“No, no, not at all. Well, actually, yes, it’s my busiest morning. But don’t go. I mean, don’t disappear. I mean…” He stopped himself before he was irretrievably embarrassed.
Meredith smiled. “You made that Shakespeare class so much fun,” she said. “I loved the way you did the old English with the Scottish burr. Drove our professor nuts.”
Chris grinned. “I learned it off a recording of Shakespeare as it was originally pronounced. Did you know all those verses actually rhymed back in the day?”
Meredith started to speak, then cut herself off. She seemed to be looking for something more to say.
Chris grabbed a plastic chair. “Please, sit.”
Please, please, please.
“Well, all right. If I’m not interrupting your class.”
“I’m just going to tell Karen she’s in charge for a while.”
Meredith had barely sat down, but she stood up again when he mentioned his assistant. She looked suddenly uncomfortable. “Oh, maybe I should go.”
Chris’s heart fell. He looked down at himself and tugged at his uniform.
Meredith paused. “I’ve always wondered what those uniforms are called.”
“It’s a gi,” said Chris. “From the Japanese. It’s practically all I wear. I mean, you know, classes and all. Sorry, I’m babbling.”
Meredith covered her mouth to hide a smile.
Chris blurted, “I have other clothes. And if you’ll let me take you to dinner, I’ll prove it.”
Her eyes softened. “Will Karen be coming, too?”
Chris scratched his head. “Um, no, she has study group. I mean, she’s a student. I mean”—
Good grief, I’m messing up the most important invitation of my life!—
“Karen just helps out here.” He gave her his best full-on puppy-dog expression.
This time, Meredith giggled. Only a tiny one, but Chris felt like he’d just won an Olympic medal.
“Is that a yes? Great! Shall I pick you up? Oh wait, my car’s in the shop. Um, um…”
Meredith came to the rescue. “What time are you done here?”
“Six. Six-fifteen. I have to shove them out the door after class.”
“I’ll come pick
you
up,” said Meredith. She reached out and touched his cheek. “It’s so good to see you again.” Then she left.
Chris wasn’t sure how long he stood there, staring after her, but Karen’s voice finally got through.
“How are you going to be in two places at once? Don’t you already have a date tonight?”
CHAPTER 3
M
eredith marveled at her own courage all the way around campus. She drove without paying attention to where she was going, and she ended up in front of her old dorm. Parking was at a premium, and she had no parking permit, so she sat there for a few seconds, taking a mental snapshot of the building. She located her old window on the third floor. She and her dorm sisters had taken a history of film class and fallen in love with W. C. Fields. They’d used half the window to display a huge black-and-white poster of him, cigar and all, staring into the camera with his trademark leer. She was tickled to see that it was still there. Evidently the current residents had decided it was cool enough to keep.
Someone honked behind her. She waved and drove on. Now she needed something to do for the rest of the day. She went down her mental list. Check out the campus. (Nothing had changed.) See her old dorm. (Done.) Touch base with old friends.
Well, Chris was a start, and he’d certainly seemed thrilled to see her. He didn’t look much different, but then, it had only been thirteen months since their last class together. Those bright emerald-green eyes, that mobile face with the cheeks you just wanted to squeeze every time you saw them…. Even his sandy blond hair was combed the same way, parted on the side and perfectly styled, except for one curl that could never be tamed. And his taste in clothes hadn’t changed either.
She laughed out loud, and it felt great.
Even Chris’s martial arts wardrobe was a good thing. He was completely different from her rotten ex. All sweet and cheerful. Not brooding and checking himself in every mirror they passed. She was definitely looking forward to dinner. But she needed something to do in between.
June in California was a lot nicer than June in Michigan, where hot-and-muggy was practically all one word. The weather was obviously trying to seduce her back to the west coast. She found a tree-filled park not far from campus and settled at a picnic table with her computer and her Hotspot. She might as well begin looking for her dorm sisters. The sooner she made connections, the better off she’d be because they had all promised that they would help each other find work and have each other’s backs. She’d kept in touch for the first few months after moving, but Dwayne had wanted her to focus on him, and as a result, she’d lost track of her friends.
“You don’t need those people,” he said. “You’ve got me. I promise to be all you’ll need for the rest of your life.”
She snorted. Right. Until Miss Bimbo showed up.
She scrolled through her old emails, looking for the Dorm Storm list they’d created, hoping desperately that she hadn’t deleted it.
Her phone pinged with a message. She picked it up and burst out laughing when she saw the photo. It was Miss Bimbo herself, snarling at the camera and wagging a finger. Behind her, the “Home-wrecking Ho” sign was clearly visible. And Teresa sent a caption right out of
The Wizard of Oz
: “I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!”
Meredith didn’t have a dog, but the quotation was appropriate for the picture. She spent a few minutes texting back and forth with Teresa. “Great shot. Thanks for sharing.”
“Dwayne is pulling his hair out, trying to farm out your workload to others.”
“Tell him Sienna got my raise, so she can do my work.”
“Ha ha! Gotta go.”
Meredith set the phone down and took a deep breath of fresh air. She felt like a giant load had been lifted off her shoulders. Getting out of Michigan had been a good decision, even if she could never use Dwayne as a reference. Good riddance!
She managed to locate four of her dorm sisters on Facebook before her Hotspot demanded to be recharged. As usual, she’d spent way more time than she’d planned looking at kittens and puppies and reading articles that had nothing to do with her. She’d friended the girls and hoped that they’d friend her back. Still no luck wading through old emails, but she’d have to work on that later. She needed to get back to the motel and charge her devices, not to mention get ready for her date.
Something sparked inside her. She cocked her head to one side. Was that another feeling?
She experimented. “Time to get ready for my date.” A tingle. “With Christopher Dann.” A definite tingle. “Well, what do you know,” she said to her MacBook. “I do believe the feeling is coming back.”
By the time she reached the motel, she was starving. Dinner was still a while away, so she bought crackers out of the snack machine, plugged her devices in to charge, and went through her suitcases to figure out what to wear. She changed into her Hawaiian-print skirt and a long-sleeved maroon tee and slipped into black flats. She didn’t want to look any taller than she was, at least not until she had a chance to see how Chris felt about height issues.
There was that tingle again. She glanced at herself in the mirror and was surprised to find a smile on her face. She still had time to do a little searching for email contacts, so she sat down at the little table near the window and booted up her computer.
She avoided Facebook. Too time consuming. Instead she went straight to email.
The first subject line on the screen sent her good mood plummeting into a dark hole. It was from Dwayne. “Screw you, you’ll have to sue me for your last check.”
Meredith hit delete, but she was shaking inside. She closed her computer and went down the hall to get ice and a Pepsi. Then she settled on the bed with her yearbook, a pen, and a notepad, and made a list of every page where Chris’s sweet face appeared. Soon she was smiling again.
CHAPTER 4
C
hris spent the rest of the day juggling students and classes, and trying to figure out how he was going to tell Meredith about his scheduling snafu. He wasn’t going to cancel their date. He just couldn’t. But somehow, he would have to deal with the fact that Karen was right—he did have a date already for the evening.
By six o’clock he felt tied up in knots. Once he scooted the last of his tae-kwon-do kids out the front door, he barely had time to rush upstairs and change into street clothes. Owing to the nature of his pre-existing date, he’d laid out his dark blue suit, white shirt, and green tie. It was too late to do anything about it before Meredith arrived. He would just have to wear what he’d brought, and as for the rest of the evening, he’d wing it and hope she still had a sense of humor.
Meredith was standing at the front door when he got back downstairs. He glanced at the wall clock. Six-fifteen on the dot. He opened the door.
“Wow, you look great,” he said.
Meredith’s eyes widened at the sight of his suit. “I feel a little underdressed.”
“No worries. You’re not. I’ll explain. Shall we go?” Chris knew he was babbling again, but he couldn’t stop himself. He was all jitters over being so close to Meredith, and he was plain nervous about what lay ahead. “Shall I drive?”
Meredith handed him the keys.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I know where we’re going.”
“And as soon as you tell me, I’ll know, too,” she said.
He skipped ahead of her and opened the passenger door.
Meredith seemed pleased.
Chris got in behind the wheel and started the car. He kept looking at Meredith. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. “You really do look wonderful,” he said.
She smiled and dropped her gaze. “You used to tell me that every time we had Shakespeare class. Three days a week, without fail, I knew I was going to get a compliment. It was really nice.”
Chris smiled back.
Meredith said, “You might want to look at the road before shifting into drive.”
“Hmm? Oh, sorry. Right. You’re just so beautiful.” He cleared his throat and forced his eyes to stare out the front window. “So, tell me all about what you’ve been doing since graduation.” He pulled into traffic.
“Oh, the usual. Working at a boring job that I took out of desperation. Regretting that I left California. Getting engaged, and then getting dumped. Same old story,” she said, somewhat sarcastically.
“I’m sorry you got dumped. No, wait. I’m sorry you got hurt. But I’m glad you’re not engaged anymore. That would make this evening really awkward.”
Meredith smiled. Then, “What about you? No wife? No fiancée? No break-up stories?”
Chris shook his head. “Nope, nothing like that. I’ve been too busy getting the gym going, doing the marketing, the promo, and all the business stuff. I found out that maybe I should have taken bookkeeping in college.”
Meredith grinned. She watched the scenery change outside the window. “Where are we going for dinner?”
Chris took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay, here’s the deal. And I promise you, I’ll make it up to you, okay? I mean, I just wanted to see you so bad, get back in touch, you know?” He glanced at Meredith and saw two tiny furrows between her brows. He rushed on. “I already had plans for tonight, and when I saw you, I forgot all about it. But it’s okay. All we have to do is make a quick stop, and then we’re on our own.”
Now she really looked confused. “What? You mean you’re taking me with you to cancel your other date?” She sounded annoyed.
“Oh no, it’s not like that. Not exactly. Honest. It will just take ten minutes. I swear.”
Meredith’s voice sounded artificially calm. “Why don’t you just stand her up? Or reschedule?”
Chris turned right onto a long driveway that curved like a horseshoe in front of a three-story building with white columns flanking the entrance. Meredith leaned forward to examine the facade of the building and the grounds around it. The corner of a parking lot was visible around the side. The hedges and flower beds were neatly trimmed. Two figures emerged from the building, both wearing blue scrubs.
“You’re dating a nurse?”
“No, no. It’s okay. I’ll explain.” He got out of the car and spoke to one of the nurses. “Do you think I can leave the car here for a while?”
“Of course, Mr. Dann. I’m sure that will be fine.”
“Thanks!” He moved around to open Meredith’s door, but she had already stepped out of the car.
“They seem to know you here,” she said.
“I come here a lot.” He shrugged. “Don’t worry, this will only take a few minutes. I just need to, um, well…I’ll show you.” He took her hand hopefully and led the way to the front door.
Meredith paused to read the discreet sign next to the door. “Hey, this is—”
“I know, I know, don’t worry. We’re not checking in or anything.”
Meredith gave him a look. “This had better be good, Chris.”
CHAPTER 5
C
hris flashed her a smile, then opened the door for her. Inside, he greeted the woman behind the reception desk. “Hi, Mrs. Stevens. Good to see you again.”
“Same here, Mr. Dann. She’s in the dining room.”
Meredith lowered her voice. “Is this some new restaurant experience?”
Chris tugged her gently toward a plushly carpeted corridor on the left. “Not exactly.”
Half way down the hall, two large doors stood open, and he led her through, into the dining room, which only deserved the name because food was being served at the elegant tables. Meredith struggled to take it all in. Tapestries were hung on the walls, most displaying hunting scenes, but there was one with little girls in old-fashioned dresses playing with puppies. A large marble fireplace stood against the back wall, with a gas flame on the hearth, proof that she had not stepped back in time. The serving staff wore crisp black and white uniforms. No blue scrubs in this room.
“There she is,” said Chris, “at her regular table.” He waved and moved at the same time.
Meredith allowed herself to be gently tugged along. He was just so eager about everything, and she found it totally refreshing. Dwayne would never have let anyone see him eager to do anything, especially not when it came to her. For an errand like this, Dwayne would have told her to stay in the car. And here was Chris, sweet Chris, champing at the bit to show her off to…his other date? She shook her head, as if to clear cobwebs, and let him lead her along.