Chapter Twenty-nine
Finally,
Madly, Truly
In
the end there’s only so much advice I could give to girls like me: the ones who
can’t or won’t give up on their true loves; first loves; best loves. If it’s
meant to be, you’ll find him again. And if it’s not, (I think), if you make the
opportunity, you’ll find someone else… Truly
(a blog by Jane Elliot)
“Wow,
I said, that was weird.”
“For a moment I thought you and Tom…”
“Were together? No, he’s obsessed with
Liz.”
“Oh,” Ben said with a smile.
“I just got a report on Lia from Harley.
They’re sending her home today.”
“I know. I already checked but thanks for
telling me.”
I didn’t stop cleaning the benches. What
was the point?
I hadn’t made a new blog entry in days. My
notes for my most recent entry lay very much unfinished on the laptop in my
satchel. I was trying to work on this entry because I felt it would be one of
the most important I would write.
I’ve moved on,
I’d tell my readers.
I’ve
embraced change and put the past behind me. I’d advise them to do the same.
Out with the old, bring in the new.
Arghh! I just got a text from Liz. She
bumped into Tom on the boardwalk. My older sister was coming to me for advice.
He asked me to
marry him Liz texted. What should I do?
Say
YES I texted back.
Okay,
she texted. That’s what I was going to
do. It’s just that I value your good opinion.
It’s
yours, I texted. He’s changed a lot
since high school!
We all had.
I shook my head. Ben was still seated in
the café.
“Oh,” I said, “I thought you’d left.”
“No,” he replied. “At the risk of stating
the obvious, I’m still here.”
I’d accepted that Ben was leaving, that he
was with Serena, that he even loved her. He said to Keira, “There’s already a woman I love, that I want to marry,” when Keira
was joking around with him that night at The Mermaid Hut. Those were his exact
words, I just didn’t want to write them down until I knew all hope was gone,
didn’t want to admit them even to myself. I’d never let a social climber like
Serena Collins get the best of me. I’d move on.
Besides, Melissa, ever the family gossip,
told me that Ben, in a moment of weakness confided to Keira that he was planning to ask the woman he loved to marry him.
He’d added, “I’m not sure she’d move to Texas with me while I complete my flight
training.” Then he asked Keira what she thought and she replied, “Maybe you should ask the woman in
question.”
I
remember Missy had thought it was in poor taste that he’d bothered discussing Serena
with Keira while he waited for me in the lounge room, (no doubt fielding texts
from Serena), but I said, “everyone multi-tasks these days.” As if I cared.
“What can you expect,” my father grumbled,
“from those types of people.”
My sister Melissa agreed, but then a
changed expression came across Liz’s face, almost as if she’d worked out
something that the rest of us hadn’t.
“A lot daddy, he’s well educated and hot.
Someone also taught him manners.”
Whatever, I thought. I had to move on. I
had moved on.
Like I said, over these few days, Ben had
seemed to disappear.
We’d parted amicably enough this time.
I was resigned.
I’d wandered over to Kellynch, determined to speak to his sister before I left to let
her know there were no hard feelings and that maybe we could even be friends
now that Ben and I were over it all, but the place was locked up.
I’d never go back to Kellynch. When the lease was up, I knew my father and Liz aimed to
sell the place. A few million would settle our debts and allow the family to
rebuild. The next generation would never visit Kellynch but maybe they’d have something better –
self-determination and the desire to build their own house of dreams.
That afternoon, the afternoon Ben arrived
in the café unexpectedly, it rained.
I was reading over my design school
prospectus as it poured down. They had campuses in New York, San Francisco and
Texas. Well, there was no way I’d be going to Texas. No way, not ever.
I shut out the rain and wiped the tables as
Ben stood framed in the doorway. He was so tall and strong looking; he seemed
to fill up the empty space, like one of those annoyingly hot 1980s Brat Pack actors.
This was good. The café was deserted and I
was happy, now that we were just friends, for his company.
I wanted to tell him my plans. I was
excited to be moving to... I looked at the brochure… New York, yes, that would
be as good a place as any. Besides, I could even stay with the other half of my
family until I got on my feet. It could all be arranged.
There he stood, hair wet and dripping on
the mat, not a person in the entire café – no place emptier than a beach town
on a rainy day.
“I… I think I need a hot drink,” he said.
I
smiled.
“What can I get you?
“Mmm… a hot chocolate, please.”
“That’s unusual,” I said. “Most men don’t go
for that drink…it’s too sweet.”
“I’m
not most men.”
I looked up and smiled.
“I know,” I said as I heated the milk.
“Are you sure that’s safe today?”
He went to find his wallet.
“It’s on the house,” I said, smiling
again. “What brings you out here in this miserable weather?”
“You.”
I ignored the inference. There was no
way he was going to wind me up over Serena Collins today. I pretended I hadn’t
heard him, of course. I just nodded and changed the subject.
“I heard about Harley and Lia,” I said.
“Via Hailee, of course. She described him as if he was you. For a second I
thought maybe you and Lia were together, but then I know you have a girlfriend
so I didn’t really think that was possible.” I paused then added, “Send Harley my
congratulations. I’m… not surprised. Lia is, unforgettable. I wouldn’t blame either
of you for liking my cousins.”
Ben
nodded as he sat at a round table, near where I walked out from behind the
counter. Then he looked alarmed.
“What do you mean?”
“Only that Harley told me once that he
doubted he’d ever love anyone else but,” I hesitated, “Jenny.”
Ben nodded, sipped his chocolate. “Well,
my brother is pretty good at… not giving up. At least he’s trying to… move on.
Finally.”
I didn’t think he was going to offer any
further input. The strong silences took a bit of getting used to. I’d convinced
myself the Air Force had changed him, made a man out of him as they say, and of
course it had. He had more to tell me after the waves crashed outside in the
storm, interrupting our silence.
“I think that, well, the truth is… Lia is
very young and…fun. But, Jenny was, I think, his perfect match. So even though
they were also teenagers, they were together a year and I think that
relationship would have stood the test of time.
Though I am happy that they have found
each other, it remains to be seen if he and Lia are going to last as a couple. I
don’t really think he’s recovered from his first relationship… a man does not
get over that kind of love, with that kind of person. Lia is very young, just
eighteen, and it remains to be seen if she is right for him and vice versa. Besides,
they’ve only known each other a few weeks.”
“I think; true love stands the test of both
time and… separation, if it is lucky.”
I looked away.
By then he was standing close to me; so
close in fact that he reached out to touch my cheek.
He leant towards me and kissed me softly.
I hardly believed I’d ever touch his lips with my own again. He smiled softly
as we pulled apart.
“You’re not?”
“What?”
“Involved with Tom Winchester are you?”
“Are
you kidding? My sister has been dating him for a few months. I sort of played
matchmaker. I’m glad you’re jealous though.”
Ben smiled.
“I think he’ll get a shock when he realizes
my family need to sell the beach house. I think he likes it more than he likes Liz.
He might not be so ‘in love’ with her when he finds out our family are now flat
broke.”
“Nah, they’re made for each other.”
He took my hand and looked into my eyes.
“Follow me.”
I chattered aimlessly as we walked for a bit
along the edge of the beach road like old times.
“Tom has actually got his eye on the Beach
House because it’s become more valuable with the years and he thinks my sister
owns it, but really, she thinks his family (his father is a film producer,
remember) might just want to buy it and she wants to sell it to him. So the
perfect match is at cross purposes. I think their love will withstand such
pressures and they might find a happy medium…”
“Definitely,” Ben said.
We’d locked up the empty café, and,
without really thinking about it, jumped into his convertible. I continued to talk on. It was as if the
years of silences were being filled up in ten minutes. I talked over the breeze
and the sound of the ocean waves as we drove along the winding road that led to
Kellynch.
“He thinks she owns it outright, he’s going
to get quite a shock. We don’t own much of anything anymore, even though this
real estate has become more valuable over the years…”
Ben stopped the car, once we’d reached
about a mile further up the road, a good distance past Kellynch.
“Like you,” he said suddenly.
“Are you serious? My entire family are flat
broke. They just won’t admit it yet. For once, they have nothing to be snobbish
about, that’s for sure.”
Ben gave me a slight smile.
“That’s okay. I never wanted you for your
money, anyway.”
“That’s good,” I smiled, “because I don’t
have any.”
“I’m worth kind of a lot myself.”
“I know. You were always worth kind of a
lot, more than a lot.”
“I… think you have become more yourself over
the years we’ve been apart. Your value could not increase in my eyes because
you are… invaluable. But I’m wondering if being around me in Texas while I go
through flight training would drive you nuts. Being an officer’s wife is never
easy…”
“Well, I’d be very busy with my college
classes.” I waved the brochure near his face. “Oh look, conveniently, they have
a campus in Texas. But it’s probably not a good idea. Like I said, you can’t be
serious. All these weeks you’ve been here, you barely seemed to notice me, much
less speak to me unless you had to.” I determined to play it cool, but not too
cool, this time.
“I
was wrong. I wanted to make you jealous. My heart was almost… broken.”
“So was mine.”
We walked down from the road and sat on the
edge of the sand as the waves played along the shore.
“But you rejected me, Jane. It took a lot of
getting over. My final year of school was really tough. A shadow fell over
everyone after Jenny; I know it can’t have been easy for you either.”
I looked away.
He continued, “I thought for years that I
would get over you, but I never have. My love for you has only increased in
strength. There is, nor could there ever be, another love like ours. But you
should put me out of my misery now if you haven’t changed your mind since
before,” he added these words quickly, as if it had taken him more than the
courage it took to fly a plane, to say them.
I interrupted him, “My mind is completely
changed.”
“Then would you consider being an officer’s
wife?”
“I
would.”
He smiled, “Then,” he leaned on one knee
as he spoke, in the middle of the empty beach, “then I’m asking you again, Jane
Elliot, will you marry me?”
“Yes,” I replied, without hesitation.
“Are you… are you sure this time?” he
asked with a smile after we’d kissed again.
“I am completely, truly, sure. I have
never loved any man the way I love you.”
“And I have never loved any woman, the way
I love you…”
“And nothing…” I said
“And nothing?” he asked…
“And no one…”
“No one?”
Ben smiled disarmingly.
“No one,” I continued, “will ever persuade me to think differently.”
The water splashed the sand on the shore,
“then look behind you,” he said.
“I
see a cliff, some land…”
“I want to build a house for you… for us.
We’d have to stay in Texas for a few years but we could always visit, during
vacations.”
“Here are the plans.”
He pulled out some paper from the pocket
of his jeans.
The house, new but made in a familiar
design, was to be built overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It was a few lots away
from the one I grew up summering in, it would be built on higher land using sturdier
foundations. I looked up and imagined it in the sun, even better situated than Kellynch, if that was possible. If it was possible, you could see all the way
to Hawaii. This would be a house to love and raise a family in, to feel safe
in, a place to call our own.
“So this is the surprise,” I said.
“For you.”
“For us.”
“Yes, us.”
I looked at him and smiled. Our fingers
linked together as we kissed. This love felt everlasting, worth waiting for.
True and tangible, I’d never be persuaded against what I felt again.
