Who Loves Her? (3 page)

The next morning at work
, Nina handed Susan her coffee and blurted, “You’ve got to tell him.”

“Tell who what?

“Mr. Wonderpants!  You have to tell him that you are getting married.”

“Nina!”
When they were in high school and about to get the winning championship for volleyball, Susan had just accidently run around the corner and bumped into Bob in one of those awkward ways where hands go where they shouldn’t, but it was all an accident.  Bob about ran to get away, but Susan couldn’t help detailing to the entire group about the “bump and run.”  Bob forever after had the nickname Mr. Wonderpants because the whole volleyball team teased Susan about wondering what was in Bob’s pants.

“You’ve got to tell him.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“If you don’t tell him, I will.”

“Wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me
.  I need a little excitement in my life.  Bill is all about boats, lures, and whatever the Vikings are not doing during the football season.  Might as well watch you squirm like a worm.”

“What if
Harris found out?”

“Found out what?  That you didn’t have a crush on him?  Half the school knew you had a crush on Bob
.  Somebody should have told Bob since he was clearly too dense to notice it for himself.  Nina got a mocking look of disgust on her face before grinning broadly at Susan.

“
Tell him or I will!  I’ll give you until next week,” Nina offered advice as she tried to push Susan to acceptance.

“Oh, and if I have to be the one to tell him Miss Susie Q, I’m also going to tell him you had his name
tattooed right across the left cheek of your ass!” Together the two girls fell down laughing at the imaginary sight of one word on a half of a butt: BOB.

Susan sighed happily as she looked at her friend
.  “Just do it somewhere public, like the church potluck or something,” said Nina.  “Somewhere that he won’t feel cornered, and you won’t feel like a stalker.”  Their laughter was renewed, and suddenly the thought of telling Bob felt like the right thing to do.

Susan considered her options, and decided that Nina was right since if she went through with this marriage without telling Bob, she’d never quite forgive herself
.  She knew she would have too many eyes watching during church, so she decided to wander down to the hardware store after work.  Bob was working on refinishing his boat because it was always out front during the summer months.  Mrs. Bergland, from the Fellowship committee at St. Olaf’s reported that you could set your clock by Bob.  He would be at Viking Village coffee before work and Ole’s Hardware after work, every day except Friday, when he went to Luigi’s Tavern to meet up with the rest of who he could find from the high school football team.

Susan was in luck
.  She pretended she was looking for a lag bolt for the loose step on her porch when Bob waltzed in.  Bob stepped into the store as the bell on the door signaled the arrival of the next customer.  Susan moved like a cat working her body imperceptibly back behind the metal rack holding the bolts and screws.  From her vantage point, she was able to study Bob’s movements without being seen.  A smile played across her face as she watched the big guy lean down to pet Dusty, the official owner of Ole’s Hardware.
 
Dusty was one of those beaten up lost kittens that show up magically in the strangest of places.  As they look up helplessly, wedged in behind an ice cooler or the bottom of a small pipe, their eyes scream: “Help me human!  You are my last hope on earth.”  No one really knows how long Dusty has been around.  All they know is he will be there at the hardware store to greet every single customer and he will be damned glad to see you once you arrive.

As Dusty plopped down at the end of the corner to watch the business transaction at hand, Bob looked behind him
.  Her voice caught in the back of her throat as she realized that Bob must have felt he was on display to some prying eyes.  With a touch of shame, she began to dig through the bolts once again, holding her breath, unsure of how to proceed into these uncharted waters.

“Hey, Bob!”

Bob blushed every time.  “Um…hey, Susan.”

She dropped the anonymous bolt back into the plastic bin, her nerves rattling with the metal bolts falling together.

“I hear your boat’s going to be ready for Fishing Frenzy Fridays this summer.”

“Um…hope so
.  Mostly a tourist gig, but it will give me a chance to test her out.  Hope to snag some large mouth.  Maybe a Walleye or two.  What brings you into Ole’s?”

“Oh….a lag bolt
.  I’m trying to get the old place ready to sell.  Harris said we won’t need two places after the wedding…uhm…did you know we’re getting married?” Susan felt like a mean-spirited clown as Bob attempted interest.

“Oh,
uhm when is the uhm wedding?”

She spoke with a nonchalant air, but her words seemed hurtful as
Bob winced at her last words.”

Susan answered quietly, “On
Valentine’s Day.”

Bob gave a weak smile and
began backing away from her.  Susan felt lower than a Smallmouth when the sun comes out.  Bob’s cheeks flushed again and he mumbled something about congratulations and needing to see if Ole’s had some two-hundred grit sandpaper.  She felt even lower than low when she noticed the confused look in Dusty’s eyes as Bob passed by him without even a scratch on the head.  The truth was that Susan knew how he really felt.  In many ways, she blamed Bob for their soon-to-be-lost love.  It had to be his fault; he was the man.  Susan left the store empty handed and blinked back tears as memories of Bob landed heavily in her heart.

High school wasn’t that far off
, and one night at Luigi’s, Bob spilled his guts to Larry Bratvold after one too many Keystones.  “Larry, I love her, I really do,” Bob slurred as he racked the next game of pool.

“You love who
?” Larry shot back with a laugh.  “Man, you say the damnest things sometimes.”  With that, Bob let the question drop, never clarifying his tear-in-my-beer moment to his friend.

Nina knew everything
, anyway.  She could not resist forcing her husband Larry to spill the man secrets the guys shared on beer night.  Nina kept Susan well informed and up to date on Bob through the secrets Larry shared, in spite of Nina’s promises to take it all to the grave.

Larry said that
Bob got all blubbery one night when he overheard two drunks talking about seeing Susan at the fish place.  Bob exploded in a drunken fit of anger, then basically ran them out of Luigi’s in defense of Susan’s honor. “…and this ain’t no fish place either!” Bob screamed at their retreating backs.  It was then that Bob made his odd confession.  Nina jerked straight up in the bed and looked at Larry with big eyes of concern.

“Larry!” she exclaimed:  “W
e can’t let this happen!  She just can not marry Harris because Bob and Susan are meant to be together!”

Larry rolled over and grumbled as he pulled the warm blanket around his shoulders, “Look Nina, you best just stay out of
everybody’s business.  This is none of our concern, and besides this is not just about love.  That wedding with Harris is just as much about business as it is family, and you ‘n me ain’t neither!” Nina was frustrated by Larry’s warnings and fell asleep vowing to tell Susan the whole thing.

As Nina recounted the story to Susan, t
he two young women laughed.  Susan quipped that there must be magic in the spaghetti sauce that made Italian men great romantic lovers.  The truth was that Luigi’s was no more Italian than Bob.  It was just a name Sven slapped on the place to snag the tourists.  Most of the Italian comes from a can, and all the locals know they can get Lutefisk or fish and chips from the bar kitchen.

Susan felt like crap
.  She could see in his eyes in Ole’s that her announcement about getting married had bothered him a little--well maybe a lot.  They had had a fling, if you could call it that, their freshman year at the Alexandria Technical and Community College.  He was studying to be a boat mechanic and Susan was studying to either be a teacher or a business person.  They had a couple of laughs at a party and even made out a couple of times, but when it got down to being serious and becoming a couple something just short-circuited.  He made her laugh.  Truly, even now the memories she had of their time made her warm.

Bob had always been
shy, but somehow at ATCC he’d loosened up a bit.  After a couple of rough starts and stops, they finally just drifted apart.  It seemed they were really good at starting up, admiring each other from afar; but when it came to settling into a comfortable piece of a two-part couple, they floundered.  Eventually, Bob went to work down at the marina to service the boats or sell baits.  Susan went on to college and finished her business degree.  She seemed to go through the rest of college mapping out plans for how she was gonna get Bob back into her life.  How “this” time around would be different, and they would spend the rest of their lives together, laughing, and warm.

As Susan’s thoughts turned back to the present, she felt a subtle irritation at Bob
.  All the way home from Ole’s hardware, Bob’s blushing cheeks ran through Susan’s mind.  Even in the kitchen cleaning up from last night, she kept recalling little episodes of her life where he was there.  Watching the water running to fill the sink, she remembered standing under the waterfall at Leatherman Creek as he swam past her, drops of water glistening seductively in the sunshine on his shoulders.  Susan reached up and yanked the water into the off position a little too hard.

“Why didn’t he just ‘fess up? 
Susan grew irritated sitting at the red light waiting for it to change.  “I mean, Harris is a great guy and all, but what would it have been if Bob could just blurt it out?”

Susan pondered her fate
.  Maybe it was because Bob’s dad drank their family into that little rundown apartment and that he had to quit the football team to help his mother.  But surely Bob knew that no one blamed him for the way his dad had lived his life.  She remembered the time that Bob went on a St. Olaf’s youth campout with everyone one year.  Her mom and dad had been so gracious and kind.  In truth, they really liked him and told him how happy they were that he had come with us. It’s not like anyone cared about his background.  I mean, “jeez, they bent over backward and everyone thought he was a saint the way he took care of his mom after his dad bombed out and split.  Well, whatever, fate will make it all work.  If he doesn’t have the balls to man up and tell me he loves me, then I guess this is what is supposed to happen.”

Susan closed the door to her condo with the lag bolt she didn’t need in her hand
.  With nothing in the ‘fridge, she sighed and thought about going to Luigi’s for some fish and chips.  The pile of take-out and lonely carton of expired milk was too much to look at.  Susan burst into tears over the Bob thing.  Memories flooded back over her from when they were at ATCC and how gentle and kind he was.  His shy ways were actually way different than any other man she’d met, and suddenly Harris with all his flash and his dad’s cars sounded kind of like a prick.

She ordered tak
e-out from the Chinese restaurant off Highway 29.  She tipped the pimply faced high school kid and closed the door.  The hollow feelings left by Bob’s absence were just too much.  She went into the bathroom to change.  She finished her day with sweet and sour chicken, and pills to control her occasional vertigo.  Neither was especially nourishing, but each would ensure a deep sleep.

“
When all else seems to fail, just smile and love someone
.”  As Susan read the words of her fortune cookie, she lost it.  Tears and sobs came in a river, and she blew her nose into a tissue.  For some strange reason, she smiled as she realized she sounded like a foghorn warning some fisherman about the rocks.  “I can’t take this anymore,” she thought to herself while falling into the bed. It had only been a few months.  Harris was nice, he really was.  As her eyes grew heavy and her mind quieted, a soft voice whispered, “Why had her mom set them up on that first date? Why did everything go so fast? Why was Bob so inept in his passion?” And then she slept.

The next morning came earlier than she
had expected.  With the alarm she recalled her thoughts from the previous night even before opening her eyes.  Susan felt the wistful longing of dreams left unfulfilled.  “STOP IT!”  She groaned to the empty room as she rolled out of bed.  Muttering softly, she stumbled into the bathroom.  Her eye make-up was streaked from the night before, and she was faced with a Marilyn Manson look-alike in a blonde wig.  “Harris is a great guy.  Fate makes it all work out.  You’re going to have your picket fence, a boy and girl named Olaf and Greta and…” the vertigo took over for a minute.  In defiance, she kept going.  “You are going to forget Bob and try your level best to be the picture-perfect devoted wife from now until the end.”

Showering quickly
, Susan knew she would still be late for work.  As she stepped from the shower hurried but refreshed, her reflection caught her eye.  Her movements slowed as she turned slowly watching her waist flowing to reveal the slowly traveling curve of her hip to her ass.  She inspected her body in a slow, thoughtful manner before realizing herself.  And with her flippant, characteristic way she exclaimed: “Damn, girl.  You look good.  A woman like that has to be going places!”  Suddenly Harris and her white picket fence looked great again, and she just tried to forget the longing she had felt the night before.  Besides, she had to get her story straight for Nina.

She was relentless
.  “I went to the hardware store and blah, blah blah.  Then Bob mumbled congratulations and asked about sandpaper, blah, blah, blah…no big deal, Nina.”

She
would rehearse it more in the car so she could sound convincing. 
Convincing of what?
Susan thought to herself.  She really could not figure out why she felt obligated to tell Nina anything about Bob or Harris.  Sometimes it seemed the two of them were actually one person.  A vague sense of irritation was growing in Susan’s mind as she wondered about the powers of Nina.  Strangely it seemed Nina had a sixth sense to pop up and rescue her from her tendencies for overreaction.  It is true they knew every secret about each other, but surely in the ways of adult love, a girl was entitled to a little privacy!  Still, Susan knew she would not be able to shake Nina, and she must be prepared for Nina’s fifth inquisition about her run-in with Bob.

Susan
had only gotten away with lying to Nina about how she felt a few times, and this had to be one of them.  She needed a Nina Academy Award in a big way if she had any hope of maintaining any sense of privacy regarding Bob.  With silly thoughts of imaginary awards and the soft hum of the hair dryer, Susan’s mind began to drift, and as always, her thoughts found Bob.  Susan smiled as she remembered the first time Bob had come to the rescue.  Just like a six-year-old Superman, he showed up magically to help when she was hurt and in pain.  She smiled at the memories.  Susan laid her brush down and touched the bristles as she remembered the first time she had met Bob.  As many young loves begin, a playground and swing had provided the perfect opportunity.

W
hen Susan was in kindergarten, she fell from the school swing.  She lay crying in the dirt, her wrist screaming with pain and growing black from the broken bone inside.  Bob hugged her, and walked with her to the school nurse.

He
had insisted then in his six-year-old authoritarian way that he be the one to make sure she got home.  When her mom came to collect Susan, he stood alone and disappointed at the curb; a small, solitary figure standing alone in defeat.  She smiled and watched from the backseat until they had turned the corner.  In that instant, an image was burned into her soul.  He was a pristine image of innocence; golden hair twinkling in the sun framing earnest worry on his small face.  Without awareness in that slight moment of time, Bob had become a part of her.  Without thought or intent, something in the two children was forged that day in a way that few experience.  Everyone thought it was cute.  In fact, even back then, folks at St. Olaf’s started to smile at the two little ones innocent in their companionship, and wondered if fate would bring them together as adults.  What no one understood was that fate had already made its mark.

She remember
ed the time at a middle school church retreat at Lake Carlos that Susan had dropped her hat off the side of the boat.  Before anybody could yell at him, Bob was already in the water.  As his skinny arms and legs cut the water swimming for all he was worth, she could not help but to stifle a giggle with her hand, as a thrill of excitement lightened her heart with the realization that she was someone
special
to him.  Viking or not, the cold water slows down your muscles when you are trying to swim out there too long, and Bob came mighty close that day to either drowning or getting hypothermia.  She remembered well his shivering body and clattering teeth as they sat by the fire.  He was wrapped head to toe in a wool blanket and she was wrapped heart to soul in awkward appreciation. The campfire provided the perfect setting, but Susan did not know the perfect response. Her hushed voice provided more warmth for Bob’s body than the campfire did.  She said, “Thanks.”

The sound of Susan’s voice, its sincerity and simplicity, made Bob’s heart swell with
pride.  “Don’t mention it,” Bob chattered.  Feeling clumsy, thinking that she had not thanked him enough, she gave him a small kiss on the cheek.  She was in the sixth grade, and it seemed to be what women did on television when a guy did something really stupid to try and be nice.  Bob blushed and looked at the ground.