Coming Attractions (25 page)

They were stopped at a red light. Katie looked over at him, hoping her expression looked as clueless as she was trying to
make it appear.

Eli’s gaze was on her. He placed his hand on his chest and said one simple word. “Us.”

Katie felt the herd of buffalos in her stomach.

K
atie avoided Eli’s comment and heartfelt gesture.

She pulled onto the freeway and put the music back on. The really hard part of avoiding where Eli was trying to take the conversation
was that she no longer felt the freedom to talk to him. Their free exchange had been so great before.

Consider this loss of conversation a casualty of your present campaign, Katie. The campaign to keep all the wiggly lines of
your life nice and straight and untangled. It’s better this way. You’ll see.

Eli took her silence as he had taken all the other curves she had tossed at him. He wasn’t miffed. Or if he was, he didn’t
show it. He didn’t bully his way back into the conversation or badger her until she responded.

Eli seemed to be at rest. At ease, so to speak.

His lack of aggression gave Katie the space to move around without having to step on the unaddressed topic. She thought that
was gracious of Eli, to let sleeping topics lie.

They drove a long time with only the music making words between them.

After Katie had pulled into a parking spot in the lot by Crown Hall, she turned off the engine and reached for her purse.
“Thanks for inviting me to go with you, Eli. It was amazing. Really, really amazing.”

“It was. Are you going to the caf now for some breakfast?”

“No, I think I’ll crawl back into bed.”

A tense pause followed. Neither of them moved. Eli’s expression made it clear that he was no longer completely at ease.

Did he think I would open up to him once we were back on campus?

Katie felt the tension but didn’t know what to do. She didn’t see any point in opening up her heart to any possibilities with
Eli. She wasn’t going to poke around to see what sort of feelings for Eli might be dormant, waiting for a springtime whim
to give them freedom to burst into bloom.

No, Eli’s unrequited feelings for Katie would have to remain frozen and covered in their seed stage. He would soon return
to Kenya, and Katie was certain she would fall to the bottom of his list of things to think about. If Eli were the man she
thought he was, he could handle that.

Apparently he could because he said good-bye and left Katie without pressing her any further.

Good. That was good. All of it. Settled.

Katie returned to her room and crawled back into bed and slept less than an hour before two women on her floor came to her
room in a fluster. Both of them had lost their room keys. Katie got up, solved their dilemma, and ate some cereal in her room
while staring out the window.

Get it in gear, Weldon. Come on, you have things to do today.

The rest of the day Katie spent walking in circles. She had paperwork to file with student services and banking to do down
the hill.

Next to her bank was a chain drugstore with a sign in the window announcing free flu shots. Katie paused. The sign looked
as if it had been posted since last December. She wondered for a moment what other immunizations could be obtained at the
pharmacy inside the drugstore. She knew from the brief time she had spent in the meeting with the outreach team that, if she
ever did want to go to Africa, she would need some shots. And malaria pills. If she could take those shots now, she would
be ready to go to Africa whenever she wanted. She would have the malaria pills too.

It seemed logical. Be prepared for future adventures. Get stuff checked off the list.

Katie finished her banking business and went into the drugstore. Before she had time to change her mind, she went to the pharmacy
in the back to ask a bunch of questions.

Twenty-five minutes later, Katie left the drugstore with a small Band-Aid on her left arm and a filled prescription for malaria
pills in her hand.

She hurried back to school for commencement rehearsal at four. Eli waved at her during the rehearsal, and she waved back.

Good. No hard feelings.

She noticed when she lifted her arm that it was sore.

Afterward Katie dashed into town with three of the women on her floor, who had arranged for a special dinner for the four
of them, saying they wanted to do something extra with Katie to celebrate her graduation. They laughed over some of the experiences
they had shared. Vicki teased Katie about the time Katie hid Vicki’s shoes in the oven for a prank and they melted.

What humbled Katie was the way all three of the underclass-women said that she had encouraged them, motivated them, and inspired
them this past year. Katie never would have given herself as high of an evaluation as an RA. She told them she felt as if
she were running all year and never quite finished anything she started.

“Speaking of finishing things,” Vicki said. “We heard you finished your relationship with Rick.”

Katie nodded. She didn’t add any details because she didn’t feel like going down that conversational trail.

“That had to be hard,” Emily said.

“It was. But the decision was right. It was true. It came from my heart. So!” Katie drew in a breath. “On to the next topic.
Tell me what all of you are doing this summer.”

Their dinner ended without Katie giving any further details about her adjusted love life. In a small way she felt as if she
better understood why Julia had kept the details of her engagement quiet for so long. Nothing like a community of college
students living in close quarters to spread around a juicy bit of love-life information.

Once Katie returned to campus, she headed to Julia’s for the pre-graduation party for all the Crown Hall RAs and RDs. Katie
was late, but it didn’t seem to matter. Everyone seemed weary, mellow, and not quite ready to celebrate the graduation milestone.

After an hour and a half, the low-key conversations and the closeness in the small space got to Katie. She left while the
party was still going, saying she had laundry to do, which was true. Surprisingly, she stopped herself right before announcing
to those gathered in the room that she really wanted to have clean underwear to wear to graduation. Instead, she slipped out
of the room with her lips sealed.

Note to self: Way to finally demonstrate a little prudence.

Striding down the hall back to her room, Katie thought,
So where were you, Miss Prudence and Miss Temperance, at the beginning of this year? You decided to show up a little late
in my college career, didn’t you? Are you by chance a little graduation present for me? Feel free to stick around, will you?

Once her clothes were in the washer, Katie returned to her room and loaded the photos from that morning onto her computer.
She had promised her friend Sierra a nice long email before graduation day, and here Katie was, right down to the wire, as
usual.

Sierra and Katie had met in England several years earlier when both of them were volunteering with a mission outreach organization.
It was the same organization Todd and Eli had signed up for when they met in Spain.

After a year at Rancho, Sierra went to Brazil last summer and hadn’t come back. According to her last email, Sierra told Katie
she didn’t plan to return to the States anytime soon. Originally intending to take some classes and do some outreach work,
once Sierra had settled in with her host family and their church, she took a position helping a teacher teach English to high
school students at a private school.

Sierra loved what she was doing and, according to her bubbly reports, had learned to communicate in Portuguese, the language
of her Brazilian students. She wasn’t fluent, but she could get by.

Selecting three of the best sunrise photos, Katie attached them to her brief but newsy email to Sierra. Katie had a lot to
cover, starting with her breakup with Rick, babysitting darling baby Daniel, and her new car. She left out any mention of
Eli. She knew by the time she wrote Sierra again Eli would be only a lovely memory.

With a push of the Send button, Katie looked at the clock: 1:15. As much as she wanted to step into one of her online social
networks and check in on all her pals near and far, she turned off her laptop and turned out the lights. Her thoughts were
all over the place, and she knew she needed sleep more than she needed any more socializing, real or virtual.

By the next morning she felt she was getting her brain back.

Christy called right after Katie returned to her room from her shower. “Good morning to my favorite college graduate! I wanted
to be the first to congratulate you.”

“Thanks, Chris. You guys are coming to the ceremony, aren’t you? It’s going to be in the gym.”

“Yes, we’ll be there. Bob and Marti are coming too. I called Tracy last night, and she said she and Doug would try to make
it. They weren’t sure Daniel could handle being quiet through the commencement service; so they might go directly to the Doyles’
house afterward. This is going to be so fun, being all together again!”

“I know. I can’t wait. I have to dry my hair now. I’ll see you soon.”

A few weeks ago, Katie and Nicole had managed to squeeze in a two-hour shopping trip. Katie found the perfect black dress
to wear for Julia’s wedding and decided it would double for her graduation dress. Nicole talked her into some fun black shoes
by saying, “You won’t be able to borrow my shoes that day because I’ll be wearing them.”

With her hair dried, her dress on, her new shoes in place, and wearing just enough make-up to feel pretty, Katie tried to
decide if she should add some jewelry. That’s when she remembered the expensive brooch Rick had presented to her. She needed
to give it back.

Tucking the box in her purse, Katie figured she could find a convenient time at Rick’s parents’ house that afternoon to return
the brooch. She didn’t want to draw any attention to the transaction, so she knew she would have to be sensitive about the
timing.

Katie took the garment bag with her commencement gown and cap from the closet. Leaving her room in high spirits, she trotted
down the hall to Nicole’s room, where she tapped on the door.

“Bring out your graduates!” she called.

Nicole opened her door. She had a quizzical look on her face.

Katie knew that indecisive look. She immediately said the same sort of thing she had said to Nicole on other occasions. “You
look wonderful. Don’t even think about changing. Come on. Let’s go.”

“Are you sure? I had this skirt on earlier with this top and — ”

“Nope. The dress you’re wearing is perfect. Let’s go.” Katie reached for Nicole’s garment bag containing her cap and gown.

“But I was thinking — ”

“Aha! That’s your problem right there. Don’t think. Go with your gut. Look at yourself in the mirror. Turn around. See? Do
you look amazing? Go ahead. Say it.”

“I do like this dress and the way it hangs from here. But…”

“See? You like it! That’s your final answer. Go with it. Come on. Besides, you’re going to wear a generic robe over your dress
for the first half of the day.”

“I know, but at the party we won’t be wearing our robes.”

“We could if we wanted to. We could start a new tradition.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll go with this one.”

“That’s the Nicole I was waiting for. Come on, grab your purse. It’s over there. You need anything else?”

“Oh, I almost forgot.” Nicole reached for a gift bag. The striped bag had yellow and pink polka-dotted tissue paper peeking
out the top.

“For me? You shouldn’t have.”

“No, sorry. It’s for Rick’s mom. A little thank-you gift.”

Katie hadn’t even thought about buying a gift for Rick’s mom. She knew better too, because in the past social etiquette required
that she show up with a thank-you gift whenever they went to his parents’ house for a special occasion. Nicole had joined
them last Thanksgiving and presented Rick’s mom with the perfect potted flowers while Katie came with a too-large box of too-expensive,
hand-dipped chocolates that Rick’s mom didn’t even open because she was trying to watch her weight.

“And by the way,” Nicole added, “I signed the card from both of us.”

“You did? Thanks, Nicole. You covered for me once again. You’re wonderful.”

The two of them started down the hall.

“So what did we buy her?”

“Bath salts.”

Katie laughed. “No, really, what did you get her?”

“It’s a special sort of bath salts and lotion. The brand she likes is hard to find. I think it’s because the bath salts are
from the Dead Sea.”

Katie, who had never used bath salts in her life, knew she would never have come up with such a gift. Who knew salts from
the Dead Sea, of all places, would constitute a highly valued gift?

Katie thought about how Nicole fit so nicely with Rick’s family. Too bad Rick hadn’t yet come to that conclusion. She thought
about going back on her original decision of not nudging him toward Nicole. It had been almost seven weeks since she had broken
up with him. Rick and Nicole had been together on several occasions, but the dense Doyle hadn’t given any indication he was
interested in her.

Katie decided that when she took Rick aside to give him back the brooch, she would find a subtle way to find out what was
going on. Not that subtle was one of her strengths.

A sudden thought hit her. Maybe Rick hadn’t pursued Nicole because he was interested in someone else. Someone he had hired
for the new café, perhaps. If that were the case, Katie wanted to know about it.

As they approached the swarm of other graduates gathering by the side door of the gym, both Nicole and Katie stopped in their
tracks.

“Katie, I thought we were supposed to bring our gowns, not wear them.”

All the grads standing there were capped and gowned.

“I thought so too. We can put ours on here and toss the hangers and bags in the bushes or something.”