Paul nodded slowly, sympathetically. He seemed to be taking in her face and hair as if for the first time.
Sierra continued to whisper her explanations to Paul as if no one else were around. “Tawni wanted to fix me up for the dinner. I guess she thought the other hairstyle went with the makeup she used to cover my black eye.”
Paul nodded again, this time with a smile on his lips. He took Sierra by the elbow and whispered one word in her ear: “Come.”
It was all she could do not to drop the ceramic ice cream bowl on the patio. She managed to place it on the table, and although Paul had let go of her elbow, she felt he had an invisible hold on her as he led her past all the chattering guests and across the grass toward the gazebo. Without saying anything, Paul led the way to the trail and down the wooden steps to the beach. The farther away from their families they walked, the louder the pounding surf grew.
The sun was hidden behind a bank of thick clouds that seemed to ride the edge of the horizon like a great battleship. In only a few minutes the sun would surrender behind that hulk of a ship, and this day would be over. But Sierra felt sure that, for Paul and her, this day was just about to begin.
When she reached the last step, Sierra slipped off her sandals, just as Paul had done, and followed his lead. She tucked the sandals under the step for safekeeping until their walk brought them back this way.
Paul shuffled through the sand with Sierra beside him. She loved the way the brown sugar grains felt between her toes, cool and soothing like millions of tiny massage balls on the bottom of her feet.
They strolled and watched the glow of the sun diminish. Side by side, step matching step, neither of them spoke. A salty breeze whipped Sierra’s hair into her face. A sandpiper scurried after the receding waves, pecking the bubbles in the sand, hoping to find its dinner.
No words seemed to come to either Sierra or Paul. With so much to say, Sierra didn’t know where to begin. She felt peaceful and yet wired at the same time. Finally, she couldn’t stand it. “Wait!” she said. “Stand right there. Don’t move.”
Paul stopped and stood with his bare feet sinking into the wet sand. Sierra walked a few feet away and turned to face Paul. The wind was now in her face, and it blew her curls away from her eyes. Paul stood still as a wave came up and covered his feet, burying them deeper in the sand.
In the cool evening light, Sierra could see his peaceful expression. He looked happy enough without adding anything to this moment. Sierra was the one who needed something else.
“Okay,” she said, hoping this wasn’t going to look strange to Paul. “This is how I wanted it to be when we first saw each other.” She smiled and held out her arms, delightfully crying out, “Paul! It’s you! It’s really you!”
Paul caught on to her game, and holding out his arms, he declared, “Sierra! After all these long months, we’re finally together!”
The scene was silly and more melodramatic than any Sierra had rehearsed in her imagination, but the essence was still there. They could now run into each other’s arms.
One problem, though. The surf had buried Paul’s feet in the sand, and Sierra was the only one running. She hit Paul’s chest with a thud and bashed the underside of her sore eye.
“Ouch!” she yelped, pulling away and doing a little circle-of-agony dance.
“Are you okay?” Paul released his feet and stepped to her side, gently touching her shoulder.
“I hit my eye on your chest. What have you been doing? Working out or something? It felt like a rock.” For emphasis, she playfully swung at Paul’s chest and hit something hard again.
“Careful,” he said, pulling out a cassette tape in a plastic holder from his pocket. “This was supposed to be a present for you. I forgot I put it in that pocket.” He held out the tape. “It’s some Scottish music. Remember? I told you I’d buy you a tape.”
“Oh, yeah. Thanks. I think.” She still held her left hand over her sore eye. “Actually, why don’t you keep it for me? I don’t think it would fit in any of my pockets.”
“Sure.” Paul took the cassette back and tucked it into his shirt pocket with a pat. “Just remember it’s there, and don’t go crashing into it again.”
Sierra slowly lowered her hand and tried her best to smile without making the muscles under her eye move upward. “Ouch,” she said again. “It hurts too much to smile.”
“You don’t have to smile,” Paul said. He was looking at her warmly, and she could tell he was content just to be with her.
After the endless hours of staring at the picture Paul had sent her, Sierra had thought she had his face memorized. But now she knew she didn’t. The soft summer evening light, the way his hair was cut shorter than in the photo, and the gentle expression were all different from the image she had memorized of Paul Mackenzie. This was real. He was real. And he was here, only a few inches away from her.
“Take my hand,” Sierra heard herself say. It was exactly what she had been thinking, but she hadn’t planned to say it aloud.
“Yes, ma’am,” Paul said with a laugh, responding playfully to her command. He reached for her hand, and she met his halfway and grasped it securely. Paul stopped laughing.
Wow! He felt that, too, Sierra thought with a thrill. I know he did.
Sierra’s left arm had turned warm, as if low-wattage electricity had shot through it. She and her buddy Randy had held hands before, but she never had felt like this inside when they did.
“Let’s walk,” Paul suggested, still holding her hand firmly in his.
They walked silently for many minutes along the shoreline before loosening the grip they each had on the other. Sierra felt as if she had waited too many months for this experience to let go now. But their hands were getting sweaty, and Sierra felt a tiny muscle cramp in her thumb. The loosening of their grasp was a good thing. It relaxed their hands and arms and seemed to relax them as well.
“I wrote you a poem,” Paul said, breaking their long silence.
“You did?”
“I wrote it last week when I was thinking about what it would be like when we finally saw each other again.”
Sierra could feel her heart beating faster. She wondered if Paul had been looking forward to seeing her as much as she had been looking forward to seeing him. He must have if he wrote her a poem.
“Let’s see if I can remember it.” Paul led Sierra to where a cliff met the sand and a hollow had been dug out of the ancient rock by the high tide. He let go of her hand, and she settled herself into the cleft of the rock, out of the wind, where it was quieter and warmer and she could hear Paul’s rich voice.
He looked into Sierra’s eyes and began his poem:
“I asked you once
If you could fly;
You promised me
You had no wings.
Why did you lie?
How else
Could you have come
Across the sea
To my dark tower,
Bringing bread and light
To me?
I learned to know
The sound
Of stirring air,
Of candlelight,
And whispered prayer.
Can you tell me truly
You weren’t there
Far across the sea?
Now distance
Is a walking space
In full light I see your face
But tell me,
Now
Where do you hide your wings?”
“Wow,” was the only word that came to Sierra’s lips. “Say it again,” she urged him.
Paul repeated it and added for her interpretation, “I was thinking of how all we’ve had for so long were words between us. Words we wrote in letters and words we sent to heaven as we prayed for each other.” Paul reached over and took Sierra’s hand from where it rested in her lap. He laced his thick fingers in hers and said, “Or mostly your prayers for me, and then my returned prayers for you more recently.”
br /> Sierra affectionately gave Paul’s hand a squeeze and added her interpretation to his poem. “And those words flew back and forth across the ocean and into the heavens for a year. Now we’re close enough—what did you call it?—distance …”
“Distance is a walking space.”
“Yes. A walking space and …”
Paul finished for her. “In full light I see your face.”
Sierra felt herself blushing. A smile crept up her face, making her tender left eye hurt. “And let me guess,” she said, pointing to her black eye. “This isn’t exactly the face you expected to see.”
“Actually,” Paul said, tilting his head and looking at her closely enough to count every blessed freckle on her nose, “this is much more what I expected to see than what you surprised me with in the kitchen.”
Sierra laughed. “Ow! That hurts.” She tried to make her face go straight.
“Come here,” Paul said tenderly. He let go of her hand and slid across the sand so that he was sitting next to her in the partial windbreak of their private little cove. He put his arm around her shoulder and invited her to rest her unbruised cheek against his shoulder.
Sierra felt herself relax as she snuggled up next to Paul. He smelled good. Not like the fresh evergreen scent of pine trees at Christmas when she had first met him. Now he smelled like pure soap and fresh laundered sheets that have hung on the line. His arm felt warm across her shoulders. His chin rested against the side of her head.
Together they sat close in the sand and watched the waves roll in and out. Neither of them said a word.
ten
SIERRA LAY IN BED a long time that night, finding it impossible to fall asleep. Tawni, beside her in the guest bed, was already sleeping when Sierra had tiptoed in well after midnight. Sierra had undressed for bed quietly and then lay there wishing her sister would wake up so Sierra could share the details of the evening with her. Especially because it had ended so confusingly.
Sierra coughed to see if that would disturb Tawni. It didn’t. Then Sierra was glad it hadn’t. She changed her mind about talking to Tawni. These details were hers alone; maybe she didn’t want to share them with anyone. At least not until she had made some sense of them herself. She knew Amy and Vicki would never forgive her if she didn’t provide them with an update before the weekend was over. She had a lot of fast figuring out to do.
Sierra turned over onto her back and stared at the tiny flecks of silver that glistened in the paint of the textured ceiling. The night-light in the bathroom gave the silver flecks their glow, but they were nothing compared with the glow of the stars Sierra and Paul had watched. The moon, wearing a half-grin, had looked down on them. And Sierra had worn a half-grin all evening, too. It hurt her face too much to smile, but it hurt her joyful heart too much not to smile.
For a wonderfully long time, Sierra and Paul had sat silently snuggling in their little cave. Then they rose and walked along the beach, hand in hand again. This time they didn’t clasp hands so tightly. A settled peace had come over them, and they held hands playfully. First, with their fingers intertwined. Then, sometime later, when the conversation turned to Granna Mae and Sierra’s appreciation for Paul’s being so understanding, they linked only their first two fingers together and let their arms swing.
Sierra saw a shell and bent to pick it up. Paul teasingly pushed her toward the oncoming surf. She kept her balance and pulled herself up by his grasp. Then, using a self-defense technique Wesley had taught her a long time ago, Sierra hooked her foot around Paul’s ankle and, with a quick jerk, toppled him to the sand.
He was so startled that he sat for a moment, his ego obviously flattened that Sierra had managed to bring him down so quickly. Sierra took off running in the sand, laughing into the night wind. Paul was a much faster runner and overtook her in only a few yards. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her toward the water, playfully threatening to “feed her to the fish.” Their laughter echoed off the rocks that formed the end of the bay. The sand ended there, and the only way to reach the sand on the other side of the cliffs was to wade through the rocky tide pools that jutted out between the two beaches. So Paul and Sierra turned around and headed back to the center of the bay, the wind in their faces.
“I love being here with you,” Sierra called out over the wind. Then she impulsively put her arm around Paul’s waist and welcomed his arm around her waist.
Paul stopped walking and took Sierra in his arms, wrapping her in a tight hug. She felt warmed all over. It lasted only a minute, and then Paul let go. He didn’t hold her hand or put his arm around her again but took off at a sprint across the sand.
Sierra laughed and started to run after him. And she had thought she was the impulsive, moody one. It appeared that, in melancholy Paul, she had met her match.
They arrived breathless back at the stairs, grabbed their sandals, and climbed up to the yard, out of the rush of the wind. Sierra brushed back her tangled hair with her free hand and said, “Paul, wait. Stop.” She stood alone on the grass. “Look up. Isn’t it beautiful?”
Paul didn’t return to the grass to join her but looked up from where he stood on the patio. “Spectacular,” he said quietly.
“What if we just stayed out here all night and watched the stars together?” Sierra said, smiling at Paul.
Paul gave her a strange look and said, “We need to go in.”
“Wait, I wanted to ask you something,” Sierra said, joining him on the patio.
“What is it?”
“Well, can we sit down?”
Paul moved the lounge chair back a foot or so from the chair where Sierra landed. He slowly sat down and folded his hands, waiting for Sierra to speak.
She couldn’t understand why all the closeness and snuggling was suddenly over. “I just wondered if you’ve figured out your schedule for the fall.”
The last time she and Paul had talked about it, he had planned to keep working at the construction site where he had been employed all summer, make good money, and take one or two evening classes at the community college. That way he would have enough saved up by the second semester to attend Rancho Corona. Paul’s plan was similar to Amy’s, only Paul would be less than an hour’s drive away from Rancho, and he and Sierra could see each other every weekend.
“I’m registered for sociology on Monday nights,” Paul said. “And I’m the first one on the waiting list for a statistics class on Tuesday and Thursday nights. I can take it at another school on Wednesday nights, but it costs twice as much.”
“Good. I’m glad your weekends will still be free,” Sierra said, leaning back and looking up at the stars.
As she lay in the guest bed now, looking up at the silver flecks in the ceiling, she remembered Paul’s answer had made her feel even more distanced from him.
“We’ll see,” was all he said. Then he stood up and announced, “I’m going in.”
Sierra rose and followed him across the patio. For the last several hours she had been imagining what it would be like when they said good night. Sierra thought for sure Paul would kiss her before the night was over. She was certainly ready to kiss him.
But he didn’t kiss her. Instead, he briskly led her around to the side door that let them into the house through the garage.
Once inside, he quickly drank a glass of water, as if he were dehydrated. Sierra filled a glass for herself and awkwardly waited around. She thought Paul would at least hug her or somehow say good night in a romantic way. But he didn’t. He seemed to be pulling away. As soon as he put the glass in the sink, he turned to Sierra and, with a quick nod, whispered, “Sleep well.” Then he turned and left through the dining room while she stood alone in the kitchen.
As Sierra reviewed the details of their time together, she couldn’t think of one thing she had said that would have made him pull away. Maybe he realized how late it was, and he was concerned about getting her in trouble with her parents. If she had been at home, her parents would never have agree
d to let her stay out that late.
Sierra knew that was about to change. She was going to be the one to set her own curfew now, and if she and Paul wanted to stay out and walk on the beach until the sun came up, that would be their decision. The thought was very satisfying.
She strained to read the luminous green numbers of the alarm clock on the dresser—2:27. Tomorrow would be another full day. She had to try to sleep. The worship service at Paul’s church would come early in the morning, and after that was the reception for Tawni and Jeremy in the church fellowship hall. During it all, Paul and Sierra would be together.
As it turned out, Paul and Sierra were indeed “together” all day Sunday, but no one observing the two would have guessed they were acquainted, let alone friends who were close enough to walk along the beach holding hands. Paul managed to keep his distance from her all day. They sat next to each other during the church service, but Paul literally put the hymnbook between them. Sierra went from being mystified to being angry. By the time the grand reception was over and the two families were ready to wearily go their separate ways for the evening, Sierra had a long string of angry words all lined up for Paul.
“You ready to go?” her dad asked, tagging Sierra’s arm in the church parking lot. “The boys are on their way to the van.”
Sierra was waiting to see what Paul was going to do. He was still inside the church, probably taking down the last of the tables in the fellowship hall. All during the reception Paul had been running around, fixing things, unlocking cupboards with his dad’s keys, and answering questions for the women who handled the refreshments. He barely had stopped the whole time and hadn’t spoken to Sierra at all.
Then a thought washed over her. Maybe she wasn’t being fair. Paul was more or less “on duty,” since he was trying to make things go smoothly for his brother, and he was the pastor’s son who knew where everything was.
“Sierra,” her dad said when she didn’t move, “are you coming with us?”
Softened by her revelation, Sierra wanted to talk to Paul. Even if she couldn’t talk to him, maybe she could help put away tables so she could at least be with him. “I think I’ll go with Paul, Dad,” Sierra announced. “You guys go ahead.”