Coming Attractions (31 page)

Katie turned on the music and tried to find something to sing along to. She wanted to get something else stuck in her head
besides the mesmerizing image of Eli thumping his palm on his chest. Annoying lyrics would be fine.

Nothing seemed to stick.

She pulled onto the freeway and made a to-do list aloud. “Find a dress for the wedding, pick up the dove from the pet store,
call Julia to see if she needs help with any wedding details, go on duty at the desk at seven o’clock this evening, maybe
eat something eventually.”

Katie went on lining up a second list for Thursday. And another for Friday. She knew she could find plenty to occupy herself
Saturday with the wedding. Then Sunday she would have to move somewhere. That would keep her busy. Monday she would look for
a job. That probably would take a few days. By then, a full week would have passed. Although she didn’t know when Eli planned
to return to Kenya, she thought a week might cover it.

Just one more week. Then he will be far away, and I’ll be able to focus on what God wants me to do next.

Ignoring the sensation of the hoof-stomping buffaloes in her stomach, Katie kept driving. When she arrived at the old mall
in Escondido, she thought of how this place used to be such a familiar hangout. Like most things in life, it had changed.
Many of the smaller shops had either gone out of business or moved to another section of the mall.

Surprisingly, the old pet shop now was located in the happening side of the mall and had expanded to twice the size it had
been when Christy worked there. When Katie walked in, she noticed that it still had the same rabbit-pellet and hamster-shaving
fragrance.

Jon was behind the register and didn’t recognize Katie at first. When he did, he acted like they were hanging out at a party,
chatting away.

“So you’re not married, huh?”

“Nope.”

“Living with anyone?”

“Jon.”

“Hey, you wouldn’t be the first one who recited all her Christian principles to me at sixteen and changed them by the time
she was twenty-one.”

His statement churned her stomach even more and for reasons she didn’t want to think about. She knew she was among a small
number of her friends who had stayed strong in her walk with Christ, kept to her moral commitments, and was holding out for
a hero.

“Then I guess I’m one of a rare and nearly extinct breed of God-lovers who still lives and breathes what she believed back
then. Only now it’s more real than ever because it’s in me. God’s Spirit is in me, changing me. Not just around me, influencing
me.”

Her direct response seemed to startle him. He had no comeback.

“So do you have the dove?”

Jon pointed at the clock on the wall behind him. “It’s not two o’clock yet.”

Katie saw that it was only 1:20.

“Okay, fine. I’ll come back then.”

She went to the food court and walked by each of the fast food booths to see what her poor stomach might handle. She went
for a healthy fruit smoothie with a booster of vitamin C. Then she hit the main department store and three smaller chain clothing
stores before finding a classy black dress that fit and didn’t make her fidget. All that in less than two hours.

Katie felt pretty victorious when she returned to the pet store with her new dress on a hanger inside a garment bag.

“It’s after two o’clock,” Jon said with a sour curl on the end of his words. “I’ve been holding the bird for you for more
than an hour.”

“Well aren’t you Mr. Sunshine? Is this how you treat all your paying customers? I said I’d be back; I didn’t say when. I had
some shopping to do.” Katie held up the garment bag in case he hadn’t noticed the obvious. “So what are you waiting for, mister?
Hand over the dove, and nobody gets hurt.”

Jon reached behind the counter and lifted a small cage with a lovely white dove that greeted Katie with a rapid string of
coo-cooing.

“She’s so sweet,” Katie said. “I’ll need some food for her. Just a couple of days’ worth. And you are sure that she’s okay
in the wild, right? I mean, when I release her she’s not so domesticated that she won’t know how to find food and take care
of herself.”

“She’ll be fine.”

Katie paid Jon the agreed amount for the bird and the food. She was about to go when he said, “I think you’ll be fine too.”

Katie gave him a funny look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“If you ever spring outta that cage of yours and flap your wings out there in the wild, I think you’ll be fine, Katie. You
might be an endangered-species sort of Christian, but survival of the fittest, you know. You’ll hold your own in the wild.”

“Jon, that was outright poetic. Thank you. And here I thought you were turning into an old grump. Take it easy, Mr. Sunshine.
I’ll tell Christy you say hi.”

“Tell her to come in and visit sometime.”

“I will.” Katie left with the caged dove in one hand and her new and improved bridesmaid dress in the other.

She felt better driving back to school than she had on the drive to Escondido. Jon’s comment about her holding her own in
the wild kept floating around in her thoughts. That was a pretty nice thing for him to say. She wondered if he thought her
cage was the Christian college she had been living at for the past few years. Or was he alluding to more? Like she could spring
out of the comfy western lifestyle to which she was so accustomed and hold her own living in a developing country.

It didn’t matter what he meant. She was feeling pretty good at the moment, and food was sounding interesting once again.

Instead of going directly to school, she drove through a fast food restaurant and ordered a grilled chicken sandwich. Taking
the long way back to school, Katie nibbled as she drove. The dove had taken to cooing from its position on the floor on the
passenger’s side.

“Are you hungry too, little friend? I’ll feed you something as soon as we’re back at school. But first I need to make a stop.
Here.” Katie tore off a corner of the bread from her sandwich and pressed it through the wires. The dove pecked at the bun
and appeared only mildly interested.

“I’ll give you your own food soon. I promise.”

Pulling into Todd and Christy’s apartment complex, Katie went to the office. The less-than-friendly manager remembered her
from when she had reported the dead cat, Mr. Jitters, last fall.

“I was wondering if you had any open apartments.”

“Not until the first of the month.”

“I’d be interested in it.”

He went through the rundown of the requirement of first and last months’ rent and what was included and not included in the
rates. He gave her an application to fill out and stressed the need for her credit report to be clear.

“Got it,” Katie said. “Thanks. I’ll drop these papers back tomorrow.”

“Not only the papers, but also a cashier’s check. I don’t take personal checks. First and last plus security deposit. And
it’s extra for pets.”

“How much extra?”

“Depends on the pet. Whatcha got?”

“No pets. I was just curious.”

Katie drove back to campus, counting the days before June 1. She hadn’t asked the manager, but she assumed she would be moving
into Rick and Eli’s apartment. After she moved out of the dorm on Sunday, she would need to find someplace to stay until the
apartment was available. Todd and Christy’s living room was an option. Going to a hotel was an option.

What if I took a vacation for a few days? That would be fun. Who would go with me? Where would I go?

She smiled to herself.
I’m fully immunized. I could even take one of those sketchy old people’s cruises through the Panama Canal. Or I could lounge
around at a resort in the Bahamas. That would be a nice graduation present to myself.

Glancing down at the caged dove, she heard Jon’s words about how she would be okay if she were released into the wild.

Or I could go to Africa.

Her heart beat a little faster. The pull to that corner of the world wouldn’t go away.

I could go to Africa except Eli’s going there, and even though it’s a big continent, I don’t want to look as if I’m following
him to the ends of the earth.

Then, in an attempt to spiritualize her small epiphany about her draw to Africa, Katie said aloud, “But I do want to follow
you to the ends of the earth, Lord. Where do you want me to go? Say the word, and I’m there.”

“Coo,” the dove sounded.

“The Land of Coo, you say. Exactly where is that, my little dove?” Katie had stopped at a light. She realized the man in the
car beside her was looking at her. She pushed the button that rolled up her window.

Turning her attention back to the traffic light, she said, “Don’t mind me, Mr. Nosey. This is what college graduates do. We
drive around and talk to birds that you can’t see just so you think we’re talking to ourselves.”

Heading up the hill for the university, Katie thought aloud. “I would have to sell my car if I went to the Land of Coo, wouldn’t
I? You know, I could sell it to Christy. For a dollar. I’ve heard of people doing that. That way she and Todd would have a
second car and you, little Clover, would have a new family.”

“Coo. Coo.”

“I know. You’re right. I am cuckoo for even thinking about this. I’ll take Rick and Eli’s old apartment, and I’ll find a job
somewhere doing something important and life-changing. You’ll see. You can fly over and visit anytime you want. I’ll put bird
seed out for you the way Christy used to put cat food out for Mr. Jitters.”

Katie held the birdcage behind her garment bag when she returned to Crown Hall. She knew the rules. No animals. This was different,
though. This little dove was going to play an important part in Julia’s wedding in three days. Certainly in this case an exception
should be made.

She couldn’t do it.

Katie turned around and walked back to her car. She drove back down the hill to where Christy worked and left the bird in
the car. Entering the bookstore, Katie found Christy stocking shelves in the Bible section.

“I need to ask a favor. Can you keep a secret and a bird?”

It didn’t take much to convince Christy to agree to birdie-sit for Katie for the next three days. The only part of Katie’s
explanation that upset Christy was when Katie told Christy she had driven all the way to the pet store in Escondido and not
taken her along.

“Jon wants you to go in sometime and say hi. And when you do, I think you should take him one of these Bibles. An easy-to-understand
version. He needs some hope, light, and truth in his life.”

With the dove and bird food handed off to Christy, Katie returned to campus and found Julia in her room. Julia had prepared
a list of small wedding tasks and was grateful that Katie offered to take care of them for her. Katie accomplished half the
list while she was on-duty at the front desk that evening. She called the campus grounds supervisor to verify the number of
chairs they would need to set up. She called the events rental company and left a message asking them to call back and verify
that they had the right length white runner for the center aisle and that it would be delivered along with the garden arch
before ten o’clock Saturday morning. The final call Katie made for Julia was to the tux rental shop. They were still open,
and Katie asked if the groom and the best man had picked up their tuxes. The answer was yes.

The rest of the items on the list Katie attacked one-by-one on Thursday in between packing up her room. Her greatest organizational
tip from Nicole that semester had been, “Only keep what you consider to be beautiful or useful.” That motto helped her to
decide on a whole lot of miscellaneous items that had served their purpose.

She went from simple living to bare essential living after two trips to the Dumpster and loading three boxes of giveaways
in the Salvation Army trailer that parked on campus every year during the last week of school.

Katie’s worldly possessions could fit in the backseat of her car. She felt like a gypsy. She even parted with the stand of
a table lamp that had burned out at the beginning of her sophomore year, but she had kept, saying she would have it repaired.
The lamp was toasted and needed to be tossed. Her next task was to take down what was left of the decorations of their hall’s
Peculiar Treasures theme from that year.

Carrying the lamp stand and her final trash bag through the lobby and out the front door, Katie nearly ran into Rick.

“Hey!”

“Hey, yourself.”

“Hey, it’s Thursday,” Katie said.

“Yes, Thursday.”

He looked great. A little nervous, but his true, suave self.

“So Nicole told me you guys are going to hit an art show and then have dinner someplace tall.”

“Someplace tall,” Rick repeated.

“You know, some place high. A tall restaurant.”

He nodded. “You’re sure you’re okay with this, Katie?”

She laughed at her own gibberish. “Yes, really, I am. I didn’t expect to see you here. Not like this.” She was in her oldest
T-shirt, which she planned to throw away at the end of the day. Squaring her shoulders, Katie gave Rick a smile. “Have a great
time. I hope you guys have fun.”

“I hope so too.”

Katie turned to head to the Dumpster when Rick said, “Oh, hey, Katie, did you get the email about the café opening? It’s set
for Saturday.”

“This Saturday?”

“Yes. We got the pizza oven installed and cleared the electrical inspection. Everything is a go.”

“I have a wedding this Saturday. Julia’s. I don’t think I’ll be able to do both.”

“Right, the wedding. Well, I hope that goes well too.”

“Thanks. Congratulations, though, on the café and on reaching your goal and everything.” Katie lifted the stem of the broken
lamp she held in her hand. “Here’s to you, Rick. A job well done.”

He laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever been toasted with a lamp before.”

“Well, it’s a toasted lamp, so there you go.”

Katie made a point not to return immediately to her floor after dumping the trash. She didn’t want to go past Nicole’s room
and see her in her perfectly gorgeous, dressed-up state of happiness. The two of them were going to work together on the wedding
flowers the next day. Katie imagined she would receive enough of a report then to fill in for any visual glimpses of Nicole
on her way to meet Rick.