The Reunion, page 12
He reached for his iced tea then looked up as the front door opened again. An attractive brunette walked in, wearing a navy blue wool coat. Some people partially blocked his view, but she looked like she could be the right age. She said something when the hostess greeted her then glanced over toward the booths and tables. She hadn’t seen him yet. She unbuttoned her coat. He modified his initial assessment of her.
She wasn’t merely attractive. She was stunning.
Please let that be her.
He didn’t know why he thought that; this wasn’t a date. It might not even be her. She scanned the restaurant again. He had the impulse to wave, but what if it wasn’t Karen? He’d taken his jacket off. He’d told her he was wearing a green shirt, hadn’t he? Finally, her eyes settled on him. She looked him over for a moment, smiled, and waved.
He waved back as she made her way toward him. Her smile, the way it matched the brightness in her eyes, only added to her beauty. Now you’re being silly, he thought. But he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He looked at her hands, both of them.
No wedding ring.
He stood up. Suddenly he felt nervous. Calm down. He’d only ever felt this way after seeing one other woman in his life. Anne. He still remembered. She was sitting across the room in their English literature class at DePaul University.
Karen reached the table. “Dave?”
“It’s me,” he said.
She took off her coat and purse, set them in the seat across from him. She held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Dave fought an urge to cling to her hand a few moments longer. He’d suddenly forgotten all about his Aaron Miller questions.
“Is everything all right?” she said.
“What? Yes, everything’s fine. This is a little embarrassing though. I need to go wash my hands. I didn’t want to do it until you got here in case I missed you.” He held up his left hand; it had an ink smear on it. “Feel free to order if the waitress comes, anything on the menu,” he said.
“Do you mind if I start with the chips and salsa?”
“I love their salsa here, just the right kick.” He smiled. “I’ll be right back.”
He walked into the men’s room. The double sink was clear. He walked up, leaned both hands on the counter, and stared at himself in the mirror. What are you doing? Get ahold of yourself. It’s just an interview. It was so unsettling. It felt like much more than an interview, something surreal. But it was probably just some kind of misfire in his brain. He’d been thinking about Anne. That’s what it was. Thinking about her had stirred some deep feelings inside him.
But an image of Karen standing there in the foyer a moment ago flashed back in his mind. The moment when she finally looked right at him and smiled. The irrational feelings began stirring inside him all over again. It wasn’t about Anne.
It was Karen. Something about her.
It was more than physical attraction. When Dave saw Karen just now, he experienced so much more than mere physical attraction. It was as if he instantly knew they would get along well. As if he could already anticipate a thousand wonderful conversations with her, see years of memories they would make together in the future.
All in that one moment.
It was the exact same thing he’d experienced with Anne twenty-five years ago in that English lit class.
The restroom door opened. A tall young man wearing a cowboy hat walked in, looked at Dave, and nodded. Dave nodded back, pulled a paper towel out of the holder, and rubbed his hands with it. After tossing it in the trash can, he walked out. He stopped in his tracks just before clearing the foyer. He looked down at the ink smear still on his left hand.
You idiot. He turned around and headed back into the restroom.
Okay, Karen thought as she nibbled on a tortilla chip. He’s the right age, he’s got a great voice and . . . he’s in great shape. I like his face, a lot. And . . . no wedding ring.
And, she reminded herself, he was here to interview her about her deadbeat father who walked out when she was just a small child. In less than two hours, Dave would be out of her life, flying back to wherever he came from. She dipped another chip in the salsa and looked over her shoulder.
Here he comes.
This is just an interview. You don’t even like the topic.
As soon as Dave sat down, the waitress returned. “Have you had enough time to figure out what you want?” he asked Karen.
“Yes. I’ll have the buffalo chicken salad.”
“Are you sure you don’t want a steak? Some ribs?” Dave asked. “I’m buying.”
Karen smiled. “That’s really what I want. But if you’re dying to part with your money, there’s this gorgeous emerald ring I’ve been coveting in a jewelry store not far from here.” Dave laughed but didn’t say anything. Ugh, why did I say that? she thought. He must think I’m so weird! “I’m totally kidding,” she said, feeling embarrassed.
“I know.”
“How about you, sir?” the waitress said. “You still want the steak fajitas?”
“Even more now.”
“I’ll go put your order in then be back to refresh your drinks.” She turned and walked away.
Dave was looking at Karen in a funny way. “What is it?” she said. “It looks like there’s something you want to say.”
“It’s nothing. It’s just . . . the word you used just then. Coveting. You hardly ever hear that word anymore. Except with . . .”
“Christians?”
He nodded.
“Well, you caught me. I’m a church girl, have been since high school.”
He smiled. “I’m glad.”
Now why would that make him glad? “Are you . . . do you . . .”
“I’m a Christian too,” he said. “But not for very long, just four years.”
“Four years is pretty long,” she said. She wondered what had happened four years ago and whether she should ask. “Four years ago was the worst year of my life.” Why did she say that?
“Really?” His face showed instant concern. “Mind telling me why?” He looked down at his pad. “Totally off the record.” He dipped a chip in the salsa and popped it into his mouth.
“Two pretty awful things happened. Not that far apart from each other. My mother died, then my fiancé left me . . . for someone else.”
“I can’t imagine that.”
“You mean both things happening the same year?”
“No, but I can see why that would be horrible. I can’t imagine someone leaving you for another woman.”
The way he said it, the look in his eyes. So full of care and, it seemed, something else. It was obviously meant as a compliment. She loved it but didn’t know what to say. She wanted to shift the focus off her. “So what happened to you four years ago that caused you to become a Christian?”
He looked away and sighed.
“Usually, people don’t get depressed telling that story,” she said. “Don’t feel like you have to tell me.”
“No, I don’t mind talking about it, a little. I guess God used it to wake me up. It’s just . . . my wife died. In a plane crash.”
“Oh my.” Her heart sank.
“Yeah, it was pretty awful.” He looked back at her. His eyes looked moist, like he was holding back tears. “But I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. We were divorced at the time. Talk about long stories. And it was all my fault.”
Karen didn’t know why, but she tensed up. Had Dave left his wife for someone else like Greg had left her?
“I wasn’t unfaithful, at least not to my wedding vows. The other woman was my stupid career. I didn’t realize how foolish I’d been till her funeral, sitting there next to my son Jake. I got so wrapped up in what I was doing, where I wanted to be next.” He looked down. “I left Anne and Jake for a job, a stupid job.” He sighed again and looked up. “Well, I didn’t mean to go into all that. I’m sorry. I won’t let it happen again.”
Karen didn’t know how to reply. But one thing she knew for sure: she was suddenly in no hurry for this dinner to end. And she didn’t care whether they ever got around to talking about her deadbeat dad, Aaron Miller.
She wanted to know whatever she could find out about David Russo.
28
After the waitress brought their dishes, they spent the next twenty minutes getting to know each other better. Karen told Dave about life as a realtor in today’s sad housing market. She’d talked a little about Gail and about her church, which Dave realized was at least ten times larger than the one he attended back home. She’d started to talk about her father a few times—her real father, as she called him, not Aaron Miller—but then stopped. Dave detected she was struggling, but he didn’t want to pry.
Dave started asking questions about her favorite music (country western, but she also liked Coldplay), the kinds of movies she enjoyed (romantic comedies and anything set in the 1800s), favorite places she’d visited (New York City, the Disney theme parks, and Rome). She’d stopped him then, insisting he talk for a while.
Dave told her what life was like growing up in an Italian family on the south side of Chicago, living with a Vietnam War widow who’d never remarried. It really seemed to affect Karen when she’d learned his father had died in Vietnam. Dave talked about how his mother had moved down to Florida to be near Jake after Anne had died. He’d spent the rest of the time talking about Jake and how much closer they’d become since he’d quit his job in Atlanta and moved back to Florida.
This felt much more like a date than an interview. He didn’t want the evening to end.
The waitress returned to clear their plates. “Would you folks like any dessert or coffee?”
“I’m not ready for dessert, but I would like some coffee,” Dave said.
“Me too,” Karen said. “But how about we head over to a Barnes & Noble down the road? It’s at an outdoor mall. We could get some coffee there and keep talking.”
“I’d like that.” He looked up at the waitress. “Guess we just need the bill.”
“I’ll be right back.”
Karen looked at Dave. “So where were we? You were talking about your son Jake. That’s great you guys are so close. Usually it’s just the opposite. Kids tend to pull away when they hit the teen years. I never had any children, but my brother Steve and his wife have had all kinds of ups and downs when their kids reached that age.”
“I’m really grateful for the way things are going between Jake and me. But lately, it feels like he’s pulling away a little. Not in a rebellious way. I think it’s just life. He’s a senior in high school, on the basketball team, making friends.” Dave paused, wondering what Jake was doing now. He looked at his watch; he needed to remember to call him. It was an hour later in Florida. “I’m kind of dreading next year.”
“When he goes off to college?” Karen said.
“Yeah.” He sighed.
“Did he get a basketball scholarship?”
Dave laughed. “No . . . that’s not likely to happen. But he’s got a 3.9 average, so we’re hoping he might get some kind of academic one.” He took a sip of his drink. “So, were you and your fiancé engaged very long before you broke up?” As soon as he said it, he regretted it. “I’m sorry, that’s way too personal.”
“I don’t mind,” she said. “It’s kind of a sad tale, though. Right out of college I was mostly into my career and hanging out with friends. Wasn’t really thinking too much about marriage and family. Then I met Greg. Thought for sure he was ‘the one.’ I met him at church, we dated for years.” She shook her head as if in disbelief. “I mean . . . years. That should have been a clue he wasn’t as serious about me as I was about him. We finally got engaged, but that dragged on for a few more years, until finally four years ago, he decided he’d met ‘the one,’ and it wasn’t me.”
“That’s so sad.”
“Yeah . . . so I never married and never had any kids.” She sighed. “I really love kids too.”
“You seem like someone who’d make a good mother.”
Karen’s expression suddenly changed. She picked up a napkin and began dabbing her eyes.
“Are you okay?” Dave asked. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No, I’m fine.” She put the napkin down and blinked away the tears. “That was a sweet thing to say. I always thought I would too. Make a good mother, I mean. Maybe we should change the subject.”
Dave wished he could comfort her somehow. The waitress returned with the check. Dave looked it over, then handed her the debit card. The interruption seemed to help. When he looked back at Karen, she’d regained her composure.
Karen led Dave to their next stop. She’d asked him to keep their cars close since it was totally dark out now and the traffic was fairly heavy. He reminded her his rental car had GPS. She turned off the Frontage Road beside 114 into the Southlake Town Square and up to the parking lot of the Barnes & Noble. On the way there, the rational part of her brain kept trying to convince herself this was a silly, stupid fantasy she was entertaining. He wasn’t interested in her; he was just a genuinely nice guy.
A nice, good-looking guy.
A nice, good-looking guy who was the right age.
And a Christian.
And available.
And . . . he was flying back to Florida tomorrow to a life that did not, and could not, involve her. Besides, he wasn’t even interested. That part was total fantasy.
He held the doors open for her as they walked in. It was nippy enough to be able to see their breath. The heat inside the store felt great. “I’m definitely ready for coffee,” she said.
“Me too.” They walked through the aisles toward the café. “This is still part of the dinner, so still my treat.”
“You won’t get an argument from me,” she said. “I’m the realtor who’s not selling any houses, remember?” He paid for their coffee, once again with a shiny gold debit card. She noticed how he looked at it, smiling as he handed it to the cashier. “So what’s with this gold card, and why do you smile every time you look at it?”
He laughed. “It’s just . . . I still can’t believe I get to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Be here with you, in Texas. That I could just buy a ticket without worrying about the price, fly here, rent a car, buy dinner, pay for my hotel. All of it.” He looked down at her with his handsome face. “I don’t usually have this kind of money. I’ll tell you about it when we sit down.”
As she sipped her caramel macchiato and he sipped his latte, he explained the origin of the gold debit card. Which led into a story about an oil executive named John Lansing and his search for her birth father, Aaron Miller.
She wished she hadn’t asked. Because now the subject would shift to the real reason Dave wanted to meet her in the first place. She knew there was very little to say on that subject, and when they were through, he would probably need to leave. And walk right out the door and out of her life.
But she absolutely loved hearing him talk.
“I know it’s probably hard for you to fathom, Karen . . . having a dad who won the Congressional Medal of Honor, when he wound up being such a disappointment after he got home. But I heard the story of what he did over there, and it was pretty amazing. He literally saved three guys’ lives. They definitely would have died if it hadn’t been for what he did. And from what John Lansing said, it sounds like Aaron got messed up on drugs because of all the pain from his injuries.”
“I remember my mom saying something about him always having nightmares. I don’t remember any details, though.”
“Sounds like most of the guys who fought over there had them. It was a nightmare kind of war. The guys who come home from Iraq and Afghanistan have the same problems. The difference now is, there’s all kinds of help available. Your dad didn’t get anything like that when he got home. It didn’t help that the general public treated the Vietnam vets like outcasts.”
Karen didn’t share Dave’s passion for this. But she remembered his father had been killed in Vietnam. In a way, that war had taken both their fathers’ lives. She sipped her coffee. “I’m not really mad at my dad for leaving us. I was when I was a kid. A lot, for the first few years. But when my mom remarried, well, it wasn’t long before I forgot all about my first dad. Mark, my new dad, really treated us like we were his own. Actually, until Steve called this afternoon, I hadn’t thought about Aaron Miller, probably for years.”
“So you’re okay with me trying to find him?”
“Sure, but I really don’t see how I can help.”
“You have no idea where he is?”
She shook her head.
“No idea at all?”
“From what my mother said, after he left us, things went from bad to worse. He wound up living on the streets. My brother went through a phase when he hit thirteen where he wanted to find him. I remember him and my mom arguing about it. She said Steve wouldn’t like what he found. She was telling him that he needed to be thankful. That he had a real dad now. Our first dad, she said, was nothing but a homeless drunk. He deserted us and never gave us a dime.”
“Wow.”
“That was pretty much the end of the discussion,” she said.
“Did that conversation take place here in Texas?” he asked.
“Yes. And that was pretty much the last time we talked about Aaron Miller.” She thought about what she’d said. “I guess it must sound strange, me calling him by his name. But I don’t think of him as my father.”
“No, I understand,” he said. “So, did he stay in Florida?”
“I don’t know. That was so many years ago. He could be anywhere by now.” She didn’t want to say the next part. “He could be dead.”
Dave sighed. “I know, I thought about that. I hope not for these three veterans’ sakes. They’re really hoping to have this big reunion with him so they can thank him properly for saving their lives.”
Karen was quiet for a moment. “I wish I could be more help,” she finally said. “But Dave, I’m afraid your war hero book isn’t going to wind up with a happy ending. Not if you make it about Aaron Miller.”
