A Wedding Invitation (13 page)

Ten thousand miles from Mom, in the Philippines, I disregarded the warnings she’d imbedded in me and became spontaneous with my emotions. I never told my mother how hard that was for me to do, shedding all the stories she had shared about her own childhood—tales of relatives who lied, stole, and cheated.
“Be careful about where you put your trust,”
she often advised.
“There are some who should never be trusted. Hold on to your heart. Do not be quick to give it away.”

sixteen

T
hree nights later, I’ve got another bowl of Asian soup in front of me, this one containing dried mushrooms and carrots. I’m seated at my coffee table watching
Casablanca
. I think this marks the seventh time I’ve seen it. I dream of Humphrey Bogart sometimes, the way I imagine my mother dreams of Elvis.

As I bite into one of the two carrots from the styrofoam bowl, the phone rings. If I were watching a movie I’d never seen before, I might let the answering machine pick up the call, but tonight I leave the living room and grab the phone in the kitchen.

Carson says, “Hi, Samantha.”

“Hi again. How are you?” I suppress the desire to gush over how nice it is to hear his voice.

“I was thinking that you should come down to Winston.”

My heart lurches; he wants to see me. Cautiously, like a robot, I ask, “Why?”

“Why?” His laughter is just like in the old days. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.”

Carson’s words knit themselves into the corners of my heart, a fabric that is thin from being torn over the years. I see his face, feel his breath. In between these pleasant emotions, anger threads through my veins. I should say that I never understood so many things that happened at the camp. I should say that there is a box of photos from our days together that I have sealed in my closet under other boxes because I cannot bear to make that trip down memory lane. Instead, I try to focus on the here and now.

“When?” My voice sounds tinny. “When do you want to see me?” I walk over to the TV and turn down the volume just as Ingrid Bergman is about to walk into the bar, the scene that makes any romantic swoon.

“How about this weekend?”

“What?”

“Why don’t you come to Winston this weekend? What do you say?”

I think of how I recently told Natasha I need to be less spontaneous, think of my mother more, and less of me. I think of what Ingrid Bergman would say if she were in a moment like this one. Finally, I come up with, “The drive is long. My car is old.”

I hear Carson laughing. Again. “I’m sorry. ‘The drive is long, my car is old’ sounds like a Dr. Seuss rhyme. Like that book—”

“
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish
?” When I used to volunteer at the library for story hour, that was a favorite.

“Yeah, that one.”

Silence saturates the air. I note that my toenails need a fresh coat of polish. With everyone else, I always want to get rid of the quiet moments out of discomfort. Yet, even after all this time, tonight’s silence with Carson feels like it did seven years ago—acceptable.

“Could you hop on a plane?” he asks. “I can pick you up in Charlotte.”

My heart twirls as I try hard to calm it and put it back where it belongs in its safe and guarded place. “I work.”

“Can you get some time off?”

I feel the stickiness of an afternoon in the refugee camp, right before the air filled with the aromas of dinner cooking on portable stoves outside the billets. Closing my eyes, I recall our walks together.

“Do you think you could come for a visit soon?”

My teeth dig into my lower lip. I swallow and see scenes from the past sashay before me like the dance the bride and groom did at the wedding a few weekends ago. I wonder if Carson’s hair still falls into his face after he’s been caught in a downpour. I wonder if his eyes are as bright, flecks of green and gold dotting his irises. I wonder if his hands would still feel as good massaging my neck, easing the tension with just a few deep movements into my muscles. I wonder— “No.”

After a pause he says, “No?”

“I really have a lot going on now.”

“You do?”

With a final swallow, I say, “Thanks for calling. Bye.” Then I disconnect us. I try to eat my dinner, but the noodles are rubbery and the steam from the broth mixes with my tears and burns my eyes.

I think about calling Natasha and telling her what just happened.

But what would I say? I’m not even sure I know what happened.

seventeen

N
atasha thinks I should go to see Carson. On this Sunday afternoon, we walk around the Washington Monument. The June day is too hot for a walk, but Natasha is one of those avid exercisers. During the colder months, she goes to a gym and sweats on a treadmill. She knows she’s unusual because she actually likes to sweat. Once she even had a personal trainer, but when she fell in love with him and he didn’t reciprocate her feelings, she told him she no longer needed his help. She switched gyms.

Never stopping her quick strides, Natasha says, “Take a few days. You know that my schedule at the office is flexible. I’ll help your mom at the shop.”

“Why?”

“So that you can go see Carson.”

“Why?” I pick up my pace to match hers.

“Why not?”

I pant and then push my drooping cloth headband up over my forehead. She’s adorned with long legs; I’m long-waisted and my legs don’t ever move quickly.

She stops for a moment, looks at me in her deliberate way, and states, “You’re in love with him.”

I raise my right hand to stop her and pause at her side. A flock of tourists crowd around a woman in a navy suit carrying a miniature flag of Turkey. With my hand still in the air, I say to Natasha, “Not anymore. I was once in love. Once.”

Natasha shrugs. “I don’t know why you think you can keep fooling yourself.”

“I got over him.”

“Really?” She starts to walk again, heading down the pavement away from the towering historical structure, dodging a group of kids playing in the grass with a Frisbee.

“Yes.” I make a dash toward her, shielding the afternoon sun from my eyes, wishing I’d remembered to bring my sunglasses with me. “Besides, I went out with this guy I met at the wedding.”

“Oh yeah, the cute one you told me about. So how was the date?”

“Great!” I cheer, but we both know I am exaggerating. “Look,” I say as I feel a cramp developing in my calf, “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

We walk in silence. Natasha comments about her father’s recent trip to Morocco. He works as a dignitary in the Clinton administration, but I can never remember his exact title. I feign interest and ask a few questions. She then says she’s ready to date again, but there is no one she likes. “Well, one guy at the office. But I found out he’s married.” She mutters, “Why do men try to hide these things?”

We sit by the National Mall on a bench so that Natasha can re-tie her shoelaces.

I look out over the strip of water and say, “Wonder why he didn’t marry Mindy.”

Wiping sweat from her neck, she says, “I thought we weren’t discussing this.”

“You’re right; we aren’t.”

As we start walking again, Natasha says, “But if we were talking about it, I’d say Carson wasn’t really in love with her.”

“I was really rude when he called,” I admit.

“Rude to him? Why?” She turns to give me a quizzical stare.

“I just want him to go away.”

“Away?”

“I don’t need him back in my life.”

“Really?” She squints at me.

“Yes, things were going well without him.”

“They were?”

When I get back to my apartment, I check my mail at the row of boxes and pull out a power bill, a water bill, and a flyer for a new Italian restaurant in Arlington. I’m not hungry since Natasha and I had chocolate Häagen-Dazs popsicles after our walk. I don’t feel like turning on the TV or reading, so I gaze out my window for a few minutes as the maintenance man cranks up a lawn mower. Then I water my two planters of ivy. I can’t stand it when houseplants wither on my watch. But since I don’t have a green thumb, sometimes they end up dying no matter how loving I am when I talk to them.

In the kitchen, I immerse four tea bags in a saucepan of boiling water, and after ten minutes, remove them and add a cup of sugar. Stirring the mixture, I make sure all of the sugar dissolves, and once it has, I squeeze lemon juice into a pitcher and then pour in the thick concoction. I fill half a glass with ice cubes and then top it off with tea. As the sweet liquid cools my throat, I see that my answering machine light is flashing. With a press of the play button, the messages begin. The first one is Dovie, inviting me to come down to see her again. “I’m having a dinner party on July fourth and have a surprise for you.”

Message number two begins with, “Hello, Sam. This is Taylor. Sorry to miss you. I’ll call again later.”

My stomach does a little happy flip.

I hope he calls back, but by eleven I give up my childish notions and get ready for bed, reading the last chapters of
Deceived in Denmark
, one of the newer Busboy Mysteries. As usual, the author gives just enough clues to make me think one character is the culprit, but by the second-to-last chapter I’m suspecting another.

I met the author, R.C. Longjay, once at a book discussion and signing. At first I didn’t recognize her because she had gray hair, wrinkles crisscrossed her forehead, and she wore horn-rimmed glasses. She didn’t look at all like her glamorous book jacket photo. The elderly woman seated next to me had
Cornered in Cairo
, the just-released mystery by R.C., opened to the author’s photo. To me, this stranger whispered, “Guess this picture was taken when she was in college or something.”

I was about to comment when the woman must have read my thoughts, because she said, “I suppose she wants to remind us that she was young once.” After smiling, she closed her book, rested it against her heavy thigh streaked with varicose veins, and sighed. “I don’t blame her at all.”

eighteen

W
e always close the shop the week of July fourth. Mom says it is patriotic to take time off and not be intent on making a buck off the holiday.