“Yes, there were some good times. It wasn’t all bad, and he didn’t do anything to ruin my life forever.”
“Here.” Todd let go of Christy and came around to face her with his hands cupped together in front of her. “Put all your regrets in here.”
“What?”
“In my hands. Put all those regrets and bad feelings in here. Sort out the good stuff, and keep that part in your heart. Put the rest in here.”
Christy gave Todd a wary look. Then playing along, she held her fingers over his hands and pretended to be sprinkling all the bad stuff into his open palms. “There. Now what are you going to do with my little pile of ashes?”
“Same thing God says He does with all our sins.” Todd pretended to toss the handful of regrets into the wind and out to the ocean. “He separates them from us as far as the east is from the west, and He buries them in the deepest sea.”
Then looking into Christy’s eyes, Todd’s silver-blues shot straight to her heart as he said confidently, “God doesn’t hold this against you. I don’t hold this against you. Why should you hold it against yourself? It’s all gone, Christy. Choose to remember only the good parts, okay?”
Christy drew in a deep breath of the chill morning air. “Okay.”
Todd smiled, and she could see the dimple in his right cheek. “God likes giving us beauty for our ashes when we let Him,” he said.
The ferry motored into the harbor, and the two cars behind Gus started up their engines. “Time to go,” Todd said as he opened the door for Christy to get in. They drove off the ferry and down the narrow street. On the second corner to the left, a fun-looking yard sale was in progress.
“Let’s stop,” Christy said. “Is there any place to park?”
“Looks pretty tight. Why don’t you hop out, and I’ll circle the block.”
Christy did, and the first thing she saw was an old bookshelf. The sticker said five dollars. Before she had a chance to change her mind, Christy reached in her purse for a five-dollar bill and bought the bookshelf. Todd turned the corner, and she flagged him down, proudly pointing to her purchase. He double-parked Gus, popped open the back, and slid in the bookshelf. Then they jumped back in Gus and sputtered down the street.
“Isn’t it cute! I needed something in my room for all my junk. This will be perfect. Of course, it needs some paint. You want to help me paint it?”
Todd had a wide grin across his face. “That had to be the fastest shopping spree on record! Sure, I’ll help you. We can stop by the paint store and paint it today so it’ll be dry enough to take home tomorrow.”
“Perfect!” Christy said excitedly. “It’s so cute. Don’t you think it’s cute?”
“If you say so,” Todd said, the grin still flickering across his face.
“How’s it going?” Todd asked when he stepped out to the front of Marti’s house, where Christy had her bookshelf balanced on a carpet of newspapers. Uncle Bob had sanded it down for her with his electric sander, and now it was ready for the paint.
Christy had been stirring the paint while Todd was inside making sandwiches. He handed her a paper plate with a huge turkey sandwich and a mound of potato chips.
“You must think I’m going to work up a pretty big appetite.” Christy said.
“I figured whatever you didn’t eat I would.” Todd chomped into his equally large sandwich. “Marti said she made reservations somewhere for the four of us for dinner. That’s several hours away though.”
“Well, I’m ready to start painting,” Christy said. “If you want some of my sandwich, go ahead. Leave me about three bites.”
“I can do that.” Todd sat on the steps and took another bite of sandwich. “You work; I’ll supervise.”
Christy dipped the brush into the bucket of paint and started with the inside.
“Good thinking doing the inside first,” Todd praised. “Don’t forget to do the undersides of the shelves too.”
“Todd, do you think white is the best color? I’m wondering if I should have done it in a soft yellow or maybe a real faint dusty rose.”
“White is good.”
“No, really, don’t you think we should have picked something a little more exciting? Maybe a pale sky blue.”
“White is good.”
Christy turned to face Todd and waved the wet paintbrush at him. “You don’t really care, do you?”
“I think white is good.” He bit into his sandwich. “Goes with everything, it’s easy to, ah…match with anything. White is good.”
Christy gave him a little smirk and went back to work. “I really like this bookshelf, I hope you know. It’s going to be a new home for a lot of old mementos. Most of them from you.”
“From me? All I ever gave you was a bracelet. Oh. and maybe that coconut I mailed you from Oahu.”
“Keep thinking,” Christy said. “Remember the flowers you gave me?”
“Oh, yeah. Those little white ones when you were leaving to go back to Wisconsin.”
“Carnations, Todd. They were carnations. I dried them and saved them in a Folgers coffee can. It was all I could find to put them in when we moved out here to California. I still have them.”
“Amazing.” Todd stuffed in the last bite. “That had to be like three summers ago.”
“Yep. The same summer we went to Disneyland, and you bought me the stuffed Winnie the Pooh. Remember?”
“Oh, yeah. Disneyland. I remember.” Todd leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “I wanted to impress you so much that I let you think I was paying for everything. Then when I gave you back your aunt’s money at the end of the night, I thought you were going to kill me!” Todd laughed. “Didn’t you throw your shoes at me or something?”
Christy laughed. “Yes, can you believe it? Here I thought you were going to kiss me good night, and instead, you hand me this wad of money and tell me the only reason you took me was because my aunt talked you into it.”
“You thought I was going to kiss you?” Todd looked surprised.
“Of course I did!”
“No way, man, I was too chicken! I’d never kissed a girl before. I have to admit that I thought about it all day, but when the moment came, there was no way.”
“Do you remember the first time you did kiss me?” Christy asked.
“Of course. I’ll never forget it,” Todd said. “It was only two days later, but everything had changed. Tracy told me you’d given your heart to the Lord and that you were leaving to go back to Wisconsin. So when I caught up with you at our intersection, I remember thinking. Okay, Todd, it’s now or never.” He looked so content as he said it. “And it was now. I’ll never forget it.”
“Me neither,” Christy said. She painted a bit more on the inside. “So are you going to help me with the rest of this?”
“Sure. Hand me a brush. You want me to do the front or the back?”
“Whatever you want. “
Todd squatted down right behind Christy and put his arm out next to hers. “How about if we do it side by side? I’ll come along and clean up all your mistakes.”
“Oh. getting a bit overly confident of ourselves, aren’t we?” Christy teased. “And what makes you so sure I’m going to make any boo-boos?”
“Just a precaution,” Todd said.
She loved feeling him this close, with his broad shoulders hovering over her. Christy tilted her head back and leaned gently against his chest. “Now this is what I call teamwork.” she said.
Just then Christy heard a familiar but not so favorite sound—a camera clicking. This time it was Bob, not Fred, who hid behind the lens.
“Thought I’d see how the camera was working,” Bob said, his merry eyes twinkling. “Don’t let me bother you two.”
“Christy was just asking me how I thought she’d look with a bit of paint on her nose, and I was about to show her.” Todd lifted his paintbrush and playfully prepared to make his mark.
“Fine, fine,” Bob said, positioning the
camera closer. “Don’t let me stop you.”
“Wait!” Christy squealed as she heard the camera click. “The paint goes on the bookshelf, not me!”
“Oh, right. Now what exactly does a bookshelf look like? Oh, here’s one.” With that, Todd dabbed a bit of paint on the end of Christy’s nose.
“That’s not a bookshelf! This is,” Christy said. And with that she dotted Todd’s right cheek. “Oh, that wasn’t a bookshelf. That was a dimple. Now where did that bookshelf go?”
“I don’t have any dimples,” Todd said, touching his cheek.
“Oh, yes you do. I noticed it the first time we went to Balboa on the tandem bike. Remember? We bought Balboa Bars.”
“That’s right,” Todd said. “And you got a streak of chocolate right there on your face.” He outlined the memory with a stroke of the paintbrush. “And it stayed on the rest of the day!”
“You asked for it, dude!” Christy teased. “This is for never writing to me ever!” She painted a stripe up his arm.
Click went the camera.
“Hey, I sent you a coconut!”
“And this is for all the times you’ve thrown me in the ocean!” Another stripe went up his other arm.
“Whoops!” Bob said. “That was the last shot. Guess you’ll have to call a truce.”
Christy and Todd looked at each other. They each had their paintbrushes poised and ready to strike.
“Truce?” Christy suggested.
“Truce,” Todd agreed, and as if they were slapping high fives, they whapped their paintbrushes together and were instantly showered in a spray of tiny polka dots.
“Look at us!” Christy cracked up at the sight of Todd with paint in his face, hair, everywhere. “Do I look as funny as you?”
“No, funnier.”
After they finished laughing and wiping the paint from their eyelashes, Todd and Christy set to work. Within an hour they had transformed the bookshelf into a white home for all of Christy’s mementos.
Standing back to admire their work, Christy said, “I don’t know. A dusty rose would have been nice.”
“White is good,” Todd assured her. “After it dries, you’ll see.”
Todd drove the few blocks to his house to shower and change while Christy went to clean up in the bathroom off her guest room. Little flecks of paint clung to her arms and her eyebrows. It was a tedious process, getting herself back to normal, and she needed an extra dose of lotion when she was done. She changed into a pair of jeans and a white cotton shirt, rolling up the long sleeves.
Todd was already downstairs, watching TV with her uncle. “Did you check on it yet?” Christy asked.
“Check on what?”
“The bookshelf. I want to see if it’s dry.”
“It won’t be dry until tomorrow,” Bob said. “Did Marti tell you we’re going out to dinner in about an hour? She made reservations at a new place in Huntington Beach.”
Todd rose from the couch. “Sounds like we have enough time for a walk on the beach.”
Christy smiled at the good-looking, bronzed young man walking toward her. His short, sandy blond hair was still wet. His blue eyes met hers, and he held out his hand, inviting her to take a walk. She slipped her hand into his, and they walked together out the sliding door. Kicking off their shoes, they let their feet sink into the cool sand.
“It’s going to be quite a sunset tonight,” Todd said. “See how the clouds are sort of puffing up there on the horizon? Wait until the sun hits the ocean. They’ll all turn pink and orange.”
“The dust beneath His feet,” Christy said.
“You remembered.” Todd squeezed her hand. “Yeah, those clouds are going to turn into some major mounds of dust tonight. Looks like God has been busy walking around our side of the earth today.”
They made their way through the sand, hand in hand, down to the firm, wet sand along the shoreline and walked together in silence. Todd’s thumb automatically rubbed the chain on her Forever bracelet.
That reminded Christy that she had never asked him if he knew who paid for her to get it back. “Todd, I want to ask you something. You had some stored up questions for me this morning; now I have one for you. I guess the first thing I should ask is did you know that Rick sort of stole my bracelet?”
Todd stopped walking and faced her. “What do you mean?”
Christy explained how she had taken off her bracelet, left it in her purse in Rick’s car, and then thought it was lost. She later found out he had used it as a trade-in on a new bracelet—a clunky silver one that said “Rick.” Christy figured out he had taken it, and after breaking up with him, she tried to buy it back from the jewelry store where he had hocked it.
“I didn’t know any of this,” Todd said, still standing in one spot as the tide rose and lapped up, burying their feet in the sand.
“My next question was if you had been the one who paid the balance so I could get it back. All the jeweler would say was that it was some guy.”
“It wasn’t me. I didn’t even know. Do you think it was Rick?”
“I did for a while, but the more I think about it the more I doubt it.”
“Your dad maybe? Bob?” Todd suggested.
“Maybe. Although I don’t think either of them knew about the whole incident. I guess it’ll remain a mystery.”
Todd wiggled his feet out of the sand and started down the beach, holding even tighter to Christy’s hand. “I don’t mind it being a mystery as long as you have the bracelet back.”
“I guess I can live with a little mystery too.” Christy said. “The whole thing only makes me madder at Rick.”
“Wait a second. Wasn’t that part of the regrets we tossed out to sea this morning?” Todd motioned out to the ocean. “You want to try swimming out there and gathering up all the ashes again? It’s not worth it, Christy. Let it go.”
“You’re right.” Christy nestled her head against Todd’s shoulder. Then after a brief pause she added, “I wish I could let this whole thing with Katie and Michael just go too.”
“That’s different,” Todd said. “You can’t let that go. You have to hold on tighter than ever.”
“But when I tell her he’s not a Christian and she should drop him, she turns on me. I hate causing all this conflict.”
“So are you going to change your opinion on dating non-Christians?”
“No. I can’t. I feel too strongly about it,” Christy said.
“Then what can you change?”
Christy thought. She wasn’t sure. When Todd said change, it reminded her of when he had said. “How do the leaves know when it’s time to change?” His answer had been that it’s something supernatural that God brings about in a natural way.
“I guess I can’t change anything. Only God can. I can ask Him to do something supernatural in a natural way.”
Todd squeezed her hand again. “And you can ask Him and ask Him and ask Him again. Really good answers come from persistent prayers.”
“But in the meantime, everything is different between Katie and me.”
“Yes,” Todd agreed.
“It’s impossible for me to change how I feel about her dating Michael.”
“Yes.”
“I wish it wasn’t so hard and that it didn’t take so long for God to answer prayers.”
“I agree.”
“How can you take it so lightly?” Christy asked.
“I don’t take it lightly. I’ve been praying for Katie and Michael ever since that night we met up with them at the movies. The only thing that gives me hope is that God said there is a time for everything. This is a time for Katie to make some major choices, and this is a time for you to stick close to her. Then, depending on how her choices go, you two will probably soon have either a time to mourn together or a time to dance. For me, it’s a time to pray.”
“Could we do that right now?” Christy asked.
Todd led her a few feet up to the drier sand, and the two of them sat close together
, holding hands and praying for Katie and Michael. When they looked up, the sun had dipped its toes into the ocean. As Todd had predicted, the “dust of His feet” clouds were ablaze with California sunset colors—ambers, tangerines, lemons, and dusty rose.
Although Christy couldn’t explain how, she felt that everything with Katie was going to turn out okay. Maybe it was simply because Christy had finally released the situation to the Lord as she and Todd had prayed. Or maybe it was because of the incredible sunset. It made everything else seem small compared to God’s display of magnificence. If God could tell the sun when it was time to set, certainly He could tell Katie when it was time to break up with Michael, with or without Christy’s input. Christy silently vowed to pray for Katie and Michael every day, and she hoped she would always be able to see things in perspective—from God’s point of view.
Todd slipped his arm around Christy and drew her close. “You know what, Kilikina? I’ve prayed a long time about us being together just like this.”
Resting her head on his shoulder, Christy said, “I’ve prayed the same thing, Todd. You know how the other day you said that for us, right now, this is a time to enjoy?”
“I remember,” Todd answered, his voice sounding low and mellow.
“I think I know a better word.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Cherish. For us, right now, this is a time to cherish.”
Christy could hear Todd’s echo of agreement from her snuggled-up position against his chest. “I like that,” he said. “A time for us to cherish.”
Together they watched the sunset, each hearing the other’s steady breathing and feeling the warmth of being so close.
“Look at the color of those clouds,” Christy said softly as the last tinges of pink faded from the sky. “Did you see it? It was a sort of dusty rose, wasn’t it?”
Todd must have caught her hint. “White is good for a cloud too, you know.”
“But don’t you think dusty rose is more of a ‘forever cloud’ kind of color?”
“You know what?” Todd grasped Christy’s hand and led her back toward the house. “I think we have enough time to go to the paint store before dinner and buy ourselves a can of dusty rose paint. After all, what other color would you paint a ‘cute’ five-dollar bookshelf?”