Hearts in Harmony

“Yes. I guess you are, too,” she replied.

He nodded, but didn’t speak.

She tried to guess what he did for a living. His clothes didn’t give her an easy answer. Today, he wore tailored slacks that looked as though they belonged with a suit jacket, which he wasn’t wearing, a good-quality cotton dress shirt and a tie. She knew his job was in management, but she didn’t know what he managed. Obviously it wasn’t something that required manual labor or a uniform.

She turned her attention back up to his face. He was grinning. “I knew you were here. I saw your car.”

Her face flamed. She’d parked her mother’s car in the back corner of the lot, next to the garbage bin, far away from everyone else, in an effort to escape notice.

She didn’t want to hear that she could be so easily found. She tried to console herself by thinking no one she used to know would associate her with her mother’s car, even if they did see it. Her own car was by now halfway across the country with her mother in it.

“If you really must know, it’s my mother’s car, not mine. We traded so she could have something safe to drive on her vacation. She left last week.”

Adrian’s smile dropped. “It sounds like that old thing isn’t very dependable.”

“It’s not like it’s going to blow up or anything. The worst that will happen is it will stall.” She patted her purse. “If that happens, I got a cell phone on my lunch break today. All I have to do is call a tow truck.”

One eyebrow rose, but he said nothing.

The line moved them to the point where she had to begin unloading her groceries onto the conveyor belt. Having the length of the buggy between them made it impossible to talk softly, thus ending their conversation, which Celeste regretted. It had been so long since she’d had such a pleasant conversation about nothing in particular, she’d forgotten just how good it could be.

Adrian’s deep voice interrupted her mental meanderings. “That’s my favorite kind of ice cream. Do you share?”

She fumbled with the ice cream tub, then thunked it down before she dropped it. “I think it’s in the Ten Commandments somewhere that you’re not supposed to covet thy neighbor’s ice cream.”

He covered his stomach with his hands. “I haven’t had dinner yet. That ice cream is too tempting for me. What about you? Have you had dinner? We could go out somewhere.”

Celeste focused intently on unloading the remainder of her groceries onto the conveyor. “Sorry, not this time. There’s stuff I have to put in the freezer. Like this ice cream, for example.”

“I have an idea. I’ve got a frozen pizza. We can both go to your house, and you can put your groceries away. Then we can eat my pizza for supper, and your ice cream for dessert.”

“Frozen pizza?” Celeste hesitated, then placed the last of her groceries onto the conveyor belt. After praying about the situation with Adrian all week, she’d decided to trust that God really had sent her a potential friend. However, she wasn’t sure she was ready to open up the private sanctuary of her home.

But she had to eat.

When she was a teen and still living at home with her mother, Celeste had often had her girlfriends over for frozen pizza. The food had been horrible, but the evenings were fun.

Adrian wasn’t exactly one of her cheerleading buddies, but Celeste knew she needed a little fun.

She tried to smile, but thought it probably looked as fake as it felt. “I haven’t had a frozen pizza for years. Are they still just as bad?”

Adrian nodded very seriously. “Yes. I bought extra cheese.”

“In that case, I can’t refuse.”

They chatted very little as the clerk processed their orders, and soon they were at her car.

“You parked beside me.”

“Yeah. I did, didn’t I?”

Her heart pounded. Adrian wasn’t Zac. So far, at least, Adrian was harmless. He was on the worship team at his church, which went partway to proving that he was a dedicated Christian. Most of all, he’d gone out of his way to help her, more than once, demanding nothing in return.

She told herself she was being unreasonable. Adrian had no idea what was happening in her life, or what had happened, and he didn’t need ever to know. He was only acting in a way that was natural for him, and she couldn’t fault him for that.

She tried to keep her hand from shaking as she inserted the key into the lock, then wiggled it enough to get it to turn. She swung the back door open and was about to start loading her groceries, when Adrian’s hand rested on her arm, halting her on the spot. She bit her lip so she wouldn’t scream.

“That looks heavy. Can I help you with that?”

Without waiting for an answer, he stepped in front of her, reached into her cart, and began piling everything up on the back seat. “Most people put their groceries in the trunk,” he mumbled as he worked.

“The trunk smells like gasoline.”

His brows knotted as he frowned. “Maybe you should have that looked at.”

“No, the gas container just spilled. It’s nothing. I just have to remember to leave it open to air out next weekend. Actually, if I ever took this thing in to get fixed, they’d either bury it, or take all my money to fix it up. Besides, I only need to put up with it until my mother gets back. She keeps telling me she’s going to have it restored, but somehow that never happens. Instead, it just keeps getting worse.”

He nodded and continued to load all her groceries into the back seat without being asked.

Celeste stood back as her throat clogged. What he was doing obviously wasn’t a big deal to him, but it was a big deal to her. Again, he was helping her, without thinking, without being asked, and without expecting anything in return.

She didn’t know much about signs from God, yet she wondered if God was trying to tell her something.

He pushed the door closed, but the rusty hinge creaked and groaned, preventing the latch from catching properly. He re-opened it and slammed it shut, giving the handle a pensive wiggle.

“Are you sure this thing is safe to drive? I couldn’t help but hear the grinding it made on Sunday when you left the parking lot.”

“It’s okay for short distances, which is all I have to do. Really, once it starts, it’s fine after a couple of blocks.”

His mouth opened and he raised one finger in the air, readying Celeste for what she thought would be a challenge to her decision, but nothing came out. The finger dropped, he stiffened, and he cleared his throat.

“Never mind. As soon as I put my own groceries in my trunk, we can be on our way. Just remember I have to follow you. You know where I live, but I don’t know which house is yours.”

While Adrian tossed his groceries into the trunk of his car, Celeste slid behind the wheel and closed her eyes to think and pray.

She still wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing by encouraging Adrian in whatever it was he thought he was doing by being so friendly. However, she couldn’t live underground like a gopher, only going to work and back. All she could do was count on Jesus for wisdom, guidance, strength, and protection and pray that she was doing the right thing. With her Savior by her side, she prayed she wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

The bang of Adrian’s trunk closing made her eyes open. As she headed for home with Adrian behind her, she told herself that it was unrealistic to think she could keep where she lived secret. As far as risks went, being with Adrian out in public seemed a minimal one. At home, since she lived in a duplex, if she screamed, her landlord Hank would hear, and, she hoped, call the police.

Like a gentleman, Adrian helped Celeste carry all her groceries into the house. He disappeared while she tucked most of it away, then returned with one more bag.

“Would you mind putting this in your freezer? Everything else will be okay in the trunk, but this stuff has to stay frozen. I didn’t think of it until now.”

When she took the bag from his hand, he laid a frozen pizza on the table, along with a package of shredded mozzarella cheese, as promised.

He looked apologetic. “I don’t usually eat like this, but I didn’t feel like cooking today.”

While Celeste made coffee, Adrian made a great show of ripping away the wrap from the pizza, and carefully sprinkling on the mozzarella cheese, making it look as though he was doing more work than it really required.