Who Loves Her? (2 page)

“What are you writing?”

“Mom
!  The point of the door in an entirely different room is that…”

“Honey, I worry about you.”

“Well, if you want a full report, I’ve tattooed a picture of Big Ole on my left butt cheek and was just about to ride one of those death traps to Slayton to raise hell.”

“Honey, it’s just that…
”

“Mom
, I’m fine.  Uncle Lars said he could only pay me enough to trap me here for a little while.”

“Well a mother has a right to worry.”

“Never saw that in the Constitution. I do think God put it down somewhere as an amendment to the big ten.”

“Honey,
don’t talk like that.  Here. I made your favorite honey ham casserole and apple crisp.  You can microwave them.”

“Mom, I….oh, never
mind.  Does it have the Lays potato chips instead of the Pringles as a crust?”  She smiled. 

“The IGA was out of Pringles
, so I went over to Cash and Carry on Spruce.  They also had a special on….”

“Thanks, Mom.
”

“That job is open down at the school, you know.”

“That’s because half the county works down there, Mom.”

“You can’
t hide from your life.  It’s just not healthy.”

“I know
.  Anna said I can’t escape.”

“Leave Anna out of it, Susan.”

“Sorry, Mom.  Mom!”  The door slammed.  I’m such an ass.  I’ll have to apologize for that one on Sunday after church.  Where was I with Mr. Vanilla….well I might as well make him tall, dark, and dangerous.  Screw it.  I’ll start over.  Who wants to hear about me holed up behind some dive?  Might as well add spice to life.  As the sound of the fan ticked faintly overhead I found myself drifting…where had I left off? Something about a path to nowhere.  Oh yea…” And with that she was gone.

“
Maybe they weren’t walking anywhere.  Susan watched the couple from her office window walking hand and hand and smiled.  Susan was going to be a spring bride.  Her mother started the plans for the wedding last February, soon after he proposed to her on Valentine's Day.  Everyone was squealing with glee at how lucky she was.  Susan chewed the end of her pencil and then tapped the eraser on the desk.  She wasn’t so sure.

“Lover boy on line one
!  Nina shouted.  Susan smiled and picked up the phone.  They made the usual chit chat.  Harris was a good guy.  He went off and got his business degree after being the starring quarterback for the Vikings.  Came back and worked behind the scenes with the city council to really beef up the Apple Fest.  Solid hardworking guy.  It was hard to pinpoint when she and Harris actually met or fell in love.  He was the most popular guy around with his big wide shoulders and fierce football arm.  On Monday morning he would come screaming up to the school in the latest corvette from Bill’s Chevrolet and all the kids would gather around him like he was a king.  I guess a conquering warrior would be more like it.  Most of the old men around town either blamed Harris for the Viking’s wins or they blamed him for the losses.  I personally never understood how one person could be blamed for a game that had over twenty people on the field at any one time.  Most of the time, Susan would hang back with her friends and smile as she saw the flashy red corvette come driving up the driveway.  He would smile at her through the mass of people; but somehow he knew he was King Viking and his job was to recognize his royal subjects.  Susan did not have the patience for all that foolishness.  She did not have the patience, and his royal subjects did not want her.

S
usan was no slouch either.  She was very beautiful with loose, messy golden curls falling down her back.  She was on the volleyball team that took state.  Both she and her dad were graceful and moved like finely conditioned athletic machines.  They couldn’t help it that all their Nordic ancestors gave them that screaming six-foot edge over all the other country girls out there.  Susan made “As” in math and science and was even the Apple Fest queen, but even when she was in middle school, she was cutting out pictures of Fiji and Mt. Everest.  Susan had a hunger for the world and foreign places, and Uncle Lars would let her cut up the old
National Geographics
for whatever she wanted.  Her aunt just about had a heart attack when she got a call from the school that Susan posted the African women in her locker.  The school was in a tizzie because the African women were “naked,” but Susan was really mesmerized by the condition of the village in the photograph.  She posted those pictures to remind herself to compare specific aspects of town as she walked through.  She knew one day she would travel to these exotic, unusual places.  Susan sat across from the principal and frowned as she balled up her treasured photos and dropped them in the trash.  Her aunt apologized and promised it would not happen again as she herded Susan out of the office.  Auntie was a third grade teacher down the hall and ran interference for her family every time trouble was brewing.  Susan wasn’t sure she was ready to settle down.  She wanted to see the sights and travel.  For now she was going to have to marvel at the sights while avoiding the watchful eyes of Auntie.

Susan could hear Harris yelling for her down the hall as she walked out of the back of the school
.  She blew hard at the curl hanging over her eyes and thought in irritation.  “Why does he always come running when I want to be alone!  If I could get away from him then I could go find some more pictures.”

“Susan
!  Hey stop!  Hey girl!  It’s me, Harris!” Susan kept walking.

Susan ducked behind the field house as she heard the door to the school swing open
.  Harris was yelling and yelling as she waited.

“Surely he will go away if he doesn’t see me!”

She was still so irritated and grieving about her lost village that she really could not think of a single person she wanted to talk with.  She had at least twenty more magazines she could investigate for something else to capture her attention.  She began to hum as she planned her afternoon, certain she had ditched Harris and would have peace and quiet on the way home.

She had taken possibly fifteen
steps when she noticed she was being watched.  Her heart quickened just a bit as the golden blonde boy with the blue eyes and broad smile waved in her direction.

“Oh God, “she gasped.  “O
h no, did Bob see me ditch Harris? Would he tell anyone what he had seen? How would she explain it?”

Susan flashed a quick
, embarrassed smile before stepping out onto the sidewalk that would lead her to her home.

Harris was another problem
.  Okay, well he was not so much a problem as just problematic.  In the beginning, she was actually flattered by his attention.  She was exuberant, filled with life and beauty who kept her grades at a stellar level while she lived a pretty wild and out-of-control social life.  She never did anything bad, so to speak.  Her sweet dad used to whisper in her Momma’s ear, “She is just full of life…just like her good-looking momma!”

Her mother would giggle and push him away before saying, “Yeah
!  And that is what you should worry about!”

Whet
her Harris fell in love with Susan’s natural beauty and charming demeanor, or he was enchanted by the continual stream of stated dreams and flowing ideas, it is hard to say.  Something attracted the most popular guy in the school to the most unimpressed girl in the world.  Nina told Susan that she was made all the more beautiful by her disregard for Harris’s position.  She claimed that Harris was so used to having girls hanging on him that her apparent disregard for his level of popularity intrigued him, and wanted to make him fight for her attention.  Sadly for Harris, the more he tried to impress her, the less impressed she was.

Susan continued to look over her shoulder for Harris
.  She did feel guilty about ditching him, but she was so upset about her lost village.  Those old biddies at school have never been ten feet outside the Alexandria city limits sign.  Susan did not want to be stuck here for the rest of her life.  There was a big, wide world out there, and she intended to see it.  Today she was dodging Harris because of her lost village, but tomorrow she would be using Harris’ money to go discover as many new villages as she could find.  Paris, Rome, and Cairo were all real; all she had to do was figure out how to get a passport and she was on her way.  Harris would just have to wait on her to finish her dreams.

Of course, Susan and Harris’ d
ads never doubted that the young lovers would be together.  How many times had she and Harris sat watching the Viking game as Harris’ dad told her dad about the great Viking grandsons they would have one day.  Nina would poke her in the side as Susan rolled her eyes.

“
Y’know Nina, I’m not sure why they are so eager to marry me off!” Susan just watched as the stadium exploded in recognition of the magnificence of Harris’s last pass.

“I really have no desire for marriage or kids or houses in Alexandria
.  Nina, you know what I really want? I want to graduate and join the Peace Corps!”

Nina gasped and looked at Susan in disbelief
.  “Have you lost your mind!  If you leave town for three years with the Peace Corps you will come back and your husband will be married to another woman!”

“Oh don’t be silly, Nina
!  I don’t have a husband!”

“Well
, how about you tell those two guys up there about that.”  Nina pointed at the two dad’s happily picking out names for their Viking football star grandsons.

It w
asn’t like Susan and Harris really had all that much of a choice.  Harris’ dad owned Bill’s Chevrolet, just off I-94 and sat on most of the church boards and the chamber of commerce in town.  Susan’s dad owned three hotels, and way too many big boy toys for fishing and skiing.  He wasn’t as big a hot-shot as Mr. Larsen, but both families ended up together quite often between the St. Olaf’s and city clean-up events.  Harris and Susan looked like Alexandria’s perfect couple.  Each of them came from successful families who were known by nearly everyone.  Harris was tall and handsome.  Clearly he would take over the car company as rightful King Chevrolet, and Susan was the perfect quirky, colorful rich girl who would make a typical, but interesting wife.  Even before graduation, Harris had already taken over as the solid manly foundation who would protect Susan from her over-emotional female drama-queen antics.

Susan
’s and Harris’s parents were so pleased with the match that Susan never stopped to consider “why,” nor did she accept that Harris was the one with whom she was meant to be.  Susan laughed to herself at the thought of “Harris, the man of her future.”  Susan enjoyed the things money would buy.  Even the fast cars were fun, and pretty clothes had a place in her closet.  Most of all, she enjoyed Harris’s bravado.  Everything should have been wonderful, but Susan had one problem that she had kept secret.  A problem that she kept hidden deep inside her heart until she was alone in her room in the dark each night.

The problem was Bob
.  Bob was the center on Harris’s football team, and even though he was a bruiser on the field, he was just a wallflower when it came down to hanging around in school.  Bob lived next door to Susan the whole time she was growing up.  Every morning they would wait for the bus together, unless it got too cold, and Auntie would drive them to school on her way to work.  He would smile and kind of give her a small shy wave every morning when they parted ways.  From seventh grade on, his cheeks would blush red like a gnome on Christmas every time he saw her.  Susan couldn’t tell if it was her or the frosty air most of the time.  Susan really liked Bob.  He was kind and quiet.  During his football days he was something to look at too.  Most of us girls would admit it in the locker room to each other, but since he never made any moves or went to any parties, nobody could ever boast about what Bob was
really
like.

As Susan hung up the phone on
Harris, she curled her hair around her pinky finger and worried.

“What’s wrong?” Nina asked.

“What?”

“
Nothing?” Susan replied.

“That big
sigh is the universal sign for Susan’s depression.  Get her chocolate, a beer, or a man.”

“Stop it
!  Someone will hear you!”  Susan giggled.

“Well, spill it, or I’m going to tell
Harris about our trip to the University of Minnesota and all of those foreign exchange students you…”

“Nina
!  All right.  Listen….Harris is a great guy.  He’s funny and stable.  Our families get along great…”

“But…
”

“No, buts
.  It’s just that…”

“You’ve got your eye on some other hot number.”

“Nina, just stop it.  Just got the jitters.  Here comes Jenkins with the quarterlies.  He’s going to say he needs them yesterday.”

“He needs everything yesterday.”

Susan sighed again.  Nina yelled, “I heard that.”  Susan told herself she had nothing to complain about.  She tried to suppress the nagging ache in her chest for Bob, and bury herself in the rest of her phone calls and emails she had to answer before the end of her shift.  When the ache returned on her way home from work, she chalked it up to jitters.  Besides Harris really was a great guy and life promised to be all roses between her stepping into managing her dad’s hotels and Harris expanding Bill’s Chevrolet into some more tourist types of rental vehicles.  She pictured herself with a white picket fence and summers in the nicer parts around Lake Carlos with her kids roasting marshmallows, and Harris hunting and fishing in the fall with his buddies.