Finding Dell (14 page)

CHAPTER 14

THE KITCHEN WAS
warm and bright, and my mom wore my great-grandmother’s apron while she cooked.

My brothers would arrive for Thanksgiving dinner in a few hours. I sat at the counter with a dish of uncooked potatoes in front of me and idly sprinkled cheddar cheese over the casserole while my mom bustled around the kitchen.

“Last year I forgot to serve the sauerkraut. Just left it sitting on the stove while we ate dinner. I remembered it after we put out dessert, and a lot of good it does you then. Do not let me forget the kraut this year,” my mom said, pointing a spatula at me to emphasize her words.

I laughed. “I don’t even like sauerkraut anyway.”

“No? But you’ve tried all sorts of new foods at college,” she protested.

“We don’t exactly sit around Georgian Grande eating sauerkraut, Mom.”

My mom huffed and blew her bangs from her face as she leaned over the stove to stir a pot of dumplings.

The phone rang and she hurried over to the receiver on the
wall, wiping her hands on her apron before bringing it to her ear. She paused to listen.

“Happy Thanksgiving to you, too, Ruby! Listen, I’m just wondering . . . does the dining hall ever serve kraut? Didn’t you have a big holiday meal there just last week?”

I dropped the spoon I was holding and leaped off the stool. I plucked the receiver from my mom’s ear.

“Ruby?” I asked, confused.

The deep Southern drawl of Ruby’s dad rattled in the background.

“Dell, hi. Your mom is so sweet,” Ruby said, sounding far away. “I couldn’t get a hold of you on your cell phone, so I thought I’d try your house number.”

“Is something wrong?”

A timer buzzed and my mom hurried to the oven with a turkey baster. When she opened the door, a blast of warm air spilled into the kitchen.

“No, no. I just thought you should know something. Cam called me and asked if he could sleep in my room on Saturday night. He said he’s planning to go back to school early and his dorm in Collier Loop isn’t open till Sunday.” The phone crackled. “I’m not planning to get back until Sunday night, so I said that’s fine. I thought you should know.”

I heard a sharp knock in the background and the shouted greetings of people arriving at her house on Ruby Ridge Road.

“Thanks for the warning,” I said.

“Our guests are walking in, so I’ve got to let you go, but give me a ring back if you want to talk before seeing Cameron this weekend.”

With a click, the line went dead. I replaced the receiver and sat back down on the bar-height stool.

“Is everything okay?” my mom asked.

“Ruby was just calling to tell me about someone who will be staying in her room on Saturday night.”

She walked over and picked up the casserole dish and set it next to the oven.

“Someone, meaning a boy?”

I laughed and swiveled the stool to face her.

“Yes, occasionally I do interact with boys in college.”

“What happened to Will?”

When I didn’t answer, my mom looked up and placed her hands on her hips, dotting the old apron with grease. I lowered my eyes and toyed with the hem of my sweater. I could pretend to be strong for so long, but when my mom looked at me with her face full of concern, I usually broke down. I wondered if that was a quality all moms had, or just mine.

When I looked up again, she set a small metal box in front of me. It was overflowing with recipes, some neatly typed by my grandmother on an old Royal typewriter, some torn from magazines, and some clipped from newspapers, the paper deepening to the color of daffodils.

“Could you find the recipe for pecan praline cookies? I can’t remember how much brown sugar to add,” she said.

Grateful for a distraction, I started thumbing through the disorganized recipe box.

“You’re overthinking it, you know. It doesn’t have to be so difficult.”

With my hands full of clipped papers, I looked up. “Mom, this box isn’t organized at all. The stuffed mushrooms are next to the orange tea cookies and I don’t know how to make it less difficult than to look through each one till I find what I’m looking for,” I said with a huff.

“No, Dell. Dating. It’s not supposed to be this difficult.”

I felt the sting of a tear at the corner of my eye.

“I loved him,” I said quietly, my voice catching in my throat. A single tear broke free and fell with a thick drop onto the ingredient list for banana nut bread.
Baking powder
darkened under the weight of my tear.

“You know what the best part of losing your first love is?”

I looked up at her through watery eyes.

“Now you’re free to find your second love, which is even more important because it comes after you thought you’d never fall in love again. Your first love is pure, but your second love is real.”

“Dad is your first love and you’ve been married over thirty years,” I protested.

“Yeah, think of what I have to look forward to next,” she said with a wink.

She walked over and wrapped her arms around me from behind, giving an extra-long squeeze. She rested her chin on my shoulder and watched as I flipped through the recipe box.

“Ah, pecan pralines,” she said. She released me from her embrace and plucked the recipe from the metal box. “I knew you’d find the right one.”

CHAPTER 15

THE WALK FROM
the train station on the Pass to Wild Mare Point wasn’t far, but it was just chilly enough to be uncomfortable. My bare fingers were numb from the cold by the time I wheeled my suitcase into my room on Saturday evening.

Paso Fino was eerily quiet, but I could hear the low volume of Ruby’s TV through the bathroom wall. I was at the closet stuffing away sweaters from my suitcase when the door opened tentatively and Cam poked his head inside.

“Want to watch a movie?” he asked. “I brought it from home.”

He set the movie on top of the TV and turned to my bed, settling into a mass of fluffy pillows.

I knelt in front of the TV to put in the movie and bit my lip. I expected Cam to sit on the floor, or on Natalie’s bed, maybe, but not on my bed. It felt so personal. I could feel his eyes on my back while I fiddled with the TV for a long moment as I debated where I should sit in relation to him.

I decided to sit a comfortable distance from Cam, but still on my bed. With the expanse of my blue comforter between us, I
felt more in control of the situation. We laughed and joked during the movie, and he hit me with a pillow twice when I made fun of how long his arms looked in his shrunken hoodie. He edged closer to me throughout the movie.

“If you had to describe me in two words, which two words would you use?”

Cam looked at me earnestly. His eyes were wide below the shock of thick, dark hair that swept across his forehead. “Electric. Undeniable.”

I turned away to hide a satisfied smirk. Cam’s words made me feel untouchable. I had never felt so sure of Will’s feelings, or even Alex’s. I felt I could do no wrong in Cam’s eyes.

Eventually, I stood up and stretched; my muscles were tight from the long train ride from Chicago. I guided Cam out the door and into Ruby’s room for the night.

The quiet in the room was deafening after an animated evening with Cam. I doubted the dorm had ever been so silent on a Saturday night. It felt strange to know that the only other person in the dorm was Cam, and we were separated by only the bathroom.

My phone vibrated with a text message and I lifted head from my pillow in surprise.

“I really wanted to kiss you tonight.”

It was from Cam.

Unmoving, I read the message countless times, unsure of how to react. I was alarmingly aware of the pressure put on my next move. How I responded would dictate our future. My heart beat fast with the feeling that I was running of out of time to respond.

My mind circled around an image of the broken umbrella in the street after Cam chased after me in the rain. I suddenly felt sure of one thing: I wanted someone to adore me the way I knew
Cam would. I was sick of chasing guys who didn’t want to be with me.

I swung my legs over the edge of my bed until they were touching the cool tile floor where the rug ended. I took a deep breath and stood up, willing the door not to creak too loudly when I opened it. I padded into the tiny, dark bathroom.

I took another deep breath and turned the knob that led into Ruby’s room. The room was flooded with moonlight; Cam had pulled back the heavy curtains. The light reflected from the surface of the lake and illuminated the forest outside, casting eerie shadows on the cinderblock walls.

Cam was lying on his back in bed, and he propped himself on his elbows when I entered the room.

I stood in the center of the room, wavering, silent. I waited a few moments until I finally spoke.

“I wanted to kiss you tonight, too.”

Cam leaped out of bed, scattering the candy-colored blankets on the tile floor. Wordlessly, he reached his hand to my face and ran his fingertips along the curve of my jaw. He tilted my head upward and kissed me: the perfect movie kiss.

My arms circled his body and we stood kissing in the center of the room. Then, still kissing me, he pulled my body backward with his. Pulling me down on top of him, we were suddenly lying on the bed, kissing feverishly.

After a few minutes, I pulled away. I glanced around the room and felt a sudden overwhelming sense that we were headed in the wrong direction. I writhed free from the grasp of his exploring hands and stood up.

“I have to go back to my room. I’m sorry. This is just moving too fast for me,” I said. I leaned down and kissed him gently again, closing my eyes so I wouldn’t have to look into his confused gaze.

He shook his head, a fold of hair falling in front of his eye.

“I didn’t mean to push you.”

“It’s not that.”

“Is it the girlfriend thing?”

“What thing?”

Cam ran a hand through his hair. He leaned deep into the marshmallow pillows and stared at the ceiling.

“I thought you knew,” he said.

My hand was getting sweaty as it rested on the doorknob to the bathroom. I wiped it on my pajama pants and waited for Cam to continue.

“I didn’t break up with my girlfriend.”

I didn’t know if I was upset or relieved. Without a word, I turned and fled through the bathroom doors.

Back in my bed, I stared at the ceiling, replaying the scene in my head until I eventually fell into a dreamless sleep. I awoke with a jolt countless times, waking to glance at the bathroom doors, sure Cam would walk through at any moment.

I dropped my head back onto my pillow. “He’s a hopeless romantic. He loves being dramatic.”

“It sounds like the kiss was certainly dramatic. I guess I’m not surprised, though, given that scene during Capture the Flag.”

Natalie paused and scoffed, as if reliving the muggy night that ended in our fight. I studied the slump in her tan shoulders and wondered if we were drifting apart.

I shook my head. “I refuse to get involved with a guy with a girlfriend.”

“Honey, you’re already involved, whether you like it or not.”

“Even if he broke up with her, I could never trust him,” I said. “And anyway, if he did break up with her for me, that
would put too much pressure on us, right from the start.”

“Girlfriend or not, you can’t lead him on until you’re over Will.”

I rolled onto my stomach and buried my face in my pillow. I wondered if Natalie and Dean compared advice when I wasn’t around, or if I was just that pitifully transparent to everyone. I wailed pathetically into my pillow before lifting myself up.

“You need someone new!” Natalie sat up straight in bed, so we were facing each other across the room. She smiled broadly. “We’ll find you someone completely and totally new! You need a hook up with no emotional attachment. Cam and Alex and Will . . . too emotional. You need someone whom you don’t have a history with.”

“Who?”

“How about Robert Rocco?” Natalie snickered. “That would be such good revenge on Will.”

“They’re best friends!”

“My point exactly. Could you imagine how pissed Will would be if he found out? Maybe he’d feel the way you felt when he had that girl sitting on his lap right in front of you!”

“I don’t want Will to hate me. And, besides, I get the impression that Rocco kind of, I don’t know,
worships
Will. He’d never do anything to jeopardize their friendship. He needs it too badly,” I said. “Think of someone else.”

Natalie sighed. “You’re no fun.” She paused, thinking.

“How about Jesse’s friend Sebastian? They’re on the football team together. I think he’s in a frat, too.”

“Sebastian?” I repeated incredulously. “He’s out of my league.”

“You don’t have to date him. You just need to hook up with him to help you get over all these losers in your life,” Natalie said with a wink.

Mutual laughter filled the room and the anger and disappointment about Cam’s deception started to fade from my mind.

“So how are things going with your guy?” I asked after our laughter subsided.

Natalie looked up in surprise. “Jesse?”

“Yeah, that’s his name, isn’t it?”

Another eyebrow raised. “I didn’t know if you knew since you never ask about him.”

A silence pervaded the room where the laughter had just been.

“I’m thinking about asking him if he wants to take a day trip to Lexington, to go to the Kentucky Horse Park. There are dozens of rare breeds, and I’d love to see the Saddle Bred Museum,” she said. “The thing is, if we went to Lexington I’m sure he’d want to go to a distillery on the Bourbon Trail, so I’d have to drive his car.”

“Do you ever worry that what drives you will blind you?” I asked with a frown, feeling philosophical. “You want to stay in the Midwest for the horses, so you create another reason to justify it. You stay in a relationship with Jesse to give that choice to stay more meaning, despite the red flags, like his drinking.”

“I’m not blind,” she said, her voice taking on a petulant edge. “You’re the one who can’t see.”

“I see that you’re trying to make an imperfect thing work to rationalize your choice to move away from your family.”