Chapter 24 A Great Day for a Picnic
They finished breakfast and drove to Stan’s Garage. After introducing her to Stan, who had already given the car a pretty good look, they waited for him to make some phone calls for parts and then listened carefully as he told them what he could. “I can have it fixed for you, alright,” he began. “It’ll take two or three days to get the parts in and another day or two to get her taken apart and the new parts put in.”
A part of her was happy that she would be staying around a few more days, but the other part of her was telling her that she needed to be on the road. She had to get away, get some space, try to figure out what this was all about, and make some decisions. Her world was upside down. Pittsburgh seemed a lifetime away, and her thoughts and feelings were far from what they had been when she had first started on her journey. Did fate play a role in what had happened to her? The problem was, she loved being with Evan. He made her feel different than she had ever felt before, and it was exciting to her.
“Well,” he said as they got back into the pickup. “Looks like you’re going to be stuck here for a while. What do you want to do?”
“Maybe you could show me around a little bit?” she suggested.
“What do you want to see?” he asked. “Not much of a town.”
“We could start with your place,” she smiled.
“Alright. It ain't much of a place.”
“But it’s yours, right?”
“It belonged to my folks until they moved to the lower country. The winters can get a little rough here, and my dad does better at a lower elevation.”
She asked about the town and what it had to offer for entertainment as they drove to his house. It was mostly just a small town. A few pretty good restaurants, a theater, a few bars, and some places to go shopping were about all that it had to offer. You could get your groceries there and make out alright if you weren’t hoping for too much in entertainment.
“This is a pretty nice place,” she said as they drove up. It wasn’t large or elegant in any way, but it was well looked after. The barn and corrals were in good shape, and like the house, showed fresh paint. She went to the pasture fence first. The grass was tall, and it waved gently in the breeze as though it were ripples on a pond. There was an abundance of trees lining two sides of the pasture, and it presented a soft, shady, comfortable picture. “I just got a great idea.”
“Alright, go ahead with your idea.”
“How about we have a picnic down there by the clump of shady trees in the pasture?” she said, watching his face eagerly.
“We just finished breakfast,” he said.
“You are such a MAN!” she laughed. “It will take a little bit to get the stuff together for a picnic, and we can head out there and enjoy the shade and the breeze for a while before we eat, right?”
“Sure,” he replied. “That’s a great idea.”
“Let’s get started,” she said. “We’ll see what you have in the house.”
“Not much. Couple of cans of beans, probably. I haven’t been here much in several months.”
“Let’s go see and then we can go shopping if we need to,” she suggested.
So, she did want to spend more time with him. He wasn’t going to turn it down, but it still made him wonder if he was getting into something that he couldn’t stop from happening and had no control over the outcome. It was like stepping onto a nasty ole bronc. He’d done that before. He led her up onto the deck to the back door and turned the knob.
The day was perfect for a picnic. They lay together on a blanket, talked about silly things, and laughed. They fed each other pieces of cantaloupe, grapes, and watermelon, sometimes kissing between bites. The picnic lunch that she had prepared was nothing short of wonderful, and the two of them were stuffed beyond capacity.
Finally, as the afternoon stretched on, Alexandra lay with her head on his chest as they watched the clouds and tried to find images among them. Mostly they had become quiet. One thing still stood between them, but neither wanted to spoil the day by bringing it up.
As much as Evan wanted to just ignore it, it was a constant reminder that all of what they were enjoying together could come to a very bad end. He had given his heart away. He had tried to hold it back, tried to rein it in, keep it under control, but there were so many things about her that made him let go. It was obvious to him that Cameron didn’t take care of what she truly needed, or she would never have come to his bed two nights past. To break her promise to him, meant that she wasn’t ready to marry Cameron or anyone else, for that matter. But what business was it of his?
Alexandra, on the other hand, was simply enjoying her newfound freedom. She was enjoying the simple things in life and simple living. She would have to face the world again soon enough, and she was afraid. How am I going to see things from that point forward? The change in her had been complete, and she knew that she could never go back to what she was before. Had she changed so much that her relationship with Cameron would no longer work? Should she have a relationship with anyone in her current state? It could all wait. She had a few days to be with Evan, and then she would face reality.
“Suppose we better start packing all of this stuff up,” he said as he noticed the sun was dipping closer to the horizon.
“Hmm…” she replied. “I could stay right here and be quite happy.”
To have her make such a statement struck him like someone had punched him in the gut. In his way of thinking, if she was happy being there, then she ought to take off the ring and make the decision to stay. To him, it was a black and white decision. Against his better judgment, he spoke. “Then take off that ring and stay.”
“I can’t, Evan,” she replied. “Please don’t ruin a perfect day.”
“It isn’t quite perfect,” he answered. “It’s been wonderful, but not perfect.”
“What would make it perfect?” she asked. She knew the answer, but she wanted to hear him say it.
“If I knew that it wasn’t going to end,” he replied.
His response wasn’t what she was expecting. She decided to go fishing. “Why don’t you want it to end?