Christy pressed her lips together and looked down into the water rushing beneath the bridge. She had to admit that she liked Doug, but he had never given her goose bumps. It was humbling to know she apparently had never given him goose bumps either. Still, the honesty helped. A lot. Their feelings were mutual. It was too bad they hadn’t been able to confess that to each other earlier.
“I feel like we’re in junior high,” Christy said.
“I think when it comes to gut-level emotions,” Doug said, “we tend to express them the most accurately and honestly when we’re in junior high. As we get older, we only think we’re sophisticated because we learn to play some complicated games. I’m sorry I’ve played this one so long with you, Christy. I never meant to hurt you.”
“I know,” Christy said, feeling hot tears well up in her eyes. “And as long as we’re being so honest, I need to tell you that I’ve played the game too. It was much easier to keep things the way they were than to let you go, because then I wouldn’t have anybody.”
Doug, the tenderhearted counselor, put his arm around her. “You’ll always have me as your friend, Christy. And now as your new, improved, completely honest friend. I feel I can honor you. And you can honor me.”
Christy stood for a long moment with her head resting on Doug’s shoulder, gazing through misty eyes at the meadow oeyond the creek. She recognized it as the same meadow she and Tracy had looked out on from their window seat. This was the meadow Christy had imagined a knight in shining armor riding through on his trusty steed, ready to storm the castle and take his princess. Now here she stood, shivering on this old bridge, letting go of her pretend knight.
“Kneel,” she suddenly said, turning toward Doug and startling Kim. “Kneel!”
He slowly obliged, giving her a confused look as he went down beside her on one knee.
“I knight thee Sir Douglas, the Honest,” Christy said, gently tapping him on each shoulder with her closed umbrella. “Arise, fair friend. I believe a true princess awaits you in the castle.”
Doug looked up. No words passed between them, only smiles of admiration exchanged by two close friends.
“You ready to go back?” Doug asked, rising to his feet.
“Actually, I think I’d like to be by myself for a while. Why don’t you go on back? You and Tracy have some honesty to catch up on.”
Doug took off jogging across the meadow. Christy smiled, thinking how this knight didn’t even need a white horse.
As she stood listening to the gurgling brook and the far-off, high-pitched twitter of a lone bird in the forest, she felt a rush of contentment. She had done the right thing. There were no more confused, hidden feelings for her to keep buried in her heart. Doug and Tracy were suited for each other and the kind of couple God could use to further His kingdom here on earth.
Then, from out of nowhere, came an overwhelming sense of loss. She had nobody. Katie was right the other night when she told Sierra that Christy had always had a guy in her life. Even when she broke up with Todd, Fred was there, paying attention to her the next day. It didn’t matter that she didn’t like Fred. What mattered was that for more than four years she had had some guy in her life. Now there was no one. No one she was interested in, and no one interested in her. The hole inside felt bottomless.
It began to drizzle. Christy hid under her umbrella and stomped her feet to warm them up. She felt really cold now, chilled inside and out. Not even a cup of tea would make a difference.
The dismal forest on the other side of the bridge beckoned her to run to it and hide herself among the brambles. She could stay there for days, and no one would ever know.
The intense, cold tingles in her feet made her snap out of her dramatic plotting and walk back to the castle. Thin clouds now hung over the highest of the castle’s turrets. It looked cold and gloomy. Just like she felt inside.
When she reached the front door, she spotted the brass lion head. The ring still hung between his clenched teeth. Maybe she was glad she no longer had to hold on to her circle of feelings for Doug. Maybe she was free now.
Free for what? Free to meet another guy? Free to go on without a guy in my life? What if there’s nobody? Ever! What if I never have another boyfriend in my life and I die an old maid?
Christy gave the lion a sympathetic pat on the nose and shook out her wet umbrella before entering. The smell of lunch greeted her, and she slipped quietly into the dining room, where most of the students had nearly finished the meal.
“Could you pass the tea, please?” She sat in the first open spot she saw, which was right by the door. Doug had his back to her, three tables away, and Tracy was sitting next to him. Christy assumed the two of them had talked. Everything; between them would be settled now, and their relationship could move forward. Their team would have its unity back. Everything would be great. Just great.
Chrisry took a sip of tea and quickly put down her cup. It was lukewarm and too strong. “Excuse me,” she said, pushing back her chair.
She left the dining room as quickly as her appetite had left her. Rushing up the stairs, she retreated to the stillness of the dorm room, where she changed her clothes, starting with her damp socks. Being dry and semiwarm helped.
As she was lacing up her boots. Sierra walked in and looked surprised to see her. “There you are! I wondered what happened to you. Did you get any lunch?”
“I wasn’t very hungry. I went for a walk down to the creek and got really cold. All I wanted to do was put on some dry clothes.”
“Doug canceled our afternoon team meeting. We’re supposed to pack up our stuff so we’ll be ready to leave at six-thirty in the morning. I’m thinking a nap sounds pretty good.”
Christy nodded. “A nap does sound good.”
“Oh, and did you hear?” Sierra pulled off her shoes and stuck her feet under the blankets on her bed. “Tracy is back on the team. I don’t know what the problem was. At lunch, Doug said she changed her mind and was going to stay with our team. That’s all he said, and she just sat there smiling. I tell you, Christy, it’s a soap opera around here.”
“I broke up with Doug,” Christy blurted out. “Or actually, we both agreed to break up and go back to being just friends.”
“You’re kidding! Oh, Christy! I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“He and Tracy belong together,” Christy said.
Sierra looked at Christy with admiration on her freckled face. “You have to be the most noble person I’ve ever met. After all Katie told me the other night, and now here you go and break up with him so he and Tracy can get back together…” Sierra paused as the door to their room opened and Tracy and Katie came in.
“I was right,” Katie said, her red hair swishing as she turned her head from Christy to Tracy and back to Christy. “I told you she would be hibernating under those covers. That’s what I have on my schedule this afternoon.”
Tracy walked over to her bed and sat on the edge, facing Christy. Her heart-shaped face looked so delicate. “Mrs. Bates from the kitchen is going into town today. I asked her if you and I could ride with her. There’s a little restaurant I heard about, and I thought maybe we could go for tea and have a chance to talk.”
Christy was aware of Sierra and Katie’s listening ears, even though they pretended to be looking at something on Sierra’s bed.
Perhaps it would be better if they went somewhere to talk. “Sure” Christy said. “What time?”
“First I have to meet with some of the people doing music for the other teams. How about if you and I meet Mrs. Bates down in the kitchen at two-thirty?”
“Okay. I’ll be there.”
Tracy grabbed a notebook at the end of her bed and left for her meeting.
“Are vou all right?” Katie turned her attention to Christy.
Christy let out a huge sigh. “I feel like a dork. A total dork. Why did I ever start going out with Doug? It was so pointless.”
“Do you want to join our club?” Sierra asked. “Kati
e and I are going to start a club called the PO Box.”
“Right,” Katie said with a glimmer in her bright green eyes. “It stands for ‘pals only,’ and the ‘box’ is for the shoe boxes we’re going to start filling with letters.”
Christy smiled and shook her head. “You guys are hilarious.”
“So. what do you think?” Sierra said. “Guys are not worth all this grief. It’s pals only for us.” She and Katie slapped a high five. “PO,” said Sierra.
“Right-o,” answered Katie. “PO rules forever!”
Christy lifted her right hand into the air. Katie slapped her a high five.
Sierra galloped across the room and did the same. With a whoop, she said. “Member number three! All right, PO forever!”
Christy had to laugh. “You guys, it sounds like you’re saying BO.’ like you want to have body odor forever.”
Katie started to crack up. “That’s it.” she said. “That’s our secret weapon to keep the guys away. BO forever!”
The First thing Christy noticed when she and Tracy scrambled into Mrs. Bates’s car was that the steering wheel was on the “wrong” side. She hadn’t noticed it so much in the car that had picked them up at the train station the first night because she was riding in the backseat. Now it felt awkward since she was sitting in the front, in the passenger seat, which was actually where she sat to drive her car at home.
It was even a stranger sensation riding down the narrow country lane on the wrong side of the road, with fast, little cars passing them on the wrong side.
“This is a beautiful drive,” Tracy said. “Thanks for taking us.”
“Not at all,” Mrs. Bates replied. “I’ll give you a lift to the tea shop, and then, if it would be agreeable with you. I’ll come round to collect you at half-four.”
Christy realized she must mean four-thirty and the “coming round to collect” must mean picking them up.
“That would be fine. Thank you,” Tracy said.
They continued down the lane, under a bridge, around a winding curve with a moss-covered stone wall, and past two men wearing long black boots, dark jackets, and black riding hats, seated on very tall horses.
For Christy, there was no mistaking where they were. This was exactly how she had always pictured the English countryside. Her only wish was that she could return in the spring, or maybe even in the summer, when the green meadows would be polka-dotted with white lambs and the trees clothed in their proper leafy attire. It must be absolutely beautiful then.
Once in town, Mrs. Bates edged the car into a narrow wedge of a parking space so the girls could climb out. They stood in front of a quaint building called The Cheery Kettle Tea Shoppe.
“Half-four, then?” Mrs. Bates said.
“Yes, we’ll see you then.” Tracy waved good-bye.
A bell above the door rang merrily as they stepped into the restaurant. Soothing classical music floated through the air. Five or six round tables stood in the small room, with a vase of bright flowers and a white lace tablecloth atop each of them. Along the walls were lots of pictures and knick-knacks. A bookshelf with an ornate rail ran along the top of the wall near the ceiling. The rack held clumps of old books, china plates, and photographs in pewter frames. In the corner stood a majestic grandfather clock that bonged three times as they sat down.
For a minute Christy forgot they had come here for a heart-to-heart talk. She felt intrigued and delighted by the charm of this place.
“Don’t you love this?” she asked Tracy. Christy whispered because it seemed everything was hushed and calm around them.
“It’s so quaint,” Tracy agreed.
A round woman in a blue apron came up to their table just as two older women wearing hats came into the tea room and seated themselves at a table across the room.
“We’d like some tea,” Tracy said, ordering for both of them.
“And a nice sweet for you today, miss?” the woman asked. She looked like Mrs. Rosey-Posey, a character from one of Christy’s favorite children’s books. Christy half expected the woman to offer them some chocolate-covered cherries like in one of Mrs. Rosey-Posey’s stories. Instead, she offered fresh apple pie or raisin scones.
“I’ll have the scones,” Christy said. She wasn’t exactly sure what they were, but they sounded much more British than apple pie.
“Me too,” Tracy agreed.
“Cream for both of you?”
Christy thought she meant cream for the tea and answered yes. The cream turned out to be a small bowl of whipped cream that came with the scones. “What do we do with the whipped cream?” Christy whispered after the woman walked away.
“I guess put it on these. They look like English muffins only flakier, like a biscuit.” Tracy broke open her scone and scooped some whipped cream on top. “Oh, this is good!”
Christy prepared her tea the way she liked it, with milk and sugar, and then followed Tracy’s lead, putting the whipped cream on the scone. It was yummy. Christy couldn’t help but feel like a little girl who was playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes and having a tea party. She wondered if Tracy felt the same way.
“I’m glad we could come here,” Tracy said. “This is a nice, quiet place for us to talk.”
Christy nodded, licking a dab of whipped cream off her top lip and wondering if she should bring up the topic of Doug first. She wasn’t quite sure what to say. Tracy obviously knew they were no longer “together” and that he was free to pursue his relationship with Tracy. There wasn’t a whole lot to talk about.
“Did Doug tell you why we broke up before?” Tracy asked.
“He told me today that you had written a letter, but he wasn’t ready to be serious about anyone. I remembered what you said the other night in the room and figured you put your heart out on paper, and he rejected it.”
“I didn’t feel like he was rejecting it,” Tracy said cautiously. “He just pulled back. Big time. And then we decided to break up. It was mutual, but we never talked about what I wrote to him.”
Tracy took a sip of tea and continued. “You know how Todd was always saying the guy should be the initiator and the girl should be the responder? Well, that’s sort of what the problem was. I wrote Doug this poem, and I was initiating way too much. For the past three years I’ve hung back, wondering if I’d ever get another chance to respond and not initiate.”
Christy thought of what Katie had said about Doug: His love was patient. If Doug had been patient, Tracy had been even more so. Obviously Doug had meant a lot to her for a long time, but Tracy had kept it all inside, waiting. What Christy admired most was that Tracy had never shown one speck of jealousy toward Christy while she and Doug were together.
“What I want to know. Christy, if you feel comfortable telling me, is why you broke up with Doug.”
“I have a question for you first,” Christy said. “Why did you ask to be put on another team?”
Tears began to fill Tracy’s gentle eyes. “After Doug and I sang together last night, I knew I couldn’t handle it any longer. I couldn’t be around him and keep my feelings bottled up. You see, a couple of times on this trip Doug and I have been alone. Like when we were practicing. He said some things that were nicer than the average Doug-type things, and I got the impression that he felt more for me than he had ever let on.”
Suddenly Christy felt betrayed. Doug had been two-timing her. Her expression must have reflected her indignation because Tracy said, “He never said anything obvious or anything against you. It was mostly a feeling that maybe he liked me. It felt complicated, and I didn’t want to hurt you in any way, Christy, or hurt Doug or myself, for that matter. I thought the easiest thing would be to walk away.”
“I was the one who needed to walk away, not you,” Christy said. “And to answer your question of why I broke up with him, it was because it had become evident to me, well…to both of us, really, that our relationship was never going to grow beyond the level of good friends. It was kind of silly to even say w
e were going together since neither of us felt or acted that way. I realized that the other night when Sierra was so surprised we were going together. We weren’t being completely honest with each other. Neither of us felt like we were going together inwardly, and neither of us acted like it outwardly.”
Tracy wrapped her hands around her china teacup as if to warm them. Then, looking up at Christy, she said. “Are you sure? Very, very sure?”
“Absolutely. I think you two belong together. I can’t believe it’s taken this long for all of us to figure it out.”
Tracy smiled. “I can’t tell you how happy I feel right now. When Doug came up to me before lunch, I was by the rosebushes, walking back from the chapel. He came running across the green, calling my name. I’ll never forget the look on his face. He told me about your talk and how you dubbed him Sir Honesty, and then he asked if I was ready to unlock the garden gate because this time he was ready to come in.” Tracy looked starry-eyed.
“Did he mean the rose garden? There’s no gate there,” Christy said.
“No, you see, he was remembering the poem I had sent him three years ago.”
“A poem?” Christy asked.
“Yes, that’s what the letter was. Do you want to hear it?”
“You have it memorized?” Christy poured another cup of tea for each of them from the stout silver pot.
“I think I do. Let me try and see how far I get.”
Within my heart a garden grows.
wild with violets and fragrant rose.
Bright daffodils line the narrow path.
my footsteps silent as I pass.
Sweet tulips nod their heads in rest;
I kneel in prayer to seek God’s best.
For round my garden a fence stands firm
to guard my heart so I can learn
who should enter, and who should wait
on the other side of my locked gate.
I clasp the key around my neck
and wonder if the time is yet.
If I unlocked the gate today,