A Date with Danger Page 2

  What research, you ask? Her research for my reception. Oh, wait, I’m not even dating anyone, let alone engaged! But don’t try telling her that. She just waves it off with a little smile and head wag like this is an insignificant detail and then checks on the pot roast. And her Jacklyn’s Wedding: Fingers Crossed! Pinterest page is a bit much.

  Not that I mean to paint her as a cliché, but she is one. Clichés get that way because they’re the extreme of something. Mom is the extreme.

  I click into the voice mails, listen for about four minutes to her cheery, “So how were the flowers? What fabric were the bridesmaid dresses? Did they have dinner mints?” before hanging up and dialing her directly.

  After two rings she picks up and trills, “Details! Details!”

  “Hello, Mom,” I say, but she’s already talking over me.

  “How was the wedding? Was Candace beautiful? How did she do her hair?”

  “It was lovely,” I say wearily, knowing we’ll get nowhere until the questioning is over. For all her sweetness, Mom would be a great police interrogator. I can just imagine a bright light and her sugary voice demanding, “Was it taffeta or silk? Taffeta or silk?!”

  “Candace was beautiful. Her dress had cap sleeves, which caused quite a stir at the lonely hearts table.”

  “And did you . . . meet anyone there?”

  “Not so much.” Except for a brooding stranger who may now be following me. “There weren’t that many guys there.”

  Mom clicks her tongue. “Where are all the young men these days? Why do they no longer attend weddings?”

  Probably because they know we’re all on the hunt. “No idea.”

  “Oh, well.” I can hear the rhythmic thwump of her kneading dough like she does every Saturday night. Conversations with Mom are always underscored by the sound of some chore—the snip of pruning shears as she trims roses, the slap of folding laundry. It’s like a homemaker’s quiet symphony. “Your cousin Gina’s reception is in May. If you meet someone there, that would still leave enough time for a summer wedding.”

  Again, this is my wedding she’s talking about. You know, the one to my nonexistent fiancé? I don’t mention that May is only four months from the end of summer—and I haven’t even met the guy yet. She’s operating on Mormon Standard Time, which can conceivably mark a mere eight weeks from “Hi, I’m Lemuel” to “See you at the altar.” Happens all the time.

  Just not to me. I’d rather try out a guy for longer than it takes to break in a pair of jeans.

  “Are you coming to dinner tomorrow?” she asks, the percussion of her kneading continuing.

  “Of course.” I always attend Sunday dinner with my family. It gives them a chance for a physical inspection to be sure I’m nourished and not yet covered in piercings. “What’re we having?”

  “Roast.” She gives a little chuckle. It’s a family joke, as we have eaten pot roast every Sunday since I was a fetus. “Big surprise, I know.”

  “Can I bring anything?” I ask.

  “Hmm, maybe some rolls. No, wait. I’ve got all this dough, and I’ll have plenty left over after the bread. Maybe a vegetable. No, wait. The beans from my garden are ripe; we better use them. Maybe . . . a dessert? Although, I still have some of that custard thing I took to choir. Well, just surprise me.”

  “Okay.” I stifle a laugh. We have this same conversation every Saturday night. She never actually gives me a food assignment. Half the time I take a handful of old candy bars that my sisters and I sneak before the meal. “I gotta go. I’m driving home, and I just picked up dinner.”

  “Jacklyn, it’s not good to eat a big meal this late.” Mom’s voice is low like we’re discussing a national secret. “It will wreak havoc on your . . . digestion.” She’s always embarrassed by words that have anything to do with bodily functions. Even something as mild as digestion. “Really, you shouldn’t eat after seven p.m.”

  I don’t mention the half a pizza I had at eleven last night. Or that I ate the rest at two a.m. when I couldn’t sleep. “I’ll remember that,” I say. “See you tomorrow, Mom. Love you.”

  “Love you. Rest up for church!”

  It’s nearly nine fifteen by the time I pull into the lot of my apartment complex and tramp up the stairs to the second floor. I always live on the second floor or higher because Dad insists it’s safer—something I regret from the first time I have to lug groceries up the stairs. Sometimes I’d prefer an intruder over eight trips from the Laundromat.

  Groping for the light switch as I open the door, I haul the food sack in and drop it on the kitchen table atop a biology book. The kitchen, directly to the right of the entryway, serves as more of a library and junk food dispensary. The table is littered with textbooks, paperback novels, and my typewriter. I like to write first drafts of papers on it. The sound of the keys is like something out of an old movie. The countertops are similarly strewn with literary anthropologies, cereal boxes, and empty paper sacks from fast-food places. Most of the time if I’m at the stove, I’m using the cooktop to balance a book while I wait for my corn dogs to heat in the microwave.

  To the left of the door is the living room, dedicated to comfort. The squashy red couch and love seat are pointed toward the TV and piled with beaded throw pillows and plush blankets. Here is where I eat, study, write, and engage in my favorite pastime: lounging with Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. Sometimes James Dean if he’s in a tolerable mood. Both sides of the TV are stacked high with videotapes and DVD boxes. Orchids in every color spill from pots. Even though I’m an indoor creature, I love orchids, plants, and camping. I’d live in a tree house provided there were corn dogs and a working VCR.

  Dropping my keys in a bowl near the door, I head toward the only bedroom, past framed snapshots of my family that line the hall. There’s my oldest sister, Delia, laughing with her kids; Jen’s wedding portrait; my brothers playing football; and my parents’ old engagement snapshot. To me, family photos make a space. It’s not home without their faces around.

  My sister Jen calls my bedroom a “Hindi explosion.” A deep-purple canopy shrouds the small bed obscured by tasseled pillows. Gilded lanterns hang from the ceiling, and ceramic elephants perch on the dresser and crammed bookshelf. “Seriously, it’s like India threw up in here,” Jen had said. But it was probably as close to world travel as I’d ever get.

  I shrug into a pair of striped pajama pants and a T-shirt and stuff the lavender dress into the back of the closet. I’m not trying to be cute anymore.

  At least not for a while.

  Back in the living room, I have just settled in to watch Cary Grant run for his life on North by Northwest when a shadow catches my peripheral vision. I turn toward the window, suddenly chilled despite the quilt around my shoulders. The gauzy red curtains are more decorative than functional and don’t entirely block the view from outside. Backlit by the porch light across the hall, someone has passed directly in front of my window.

  Heart thumping unevenly, I cross to the window and cautiously push back the curtain to peer out. The apartment across from mine looks dark. The girl who lives there—Amber or something—is a graveyard-shift waitress and doesn’t usually get home until the middle of the night. Ours are the last doors in the hallway, which means no one would come this way unless their destination was my place or hers.

  Unless they were lost. Maybe they got down here and realized they had the wrong apartment. But the rest of the corridor is equally empty. Whoever it was had to clear out of here fast.

  Maybe I imagined it. Or it could’ve been a trick of light bouncing off the TV. But in that fleeting moment, the shadow had looked exactly like a person’s silhouette.

  And it if was, where did they go?

  As I stare into the hallway, I have the sudden impression that someone could be in shadow at the end of the corridor, watching and silent.

  Shivering, I step back fro
m the window and push the gauze curtain back in place. I return to my movie.

  But not before getting a butcher knife from the kitchen.

  2

  I’m still alive in the morning, owing, no doubt, to the bookshelf and armoire I pushed in front of the door and the knife I kept on my nightstand.

  And the can of hairspray. Just as backup. There’s a possibility I overreacted. A little paranoia is inevitable when you live alone.

  I’ve got to stop watching CSI before bed.

  I drag myself to the bathroom and halfheartedly get ready for nine a.m. church—the worst time slot. It takes about eight pieces of clothing to make one modest church outfit: a shirt, a cardigan, a skirt, and another skirt since the first skirt isn’t long enough but the second is partly sheer. It’s seriously impossible to dress simply these days. It’s either a muumuu or a bikini. And there are days when I’m tempted by the muumuu. It would be easier.

  The church building is roughly a forty-five-second drive from my house, so I dawdle as usual and walk out at 9:03. Parking is impossible. The spot I find is halfway back to my apartment, and I huff into the chapel at 9:09 during the last strains of the sacrament hymn.

  I slide onto a bench next to my old roommate Bridget, sing the last two notes, and try to pretend like I’ve been there all along. Bridget gives me a sidelong glance of mock disapproval and a little smile before we close our eyes for the prayer.

  While the sacrament is being passed around, I open my scriptures and try to concentrate on my current chapter. But my gaze keeps roving about the chapel. Being in a Utah singles ward is like a weekly beauty pageant. Seriously, there are pretty girls everywhere. Glamorous blondes, demure brunettes, even the occasional redhead. I almost don’t blame the guys for not knowing where to start.

  I do, however, blame them for only asking out the same half dozen girls while the rest of us wait around. When I see the contestant from Pleasant Grove with her perfect teeth and her platform to “make the world a better place with brownies,” I kind of get it. Referring to a numerical system of hotness, Bridget likes to say, “The problem here is that any guy, even like a 4 or a 6, can have an 11. Any guy!” I’d rather not know my number.

  My eyes linger briefly on “Ring Row”: the bench along the back lined with glassy-eyed, hand-holding engaged couples who found each other and no longer need to sit closer to the front where they can be noticed.

  Then, there in the back left corner, is the guy. I mean the guy—the blond from the wedding reception that I stepped on, the one I thought I saw buying Rangoons—that guy.

  He’s sitting calmly near the door in an immaculate suit and gray tie, one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, hands knit in his lap and looking totally at home.

  My stomach lurches up to my teeth.

  “Bridget,” I hiss, poking her in the ribs.

  She looks up from the Ensign app on her phone and mouths, “What?”

  I point subtly over my shoulder at the guy, adamantly looking toward the ceiling as I do so. Bridget follows my finger and raises her eyebrows with interest.

  “Cute,” she whispers.

  “I know he’s cute,” I mutter fiercely. “That’s not what I mean. What’s he doing here?”

  Bridget’s gaze narrows. “I’m going to say . . . attending church?”

  I roll my eyes. “Have you ever seen him before?”

  “No.”

  Someone on the bench in front of us hisses, “Shush!” and I lower my voice even further before asking, “Don’t you find that a little suspicious?”

  She shrugs. “Maybe he’s new.”

  The shusher glares, and I glower back. That’s the problem with singles wards; they’re so quiet. In a family ward, there are so many babies crying and kids howling you could set off a bomb and the speaker would go right on talking.

  New in the ward. That’s a possibility. With all the marriages, the turnover here is fairly high. It’s like a new group every week. But what are the odds I’d see the same guy at a reception Saturday night and then at church the next morning?

  Okay. In Utah Valley it’s possible. But it feels suspicious. Like when a guy insists that helping with his laundry and eating Lucky Charms is “totally a date.” You just know you’re being played.

  Need more recon. I open a hymn book and sink down behind it, trying to watch him surreptitiously. He doesn’t have a set of scriptures with him. Since the invasion of the smart phone, lots of people read their reference books digitally. Or they pretend to so they can text in church. If he has a phone, it’s put away, but he could just be pondering.

  Like you should be doing. Not playing detective.

  With a stab of guilt I open my scripture set and give him a final glance when I notice the sacrament tray moving down his aisle. When the guy to his right offers him the tray, he lifts his flat palm and gives a tiny shake of the head, declining it.

  There could be a lot of reasons for declining the sacrament, chief among them not feeling worthy to take it. One of the three times in my life I slipped a swear word, I declined the sacrament for two weeks. Which may have been a bit excessive, but I’ve got a guilty conscience the size of Texas.

  Or maybe he’s not a member. That’s entirely plausible. But if he’s not, then what’s he doing here?

  Bridget has noticed me staring again. “Do you know him?” she whispers.

  This isn’t the time or the place to go into it. What would I say? No, I don’t know him, but I think he may be stalking me? Instead I just shake my head and try to read.

  I stoically ignore the stranger for the rest of the meeting. But after the closing prayer as we all rise from our seats, I turn, scooping my purse off the bench. As he gets to his feet, he makes eye contact with me—just for an instant—before striding out of the chapel.

  3

  “Freak out much?” Bridget asks.

  The regular block of church meetings has concluded, and we’re at the Munch and Mingle in the gymnasium: an excuse to eat store-bought lasagna and do more socializing or, in my case, lingering by the dessert table.

  Since I have family dinner soon, I’m not eating, but I munch on a brownie while Bridget butters a roll and surveys me with expectation. “Want to explain yourself?”

  “I don’t even know where to start,” I say, picking nuts out of the brownie into a discard pile.

  “Well, you saw that guy and wigged out.” She gives a dazzling smile. “Overcome by his raw masculinity?”

  Bridget is one of those infuriating people who happens to be beautiful and genuine at the same time. With naturally platinum hair nearly to her waist and green eyes as big as a cartoon woodland creature, she can stop guys in their tracks. Literally. Once when we were walking through an intersection, a guy on a bike saw her and pedaled into a truck. She’d be married ten times over if she weren’t so hard to catch. We’d lived together two years of college before the spirit of adventure whisked her off to Africa to go on safari. She’s tried everything from Sherpa to mechanic but is too much a dreamer to settle down. If I didn’t love her like a sister, I’d hate her for being so fabulous.

  “It’s embarrassing,” I say, balling the nuts up in a napkin.

  “I once saw you pee your pants,” she reminds me. “How is this worse?”

  I half-shrug. “I saw him last night at that reception that you refused to attend with me.”

  She snorts. “Attend a wedding I’m not obligated to go to? What am I, suicidal?”

  “Then I thought I saw him at Panda after.”

  Bridget looks up from her roll, eyes narrowed. “You went to Panda without me?”

  “No pain, no Panda—those are the rules. Then he shows up here today . . .”

  “So in Utah you saw the same Mormon guy at a wedding and church?” She gives a fake gasp. “Conspiracy!”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I wave her
off. “But then there was this creepy shadow outside my apartment. I don’t know.”

  A thin guy approaches the table, hands thrust into his pockets. “Hey,” he says, his awed gaze on Bridget.

  She flashes him a brilliant smile and answers, “Hi!” He responds by turning tail and sprinting out of the gym. Bridget sighs. “Poor guy.”

  “Just another dude whose therapy you should pay for.” I sound glib, but this is a fairly common occurrence. She often drives men to paralysis.

  “So,” she fiddles with the end of a long curl, “where were we? Oh! The creepy shadow outside your window.”

  “Never mind.” I cup my face in my palms. “I’m losing it.”

  “Or just overworked.” Bridget snags the corner of my brownie. “Have you been sleeping at all with finals coming up?”

  “More than I should. I’ve still got three papers to write.”

  She nods thoughtfully. “You think maybe you’re trying to deflect your stress by focusing on that guy instead of your work?” Bridget’s current area of study is psychology, and she’s taken to it with the same passion she took to opera last semester and archaeology the semester before that.

  “Why, thank you, Dr. Bridget. It’s all clear now.” I place my feet in her lap and lean back like I’m reclining on a couch. “I think it all started with the bed-wetting . . .”

  She pushes my feet off her knee. “I’m serious. Try and take a break.” Her eyes light up, and she claps. “Shopping!”

  I know we sound like typical girls, but our affinity for shopping is not typical. We’re serious about it. We could go pro if only the Olympics would recognize it as a sport. It requires training, stamina, and you have to carb up beforehand or risk dropping off in the second round. How is that not a sport?

  “Maybe later this week.” I finish the brownie and, mouth still full, ask, “Want to come to dinner?”

  “Nah. Going tunnel singing.”

  “You could weather the sea of children and still have time.”