Chapter 13
Chapter 13
“ H ere,” Carol announced, yanking Jones from his deep thoughts.
“Where?” he said, eyes scanning the horizon for a restaurant.
“Here, right here,” she said, pointing to a man standing beside his motorbike.
“Is he going to take us to the restaurant?” Jones asked.
“Oh, David,” she said, again with the inappropriate amusement. Before he could ask her to explain, she had already bolted from the Jeep and was talking to the man and pointing at things.
Jones joined her slowly, wary about what he might find. And it was worse than he thought. The motorbike, as it turned out, was a mini food truck, complete with an array of steamed dishes and sauces that looked as clean as one might expect from a motorbike in the middle of nowhere.
Carol was apparently ordering, saying words as she pointed at things. Motorbike Man smiled happily at her, showing a grin with a lot of gaping, toothless holes that somehow made him look even friendlier and not deranged, as one might imagine. Finally Carol turned her attention to him “And what will you have, David?”
“No, thank you,” he said, barely able to choke the words out.
With a sigh, she rolled her eyes before turning to Motorbike Man to point to more things. A minute later he handed them two loaded plates. Carol paid the man, took the plates with a smile, and sank to the stubby, sandy grass beside the Jeep, leaning her back against the vehicle. Jones watched her uncertainly, stomach rumbling in angry protest.
“Sit,” she commanded in a bark that made him jump.
“Don’t wanna,” he said, sounding like a stubborn four year old
“You prefer to eat standing up?” she asked.
“I’m not eating that,” he hissed. He darted a glance over his shoulder to make sure Motorbike Chef couldn’t hear before sitting down next to her to continue his whisper rant. “Do you understand the kinds of diseases you can get from that? You literally bought it off a random guy on a street bike. ”
“Do you understand I rate the cleanliness of food for a living?” she asked before popping something into her mouth. She chewed as she studied him, apparently awaiting an actual answer.
“And how can this possibly meet those standards?” he motioned to her drippy, soggy meal. Everything looked mushy, exactly like the sort of food he usually avoided.
“Easily,” she said. She loaded a fork of rice something, dipped it in an ugly tan sauce, and held it out to him.
“No, tha…” he started to say, almost choking when she shoved the fork into his open mouth.
His eyes watered indignantly as he chewed.
“You don’t know what’s good for you,” she said, taking another bite from the fork they were apparently sharing.
She was insane. That was the only possible explanation. He must have mis-categorized it at first as having an unlikeable personality. But really, she was straight up crazy. That was the only explanation for everything that had happened.
“So you approve,” she noted with the annoying smile, and that was when he realized he had picked up the spare plate and started to demolish it. He paused, staring at it in wonder. How had it gotten into his hands? And how had he eaten so much? And, most importantly, how was it so amazingly delicious? Jones hated rice. And mystery food. And hot things. And sour things. He was a meat and potatoes kind of guy, all the way. If he could eat meat, potatoes, and pie every meal for the rest of his life, he would die a happy man.
“What is it?”
“You mean what was it?” she asked as he polished off the remainder of his plate and stared hungrily at hers. “ Siomay , a steamed pork dumpling with peanut sauce,” she used a chopstick to point to the tan glop on his plate. “And chili sauce. Indonesian food is a big melting pot, lots of amazing variety. But of course you know that by now.”
“Um, sure,” he said, cheeks heating with a blush. No matter what, he would not admit he had taken every meal at the resort since his arrival. And all of them had been some version of American meat and potatoes. But, being Gum Lady, she had some sort of preternatural ability to read him down to his soul.
“David, you have eaten outside the resort, haven’t you? Please tell me you’ve sampled the local cuisine.”
“I don’t like ethnic food,” he said, his scowl as defensive as his tone.
“It’s not ethnic if you’re living there,” she pointed out.
“I don’t like rice. Or seafood. Or mushy things. Or hot things.”
“Oh, man,” she said, shaking her head, her tone turning the words into a near scowl.
“What?” he tried to snap, but it was hard to sound grumpy when his belly was so pleasantly full.
“I thought you were a foodie, like me. Turns out you’re stuck on the SAD.” She shook her head, eyes rounded with sadness and pity.
“I’m going to regret asking, but what’s the SAD?”
“The Standard American Diet. Meat. Starch. Sugar. Processed food.”
“What’s wrong with any of that?” he exclaimed.
In answer, she shook her head sadly again.
Angry all over again, he pointed his fork at her. “You’re condescending. And a food snob.”
“A side effect of attending the most prestigious culinary school in the country. Don’t you think the US military is the best in the world?”
“Yes, but that’s because they are,” Jones said.
“Don’t you think other soldiers believe the same about their militaries?”
“Yes, but they’re wrong,” he said.
“Logic is not an apple that grows in everyone’s tree,” she said. She took another bite of her food while Jones watched, frowning. When she reached the last bite, she loaded her fork and fed him, once again unexpectedly shoveling food into his mouth.
“Why?” he exclaimed, using his sleeve as a makeshift napkin. “Why no warning?”
“Because you’ll refuse, and you absolutely should not refuse.”
“Carol.”
“What?” Her brows lowered defensively, probably in response to his tone.
“I’m still hungry,” he said, words turning plaintive.
“David, those are my very favorite words.” She stood and put down a hand. “Come on.”
He stared at the hand, uncertain. “Where?”
“Doesn’t matter. You have no choice.”
“Like being back in the navy,” he said, but he put his hand out and allowed her to tug him up.
“ W hy a soldier?”
Carol had found more shady street food Jones otherwise would have avoided at all costs. He was still slightly fearful of becoming deathly ill, but the flavor was so explosively good he was somehow willing to overlook the pending horror.
“Technically I was a sailor. I wanted to protect people, to be one of the good guys,” he said.
She studied his profile as he scraped the remnants of something coconut and mango flavored off his plate. “Were you bullied?”
He flinched. It was a long time ago and he was over it, but having someone yank him back to those years of pain with no warning was like ripping off a sticky bandage. “A bit. I was fat. Like, really fat.” When she made no reply to that, he thought the conversation was over. Or at least a part of his brain did. Apparently other parts didn’t get the memo because he kept talking, long past the point where most people would have been interested. “Being the obligatory fat kid meant I also had to be funny and easygoing. It’s the law. So on the surface, I played along. When kids made fun of me, I laughed with them. But inside I was pretty sad.”
“Something changed. What was it?” she asked.
“I don’t actually know. There was no aha moment. One day it was like, ‘That’ll do, Pig.’ I put down the hoagie and picked up the hand weight. Being disciplined suddenly felt good, so I kept going with it.”
“How did other kids react?” she asked.
“Not great, actually. When people have assigned you a role in their minds, it’s hard to break out of that cage. They were comfortable with me as the funny fat kid. Seeing me as serious, intent, and ripped must have been a shock. But then school was over. I joined the navy and wanted to keep pushing myself.”
“You became a SEAL.”
“I became a SEAL. Honestly, I didn’t think I’d be able to do it. I mean, I had the drive to change my life, to lose a ton of weight, but would that be enough to see me through BUD/s training?”
“I take it the answer was yes.”
He shrugged. “It was a mental game. So was losing weight and getting fit. Not so different, really, when it came down to it.”
“Interesting,” she said, and she sounded as if she really meant it. Some little hidden part of Jones took a breath and relaxed. He hadn’t realized he was defensive about his life until that moment, but he was always waiting for people to judge him, to question him, to doubt him. Her ready acceptance of his life story was a reminder that it was a bigger deal to him than it was to most people, that people didn’t see him through a fat kid filter.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked.
He cleared his throat. Danger, danger, danger. “Uh, no, I’m, uh, currently between.”
She squinted at him. “What is happening right now? What is this?” her hand wove, encompassing him with a swish.
“It’s that, you know, we only just met, and…”
“Oh, wow, you seriously did not assume I was hitting on you with that innocent question, did you?”
“No,” he lied, letting out a breath that was halfway between relieved and annoyed. Why wasn’t she hitting on him? He was a catch, even if his mom was the only one to say so.
“I’m making conversation here, trying to get to know you. It’s a thing humans do on first acquaintance. And for your information, I do have a boyfriend.” She fluffed her hair. It was hard not to picture a miffed chicken when she did that. If she gave a loud squawk and laid an egg right now, he would not be a bit surprised. “Why are you smiling?”
He shrugged. “How did you get in the judgmental travel business?”
She faced forward with a little huff, consciously letting go of her annoyance. “I wanted to be a chef, preferably at somewhere like your fancy resort, maybe on a cruise. I wanted to go to some far-flung location and make it. But I didn’t have all the necessary components to be a chef, not of the caliber I wanted to be. For a while I worked on some food lines, but it was hard being a grunt. This opportunity came up and seemed too good not to take. The schedule is insane, but so is the pay. And I get to see the world, to stay at the finest resorts, to pretend to be one of the beautiful people for a bit.”
He felt like she purposely edited the story, that there were gaps she left out to keep it impersonal. But he was okay with that. For the next little while, she was the job. It was never a good idea to get too attached to the job. Which made his next question nonsensical. “How long have you and the boyfriend been together?”
“Three years.”
His eyes bugged. Three years? That was two years and ten months longer than he’d ever been in a relationship. “Are you engaged? You must be by now.”
“No,” she said. Her wayward stare told him it was a tender topic, one best left unpoked.
“Why not?”
“We don’t see each other that often, but it works for us. We both like our independence.”
“That sounds like one of those things women say when their man’s a cheater,” he said.
She wrinkled her cute little nose at him. She had a kind of pug nose, turned up on the end a bit. With the big eyes, freckles, and diminutive size, she could definitely inhabit Whoville. He wondered, but didn’t ask, if anyone had ever called her Cindy Lou Who.
“He’s not a cheater. He’s a great guy, an amazing guy. But he’s busy and life is busy.” She shrugged. What are you going to do?
“I can’t imagine dating someone for three years without making a commitment. Just saying.”
“My condolences to your girlfriend. Oh, wait, you don’t have one.”
“I’m between,” he snapped. His lack of girlfriend was a sore spot.
She snorted. “I’ll bet you are.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She paused and faced him. He did the same. People began to walk around them, as if they were a new boulder in the stream of humanity now crowding the street. Jones took her arm and shepherded her out of the way, off to the side. “That first day, when you practically tripped over your tongue to get to the desk, you were coming to see French Barbie, right?”
“So?”
She shook her head, sighing in exasperation. “Ridiculous.”
“What? That I found her attractive? Alert the media, guy wants to ogle hot girl. Film at eleven.”
“No, it’s that you in any way believe that’s the sort of woman you should go for.” She shook her head again.
“Because she’s out of my league?” now he was really becoming irritated. How much of an ogre did she think he was? He patted his stomach, reassured by the abs beneath his fingertips. Maybe he’d slacked off his training a little since he moved to the resort, but he wasn’t fat again. He wasn’t.
“It’s not about that. It’s like,” she paused and took a breath, thinking. “Like everyone is in an Olympic size swimming pool, the kind where the lanes are all roped off. We’re all the same, all at the same skill level and in the same depth of water. But we have our lanes and we can’t stray from them. You have to stay in your lane.”
“And you think that woman was in another lane?” he asked.
She nodded. “Definitely. And not because she’s better than you, and not even because she’s tall and perfect, but because those things have made her who she is. Her life has likely been more privileged than yours, the way it always is for beautiful people. It’s shaped her in different ways. Unfair, but true. You need to find someone in your lane, someone who has been shaped by a painful past the way you were. Someone who understands without being told.”
He stared at her, blinking in surprise by how much sense it all made. In the past when people had tried to tell him women were out of his league, he took it to heart, as if it was a slam against him, as if he wasn’t good enough. But put the way Carol put it, they weren’t different because one of them was better and one was worse. They were different because they were different. It was so fundamental, yet so profound.
“Huh,” he said.
“That girl who brought us pie,” she said, apropos of nothing.
“Lucinda?” Lucinda worked for the restaurant; she was his pastry connection.
“Yes, her. She likes you. You should ask her out.”
“Lucinda?” Lucinda was cute, but the zing wasn’t there. Wasn’t the zing supposed to be there? “I’m not sure I’m attracted to her.”
“Attraction isn’t always immediate. Sometimes it grows; sometimes it has to be cultivated. You know the greatest predictor of finding love is proximity. We fall for the people already in our world, people we see and know. Getting to know someone, spending time with them, is truly the best way to find lifelong love.”
“Is that how it happened with you and your part-time boyfriend? Proximity .” He clasped his hands under his chin and fluttered his lashes.
“Sort of. I met him in culinary school. He’s my good friend’s older brother. I thought he was the handsomest man I ever saw. He has those kind of rugged good looks. Cop good looks.”
“He’s a cop?”
She nodded. “In Maine. So you see, he’s kind of tied down to his job and unable to follow me around the world.”
“And you’re not ready to settle down in Maine,” he guessed.
“I’m more ready than I used to be,” she said, doing the thousand-yard stare again. And once again he sensed pain and sadness behind her words. And once again he refused to ask her about them. He told himself he was giving her privacy, but the truth was that he was afraid of the growing friendship between them. Something about Carol loosened his tongue and his reserve. He’d been more candid with her than he’d been with most people in his life. Even his SEAL buddies didn’t know the depth of pain his fat kid past caused him. He’d so badly wanted to be one of them—as tough, as indestructible. Admitting he used to drown his pain in a gallon of ice cream would have undone that. But somehow he knew Carol wouldn’t judge him, if he told her that information.
Because she’s in your lane, he realized. Whatever trauma or pain occurred in her past, it was comparable to his. It had defined her; it had made them the same.
“What?” she asked, patting her hair self-consciously, making him realize he was staring at her.
The way her lashes fanned over her warm brown eyes reminded him of his favorite cow on his grandparents’ farm. He’d loved that cow. But telling a woman she reminded him of a bovine was a step too far past stupidity, even for him. “Nothing. You’ve got me thinking things.”
“Sorry,” she said, giving him an apologetic smile. “You know what stops thoughts and feelings?”
“Food?” he guessed.
“It’s like you’re reading my mind. Come on, I saw a guy who makes cotton candy into animal shapes.” She took his hand and began tugging him forward. Jones turned off his brain and trotted behind her, happy to snuff out his disconcerting mental chatter. If he wasn’t careful, he’d convince himself he was falling for her, and wouldn’t that be a disaster?