Collision (11 page)

“France?” I said with a chuckle. “Thus the French toast?”

“Precisely. Please take a seat. It was either French toast or crepes, and I didn’t think it would be wise for me to attempt those. I’m fairly certain Oliver and Mariah would prefer for their home not to be burnt down when they return to it.”

“I’d bet you’re right. And really, I like French toast more than crepes anyway.”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

I sat in the chair she’d decorated with balloons. And I’m pretty sure I was grinning ear to ear. She left for a minute and then returned with a tray full of more items: a plate of bacon, a plate of fried eggs, a glass of orange juice, and a cup of hot coffee.

“It’s French roast coffee. Do you like coffee?”

“I’m actually starting to like tea more. But I’ll take the coffee just this once, seeing as how you already made it. And it’s French.”

“Splendid.”

“How many eggs did you have to fry to get four that looked like that?”

“Don’t ask. And don’t bother attempting to check the trashcan. I already took the bag outside to the Dumpster.”

“I could have cooked them. I wouldn’t have minded.”

“It’s your birthday. You aren’t allowed to do any work. And as far as I’m concerned, cooking is work. And really, by the second box, I’d started to get the hang of it.”

“Second box? Did you go through two dozen eggs?”

“I didn’t go through two dozen eggs, Cabot. There are still a few remaining in the second one. And I used some of them to make the French toast.”

“So how many?”

She sighed. “About sixteen or so.”

“Not as bad as I would’ve thought.” I laughed and then picked up my coffee and took a gulp while she turned on a torch and lit the candles.

“Shall I sing?”

“Please do. It’ll be the highlight of my day.”

So she did. She sang “Happy Birthday” in English, Acholi, and French (seeing as how we were in France), and she did it very loudly and completely out of tune. I loved every second of it.

By the time I finally got to blow my candles out, they were almost burned all the way down.

“Did you make a wish?”

“I did.”

“Will you tell me what it was?”

“No. I want it to come true, and if I tell you what it was, it won’t come true.”

She picked up the top piece of French toast with the candles and tossed it onto an empty plate.

“Keep the candles,” I ordered.

“Why?”

“It’s part of the good luck. Did you not know that?”

“No. Perhaps that’s why none of my wishes ever came true. I never kept the candles.”

“Why are you talking in past tense?”

“I don’t make wishes anymore.”

“You don’t believe in wishes?”

“Not particularly.”

“We’ll have to try to change that.”

“Best of luck with that.”

Once we finished breakfast, I introduced her to Photoshop. We took our picture in front of a bare wall, and then I loaded them on to my computer and took the picture of us and placed it in front of a different background. By the time we finished with all the posing and the copying and pasting, our photos looked like we’d just toured France. Her favorite picture was one where we were standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. She was looking up in awe and pointing, and I was smiling at the camera and giving a thumbs-up. It was almost as great as being there in person.

For lunch, we were in the theater room, a.k.a. Germany. We drank non-alcoholic beer and ate bratwurst and sauerkraut, neither of which she liked but managed to endure on my behalf. By the time we finished our tour in Germany, we had pictures in front of the Brandenburg Gate, Neuschwannstein Castle, and in a beer hall. I wished she had a beer stein to hold in her hand. In reply, she said she wished I was wearing lederhosen. I, for one, was glad I wasn’t.

We played yard ball in Spain and played pool in a pub in Britain while we snacked on fish and chips. Then we went for a swim in the famous baths of Greece (it was actually the hot tub in the backyard), ate dinner in Italy, and finished up our day camping out in the mountains of Switzerland.

“How did you manage to arrange for all of that food and the decorations and stuff?” I asked as we lay on our sleeping bags and looked up at the stars.

“Oliver knows people. Therefore, I know people. It was simply a matter of making some phone calls and then having them deliver everything all at once and leave it in the garage.”

“Well, I can honestly say that it was the best trip to Europe I’ve ever taken. No doubt.”

“Have you been to Europe?”

“A few times.”

“Where?” she asked.

“Paris, London, Madrid…lots of places.”

“What was your favorite sight to see?”

“I don’t really have a lot of time to sightsee when I’m there.”

“Why go all that way if you aren’t going to sightsee? I mean, isn’t that why people go there, to take it all in?”

“Business. I go on business.”

“Oh. That’s rather depressing.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

“Maybe one day you’ll have the opportunity to go and actually enjoy it.”

“Maybe you will too. Maybe it’s something you can wish for when you blow out the candles on your next birthday, which is…”

“September.”

“September what?”

“Twenty-fourth.”

“And how will you spend your birthday?”

“It will be very low key. Maybe a dinner with my family. Most people over there don’t even know when their actual birthday is, so they aren’t celebrated very often.”

“Well, your birthday is definitely one that needs to be celebrated.”

“You’re a nice person, Cabot.”

“Well, thank you. You’re a nice person too.”

“Why is it that you’re afraid of people?”

“I’m not afraid of people.”

“But you’ve come to Asheville to get away from them. You haven’t left the house once, at least not to anywhere you’d see someone.”

“I’m not afraid of people; I’m around them all the time. I just wanted some time away where I didn’t have to impress someone or fulfill someone’s expectations.”

“You don’t impress me at all, so no worries there,” she teased.

I laughed. “Good to know.”

“You’re important, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I just have a feeling that you’re somebody important, special.”

“I’m not important or special at all.”

“But you’re someone.”

“I guess so.”

I appreciated that she left it at that. She didn’t try to pry. Didn’t try to guess. She just let the subject drop and let me keep my secret.

C H A P T E R

9

I’m not a morning person. But over the last month, I was waking up early in the morning with no problems at all. Today was no different. I was up and wide-awake at 5:30 a.m., half an hour before my alarm was set to go off, so I could get ready for our morning jog. Here I was on vacation, a time when I should be taking advantage of sleeping in, enjoying it even, but I wasn’t. I was awake and enjoying it.

“It’s about time you called me,” James yelled. “It’s been almost a month, and I get nothing more from you then a text here or there? I barely heard a word out of you, and now you finally call me at the crack of dawn. Need I remind you that you’re three hours ahead there? It’s still night here.”

“Sorry.”

“I was about to come check on you. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. My days are pretty busy, so I thought I’d call before I forgot again.”

“You haven’t let that girl get her claws in you, have you?”

“James, relax. We’re just hanging out.”

“Hanging out doing what?”

“I don’t know. Whatever it is people do when they hang out.”

“Cab, I’m your manager. I don’t ever get to just hang out.”

“You made the career choice, not me. You can’t blame me for a decision you made for yourself.”

“Oh, and she’s got you preaching at people. Wonderful.”

“I wasn’t preaching.”

“The people in the rest of the world are saying you snuck away to rehab.”

“And? Did you correct them?”

“I tried. Told them that you were taking time off, that you weren’t in rehab and if you were, you wouldn’t be ashamed to admit it.”

“I might not be in rehab, but I am getting better when it comes to that area.”

“What exactly are you up to?”

“We eat. Except for Mondays ’cause that’s our day of prayer and fasting—”

“You’re praying and fasting? Dear God. Have you joined a cult?”

“No! Actually, she’s doing more of the praying, and I’m just fasting because she is. There’s really no sense in eating alone. And you know, it’s sort of amazing how clear your mind can get when you don’t eat all day and you concentrate on thinking about important stuff. I’ve really learned some things about myself, and I’ve been thinking about my future, you know, long term. I haven’t done that in a long time.”

“Uh-huh. And what else do you do with this chick?”

“We clean house and play pool. We run, campout every once in a while.”

“Go on.”

“We hike, sit around and talk…you know, that kind of stuff. She’s actually a very talented photographer. She’s taking a lot of pictures. We’ve kind of camped out here in my bedroom, and she takes pictures of birds and stuff, and I look them up in this book and figure out what they are. It’s kind of cool. We’ve seen a lot of different kinds and some wildlife too. Oh, and we play yard ball.”

“Yard what?”

“Yard ball. She calls it yard football, but it’s soccer, and instead of a soccer ball, you use a tennis ball and you play barefoot. She’s pretty good at it. She—”

“Cab?”

“What?”

“Have you spent any time preparing for the project?”

I waited a few seconds before answering, not wanting to tell him that I hadn’t made any headway on the project. “Not really.”

“If you’ve got so much time with her, why don’t you have her help you run lines?”

“She doesn’t know yet.”

“She doesn’t know what?”

“Who I am.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No. I haven’t told her, and we don’t watch television or anything, so she hasn’t found out. I keep meaning to tell her, but every time I’m just about to do it, something else comes up.”

“Then why tell her at all?”

“Now I’m at the point where I feel like I’m lying to her.”

“You’re not lying. You’re withholding information. There’s a difference.”

“You think so?”

“I mean, if you can’t trust her with the truth—”

“Oh, I can trust her. It’s not about that.”

“Then what’s it about?”

“It’s nice.”

“Nice?”

“Yeah. Hanging out, doing normal things. The world isn’t revolving around me, and it’s nice.”

“I actually prefer the world revolving around you because, therefore, it revolves around me.”

“I know you do. Even you have an agenda.”

“Cab, be fair.”

“I’m just saying, with her, there’s no agenda. We’re actually friends because we like spending time together.”

“Have you ever thought about the fact that maybe you’re friends because there’s nobody else around?”

“That’s not it.”

“How do you know?”

“There’s a connection between us. I can’t explain it to you, but there is.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“Why?”

“Sounds like you’re falling for this girl.”

“No. We’re just friends. Speaking of which, I’ve got to go. I’m late to boil the water for tea.”

“You’re drinking hot tea? Oh dear God. You’re a goner.”

“Cool it. I’ll call and check in later.”

I smelled bacon as soon as I exited my front door, and the closer I got to the main house, I could hear pots and pans clanging on the gas stove. There was no doubt Kei was cooking.

I opened the door and stuck my head inside. “You’re cooking?”

“Uh-huh.” Her voice had an edge to it.

“I thought I was the foodie around here.” I passed her as I made my way to the table. Just as the first day I saw her, her hair sat in a rat’s nest on her head, but now she wore sweat pants and a regular-sized t-shirt. Gone were the days of a nightshirt with no pants. Now she was always completely covered. Even when we went for a swim, she somehow managed to do it wearing as much clothing as possible. She took being modest to a whole other level, and I hated it.

“Are we not running today?”

“No.”

“How are you feeling this morning? Did you get any sleep?”