Bee Happy (7 page)

  Plans were made for the next weekend.  As they returned to the farm, this time with the top up, it was a little too chilly now, Calli allowed herself to be happy, happy that they had enjoyed the evening together, happy that she would see him again next weekend, and happy that she had stopped being irritated with Jim’s presence.  She really couldn’t figure out what had rubbed her the wrong way about him.  Everything about him was okay, even better than okay, his manners, his sense of humor, his amazing singing voice and his love of gardening.  If there had been a match maker in town, she would have picked these two to fit together perfectly.  Calli was determined to enjoy his company and erase her past feelings about Jim.  Tonight had shifted her from disliking him intensely to liking him intensely.  Had Sally worked a little ‘magic’ healing on her without her knowledge?  There didn’t seem to be any other explanation for the 180 degree shift in her. 
Maybe it was finally time for her to be happy, happy with a guy around other than her grandfather.  Just maybe it was time. 

  The awkward moment arrived, Jim walking her to the front porch, Calli thanking him for a wonderful evening and -- the moment that people on a first date hoped would turn out right.  The kiss her or don’t kiss her moment.  Who should lean in first, the guy or the girl?  Or should they just shake hands?  Thankfully for Calli, Jim held her hands, looked her in the eyes and asked, “Would it be alright if I kissed you good night?”  Now there is a novel idea, actually asking the girl permission.  “Yes, it would be quite alright.”  The kiss was gentle, soft and sweet.  Calli felt the tenderness of his kiss and knew it was because of her willingness to share about her recovery from Cal’s death that had touched him emotionally.  He was being thoughtful and respectful of her feelings.  All of this understanding flooded into Calli’s head as the kiss ended.  Jim walked away whistling and almost skipping a bit back to his car.  She watched as he drove away.  The night hawk squawked and the stars seemed a little brighter.  Climbing up the stairs into the house Calli felt alive inside again.  There had been small little sparks of electricity moving through her.  Alive again, that’s what it felt like, she was alive again.  As she hung her dress in the closet, she looked at all the work clothes hanging there, plenty of practical shirts and jeans and shorts, but not very many dresses that indicated that she was a woman, a woman who was the ‘best looking’ one on the dance floor.  She was happy again.  It h
ad been a very long time, and feeling happy was a perfect first step. 

  Sleep came easy for Calli.  The happy hormones had eliminated any tossing and turning and Calli felt rested when she awoke in the morning.  Stretching before she got out of bed, her last dream of the night came rushing back.  At least she believed it was a dream.  Cal was in the dream telling her about what he was doing in heaven and how he was watching over her like a guardian angel would.  He was reassuring her that he wanted her to find someone else who could make her happy, someone who would love her as much as he had.  He pleaded with her not to give up on love and promised that he’d watch and make sure the guy she picked would treat her like a princess.  This dream seemed to come at a very auspicious time, her first rea
l date and her first kiss.  Was
Cal confirming that Jim would make her happy?  Or was he just sending the message that it was time for her to consider being happy again?  Puzzled about the message, she decided it definitely was a day to find Sally during her lunch hour and get her take on everything.  Plus she also knew without a doubt that Sally would be chomping at the bit wondering how the date had gone and if she’d actually enjoyed herself or had continued to be irritated with Jim.  She wasn’t positive that she’d report on how she felt about the goodnight kiss, but she might. 

 
The familiar smell of bacon brought her out of her thoughts into the reality of hunger and breakfast.  Roger was tempting her with her favorite food, besides hot fudge and caramel sundaes.  His bacon and eggs breakfast was outstanding.  He used plenty of fresh vegetables from their gar
den to make the omelet delicious enough
that people would pay
a lot of money
for
it
.  She especially enjoyed the fresh cilantro he chopped up and sprinkled on top of everything, plus there was the homemade jelly from the elderberries in the back yard.  There was some herbal property about elderberries that Calli knew
a little bit
about, but learning more
would require research and she didn’t have time for that during the summer vegetable season.  Tomorrow was farmers market and she needed to get everything organized for the day.  Interesting how today when she thought about
the market and choosing her booth, she wanted to
be near Jim, normally she was hoping that he’d be on the farthest end of the market
as far away from her booth as possible.
  After last night she actually wanted to be near him so she could continue to evaluate their relationship.  Oh, my, did they have a relationship?  She was calling one date and an invitation to a wedding a relationship.  Now this is going to take some serious girl talk with Sally. 

  After breakfast, the two of them headed to the gardens and determined which rows were ready to harvest and which ones would have to wait until next week.  The newest plantings were sprouting and Calli was pleased to see that their fall crop was going to be bountiful; at least that’s what it looked like at this moment.  Barring any hail, bugs, drought, or any other act of nature that gardeners
had to live
with which could make or break their profitable season.  Roger agreed to continue harvesting while Calli went to town to see Sally.  He hadn’t even asked about the date last night, probably
because he
hadn’t wanted to intrude.  Besides he knew that there wasn’t any way she could keep things from him for very long, even as a little girl she was always telling him about her dreams and her plans for the happily ever after princess fairy tale life she was planning to live.  He knew that losing Cal had taken its toll on those dreams.  There was no reason to push her into something that would take time to develop, a lifetime love, partner and husband
wouldn’t materialize in just one date to the Burger Barn and a movie.  Roger was patient.  He was confident that Calli would find her ideal mate, he didn’t know if Jim was the one, but he did believe that he was a strong candidate.  The snap peas were calling to him, walking down the row he ducked as a couple of little honey bees buzzed around his head. 

  Sally was waiting for Calli, her intuition had been overactive this morning and she was positive that her friend would be arriving for lunch just about now!  The van arrived and parked right beside the bench where she was waiting
.  Calli waved and hopped out of
her van carrying a sack of fresh vegetables for her friend.  “Here’s a present for all the healing that you d
id to make my date last night have
a very happy event.”  Sally took the sack and looked inside; there were tomatoes, snap peas, green peppers, a head of lettuce and zucchini. She was happy that the last vegetable wasn’t plural.  She had heard stories about people locking their cars during zucchini season, if you weren’t careful you could end up with a bushel of the green ‘rabbits’
--
at least they seemed to multiply like rabbits during the growing season.  “Thanks, this looks like my supper and lunch tomorrow.  You sure do grow the best vegetables in the county, must be your love of the earth that makes them taste so good. So, spill the beans, pardon the pun, I want to hear all about your date with Jim last night.  Every juicy detail, do not leave any part out!  And you know that I’m psychic enough to know if you do.”  Laughing Calli began with their ride into town with the top down on the convertible, Jim’s melodious baritone voice and how well their voices blended together.  Both of them ate lunch as the tale of the supper at the Burger Barn, the movie and the hot fudge and caramel sundae unfolded.  Sally absorbed every tiny detail into her
soul;
she was
thrilled to feel the happiness that was being woven into the tale of her date.  Her best friend was finally taking her first steps towards finding a relationship for herself, or at least having an enjoyable evening with a guy.  She knew how difficult it had been for her after Cal’s death.  The months following had been filled with grief and depression, Sally had used every hea
ling technique she had to help
Calli out of the pit of despair.  She knew that time was the best healer and was so grateful that it was now
a perfect
time for her to find some happiness after all the darkness had lifted.

  “---and then he asked me if it was okay to kiss me.  That was a first, no other guy had ever asked permission before, and most of them just assume that’s what a girl wants. His asking me broke the tension of the moment and allowed me to relax into the kiss.  And what a kiss it was.”  She grabbed Sally’s hand, “—I actually felt some sort of
electricity
moving through me.
  And then this wave of happiness followed it.”  Calli was glowing and Sally squeezed her hand, “I’m so happy for you.  It’s been a long time, and you deserve to feel special again.”  “I know, thanks to whatever you did ahead of time before my date last night.  You must have chanted some spell to shift my apprehension about being with Jim.  You know how much he used to irritate me, just being around him.  I never did figure out what was causing it, but somehow I enjoyed myself despite my preconceived notion that I wouldn’t have any fun.  He made me laugh and
I
even got a little emotional when I talked about Cal.”  Sally was surprised to hear that they had talked about Cal; this was amazing for a first date.  “You know that Cal would want you to be happy don’t you?”  Sally checked to see her reaction to the statement, tuning into her emotional body a bit.  “Yes, and that’s one of the reasons I wanted to have lunch with you, besides telling you about my date last night.  My dream this morning was about Cal.  I saw him and hear
d
him talk to me.  I was wondering what you thought.  Was it a dream or was it a spirit visitation?  I’m not very up on all this spiritual stuff like you are.”  Sally sat back a bit, and listened to her guides.  This was the way she connected to the universal consciousness and received the messages that she shared with her healing clients.  “I’m hearing that indeed it was a dream, Cal isn’t ready to make an appearance just yet.  He has some training to complete on the other side before he can actually come to you here on the earth plane.”  Now this information seemed like an episode from a television series about angels or spirit guides.  Nothing about this was familiar to Calli, but she had learned over the years to believe what Sally shared with her, never had her predictions been wrong and some
times they were too accurate making
Calli uncomfortable. 

  “So, I really was hearing from Cal’s spirit?  I wasn’t just making it up to be okay with having a date with Jim.  You know me; I’m still in love with Cal.  There’s a part of me that will always love him.  But he’s not here now and I’m almost ready to find someone to be happy with.  Scratch that, I want someone to be absolutely, positively, madly in
love with.  Someone who makes my
toes tingle every time I see him, someone who will laugh and cry with me.  Make babies with me and live together in my happily ever after fairy tale dream world.  I don’t know if my knight in shining armor drives a red convertible or not, but I do know that I enjoyed our date and am looking forward to next weekend and the wedding.  I’m a sucker for
white dresses and smiling families
and especially wedding cake.  I don’t know how wedding cake frosting is made, but it has to be the best frosting on the planet.”    Calli took a deep breath and realized what she’d said.  She hadn’t consciously believed that she was ready to move on, but having heard herself say it out loud to Sally made her stop and pause, those words did ring true.  Somewhere inside she knew she was ready for her husband to appear.  “Wow, I really hadn’t figured out how ready I am to find Mr. Right.  I know that you’ve been telling me for a very long time that there’s someone perfect for me, but I hadn’t connected the dots before this moment.  That’s amazing.  I can feel some sort of energy coursing through my entire body.  What is that?  Hormones or what?”  Calli felt strange, not a bad strange, but a good feeling strange.

  “You are just letting your kundalini fire rise up your spine and activate all your chakras.”
  Sally said it as
a firm
convincing statement.
  Calli crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue, “Does it make me do this without knowing it?”  They both laughed, Sally knew that her best friend didn’t want to understand the majority of her spiritual information and Calli knew that there were spiritual truths that she didn’t have a clue about and wasn’t even slightly interesting in learning either.  “There you go spewing your voodoo stuff -- you know that I’m only interested in the physical, I can touch it stuff.  If I put the seed in the ground, and water it and nurture it I will have a plant that I can harvest and eat to keep myself alive and sell at the market.  All this energy stuff makes my brain go haywire.  Not that I don’t believe it works, but I’m not ready to put on the purple gowns and chant walking around the town square during a full moon.”  Sally knew better than to begin a discussion with Calli about the merits of her spiritual training.  This conversation happened about once a month, amazingly close to every full moon.  One of these days or moonlight nights Calli would be ready to delve into
the
spiritual side of life, Sally knew that her friend couldn’t help but be connected to the nature spirits of her gardens.  She probably couldn’t touch them or see them but she was positive that Calli could feel their presence and didn’t have the vocabulary necessary to express what happened to her each and every day she as she worked with the elementals in her garden.