Unbroken Connection (17 page)
Next we’ll try some mask skills. Buddy breathing. Easy stuff. I’ve almost got her totally indoctrinated. She hasn’t started on me yet.
Speaking of rooms, she doesn’t like the hotel I’m in.
“You can’t stay in the Courtyard for the entire six weeks.”
“It’s nice enough.”
“Too nice.”
I let her drag me to the big building on campus with the bookstore and giant food court where we had breakfast last week. Downstairs there’s a massive board plastered with uniform white cards. People are selling everything from guitars to pickup trucks. “Cool.” I point to an ad for a black truck. “Think I’ll buy this truck. It costs less than my rental.”
“I doubt it has an engine.”
There’s a big section of used wedding dresses—lots of size four’s. I point to those. “Why don’t you get one of these?”
She scowls. “A used wedding dress? That’s ultimate tacky. Everyone rents these days.”
“A rental? Isn’t that really used?”
“It’s not the same. The dresses are a lot nicer.”
“You’ve been looking?”
She gets beet red and studies the area for guys who need roommates. “Shoot. This is all for next semester. Long shot to find someone selling their contract this late. Maybe we should check online.”
Next to the tacky used wedding dresses is a huge section of used wedding rings. I point to them. “Now, that’s tacky.”
“Yeah.” She examines an ad. “Practical, though.”
“I can’t believe how many there are.”
“BYU is the engagement capitol of the world.”
I raise my eyebrows and give her a thumbs up.
She waves her hand in front of the ring ads. “Lots of those engagements don’t last. Premature.”
“Hormones.”
She grins and takes my hand. “You’re catching on.” We find a corner that isn’t jammed with students and sit on the floor. Leesie gets out her laptop and Googles hotels in Provo—gets a plethora of shiny new Marriott relatives. There’s one of everything they make here. Most cost about what I’m paying.
She clicks on a Super 8.
I screw up my face. “Forget that. I’m not staying there.”
“You are so stuck up.” She turns her back to me and huddles over her laptop so I can’t dis her fleabag schemes. Scribbles a list. “Let’s check these out. They might be—”
“Too nice?”
We turn in and park in front of the first place—long flat red brick buildings that scream seventies. Probably seventies beds, too. “This is too far away from you.”
“You have a car. Look at how cheap it is.”
Anything less than $40 bucks a night is way off my list. Yep. I’m so stuck up.
Leesie walks in with me—pretends not to notice the place stinks like old puke and dirty toilets. She won’t go up to the front desk. “Awkward. That guy will think we’re going to—that it’s for us.”
“Why do you care?”
She gets pink around the edges and walks over to a lobby sitting area and sits on a fuzzy couch across from a candy machine.
I ask the guy if I can see a room.
“What size? We’ve got suites with king beds and regular rooms with two queens.”
“Babe,” I yell over my shoulder. “Do we want one bed or two?”
She stalks out of there. I leave the clerk to follow her to the car. “Sorry. That was just too perfect. You should have seen your face.”
“Cross that one off the list.” A couple of guys with long beards and stringy hair, dirty jeans and faces walk out behind us. She gets in the passenger side and locks her door. “It creeps me out anyway.”
I open my door and stick my head in. “Wait here. I’ll go check out the room.” I grin. “Maybe Tawni will take pity on me and come stay with me.”
Hugely wrong thing to say. Leesie gives me a scorching look. “Take me home. I need to study.”
“But we haven’t found me a new room.”
“Stay where you are then.”
“Don’t be mad.” I slide into the car. “I was just trying to lighten things up.”
“Don’t.”
“I can’t tease you?”
“Not about that. Especially Tawni.” Her eyes get tight. “It reminds me of DeeDee—you and her.”
I look away from her. “Low blow.” I start the Rav4.
She frowns. “And joking about Tawni was—?”
“Insane.” I reach over and touch her face. “Sorry.”
“I need to study.”
CULTURAL AWARENESS
MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #10
D
IVE
B
UDDY
: Leesie
D
ATE
: 11/14
D
IVE
#: 3 w/Leesie
L
OCATION
: Salt Lake City
D
IVE
S
ITE
: hotel pool
W
EATHER
C
ONDITION
: sleet
W
ATER
C
ONDITION
: rippled
D
EPTH
: 10’
V
ISIBILITY
: 10’
W
ATER
T
EMP
.: not as warm as last time
B
OTTOM
T
IME
: lost track
C
OMMENTS
:
This time there’s a mom reading magazines and kids splashing in the shallow end. Leesie’s all business. She’s still kind of mad at me. Works hard on the skills. The kids invade. Ask a thousand questions. Leesie’s cool with them. Gets all the answers right.
If we got married, we could have one of those, like in a year. Not big enough to swim and talk, but that could be cool. She’s got all this school, though. How could she be a mom, too? I could do the Mr. Mom thing. Me and babies? Freak, that would be strange. I don’t know if I’ve ever even held one. Wonder if Leesie would want them right away. I don’t know if birth control is against the rules. Guess I need to ask.
Leesie gets it right in the water, too. One more session, and she’ll be ready for open water.
After our pool dive, she wants me take her to Temple Square—not far from the hotel, right smack in the middle of Salt Lake City—before we drive an hour back down to Provo.
“Sure. Anything you want. You were excellent today.”
She unleashes that full smile that makes her so beautiful. “Really?”
I nod and reach for her hand. Our fingers twist, and she lets me kiss her before we get in the car.
Leesie didn’t tell me Temple Square is like the capitol of Mormon-anity. Gardens. Old buildings. Newer places she calls “visitors’ centers.” She drags me through all the stuff. Kind of a blur. Books of Mormon. Forever families. Stuff like that. There is a concert going on inside the elliptical domed building.
“That’s the tabernacle. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings there. Maybe that’s them practicing.” She points across the street at a massive new building. “We hold conferences in that now. This got too small.” I don’t know what conferences are, but they must be a big deal around here.
There’s another temple here, too. This one is old—rectangular. Kind of like a cathedral. Gray stone. Spires everywhere. Same gold guy on top. Can’t go in this one, either. Leesie wipes her eyes in front of a statue of Joseph Smith.
The last place we go in she makes me take a tour. The girl guiding is a missionary. Chicks are missionaries, too. She shows us all these big oil paintings of Bible stuff—life of Christ—and then we take a spiraling ramp up to the next floor. There’s a big room with deep blue carpet, mostly glass walls, and a giant white replica of the Christus statue.
The missionary girl gets choked up. Leesie squeezes my hand and cries, and—I’m sorry—but I got nada.
I feel nothing.
To me, it’s just a big white statue.
Leesie wants to sit quiet after everyone leaves, but I have to get out of there. She finds me outside sitting on a stone bench, staring at my hands.
Her eyes are misty. “Thanks for bringing me here. I haven’t seen all this since I was little.”
I stand. “Can we go now?”
She falls asleep on the drive back to Provo. I love her asleep. When she finally gives in and marries me, I’m never going to sleep. I’ll lie there, holding her close, and watch her all night. And when her eyes open, I’ll show her everything love can be.
I watched her worship her God tonight. I don’t have room in me for anything like that. My heart’s full. I worship Leesie. I don’t want to share her with God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy whatever. Without them, though, she wouldn’t be Leesie. She’s willing to share me with scuba—becoming a part of it. I got to be patient with her God stuff.
Her eyes open when I park the RAV4. She doesn’t speak. She just slides over the center console, joins me in my bucket seat. We don’t make out. I wrap my arms around her. She snuggles her face against my neck and falls back to sleep. I loosen her braid, stroke her damp hair and dream. We both wake up an hour later, cramped and cold. It’s ten to midnight.
She whispers, “This isn’t good.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Come in with me and warm up a few minutes before you go home.”
“The car has a heater. We can warm up here.” I find her lips.
She pulls back. “I love you way too much tonight to chance it.”
“You mean the nights we make out you don’t love me?” I kiss her again.
“I have nasty breath.”
“I don’t care.”
“You have nasty breath, too. And I do care.”
I laugh at her—kiss her neck while she reaches for the door handle. She pulls the handle, the door releases, and we spill out.
When she gets me inside the kitchen with my jacket off, she looks at the clock. “You have four minutes.”
The roomies, everyone except Tawni, are standing around a plate of brownies. Big fat ones dripping gooey frosting.
I flash them my best grin. “For me? You shouldn’t have.” I reach for the top brownie on the tower.
“No, no.” Dayla blocks my hand. “These are special brownies for Tawni.”
Lily leans forward. “She drank all my soy milk. And then bought stupid plain milk and said I could have that.”
My eyebrows arch upward. “You little saintesses made loaded brownies?”
Roxi says, “Not loaded with what you’re thinking.”
“ExLax?”
“Way better.” Dayla’s face takes on a definite hero-worship expression. “Roxi is a genius.”
Roxi turns on the light over the table and peers hard at the brownies. “They look okay. We do need to taste them. If we used too much, it might be kind of bitter.”
“I’m not tasting it.” Lily pulls back.
Cadence puts down her guitar. “I will.”
Roxi holds up her hand. “No, it’s my plan.” She takes a pinch of brownie and chews it carefully—spits it in the sink.
Leesie frowns. “That gross?”
“No—” Roxi’s face splits into a smile. “The chocolate masks it pretty well.”
I’m freaking to know the secret. “What’s in them?”
“Ethylene blue. You get it at the pet store.” Roxi and Cadence bump fists. “Totally safe. Just turns your pee blue.”
I’m starting to get why Leesie calls this place the Zoo. Any other school those brownies would be packed with a pleasant mind-altering substance.
Not here. They are too holy for that.
But piss-altering? Go right ahead.
Dayla jumps into the explanation. “Wikipedia says it’s only a problem if you’ve got a bad liver or you’re pregnant.”
Cadence looks around at the other girls. “Okay. I’ll say it. She could be pregnant.”
Lily’s eyes jump out of her head.
They all look at Leesie. Roxi wrinkles up her nose. “Do you think her and Kanyon are—”
“I don’t know. They had clothes on when I walked in on them. But she’s not pregnant.”
I’m intrigued. “You’re like a doctor?”
“Hardly necessary. She left some nasty jeans on the floor yesterday.”
Lily stands up. “That’s so disgusting. I don’t know how you live with her.”
Leesie shrugs. “I just washed them. What else could I do? I didn’t want to walk over that all day.” She turns to me. “It’s past midnight, Michael. You have to go.”
I get out of there fast. The chicks were getting way too real.
I call this morning—early—for a brownie report.
Leesie whispers, “She’s asleep—but half the plate is gone. Kanyon must have been here, too.”
“So how will you know if it works?”
“We’ll know—hang on. She just got up.” Leesie breathes into the phone. “That’s her slamming the bathroom door.”
“What’s happening?”
“Don’t be a perv. What do you think is happening? Just shut up a minute.”
I strain to hear the action. Was that a muffled flush? A door slams. Then Leesie’s voice. “She stormed out of the bathroom with a terrified look on her face. Maybe she thinks that fake stuff—”