Updrift (13 page)

* * * *

Graduation marked the end of everyone’s big push to help her get ahead of the game in college. She couldn’t understand the reason for the switch. Instead of one-dimensional conversations about her current or upcoming schoolwork, her parents, Michael, and Carmen talked with her as they used to, about cooking, gardening, fiction, and politics. She felt as if they suggested she ignore her goals of the past two years.

But she could no longer accept her choices were about what her parents and the Blakes thought were best for her. She now knew what she had done and what she would do moving forward were most important to
her
. And if she was no longer a super-student, get-ahead kind of gal, who was she? She wasn’t an athlete, she wasn’t popular and surrounded by friends. If she relaxed her focus in the area she excelled, wouldn’t she be even more sad and lost?

Her confusion worsened at lunch the day she headed to Philadelphia. She left the house at noon, driving in the opposite direction first to pick up school documents from John in Griffins Bay. John smiled when she entered the clinic. “Hey, Kate.” He shrugged out of his lab coat. “Do you have time for lunch before you go?”

“Sure! I’m reluctant to face the music in Philadelphia, so anything I can do to procrastinate is a good thing.” She made a face. John laughed.

At the restaurant, someone swooped her up and whirled her in a circle. After a second of terror, she realized Gabe was the perpetrator. “I caught you at last!” he exclaimed.

“Gabe!” she squealed, unbearably happy to see him. “Where did you come from? I thought you didn’t get back until next week!” Her insides tingled with warmth. She couldn’t believe the instantaneous transformation she felt, as if she’d been sleeping for the past year and awoken to the most beautiful, exciting world possible.

Gabe let her go, keeping one of his hands on her arm, shaking John’s hand with his other. “I thought I had a shot at actually seeing you, and I worked like a dog to make it happen. Can I join you?” He ushered Kate onto the bench before him and sat down before John could respond. “That’s a rhetorical question, John. Have a seat, won’t you?” He gestured to the other side of the booth.

John disapproved of something but he couldn’t contain his smile as he slid onto the bench. “How did you find us?”

“I was on my way to see if I could catch Kate before she left, and I saw her car.”

“I didn’t think you knew my car,” Kate grumbled. “Have we even seen each other since I got my license?” Gabe snorted and shot John a dirty look.

“Seriously,” Kate groused, “does anyone else know you’re here? I feel like we need permission to be together.” She tried to gauge John’s reaction. He put his forehead in his hands.

“Carmen and Michael are in on my plan. John now knows. Your mom may be in the dark.” Gabe’s grin was wicked.

“Fabulous.” Kate was so unbelievably glad to see him. She yearned to touch him, hold his hand, or loop her arm around his but she didn’t have the nerve. She continued to smile, feeling like an idiot. “So, what are you doing this summer?”

“I’m staying home, for once. Taking an independent study course with my dad. Wanna stay?”

For an instant, Kate envisioned not going to Philadelphia, instead helping her mother at the library, digging in the garden, and spending time with Gabe. Her heartbeat accelerated as she realized how badly she wanted this. Gabe in the abstract, as he’d become over the past two years, was a very different proposition from the real, breathing, beautiful Gabe smiling at her now.

But she didn’t see how she could stay with everything already set up at her aunt’s. “I can’t imagine our parents would approve. And I’ve been given this golden opportunity to prove myself as the ultimate slave at
Culinaria
this summer. Dana might actually kill me if I back out on her.” She again checked John for his response.

Gabe’s stare at John was flinty. “I can protect you from Dana. Just don’t answer your phone for a while. She’ll figure it out.”

Although she felt she and Gabe were both addressing John to an extent, she spoke specifically to her dad this time. “What do you think?” She was pretty sure he didn’t approve of the idea. Not that he could stop her…but she couldn’t seriously entertain the idea of staying home, could she?

“I think reasoning with eighteen-year-olds is a fool’s mission.” He grimaced. He regarded Kate kindly. “I understand your desire to take a break but my advice is to stay the course, go to your internship, get through college. Get it behind you.”

Gabe’s smile hardened as he deliberately scooted toward Kate so the side of his body was tight against hers. Kate felt he had just issued some sort of challenge…but their contact distracted her from thinking too much about what sort of challenge he meant. She relaxed against him, more calm and centered than she’d been in months. She felt John’s kick to Gabe under the table. Gabe did not budge.

“You’re further along in your studies than she is. She’s worked really hard to get to this point. You would undermine her?”

A feeling of lassitude pervaded Kate, and she gave herself to it. She knew she should participate in the conversation taking place but she felt too wonderful sitting there, being held by Gabe. Maybe she should stay this summer, she mused. Becoming progressively more relaxed, she wondered idly if this was what hypnosis felt like. She really didn’t care what anyone else thought was good for her right now, she was not moving, not if John told her to, not if someone bombed the restaurant and the walls around them crumbled.

“I don’t see it as an all-or-nothing proposition,” Gabe shot back.

John closed his eyes. “Gabe. You’re eighteen.”

“Nineteen, actually.”

“Fine. Nineteen. Whatever.” John muttered under his breath before continuing. “In two years’ time, two short years, you and Kate will be degreed and employable, capable of undertaking whatever you want. You’ve already demonstrated the self-discipline and patience to do this. Keep it up a little while longer. Finish what you started.”

Gabe leaned his head on the back of the bench. “I know you’re right. I have an easier time with that line of thinking when I’m toiling away on my own, of course.”

John raised his eyebrows as if Gabe was missing something obvious. “And so?”

Gabe reluctantly shifted away from her, and she almost cried from her sense of loss. With what felt like superhuman effort on her part, she kept herself still and did not beg Gabe to come back to her. John’s glance her way came to her like an apology. Gabe seemed as tense as she was.

“I know, I know,” Gabe said to no one in particular. “That was cheating.” He offered Kate an apologetic smile. “I suppose we should let you get on your way.”

Without Gabe touching her—and given the decision they’d just made to forego each other’s company yet again—Kate felt overexposed and vulnerable. And tired. And then annoyed. “Will the stupidness never end?” She patted Gabe on the leg to get him to let her out. “All-righty, then. You two ladies stay here and spin your evil webs. I’m going back to my all-work-and-no-play reality, I guess.” John grimaced while Gabe laughed.

“Good one, Blake.”

He folded Kate into a hug once she stood, and she again felt a hypnotic, blissful paralysis. John pulled her away gently to hug her himself, which somehow made the transition away from Gabe less painful. She knew if she intended to actually leave she’d have to do it soon or risk public embarrassment by falling to her knees right there and pleading with them to let her stay.

She peeked at Gabe, which was a bad idea. He was as miserable as she was, an observation she couldn’t dwell on if she hoped to make it out of there. John put his arm around her shoulders and guided her to the door. “Hang in there, kiddo,” he encouraged. He pressed a kiss to her hair and propelled her lightly toward the front of the restaurant. “Call us when you get to Philly.”

She trudged to her car.

She had too much time to think during her drive but she let her musings take a gentle, circuitous route to the issue of her non-starting romance with Gabriel Blake. For a while, she turned up the radio and let the loud music blast her into a brooding stupor. Then, as the sun started to set, she mused over what was going on, and what she could or should do about it. She laughed when she remembered how horrified she’d been when Gabe had asked her to wait for two years, wondering what she would have said if he’d told her the truth, how any relationship they might have wouldn’t start for another four. She was glad he hadn’t known, or hadn’t told her.

She believed both of their parents supported a relationship between them. But then why would they work to delay it? She thought back on the dozens of romantic dramas she’d watched play out among her peers in high school, regretting her utter lack of participation. Perhaps she would feel more confident if she were more socially practiced. As it was, she just felt lost and stupid and kind of stuck, unable to see her way through this situation to some more comfortable outcome.

And what outcome did she want? What outcome did Gabe want? Was he really waiting for her as he seemed to be? She thought this seemed like a foolish hope on her part. And, if he was waiting for her, and if they did become free to explore a romance in two more years, what did
that
mean? They were both through high school and attending different colleges. What if one of them got a job in Texas or Oregon? Would she move to be by him, or he by her?

She chided herself for considering this possibility. “One meeting with Gabe in two years, and I’m plotting cross-country transfers.” She vaguely remembered this feeling from her junior year, when she figured out she wouldn’t see him at all, and her mother had told her to put him out of her mind. This situation was no different. As she had then, she forced herself to think about being away from Gabe instead of being with him. Being away from him left her with a college career and job skills to chase after. Wanting to be near him just left her wanting, with no option for fulfilling that want, possibly not ever.

She turned the music back up and committed her thoughts to her job in Philadelphia. She could not afford to brood over Gabe right now, she decided. By the time she got to Dana and Will’s, she resolved herself against trying to figure it out. She would simply discipline herself not to consider Gabriel Blake.

* * * *

She felt more competent at
Culinaria
than she had the previous summer. She saw a few new faces but many she still knew, and this familiarity helped her feel as if she fit in. She was given a few small writing assignments this time around, help coming from many of her coworkers to ready these pieces for publication. She learned a great deal about editing and developing a flexible writing style; and she saw in retrospect how green she’d really been the previous summer. She felt doubly grateful to everyone who had shepherded her through her first professional experience.

Dana and Will remained unchanged in their living habits; their home was as lovely and inviting as ever; they both still worked like indentured servants; and they traveled every week for business, leaving her with huge chunks of time alone at their house. The crushing loneliness she’d felt the previous summer revisited her, although she was better at distracting herself from it this year. Just as she had learned to do when she thought of Gabe, she shifted her attention to something else when she felt isolated and anxious. Usually, she chose to read a novel or peruse cookbooks or go for a walk. As she had last year, she started to feel like a buried version of herself, her personality firmly in check as she executed all her responsibilities and duties, and—when those had been fulfilled—diversions she had at her disposal.

In an effort to avoid all her debilitating fantasies about Gabe, she didn’t allow herself to think about him, and she stopped responding to some of his texts and e-mails, whereas before this summer, she opened and answered each communication promptly. Now, she made herself wait, and she didn’t answer every message. If Gabe noticed her new electronic behavior, he didn’t mention it but he wrote to her less frequently. She told herself this was for the best.

Her summer passed quickly. After returning to Childress for a few days, her mother and John loaded Everett into the car and drove her to Sommerset University. As she watched the other freshmen parting from their parents, Kate realized she was past her first separation from home and childhood, and although she was sad to be leaving again, she was grateful to not experience the raw, fresh emotions of that first goodbye. Still, her mother cried as she hugged her, making Kate promise to write every day and come back as often as she could. Kate hugged her back tightly but she did not cry.

Her roommate reminded her of several of her high school classmates. Sarah was pretty and perky and had been, according to her own report, popular before coming to college. Kate immediately disliked her, knowing this was unfair. Sarah tried diligently to engage her in conversation about old boyfriends and hilarious high school escapades, her heavily made-up eyes intentionally wide and her smile overly sincere as she talked. Kate was polite but blunt, eventually telling her she didn’t have a romantic history to pore over, and high school was something she’d survived.

“I’m an unrecoverable bookworm. Really, I can’t be saved.” She scrounged through her welcome packet to retrieve a device for offloading her would-be friend. “Did you see this flier from the alums about the ice cream social? You should go.” She resumed her unpacking to discourage further attempts at camaraderie.

Sarah’s answering smile was uncertain. “Okay…I guess I will.” Kate heard the door close, pleased to have so easily put Sarah off her scent and on the hunt for easier social prey. She wondered if she’d see a request from student housing for a new roommate.

Over the next few months, she did make small attempts to integrate socially by approaching a few similarly reserved girls on her floor and forming study groups with them. One girl was a performance pianist who introduced her to the performing arts library, where they spent the occasional hour listening to musical recordings, the pastime preferable to shopping or watching sitcoms in Kate’s opinion. Another girl was into yoga, which she also enjoyed from time to time.