Finally & Forever (14 page)

Eli darted a look at her and then returned his focus to the road. She knew she could be reading too much into his look, but it did seem that he was hoping she would withdraw her comment and cast her vote for village campfires instead of a sink and toilet.

The topics that had been hinted at but not fully opened on this journey were beginning to weigh on Katie. She liked things uncomplicated and out in the open. The best way for that to happen was for Eli and her to discuss these things privately, not with his parents. That meant she had to wait. And waiting was never a comfortable exercise.

She was glad when Eli’s dad changed the topic a little while later. “Katie, is your mobile phone picking up a signal here?” Jim asked. “Mine isn’t. I’m trying to check on the weather to make sure we’re not heading into rain with those dark clouds ahead.”

She pulled out her phone and turned it back on, since she had turned it off to save the battery. “It looks like it’s working.” She handed it to him so he could do a weather search.

As Jim was looking up the weather report, Katie’s phone sounded a distinct buzzer. A few seconds later it sounded again.

“Do you have a call coming in?” Jim asked.

“No, that’s an old alarm. I set it last year for anytime I received a text from my fellow RA, Nicole. When we were on duty this past year, lots of times we had to get ahold of each other right away.”

“This alarm sounds only when that particular person is trying to contact you?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“That would be handy. What’s the app for that?”

Eli glanced at Katie as she was directing his dad to what he wanted to find on her phone. “That’s what you need, Dad. Another phone app.”

“We all have our hobbies, son.”

Katie smiled as she took back her phone and turned off the buzzing from Nicole’s message. It had been a long time since that alarm had sounded, and Katie felt melancholy hearing it. She missed Nicole and the time they had spent together in the dorm for their senior year of college. More than once Katie had wondered how Nicole and Rick were getting along in their newly sprouted dating and working relationship. Rick was opening a new café, and Nicole had been working with him on the huge project for quite a few months. Having worked with Rick when he managed the Dove’s Nest Café, Katie knew that the close, daily interaction could either make or break their attraction to each other.

Opening her text message file, Katie read Nicole’s note.

ANY CHANCE YOU CAN CALL ME? ASAP? CALL ME BEFORE YOU CHECK YOUR EMAIL.

Katie didn’t think this was a good time or place to call Nicole. Aside from the high service fees she would have to pay for the international call, it wouldn’t be private in the car. Katie knew it would be better to wait until they were back at Brockhurst, and she could use the internet phone service she had set up on her laptop so they could have a nice, long conversation.

She was about to put her phone back in her bag, but her curiosity was too strong. What email had Nicole sent that she didn’t want Katie to open yet?

Knowing Nicole, it was probably an email with an attached photo of the way her decorating scheme had turned out for Rick’s café. Katie wasn’t especially wowed by vinyl-covered booths or paint colors on walls the way Nicole was. Katie thought the email could wait.

She put away her phone, and they drove into the dusk as the scenery turned dusty brown and took on the golden haze of the sunset.

“Did you see if rain is predicted in the village?” Katie asked.

“No. The clouds seem to be just passing through,” Jim said.

“How’s Nicole doing?” Eli asked.

“I don’t know. Her text said to call her, but I’ll do that when we get back to Brockhurst.”

“Do you think she’s okay?”

Katie hadn’t considered the possibility that something was wrong. Nicole’s email might have bad news that she wanted to tell Katie first. Reaching for her cell phone again, Katie let her imagination sprint down a dismal trail. Tapping her foot as she waited for her dozen or more emails to load, Katie saw the subject line come up on Nicole’s email:
Save the date
.

She relaxed her shoulders. “It looks like an invitation for a birthday party or probably for the grand opening of one of the restaurants Rick and his brother are opening.”

Katie couldn’t remember off the top of her head when Nicole’s birthday was or when Rick’s café was supposed to open.

Clicking on Nicole’s email, she wanted to see what upcoming event she would have been saving the date for if she were still back in California.

Katie read the message and didn’t blink. She barely breathed.

Save the date:

October 3

Rick and Nicole are getting married!

E
li.” Katie stared at her phone. No other words formed on her lips.

“Yes?”

Katie was aware that he was glancing at her and then looking back at the road.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

Katie still didn’t know what to say.

“Is Nicole all right? What did she say?”

Without looking at Eli, Katie said, “She’s getting married.”

“She is? To Rick?”

“Yes, of course. To Rick. Rick and Nicole are engaged. I’m in shock. The wedding is in October.” Katie’s stunned thoughts turned to her default mode of sarcasm. “We’re supposed to save the date.”

“Did you know they were that serious about each other?”

Katie turned off her phone to save the battery. Or maybe she just needed to feel she had the power to hit some sort of “Make it stop” button. She knew that Eli’s parents could hear everything she and Eli were saying from their position in the small car’s backseat. Katie didn’t care. They all had talked openly about Rick before and how Katie had gone out with him for more than a year. Eli always had nice things to say about Rick as a former roommate. Katie always had nice things to say about Nicole, her former fellow RA.

She didn’t know what to say now.

“Nicole is a sincere person. Rick has a lot of vision.” Eli kept his eyes on the bumpy road. “They’ll make a good team. A good couple.”

If she weren’t so stunned at the moment, Katie probably would agree. What Eli said was true. Rick and Nicole would make a good team. As a matter of fact, when she found out a few months ago that Nicole had it bad for Rick, she helped to match them up. She knew then that in a lot of ways they would be better together than she and Rick had been. And Nicole and Rick managed to develop a really strong relationship and had been very good for each other in a lot of ways.

What hit Katie so hard was that Rick had managed to get in touch with his true feelings and take the lead in acting on them. He had decided after only a few months of dating Nicole that he was ready to commit himself to one woman, and Nicole was that woman. Katie was astounded. She didn’t know where to put that thought. For so many months she had worked out scenarios in which she was that woman. Rick’s one woman. But, no. It was her friend.

“I’m happy for them,” she said, sounding emotionally flat even to herself.

“Are you really?”

Katie looked at Eli. He glanced over at her, and she nodded. “Yes. I’m shocked, but I’m happy for them.”

Eli gave her another glance, this time with an encouraging grin attached to it. He reached over and gave her hand a squeeze. “I guess when you know it’s the right person for you, you just know.”

She felt her heart stir. He had just made that declaration in front of his parents.

“Do you think that’s true, Eli? Really?”

“Yes. Really. I do. Don’t you?”

Katie wanted to believe it. She wanted to agree. But at this moment, she couldn’t find a way to add her own affirming comment. What was it Christy had said about riding along inside the mystery of growing a relationship? That’s how she felt right now.

Eli let go of her hand and put both hands on the steering wheel to navigate the bumpy stretch ahead. Katie noticed that he turned on
the headlights because the daylight had faded quickly, and the dark African night was rolling in, covering them with an inky blanket of darkness. The only lights were the car’s headlights and the stars that Katie could see out the windshield. The moon wasn’t in front of them, nor did it seem to be providing any light. It was the darkest night Katie had ever seen.

Eli hit a bump and slowed down. A minute later he hit another big bump, and when he did, the engine made a strange clunking noise.

“That didn’t sound good,” his dad said.

The car coasted; the engine had shut itself off.

“Hold on,” Eli called out. “The steering wheel is locked.”

“Put it in neutral,” his dad said.

“I already did.”

“Try the brakes.”

“Got my foot on them.”

Katie braced herself. She could see nothing but rutted road ahead of them. No cliffs or drop-offs.

“There’s a level, open spot up there,” she said, straining her eyes. “It looks like a turnout.”

Eli coasted into the area, working hard to force the steering wheel to turn the tires to the right. He pressed on the brakes, and the car stopped with the left side of the car still on the road and the right side on the turnout.

“Let’s see what we have going on under the hood,” Jim said. He was out the back door before Eli even had his seat belt off.

Katie noticed that none of the Lorenzos seemed overly concerned at this turn of events. All three of them were acting as if this happened all the time, and once again they seemed content to go with the flow. Katie could hear Jim directing Eli where to shine his flashlight. The two of them remained hidden behind the car’s raised hood. Then it sounded as if one of them was underneath the engine, tapping on something.

“Nothing obvious under here,” Eli said.

Katie and Cheryl got out and peered at the engine with the guys. Not that either of them could say what they were looking for.

“I guess we pray for a mechanic and see what God brings us,” Cheryl said.

As had been the custom often at Brockhurst, they stopped right there, joined hands, and prayed. Then they put together a plan for taking turns with the flashlight to “pay a visit to the cheetahs,” which was code for going off to find a private spot to go to the bathroom. The guys went first, leaving Katie and Cheryl standing in the light of the car’s headlights.

It was so dark that Katie kept looking up into the vast night sky. The stars, like pinholes in the velvet carpet of heaven, permitted the tiny points of glory to slip through. She thought of Queen Elizabeth coming down the stairs at Treetops and Rebekah going to Isaac in the field. Two very different women who had life-changing moments on ordinary days. From that one event on, they knew what their lives were about. They entered what was next and lived it out. Katie wanted that. With or without Eli or any other guy in her life, she wanted to know what God had created her to do. But she had to admit, she would rather go the distance with Eli than without him.

The guys returned and handed over the flashlights. Katie headed off into the brush with Cheryl following close behind.

“Clap your hands, Katie.”

She obliged and made critter-shooing noises while Cheryl swished the flashlight. The next five minutes weren’t as bad as Katie thought they might be. Cheryl came prepared with what they needed and made the experience seem natural. They returned to find Eli and Jim stretched out on the car’s closed hood, gazing at the stars. Katie smiled.

Eli held out his hand, inviting her to clamor up and stretch out beside him. She didn’t care how dirty the car’s hood was or how many squished bugs on the windshield were going to now attach themselves to her shirt. She was in Africa, watching the night sky and stretched out next to Eli. This was a memory moment that overlapped the meteor-gazing night in the California desert and yet had a pristine
beauty all its own. This was a different continent. These were different stars, and in many ways she was a different person than she had been last fall.

Eli, however, was his same, steady self.

Jim spoke softly, pointing out the constellations. Cheryl pulled a bag of her own version of trail mix from the backseat and passed it down the line while she stood next to Katie on the passenger side of the car. The four of them munched their evening meal of peanuts, pumpkin seeds, and dried pieces of papaya and banana while passing a bottle of water around.

In the distance, they heard a chilling sound of some sort of animal. The call was faint but distinctly a wild creature.

“What was that?” Katie asked.

“I’m not sure,” Jim said. “But I’ll tell you one thing. We’ll be sleeping in the car tonight.”

“I’ll take the driver’s seat,” Eli said.

None of them protested, because they all knew that Eli could sleep anywhere. Jim took the passenger’s seat, and Katie and Cheryl shared the backseat. Katie put on her faithful Rancho Corona sweatshirt and was grateful for the silly luxury of having brought her pillow. She put it between her and Cheryl, and the two women fell asleep sharing her pillow with the Little Mermaid pillowcase.

Through the night they slept in snatches. They would doze off, and then someone would hear a sound outside and rustle enough to wake everyone else. The night sounds increased. At one point, they were certain they heard a car approaching. Eli got out with his flashlight, prepared to wave them down. But no car lights ever appeared on the road.

By first light they were up and out of the car, eager to stretch. The world around them seemed much friendlier, even though it was just as void of human activity as it had been last night when they were rolling along on this road.

Katie was slowly chewing her handful of trail mix from the morning ration when she thought she saw someone walking down the road toward them. “Is that a person, or am I seeing things?”

Eli shielded his eyes from the sun that had just risen in the east. The light shone behind the man as he walked and cast a glow on him so that at first it seemed he was there, but then the light swallowed him, and he seemed to be a mirage.

“Dad, I think someone is coming this way.”

Jim and Cheryl joined Katie and Eli at the front of the car.

“Do you have yours?” Jim asked Eli in a low voice.

“Yes.”

Katie didn’t know what they were talking about, but she could guess that in the same way both of them had flashlights connected to their key rings, they also had some sort of weapon they would be willing to use if necessary.

The dark-skinned man coming toward them at an even pace was wearing a white shirt and had something under his arm. It didn’t seem to be a weapon. When he was within fifty feet of them, Katie saw that he was holding a chicken under his arm. The perplexing part was trying to figure out where he had come from and where he was going.

“Jambo,” Jim called out.

“Jambo.” The man grew closer. “You have some car troubles?”

“Yes. We’re not sure what’s wrong. Can you tell me where you’ve come from? Is there a place up the road that might have a mechanic?”

“Let me have a look.” He handed the chicken over to Jim as Eli popped open the car’s hood. The man leaned over and put his long fingers into the engine like a pianist would place both hands on the keys of a baby grand. He seemed to pull something here and attach something there.

“Try it now.” He stood up straight and waited.

Eli slipped inside the car, turned the key, and the engine started. Katie let out a cheer.

“Did one of the wires or tubes shake loose?” Cheryl asked.

“Yes.”

“Asante sana.” Jim held the chicken back to him. “We’re so grateful.”

The man held up his hand, calmly refusing to take back the chicken.

“It’s your chicken. Here. We can’t accept this.”

The man put up both hands.
“Mpaji ni Mungu.”

“Mpaji ni Mungu,” Eli and his parents responded in unison.

The chicken fluffed up as if trying to get out of Jim’s grasp. “Here, Cheryl, you were always better with these things than I was.” Jim handed Cheryl the chicken, and with ease she tucked it under her arm as if it was a puffy, feathered handbag.

Eli settled back into the driver’s seat and peered at the engine as it rumbled. “Dad, did you see what it was that needed to be reconnected?”

“No, I was holding the hen.”

The men looked at each other, and then Jim asked their timely visitor, “What was it that came loose?”

All four of them looked up and looked around. Their morning mechanic was gone.

“Where did he go?” Katie peered down the long, straight rural road in both directions.

The four of them exchanged glances, their faces expressing the same look of amazement.

In a matter-of-fact way, Jim said, “We shouldn’t keep the engine running. We can’t afford to waste the petrol. Let’s get going.”

They took the same spots where they had slept last night. Eli drove.

“What was that he said to you and that you guys repeated?” Katie asked.

“It’s sort of a blessing,” Eli said. “Like the way people in the US say, ‘God bless.’ Here they say, ‘Mpaji ni Mungu.’ God is the sustainer.”

The chicken remained under Cheryl’s arm in the backseat between her and Katie. Twice Katie turned around and looked behind them, expecting to see the man stepping out of the shrubbery that was scattered at intervals along the road and continuing his trek with his back to them. But he was nowhere to be seen.

Now that they were back in closer quarters again and had the foul fowl to add to the fragrances, Katie remembered noticing something else about their unexpected roadside assistant. He smelled nice. That
was unusual for someone who was in a remote area and had been walking some distance carrying the stinky chicken. He should have smelled more like the rest of them did. Instead, he smelled like fresh air.

“I just have to say something,” Katie said after they were ten minutes down the road. “Does anyone else think that guy was an angel?”

“Yup.”

“Yes.”

“I think so.”

“Okay, just checking.” Katie looked out the window and let the profoundness of what had just happened sink in.