I Promise (10 page)

“And after all your discussing you didn't come up with a wedding date?”

“We have a possible date.” Christy checked her shopping list and put a bag of red apples into the cart.

“As your best friend and possible maid of honor, may I ask what your possible wedding date is? Or are you keeping it a secret from everyone?”

“It's not a secret, Katie. The date is May twenty-second. But you're the only one who knows it so don't say anything until we can confirm it. And you are more than my possible maid of honor. You
are
my maid of honor. Or I should say, I'd like you to be, if you want to.”

“Of course. I'm honored. Honored to be your maid of honor. But now I have to ask, how did you come up with May twenty-second as your date? I thought Todd wanted to get married sooner.”

“Todd and I went over every possible weekend between now and next Christmas. Believe me, the only date that worked was May twenty-second. We wanted to have at least a week for our honeymoon, and that was the only time we could fit it in. It's nine days after I graduate and nine days before Todd starts to work full
time at the church for the summer.”

“Okay, that makes sense,” Katie said. “But I still don't get it. Why didn't you announce you had decided on a date?”

“Because we don't know if we can have the meadow yet. We have to wait until the Rancho Corona administration people return to their offices next week.”

“Wait a minute. I am so lost. What meadow?” Katie had stopped pushing the cart and looked as if she wasn't going to move until Christy explained every detail.

“The meadow at school. By the chapel. That's where we want to hold the ceremony and the reception.”

“You're kidding.”

“No, that's where we want to get married.”

Katie tilted her head and scrutinized Christy. “How do your parents feel about that? I would think they would want you to have the ceremony at their church in Escondido.”

“They do.”

“But you don't.”

“We want to get married in the meadow.” Christy pulled the cart over toward the bread and tossed in five of the least-expensive loaves.

“Could you change one of those whole wheat loaves to white?” Katie asked. “Rick likes white bread. His mom made these incredible leftover turkey sandwiches on white bread the day after Christmas. Have
you ever had a turkey sandwich with stuffing and cranberry sauce?”

Now Christy was the one tilting her head and scrutinizing Katie. “No, it sounds good.”

“It's my new favorite. But it has to be on white bread. The stuffing makes it all stick together.” Katie pushed the cart toward the peanut butter and jelly. “Didn't you have peanut butter on the list? I think the cheapest jelly is this big bucket of grape.”

Christy told Katie to pick up three jars of peanut butter and then said, “So tell me all about your Christmas. How did everything go with Rick?”

“Great. Wonderful.” Katie put the peanut butter in the cart. “But you didn't finish telling me about you and Todd. Is he going to be well enough to go to Mexico?”

“Yes, he's fine now. His voice is almost back to normal. There's not much else to tell about our plans. We didn't get to the jewelers so we don't have a ring yet. And I already told you we have to check on reserving the meadow before we can set our date.”

“And break the shocking news to your aunt and everyone else.”

“Exactly,” Christy said. “Oh, and my uncle offered us the use of his condo on Maui for our honeymoon.”

Katie grinned. “Well, at least you have one important detail taken care of.”

Christy motioned for Katie to push the grocery cart down the canned-food aisle. She studied the prices on the tomato sauce cans.

“You know,” Katie said, “if you get married in the meadow, you can release butterflies instead of the usual.”

Christy laughed at her friend's suggestion. “Don't you dare suggest that one to my aunt! She already has a long list of creative ideas for our cake and my veil and the bouquet.”

“I'm serious,” Katie said. “I saw it on TV. The bride ordered these butterflies that came in individual boxes. They looked like Chinese takeout boxes. As soon as the couple said ‘I do,' the guests opened the boxes. I thought it was a great idea.”

“Well, we're not going to say ‘I do.'”

“You're not?”

“We talked about our vows last night. Todd and I decided we're going to say ‘I promise,' because that makes it clearer that we're making a vow to love, honor, and cherish and all the rest of it.”

“I'm sure the butterflies would flap their little wings on cue whether you said ‘I do' or ‘I promise,'” Katie said sarcastically. “Or if you want to hold the butterflies until the end, you can launch butterflies at the same time you heave your bouquet.”

Katie's expression created an image in Christy's mind of “launched” butterflies and “heaved” flowers all tumbling through the air in the meadow.

“Now tell me, Katie.” Christy faced her friend. “Would I be making an accurate guess if I said I should plan to heave my bouquet in your direction?”

“You can heave it anywhere you want,” Katie said.
“‘The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me.'”

Christy raised her eyebrows, trying to interpret Katie's response.

“That's my new verse. Rick and I found it this weekend. It's in Psalm 138. Verse 8. Took us only two seconds to memorize it. ‘The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me.' That's it. Isn't that incredible? I've decided to make that my life verse. How many cans of spaghetti sauce did you want?”

Christy checked her list. “Six of those large ones on the lower shelf. Get the brand on the right; it's four cents less.”

“Do you want these jumbo-sized packages of spaghetti noodles?”

“Yes, three of those, and why don't you grab one more can of sauce just to be sure we have enough.”

“That's right,” Katie said. “Doug is coming. He eats more than anyone I know. Tracy is still planning to come, isn't she?”

“The last I heard she was.”

“I hope she's not having a lot of morning sickness,” Katie said. “That wouldn't be much fun in Mexico.”

“Maybe she won't be able to come after all,” Christy said. “I'll give her a call tonight. Do you have any gum or mints with you? My throat is really dry.”

“No. Do you want me to get some gum at the checkout for you?”

“No, I'll buy some cough drops when we go down that aisle. It would be good to have some with us in Mexico. I already put together a first-aid kit, but I
didn't add any cough drops.”

“I wish Sierra and the rest of her gang would have come back early from Christmas break so they could join us,” Katie said.

“We might make another trip in the spring. From what Todd said, this orphanage needs a lot of work.”

“Rick might have to leave early. Did I tell you that? He's having a hard time with the work schedule for the end of the week. I might come back with him, unless you still need my help with the food and everything.”

“It's only for four days,” Christy said. “I mean, if you have to leave early, that's okay. But it's not a very long trip.”

“I know. And he might be able to work it out so he can stay the whole time. The problem with being the manager of The Dove's Nest is that he's the one who's ultimately responsible, you know? They really need more help on weekdays.”

“Are you still planning to work there?” Christy asked.

“Yes. I start right after New Year's. I might as well have started last week because I was in every day Rick was there. I've already pretty much learned everything I need to know to start taking orders. I have a feeling I'm really going to like working there.”

Christy bit her lip. She had almost said, “Oh, and I wonder why?” But she didn't want to jeopardize her communication with Katie. Especially after the tangle they had had more than a week ago in their dorm room.

The rest of their shopping went smoothly. Unfortunately, Katie didn't open up much about her budding relationship with Rick.

After they unloaded all the groceries at the church kitchen, picked up a pizza, and returned to their dorm room, Christy was hopeful Katie would open up more. However, a minor distraction consumed their attention.

Katie unlocked their dorm room door with the pizza box in her hand and immediately froze in place.

Christy didn't have to ask what made Katie stop and stare. Christy already knew. Todd had come with her to the dorm room earlier that morning and had carried in the object Katie now was gaping at.

“It's my Christmas present from Todd,” Christy said in a low voice. “He made it.”

“Ohhh! Is that Naranja?” Katie slowly stepped into the room, sounding as if she were recognizing a long-lost friend.

“Yes, the backrest is Todd's old surfboard, Naranja. And that's the backseat from Gus the bus. Todd sort of welded them together and now . . . it's . . . a couch, I guess.”

“What do you mean it's a couch, you guess?” Katie sat down and looked up at Christy with an expression of delight. “This is the most amazing, authentic, memory-filled
objet d'art
I've ever seen. I could just cry! And you know what? It's actually sort of comfy, too.”

Christy forced a smile. It was the same smile she had forced when Todd presented her with his unique
gift on Christmas. He had tied a long red string to the homemade sofa and hid it in the garage at Bob and Marti's. He looped the string all the way through the house, and Christy was full of giggles and anticipation as she followed the thread. But when she opened the garage door and saw the one-of-a-kind couch sitting there with a big red bow on it, she was speechless.

Todd, on the other hand, raspy voice and all, couldn't stop talking about his creation. He had gotten the idea while recovering from the car accident and had worked on it for several weeks at his dad's before coming up with the right combination of parts to hold the surfboard in place as the backrest to the car's bench seat. He was so proud of himself that Christy knew she had to offer some kind of praise.

After the oohing and ahhing event was over, Christy felt she should have been nominated for an Oscar in the category of best supporting actress in a romantic comedy.

“Don't you love it?” Katie adjusted her position and stretched out her legs. Then, as if in need of an appropriate prop, she reached into the carryout box and grabbed a slice of pizza.

Christy delivered one of her well-rehearsed lines. “I appreciate Todd's hard work. It's very creative.”

Katie stopped munching. “You hate it, don't you? Did you tell him that?”

Christy reached for a slice of pizza, and with a sigh she flopped on the edge of her bed. “No, of course not. It would have devastated him.”

With quiet bites, Katie adjusted her position again. “Does Todd consider this actual furniture?”

Christy nodded. “We have a couch and a camp stove. Todd thinks all we need now are two sleeping bags that zip together, and we can start our life of marital bliss.”

Katie cracked up. “I'm sorry. That's not funny, is it? Does Todd have any idea how clueless he is when it comes to civilization stuff? I mean, he's a great guy, but his idea of normal life is . . . well . . . you would think he had spent his life in a jungle hut.”

“In some ways, I think he did,” Christy said. “Not a jungle hut, of course. Although, I'm sure he would have enjoyed that. I think his growing up as an only child and living with his dad made him a minimalist. The more we discuss our plans for the future, the more obvious our differences become.”

“And you are telling him what's important to you as you go along, aren't you?” Katie asked.

Christy thought hard before nodding her head. “Yes, most of the time.”

Katie put down her half-eaten piece of pizza and walked over to where Christy sat on her bed. With Katie's face mere inches from Christy's, she shouted, “Hello! This is your wake-up call!”

Christy turned away. She found her friend's tactics annoying and unhelpful.

Katie returned to the surfboard sofa and resumed her pizza consumption with a critical eye fixed on Christy. “That was a little too overt, wasn't it? Sorry.
But you get my point, don't you?”

“Yes, I get your point, Katie.”

“I mean, you guys are marrying each other. This is getting serious. This
is
serious. Let me ask you one thing. Do you want to get married in the meadow or was that Todd's idea?”

“It was Todd's idea, but I like it.”

“Are you sure?”

Christy nodded.

“Are you falling into one of those zombie modes where you don't know what you want and you don't care?”

“I care!”

“Don't get upset,” Katie said. “I'm just looking at you, and you're looking kind of spacey.”

“I'm fine. I'm a little tired, but that's all. Todd and I need to work on our communication skills,” Christy said. “And we are. We will. Todd is going to talk to one of the pastors at church about setting up some premarital counseling sessions for us. I think that will help.”

Katie nodded.

“It's not like we aren't communicating at all,” Christy said defensively. “It's just that we both want to get better at it. All couples have to make a lot of adjustments. We'll work it out.”

In a calm voice Katie said, “I know you will.”

They were quiet for a minute. Christy felt her head pounding. She had been trying to ignore a growing headache since they were grocery shopping, but now
it was on her with full force.

“That saying about opposites attracting must be true,” Katie said. “You and Todd are opposite in a lot of ways. Maybe that indicates you'll balance each other out.”