Sunsets (22 page)

If she had to define the transformation, she would have said she was in love, in love with God. He dominated her thoughts, filled her longings, and daily gave her a sense of his presence. This is how she always had wanted to live. Too many years had been lost to critical introspection. God knew her thoroughly, yet he loved her. Better still, he wanted her, and she wanted him.

The effect that had on her feelings for Brad continued to surprise her. Inside, she was a shy young heart fumbling through her first crush as if all the years of sophisticated affairs
had never taken place. Those relationships had begun with her imagination ignited through steamy scenes she had read in romance novels. She had played them out with different guys, as an actress would. But her heart and soul had not participated.

That was all past and forgiven by the Father. She was, in every way, starting over.

Cheri noticed the change in her at work. Each morning Cheri would comment on Alissa’s appearance and the cheerfulness she brought with her. Alissa told her in a whisper, as if it were a great secret, “It’s God. He’s doing something in me.”

Cheri didn’t hold the same religious views as Alissa, but she did start to ask questions and even willingly accepted a Christian novel Alissa brought her one morning.

Alissa hung around her little nest on the weekends. She spent lots of time with Genevieve and even took Anna to lunch one Saturday afternoon, just the two of them.

Brad ran on his own sporadic schedule, balancing work and summer school classes, as well as his weekly involvement with the junior high guys at church. One Friday night Brad had seven of the guys over, and they slept outside under the stars. They were supposed to go to Mexico on an outreach trip, but when that didn’t work out, Brad had invited them over for a camp out instead.

Alissa had her bedroom window cracked open, and she lay in bed smiling, as Brad allowed the pubescent bunch access to his wisdom. “Take it slow when it comes to girls,” Alissa heard him say. “Don’t ever rush into anything, but get to be really good friends first. You have plenty of time. Don’t rob yourself of God’s best, which is entering into marriage pure.”

“Do you have a girlfriend?” one of the high-pitched voices asked from somewhere on the lawn.

“No.”

“Have you ever?”

“Yes.”

“Is that all you’re going to tell us?” another falsetto voice asked.

“I went out with one girl in high school,” Brad offered. “But that didn’t last long.”

“Don’t you want to get married?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, you’re getting kind of old,” one of the boys said. “Don’t you think you better hurry up? Nobody is going to want you if you’re bald and your teeth fall out.”

The other boys laughed, and inside her room Alissa smiled. She thought of how bald Chet was, and yet how badly Rosie had wanted him.

Young people just don’t understand. With true love it doesn’t matter. True love is blind and kind
.

“I’m not in any hurry,” Brad said. “Hey, did you see that shooting star?”

The next morning after all the boys had gone, Brad went out back to clean up the residue. Alissa stepped into the sunshine and joined him. She had gone walking with Genevieve earlier that morning and then vigorously cleaned her floors. Her hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, and blotches of water were streaked down the front of her T-shirt.

“You need any help?”

“I think I’m about done,” Brad said, stuffing an empty Cheetos bag into the black trash bag in his hand. “Hope my guys didn’t keep you up last night.”

“Nope. Did you have a good time?”

“I think they did. Hey, are you doing anything over Labor Day weekend?”

“No.”

“You want to go on a road trip with Jake and me?”

Alissa was surprised at the offer. “Where you going?”

“Oregon.” Brad sat down in a lounge chair in the shade, and Alissa settled in the one next to him. “You won’t believe this, but my sister is moving to some tiny town in Oregon.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“She met a guy, and she thinks she’s in love. She’s following him there.”

“Good for her,” Alissa said. “By any chance did they meet in Fairbanks?”

Brad ran his fingers through his unkempt brown hair and said, “Actually, I introduced them.” He didn’t look too happy about the admission, which surprised Alissa. Brad seemed to enjoy taking credit for things such as Chet and Rosie’s choice of Italy for their honeymoon.

“You sound less than thrilled. Don’t you like the guy?”

“I don’t know him. See, I found him on the internet more than a year ago when I was at Wren’s place in Nashville. They started an e-mail correspondence, and then they met in Hawaii a couple of weeks ago. Now she’s rearranging her whole life to be near him.”

“Hawaii?” Alissa repeated. “Was that before or after Alaska?”

“It’s a long story. Something like this could only happen to my sister. The airline that flew her to Fairbanks gave her a free ticket. So she went to see her friends in Oregon. They invited her to go with them to Hawaii. Then it turned out Lauren’s new boyfriend was the brother of the people she stayed with in Oregon.”

Alissa smiled. “Sounds like God was involved, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know.” Brad looked tired. The cocoa stubble across
his chin was approaching the beard stage. His eyelids drooped. This shady spot was the perfect place for a morning nap. “How can she know in two weeks that she wants to be with this guy? Relationships take years and years.”

“I thought you said they had been writing to each other for more than a year.”

“They have,” Brad said. “But that’s different.”

“It can be a lot more intimate,” Alissa said. “You get to know someone more deeply when you commit your thoughts to paper.”

“I don’t know,” Brad said, looking like he might doze off.

Alissa closed her eyes and listened to the gentle fht-fht-fht of the lawn sprinklers that had turned on automatically. Down the street a lawn mower whirred, lulling them both to sleep.

Alissa was the first to wake up. She looked over at Brad, who was sound asleep, his hands folded across his chest. His mouth was open slightly, and his hair stuck up on the right side. She wondered if Adam looked that cute while he slept and God took his rib. If so, Eve would have definitely been at a disadvantage. Who could resist a man when he was sleeping?

Noiselessly rising, she tiptoed back inside where she checked the clock. She had only snoozed for twenty minutes, but she felt as refreshed as if she had slept a couple of hours. The floor had dried, and her little house looked and smelled clean and inviting. All that was missing was a table and chairs in the big open space where Shelly’s had been.

Alissa decided to shower and dress and see if Genevieve or the girls would like to go table hunting with her. She had been wanting an excuse to poke around in some of the antique stores in the funky part of downtown Pasadena. If she could actually find a table there, it would be especially memorable.

Dialing Genevieve’s number, Alissa peeked in on Sleeping Brawny on the patio. He was still in slumberland. Alissa
wondered what it would be like to go antique shopping with Brad. Was he that kind of guy?

Genevieve’s voice mail answered the phone, and Alissa remembered that Genevieve had promised the girls a trek to the pool. Alissa decided she would have to go on this adventure alone. Out on the patio she heard Jake’s voice rousing Brad. “Did I get any calls while I was gone?”

Alissa went over to the back door and stepped into the brightness of the afternoon sun. “Hi, guys.”

Brad sat up, and with a big stretch he asked, “Did I fall asleep on you?”

“That’s okay,” Alissa said. “I fell asleep, too.”

“I can’t believe this!” Jake said, transforming himself into a soap opera star. “I turn my back on you two for one minute, and when I come back, you hit me with this announcement.” He took a melodramatic stance. “How could you do it? How could you two sleep together?”

Neither Brad nor Alissa showed any hint of appreciating his rank humor.

“Keep your day job,” Alissa muttered.

“Okay, that was bad. I’m sorry. I do have news for you guys. I landed another commercial. This one’s for Jeep. I get to swerve so I won’t hit a moose. You want to see the surprised look that won me the part?” Jake pretended to turn an invisible steering wheel, then a startled expression lit up his face.

Alissa clapped. “Brilliant. A masterpiece. Two thumbs up. And to think, you get paid for that.”

“Paid rather well, thank you very much. Are you going somewhere?”

“I’m going to look for a table. You guys want to come with me?”

“Pass,” Jake said.

Brad stretched again and stood up. “I’ll go if you buy me
lunch at Market City Caffe first.”

“Oh, well, you didn’t say we were doing food,” Jake said. “I’m in.”

“Give me ten minutes,” Brad said. “I have to take a shower.”

“Well, well,” Jake said, “the Beav discovers personal hygiene is important to his social life. And just think, June,” Jake took on his best Ward Cleaver voice and wrapped his arm around Alissa’s shoulder. “We were there to witness it.”

Brad brushed past him and mumbled, “It’s a good thing I love you, man. Otherwise …” Brad stopped and turned to face Alissa and Jake. He changed his posture into a Jackie Gleason pose, and as if he were in competition with his roommate, Brad spouted with a clenched fist, “One of these days, Alice. POW! To the moon.”

Jake burst out laughing. “That wasn’t bad. Who says I haven’t had a positive influence on you?”

Alissa only vaguely recognized the impersonation. She still thought it was funny to see the way Brad and Jake interacted with each other. And she liked being a part of their friendship, one of the “guys.” That was something she had missed as an only child who never had boys for friends while she was growing up. Once again it seemed to her that God was giving her back the childhood she had forfeited by losing her innocence so fast.

Brad’s shower took more like twenty minutes, but it was worth it when he showed up shaved and smelling like a combination between moss and wood fire. Jake accused him of stealing his aftershave, and Brad ignored him, insisting that he drive his truck.

Alissa was pleasantly surprised to see that Brad had done away with his collection of empty fast food bags on the passenger side of the truck. The scent of stale french fry oil still lingered, though. She fit nicely in the middle between the two friends. Off
they went, all starving and ready for some Italian food.

After lunch, the guys willingly meandered through several antique shops with her, but none of the tables struck her fancy. The trio packed itself back into the truck’s cab and meandered home with Alissa in the middle, listening to the endless banter of these two men who seemed just as comfortable around her as she was around them.

And that’s the same spot in Brad’s truck cab that Alissa found herself a week later on Friday night of Labor Day weekend. Only this time, Chloe was on her lap, and Brad was throwing a tarp over their luggage in the back. He hopped into the driver’s seat and noticed the cat.

“You better put her back inside now,” Brad said. “It’s seven o’clock, and we’re ready to go, just like we planned.”

“She’s going with us,” Alissa said.

Brad looked at Jake and then back at Alissa. “I don’t think so,” he said evenly.

“I can’t leave her,” Alissa said. “Genevieve and Steven are gone for a week with the girls, you guys aren’t going to be around. No one is around to feed her for the next few days. She has to come with us.”

Brad looked as if he were trying to be polite, but it was a real stretch for him. Alissa realized it would have been better if she had prepared him ahead of time. Or even if she had asked Cheri or Rosie to take Chloe. But this trip to Oregon had been pulled together so fast she hadn’t thought of Chloe until the last minute.

“She’s been on plenty of cross-country trips with me,” Alissa said, stroking her cat’s soft fur. “You won’t even know she’s here.”

“Let’s make a deal,” Brad said. “If she jumps on me and claws my face while I’m driving, I get to throw her out the window. Okay?”

“Only if she claws your face?” Alissa said, trying to lighten up the situation.

“If she claws any part of my person, she becomes instant road kill. Deal?”

Alissa wouldn’t take his outstretched hand. She calmly stated, “She won’t be any problem at all. Believe me.” Brad looked at Jake again and then at Alissa. “If you say so.” He turned the key in the ignition, and their adventure was underway.

The plan was complicated, and Alissa wasn’t sure she completely understood it. Lauren apparently had packed her furniture in a moving van along with the belongings of a woman she worked with. That woman was moving to Lake Arrowhead in the San Bernardino mountains, which was about an hour and a half drive from Pasadena. The moving van had arrived at Lake Arrowhead from Nashville last night, and now they were driving up the mountain to retrieve Lauren’s things. They would load her belongings in the bed of Brad’s truck as well as in the rental trailer he had attached to the back.

Then Brad, Jake, and Alissa would take turns driving straight through to some place called Glenbrooke, Oregon, where Lauren had driven earlier that week. It was supposedly cheaper than any other arrangements Lauren had tried to make. Alissa thought it had to be partially Brad’s doing since he seemed like the kind of brother who needed an excuse to be there for his sister and to check out this new boyfriend without being too obvious.

They hit the freeway and found it less congested with the weekend holiday traffic than they had expected. They made it up the mountain and found the home at Lake Arrowhead with no problem. Alissa pitched in and helped load the trailer and truck. She decided she liked Lauren’s furniture, and therefore she would probably like Lauren. The most intriguing piece was a dresser with a blanket wrapped tightly
around it. Alissa wanted to see that one once it was unveiled in Oregon; it had to be a honey.

“Is there any fast food around?” Brad asked.

“There’s a McDonald’s at Arrowhead Village. That’s about a mile from here on your way down the mountain,” Roberta, the woman who had moved from Nashville, said.