Authors: Melanie Jacobson
Rhys looked slightly bewildered by my avalanche of words, but when he decided that I was done, he smiled. “I served my mission in North Carolina, so I know what she means. I could live there, except I like to snowboard, so I’d miss that.”
I nodded in response, reluctant to open my mouth and let another river of words pour out unchecked.
He held up his duffel bag. “I brought lunch. Are you hungry?”
I nodded again but still didn’t risk speaking. His bag had some sort of weird Mary Poppins property to it because he dug in it four or five different times to produce an unending stream of items, from a blanket for us to sit on all the way up to a lemon-roasted rotisserie chicken so warm I could see condensation beading in its plastic container. I’d put money down that Rhys was an Eagle Scout.
“Looks delicious,” I said.
“Yeah, I have a real talent . . . for picking the best one in the display case,” he said, smiling. Nice. Sense of humor still evident in person. Good sign.
I helped him spread the blanket out, and we ate and talked, but I stayed on the quiet side to avoid hysterical babbling. By the time we finished, several guys and a couple of girls had gathered on the opposite side of the field, all dressed in play clothes. A few Frisbees flew back and forth among them as they warmed up. I helped Rhys put the picnic supplies back in his Mary Poppins gym bag, and then we walked over to join the other players.
He introduced me as his friend, Pepper, who was new to the game. That met with lots of cheerful smiles. Rhys explained the rules, and then he offered me a tutorial on how to throw the disc. Turns out, you can’t just fling it. There’s a trick involving advanced geometry and angles. Despite his patience, I did poorly.
“Sorry,” I said, after approximately my tenth failed attempt to get the disc to his friend Lance, who was standing a mere twenty yards away. My stupid nerves were sabotaging me.
“It’s okay,” Rhys said. “Relax. You’re overthinking it.”
Great. Could he tell I was nervous? That was embarrassing. And it made me more tense. My next throw went farther off course than any of the others. I blew out a sigh and jammed my fists in my hoodie pocket, staring at the disc as it rested ten yards to the left of Lance.
“Let me see if I can help you,” Rhys said. Lance flicked the disc back to us in a fluid motion, and Rhys snagged it easily. He handed it to me, and then moving me like a store mannequin, he positioned my arms and feet. He stood behind me, rested one hand on my shoulder, and wrapped his other arm around me, following the length of my arm. His hand rested lightly on mine as I held the disc. I was too distracted by his nearness to even give him credit for his smooth move. To be honest, I don’t think he was even trying to pull anything; I think he couldn’t figure out how else to help me. Instead of snapping my wrist when I was supposed to, I was so distracted by his breath tickling my ear that my fingers clung to the Frisbee, and it didn’t go anywhere at all.
Rhys stifled a laugh, and I blushed, mortified. “Sorry,” I muttered. “I, um, thought that was a practice one.” He kindly didn’t point out that these were all “practice ones.”
“Let’s try it again,” he said. This time, I let go when he gave my fingers a light squeeze and the disc sailed within ten feet of Lance, my closest effort by far. Rhys grinned when I whooped. “You’re getting it. I’ll help you with one more, okay?”
I nodded, and he took up his coaching stance, his hand once again on my own. When I snapped it this time, the disc flew to within two feet of Lance, who leaned a little to his left and plucked it from the air with no trouble. I whooped again and did a jump for joy, glad to redeem myself, but as I threw my hands in the air to celebrate, my elbow caught Rhys square in the face.
He groaned and dropped to the ground, and I whirled and crouched beside him as he held his hand over his left eye. I sucked in a sharp breath.
“Oh, my gosh! I’m so sorry! I’m so, so sorry! Are you okay? Is your eye okay?” I babbled, imagining the worst, sure I had somehow blinded him with my unfunny bone. It was karma for making fun of Brent’s flailing elbows, I just knew it. “Can I get you anything? Do you want me to drive you to urgent care? Should I call someone for you?” I blathered some more, desperate to help.
Lance jogged over as soon as Rhys went down, but his only contribution was a sympathetic, “Dude.”
Rhys didn’t say anything for another minute, only pressed the heel of his hand into his eye and moaned some more. Finally, he looked up at me out of his uninjured eye. “This really hurts,” he said. “I’m going to need some ice.”
By this time, several of the other players surrounded us. One of the girls pushed forward to kneel by him. “I’m an RN,” she said. “Can I look at it?”
Rhys hesitated and then pulled his hand away. I gasped at the massive welt forming over his eyeball where the point of my elbow caught him. The nurse tsked and said, “You definitely need ice. I think there’s a convenience store two blocks over if someone wants to go.”
A bunch of voices volunteered for the job, but I jumped to my feet. “It’s the least I can do,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” I sprinted for the car and sent up half-formed prayers for Rhys’s eye on the way to the gas station. I tore into the parking lot, grabbed the largest soda cup I could find, filled it with ice, and threw two dollars on the counter as I raced back out, not bothering to wait for the change.
By the time I got back to the park, at least ten minutes had passed. Most of the players were tossing their discs around, and Rhys sat on the sideline, flanked by Lance and the nurse. He no longer held his eye, but it was a puffy slitted monstrosity resembling not so much an eye as it did a bulbous mushroom with an innie belly button where his pupil would be. I thrust the ice at him, and he took the cup, but all three of them stared at me, waiting. Realizing I didn’t know what they were waiting for, the nurse sighed. “Is there something to put the ice in?”
I winced. “Uh, hold on.” I ran back to the car and dug through the papers and litter scattered through it until I lucked out and found an empty plastic grocery bag. I hurried back and thrust it at the nurse gasping, “Here!” before I collapsed cross-legged on the grass in front of Rhys. Nurse Girl shook some of the ice into the bag and wound it closed to make a compress, then positioned it over her patient’s eye and guided his hand to hold it. She looked like she enjoyed her ministrations more than if the patient were, oh, say, a cranky old lady or a testy middle-aged man. Well, who could blame her? Even with his puffy eye, Rhys was kind of delicious looking.
“I’m really sorry,” I apologized again, anxious to make it right.
“I know,” he said.
But he didn’t say, “I understand,” or, “I forgive you.”
In fact, what he said next was, “This really hurts. I hope you don’t mind if we end the afternoon early. I think I need to go home and take something and get a real ice pack.”
He made like he was going to climb to his feet. Lance’s hand shot out to help him up, and Nurse Girl supported him with a possessive arm around his back. She glared at me.
I scrambled up too. “Taking a painkiller or three sounds like a really good idea. Again, I am so, so sorry.”
He nodded and made his way toward the parking lot opposite of where I had parked on the road. When I saw Lance pull out with Rhys in the passenger seat, I trudged back to The Zuke. I wanted to avoid the embarrassment of an instant mental replay on a continuous slow-motion loop, so I spent the drive home trying to pick an angle for the awesome story idea I’d sniffed out at the heritage festival. But instead, I kept coming back to the headline for my next column: This Date Will Self-Destruct in Five Minutes. I don’t think it had even taken that long for me to chatter like a brainless idiot once Rhys showed up in person. By the time I checked into LDS Lookup again, I had a feeling his profile would have magically disappeared from the site.
I guess my parents had gotten this part wrong, at least. I was most definitely not ready to date. Not by a long shot.
Dear Marisol,
Thank you for trusting me to tell your story. You’re incredible, and I’m going to make sure all of Salt Lake knows it. I don’t know how someone rises from the ashes like you have, but every one of your scars tells a story, and that story ends with you standing victorious, even if you’re too humble to see it that way.
I learned so much from being with you even for such a short time. Thank you for teaching me, sharing with me, and exercising extraordinary patience with my ignorance. We have to keep in touch. I need to know where life takes you because it can only be somewhere awesome. That’s what awesome people like you deserve.
Sincerely,
Pepper Spicer
Chapter 13
On Sunday, I slipped into my seat beside Courtney and offered a smile, a real one, to Tanner, who sat next to her. He smiled back, and I turned my attention to singing the last verse of the opening hymn. I wondered what he was doing here with Courtney. He’d never visited our singles ward before, and suddenly he shows up? It gave Courtney’s theory more weight.
In the quiet between the end of the hymn and the opening prayer, my stomach rumbled loudly. Courtney snickered, and I poked her. “Fast Sunday hazard,” I hissed. It had been a long time since I’d fasted for something I really wanted. Usually, I did a fast and paid my fast offering, but I wasn’t focused on anything specific in my prayers. Maybe I had to pray extra hard not to kill Ginger before my fast ended since we were both cranky on fast Sundays, but that was about it.
Today was different, though, so even though my stomach grumbled loudly a couple more times before the end of sacrament meeting, I didn’t care. Now that I’d had a full day to process my experience at the heritage festival, the need to do justice to the story I found had muted the embarrassment I felt over the date debacle with Rhys. I’d still have to write the column up for the amusement of everyone else, but I didn’t mind if it meant ingratiating myself with Ellie and getting the chance to run an article on my new hero, Marisol Pacheco, in the magazine. Today I woke up looking forward to my fast because I wanted clarity of mind when I wrote about her. I needed to do right by Marisol’s story and still strike the balance that would appeal to the
Real Salt Lake
readers.
When sacrament meeting ended, Tanner leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees so he could see past his sister to me.
“I’m surprised you’re here,” I said. “Running into you is becoming a habit.” He wore charcoal gray pants and a deep navy shirt, a color that emphasized his gray eyes and dark hair. He dressed a little better every time I saw him.
“I overslept for my ward. I figured I might as well come to yours since I was coming down for dinner anyway,” he said. “Noon makes so much more sense for a young adult ward than nine in the morning.”
“True,” I said and then didn’t know what else to say. Courtney intervened.
“How did your dates go?” she asked. Tanner’s eyebrow rose, maybe at the plural. Was it so ridiculous that multiple people might want to go out with me? I clamped down on my hunger crankiness and ignored his surprise.
“Fine,” I said. “Except for the parts involving grievous bodily injury. That was bad.”
“I can’t wait to hear this,” she said, grinning.
“There’s something I can’t wait to tell you, but it’s not about the injury date. It’s about the other one.”
She looked intrigued. “Cool. What?”
I eyed the bishop’s counselor who was herding people out of the chapel and toward Sunday School. “Let’s grab a piece of couch, and I’ll tell you.” My invitation didn’t include Tanner, but it didn’t exclude him either, which is why he must have felt comfortable enough to join us when we moved to the foyer. I stared at him. He stared back. I shrugged and turned to Courtney, who sat between us.
“You know how I went out with that Josh guy on Friday night?” She nodded. “Turns out he’s a pretty cool guy, but we didn’t have any chemistry. However, I think you would like him.” Courtney looked startled, but not nearly as startled as her brother. “Seriously,” I said. “I asked him if he’d be interested in going out with you, and he said you were pretty cute and that it sounded like a good idea.”
Tanner sat straight up and looked like he wanted to protest, but I glared at him, and he said nothing, probably because Courtney was already shaking her head. “That’s sweet, but I don’t think so,” she said.
“Why not?” I asked. “Do you remember him?”
“Yes, but—”
“What? You said he was cute.”
“Well, yeah. But that’s when you were going on a date with him.”
“So he’s not cute now?”
“No, he is. I just—”
“Think you’re not ready?” I asked, my tone gentle.
She hesitated and then nodded.
I studied her for a moment, assessing whether it was nerves or grief holding her back. I decided to trust my gut. “How will you know when you
are
ready unless you try? It’s not a relationship. It’s only a date.”
She looked unconvinced, and I could tell Tanner wanted to break in. “You should go out with him,” I said. “He’s super mellow and easy to be around. And we can even do a double date so you’ll be comfortable.”
The crease between her eyebrows smoothed the tiniest bit. “Maybe, I guess. Who will you bring? Someone from Loo—”
I cut her off with a head shake. I didn’t want Tanner to know I was on LDS Lookup because I didn’t want to take the chance that he might figure out I was Indie Girl. It was one thing if everyone in my inner circle knew about it. It would humiliate me if Tanner discovered that I had been reduced to writing an Internet dating column. “I don’t know who I’ll bring,” I hurried to say before Courtney revealed too much. “I’ll figure it out by the time we set up a date.”
Tanner spoke up. “I’ll go.”
Courtney and I both stared at him. “Where?” I asked.
“I’ll go on this date.”
“I didn’t invite you,” I protested. I turned to Courtney for help, sure she would hate the idea of her older brother tagging along, but relief showed on her face, and I sighed. “Would you rather double with Tanner and his date than me? It won’t hurt my feelings if you do.”
“No! I want you
both
there,” she said. “You guys can go together, and then I’ll have strength in numbers.”
“But—”
Tanner cut off my protest. “Sounds fine. I don’t like the idea of you going out with some stranger by yourself. When should we do this?”
I stared from one to the other, unsure how I had suddenly become committed to a date with Tanner, but they both stared back expectantly, Courtney’s expression slightly doubtful. That clinched it for me. She wouldn’t agree to go out with Josh any other way. If she wanted us along as a security blanket, then I could do that.
“I’ll call Josh later, I guess. Maybe we’ll set it up for this week, if that works.”
Tanner shrugged, and Courtney nodded. “I guess so,” she said with an unconvincing smile.
“Let’s go to Sunday School,” I said, hopping up.
“I’ll meet you in there,” she said. “I need a bathroom break.”
Tanner followed me to class and took the seat next to me on the back row. My stomach gurgled again, and he smiled. “It’s not funny,” I said, barely louder than my stomach.
“Sure it is,” he said. “Because it’s happening to you.”
That won him a reluctant smile.
“Your Urban Grit piece was good,” he said. “Really good.”
The compliment surprised me. It seemed out of character for him to have left a favorable comment on the website, much less give me one in person. But then again, what did I really know about his character? I’d been so put off by our interview that I’d formed all my assumptions about him based on that miserable fifteen minutes. He’d been slowly undoing that perception over the last two months with one small act after another. For once, my gut reaction wasn’t to get defensive. I decided to take the compliment at face value.
“Thanks,” I said. “I worked hard on it.”
“It showed,” he said. “How did you even hear about the company?”
I hesitated. “I’m still learning. Is this one of those cases where I’m not supposed to reveal my sources because I could get scooped?”
He shrugged. “Depends on what kind of journalist you want to be. Your mentor would probably advise against it.”
“My mentor?”
“Ellie. Your boss?”
I resisted a scowl. “She’s not my mentor.”
He searched my expression like he could sense my scowl lurking between the words. “That’s probably for the best,” he said, his tone so neutral that I couldn’t decide what to read from it.
I probed a little. “Did you ever work with her?”
“No. She was with the
Advocate
before she started the magazine.”
“I know that, but didn’t your paths ever cross while you were covering a story or something?”
His jaw hardened. “Sure,” he said. “Our paths crossed.”
His expression didn’t invite further questions, so I dropped it. For the moment. But the mellow vibe between us had evaporated, and I wondered how to bring it back.
“I’m working on a new piece,” I said.
He relaxed. “What’s it about?”
“I went to the Latin Heritage Festival in Salt Lake yesterday, and I met this amazing girl, Marisol. I’m going to write about her.”
“What’s the angle?” he asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” I admitted. “She’s from Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. She had to leave last year because her brother got caught informing on one of the drug cartels to the DEA. At first, they harassed the family to make him quit. She used to sell her jewelry at a small shop in town, and they burned it down. She was in it and escaped with severe burns.” The scars on the backs of her hands told the story in angry purple scrawls. It had sickened me to see them, not because they were ugly but because they told an ugly story of how evil people can be.
“Things escalated,” I continued, as gripped in the retelling as I had been when she’d slowly unfolded the events that had led her to Salt Lake. “But her brother was determined to bring the local kingpin down. When he gave up some key details to the US government, the cousins hiding him betrayed him to protect themselves, and the cartel killed him. Marisol, her mother, and her little sister barely escaped a massacre in their neighborhood when the drug lord’s foot soldiers shot up a community center and killed seventeen other people as a warning. Marisol and her family had been tipped off and were at home packing. They sneaked across the border and made their way to a distant cousin’s home up here in West Valley. Now she’s making and selling the most amazing jewelry to support her family, and I want to tell her story.” The words poured out in a rush, and I took a deep breath to calm myself. It was hard not to get worked up over the injustice she had suffered and overcome.
Courtney appeared at the end of our row just then and made her way to us. The teacher welcomed the class, and I subsided. But interest glinted in Tanner’s eyes, and I wanted his take on things. Quietly enough not to disturb the people around us, he leaned over and murmured, “I’m already distracted by your story. Want to go back out and talk about it?”
I nodded, thrilled that he wanted to talk to me. About the article, I mean. We climbed over Courtney’s legs. She shot us a curious look but stayed put, and I followed Tanner to the foyer. We reclaimed the sofa, and he stretched his legs out in front of him and leaned back, staring into the distance without speaking. I studied the interesting planes and angles that made up his face. He was unarguably hot, and when he smiled, with his strong jaw and high cheekbones, he had an all-American quality to him. But now, as I looked at him with his brow furrowed and his eyes intense, I decided he was even hotter. Something about the concentration in his face as he puzzled out an approach to Marisol’s story made my insides flip, like maybe my spleen was doing a happy dance. I cleared my throat, although what I needed to do was clear my head. Or my spleen.
He glanced over. “Your audience is going to want to hear about the jewelry, right? Not the drug lord stuff?”
“Probably,” I said. “But I want to work it in. She’s sending a huge chunk of her profits home on a remittance to her grandmother, and I want people to understand why.”
“But
Real Salt Lake
readers are going to be looking for something that tells them where to shop, eat, or dance next, right?”
“That’s not all we’re about,” I said, bristling that he would reduce us to a simple trend magazine.
“Yes, it is,” he said. “But you get major credit for trying to bring something else to it besides a sense of your own importance and an overrated value of your opinions.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Is there a compliment buried in there?”
“What’s the
Real Salt Lake
tag line? ‘Hip, Hot, Happening’? That magazine thrives on opinion-driven stories written by people who have an overinflated sense of themselves and their ability to judge what’s cool. In that sense, they’ve put together the right staff to write for their audience. The hipsters who read your magazine love nothing better than to feel like they’re on the inside of an exclusive club with people who think exactly like they do.”
My jaw dropped. How could he say such incredibly insulting things in such a reasonable tone of voice? Especially after he’d complimented my work on the Kirbi Dawn piece? I pushed up from the sofa, but he reached out and snared my wrist, holding me in place.
“You’re the exception,” he said. “Don’t be mad.”
I looked down at his hand on my wrist and wondered if the heat from it would brand me with finger-shaped marks, a permanent reminder of a guy I found fascinating and infuriating all at the same time. I relaxed, and he loosened his hold but didn’t let go. “You should definitely write about Marisol. Just do it in a way that readers will want to buy her jewelry and then be able to feel like they’re making a statement for social justice at the same time.”
“I already knew that’s where I needed to go with it,” I said, reclaiming ownership of my wrist. His assessment of
Real Salt Lake
still stung. “I want even more . . . layers, I guess.”
He stared off into the distance for another moment or two and then refocused. “Don’t make Marisol the story,” he said. “Make each piece she designs the story. Then your readers will stay interested in the style side of things—”
“But I get to unfold her story anyway as I tell about the jewelry,” I finished for him, realizing exactly where he was going.
He nodded. “Yeah. That should do it.”
“If you weren’t already so annoying, I’d totally tell you how genius that is.” I wasn’t ready to forgive him yet, but there was no denying it was the perfect approach.
He tilted his head and regarded me with a half smile playing around his lips. “Don’t worry about it. I already know.”