Lena's River (11 page)

Lena fought back the negative voice in her head. She knew
at this stage she needed to slow down and assess what is was, she wanted and
needed, even if she didn’t know what in the hell that might be. She liked Levi
more than she wanted to admit and she was very attracted him. There was more
than just a spark between them. He didn’t deserve her hot-cold treatment one
bit. He had been kind and gentle with her – taking care of her after she’d hurt
her shoulder.

He was funny and smart and by far the hottest lover
she’d had in a long while. Maybe he was the best ever. And he wasn’t afraid of
sharing. He cared about her. What was the matter? She’d been stepping back with
each move he made forward. Maybe she’d pushed him away one too many times. At
the age of twenty-eight she knew that genuine and honest relationships were few
and far between.

Don’t screw this up, Lena. Go after him and
tell him how you feel.

Something big pulled on the end of her line. A sharp
tug sent the neurons firing in her reflexes and she yanked back with a jerk on
the pole. As she did this the fish slipped off the line; with a silver flip of
its tail it was gone.

Lena sighed and reeled in her line; careful not to snag
it on a rock or twig. She secured the hook and gathered up her gear. She would
go find him and tell him. She would apologize if she had to. Waiting until next
week was stupid. The day was slipping away fast.

When Lena reached the campground she walked back to her
campsite taking the long route in case she encountered Levi driving around the
loop on his way to the main road. She didn’t see his truck anywhere. She sat
down with a sigh at the picnic table and leaned back on the table with her
elbows behind her, deliberating. Should she drive into town? She knew the print
shop where he was headed.

Lena grabbed her bag out of the camper and fished for
her keys. Gina was still at the river. Maybe she shouldn’t leave her alone. She
should at least tell her where she was off to…

****

Lena stood on the sidewalk outside the print shop.
She’d wasted a lot of time trying to find Gina. By now it was late afternoon.
Levi had most likely gone elsewhere – having finished up his print job. She
peered inside. He was not in there. She went in anyway and stood at the
counter.

“Can I help you, miss?” A tall, slender girl asked her
as she eyed Lena up and down with a slight curl to her lip. Lena realized she
hadn’t bothered to change her clothes or wipe the fish grease off herself. She
was sure she looked like she just crawled out of a dugout in the furthest
corner of the backwoods. She looked like a hillbilly or worse.

I might as well be wearing a sign that says
Sasquatch Girl – approach with caution.

“Yeah, did a guy come in here awhile ago – tall, dark
hair with a Mariner’s cap? He had resumes’ to copy off his laptop.” Lena
figured he would have come to the desk to get that done.

“Um, yes I remember him. He finished up about a half
hour ago.” The girl wrinkled her nose a little and eyed her clothes as Lena
thanked her.

Lena left the shop and peered up and down the street
looking for his truck. There were a number of dark blue pickups parallel parked.
She pulled back a stray lock of hair in her eyes and stuffed it inside her hat.
She took a few steps north and started checking license plates. There it was:
New Jersey half way down the block. She turned and scanned the small shops
lining the avenue.

A small café across the street caught her eye. There he
was sitting at a table near the window. She checked for oncoming vehicles and
ran across to the other side only to stop short outside the door. There was
someone with him.

A well-dressed woman sat across the table from him and
their conversation seemed animated. The restaurant was packed but they didn’t
seem aware of anyone around them. She was drop-dead gorgeous. Lena thought she
looked like a model straight out of a magazine, with styled, auburn hair and
perfect make-up. The woman laughed while Levi was grinning from ear to ear.
Lena noticed he leaned toward her across the table as he talked. The body
language was tell-tale. Lena turned her face away and walked down the sidewalk,
her shoulders slumped. She had seen enough.

So much for true confessions – forget it.
You are delusional Lena. Why on earth would he want you when he could have a
beautiful companion who doesn’t give him mixed signals?

Her heart sank with disappointment. She’d lost her
chance. She was too late.

Chapter Eight

The sun flitted in and out among low clouds all
morning. It had rained all night and Lena could hear the water drip off the
branches above her camper. It sounded peaceful and comforting. A small cone hit
the roof above her head with a slight clunk. She opened her eyes and peered up
at the ceiling. She couldn’t stay in bed all day. That was stupid. Maybe coffee
would help.

 She sat in bed, propped up on her pillows holding a
large mug of coffee to her chest like a teddy bear. She didn’t care if she got
up anytime soon. What was the point? She might as well go home and be sad there
where she had plenty of work to keep her distracted and busy.

“I don’t want to go home. Maybe I can still salvage
something out of this vacation.” Lena sighed. “I just need to get out of this
funky mood.”

She knew she was talking to herself but who cared?
There was no one to hear. Levi had left some of his stuff lying around which
she had folded the night before and piled in a corner of the cabinet. He hadn’t
shown up at the camp which didn’t surprise her, but she kept listening for
sounds of his truck – tires crunching in the gravel outside of her little
camper in the woods.

She went over her actions again and again in her mind.
Replayed the conversations; analyzed her failure to communicate or respond to
him. She had pushed him away one too many times. Now more than ever she felt
the weight of a woman on her own. True, she had her friends and her sister but
they all had love in their lives – love that mattered and endured. Love they
could count on. Lena couldn’t pick up the beat to that song, she thought. Love
seemed to make a wide berth around her. A deep sense of failure had a firm grip
on her heart.

How she wished her Mom was here. She would have given a
lot to just see her again – healthy and smiling, digging carrots in the garden.
Big tears welled up in her eyes and slid down her cheeks. She didn’t bother to
wipe them away.

A couple hours later the sun came out and the camper
began to heat up. Lena woke with a start. She had fallen asleep again. She got
up, opened the door and stepped outside to bright, blue sunshine.

 She squinted and shaded her eyes; then she heard a
bark. It was Pascal wagging his tail at the foot of the step and Levi was
seated in his camp chair with a book - his feet resting on the bench of the
picnic table and a coffee cup in his hand. He looked up at her and smiled his
beautiful smile.

“Hey-ho; I thought you were going to sleep the whole
day.” He grinned up at her.

Lena couldn’t help but look surprised. Her heart beat
in her chest with a thump and sense of relief flooded her body. “Hi! Yeah, um -
I guess I was tired.” She averted her eyes and looked up at the trees so he
wouldn’t notice how glad she was to see him.

“But, I’m missing all this wonderful sunshine.” She
paused and didn’t know what to say.

Why was he here when he could be with that beautiful
brunette in the coffee shop? She felt a pang of jealousy. It was an odd emotion
- being jealous, and it was not Lena’s style. She didn’t remember feeling it
before. She decided to act like she’d never seen him in the café. Problem
solved. He was here; that’s all that mattered. What he did on his own was none
of her business. It wasn’t like she had any claim to stake.

“Please tell me there is still coffee in that pot?” She
pointed to the portable stove on the table.

“Yep, all hot and ready like me!” Levi jumped up,
rinsed out a cup and poured steaming coffee into it. He handed it to her, still
smiling and relaxed.

Lena never tired yet of seeing those white teeth in the
handsome face when he smiled. Again, she had that twinge of jealousy which she
couldn’t avert. Lena wondered if he’d spent the night with the super-model. He
acted as if nothing was different. She felt glad to see him and decided to roll
with it. After all, what did she know? She shouldn’t jump to conclusions.

Still, a needle of doubt poked at her. She took the
coffee cup from his hand and stepped down to the table, but didn’t sit. She
took a cautious sip. “So, did you get lost yesterday?”

Lena wanted him to know that she at least noticed he
didn’t come back last night.

“No, I decided to go sight-seeing and check out the
Rainforest Exhibits. Have you seen those? What a fascinating place! And then I
discovered there are hiking trails all over the area leaving from the Ranger
Station into the Olympics. I found this amazing waterfall. So yeah, by the time
I got back to town and grabbed a bite to eat it was late.”

Lena nodded and took another sip of hot coffee. She sat
down in the other camp chair and crossed her legs. There was a weighted
silence.

“I would have called you to let you know what was up,
but no cell service here, of course.” He said.

Lena wasn’t sure what to think. No mention of the hot
brunette at all. The needle of doubt in her mind grew a little sharper. She
tried hard not to fill in the blanks. She wanted to tell him how she felt – why
she followed him into town the day before, but uncertainty seemed to hold the
trump card. She would bide her time until she knew more. Mistrust and doubt
were an insidious lot.

“You okay?” Levi’s smile turned to concern.

Lena managed a small response and forced a lilt back
into her voice. “I should be; I got a ton of sleep last night…and this morning.
Is it even still morning?”

“It is 12:02 – two minutes past noon.” Levi didn’t take
his eyes off her which made Lena uncomfortable. Once again she was unkempt and
still in her pajamas. It seemed he often caught her in this state of disarray.
A fitting analogy for how she felt on the inside.

She bent down to pet Pascal’s furry head; then she had
an idea.

 “You want to go to the beach today?” Lena asked, still
petting the dog. “I mean, if you don’t have other plans.” She waited for an
excuse from him and didn’t look up.

Without hesitating Levi replied: “I’d like that. Why
would I have other plans? What about Gina? Where is she anyway?” Levi pointed a
thumb back towards Gina’s camp.

“She went shopping for antiques today.” Lena wrinkled
her nose. “She has friends in Port Townsend who enjoy that kind of thing.” Lena
breathed a silent sigh of relief. Levi still wanted to hang around, despite the
mystery brunette.

She decided later, as she got dressed in her camper, to
live in the moment and try not to worry. Gina was right. Life was for living.

Lena realized she was inept at forging a meaningful relationship
with most men. This was not a sudden epiphany. It wasn’t as if lightening hit
her square in the brain, and all at once she gained clarity. Lena liked to
handle perplexing ideas like hot coals in her bare hands. She needed to feel
the heat and the weight of them. She almost certainly needed to feel the burn
of reality for a time before coming to terms.

She was skilled with the physical aspects of a
relationship – she had no problem with sex. Making love with Levi felt familiar
and safe, but any deeper attachment made her nervous. And she didn’t quite know
what to do about this self-revelation. She had created an emotional bubble
around herself because things didn’t make sense. There were facets of life that
would never make sense to her. The realization was growing in her that she was
missing out on a whole lot of happy. And that was a senseless waste.

Carpe Diem
would be her motto.
Seize the Day
: Starting right now, because there was
definitely some seizing to be done before the day was gone.

****

“I can’t believe that trucker just did that!” Levi’s
knuckles were clenched on the steering wheel as he braked hard to the right and
skidded in gravel on the shoulder. His face was white and his voice choked. “He
almost ran us off the road!”

Lena braced herself against the dash. “Pull over for a
second; I think there’s room.” Lena put her hand on Levi’s arm as he pulled out
of the line of traffic. She’d asked him to drive because her shoulder was still
very sore and it hurt to shift gears. Beneath her fingers she felt him shake.
She held onto him, squeezing his right arm while he brought the truck over to
the side of the road. She glanced at him again. His face was twisted with an
expression she did not recognize.

She took a moment to exhale: “That was scary - those
logging trucks take up their half out of the middle around here, although I’ve
never seen a trucker be quite that aggressive.” Lena frowned and looked back over
her shoulder through the rear window. “He’s still in the middle of the road!
What an ass. That was crazy but you did a good job of getting out of the way.”