Finally & Forever (8 page)

Once the tea leaves were stretched out to wilt in the sun, Katie wanted to know how long it took before they were treated in their own particular way to determine if they were to be made into green tea, white tea, oolong, or black tea.

He didn’t know how that part of the process worked.

She asked if the tea plantation raised and picked leaves that produced only one type of tea.

He couldn’t say. He had never asked that question.

Finally, Katie asked, “How long have you been doing this?”

“Since I was eleven.” With that, Itimu unfurled a fascinating description of the growth process of the tea plants. All the while he continued to pick the tea leaf buds and to place the small bits into the satchel. Eli took photos and joined them. For Katie, being in a real tea field picking tea leaves was a dream come true.

From Itimu she learned that the plants can grow into trees as tall as fifty feet high if they aren’t trimmed and cultivated. The best teas grow at elevations of five thousand feet or higher, which is why this part of Kenya was well suited for the crop. He carefully explained how it takes anywhere from four to twelve years before a tea plant bears seed. After that seed takes hold, it can be another three years before the plant bears leaves that are ready for harvest. Itimu knew everything about the bugs, the rains, and the soil. He had a deep respect for the land and for what he did.

Several other workers lumbered toward them with their satchels in place. Itimu kindly requested his satchel from Katie, made his exit, and went to work with his companions.

Katie thought she and Eli were going to head back to Brockhurst, but Eli said, “I have a favorite lookout point. It’s up this way.”

“Of course you do. You have a favorite bench, a favorite spot in front of the fireplace, and now a favorite lookout point.”

She followed as he trekked through a less-traveled section of the tea field where the cinnamon-colored earth was still damp. Their shoes left the first telltale marks that humans were taking this upper road since the last round of rains. The extra effort was worth it. They came onto a grassy knoll that overlooked the whole area. In front of them were the vast tea fields. Katie could see Itimu and his fellow workers in the lower right corner of the fields. In the central portion of the fields, at least two dozen people were at work. No workers occupied the immediate left side of the patch.

“Turn around,” Eli said.

Behind them, through the trees and thick foliage, Katie could see a portion of one of the buildings at Brockhurst. “Wow! It’s like being on top of the world.”

“Wait until I take you to Mount Kenya. Or we could go to Kilimanjaro, if you like.”

Katie remembered Eli saying months ago that he and his father had hiked partway up Kilimanjaro, one of the tallest mountains in the world.

“Will we see elephants, lions, or zebras?” Katie asked.

“I can pretty much guarantee you’ll see some zebras as well as hippos if we go with one of the groups to Lake Naivasha for a day trip. As far as the elephants and lions, we might see some on Mount Kenya, but we’re more likely to see those if we can swing a trip to the Masai Mara.”

“And what is that?”

“It’s a wildlife area to the south. We would have to sign up for a safari and stay overnight in tents. The tour guides would take us around in Jeeps that are specially designed to get into the right places to see the wildlife.”

“I want to see it all,” Katie said.

Eli smiled. “I thought you would. One wild animal at a time though. For now, how about if we have some ostrich meatballs for breakfast?”

“That’s good, Lorenzo. Keep going with the clever punch lines. It’s working for you this morning.”

Eli took off his daypack, pulled out a thin blanket he had rolled up, and spread it out on the grass. Katie stood back with a questioning gaze, watching him unload his pack’s contents. He pulled out a thermos and handed it to Katie. Next came two coffee mugs, which Katie held by their handles in her other hand. Eli withdrew a plastic container, something wrapped in waxed paper, and two bananas. He placed those items on the blanket, took the mugs and thermos from Katie, and motioned for her to sit.

“Eli, you made a picnic for us.”

“Yes, I did.”

“That’s so sweet. Well, not sweet. I can’t say I’ve ever thought of anything you’ve done as being sweet, per say. Clever, maybe. No, that’s not the word. Oh, I know. Thoughtful. There, that’s better. You made a picnic for us, and that was so thoughtful.”

Eli reached over and pressed his forefinger to Katie’s lips. “Hush,” he said in a low voice.

A close-lipped smile inched up his mouth in an adorable curve. “Sit down and eat your breakfast, Princess Hakuna Matata.”

Katie sat. She looked at the unopened containers then up at Eli. “Please tell me you were kidding about the ostrich.”

“I don’t kid about ostrich meatballs. One of the guys from the front office went down the hill to Nairobi last night. A restaurant there specializes in exotic game food. I’m sure we’ll go there eventually. The guy knows that ostrich meatballs are my favorite, so he brought some back for me. Here we go.”

Eli opened the plastic container, and Katie peered inside. The four meatballs looked like normal meatballs. She decided to remind herself of that as she took a bite. They were just meatballs. Normal, eat-’em-with-your-spaghetti meatballs.

Trying to keep her expression unchanged, Katie asked, “And what do you have in the other mystery wrapper?”

“Cheese.”

Katie relaxed. Then she asked, “Do I want to know what sort of animal was milked to obtain the cheese in that wrapper? I mean, you wouldn’t try to spring some sort of rhinoceros cheese on me, would you?”

Eli laughed.

“Wait. Are you laughing with me, or are you laughing at me? Because you know, there is a difference.”

Eli laughed again.

“You’re laughing at me. I know you are. Because look—I’m not laughing. Therefore, you can’t be laughing with me.”

Eli curbed his mirth and opened the thermos. He poured coffee into both of the mugs and then lifted one of the mugs as if to say, “Drink up.” The fragrance of the steaming, dark brew was delicious and woke up Katie’s taste buds. She wasn’t a big coffee drinker, but the first sip made it clear that Eli had prepared some extra special sort of blend that morning.

Katie took another sip and looked at Eli. He was comfortably situated, with one knee up and the arm holding the coffee mug balanced on the top of his knee. His focus was on the fields below. His jawline gave away that he was holding back another bout of laughter.

“Eli?”

“Um-hum?”

“I have a feeling you’re not going to let me leave here until I try one of these ostrich things.”

“Yup.”

“I also have a feeling you’re not going to tell me what kind of cheese is in that wrapper.”

“Nope.”

“It’s probably best that way.”

“Yup.” Eli’s mouth curved up once again, but he kept looking straight ahead as he took another leisurely sip of coffee.

“Eli?”

“Uh-huh?”

“You know how you said you think I’m amazing and wonderful and that you hope I stay here forever?”

“Yes?”

“Well, I think you’re pretty wonderful and amazing too, and I wouldn’t mind staying here forever.”

Eli turned his head to meet her gaze. His intense eyes studied her expression. “You’re not making a joke, are you?”

“No, I’m not.” Katie’s expression was unflinching.

Eli put down his coffee mug, reached over, and smoothed back a few strands of her hair that had brushed across her cheek. If he was thinking of kissing her again, Katie knew this would be the perfect moment.

Eli leaned slightly closer and whispered, “Katie?”

“Yes?”

“You can say all the nice things about me that you want, but you know what?”

“What?”

“You still have to try the cheese and the ostrich.”

W
ell?” Eli watched as Katie swallowed her sufficient bite of ostrich meatball.

She cleared her throat and took a sip of coffee. “It’s actually pretty good.”

“Told ya.”

“I’m sure it’s not the ostrich that tastes good. It’s the spices or the filler they use to hold it all together. I mean, it’s not straight ostrich, off the bird.”

“But you like it, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do.”

Eli looked pleased with himself. “Now try the cheese. Go ahead.”

Katie looked at the thin slices of white cheese in the opened waxed-paper wrapper. It looked like Swiss cheese without the holes. “Just tell me if it comes from some African animal.”

“It comes from an animal we have a lot of in Africa, okay?”

“Is it an animal that cheese would normally come from?”

“Katie, just try some. I’m not going to tell you anything else. Take a piece and put it in your mouth.”

She complied. It tasted normal, like a mild Jack cheese. Kind of bland and boring, even. She swallowed. “Okay, I ate it. Now what animal did it come from?”

“A cow.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. I got it from Claudinei in the dining hall kitchen.”

Katie picked a handful of grass and tossed it at him, spreading the green blades like chopped confetti all over their blanket, in the cheese, and on the ostrich meatballs. “Not fair,” she protested. “You had me believing it was rhinoceros cheese or something.”

“No, you’re the one who let your imagination go on a safari.” Eli tossed a few blades of grass back at Katie. “Rhinoceros cheese? Where do you come up with this stuff?”

“Where do I come up with this stuff? Hey, Ostrich Meatball Guy, it’s not that big of a stretch from ostrich to rhinoceros. Especially after the lesson in flying peanuts last week.”

“You really should have tried one when Ben offered.” Eli reached for the other slice of cheese, rolled it up, and popped it in his mouth.

Katie shook her head at him and sipped her coffee. “Oh, Lorenzo,” she murmured.

Her gaze was fixed on the heart-stirring green vista. The sunlight on the tea plants now painted the landscape with a spectrum of shades of green. Some areas of the rolling hillside were shadowed by puffy white clouds sailing overhead, making the green as deep and dense as an evergreen forest. In other areas, the direct sunshine seemed to hit the small leaves like a laser beam, igniting them so they burned with a silver intensity.

“It’s so beautiful,” Katie said. “So, so beautiful.”

“You feel closest to God when you’re out in nature, don’t you?” Eli asked.

“Yes, definitely. You do too. I know because of the night last fall when we went with Joseph to watch the meteor shower in the desert.”

“And the morning of graduation when we went to see the sunrise at Strawberry Lookout,” Eli added. “That was a terrible morning.”

“Why do you say that? I thought it was an amazing sunrise.”

“The sunrise wasn’t the problem. It was me. I was so mad at myself for the way I froze up.”

Katie didn’t remember Eli being less talkative than at other times during the school year. Although it was his idea to get up in the middle
of the night and drive to the San Bernardino Mountains, just the two of them. Then Katie recalled how, as a matter of fact, the whole time they were at the lookout and for most of the ride back to school, he had hardly said anything.

“What was the deal? I thought you were deep in your own mysterious thoughts.”

Eli leaned back and rested on his elbows. “No, I was punching myself around for not knowing how to talk to you. I froze once I had the chance.”

“The chance for what?” Katie asked.

“I wanted to ask you to come to Kenya.”

“You did?”

“Yes. Actually, more than that. I wanted to convince you that this was where you belonged. I could see you here, Katie. From the first time I saw you, I could picture you here, like this.”

Katie drew in a deep breath. A sweet scent was in the air, and an even sweeter stirring was occurring inside her.

“Not everybody fits in Africa, you know? But you do. I knew that in my gut, but I couldn’t find a way to tell you. So I spent all that time I was with you rehearsing hundreds of conversation starters and not finding a way to use any of them. By the time we were back at Rancho, I gave up. I knew I’d missed my chance to convince you to come to Brockhurst.”

“And yet, look.” Katie spread out her arms. “Here I am.”

Eli looked over and gave her a long gaze. “Yes, here you are. Here we are. Together.”

It felt to Katie as if they should plant a flag on this knoll and mark this as the moment their past caught the tail of their future. Their lives were overlapping in a way that was meshing their hearts together.

“It would have been too soon,” Katie said. “If you had said anything about coming here that morning on the mountain, I wouldn’t have been able to take it to heart. I wasn’t ready to be open to this, to us. It had to work out the way it did for me to know God was leading me to come.”

Eli nodded. “I know.”

Katie reached over and rubbed the back of her knuckles across his scruffy jawline. She smiled at him, and he smiled back.

They took their time, telling each other more behind-the-scenes moments from their individual stories of the past year. Eli recounted times when he was around Katie and felt tongue-tied. She confided in him how she felt the night of the All Hall Event when she was in charge and was losing control of the crowd. Eli had saved the day when he took the microphone at Katie’s request and connected the group to the game they were supposed to play.

“You’re a natural leader,” Katie said.

“So are you,” Eli said.

“Yes, but you and I have different areas of leadership strength.”

“Agreed.” Eli sat up and finished off the last ostrich meatball. “Do you mind if we talk as we walk? I’m on grounds maintenance duty today, and I know George is going to be at the equipment shed waiting for me.”

They packed up and hiked down the hill. Once they were on the dirt road, they held hands and playfully swung them back and forth as they talked, teased, and watched their friendship grow.

Katie found some time later that morning to place a call to Christy. It wasn’t a long call, but Katie had enough time to give Christy a speedy update and to summarize how things were going.

“It all sounds amazing, Katie,” Christy said. “Except for the infection. That was crazy. I hope you threw that bra away.”

“I did. It was pretty bad.”

“It sounds like things with Eli are dreamy.”

“Everything is dreamy here.” Katie was glad no one was around her in the far corner of the Lion’s Den where she was using the internet phone service on Eli’s laptop.

“Do you feel good about where things are headed with him?” Christy asked.

“Yes. I love being at Brockhurst. When we were at the tea fields this morning, it felt as if we had always been there or had already gone
there a hundred times. It was like it was our place, even though it was my first time to see it. It’s so beautiful, Christy. You can’t even imagine how breathtaking this place is.”

“You keep talking about all the things you love about Kenya. I want to know how you feel about Eli.”

Katie was caught off guard. She thought she had been talking about her deep and growing affection for Eli. Maybe she had her love for Africa and for Eli a little mixed up at the moment.

“Eli is wonderful. I love being with him. I’m so glad I’m here. I love everything about this place. I really do. I honestly can see myself staying in Africa the rest of my life. Although, I admit, I’m in this lovely British bubble of a community where life is pretty easy.”

“But you’re going other places, aren’t you? I thought you said you were going to see the giraffes.”

“We are, the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow I’m helping to paint the new office for Eli’s dad, and then the next day we’re going to a giraffe reserve. I’m really looking forward to that.”

“Be sure to take lots of pictures and send them right away.”

“I will. I know you have to go. Say hi to Todd for me, okay?”

“I will. Miss you, Katie. So much.”

“I miss you too. Love you guys.”

“We love you too, Katie.”

The next day when Katie and Eli were in the middle of painting the new office, Katie told Eli about Christy’s request that they take lots of pictures of the giraffes.

“We can do that,” Eli said. “I found out the group that’s going is from Texas. Twenty-three people are in the group, and they’re staying here for three nights starting tonight. If I remember correctly, their church has a sister church they planted a couple of hours’ drive from here.”

“And how did you end up being the unofficial tour guide for this group?”

“I volunteered. I always volunteer. I like having a chance to show other people around.”

One of the head administrators came in through the office’s open door and had a look at their progress. “It’s looking good,” he said.

“Thanks,” Eli said. “We’re going to have a lot of paint left over, so let me know if you want anything else done while we’re at it.”

“If that’s the case, you can paint the lobby at the office. Mary has been asking for fresh paint in there for months. Years. You’ll make her a very happy woman.”

Eli nodded, and that was that. Katie knew their work as the official Brockhurst painters had only just begun. How could she complain about work like this? Working alongside Eli, enjoying the warmth of the breeze and sunshine now that the rains were gone … Yes, this was a good way to spend a workday.

Eli started on the detail trim, painting along the floorboards on the final wall in the office as Katie finished rolling the wall by the door. A few minutes later, he stepped away from his wall and came over to stand beside Katie.

“I’m almost done,” she said. “Are you ready for me to start rolling that wall?”

“If you think you have to cover it up, okay. I thought we could leave it as it is.”

Katie turned around and saw Eli’s handiwork. With a small trim brush, he had painted on the wall a big heart surrounding a second, smaller heart, a heart within a heart. In the inner heart were the letters “E + K.” Inside the top of the larger heart were the letters “J.C.” and a plus sign. Katie tilted her head, trying to decipher the code.

Eli must have read her confusion, because he stepped over to the wall and pointed out his equation with his paintbrush as if he were a teacher and the paintbrush were his ruler. “You will note that the E plus K equals Eli plus Katie.”

Katie felt her face blushing. It was just so sweet. So unexpected. Eli had such an innocent approach to life and to their relationship.

“Now, you will observe,” Eli continued, “that this larger heart encompasses Eli and Katie with an even bigger love. And of course the J is for Jesus and the C is for Christ. That’s because the Lord loves
Eli and Katie, and he surrounds them with that love. Any questions, class?”

Katie felt a little misty-eyed. She stepped over to the wall and held out her hand for the brush. “May I?”

“Yes, you may.” He handed her the brush.

Katie leaned down and dipped the end of the brush into the paint tray. To the side of the heart within a heart, she wrote “1 Thess. 3:12.” The letters were wavy, and the numbers were uneven. Katie noticed Eli was the one trying to crack the code this time.

“I would have written Thessalonians, but I wasn’t sure how to spell it.”

His eyes lit up. “That’s the verse!”

“I know. I saw it underlined in your Bible, and so I underlined it in mine.” Katie swayed back and forth like a little girl who had just won an award for good citizenship.

Eli grinned. “Cool. We have a verse. Some people have a song; we have a verse. I like it.”

“Do you have it memorized?” Katie still swayed like a proud schoolgirl. Before he could respond, Katie showed off her memorization skills. “ ‘May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other …’ There’s more, but I guess I need to study it some more.”

Eli finished it for her. “ ‘… and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.’ “ He held out his hand for the paintbrush. “May I?”

“Of course.” Katie handed it over.

He added a “+13” after the number “12” and quoted, “ ‘May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.’”

“Show off,” Katie teased.

Eli knelt down and went back to painting along the baseboards. Without looking up at Katie, he said, “That’s been our verse for a long time. You just didn’t know it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve prayed those verses for you for a year now. I’ve prayed that your love for God and for others would increase and overflow, and I’ve prayed that God would strengthen your heart.”

Katie knelt down beside Eli. “I saw that verse the morning you were sleeping by the fire. I saw you’d underlined it in your Bible.”

“Did you see the date?”

“No. What did you write in the margin?”

“Your name and the day I first saw you at Todd and Christy’s wedding.”

Katie could hardly take in the sweetly eternal feeling that was connected to his words. “I was such a train wreck that day, running after their getaway limo …”

“Your halo flying off …”

Katie laughed. She almost had forgotten about the narrow wreath of flowers she had worn on her head as the maid of honor, and how it came off in her mad dash. Eli tried to give it back to her, and that was the first time they had spoken. She told him to throw it away. Instead, he saved it, and months later she saw it hanging from the rearview mirror in his car. When she asked him about it, Eli told her it reminded him to pray for her.

And now she knew what he had been praying.

“God answered your prayers,” Katie said.

“I know.” Eli grinned.

“Over the past year, God has definitely strengthened my heart. And my love has increased so much for people that were difficult for me to love, like my parents. Those are great verses, Eli. I’m going to keep praying them for us.”