in my past. Plus the fact that Jerry is nine years and ten months younger than I am, and I've never been quite sure what he sees in me. Joella, bless her heart, says I sell myself short.

Now I said, “I thought you were coming right over.”

“Sorry. I got tied up on some e-mail stuff.”

“Sending out résumés already?”

He looked blank for a moment; then his expression sobered, as if the question reminded him this was a day of gloom. “Well, uh, like I said, we need to talk.”

“Lemonade?”

“Sure.”

I went on through to the kitchen, and he perched on one of the tall stools at the counter separating kitchen and dining room. I poured a glass of lemonade for him. The termination letter with the F&N letterhead lay on the counter. He didn't pick it up, but he apparently knew what it said.

“Tough break. You've been with F&N a long time.”

“I guess everyone got the same letter.” I knew because in my department we'd compared. Only my friend Letty Bishop was being kept on for the final days, after the department supervisor turned down the job. “You too?”

“Well, uh, no.”

“No?”

“They've offered me a transfer to the San Diego office. Findley is going, and they've offered me a position as his assistant. That's what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“A transfer?” What I really felt was a big flood of dismay, like the tide surging in over the mud flats of Vigland Bay, but I squelched my reaction. “Jerry, that's wonderful! You must be one of a very select few.”

“Findley specifically asked for me, which is probably what did it.”

“Are you taking the transfer?”

“I'm not wild about working with ol' Freaky Findley, that's for sure. He's lazy and self-important and . . . well, you know. But I don't see how I can turn it down. It's a promotion, actually, with more money. So it's really an awesome opportunity.”

“Awesome,” I echoed. I wanted to feel glad for him. And one nice part of me
did
feel glad. A transfer
and
a promotion. The problem was that the self-centered
what-about-me?
question loomed like a skyscraper on a desert island. I cast around for nice things to say, but all I came up with was a lame, “The weather should be great down there.”

“Right. I've never been fond of western Washington's rain.”

My world is falling apart, and we're discussing the climate.

“How soon will you go?”

“Probably within the next couple weeks. I'll be going down ahead of Findley to get things set up.”

I felt a peculiar hollowness inside. A strangely large hollow, which made me wonder if I wasn't in love with him.

“But it makes for a problem, of course,” he added.

“The condo?”

Jerry's condo was in one of the newer complexes in town, and he'd owned it less than a year. It had what the real estate people called a “forever view” out over Vigland Bay and Hornsby Inlet. He could even see the jagged Olympic Mountains to the north.

“No, not the condo. All the F&N people out of work may depress local prices for a while, but I can hang on a few months before putting the condo on the market if I have to.” He reached across the counter and pulled me around the end of it. “The problem isn't the condo. The problem is
us.
”

I nodded as I stood within the circle of his arms and echoed the word. “Us.”

“The thing is, I don't think it's practical to carry on a long-distance relationship, do you?”

I caught my breath. We'd talked around marriage in a generic way, but we'd never really discussed it on a you-and-me basis. Jerry had been married when he came to F&N five years ago, but they'd divorced, and his ex had taken the two kids and moved back east somewhere. I had the impression he wasn't totally disillusioned with marriage, but wary, which was about how I felt. Was now the time to let the past go and look at a future together?

Sure, I'd had some doubts about Jerry. Sometimes I had the feeling there were parts of his life he wasn't sharing with me. And sometimes that almost ten-year difference in our ages loomed higher than the Olympic Mountains. But did anyone, with our unhappy past experiences, go into marriage 100 percent sure?

“Yes,” I agreed with a catch in my voice at the looming possibilities. “Long-distance relationships can be a problem. How do you think we should handle it?”

Quick ceremony before he left for San Diego? Or a settling-in time for him there, and then a trip to a wedding chapel in Reno or Vegas? Or maybe even a little church somewhere? Yes, a church. I'd like that.

“I'm thinking you'll agree that making a clean break would be best for both of us.”

A jaw can drop. It really can. “
What?
”

“The thing is, I've been in contact on the Internet with a woman in the San Diego area for a while. In fact, she's looking for a nice apartment for me down there right now. She's a fitness instructor at a health club, and she loves sailing and surfing. And we just discovered we're both interested in skydiving too. It seems like we really click.”

I was stunned. I'm thinking about the possibility of closing the long-distance gap between us with a wedding ring, and he's thinking skydiving with a fitness instructor. No doubt with thighs of steel.