Waterfalls (13 page)

Slipping back inside the cottage and rifling through her closet, Meredith settled on a slim black dress. It was basic but much more formal than Mr. Guard Man’s attire. Still, it was her birthday, and she could wear whatever she wanted. After weeks of shorts, jeans, and overalls as her daily career apparel, she wanted to wear a dress.

Helen always dressed nicely. She would most likely show up in a pants suit with a long jacket covering her ample backside. Helen’s cropped hair would be moussed in place, and she would wear big earrings. Her heels would be too high and impractical for the gravel driveway and the uneven boards on Meri’s front porch. But that didn’t matter. Helen would take off her shoes within ten minutes of her arrival, complaining about having walked too much that day. Then she would rub her soles on the carpet like a cat on a scratching post. That was Helen. The only feature open for speculation would be her hair. She changed hair color as often as she changed shoes.

Meredith hurried with her makeup and smoothed her hair
to the side. She patted the flyaway ends into place as she gave her hair a quick spray and then shook her head to make the hair settle naturally.

Another look in the mirror prompted Meredith to examine herself more closely. She smiled, and fine lines scrunched around her eyes. “I’m getting wrinkles. Did you hear that, Guard Man? I’m getting wrinkles. I’m old today. Twenty-five. How old are you?”

He didn’t respond.

“Ah, the strong, silent type. I can respect that.” She scrutinized her outfit. “Boring. It needs something. A necklace? A scarf? What do I have?”

Meredith rarely wore earrings. Her ears weren’t pierced, and since she spent so much time on the phone, she was likely to leave one clip-on earring on her desk and then take off to the grocery store looking like a pirate.

The gold chain, the string of fake pearls, and the silk scarf she tried with the outfit made it look too formal. She settled on a long string of wooden beads and a thick wooden carved bracelet that toned down the sleeveless black dress and gave her more of an earthy look than a formal one.

Don’t want to outdress my Guard Man after all
.

“How are you two doing in here?” Meredith asked, coming back into the living room, where Elvis and Guard Man remained exactly where she had left them. “Everybody happy? What do you think of the outfit?” She turned around. “No complaints? Good. Time to get some dinner going.”

Meri put on an apron and set to work, filling a big pot with water and placing it on the stove. She rinsed two bunches of fresh broccoli and prepared them for steaming. The linguine and fettuccine were ready to be cooked, and the mozzarella sticks were neatly lined up on a cookie sheet to pop into the oven at the last minute.

Meredith looked at the clock. It was 6:37, but there was no sign of Helen. Meri didn’t want to start anything until Helen arrived so it would all be fresh and hot. There was plenty of time to set a fancy table, or so it seemed. Meredith pulled her three place settings of good china from the top shelf of her cupboard. Three settings was all she had, but that’s all she needed. One for her, one for Helen, one for Helen’s client. Guard Man wouldn’t be eating with them tonight.

Guard Man! I almost forgot!

Meredith dashed into the living room and grabbed the dummy from the easy chair. She stuffed him into the tiny pantry and squeezed the door shut.

“There. Now take shallow breaths, and you won’t use up all the air. When Helen opens the door, you say, ‘Boo!’ ”

Meredith finished setting the table and even found a candle for the center. She pulled the small table out from the wall and angled it to the side so there was more room all around. It looked nice. All she needed were some flowers. No problem. The woods around her house were loaded. At least they had been a month ago. It might be harder to find them among the now-drooping grasses. But she knew some spots near the house were shaded by the great evergreens that filled the island. The sun probably hadn’t seared those spring beauties yet.

Venturing into the cool of the evening, Meredith picked up the hem of her apron and began to gather violets, lupine, and wild pansies. The air smelled warm and musky. It would probably rain tonight. A closing-in-of-the-clouds feeling settled on her like a shawl as she walked. Dirt stuck to the bottom of her clogs, and dried stalks of field flowers, now faded, brushed against her bare legs.

Overhead a phoebe bird wailed her evening cry, “Fee-bee, fee-bee.” It sounded to Meredith like the cry of a lonely soul,
looking for its mate. “Fee-bee, fee-bee,” it cried with what Meri thought of as a frantic wail. The dusk ushered in the close of the day.

“Fee-bee,” Meredith whispered back. She sat down on an uneven, moldy stump and looked up at the sky streaked with pale, gray clouds. The sun wouldn’t set until almost nine. It would be a perfect night for a walk around the lake before the gathering clouds rained on her parade.

All was quiet.

Meredith drew in the scent of the rich earth around her and released her own “fee-bee” cry to God. “I know you’re here, Father. I know you love me deeply and intimately, but it’s not the same as being loved by another human. You know what I mean, don’t you? Of course you do. You know everything.”

A sudden flapping of wings sounded as a group of feathered friends took off out of the tree behind Meredith and headed for the lake. “I know I’m supposed to delight myself in you and you will give me the desires of my heart. And I do love you, God. I do. I’m learning how to delight myself in you. It’s just that I have this longing. What was that verse? ‘A longing fulfilled is a tree of life.’ ”

She lifted her chin and studied the trees surrounding her. A tree of life. What does that mean? It struck her that all around her was life. The trees were full of it. She spotted a woodpecker busily digging out his dinner. Two bushy-tailed squirrels chased each other across the limbs. Baby birds chirped persistently somewhere to the left of where she sat. These trees were full of life.

“I love my job; I love my house; I love everything you’ve done for me,” Meredith continued her prayer. “But I guess I want my days to be more full of life, you know? I want to share my days with someone who loves you and who loves me. I
want my little ‘tree’ to be more full of life. Real life. Not just silent goldfish and posed inner tubes wearing camp clothes.”

Contentedly waiting for her whispers to be carried off on the evening breeze, Meredith sat still, gazing at the bouquet of wild flowers gathered in her lap.

She had underlined and pondered many verses over the years as she thought of them relating to her future spouse. She had even made a list of them and kept it in the back of her Bible. One of them was Proverbs 14:22, “Those who plan what is good find love and faithfulness.” Another was Psalm 84:11, “No good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.” Then the ever-popular Proverbs 3:5–6, “Trust in the L
ORD
with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”

These and other bits of Scripture like Matthew 6:33, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you,” had formed her foundational philosophy of husband hunting while she was in college. It was easy to hold up her virtuous creed because she attended a small Christian college and most of the students at least gave lip service to the same philosophy. They all said they believed God was the one who brought two people together. Each person’s part was to wait on him and to do what Scripture told him or her to do.

Meredith still believed those core principles. But it was harder the older she became to remain convinced that this plan actually worked. She had talked about it once with Helen, who called herself “a nonpracticing Protestant who married a Jewish lawyer because I believe in the power of love.” Helen had merely laughed when Meredith told her she felt she was getting old.

“Herb and I were in our late thirties when we met,” Helen
spouted. “It was the first time for love and marriage for both of us, and it’s been absolutely marvelous. You’re barely halfway there, girl! So cut out the old-maid bit and live your life merrily while you can still wear Spandex in public.”

Meredith meandered her way back to the front of the cottage. She still saw no sign of her dinner guests. Instead of going in, she did a quick check on the flower bed along the side of the house. There, waiting for her, were two late-blooming tulips, both a soft purple shade and only about six inches high. The daffodils were long gone. She had “dead headed” them a week ago, snapping off their dried-up blossoms and leaving the tall green stalks to wither on their own before she trimmed them away. That’s what Mom always did to her daffodils; so Meredith followed suit, even though she didn’t know why she was doing it.

What other things do I do in my life that are merely imitations of what I’ve watched someone else do? Is this theory of waiting for God’s best some kind of mindless mimicking of my peers who are now all happily married? Or is this mine? Do I really believe God has one perfect man for me?

Meredith was surprised that some deep blue, burgundy, and yellow primroses were beginning their second bloom of the season in the side garden. A few pink hyacinths clustered in the far corner, and a clump of white candy tuft was spilling over the rock border in the front. The little spring bulb garden had been neglected this year since Shelly was the one who liked flower gardening. Meredith was more drawn to the vegetable garden. There was something poetic about a blooming pea vine as it climbed up a trellis or the way carrot tops fanned out like green lace when they were full grown. She picked the hyacinth and promised herself she would work on the patch next week.

Overhead five or so cheeping birds swooped in unison and
darted into the woods. The patient phoebe cried out again in the pleasant coolness of the evening, “Fee-bee, fee-bee.”

I could wait, God. I could wait another twenty years as long as I knew there really was someone for me. Someone who, right now, in his corner of the world is also talking to you like this about me. Someone who wants a soul mate as dearly as I want one. Someone who also thinks that two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. You are working on this, aren’t you? I mean, you haven’t forgotten about me, have you?

M
eredith gathered the flowers in her apron and went back inside to finish decorating the table. It was 7:40 now, and still no sign of Helen. The error on Meredith’s part, she realized, was that she hadn’t asked specific questions. Helen had merely said “dinnertime.” That could mean a variety of things to Helen. Then there was the ferry factor. If Helen hadn’t managed to crowd onto one of the ferries during the five o’clock rush hour, she could end up waiting in line for an hour or more.

It would have been easier if Meri had gone into Seattle to meet Helen, Meri now realized. She would have been going against traffic, and she could have gone early and spent the afternoon shopping.

Too late now to change plans. She arranged her flowers and waited. There was no hurry to eat. The pasta would be delicious whenever she made it, even if it was at midnight.

Meredith washed a stalk of celery and sat down to nibble
on it while she watched TV. Nothing that interested her was on. She was about to turn off the television when she surfed across a cable program that caught her eye. It was a ballroom-dance competition.

Watching and snapping her celery stalk, Meredith heard a mocking voice inside her head.
Look at you. It’s your birthday, and you’re alone, eating celery and watching people with glued-on smiles do the tango
.

Meredith ignored the voice. Ever since Elvis and Guard Man had come into her life, she had developed a soft spot in her heart for those who lived with pasted-on smiles. Neither the mannequin nor the fish could help it that he never changed his expression. The thought of the two of them made her decide to check on Guard Man to make sure he hadn’t sprung a leak in the pantry. Aunt Jane had sent the patch kit for a reason, Meri figured.

Guard Man was fine. He popped out appropriately when Meri opened the door. She knew he would send Helen through the roof. Whenever she arrived, that is. Until then, Meri felt a little sorry for Guard Man. The music on the TV changed to the cha-cha.

Taking Guard Man by the hand, Meri asked, “Would you like to dance?” With his hand on her shoulder and her right hand holding his right hand waist high, Meri and Guard Man trotted across the kitchen floor and into the dining room.

“No, like this,” she instructed her silent partner. “One, two, cha-cha-cha. That’s it. One, two. You’ve got it.”

She reached over and turned up the TV’s volume so they could feel the rhythm of the music. “You’re pretty good,” she shouted into her blow-up man’s ear. “Matter of fact, you’re very good. I think I have the perfect name for you: Fred. You like it? There are a lot of very cool Freds, you know. There’s Fred
Astaire, the dancer. Fred Flintstone, the caveman, and Fred Mertz—you know, Ricky Ricardo’s best friend. They’re all very cool, just like you.”