She lowers her voice even further, but I hear it anyway. And I’m not at all sure how I feel about it.
“Nope, absolutely not,” Katherine continues after whatever Lolo’s just said. “I was a perfect lady and kept my hands to myself. Yup, him too. If we had rubber gloves, we’d wear them around each other, and if we had noise-canceling headphones, we’d have worn those too. And if I had a gun . . .”
“Okay, that’s enough of that—” I say, but once again Katherine dances away, pulling the phone cord as far as it will go, though now she faces me as she continues to speak into the phone.
“Lo, if you give up on him, I will be very angry because he’s been waiting a long time for you. You’ve seen his spreadsheet, right? Where he marks all his life’s bucket list items? Total dork—or yeah, sure, ‘cute’ works too. Anyway, my point is, you fit right into that spreadsheet, you align perfectly with his timeline. That’s what he wants, Lolo. You’re the one that he wants.”
Katherine and I stare at each other, and for an agonizing moment, I can see her entire heart in her gaze. Fear my own heart is in mine.
Katherine whirls back around. “So. Lo? You go put on the Christmas sweater I know Nancy bought for you and bake some gingerbread and get flour on your nose, or something adorable like that. Because I promise. I’m bringing Tom home to you.”
She hangs up without another word and punches a button, presumably to honor June’s request to send the line back to voicemail.
When she turns back, the soft emotion is tucked away once again, replaced with intense determination.
“Sorry I didn’t let you say goodbye,” she says with a wave of her hand that says she’s not sorry at all. “You always take forever to hang up the phone, and we don’t have time for that crap.”
“Really?” I ask skeptically. “Seems to me we have nothing but time. I appreciate your trying to give Lolo hope, but . . . it’s time to call it, Kates. We did our best, but Christmas Eve at my family’s is not happening.”
The Christmas proposal is not happening.
Katherine reaches out a hand, sets it on my shoulder, and meets my eyes. Reassuring. Comfortable. Warm. Right. Then she gives me a little shake like a coach giving a pep talk.
“Tom. Do you want to get married again?”
Staring into her brown eyes, I nod. “I do.”
“Okay then.” She squeezes my shoulder in reassurance. “Then let’s get you home.”
THIRTY-THREE
TOM
December 24, 10:20 a.m.
“You know . . . this is really not what I had in mind.” I lean down to Katherine to whisper into her ear.
Katherine leans toward me to reply. “Really?” she whispers back. “What part of this trip has been what you had in mind?”
“Fair point.”
I glance to my left just as the long-haul truck driver, who’s currently serving as our chauffeur, takes a huge bite of his hoagie. I wince as I watch a mayo-slickened piece of lettuce slip out of the bread and onto his flannel-covered chest.
Gorby—yes, that’s his real name—looks down at the rogue lettuce, causing him to swerve just enough that the rumble strip on the shoulder vibrates the cab. He overcorrects, sending me careening into Katherine, who called “dibs” on the window seat mere seconds after securing us our “sweet ride.” Her actual words.
“Gosh golly dang,” Gorby mutters in consternation before picking up the piece of lettuce and eating it. He glances over at us apologetically. “Sorry ’bout my language there.”
Yeah. Because that’s the problem with this situation.
“Alrighty,” Gorby says, polishing off the last bite of hoagie and licking his thumb. “Main course time. Ready for my burger.”
“How was your hoagie appetizer?” Katherine asks politely.
“Hit the spot. Portable charcuterie, I call it.”
Gorby hands me a cold burger he’s stashed in a cupholder, and reluctantly, I unwrap it and place it into his “burger” hand, just as he instructed me to do before we even left the airport.
“That’s right,” Gorby says in an approving tone. “Nice and easy now. I gotcha, Big Carl.”
“Big Carl?” I can’t help but ask. Hoping he’s not referring to me.
He lifts the burger. “I name all my chows. Seems right to honor the animal that gave up its life.”
Katherine purses her lips and nods as though this makes complete sense.
Gorby burps.
Did I mention I’m seated in the middle?
Still. A ride is a ride, even if it is atypical.
I don’t know how Katherine managed to find the number of a long-haul trucking company. Or convince their dispatcher to send a truck to swing by the airport and pick up a couple of hitchhikers. Or how she even thought of a semitruck as an option in the first place. But then, I suppose after the twenty-four hours we’ve had, it might quite literally be our last option.
I’m grateful, if not exactly comfortable.
“I really can’t express enough, Gorby, how much we appreciate you giving us a lift to Chicago,” I say, accepting the half-eaten burger he hands me so he can fiddle with his navigation system.
“Ain’t nothing,” he says as he chews. “Your pretty little lady here caught my dispatcher just in time. Didn’t hurt me none to swing by the airport.”
Katherine sighs but doesn’t correct his assumption that she’s my pretty little lady. It’s not like her to hold her tongue, and I glance over, but her face is turned toward the window, hiding whatever she’s thinking or feeling from me. Though, I’m never sure I’m reading her right, even when she’s staring right at me.
Yet another piece of lettuce falls onto Gorby’s rather good-sized belly as he takes the burger back.
“Dang nabbit, and I just had this one dry-cleaned!” He picks the lettuce off his shirt with surprising dexterity, given his enormous fingers. “Though, better I take the brunt of the mess than Rebecca.”
I’m preoccupied with the fact that he gets his flannel dry-cleaned, so it takes me a moment to respond. “Rebecca?”
“Didn’t I mention? This here’s Rebecca,” he says, taking his hand off the wheel and patting the dash. He leaves it there for a moment longer than I feel comfortable, and I resist the urge to grab the wheel. “I love each and every one of her eighteen wheels as if they were my own.” He sighs. “We’ve been through thick and thin. Through thicker and thinner. Through thickest and—”
“And thinnest?” Katherine asks.
I shoot her a warning look, not wanting to offend what feels like our literal last option to get to Chicago. But Gorby either doesn’t notice or doesn’t mind her sarcasm.
“That’s right, ma’am!” Gorby takes another bite and glances down at his shirt. He sees it’s all clear and, chewing, continues, “Becky and I been together for eight beautiful years. Coming up on a million miles together . . . Boy, isn’t that something? We’re gonna have to find something to do to celebrate! How about you two? How long you been together?”
“Not a million miles, right, Tom?” Katherine says, batting her eyelashes up at me.