Surreal Ecstasy (14 page)

I smiled at him again, amazed.
While what he said wasn't so unusual, what really floored me was how eloquently
his spoken words flowed from his mouth, and how naturally sweet and charming he
was.

The cashier girl looked at him and,
after a stunned moment upon seeing those dimples, smiled back and said, "Oh,
I've been better. It's been a little crazy here lately—so many people."

"Then we won't keep you any
longer than we need to, Skyler,"
he said easily, noticing her name tag.

Skyler laughed and blinked her eyes
flirtatiously. "Oh, that's quite all right. I don't mind when people are
as nice as you are."

Ree laughed sincerely, yet not
quite as flirtatious. He rested his left elbow on the counter, seeming
completely at ease. "Well, thank you. I appreciate that." He looked
up at the wooden menu that was displayed over our heads. "Skyler, I'd like
to order a bowl of your clam chowder and a regular soda."

"Yes, yes, of course."
She started to ring up the register.

"How are your cheeseburgers?
Are they really good, or should we just stick to the seafood here?" He
lowered his voice in a mock conspiratorial tone. "You can tell us. If your
chefs don't know their way around a cow, blink twice."

Skyler gave off such a fake, loud
laugh that several of the customers standing in line looked over at us. I
suppressed an eye roll. It was funny, sure, but there was no reason to laugh
like a delirious hyena. "No, no, they're
really
good, sir,"
she said, leaning over the counter. I noticed she was trying to give Ree a good
view of her pathetic B-cup cleavage, despite the cash register being in the
way. "I promise. You'll love it."

He turned back to me, smiling,
dimples in plain view. "How about it, Morgan?" he asked me. "Shall
we try the cheeseburgers?"

My eyes flicked toward Skyler
briefly and, remembering my awesome
C-cup
cleavage, I felt triumphant as
I tossed my hair and pulled my hair behind my shoulders, hoping to show off my
assets
through Dess' shirt (thank god her red vinyl jacket was unbuttoned and
open). "Yes, definitely. I ordered one too. She's right; they really are
good here."

"Oh, of course you ordered the
cheeseburger! I'm sorry, Morgan. I wasn't quite paying attention while you were
ordering." He stopped and laughed at himself, keeping both Skyler and me
in our conversation. "I have been staring at the menu like a zombie
because I have gotten so ravenous, I simply can't think straight."

He said
ravenous
! That was
one of my favorite words too.

Skyler's smile grew by the second
as she finished ringing up our order. I guess she hadn't noticed that my
assets
were far superior to hers. I shook my head briefly when I saw that she had
to start over again because she'd been stealing one too many sneak peeks at Ree
and consequently hit some of the wrong buttons on the cash register. I handed
her one of the hundred-dollar bills Dess had given me earlier and waited for a
few minutes as Skyler fumbled with my change because she was practically
drooling over Ree, who appeared to remain oblivious to the estrogen-fueled
insanity. She then bit her lip as she handed us two hard plastic cups for our
soda, our receipt, and a place card with the number 87 on it. Ree took them
all, handing me the receipt and taking a step toward the soda machine.

"Have a beautiful day, sir,"
Skyler called, leaning forward and trying to show off more pretend cleavage.

"Thanks, Skyler," I
replied, even though she hadn't been speaking to me. I stepped in front of Ree,
hoping to block her view of him.

She smiled politely at me for a
second and focused her attention back on Ree, subtly craning her neck to get a
view of him.

I wanted to spit in her tip jar.

"What would you like to drink,
Morgan?" Ree asked me in a perfectly normal tone, as if women fighting
over him and making fools out of themselves while doing it was an everyday
occurrence.

"Um…root beer. Thanks."

While he got our drinks I looked
around, noticing that despite Skyler's complaint, the restaurant didn't seem
terribly busy. "Ree," I said, "They actually have self-seating
on the 3
^rd
floor. It's a really nice view of the sound. Do you want
to go up there?"

"The sound?" he asked me
quizzically.

I smiled. "The water," I
explained.

He looked up from the soda machine
and smiled. "Oh! Yes, that sounds delightful. Just lead the way."

We walked up the two flights of
wooden stairs where about a dozen wooden tables of different sizes waited, many
of them empty. Ree walked up to a big round one that could easily sit 6 or 7
people. "Do you like this table?" he asked me.

Nodding, I walked over to the other
side of the table and sat. "Ree," I began, "Can you explain it
to me, please?"

"Explain what?" he asked,
looking sincerely baffled, sitting down and putting the number place card at
the edge of the table.

"Explain how you could be so
obnoxious around Dess, but around everyone else…I mean…" Oops. I didn't
know how I was going to say 'but around everyone else you're a god walking
amongst mere mortals.'

He looked at me for a second as he
considered my question, and then started laughing self-consciously. I doubted
that I could ever get sick of looking at his perfect, white teeth. "I
apologize if your impression of me was inconsistent with reality," he said
modestly. "I'm pretty raw around my sis—with all my brothers and sisters,
to be completely honest. If I had known Dess had a guest, I might not have
tackled her… as hard." He winked and smiled again before taking a gulp of
his own root beer.

I laughed and mirrored his actions,
sipping my drink slowly while I thought about this amazing person sitting with
me.

"How many of you are there?"
I asked him suddenly, making him and his siblings sound like a litter of
puppies.

"Eleven," he responded
easily. "I'm the youngest."

"Oh, my god! Your poor mother."

"She's a trouper. She's also
very Catholic, and you know how that goes."

I looked at him curiously, hitting
the ice cubes in my cup with my straw, and shook my head briefly. "Not really.
I was raised Baptist… if you can call what my parents did raising." Oops.
Bitter, table for one, please.

Ree raised his left eyebrow, which
distracted me momentarily. I forgot about my own bitterness and enjoyed looking
at him, enjoyed being the envy of every woman in the restaurant.

He was continuing our conversation.
"Well, Catholics don't believe in birth control. I mean
, at all
. It's
a sin because you're preventing life."

"Oh, yeah. I remember hearing
that somewhere. So your mom just kept having children until she got older?"

"Pretty much."

Skyler approached our table with a
big, brown tray littered with plates and bowls. "Here you go, sir,"
she said cheerfully and gave Ree his soup, cheeseburger, and fries.

"That was awfully fast,"
he remarked.

"Business has eased up a bit,
and I wanted to thank you for being so nice by bringing up your food myself,"
she replied, the tone of her voice and look on her face indicating that what
she
really
wanted was for him to strip down here and now so they could
begin the process of conceiving their own eleven children.

I rolled my eyes. The cashier
never
brings up the plates. They had servers who did just that, no matter how busy
(or not busy) the restaurant was. Still facing Ree, she turned her head
slightly towards me and said, "I'm sorry.  There wasn't enough room for
your food." Without another word, she went to a different table and gave
them the remaining dishes that were on her tray. After she gave the neighboring
table their food, she turned around to look at Ree again, walking backward as
she did so and running right into a small empty table behind her. Ree pretended
not to notice Skyler hollering with pain and limping back down the steps. I
would have laughed if I wasn't so annoyed.

And the nerve of her! It was too
difficult, apparently, to bring my food with Ree's, even though she had enough
room to bring another table's orders. Just when I wondered if I should complain
to her manager, someone else—a man—brought me my cheeseburger, smiling and
wishing us a great rest of the day.

I snuck a glance at Ree to see if
he picked up on this any of this drama, but he pretended to become engrossed in
his food, attacking his clam chowder first.

After a truly delicious meal and
enjoyable chit-chat overlooking the sound, I took Ree around to see some of the
booths and stores at the marketplace. I did remember one small store that had a
lot of Seahawks and Mariners sweatshirts, hats, and shirts, but it was just a
matter of finding it. I wasn't sure if Ree would particularly like to have a Washington team name written across his front or back. He seemed like the type who felt
that if he didn't have Raiders or Lakers advertised on his body somewhere, the
world would stop revolving and he would no longer be able to function. If he
was ruthlessly dedicated to the Angels or Dodgers, however, that would be a
complete nightmare. I would have to figure out how I could remain being in love
with this guy, if that were the case.

Somehow, even though I knew the
store we were looking for was on one of the underground floors, we ended up
outside the main building.

This was definitely not the right
way.

Definitely not the right way, and
downright embarrassing.

"Ugh. Let's go this way, Ree,"
I said, beckoning him inside the building through a different doorway.

We were both stopped short by a
loud voice.

"Young man! Young woman!"

We both looked back instinctively—as
if there couldn't have been another young man and woman that were being spoken
to. Approaching us but not coming closer than about three feet stood an older
gentleman, dressed mostly in black, holding a pile of flyers in his arms.
Normally musicians were the only people demonstrating on the streets here, but
every once in a while a preacher will come along, but they didn't hang around
for very long.

I looked at Ree, ready to exchange
looks of horror, but he looked unperturbed, his expression neutral.

"Aren't you concerned about
your eternal soul? Don't you want to spend eternity with our Heavenly Father?"

Why do people always assume the
worst about others? Maybe I
have
thought about my afterlife recently.
How would he know one way or another?

When we didn't answer immediately,
the preacher continued. "We are all going to burn in the fiery depths of
Hell if we don't repent for our sins and ask for the Lord, Jesus Christ, to
enter and rule our lives."

"Take a lesson from Joel
Osteen," some guy in a blue flannel shirt told him as he brushed past.

"Osteen doesn't speak of
reality," the preacher hissed openly, seemingly happy to have won the
attention of more people. "People have a right to know if they are in
danger."

"Reality is what you decide to
put into your life," Ree chimed in. "If people have hope for
themselves, they're happy. If they're happy, they do good things and treat
other people with kindness."

"That's a reach, son,"
the preacher replied, shaking his head, looking sad. "That's a reach if I
ever heard one."

"Not if you focus on the
goodness of people instead of their potential for evil," Ree said simply,
patting the preacher on his back.

Ree and I continued to walk into
the building. "Repent! Believe!" he called after us and, as we walked
further away, he raised his voice that much more. "For it is written, 'All
things are possible to him that believeth!!'"

"Wow," I said to Ree once
we were safely back inside the main building. "You were so nice to him
without giving in. Most people ignored that guy."

"Well, I truly do believe he
thinks he's doing the world a favor," Ree commented modestly. "I
figured I owed him the decency and respect to remind him that people aren't
always so bad."

I scoffed without thinking. "Can't
speak for everyone."

Ree's head tilted in my direction,
but I kept my eyes straight ahead, avoiding eye contact.

"Here," I said, relieved
to change the subject before he could follow up on my comment. "Here's the
store we've been looking for—Pike Place Gifts. These clothes mostly have
Seahawks or Mariners on them, but I'm sure you can find something you can wear
without wanting to kill yourself."

He smiled and forged bravely on
ahead. I joined him in his jacket search. He was a little sketchy about the
type of jacket he preferred, but I did figure out that he didn't like the puffy
types that made a person look like they were wearing a sleeping bag.

Turning to a rack behind me, I saw
the most adorable pink Mariners jacket, which I absolutely, most definitely and
without a doubt had to have. I had a blue Mariners jacket at home that I've had
for years, but I NEEDED this pink one. I mean, it was my favorite team in the
entire universe, and the jacket was pink. Pink!

I turned to Ree, who was looking at
something a few racks away from me, to ask him if he could hold his sister's
red vinyl trench-type coat that I had been wearing. He agreed and obediently
held his arms out for me to throw it across. I smiled at him and took off the
long coat.

And that's when he saw it.

The big, ugly, frying-pan shaped
patch of discolored skin on my right forearm, placed there so thoughtfully by
Adim almost two years ago.

I don't know how I knew he was
looking at it, because I was looking down at my hands, my body suddenly
immobile and my heart pounding in my ears, but I was certain of it. I could
almost feel his mind and energy mingle with mine in the air. It was a unique,
incredible experience, something I had never even become close to feeling
before. The air between us changed from being relaxed and comfortable to
passionate and intense.