None of those pieces of information surprised her. But another piece was surprising.
“You surf?”
“I try.”
“He surfs,” Todd answered for him. “And he rocks at soccer.”
Katie could have guessed that Eli was good at soccer from previous conversations, when he had talked about playing football where he grew up in Africa.
“What about you?” Eli asked Katie. “Do you surf?”
“Ah, that would be a no. Although, I shouldn’t say that. Once I did get to a bona fide standing position on a surfboard.”
“You did more than that. I watched you catch a couple of waves that day at Newport Beach when Doug proposed to Tracy,” Christy said.
“I guess I did catch a couple of waves. But not enough to make me dream of riding the big ones at Waimea, like Todd did. Oh, and Doug taught me how to body surf, and I can hold my own on a Boogie board.”
“Which is more than we can say for Christy,” Todd teased, leaning over and reaching his arm around his wife’s neck. He drew her close and kissed her on the side of her head while she assumed an exaggerated pouting expression.
“It’s not as if I haven’t tried. Many times. My coordination skills in sports have always been a bit lacking. Not like you, Katie. You’re the softball star. And remember the houseboat trip we took to Lake Shasta with my aunt and uncle? You were the star water skier as well.”
“Water skiing is fun. Snow skiing, however… Will we ever forget our high school ski trip?”
“Never.” Christy looked like the memory was painful.
Katie laughed. “We both were pretty humorous on that trip. Uber-klutzes!”
“That was because the rental place gave us the wrong skis. The ones we had were too long for beginners.”
Katie turned to Eli. “At least that’s the story we decided to go with. I mean, I’ve heard of beginners making face plants in the snow, but Christy here did a face plant into the ski instructor.”
“I don’t think I ever heard that story.” Todd had a hold of his darling wife by the wrist and looked like he wasn’t going to let her go. “The ski instructor, huh?”
“He was cute too,” Katie added.
“I’m sure you heard that story, Todd. You just chose to forget about the fiasco, like I’ve tried to forget about it. Who brought that up, anyway?”
Katie raised her hand. “Yo. But you jumped right in, Little Ms. Innocence and Kittens.”
Then, because Katie was on a mischievous streak, she added, “Note that I said ‘kittens’ and not ‘cats,’ as in Mr. Jitters, the freaky cat from the alternate universe of all things mangy.”
Christy gave Katie a tweak-your-beak look. “Anyone want something more to drink? I think we have some orange juice.”
“I’ll have more water,” Eli said. “Thanks.”
“Hey, whatever happened to that mangy cat?” Todd asked.
“Nicole ran over it,” Katie quipped.
“The cat already was dead,” Eli added. “Nicole just sort of ran over it in the parking lot. That was last fall.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember hearing about that.” Todd called over his shoulder to Christy in the kitchen. “And I do remember hearing about the good-looking ski instructor. And the chocolate bars. Didn’t you guys sell chocolate bars to raise money?”
“Tried to sell chocolate bars,” Katie corrected him. “My supply mysteriously left my box and later appeared in my stomach. It was the strangest thing. Do you have any tea, by the way, Chris?”
Christy opened a cupboard and pulled out a box with a variety of tea bags. “I have Earl Grey, English Breakfast, and orange something. I can’t read the label.”
Eli stood up. “I have some Kenyan tea at my apartment. Should I bring back anything else?”
“Yeah. Bring Rick. Tell him to come down with you if he’s just sitting there doing nothing,” Katie said.
Christy, Todd, and Eli shot surprised glances at each other like darts flying across the room. Then they looked at Katie, as if she wasn’t supposed to have noticed their flurry of glances.
“Listen.” Katie pulled back her shoulders and spoke with a clear heart. “Rick and I have talked all this through. Several times. We’re good. We want the friendship between us to continue, which is obviously a good choice since all of us are in the same circle. I invited him to the Spring Fling at Crown Hall tomorrow night, and I think he’s going to come. Nobody has to walk around on eggshells. Nobody has to wonder who can be in the same room with whom. We’re all good.”
“Rick’s not home,” Eli said. “At least he wasn’t earlier. But if he’s there now, I’ll tell him to come down.”
“Good. The sooner all of us find a way to be normal, whatever that is, the better. All we have to do is be ourselves. Be ‘us.’ That’s what I told Nicole too.”
Another round of dart glances flew across the room.
“Okay, I’ll be right back.” As Eli, who was wearing shorts, walked out the door, Katie noticed what muscular calves he had. He was built like a soccer player. Not an ounce of fat on him. Well, except for maybe the lard that came with the chimichanga he managed to wolf down almost by himself, with minor assistance from Todd. Katie had been impressed.
“You sure you’re okay with Rick?” The question wasn’t unusual, but Katie found it unusual that Todd was the one asking it.
She smiled and nodded. “I really am doing great with all of it. I think Rick is too. At least he seemed to be a few hours ago. It’s crazy, right? Half of a lifetime dreaming of being with him, a year and a half of floating around inside that dream, but now I feel like I’m awake. Wide awake. God has my attention. I’m fully turned toward him. I’m at peace. I really am.”
Todd smiled at Katie. He had such clear blue eyes. Christy used to describe them as “screaming silver blue.” Whenever Katie looked into Todd’s full expression, those honest blue eyes seemed to look into the truest part of her. She couldn’t imagine Todd ever speaking anything other than the truth to her.
He reached across the table and put his hand on hers. “ ‘Point out the road I must travel; I’m all ears, all eyes before you. Teach me how to live to please you because you’re my God.’ ”
“That’s a great verse. Where is it from?”
“Psalm 143:8 and 10. You like that one?”
Katie nodded.
“Then it’s yours. Free. Take it.”
Katie smiled. This part of Todd’s personality used to drive Christy nuts in their early years together. Katie wasn’t always so crazy about his highly tuned spiritual dial either, but as the years had gone by, she had come to love that dimension of him. He had taken a lot of God’s Word into his heart, and it resided there for him to tap into whenever he needed it. He seemed to have one ear open to the eternal, spiritual perspective of life, and viewed life from that angle first, before looking at it the way everyone else did.
A deeply settled part of Katie felt an unspoken happiness over her heart being in alignment with what she knew Todd was saying to her. She really had grown spiritually over the last few years. Her relationship with Rick had something to do with that, but mostly the change had come because Katie had redirected her thoughts. Or maybe a more accurate way to say it was that God was redirecting her thoughts.
All she knew was she felt more at home inside her own skin than she ever had before. She also felt the Lord was more at home in her heart than he ever had been before.
Christy placed an empty mug in front of Katie and one at Eli’s place. “Are you going to ask Eli to go to the Spring Fling too?”
“No, why?”
“You asked Rick.”
“That’s different.”
“Eli might enjoy going to an end-of-the-year party. Since he’s not in a dorm, he doesn’t get in on some of the fun stuff.”
“Are you trying to be his mother, Christy? You guys are pathetic. You know that, don’t you? I’m not going to switch my attention to Eli. I’m going to graduate.
That’s my only goal. Besides, he’s leaving for Africa as soon as school is out. Should I remind you, Christy, how much you disliked your long-distance relationship with Todd the year you spent in Switzerland?”
“Eli delayed his return to Africa,” Todd said.
“Why? A team is going over from Rancho to help his dad with the clean water projects this summer. I thought he would want to be in Africa while they were there.”
“He said he has something going on here with a family member.”
“I didn’t think he had any family here.”
Christy shrugged and returned to her chair next to Todd. “Maybe he means someone in his gathered family.”
Katie knew what Christy meant by that. Katie also had a “gathered” family of friends who filled the place of the blood relatives who weren’t interested in being connected at holidays and special times.
“Regardless,” Katie said, returning to her point. “It doesn’t matter how long he plans to stay here this summer. I’m not shopping for a new boyfriend. Okay? So can we end this discussion right here? I’m very much in need of friends and will take all the good times I can get. But can we drop these lame attempts the two of you are making to match me up with Eli? It’s not going to happen.”
Todd had a funny grin on his face as he reached over and laced his fingers with Christy’s. “You can run, but you can’t hide, Katie. Love is going to catch up to you, and when it does, you are going down big time. Trust me on this. I give Rick a lot of credit for the way he led in your relationship and planned each step. But love can’t always be scheduled neatly.”
Katie had felt lighthearted all evening, but now she was miffed. Did Todd think she didn’t really love Rick? Didn’t he understand what her heart had been through in the past eighteen months? She wasn’t running from anything. She was running to a goal. The goal of graduating.
When Katie didn’t respond to Todd’s comment, Christy squeezed his hand. “I think that might have come across a little too strong, Todd.”
He looked surprised and turned back to Katie. “Did it? Did I hurt your feelings?”
“No.” She bolstered herself and tried to repair the small crack in her emotional armor. “I think I’ve learned, or at least I am learning, a thing or two about love.”
Then, to try to return the evening to a lighter tone, she said, “I keep trying to tell you guys, I’m not as messed up as you think I am.”
“We don’t think you’re messed up,” Christy said.
Todd jumped in. “That wasn’t where I was going with what I said.”
Blessedly, Eli returned just then, and the conversation moved to tea and the box of graduation party invitations he had brought back with him.
“Rick wasn’t home. He left these for me yesterday and told me about the party his mom is planning. The only problem is that I can only think of a few people to invite. Do you want to take the rest of these, Katie?”
“I have way too many too. What about Joseph and Shiloh? Did you invite them?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I was hoping they would come.”
Eli made himself at home in Todd and Christy’s kitchen and prepared the hot tea. “Does everyone want some?”
“Pass,” Todd said.
“I’ll have some,” Christy said. “You can use the white teapot there on the counter. Tell me again what kind of tea this is?”
“It’s from Kenya. It came from a tea plantation run by some people we know. It’s just outside of Nairobi. Beautiful, hilly place. High altitude. Vivid shades of green.”
“I changed my mind.” Todd stood and pulled a mug from the cupboard. “I’ll try some of your Kenyan tea.”
Katie had been watching Eli. She didn’t know if it was the overhead lights, but from the way he was turned toward them, the backward L-shaped scar on his neck seemed to stand out.
“Eli, how did you get that scar? The one on your neck.”
He stopped pouring the boiling water from Christy’s kettle into the teapot. For a moment, he seemed frozen in place. Katie looked at Todd and Christy for clues. As soon as she saw Todd’s expression, she knew she had put her foot in her mouth.
“You know what? I’m guessing I shouldn’t have blurted that out. I take it back. Here’s a different question. Have you seen any good movies lately?”
When Eli didn’t answer right away, Katie turned to Christy for a bailout. “How about you guys? Anything worth recommending?”
Neither Todd nor Christy played along with Katie’s change-of-topic move. Both of them sat at the table, looking at Eli. Katie couldn’t tell if their attentiveness was an indication that the two of them already knew the story and were waiting to see if Eli would tell Katie, or if they didn’t know.
Could it be that Todd and Christy were just as curious, but neither had blurted out the question before?
Eli picked up the lid to Christy’s teapot. He put it in place and carried the pot over to the table where he set it in the center of the table along with a tea strainer.
“It’s best if you let it steep for about four minutes,” he said. “That allows the tea leaves to open all the way and release the good stuff. But then, you know all that already, Katie.”
Katie, who loved tea, nodded. “Four minutes,” she repeated.
“Do you have any milk, Christy?”
“Sure.”
She hopped up, but Eli said, “I can get it.” He returned to the quiet gathering at the kitchen table and placed the milk carton unceremoniously next to the teapot.
“I’m pretty sure my aunt and uncle are going to come to the graduation,” Christy said, encompassing Eli and Katie in her statement. “If you send them an invitation to the party, I think they would love to come.”
Katie nodded again. She had Bob and Marti’s address and had already planned to send them an invitation. It seemed pointless to add another comment about the party or the invitations. That topic wasn’t going anywhere.
Katie’s dangling question had encompassed all of them. She wished she could think of something, anything, to kick them all back into the ebb and flow of a different conversation.
“I’d like to know too,” Todd said. His statement sat there, waiting for Eli to pick it up.
Eli didn’t reach for it. He let it sit there, steeping, as it were.
After a long moment, Eli drew in a deep breath, but still he didn’t speak. His gaze was fixed on the teapot in the center of the table.
Katie felt for him. She knew all too well what it was like to be the target when Todd was stuck on a topic. Not more than ten minutes ago Katie had felt she had been in that same place as he tried to convince her that love was on the hunt for her and was going to take her down. The longevity of their friendship gave Katie the feeling that she could talk her way out the back door of Todd’s direct comments.
She didn’t know, however, if Eli had that same sense of freedom with them.
Without speaking, Eli reached for the teapot and the strainer and served each of them, pouring the steaming tea into their cups.
Katie watched with reverence for the way Eli carried out this ceremony that represented friendship’s simplicity to her. She could see that the tea leaves had unfurled during their four-minute soak. The water had turned into tea. Its unmistakably rich yet delicate fragrance rose to encircle them.
“I was eleven,” Eli said in low, even words.
Katie knew that what was about to unfurl at this table was a deep, fluttering part of Eli’s heart and life. Part of her wanted to be excused. She wanted to leave now and not listen to what Eli was about to say.
That was because her gut told her this communion between these gathered friends would be neither delicate nor fragrant. But it would be true. And truth has a way of staying in the heart for a very long time.
18
We lived in Zaire.” Eli told his story in steady tones as he finished pouring the tea. “Our home was inside a medical compound.”
Katie’s min
d flashed back to something Eli had said at Thanksgiving dinner when they were all feasting at the Doyles’ home. He said his favorite birthday was when he was nine, and it rained that day after a long drought. School was let out at the compound, and all the children ran around in the rain and danced in the mud. The image from that story had stayed with Katie; she had filed it away as one of her favorite virtual pictures of Africa.
Eli kept going with his story. “Our family was relatively safe on the mission compound. We lived right next to the medical facilities. People from the villages came into the compound every day. Individuals from warring groups put aside their differences, and all came to the same place for treatment.”
He looked at Katie and then at Todd.
“I was supposed to be in school, but I was feeling sick, so the teacher sent me home since she knew my mom was home that day. She sent a note with me. I read it, even though I wasn’t supposed to. The note said that if I was faking it, my mom was supposed to send me right back.”
Christy smiled softly.
“I went into the house, which was small but one of the more sturdy structures on the compound. I called for my mom, but she didn’t answer. I thought she might be out back hanging up laundry or in the vegetable garden. She loves growing carrots and tomatoes.”
Eli paused. He kept his gaze on the untouched mug of tea in front of him.
“My mother wasn’t in the garden. She was in the bedroom. And a man… a man from a different village… intended to rape her.”
The stillness that fell on them seemed to draw their hearts together. Katie sensed all their pulses were beating in inaudible unison.
“I ran at him. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I jumped on his back and… he had a knife.” Eli stopped there.
Katie felt awful on many levels. From the way Eli weighed each word before speaking it, it was clear he hadn’t offered this story to many people in the past. She wished she hadn’t voiced the question that caused him to tell them. Katie also felt horrible about what she had thought of Eli last May when she first saw him at Christy and Todd’s wedding. When she noticed the backward L, Katie had made one of her familiar notes to self from that season and quipped that the L stood for “Loser.”