Out From Under the Rug

The patterns on the ceiling captured her attention for the third sleepless night in a row. ‘Hmm, that group looks like a penguin. They have penguins in Australia. That’s just weird. It’s not even cold there. God, I can’t believe I’m flying there in three days. I hate flying, but then again I hate having to make all these damn wedding plans.’ Her thoughts flew in that middle-of-the-night-dear-god-why-am-I–still-awake way. She tossed and turned for another hour before falling into a restless sleep equipped with dreams of angry penguins chasing her, waving bridal magazines and yelling her name. “Rory. Rory. LORELEI!”

She started awake and looked to find the cause of her rude awakening and saw her best friend glowering at her, coffee and bagel in hand. Rory let out a groan and groped around for her cell phone, which also posed as her alarm clock. She came up empty handed.

“Yeah sunshine, we were supposed to meet your soon-to-be mother-in-law at the dress shop thirty minutes ago. Boy are you going to be in for some fun tod-” She was cut off by the shrill ringing of her cell phone. “Hello? Oh hi Mrs. Halbrook,” she shot Rory a look. “No, I don’t know why she isn’t answering her cell. Yes ma’am, I know we’re supposed to be there right now. Of course we’ll be there just as soon as possible. Okay, yes ma’am…okay. Goodbye Mrs. Halbrook.” She hung up and turned on Rory with a murderous look on her face.

“I know, I know. I swear I set my alarm on my phone Madison! I just don’t know where it is….” Rory’s voice trailed off and she flashed Madison an apologetic grin. She jumped out of bed and dodged the pillow her friend had lobbed at her head. Turning on the shower to drown out the nagging coming from the other room, Rory looked into the bathroom mirror and shook her head. “I’m twenty-four years old and I can’t even remember to set my alarm at night. How am I supposed to make it through grad school and this wedding?” she asked her reflection. Life would go a lot smoother for her if she could just be a little less scatterbrained. Shaking her head one last time, she showered and dressed in record time. After ten minutes of searching, Rory found her phone hiding behind a pile of dirty dishes on her kitchen counter that she had had every intent of washing last night before being sidetracked by her fiancé’s phone call reminding her to set her alarm so she wouldn’t oversleep the next morning. ‘So much for that,’ Rory thought with a self-deprecating grin. She looked at her cell phone and saw that she had a voicemail from Aidan.

She listened to the message and smiled at his words, “Hey beautiful, I realized I haven’t told you I love you today. Good luck with the dress shopping my love. Call me if you need emotional support or my credit card number. I love you.” Grinning like a lovesick teenager, Rory wandered over to the door. Completely out of patience for her absentminded friend, Madison practically threw Rory out of the apartment complex and into her car. They made it to the boutique within thirty minutes of receiving her future mother-in-law’s call. Rory and Madison flew breathlessly through the door and nearly ran into the stern form of Madilynn Halbrook. She gave Rory a reproachful look then laughed and pulled the flustered Rory in for a hug.

“Lost your cell phone again did you kiddo?” Despite her formidable appearance Mrs. Halbrook was one of the most warm-hearted women Rory had ever met. As the only female district attorney in the history of their small Texas town, Mrs. Halbrook found it necessary to project a tough appearance. Rory was immensely relieved to find that she would not have to deal with the mother-in-law from hell like so many of her married girlfriends had. Mrs. Halbrook had made Rory feel like part of the Halbrook family since the beginning of Rory and Aidan’s relationship. That feeling of belonging and familial love was something new to Rory. She had never known her birth parents, and the foster families that took her in usually had no interest in the small girl with her head constantly in the clouds.

When she had met Aidan’s family for the first time, she had almost immediately felt at home with them. Despite the fact that they came from old Texas oil money, the Halbrook family was surprisingly low-key and did not flaunt their wealth like most did. Now that she was officially becoming a part of their family, Mrs. Halbrook’s already eager and loving nature was multiplied tenfold. The attention was overwhelming at times, but Rory knew her soon-to-be mother-in-law was well intentioned. She smiled at the obvious enthusiasm for the task ahead of them in Mrs. Halbrook’s face.

“Okay, so I found a few dresses while I was waiting on you slowpokes. How ’bout we start with those?” Mrs. Halbrook suggested as she proceeded to grab the dresses and ushered Rory into the dressing room. She was used to being obeyed and the thought that someone might not agree with her ideas had never crossed her mind. The girls spent the next hour searching the shop for “the” dress. This was the seventh boutique they had been to in the past few weeks, not to mention the hours they had spent searching online. Rory was fighting back the urge to swat the irritating saleswoman who had been buzzing around them like a frenzied worker bee on commission when Madison suggested that they call it a day. Rory heartedly agreed and they settled on a delicatessen down the street for lunch. Naturally, the topic of conversation turned to the wedding plans and Madison cheerily piped in with “I can’t believe you and Aidan are really having the wedding in Australia, Rory!”

“Neither can I,” Rory replied, and her thoughts drifted to the day she told Aidan she wanted to get married in the land down under. It had been a week or two after he had proposed to her by the fountain in the town square. They were out at their favorite steakhouse when Aidan asked her if she had started thinking about the wedding plans. Rory was still adjusting to the shock of having a rock the size of a small third-world country sitting on her left hand. She hadn’t really moved on to that stage yet. Seeing the panic begin to roll over her face, Aidan laughed and said, “This is the day you girls supposedly dream of and plan for your entire life, and you’re telling me you haven’t thought about this at all? But then again, this is you we’re talking about. This is your day, babe. What do you want?” Without thinking or hesitating, Rory blurted out, “Australia!”

“Well, that’s a helluva wedding present! But hey, if that’s what you really want, then I’ll get right on that. I know better than to tell you no,” he replied with a smile as he reached across the table to brush aside the stray strand hair that always seemed to fall into her face. The panic Rory had felt building up was brushed aside with the same stroke as the obstinate piece of hair. Aidan had an uncanny ability to calm her, even at her most frantic moments.

Unfortunately, the panic came back later on that night when she was supposed to be cleaning up her apartment. She knew exactly why she had blurted out Australia and it was not good. That was where they were supposed to have gone together for their wedding. But that would never happen now. It had been two years since she had broken up with Landon, her boyfriend of nearly six years. They had been high school sweethearts and somehow had made it through the four years of college together. Marriage seemed like the next logical step, but they had never been a couple to do anything based on logic. Thinking back, Rory realized that bit of quirkiness she felt had been the greatest part of her and Landon’s relationship was actually what had caused it to end.

Rory came out of her reverie to find both Mrs. Halbrook and her friend giving her questioning looks. She realized she had stopped talking practically mid-sentence and had been off daydreaming for quite some time. She quickly apologized and the conversation moved on. She was extremely grateful when the lunch ended and she was able to go back to her quiet apartment where the word “wedding” didn’t pop up every other minute. “Now I know why some brides bolt before they get to the altar. They’ve been driven insane by all the planning they had to do to get there and they finally just snap,” Rory mused aloud to her goldfish Dory, “I swear if I don’t find a dress soon I’m just going to walk naked down the aisle. I’m dead serious!” Dory wiggled her fins in a sympathetic manner. “Thank you, I needed that, Dory.” She spent the rest of the day looking at the travel books and wedding magazines Aidan had bought for her when he realized that Rory was serious about Australia. The pictures of the raw beauty of the Australian Outback eased her mind about the spontaneous decision she had made. Only something good could come out of a land that beautiful.

The last three days Rory had of sanity before leaving for Australia and the beginning of the really hellish part of the planning naturally flew by. She spent an entire day packing just to have Aidan empty out her suitcase and tell her that although it was winter here, it was summer in Australia, so she would not need her gloves and ski cap. So she spent the next day repacking under the careful supervision of Aidan. Most women would probably find this patronizing, but they both knew that it would be better for him to be there helping than for her to arrive in Australia in a snowsuit or to get to the airport and realize she had left the tickets by her toothpaste on the bathroom counter. Both were very likely to happen if Rory was left to her own devices in her frazzled state. Aidan spent the night at Rory’s apartment that night “just to make sure she woke up on time.” The next day they and a small group of family and best friends were on the plane to Australia much to Rory’s discomfort and dismay. “Remind me again why I thought this was a good idea,” she said while fighting back the urge to vomit, pass out or do some strange combination of the two.

“Babe, just sit back and try to relax. We’ll be in Brisbane before you know it,” Aidan attempted to console his severely airsick fiancée. Over two days and three nerve-wracking layovers later Rory staggered into the lobby of the Rendezvous Hotel in Brisbane. “Before I know it, huh?” she badgered Aidan as he checked into the front desk and led the way to their room. After unpacking their stuff, Rory decided to head down to the outdoor pool for a relaxing swim. Aidan, who had already planned a trip to the hotel bar with his father and best friend, declined the invite to join. The wedding plans started to fly through her head yet again as she rode the elevator down the ten floors to the lobby. As she mentally went through the guest list, for a brief moment Landon’s face flashed in her mind. She brushed away the thought of him as she walked through the doors out to the pool deck.

She had begun to undress near the edge of the pool when she heard a whistle and an all too familiar voice call out “Hot damn! It’s been way too long since I’ve seen that sight!” Just as Rory whipped around to find the source of the offensive remark she slipped in the puddle of water she had unwittingly been standing in and fell ass first into the pool. She flailed about in the water until a hand reached in and hauled her out. Through the sheet of water cascading from her hair she looked up into the face she never expected to see. The scattering of freckles across the permanently sun burnt nose, the sun bleached curls, that cocky grin that somehow always managed to make her forget why she was angry with him. The sight of him made her heart race and seemed to put an entire migration of Monarch butterflies into her stomach. Those feelings lasted a few seconds before she blurted out in shock “Why are you in my hotel, Landon?”

“Your hotel? Funny, I thought it said Rendezvous Hotel on the front of this building, not Lorelei’s Private Property. Nice to see you too, gorgeous,” Landon said with a wink as he wrapped a towel around her soaking body. Rory stood like a stunned deer in the blinding beam of his smile for a moment before her brain registered that he was speaking again. “I’m here for the surf competition tomorrow. One of my buddies told me about this hotel, so here I am. What’s your excuse?”

“I don’t have an excuse. I mean. Wedding. What I mean to say is-” she said.

Landon smiled at her obvious agitation “So what you’re trying to tell me is you’re here for a wedding. Which unlucky soul is tying the noose?”

It was Rory’s turn to smirk then. “Actually, that unlucky soul would be me babe,” she replied and relished watching a series of expressions roll across Landon’s face. Finally he regained control and a detached look settled on his bronzed face. Rory had seen that look many times before. That expression had dominated every fight or serious discussion she had attempted to have with him during those six years they had had together. Rory had learned from being with him that women and men deal with confrontations and problems in completely different ways. Men will just sweep everything under the rug and ignore the mound that slowly accumulated. Lift that rug up and a girl will find all the issues he refused to deal with. Women on the other hand will pick up that rug and beat the holy hell out of it and then move on. After six years, she got tired of being pushed under that rug and she had given up on trying to beat it out of him.

She figured that any conversation she tried to have now would be pointless, but she made an attempt in the hopes that he had changed in the two years since she had last talked to him. “What, got nothing to say? Guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised.” When he still didn’t respond, she shrugged, got up and started to walk towards the door.

Landon suddenly stood up, grabbed her hand and exclaimed, “I’m sorry, I just need a some time to process all this. Will you please come to the competition tomorrow? We can talk then, if you want.” Rory, still recovering from the initial shock of running into him, felt another jolt hit her at his words. She had expected a continued silence from him or maybe a “That’s cool, see you around.” Anything other than what had just happened. ‘This isn’t Landon,’ she thought, ‘Sure, it looks like him, but I don’t know where those words are coming from.’

But he looked so eager and sincere that all she could do was nod in agreement and say “Sure. Yeah. Tomorrow.” Landon gave her one last grin before he gently placed a kiss on the corner of her mouth and walked away, leaving Rory staring after him. After enough confusion and astonishment had worn off for her to form coherent thought, Rory realized that the thing she needed to do the most right then was to go through with the swim she had come down to the pool for in the first place. She would deal with everything else later.

After yet another night of restless sleep, Rory woke up the following day determined to solve things. The fact that the she didn’t know what the outcome of solving things would be caused a twinge of guilt in Rory’s conscience. She knew that there shouldn’t be even the smallest amount of doubt in what her decision should be, but she found that six years of love was hard to brush aside. Even six years of messed up and sometimes childish love.

Since everyone was used to her wandering off for hours on her own, Rory found it easy to slip away unnoticed to the beach where the surf competition was being held. She searched the crowds for Landon for several minutes before she spotted him near one of the tents. His eyes were focused on the water while his hands mechanically waxed his board. She knew better than to interrupt his pre-surf reverie, so she waited for him to realize she was there. After nearly five minutes he finally turned and saw her. He picked up his board and walked over to her. “You actually came,” he said.

“Why do you sound so surprised?” Rory asked, “In all of our years together did I ever leave you hanging? And I sure as hell never missed one of your competitions.” She reached out and ran her hands over the bumpy texture of Landon’s freshly waxed board. He smiled at the gesture and Rory blushed as she realized what she had done. It was an old habit. The first time Landon had taken her out surfing, she found that all the little parts that came before actually getting ready to go out into the water fascinated her. Something about the difference in textures between the smooth board and the rough wax drew her hand to touch it every time. He had always teased her about that little habit. Half-joking, he would say that he wished she were as interested in touching him as she was in touching his board.

After a slight pause in recognition of her action, he spoke. “Nah, you never missed a competition but I figured it might be a different now, considering. But maybe you still…” he left the statement unfinished, but she could hear the hopeful questioning in his tone. She wanted to object and set the record straight. Before she could respond, though, the announcer called for the surfers of the first heat to get in the water. “Hey, I gotta go. We’ll talk after, okay?” Landon said as he hurried off, leaving Rory with her mouth half-opened in an attempted response. He grabbed his board and headed out to the water.

As she watched him paddle through the increasingly rough water, she felt the muscles in her shoulders begin to burn with sympathy pains. Rory knew what it felt like to struggle against the insistent rolling of the waves. The first time Landon had taken her out surfing, she had given up in exhaustion after only twenty minutes of fighting against what she thought to be monstrous waves and a wicked current. “Babe, these are barely three foot swells. I made sure to take you out on a fairly calm day. These are baby waves perfect for my baby surfer girl,” he had explained to her. But she didn’t care what he said. After lugging a board that was almost two feet taller than her down the beach, she felt she was justified in tiring so quickly. He was used to the physical demands of surfing. He had trained his body and muscles to take the abuses of the water in stride. Every day there were decent waves, Landon could be found at the beach for hours upon hours at a time. Sometimes he didn’t come home from a day of surfing. He would just crash in his car or on a picnic table and get up with the sun to take advantage of the early morning waves. Rory couldn’t count the number of times Landon had come strolling into their apartment after having been gone for several days straight. All he would say was “Man babe, you wouldn’t believe the waves out there!” and would continue to ramble on for an hour or so about “huge swells” this and “crazy tricks” that. She learned to just smile and nod and not to expect an apology for not calling to let her know he’d be gone.

Rory felt an old ache return to her while watching him surf his way through the competition heat. The water had taken him from her for what seemed to be the millionth time. She looked around and saw several other girls with the same wistful look in their eyes. Rory wondered how many of them were surf widows like her. She really couldn’t blame Landon for choosing the waves over her or any other girl. The water didn’t nag at him for leaving his ratty flip-flops in the middle of the walkway. It didn’t care if he hadn’t showered or shaved in a week. Apparently, the demands the water asked of him were easier to meet than the ones she had given him. She looked out into the water just as Landon caught the last wave of the heat. She watched him ride the wave into the shore before getting up and walking down the beach back to the hotel. It felt good to finally be the one walking away. Unfortunately, her graceful escape was ruined when Landon came running up behind her.

“Hey, where are you running off to? I thought we were gonna have a chat,” he said. Right as Rory was about to explain that they no longer needed to chat, Landon stepped on a broken bottle left in the sand by a careless hotel patron. She laughed as he hopped up and down clutching his bleeding foot.

“For such a tough guy, you sure whine a lot about a little cut,” she said as she searched for something to staunch the flow of blood. A little farther down the beach, she spotted the hotel’s tiki bar and ran over to get a towel from the bartender. She noticed a laundry cart for bar towels by the bar and smiled as an idea popped into her head.

“What is that? What are you doing?” Landon asked with a confused look on his face when Rory walked back, cart in tow.

“Hop in, you’re goin’ for a ride,” she said with a grin.

He fervently shook his head and replied “Oh hell no. I remember how you drive, woman. There is no way I’m putting myself in your hands, especially not in my wounded condition.” Rory laughed, shoved him backwards into the cart and took off at as much of a breakneck speed as possible in sand. They raced into the lobby laughing and yelling and almost took out several elderly couples. Rory spun the cart around the corner to the elevators and barely missed running over another person. She turned back to apologize to the woman and looked straight into her future mother-in-law’s face.

They stared at each other for a few seconds before Mrs. Halbrook decided that someone had to say something. “Well hello there, hon. You were goin’ a little fast through that intersection, weren’t you? The speed limit around here is thirty. You were goin’ at least fifty-five,” she said. She looked at Landon, who was finding it difficult to extricate himself from the cart. “And who’s your accomplice?” she asked.

“Uhh, hi Madilynn…how are you? Um, his name is, I mean this is-” Rory stumbled in her ordinary nervous way.

Landon saw that Rory wasn’t going to recover anytime soon so he jumped in, “Hi, I’m Landon. I’m an old friend of Rory’s from college,” and flashed his sunshine smile. As a seasoned lawyer, Mrs. Halbrook was not fooled by a winning grin, especially not while Rory still stuttered and blushed in the background. Landon reached out and placed his hand on the small of Rory’s back to calm her. Mrs. Halbrook raised an eyebrow at the contact and Rory jerked away from his hand.

“Old college friends, huh?” Mrs. Halbrook asked with her eyebrows still raised. All Rory could safely do was nod her head. Madilynn continued, “Well he’s bleeding, so he might want to get that checked out. Can you walk, hon, or do you need help getting to a clinic?”

“I can manage ma’am but thank you for the offer,” Landon replied. Rory fought back the inappropriate urge to giggle at Landon’s newfound manners. He shot them one last smile and then hobbled off as fast as his injured foot would allow. Mrs. Halbrook watched him as he scampered away and then turned to Rory and asked, “Care to tell me who Landon really is?” Rory suddenly understood how the witnesses on the stand must have felt when faced with Madilynn Halbrook’s insistent stare. Just like the witnesses, she broke and the story of the past two days poured out of her. Mrs. Halbrook listened patiently as Rory spoke, gave her a hug, and then asked, “So what are you going to do?” Although Rory had expected a question like that, she didn’t have an answer. It wasn’t as simple as all that. There was no jury to decide the verdict. Rory would gladly hand the weight of that decision over to twelve of her peers but all she had was herself. “I love your son, Madilynn. You and your family have been so good to me…” she trailed off.

“Oh quit tryin’ to suck up,” Mrs. Halbrook joked, “I know all this already. But what do you know?” Rory was confused by the question and the puzzlement on her face made Mrs. Halbrook laugh. “Hon, when you figure out what you know, deep down what you know, then you’ll know what you know and know what you’re gonna do. Now while you’re waiting to know, how ’bout you come to the bar with me. You look like you could use a drink or two.” She ushered Rory across the lobby and into the bar.

Several martinis later, Rory asked, “What do I tell Aidan? Ohhhh poor Aidan, he flies me all the way here and what happens?” She paused to giggle and sloshed the remainder of her drink down the front of her shirt. Completely composed, Mrs. Halbrook dabbed at Rory’s shirt with a cocktail napkin. Even slightly drunk she still carried herself well. Without a slur, she said “Don’t worry him with this until you’re done with you’re deciding. No sense in causing a fuss until there’s something to really fuss about.” Rory bobbled her head in agreement and promptly fell off the barstool.

“Okay, I think we’ve had enough. Let’s get you back to your room, okay chicky?” Mrs. Halbrook said. She helped Rory to her room and deposited her on the bed.

“On second thought, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to stay here with Aidan tonight. Not in your condition. You can come stay in my room and I’ll tell Aidan that you aren’t feeling well and didn’t want to bother him with it. So upsy daisies,” Mrs. Halbrook said.

“Please could we stop moving now?” Rory moaned and swallowed hard to fight back the martinis that were trying to make a reappearance.

“Last time, I promise and then you can sleep all you want,” Mrs. Halbrook reassured her. While they were walking down the hall to the other room, Aidan strolled out of the elevator and caught sight of them. “What are my two favorite gals up to?” he asked.

“Oh just girl’s night out. You know how that goes,” his mom said and proceeded to take Rory into her room.

“Are you trying to steal my girl?” Aidan kidded.

Mrs. Halbrook didn’t miss a beat, “Something as cute as she is, can you blame me? She drank too much and asked me to take care of her so you could get a good night’s rest for all the running around tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry about it, Mom. I’ll take care of her. It’s going to be my job soon,” he said with a grin. He reached for her but Mrs. Halbrook pulled her away. They played a short game tug of war before they realized that somewhere along the way Rory had passed out. Mrs. Halbrook felt that it was safe to leave her with Aidan now that she was out, so she relinquished her hold on Rory. Aidan gave her a funny look, “Goodnight Mom. I think you need to get some rest, too. We’ll see you in the morning.” Rory let out a snore and Aidan carried her into the bedroom and with a kiss on the forehead, tucked her neatly into bed.

Rory awoke the next morning to find Aidan asleep on the love seat, which he had pulled close to the bed last night. Sometime during the night, he had reached for her hand and had somehow managed to keep hold of it through the night. Rory gazed down at Aidan’s sleeping form. Sleep softened his usually intense countenance and gave him an almost childlike appearance. Something in her melted to see him so vulnerable. He was forever looking after and taking care of her, but in that one small gesture of him reaching out for her she saw that he also needed her. With a small smile, she brushed aside the hair that had fallen across Aidan’s face.

She slowly sat up and took the aspirin that he had laid out for her the night before. Desperate not to wake her drowsy angel, Rory scooted her way to the opposite side of the bed, carefully got out from under the covers, eased her feet onto the ground, stood up, and promptly tripped over the hotel slippers at the edge of the bed. She crashed to her knees and managed to take half of the things off the bedside table, including the lamp, with her. Rory peered over the bed, hoping that Aidan had somehow managed to sleep through the ruckus, only to find him trying to conceal his laughter.

“Good try, my love, but I’ve been awake since you touched my hair. You were trying so hard to be quiet that I didn’t want to ruin your fun,” he said as he crawled over the bed to kiss her. He pulled her up onto the bed and wrapped his arms around her. “How are you feeling this morning?” he asked.

“Well, I was doing alright until I decided to bring half the room with me to the bathroom. So other than that, I’m great,” she said, “Babe, I’m so sorry-”

“Don’t finish that. There’s nothing to be sorry for. Now, you might want to apologize to the maids when they come in because you left them a nice little present in the bathroom, but other than that you were just having fun,” he said in a teasing voice.

“That’s only part of what I need to apologize for, Aidan,” she said.

“Oh, would the other part have something to do with the guy in the laundry cart yesterday?” he asked. Rory’s heart thudded and her jaw dropped. “Yeah, I saw. But like I said, there’s nothing to apologize for. I’m sure there’s a story there, but I don’t need to hear it. Whenever you figure out what it is that you need, and what it is that you know deep down, then I’ll be here,” he concluded.

“You sound just like your mother,” Rory said. They stayed wrapped up together in their little cocoon until a knock on the door and Mrs. Halbrook’s voice hollering, “Make yourselves decent and get your rear ends out here” announced that it was time to get up and get the day started.

They both groaned but Rory sat up and went to stand up. All of a sudden, Aidan reached out and grabbed her. With a vehemence that surprised Rory, he exclaimed, “Let’s forget about all this frustrating planning! It’s making you so unhappy and stressed out. We don’t need it! We already have the marriage license, let’s just go get married!”

Rory stared at him. Aidan wasn’t the type to say something like that but he also wasn’t the type to joke around about something that important. She stared at him for a few more seconds before she realized that he really was serious.

“Babe, we don’t have a minister or a place and after all this work…” she said.

“After all this work, it’s still your wedding, Rory,” Aidan said, “We have everything we need. The people most important to us are here and it won’t be that difficult to find someone to marry us, I’m sure of it. And as for a place, what’s a more perfect place than right out there on that beach?”

He had all the right answers and the boyish eagerness in his face was almost enough to convince Rory but she knew it wasn’t as perfect as he made it seem. She knew there had to be something more, something different, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. While she was still searching for the answer, Mrs. Halbrook’s voice boomed yet again from the other side of the door, “Never mind, y’all. Mr. Halbrook just got a call from Buddy, the caretaker of our ranch back home. Something about him shooting some man trespassing on our property. So now we’ve got to deal with that, so y’all just get some more rest. We’ll come get you when this is all figured out.”

“I always knew old Buddy was going to do something like that,” Aidan said with a chuckle. However, Rory wasn’t really listening because at the mention of Texas and the ranch she had realized what had been wrong with Aidan’s plan.

“It’s in the wrong place!” she shouted with delight.

“What is? The trespasser? Yes, he was and he got shot for it,” Aidan said with a confused look. Rory just laughed, shook her head and dashed for the bathroom. She was in the process of brushing her teeth when Aidan came into the bathroom.

“Would you care to explain your previous statement?” he said.

“I have to go. I’ll be back in a little bit and I’ll explain then, okay?” Rory said and threw on clothes and shoes and ran out the door. She went to the Halbrooks’ room and knocked on the door but no one answered. She reached for her purse to get her cell phone to find that she had forgotten it in her haste. She ran down the hall and knocked on the room door, since she had also managed to forget the keycard. Aidan opened the door holding her purse and the keycard in his hand. Her eyes welled up with tears for the care and familiarity he showed in that small gesture and also for the worried look in his eyes. Rory reached out, stroked his cheek and gave him a reassuring smile before dashing off again.

After calling to find where Mrs. Halbrook was, Rory met her by the pool. Mrs. Halbrook was sunbathing next to her husband while he discussed the situation on a cell phone. Rory rushed up to her and blurted out, “Madilynn, we need to go back to Texas!” Mrs. Halbrook was accustomed to her future daughter-in-law’s outbursts, so she remained silent and allowed Rory to continue uninterrupted. “I can’t get married here, it’s just not right, not with him here. I know what I need. I know what I know now, Madilynn! I know what I know deep down!” Rory practically shouted.

“Well, you picked a great time have that epiphany, hon,” Mrs. Halbrook said, “We really need to go back to deal with this whole thing with Buddy. So whenever you are ready to leave, we’ll come with you.” She hugged Rory and went back to her sunbathing without demanding any further explanation. Rory shook her head in amazement and headed back to her hotel room.

She walked into the room to find Aidan sitting by the window, staring off into the distance. He turned and when he saw who it was, he smiled. “You’re back,” he said in a tone of disbelief.

“Of course I’m back,” Rory replied, “Why wouldn’t I be? I told you I was coming right back.”

“When asked I asked you to drop all the plans and marry me right now, you didn’t say anything and then you ran away. You just left. What was I supposed to think?” Aidan said. Rory replayed the morning in her head.

“Okay, yeah, I can see where you might have gotten that impression,” she said, “but I’m not leaving. We are though, so let’s get packed and get out of here!” Aidan just stared at her as she rushed around the room gathering clothes and stuffing them into the suitcases. Rory slowed down long enough to see that he was still standing there staring at her. She realized that she owed him an explanation.

“This place, this beach, this idea is attached to something I need to escape from. I can’t marry you, not here. It wouldn’t be real here. This place is a dream that I should have woken up from a long time ago. I want to go to a place that is real for us. I want to go back to Texas and I want you to come with me,” she explained.

“That’s all I needed to hear,” Aidan said and proceeded to help her finish packing.

The next morning the entire entourage was packed and headed to the airport. They had managed to find a flight back to the States that had enough available seating. Rory was sure that it wasn’t so much a “lucky break” as Mrs. Halbrook had put it, as it was a favor called in by Mr. Halbrook. Nonetheless, Rory was glad to be getting away. Everyone else had boarded the plane except for her and Aidan. Aidan went through the ticket counter and headed down the ramp to the plane. He stopped halfway to wait for her. Rory was just about to hand the lady her ticket when she heard someone shouting her name. She turned around to see Landon running towards her. He stopped a few feet from her and stood there breathing heavily, trying to regain his breath.

“Where are you going? Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?” he asked. Rory looked at him and considered his questions. She looked at him and realized she had been running away from him and from dealing with their situation. She had been too distracted, but now the light that had seemed to always emanate from him had dimmed and the ever-present grin was gone. Rory turned and looked down the ramp to Aidan. He stood with patient confidence waiting for her. She turned back to Landon and looked intently at him. He reached out for her.

Rory shook her head, “I’m leaving Landon. Goodbye.” With that, she handed the lady her ticket and walked, with a poise and grace she had never possessed before, down the ramp to the guy who would never leave her for the waves and most assuredly would never be unwashed for extended periods of time. When she got to him, she smiled and reached out to brush away the hair that had fallen into his face just as he made the same gesture to her. Aidan pulled her in close just as Mrs. Halbrook’s voice yelled from the airplane, “Get yer butts on the plane!”

“Not before I get to do this,” Aidan yelled back and kissed Rory with a tenderness and passion that seemed to take every bone out of her body. Aidan let out what could only be described as a whoop, swung Rory into his arms, carried her onto the plane and shouted to the pilot, “Let’s go home, Captain!”

 

Out From Under the Rug-Draft 1

The patterns on the ceiling captured her attention for the third sleepless night in a row. ‘Hmm, that group looks like a penguin. They have penguins in Australia, that’s just weird. It’s not even cold there. God, I can’t believe I’m flying there in a three days. I hate flying but then again I hate having to make all these damn wedding plans,’ her thoughts flew in that middle-of-the-night-dear-god-why-am-I–still-awake way. She tossed and turned for another hour before falling into a restless sleep equipped with dreams of angry penguins chasing her, waving bridal magazines and yelling her name. “Rory. Rory. LORELEI!”

She started awake and looked to find the cause of her rude awakening to find her best friend glowering at her, coffee and bagel in hand. Rory let out a groan and groped around for her cell phone, which also posed as her alarm clock. She came up empty handed.

“Yeah sunshine, we were supposed to meet your soon to be mother-in-law at the dress shop thirty minutes ago. Boy are you going to be in for some fun tod-“ She was cut off by the shrill ringing of her cell phone. “Hello? Oh hi Mrs. Halbrook,” she shot Rory a look. “No, I don’t know why she isn’t answering her cell. Yes ma’am I know we’re supposed to be there right now. Of course we’ll be there just as soon as possible. Okay, yes ma’am…okay. Goodbye Mrs. Halbrook.” She hung up and turned on Rory with a murderous look on her face.

“I know, I know. I swear I set my alarm on my phone Madison! I just don’t know where it is….” Rory’s voice trailed off and she flashed Madison an apologetic grin. She jumped out of bed and dodged the pillow her friend had lobbed at her head. Turning on the shower to drown out the nagging coming from the other room, Rory looked into the bathroom mirror and shook her head. “I’m twenty-four years old and I can’t even remember to set my alarm at night. How am I supposed to make it through grad school and this wedding?” she asked her reflection. Life would go a lot smoother for her if she could just be a little less scatterbrained. Shaking her head one last time, she showered and dressed in record time. After searching for ten minutes Rory found her phone hiding behind a pile of dirty dishes on her kitchen counter that she had had every intent of washing last night before being sidetracked by her fiancé’s phone call reminding her to set her alarm so she wouldn’t oversleep the next morning. ‘So much for that,’ Rory thought with a self-deprecating grin. Madison, completely out of patience for her absentminded friend, practically threw Rory out of the apartment complex and into her car. They made it to the boutique within thirty minutes of receiving her future mother-in-law’s call. Rory and Madison flew breathlessly through the door and nearly ran into the stern form of Madilynn Halbrook. She gave Rory a reproachful look then laughed and pulled the flustered Rory in for a hug.

“Lost your cell phone again did you kiddo?” Despite her formidable appearance Mrs. Halbrook was one of the most warm-hearted women Rory had ever met. As the only female District Attorney in the history of their small Texas town, Mrs. Halbrook found it necessary to project a tough appearance. Rory was immensely relieved to find that she would not have to deal with the mother-in-law from hell like so many of her married girlfriends had. Mrs. Halbrook had made Rory feel like part of the Halbrook family since the beginning of Rory and Aidan’s relationship. That feeling of belonging and familial love was something new to Rory. She had never known her birth parents and the foster families that took her in usually had no interest in the small girl with her head constantly in the clouds. When she had met Aidan’s family for the first time she had almost immediately felt at home with them. Now that she was officially becoming a part of their family, Mrs. Halbrook’s already eager and loving nature was multiplied tenfold. The attention was overwhelming at times but Rory knew her soon to be mother- in- law was well intentioned. She smiled at the obvious enthusiasm for the task ahead of them in Mrs. Halbrook’s face.

“Okay, so I found a few dresses while I was waiting on you slowpokes. How ‘bout we start with those?” Mrs. Halbrook suggested as she proceeded to grab the dresses and ushered Rory into the dressing rooms. She was used to being obeyed and the thought that someone might not agree with her ideas had never crossed her mind. The girls spent the next hour searching the shop for “the” dress. This was the seventh boutique they had been to in the past few weeks, not to mention the hours they had spent searching online. Rory was fighting back the urge to swat the irritating saleswoman who had been buzzing around them like a frenzied worker bee on commission when Madison suggested that they call it a day. Rory heartedly agreed and they settled on a delicatessen down the street for lunch. Naturally, the topic of conversation turned to the wedding plans and Madison cheerily piped in with “I can’t believe you and Aidan are really having the wedding in Australia, Rory!”

“Neither can I,” Rory replied and her thoughts drifted to the day she told Aidan she wanted to get married in the land down under. It had been a week or two after he had proposed to her by the fountain in the town square. They were out at their favorite steakhouse when Aidan asked her if she had started thinking about the wedding plans. Rory was still adjusting to the shock of having a rock the size of a small third world country sitting on her left hand. She hadn’t really moved on to that stage yet. Seeing the panic begin to roll over her face, Aidan laughed and said “This is the day you girls supposedly dream of and plan for your entire life and you’re telling me you haven’t thought about this at all? But then again, this is you we’re talking about. This is your day babe. What do you want?” Without thinking or hesitating, Rory blurted out, “Australia!”

“Well that’s a helluva wedding present! But hey, if that’s what you really want then I’ll get right on that. I know better than to tell you no,” he replied with a smile as he reached across the table to brush aside the stray hair that always seemed to fall into her face. The panic Rory had felt building up was brushed aside with the same stroke as the obstinate piece of hair. Aidan had an uncanny ability to calm her, even at her most frantic moments.

Unfortunately, the panic came back later on that night when she was supposed to be cleaning up her apartment. She knew exactly why she had blurted out Australia and it was not good. That was where they were supposed to have gone together for their wedding. But that would never happen now. It had been two years since she had broken up Landon, her boyfriend of nearly six years. They had been high school sweethearts and somehow had made it through the four years of college together. Marriage seemed like the next logical step but they had never been a couple to do anything based on logic. Thinking back, Rory realized that bit of quirkiness she felt had been the greatest part of her and Landon’s relationship was actually what had caused it to end.

Rory came out of her reverie to find both Mrs. Halbrook and her friend giving her questioning looks. She realized she had stopped talking practically mid sentence and had been off daydreaming for quite some time. She quickly apologized and the conversation moved on. She was extremely grateful when the lunch ended and she was able to go back to her quiet apartment where the word “wedding” didn’t pop up every other minute. “Now I know why some brides bolt before they get to the altar. They’ve been driven insane by all the planning they had to do to get there and they finally just snap,” Rory mused aloud to her goldfish Dory. Dory wiggled her fins in a sympathetic manner. “Thank you, I needed that Dory.” She spent the rest of the day looking at the travel books and wedding magazines Aidan had bought for her when he realized that Rory was serious about Australia. The pictures of the raw beauty of the Australian Outback eased her mind about the spontaneous decision she had made. Only something good could come out of a land that beautiful.

The last three days Rory had of sanity before leaving for Australia and the beginning of the really hellish part of the planning naturally flew by. She spent an entire day packing just to have Aidan empty out her suitcase and tell her that although it was winter here, it was summer in Australia so she would not be needing her gloves and ski cap. So she spent the next day repacking under the careful supervision of Aidan. Most women would probably find this patronizing but they both knew that it would be better for him to be there helping than for her to arrive in Australia in a snowsuit or to get to the airport and realize she had left the tickets by her toothpaste on the bathroom counter. Both were very likely to happen if Rory was left to her own devices in her frazzled state. Aidan spent the night at Rory’s apartment that night “just to make sure she woke up on time.” The next day they and a small group of family and best friends were on the plane to Australia much to Rory’s discomfort and dismay. “Remind me again why I thought this was a good idea,” she said while fighting back the urge to vomit, pass out or do some strange combination of the two.

“Babe, just sit back and try to relax. We’ll be in Brisbane before you know it,” Aidan attempted to console his severely airsick fiancé. Over two days and three nerve-wracking layovers later Rory staggered into the lobby of the Rendezvous Hotel in Brisbane. “Before I know it, huh?” she badgered Aidan as he checked into the front desk and lead the way to their room. After unpacking their stuff, Rory decided to head down to the outdoor pool for a relaxing swim. Aidan, who had already planned a trip to the hotel bar with his father and best friend, declined the invite to join. The wedding plans started to fly through her head yet again as she rode down the ten floors. As she mentally went through the guest list, for a brief moment Landon’s face flashed in her mind. She brushed away the thought of him as she walked through the doors out to the pool deck. She had begun to undress near the edge of the pool when she heard a whistle and an all too familiar voice call out “Hot damn! It’s been way too long since I’ve seen that sight!” Just as Rory whipped around to find the source of the offensive remark she slipped in the puddle of water she had unwittingly been standing in and fell ass first into the pool. She flailed about in the water until a hand reached in and hauled her out. Through the sheet of water cascading from her hair she looked up into the face she never expected to see. The scattering of freckles across the permanently sun burnt nose, the sun bleached curls, that cocky grin that somehow always managed to make her forget why she was angry with him. The sight of him made her heart race and seemed to put an entire migration of Monarch butterflies into her stomach. Those feelings lasted a few seconds before she blurted out in shock “Why are you in my hotel Landon?”

“Your hotel? Funny, I thought it said Rendezvous Hotel on the front of this building, not Lorelei’s Private Property. Nice to see you too gorgeous” Landon quipped with a smirk as he wrapped a towel around her soaking body. Rory stood like a stunned deer in the blinding beam of his smile for a moment before her brain registered that he was speaking again. “I’m here for the surf competition tomorrow. One of my buddies told me about this hotel so here I am. What’s your excuse?”

“I don’t have an excuse. I mean. Wedding. What I mean to say is-” flustered, she stumbled over her words. Landon smiled at her obvious agitation “So what you’re trying to tell me is you’re here for a wedding. Which unlucky soul is tying the noose?” It was Rory’s turn to smirk then. “Actually, that unlucky soul would be me babe,” she replied and relished watching a series of expressions roll across Landon’s face. Finally he regained control and a detached look settled on his bronzed face. Rory had seen that look many times before. That expression had dominated every fight or serious discussion she had attempted to have with him during those six years they had had together. Rory had learned from being with him that women and men deal with confrontations and problems in completely different ways. Men will just sweep everything under the rug and ignore the mound that slowly accumulated. Lift that rug up and you’ll find all the issues he refused to deal with. Women on the other hand will pick up that rug and beat the holy hell out of it and then move on. After six years she got tired of being pushed under that rug and she had given up on trying to beat it out of him. So she knew that any conversation she tried to have now would be pointless but she made an attempt in the hopes that he had changed in the two years since she had last talked to him. “What, got nothing to say? Guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised.” When he still didn’t respond she shrugged, got up and started to walk towards the door. Landon suddenly stood up, grabbed her hand and exclaimed, “I’m sorry, I just need a some time to process all this. Will you please come to the competition tomorrow? We can talk then, if you want.” Rory, still recovering from the initial shock of running into him, felt another jolt hit her at his words. She had expected a continued silence from him or maybe a “That’s cool, see you around.” Basically anything other than what had just happened. ‘This isn’t Landon,’ she thought, ‘Sure it looks like him but I don’t know where those words are coming from.’ But he looked so eager and sincere that all she could do was nod in agreement and say “Sure. Yeah. Tomorrow.” Landon gave her one last grin before he gently placed a kiss on the corner of her mouth and walked away leaving Rory staring after him. After enough of her confusion and astonishment had worn off for her to form coherent thought, Rory realized that the thing she needed to do the most right then was to go through with the swim she had come down to the pool for in the first place. She would deal with everything else later.

The next day, after yet another night of restless sleep, Rory woke up determined to solve things. The fact that the she didn’t know what the outcome of “solving things” would be caused a twinge of guilt in Rory’s conscience. She knew that there shouldn’t be even the smallest amount of doubt in what her decision should be but she found that six years of love was hard to brush aside. Since everyone was used to her wandering off for hours on her own, Rory found it easy to slip away unnoticed to the beach where the surf competition was being held. She searched the crowds for Landon for several minutes before she spotted him near one of the tents. His eyes were focused on the water while his hands mechanically waxed his board. She knew better than to interrupt his pre-surf reverie, so she waited for him to realize she was there. After nearly five minutes he finally turned and saw her. “You actually came,” he said.
“Why do you sound so surprised?” Rory asked, “In all of our years together did I ever leave you hanging? And I sure as hell never missed one of your competitions.”

“No, you never did but I figured it might be a different now, considering. But maybe you still…” he left the statement unfinished but she could hear the hopeful questioning in his tone. Before she could respond, though, the announcer called for the surfers of the first heat to get in the water. “Hey, I gotta go. We’ll talk after, okay?” Landon said as he hurried off without giving her a chance to say anything. She watched him grab his board and paddle out into the water. As she watched him cut his way through the water, she felt an old ache return to her. The water taken him from her for what seemed to be the millionth time. She looked around and saw several other girls with the same wistful look in their eyes. Rory wondered how many of them were surf widows like her. She really couldn’t blame Landon for choosing the waves over her or any other girl. The water didn’t nag at him for leaving his flip-flops in the middle of the walkway. It didn’t care if he hadn’t showered or shaved in a week. Apparently, the demands the water asked of him were easier to meet than the ones she had given him. She looked out into the water just as Landon caught the last wave of the heat. She watched him ride the wave into the shore before getting up and heading back to the hotel. It felt good to finally be the one walking away.

 

Out From Under the Rug-Draft 2

The patterns on the ceiling captured her attention for the third sleepless night in a row. ‘Hmm, that group looks like a penguin. They have penguins in Australia, that’s just weird. It’s not even cold there. God, I can’t believe I’m flying there in a three days. I hate flying but then again I hate having to make all these damn wedding plans,’ her thoughts flew in that middle-of-the-night-dear-god-why-am-I–still-awake way. She tossed and turned for another hour before falling into a restless sleep equipped with dreams of angry penguins chasing her, waving bridal magazines and yelling her name. “Rory. Rory. LORELEI!”

She started awake and looked to find the cause of her rude awakening to find her best friend glowering at her, coffee and bagel in hand. Rory let out a groan and groped around for her cell phone, which also posed as her alarm clock. She came up empty handed.

“Yeah sunshine, we were supposed to meet your soon to be mother-in-law at the dress shop thirty minutes ago. Boy are you going to be in for some fun tod-“ She was cut off by the shrill ringing of her cell phone. “Hello? Oh hi Mrs. Halbrook,” she shot Rory a look. “No, I don’t know why she isn’t answering her cell. Yes ma’am I know we’re supposed to be there right now. Of course we’ll be there just as soon as possible. Okay, yes ma’am…okay. Goodbye Mrs. Halbrook.” She hung up and turned on Rory with a murderous look on her face.

“I know, I know. I swear I set my alarm on my phone Madison! I just don’t know where it is….” Rory’s voice trailed off and she flashed Madison an apologetic grin. She jumped out of bed and dodged the pillow her friend had lobbed at her head. Turning on the shower to drown out the nagging coming from the other room, Rory looked into the bathroom mirror and shook her head. “I’m twenty-four years old and I can’t even remember to set my alarm at night. How am I supposed to make it through grad school and this wedding?” she asked her reflection. Life would go a lot smoother for her if she could just be a little less scatterbrained. Shaking her head one last time, she showered and dressed in record time. After searching for ten minutes Rory found her phone hiding behind a pile of dirty dishes on her kitchen counter that she had had every intent of washing last night before being sidetracked by her fiancé’s phone call reminding her to set her alarm so she wouldn’t oversleep the next morning. ‘So much for that,’ Rory thought with a self-deprecating grin. Madison, completely out of patience for her absentminded friend, practically threw Rory out of the apartment complex and into her car. They made it to the boutique within thirty minutes of receiving her future mother-in-law’s call. Rory and Madison flew breathlessly through the door and nearly ran into the stern form of Madilynn Halbrook. She gave Rory a reproachful look then laughed and pulled the flustered Rory in for a hug.

“Lost your cell phone again did you kiddo?” Despite her formidable appearance Mrs. Halbrook was one of the most warm-hearted women Rory had ever met. As the only female District Attorney in the history of their small Texas town, Mrs. Halbrook found it necessary to project a tough appearance. Rory was immensely relieved to find that she would not have to deal with the mother-in-law from hell like so many of her married girlfriends had. Mrs. Halbrook had made Rory feel like part of the Halbrook family since the beginning of Rory and Aidan’s relationship. That feeling of belonging and familial love was something new to Rory. She had never known her birth parents and the foster families that took her in usually had no interest in the small girl with her head constantly in the clouds. When she had met Aidan’s family for the first time she had almost immediately felt at home with them. Now that she was officially becoming a part of their family, Mrs. Halbrook’s already eager and loving nature was multiplied tenfold. The attention was overwhelming at times but Rory knew her soon to be mother- in- law was well intentioned. She smiled at the obvious enthusiasm for the task ahead of them in Mrs. Halbrook’s face.

“Okay, so I found a few dresses while I was waiting on you slowpokes. How ‘bout we start with those?” Mrs. Halbrook suggested as she proceeded to grab the dresses and ushered Rory into the dressing rooms. She was used to being obeyed and the thought that someone might not agree with her ideas had never crossed her mind. The girls spent the next hour searching the shop for “the” dress. This was the seventh boutique they had been to in the past few weeks, not to mention the hours they had spent searching online. Rory was fighting back the urge to swat the irritating saleswoman who had been buzzing around them like a frenzied worker bee on commission when Madison suggested that they call it a day. Rory heartedly agreed and they settled on a delicatessen down the street for lunch. Naturally, the topic of conversation turned to the wedding plans and Madison cheerily piped in with “I can’t believe you and Aidan are really having the wedding in Australia, Rory!”

“Neither can I,” Rory replied and her thoughts drifted to the day she told Aidan she wanted to get married in the land down under. It had been a week or two after he had proposed to her by the fountain in the town square. They were out at their favorite steakhouse when Aidan asked her if she had started thinking about the wedding plans. Rory was still adjusting to the shock of having a rock the size of a small third world country sitting on her left hand. She hadn’t really moved on to that stage yet. Seeing the panic begin to roll over her face, Aidan laughed and said “This is the day you girls supposedly dream of and plan for your entire life and you’re telling me you haven’t thought about this at all? But then again, this is you we’re talking about. This is your day babe. What do you want?” Without thinking or hesitating, Rory blurted out, “Australia!”

“Well that’s a helluva wedding present! But hey, if that’s what you really want then I’ll get right on that. I know better than to tell you no,” he replied with a smile as he reached across the table to brush aside the stray hair that always seemed to fall into her face. The panic Rory had felt building up was brushed aside with the same stroke as the obstinate piece of hair. Aidan had an uncanny ability to calm her, even at her most frantic moments.

Unfortunately, the panic came back later on that night when she was supposed to be cleaning up her apartment. She knew exactly why she had blurted out Australia and it was not good. That was where they were supposed to have gone together for their wedding. But that would never happen now. It had been two years since she had broken up Landon, her boyfriend of nearly six years. They had been high school sweethearts and somehow had made it through the four years of college together. Marriage seemed like the next logical step but they had never been a couple to do anything based on logic. Thinking back, Rory realized that bit of quirkiness she felt had been the greatest part of her and Landon’s relationship was actually what had caused it to end.

Rory came out of her reverie to find both Mrs. Halbrook and her friend giving her questioning looks. She realized she had stopped talking practically mid sentence and had been off daydreaming for quite some time. She quickly apologized and the conversation moved on. She was extremely grateful when the lunch ended and she was able to go back to her quiet apartment where the word “wedding” didn’t pop up every other minute. “Now I know why some brides bolt before they get to the altar. They’ve been driven insane by all the planning they had to do to get there and they finally just snap,” Rory mused aloud to her goldfish Dory. Dory wiggled her fins in a sympathetic manner. “Thank you, I needed that Dory.” She spent the rest of the day looking at the travel books and wedding magazines Aidan had bought for her when he realized that Rory was serious about Australia. The pictures of the raw beauty of the Australian Outback eased her mind about the spontaneous decision she had made. Only something good could come out of a land that beautiful.

The last three days Rory had of sanity before leaving for Australia and the beginning of the really hellish part of the planning naturally flew by. She spent an entire day packing just to have Aidan empty out her suitcase and tell her that although it was winter here, it was summer in Australia so she would not be needing her gloves and ski cap. So she spent the next day repacking under the careful supervision of Aidan. Most women would probably find this patronizing but they both knew that it would be better for him to be there helping than for her to arrive in Australia in a snowsuit or to get to the airport and realize she had left the tickets by her toothpaste on the bathroom counter. Both were very likely to happen if Rory was left to her own devices in her frazzled state. Aidan spent the night at Rory’s apartment that night “just to make sure she woke up on time.” The next day they and a small group of family and best friends were on the plane to Australia much to Rory’s discomfort and dismay. “Remind me again why I thought this was a good idea,” she said while fighting back the urge to vomit, pass out or do some strange combination of the two.

“Babe, just sit back and try to relax. We’ll be in Brisbane before you know it,” Aidan attempted to console his severely airsick fiancé. Over two days and three nerve-wracking layovers later Rory staggered into the lobby of the Rendezvous Hotel in Brisbane. “Before I know it, huh?” she badgered Aidan as he checked into the front desk and lead the way to their room. After unpacking their stuff, Rory decided to head down to the outdoor pool for a relaxing swim. Aidan, who had already planned a trip to the hotel bar with his father and best friend, declined the invite to join. The wedding plans started to fly through her head yet again as she rode down the ten floors. As she mentally went through the guest list, for a brief moment Landon’s face flashed in her mind. She brushed away the thought of him as she walked through the doors out to the pool deck. She had begun to undress near the edge of the pool when she heard a whistle and an all too familiar voice call out “Hot damn! It’s been way too long since I’ve seen that sight!” Just as Rory whipped around to find the source of the offensive remark she slipped in the puddle of water she had unwittingly been standing in and fell ass first into the pool. She flailed about in the water until a hand reached in and hauled her out. Through the sheet of water cascading from her hair she looked up into the face she never expected to see. The scattering of freckles across the permanently sun burnt nose, the sun bleached curls, that cocky grin that somehow always managed to make her forget why she was angry with him. The sight of him made her heart race and seemed to put an entire migration of Monarch butterflies into her stomach. Those feelings lasted a few seconds before she blurted out in shock “Why are you in my hotel Landon?”

“Your hotel? Funny, I thought it said Rendezvous Hotel on the front of this building, not Lorelei’s Private Property. Nice to see you too gorgeous” Landon quipped with a smirk as he wrapped a towel around her soaking body. Rory stood like a stunned deer in the blinding beam of his smile for a moment before her brain registered that he was speaking again. “I’m here for the surf competition tomorrow. One of my buddies told me about this hotel so here I am. What’s your excuse?”

“I don’t have an excuse. I mean. Wedding. What I mean to say is-” flustered, she stumbled over her words. Landon smiled at her obvious agitation “So what you’re trying to tell me is you’re here for a wedding. Which unlucky soul is tying the noose?” It was Rory’s turn to smirk then. “Actually, that unlucky soul would be me babe,” she replied and relished watching a series of expressions roll across Landon’s face. Finally he regained control and a detached look settled on his bronzed face. Rory had seen that look many times before. That expression had dominated every fight or serious discussion she had attempted to have with him during those six years they had had together. Rory had learned from being with him that women and men deal with confrontations and problems in completely different ways. Men will just sweep everything under the rug and ignore the mound that slowly accumulated. Lift that rug up and you’ll find all the issues he refused to deal with. Women on the other hand will pick up that rug and beat the holy hell out of it and then move on. After six years she got tired of being pushed under that rug and she had given up on trying to beat it out of him. So she knew that any conversation she tried to have now would be pointless but she made an attempt in the hopes that he had changed in the two years since she had last talked to him. “What, got nothing to say? Guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised.” When he still didn’t respond she shrugged, got up and started to walk towards the door. Landon suddenly stood up, grabbed her hand and exclaimed, “I’m sorry, I just need a some time to process all this. Will you please come to the competition tomorrow? We can talk then, if you want.” Rory, still recovering from the initial shock of running into him, felt another jolt hit her at his words. She had expected a continued silence from him or maybe a “That’s cool, see you around.” Basically anything other than what had just happened. ‘This isn’t Landon,’ she thought, ‘Sure it looks like him but I don’t know where those words are coming from.’ But he looked so eager and sincere that all she could do was nod in agreement and say “Sure. Yeah. Tomorrow.” Landon gave her one last grin before he gently placed a kiss on the corner of her mouth and walked away leaving Rory staring after him. After enough of her confusion and astonishment had worn off for her to form coherent thought, Rory realized that the thing she needed to do the most right then was to go through with the swim she had come down to the pool for in the first place. She would deal with everything else later.

The next day, after yet another night of restless sleep, Rory woke up determined to solve things. The fact that the she didn’t know what the outcome of “solving things” would be caused a twinge of guilt in Rory’s conscience. She knew that there shouldn’t be even the smallest amount of doubt in what her decision should be but she found that six years of love was hard to brush aside. Since everyone was used to her wandering off for hours on her own, Rory found it easy to slip away unnoticed to the beach where the surf competition was being held. She searched the crowds for Landon for several minutes before she spotted him near one of the tents. His eyes were focused on the water while his hands mechanically waxed his board. She knew better than to interrupt his pre-surf reverie, so she waited for him to realize she was there. After nearly five minutes he finally turned and saw her. “You actually came,” he said.
“Why do you sound so surprised?” Rory asked, “In all of our years together did I ever leave you hanging? And I sure as hell never missed one of your competitions.”

“No, you never did but I figured it might be a different now, considering. But maybe you still…” he left the statement unfinished but she could hear the hopeful questioning in his tone. Before she could respond, though, the announcer called for the surfers of the first heat to get in the water. “Hey, I gotta go. We’ll talk after, okay?” Landon said as he hurried off without giving her a chance to say anything. She watched him grab his board and paddle out into the water. As she watched him cut his way through the water, she felt an old ache return to her. The water taken him from her for what seemed to be the millionth time. She looked around and saw several other girls with the same wistful look in their eyes. Rory wondered how many of them were surf widows like her. She really couldn’t blame Landon for choosing the waves over her or any other girl. The water didn’t nag at him for leaving his flip-flops in the middle of the walkway. It didn’t care if he hadn’t showered or shaved in a week. Apparently, the demands the water asked of him were easier to meet than the ones she had given him. She looked out into the water just as Landon caught the last wave of the heat. She watched him ride the wave into the shore before getting up and heading back to the hotel. It felt good to finally be the one walking away.

 

Out From Under the Rug-Draft 3

The patterns on the ceiling captured her attention for the third sleepless night in a row. ‘Hmm, that group looks like a penguin. They have penguins in Australia, that’s just weird. It’s not even cold there. God, I can’t believe I’m flying there in a three days. I hate flying but then again I hate having to make all these damn wedding plans,’ her thoughts flew in that middle-of-the-night-dear-god-why-am-I–still-awake way. She tossed and turned for another hour before falling into a restless sleep equipped with dreams of angry penguins chasing her, waving bridal magazines and yelling her name. “Rory. Rory. LORELEI!”

She started awake and looked to find the cause of her rude awakening to find her best friend glowering at her, coffee and bagel in hand. Rory let out a groan and groped around for her cell phone, which also posed as her alarm clock. She came up empty handed.

“Yeah sunshine, we were supposed to meet your soon to be mother-in-law at the dress shop thirty minutes ago. Boy are you going to be in for some fun tod-“ She was cut off by the shrill ringing of her cell phone. “Hello? Oh hi Mrs. Halbrook,” she shot Rory a look. “No, I don’t know why she isn’t answering her cell. Yes ma’am I know we’re supposed to be there right now. Of course we’ll be there just as soon as possible. Okay, yes ma’am…okay. Goodbye Mrs. Halbrook.” She hung up and turned on Rory with a murderous look on her face.

“I know, I know. I swear I set my alarm on my phone Madison! I just don’t know where it is….” Rory’s voice trailed off and she flashed Madison an apologetic grin. She jumped out of bed and dodged the pillow her friend had lobbed at her head. Turning on the shower to drown out the nagging coming from the other room, Rory looked into the bathroom mirror and shook her head. “I’m twenty-four years old and I can’t even remember to set my alarm at night. How am I supposed to make it through grad school and this wedding?” she asked her reflection. Life would go a lot smoother for her if she could just be a little less scatterbrained. Shaking her head one last time, she showered and dressed in record time. After searching for ten minutes Rory found her phone hiding behind a pile of dirty dishes on her kitchen counter that she had had every intent of washing last night before being sidetracked by her fiancé’s phone call reminding her to set her alarm so she wouldn’t oversleep the next morning. ‘So much for that,’ Rory thought with a self-deprecating grin. Madison, completely out of patience for her absentminded friend, practically threw Rory out of the apartment complex and into her car. They made it to the boutique within thirty minutes of receiving her future mother-in-law’s call. Rory and Madison flew breathlessly through the door and nearly ran into the stern form of Madilynn Halbrook. She gave Rory a reproachful look then laughed and pulled the flustered Rory in for a hug.

“Lost your cell phone again did you kiddo?” Despite her formidable appearance Mrs. Halbrook was one of the most warm-hearted women Rory had ever met. As the only female District Attorney in the history of their small Texas town, Mrs. Halbrook found it necessary to project a tough appearance. Rory was immensely relieved to find that she would not have to deal with the mother-in-law from hell like so many of her married girlfriends had. Mrs. Halbrook had made Rory feel like part of the Halbrook family since the beginning of Rory and Aidan’s relationship. That feeling of belonging and familial love was something new to Rory. She had never known her birth parents and the foster families that took her in usually had no interest in the small girl with her head constantly in the clouds. When she had met Aidan’s family for the first time she had almost immediately felt at home with them. Now that she was officially becoming a part of their family, Mrs. Halbrook’s already eager and loving nature was multiplied tenfold. The attention was overwhelming at times but Rory knew her soon to be mother- in- law was well intentioned. She smiled at the obvious enthusiasm for the task ahead of them in Mrs. Halbrook’s face.

“Okay, so I found a few dresses while I was waiting on you slowpokes. How ‘bout we start with those?” Mrs. Halbrook suggested as she proceeded to grab the dresses and ushered Rory into the dressing rooms. She was used to being obeyed and the thought that someone might not agree with her ideas had never crossed her mind. The girls spent the next hour searching the shop for “the” dress. This was the seventh boutique they had been to in the past few weeks, not to mention the hours they had spent searching online. Rory was fighting back the urge to swat the irritating saleswoman who had been buzzing around them like a frenzied worker bee on commission when Madison suggested that they call it a day. Rory heartedly agreed and they settled on a delicatessen down the street for lunch. Naturally, the topic of conversation turned to the wedding plans and Madison cheerily piped in with “I can’t believe you and Aidan are really having the wedding in Australia, Rory!”

“Neither can I,” Rory replied and her thoughts drifted to the day she told Aidan she wanted to get married in the land down under. It had been a week or two after he had proposed to her by the fountain in the town square. They were out at their favorite steakhouse when Aidan asked her if she had started thinking about the wedding plans. Rory was still adjusting to the shock of having a rock the size of a small third world country sitting on her left hand. She hadn’t really moved on to that stage yet. Seeing the panic begin to roll over her face, Aidan laughed and said “This is the day you girls supposedly dream of and plan for your entire life and you’re telling me you haven’t thought about this at all? But then again, this is you we’re talking about. This is your day babe. What do you want?” Without thinking or hesitating, Rory blurted out, “Australia!”

“Well that’s a helluva wedding present! But hey, if that’s what you really want then I’ll get right on that. I know better than to tell you no,” he replied with a smile as he reached across the table to brush aside the stray hair that always seemed to fall into her face. The panic Rory had felt building up was brushed aside with the same stroke as the obstinate piece of hair. Aidan had an uncanny ability to calm her, even at her most frantic moments.

Unfortunately, the panic came back later on that night when she was supposed to be cleaning up her apartment. She knew exactly why she had blurted out Australia and it was not good. That was where they were supposed to have gone together for their wedding. But that would never happen now. It had been two years since she had broken up Landon, her boyfriend of nearly six years. They had been high school sweethearts and somehow had made it through the four years of college together. Marriage seemed like the next logical step but they had never been a couple to do anything based on logic. Thinking back, Rory realized that bit of quirkiness she felt had been the greatest part of her and Landon’s relationship was actually what had caused it to end.

Rory came out of her reverie to find both Mrs. Halbrook and her friend giving her questioning looks. She realized she had stopped talking practically mid sentence and had been off daydreaming for quite some time. She quickly apologized and the conversation moved on. She was extremely grateful when the lunch ended and she was able to go back to her quiet apartment where the word “wedding” didn’t pop up every other minute. “Now I know why some brides bolt before they get to the altar. They’ve been driven insane by all the planning they had to do to get there and they finally just snap,” Rory mused aloud to her goldfish Dory. Dory wiggled her fins in a sympathetic manner. “Thank you, I needed that Dory.” She spent the rest of the day looking at the travel books and wedding magazines Aidan had bought for her when he realized that Rory was serious about Australia. The pictures of the raw beauty of the Australian Outback eased her mind about the spontaneous decision she had made. Only something good could come out of a land that beautiful.

The last three days Rory had of sanity before leaving for Australia and the beginning of the really hellish part of the planning naturally flew by. She spent an entire day packing just to have Aidan empty out her suitcase and tell her that although it was winter here, it was summer in Australia so she would not be needing her gloves and ski cap. So she spent the next day repacking under the careful supervision of Aidan. Most women would probably find this patronizing but they both knew that it would be better for him to be there helping than for her to arrive in Australia in a snowsuit or to get to the airport and realize she had left the tickets by her toothpaste on the bathroom counter. Both were very likely to happen if Rory was left to her own devices in her frazzled state. Aidan spent the night at Rory’s apartment that night “just to make sure she woke up on time.” The next day they and a small group of family and best friends were on the plane to Australia much to Rory’s discomfort and dismay. “Remind me again why I thought this was a good idea,” she said while fighting back the urge to vomit, pass out or do some strange combination of the two.

“Babe, just sit back and try to relax. We’ll be in Brisbane before you know it,” Aidan attempted to console his severely airsick fiancé. Over two days and three nerve-wracking layovers later Rory staggered into the lobby of the Rendezvous Hotel in Brisbane. “Before I know it, huh?” she badgered Aidan as he checked into the front desk and lead the way to their room. After unpacking their stuff, Rory decided to head down to the outdoor pool for a relaxing swim. Aidan, who had already planned a trip to the hotel bar with his father and best friend, declined the invite to join. The wedding plans started to fly through her head yet again as she rode down the ten floors. As she mentally went through the guest list, for a brief moment Landon’s face flashed in her mind. She brushed away the thought of him as she walked through the doors out to the pool deck. She had begun to undress near the edge of the pool when she heard a whistle and an all too familiar voice call out “Hot damn! It’s been way too long since I’ve seen that sight!” Just as Rory whipped around to find the source of the offensive remark she slipped in the puddle of water she had unwittingly been standing in and fell ass first into the pool. She flailed about in the water until a hand reached in and hauled her out. Through the sheet of water cascading from her hair she looked up into the face she never expected to see. The scattering of freckles across the permanently sun burnt nose, the sun bleached curls, that cocky grin that somehow always managed to make her forget why she was angry with him. The sight of him made her heart race and seemed to put an entire migration of Monarch butterflies into her stomach. Those feelings lasted a few seconds before she blurted out in shock “Why are you in my hotel Landon?”

“Your hotel? Funny, I thought it said Rendezvous Hotel on the front of this building, not Lorelei’s Private Property. Nice to see you too gorgeous” Landon quipped with a smirk as he wrapped a towel around her soaking body. Rory stood like a stunned deer in the blinding beam of his smile for a moment before her brain registered that he was speaking again. “I’m here for the surf competition tomorrow. One of my buddies told me about this hotel so here I am. What’s your excuse?”

“I don’t have an excuse. I mean. Wedding. What I mean to say is-” flustered, she stumbled over her words. Landon smiled at her obvious agitation “So what you’re trying to tell me is you’re here for a wedding. Which unlucky soul is tying the noose?” It was Rory’s turn to smirk then. “Actually, that unlucky soul would be me babe,” she replied and relished watching a series of expressions roll across Landon’s face. Finally he regained control and a detached look settled on his bronzed face. Rory had seen that look many times before. That expression had dominated every fight or serious discussion she had attempted to have with him during those six years they had had together. Rory had learned from being with him that women and men deal with confrontations and problems in completely different ways. Men will just sweep everything under the rug and ignore the mound that slowly accumulated. Lift that rug up and you’ll find all the issues he refused to deal with. Women on the other hand will pick up that rug and beat the holy hell out of it and then move on. After six years she got tired of being pushed under that rug and she had given up on trying to beat it out of him. So she knew that any conversation she tried to have now would be pointless but she made an attempt in the hopes that he had changed in the two years since she had last talked to him. “What, got nothing to say? Guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised.” When he still didn’t respond she shrugged, got up and started to walk towards the door. Landon suddenly stood up, grabbed her hand and exclaimed, “I’m sorry, I just need a some time to process all this. Will you please come to the competition tomorrow? We can talk then, if you want.” Rory, still recovering from the initial shock of running into him, felt another jolt hit her at his words. She had expected a continued silence from him or maybe a “That’s cool, see you around.” Basically anything other than what had just happened. ‘This isn’t Landon,’ she thought, ‘Sure it looks like him but I don’t know where those words are coming from.’ But he looked so eager and sincere that all she could do was nod in agreement and say “Sure. Yeah. Tomorrow.” Landon gave her one last grin before he gently placed a kiss on the corner of her mouth and walked away leaving Rory staring after him. After enough of her confusion and astonishment had worn off for her to form coherent thought, Rory realized that the thing she needed to do the most right then was to go through with the swim she had come down to the pool for in the first place. She would deal with everything else later.

The next day, after yet another night of restless sleep, Rory woke up determined to solve things. The fact that the she didn’t know what the outcome of “solving things” would be caused a twinge of guilt in Rory’s conscience. She knew that there shouldn’t be even the smallest amount of doubt in what her decision should be but she found that six years of love was hard to brush aside. Since everyone was used to her wandering off for hours on her own, Rory found it easy to slip away unnoticed to the beach where the surf competition was being held. She searched the crowds for Landon for several minutes before she spotted him near one of the tents. His eyes were focused on the water while his hands mechanically waxed his board. She knew better than to interrupt his pre-surf reverie, so she waited for him to realize she was there. After nearly five minutes he finally turned and saw her. “You actually came,” he said.
“Why do you sound so surprised?” Rory asked, “In all of our years together did I ever leave you hanging? And I sure as hell never missed one of your competitions.”

“No, you never did but I figured it might be a different now, considering. But maybe you still…” he left the statement unfinished but she could hear the hopeful questioning in his tone. Before she could respond, though, the announcer called for the surfers of the first heat to get in the water. “Hey, I gotta go. We’ll talk after, okay?” Landon said as he hurried off without giving her a chance to say anything. She watched him grab his board and paddle out into the water. As she watched him cut his way through the water, she felt an old ache return to her. The water taken him from her for what seemed to be the millionth time. She looked around and saw several other girls with the same wistful look in their eyes. Rory wondered how many of them were surf widows like her. She really couldn’t blame Landon for choosing the waves over her or any other girl. The water didn’t nag at him for leaving his flip-flops in the middle of the walkway. It didn’t care if he hadn’t showered or shaved in a week. Apparently, the demands the water asked of him were easier to meet than the ones she had given him. She looked out into the water just as Landon caught the last wave of the heat. She watched him ride the wave into the shore before getting up and heading back to the hotel. It felt good to finally be the one walking away.

 

Out From Under the Rug-Draft 4

The patterns on the ceiling captured her attention for the third sleepless night in a row. ‘Hmm, that group looks like a penguin. They have penguins in Australia, that’s just weird. It’s not even cold there. God, I can’t believe I’m flying there in a three days. I hate flying but then again I hate having to make all these damn wedding plans,’ her thoughts flew in that middle-of-the-night-dear-god-why-am-I–still-awake way. She tossed and turned for another hour before falling into a restless sleep equipped with dreams of angry penguins chasing her, waving bridal magazines and yelling her name. “Rory. Rory. LORELEI!”

She started awake and looked to find the cause of her rude awakening to find her best friend glowering at her, coffee and bagel in hand. Rory let out a groan and groped around for her cell phone, which also posed as her alarm clock. She came up empty handed.

“Yeah sunshine, we were supposed to meet your soon to be mother-in-law at the dress shop thirty minutes ago. Boy are you going to be in for some fun tod-“ She was cut off by the shrill ringing of her cell phone. “Hello? Oh hi Mrs. Halbrook,” she shot Rory a look. “No, I don’t know why she isn’t answering her cell. Yes ma’am I know we’re supposed to be there right now. Of course we’ll be there just as soon as possible. Okay, yes ma’am…okay. Goodbye Mrs. Halbrook.” She hung up and turned on Rory with a murderous look on her face.

“I know, I know. I swear I set my alarm on my phone Madison! I just don’t know where it is….” Rory’s voice trailed off and she flashed Madison an apologetic grin. She jumped out of bed and dodged the pillow her friend had lobbed at her head. Turning on the shower to drown out the nagging coming from the other room, Rory looked into the bathroom mirror and shook her head. “I’m twenty-four years old and I can’t even remember to set my alarm at night. How am I supposed to make it through grad school and this wedding?” she asked her reflection. Life would go a lot smoother for her if she could just be a little less scatterbrained. Shaking her head one last time, she showered and dressed in record time. After searching for ten minutes Rory found her phone hiding behind a pile of dirty dishes on her kitchen counter that she had had every intent of washing last night before being sidetracked by her fiancé’s phone call reminding her to set her alarm so she wouldn’t oversleep the next morning. ‘So much for that,’ Rory thought with a self-deprecating grin. Madison, completely out of patience for her absentminded friend, practically threw Rory out of the apartment complex and into her car. They made it to the boutique within thirty minutes of receiving her future mother-in-law’s call. Rory and Madison flew breathlessly through the door and nearly ran into the stern form of Madilynn Halbrook. She gave Rory a reproachful look then laughed and pulled the flustered Rory in for a hug.

“Lost your cell phone again did you kiddo?” Despite her formidable appearance Mrs. Halbrook was one of the most warm-hearted women Rory had ever met. As the only female District Attorney in the history of their small Texas town, Mrs. Halbrook found it necessary to project a tough appearance. Rory was immensely relieved to find that she would not have to deal with the mother-in-law from hell like so many of her married girlfriends had. Mrs. Halbrook had made Rory feel like part of the Halbrook family since the beginning of Rory and Aidan’s relationship. That feeling of belonging and familial love was something new to Rory. She had never known her birth parents and the foster families that took her in usually had no interest in the small girl with her head constantly in the clouds. When she had met Aidan’s family for the first time she had almost immediately felt at home with them. Now that she was officially becoming a part of their family, Mrs. Halbrook’s already eager and loving nature was multiplied tenfold. The attention was overwhelming at times but Rory knew her soon to be mother- in- law was well intentioned. She smiled at the obvious enthusiasm for the task ahead of them in Mrs. Halbrook’s face.

“Okay, so I found a few dresses while I was waiting on you slowpokes. How ‘bout we start with those?” Mrs. Halbrook suggested as she proceeded to grab the dresses and ushered Rory into the dressing rooms. She was used to being obeyed and the thought that someone might not agree with her ideas had never crossed her mind. The girls spent the next hour searching the shop for “the” dress. This was the seventh boutique they had been to in the past few weeks, not to mention the hours they had spent searching online. Rory was fighting back the urge to swat the irritating saleswoman who had been buzzing around them like a frenzied worker bee on commission when Madison suggested that they call it a day. Rory heartedly agreed and they settled on a delicatessen down the street for lunch. Naturally, the topic of conversation turned to the wedding plans and Madison cheerily piped in with “I can’t believe you and Aidan are really having the wedding in Australia, Rory!”

“Neither can I,” Rory replied and her thoughts drifted to the day she told Aidan she wanted to get married in the land down under. It had been a week or two after he had proposed to her by the fountain in the town square. They were out at their favorite steakhouse when Aidan asked her if she had started thinking about the wedding plans. Rory was still adjusting to the shock of having a rock the size of a small third world country sitting on her left hand. She hadn’t really moved on to that stage yet. Seeing the panic begin to roll over her face, Aidan laughed and said “This is the day you girls supposedly dream of and plan for your entire life and you’re telling me you haven’t thought about this at all? But then again, this is you we’re talking about. This is your day babe. What do you want?” Without thinking or hesitating, Rory blurted out, “Australia!”

“Well that’s a helluva wedding present! But hey, if that’s what you really want then I’ll get right on that. I know better than to tell you no,” he replied with a smile as he reached across the table to brush aside the stray hair that always seemed to fall into her face. The panic Rory had felt building up was brushed aside with the same stroke as the obstinate piece of hair. Aidan had an uncanny ability to calm her, even at her most frantic moments.

Unfortunately, the panic came back later on that night when she was supposed to be cleaning up her apartment. She knew exactly why she had blurted out Australia and it was not good. That was where they were supposed to have gone together for their wedding. But that would never happen now. It had been two years since she had broken up Landon, her boyfriend of nearly six years. They had been high school sweethearts and somehow had made it through the four years of college together. Marriage seemed like the next logical step but they had never been a couple to do anything based on logic. Thinking back, Rory realized that bit of quirkiness she felt had been the greatest part of her and Landon’s relationship was actually what had caused it to end.

Rory came out of her reverie to find both Mrs. Halbrook and her friend giving her questioning looks. She realized she had stopped talking practically mid sentence and had been off daydreaming for quite some time. She quickly apologized and the conversation moved on. She was extremely grateful when the lunch ended and she was able to go back to her quiet apartment where the word “wedding” didn’t pop up every other minute. “Now I know why some brides bolt before they get to the altar. They’ve been driven insane by all the planning they had to do to get there and they finally just snap,” Rory mused aloud to her goldfish Dory, “I swear if I don’t find a dress soon I’m just going to walk naked down the aisle. I’m dead serious!” Dory wiggled her fins in a sympathetic manner. “Thank you, I needed that Dory.” She spent the rest of the day looking at the travel books and wedding magazines Aidan had bought for her when he realized that Rory was serious about Australia. The pictures of the raw beauty of the Australian Outback eased her mind about the spontaneous decision she had made. Only something good could come out of a land that beautiful.

The last three days Rory had of sanity before leaving for Australia and the beginning of the really hellish part of the planning naturally flew by. She spent an entire day packing just to have Aidan empty out her suitcase and tell her that although it was winter here, it was summer in Australia so she would not be needing her gloves and ski cap. So she spent the next day repacking under the careful supervision of Aidan. Most women would probably find this patronizing but they both knew that it would be better for him to be there helping than for her to arrive in Australia in a snowsuit or to get to the airport and realize she had left the tickets by her toothpaste on the bathroom counter. Both were very likely to happen if Rory was left to her own devices in her frazzled state. Aidan spent the night at Rory’s apartment that night “just to make sure she woke up on time.” The next day they and a small group of family and best friends were on the plane to Australia much to Rory’s discomfort and dismay. “Remind me again why I thought this was a good idea,” she said while fighting back the urge to vomit, pass out or do some strange combination of the two.

“Babe, just sit back and try to relax. We’ll be in Brisbane before you know it,” Aidan attempted to console his severely airsick fiancé. Over two days and three nerve-wracking layovers later Rory staggered into the lobby of the Rendezvous Hotel in Brisbane. “Before I know it, huh?” she badgered Aidan as he checked into the front desk and lead the way to their room. After unpacking their stuff, Rory decided to head down to the outdoor pool for a relaxing swim. Aidan, who had already planned a trip to the hotel bar with his father and best friend, declined the invite to join. The wedding plans started to fly through her head yet again as she rode the elevator down the ten floors to the lobby. As she mentally went through the guest list, for a brief moment Landon’s face flashed in her mind. She brushed away the thought of him as she walked through the doors out to the pool deck. She had begun to undress near the edge of the pool when she heard a whistle and an all too familiar voice call out “Hot damn! It’s been way too long since I’ve seen that sight!” Just as Rory whipped around to find the source of the offensive remark she slipped in the puddle of water she had unwittingly been standing in and fell ass first into the pool. She flailed about in the water until a hand reached in and hauled her out. Through the sheet of water cascading from her hair she looked up into the face she never expected to see. The scattering of freckles across the permanently sun burnt nose, the sun bleached curls, that cocky grin that somehow always managed to make her forget why she was angry with him. The sight of him made her heart race and seemed to put an entire migration of Monarch butterflies into her stomach. Those feelings lasted a few seconds before she blurted out in shock “Why are you in my hotel Landon?”
“Your hotel? Funny, I thought it said Rendezvous Hotel on the front of this building, not Lorelei’s Private Property. Nice to see you too gorgeous” Landon said with a wink as he wrapped a towel around her soaking body. Rory stood like a stunned deer in the blinding beam of his smile for a moment before her brain registered that he was speaking again. “I’m here for the surf competition tomorrow. One of my buddies told me about this hotel so here I am. What’s your excuse?”

“I don’t have an excuse. I mean. Wedding. What I mean to say is-” flustered, she stumbled over her words. Landon smiled at her obvious agitation “So what you’re trying to tell me is you’re here for a wedding. Which unlucky soul is tying the noose?” It was Rory’s turn to smirk then. “Actually, that unlucky soul would be me babe,” she replied and relished watching a series of expressions roll across Landon’s face. Finally he regained control and a detached look settled on his bronzed face. Rory had seen that look many times before. That expression had dominated every fight or serious discussion she had attempted to have with him during those six years they had had together. Rory had learned from being with him that women and men deal with confrontations and problems in completely different ways. Men will just sweep everything under the rug and ignore the mound that slowly accumulated. Lift that rug up and a girl will find all the issues he refused to deal with. Women on the other hand will pick up that rug and beat the holy hell out of it and then move on. After six years she got tired of being pushed under that rug and she had given up on trying to beat it out of him. So she figured that any conversation she tried to have now would be pointless but she made an attempt in the hopes that he had changed in the two years since she had last talked to him. “What, got nothing to say? Guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised.”

When he still didn’t respond she shrugged, got up and started to walk towards the door. Landon suddenly stood up, grabbed her hand and exclaimed, “I’m sorry, I just need a some time to process all this. Will you please come to the competition tomorrow? We can talk then, if you want.” Rory, still recovering from the initial shock of running into him, felt another jolt hit her at his words. She had expected a continued silence from him or maybe a “That’s cool, see you around.” Basically anything other than what had just happened. ‘This isn’t Landon,’ she thought, ‘Sure it looks like him but I don’t know where those words are coming from.’ But he looked so eager and sincere that all she could do was nod in agreement and say “Sure. Yeah. Tomorrow.” Landon gave her one last grin before he gently placed a kiss on the corner of her mouth and walked away leaving Rory staring after him. After enough of her confusion and astonishment had worn off for her to form coherent thought, Rory realized that the thing she needed to do the most right then was to go through with the swim she had come down to the pool for in the first place. She would deal with everything else later.

After yet another night of restless sleep, Rory woke up the next day determined to solve things. The fact that the she didn’t know what the outcome of “solving things” would be caused a twinge of guilt in Rory’s conscience. She knew that there shouldn’t be even the smallest amount of doubt in what her decision should be but she found that six years of love was hard to brush aside. Even six years of messed up and sometimes childish love. Since everyone was used to her wandering off for hours on her own, Rory found it easy to slip away unnoticed to the beach where the surf competition was being held. She searched the crowds for Landon for several minutes before she spotted him near one of the tents. His eyes were focused on the water while his hands mechanically waxed his board. She knew better than to interrupt his pre-surf reverie, so she waited for him to realize she was there. After nearly five minutes he finally turned and saw her. He picked up his board and walked over to her. “You actually came,” he said.

“Why do you sound so surprised?” Rory asked, “In all of our years together did I ever leave you hanging? And I sure as hell never missed one of your competitions.” She reached out and ran her hands over the bumpy texture of Landon’s freshly waxed board. He smiled at the gesture and Rory blushed as she realized what she had done. It was an old habit. The first time Landon had taken her out surfing she found that all the little parts that came before actually getting ready to go out into the water fascinated her. Something about the difference in textures between the smooth board and the rough wax drew her hand to touch it every time. He had always teased her about that little habit, joking that he wished she were as interested in touching him as she was in touching his board.

After a slight pause in recognition of her action he spoke. “Nah, you never missed a competition but I figured it might be a different now, considering. But maybe you still…” he left the statement unfinished but she could hear the hopeful questioning in his tone. She wanted to object and set the record straight. Before she could respond, though, the announcer called for the surfers of the first heat to get in the water. “Hey, I gotta go. We’ll talk after, okay?” Landon said as he hurried off without giving her a chance to say anything. He grabbed his board and headed out to the water.

As she watched him paddle through the increasingly rough water, she felt the muscles in her shoulders begin to burn with sympathy pains. Rory knew what it felt like to struggle against the insistent rolling of the waves. The first time Landon had taken her out surfing, she had given up in exhaustion after only twenty minutes of fighting against what she thought to be monstrous waves and a wicked current. “Babe, these are barely three foot swells. I made sure to take you out on a fairly calm day. These are baby waves perfect for my baby surfer girl,” he had explained to her. But she didn’t care what he said. After lugging a board that was almost two feet taller than her down the beach, she felt she was justified in tiring so quickly. He was used to the physical demands of surfing. He had trained his body and muscles to take the abuses of the water in stride. Everyday there were decent waves, Landon could be found at the beach for hours upon hours at a time. Sometimes he didn’t come home from a day of surfing. He would just crash in his car or on a picnic table and get up with the sun to take advantage of the early morning waves. Rory couldn’t count the number of times Landon had come strolling into their apartment after having been gone for several days straight. All he would say was “Man babe, you wouldn’t believe the waves out there!” and would continue to ramble on for an hour or so about “huge swells” this and “crazy tricks” that. She learned to just smile and nod and not to expect an apology for not calling to let her know he’d be gone.

Rory felt an old ache return to her while watching him surf his way through the competition heat. The water taken him from her for what seemed to be the millionth time. She looked around and saw several other girls with the same wistful look in their eyes. Rory wondered how many of them were surf widows like her. She really couldn’t blame Landon for choosing the waves over her or any other girl. The water didn’t nag at him for leaving his ratty flip-flops in the middle of the walkway. It didn’t care if he hadn’t showered or shaved in a week. Apparently, the demands the water asked of him were easier to meet than the ones she had given him. She looked out into the water just as Landon caught the last wave of the heat. She watched him ride the wave into the shore before getting up and walking down the beach back to the hotel. It felt good to finally be the one walking away. Unfortunately her graceful escape was ruined when Landon came running up behind her.

“Hey beautiful, where you running off to? I thought we were gonna have a chat,” he said. Right as Rory was about to explain that they no longer needed to chat, Landon stepped on a broken bottle left in the sand by a careless hotel patron. She laughed as he hopped up and down clutching his bleeding foot. “For such a tough guy you sure whine a lot about a little cut,” she said as she searched for something to staunch the flow of blood. A little farther down the beach she spotted the hotel’s tiki bar and ran over to get a towel from the bartender. She noticed a laundry cart for bar towels by the bar and smiled as an idea popped into her head.

“What is that? What are you doing?” Landon asked with a confused look on his face when Rory walked back, cart in tow. “Hop in, you’re goin’ for a ride,” she said with a grin. He fervently shook his head and replied “Oh HELL no. I remember how you drive, woman. There is no way I’m putting myself in your hands, especially not in my wounded condition.” Rory laughed, shoved him backwards into the cart and took off at as much of a breakneck speed as possible in sand. They raced into the lobby laughing and yelling and almost took out several elderly couples. Rory spun the cart around the corner to the elevators and barely missed running over another person. She turned back to apologize to the woman and looked straight into her soon to be mother-in-law’s face. They stared at each other for a few seconds before Mrs. Halbrook decided that someone had to say something. “Well hello there, hon. You were goin’ a little fast through that intersection, weren’t you? The speed limit around here is 30. You were goin’ at least 55,” she said. She looked at Landon, who was finding it difficult to extricate himself from the cart. “And who’s your accomplice?” she asked.

“Uhh, hi Madilynn…how are you? Um, his name is, I mean this is-” Rory stumbled in her ordinary nervous way. Landon saw that Rory wasn’t going to recover anytime soon so he jumped in, “Hi, I’m Landon. I’m an old friend of Rory’s from college,” and flashed his sunshine smile. As a seasoned lawyer, Mrs. Halbrook was not fooled by a winning grin, especially not while Rory was still stuttering and blushing in the background. Landon reached out and placed his hand on the small of Rory’s back to calm her. Mrs. Halbrook raised an eyebrow at the contact and Rory jerked away from his hand. “Old college friends, huh?” Mrs. Halbrook asked, eyebrows still raised. All Rory could safely do was nod her head. Madilynn continued, “Well he’s bleeding so he might want to get that checked out. Can you walk, hon, or do you need help getting to a clinic?”

“I can manage ma’am but thank you for the offer,” Landon replied. Rory fought back the urge to giggle at Landon’s newfound manners. He shot them one last smile and then hobbled off as fast as his injured foot would allow. Mrs. Halbrook watched him as he scampered away and then turned to Rory and asked, “Care to tell me who Landon really is?” Rory understood how the witnesses on the stand must have felt when faced with Madilynn Halbrook’s insistent stare. Just like the witnesses, she broke and the story of the past two days poured out of her. Mrs. Halbrook listened patiently as Rory spoke, gave her a hug and then asked, “So what are you going to do?” Rory would have been startled by her straight shooting question but she had been expecting a question like that. Although she expected it, she didn’t have an answer. It wasn’t as simple as all that. There was no jury to decide the verdict. Rory would gladly hand the weight of that decision over to twelve of her fellow peers but all she had was herself. “I love your son, Madilynn. You and your family have been so good to me…” she trailed off.

“Oh quit tryin’ to suck up,” Mrs. Halbrook joked, “I know all this already. But what do you know?” Rory was confused by the question and the puzzlement on her face made Mrs. Halbrook laugh. “Hon, when you figure out what you know, deep down what you know, then you’ll know what you know and know what you’re gonna do. Now while you’re waiting to know how ‘bout you come to the bar with me. You look like you could use a drink or two,” she said and ushered Rory across the lobby and into the bar. Several martinis later, Rory asked, “What do I tell Aidan? Ohhhh poor Aidan, he flies me all the way here and what happens?” She paused to giggle and sloshed the remainder of her drink down the front of her shirt. Completely composed, Mrs. Halbrook dabbed at Rory’s shirt with a cocktail napkin. Even slightly drunk she still carried herself well. Without a slur, she said “Don’t worry him with this until you’re done with you’re deciding. No sense in causing a fuss until there’s something to really fuss about.” Rory bobbled her head in agreement and promptly fell off the barstool. “Okay, I think we’ve had enough. Let’s get you back to your room, okay chicky?” she said. She helped Rory to her room and deposited her on the bed. “On second thought, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to stay here with Aidan tonight. Not in your condition. You can come stay in my room and I’ll tell Aidan that you aren’t feeling well and didn’t want to bother him with it. So upsy daisies,” Mrs. Halbrook said. “Please could we stop moving now?” Rory moaned.

“Last time, I promise and then you can sleep all you want,” Mrs. Halbrook reassured her. While they were crossing the hall to the other room, Aidan strolled out of the elevator and caught sight of them. “Hey, what are my two favorite gals up to?” he asked. “Oh just girl’s night out. You know how that goes,” his mom said and proceeded to take Rory into her room. “Are you trying to steal my girl?” Aidan kidded. Mrs. Halbrook didn’t miss a beat, “Something as cute as her, you blame me? She drank too much and asked me to take care of her so you could get a good night’s rest for all the running around tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry about it Mom, I’ll take care of her. It’s going to be my job soon,” he said with a grin. He reached for her but Mrs. Halbrook pulled her away. They played a short game tug of war before they realized that somewhere along the way Rory had passed out. Mrs. Halbrook felt that it was safe to leave her with Aidan now that she was out, so she relinquished her hold on Rory. Aidan gave her a funny look, “Goodnight Mom. I think you need to get some rest, too. We’ll see you in the morning.” Rory let out a snore and Aidan carried her into the bedroom and tucked her neatly into bed.

 

Out From Under the Rug-Draft 5

The patterns on the ceiling captured her attention for the third sleepless night in a row. ‘Hmm, that group looks like a penguin. They have penguins in Australia. That’s just weird. It’s not even cold there. God, I can’t believe I’m flying there in a three days. I hate flying, but then again I hate having to make all these damn wedding plans,’ her thoughts flew in that middle-of-the-night-dear-god-why-am-I–still-awake way. She tossed and turned for another hour before falling into a restless sleep equipped with dreams of angry penguins chasing her, waving bridal magazines and yelling her name. “Rory. Rory. LORELEI!”

She started awake and looked to find the cause of her rude awakening and saw her best friend glowering at her, coffee and bagel in hand. Rory let out a groan and groped around for her cell phone, which also posed as her alarm clock. She came up empty handed.

“Yeah sunshine, we were supposed to meet your soon-to be mother-in-law at the dress shop thirty minutes ago. Boy are you going to be in for some fun tod-“ She was cut off by the shrill ringing of her cell phone. “Hello? Oh hi Mrs. Halbrook,” she shot Rory a look. “No, I don’t know why she isn’t answering her cell. Yes ma’am, I know we’re supposed to be there right now. Of course we’ll be there just as soon as possible. Okay, yes ma’am…okay. Goodbye Mrs. Halbrook.” She hung up and turned on Rory with a murderous look on her face.

“I know, I know. I swear I set my alarm on my phone Madison! I just don’t know where it is….” Rory’s voice trailed off and she flashed Madison an apologetic grin. She jumped out of bed and dodged the pillow her friend had lobbed at her head. Turning on the shower to drown out the nagging coming from the other room, Rory looked into the bathroom mirror and shook her head.

“I’m twenty-four years old and I can’t even remember to set my alarm at night. How am I supposed to make it through grad school and this wedding?” she asked her reflection. Life would go a lot smoother for her if she could just be a little less scatterbrained. Shaking her head one last time, she showered and dressed in record time. After ten minutes of searching, Rory found her phone hiding behind a pile of dirty dishes on her kitchen counter that she had had every intent of washing last night before being sidetracked by her fiancé’s phone call reminding her to set her alarm so she wouldn’t oversleep the next morning. ‘So much for that,’ Rory thought with a self-deprecating grin. She looked at her cell phone and saw that she had a voicemail from Aidan.

She listened to the message and smiled at his words, “Hey beautiful, I realized I haven’t told you I love you today. Good luck with the dress shopping my love. Call me if you need emotional support or my credit card number. I love you.” Grinning like a lovesick teenager, Rory wandered over to the door. Completely out of patience for her absentminded friend, Madison practically threw Rory out of the apartment complex and into her car. They made it to the boutique within thirty minutes of receiving her future mother-in-law’s call. Rory and Madison flew breathlessly through the door and nearly ran into the stern form of Madilynn Halbrook. She gave Rory a reproachful look then laughed and pulled the flustered Rory in for a hug.

“Lost your cell phone again did you kiddo?” Despite her formidable appearance Mrs. Halbrook was one of the most warm-hearted women Rory had ever met. As the only female District Attorney in the history of their small Texas town, Mrs. Halbrook found it necessary to project a tough appearance. Rory was immensely relieved to find that she would not have to deal with the mother-in-law from hell like so many of her married girlfriends had. Mrs. Halbrook had made Rory feel like part of the Halbrook family since the beginning of Rory and Aidan’s relationship. That feeling of belonging and familial love was something new to Rory. She had never known her birth parents, and the foster families that took her in usually had no interest in the small girl with her head constantly in the clouds.

When she had met Aidan’s family for the first time, she had almost immediately felt at home with them. Despite the fact that they came from old Texas oil money, the Halbrook family was surprisingly low-key and did not flaunt their wealth like most did. Now that she was officially becoming a part of their family, Mrs. Halbrook’s already eager and loving nature was multiplied tenfold. The attention was overwhelming at times, but Rory knew her soon-to-be mother-in-law was well intentioned. She smiled at the obvious enthusiasm for the task ahead of them in Mrs. Halbrook’s face.

“Okay, so I found a few dresses while I was waiting on you slowpokes. How ’bout we start with those?” Mrs. Halbrook suggested as she proceeded to grab the dresses and ushered Rory into the dressing room. She was used to being obeyed and the thought that someone might not agree with her ideas had never crossed her mind. The girls spent the next hour searching the shop for “the” dress. This was the seventh boutique they had been to in the past few weeks, not to mention the hours they had spent searching online. Rory was fighting back the urge to swat the irritating saleswoman who had been buzzing around them like a frenzied worker bee on commission when Madison suggested that they call it a day. Rory heartedly agreed and they settled on a delicatessen down the street for lunch. Naturally, the topic of conversation turned to the wedding plans and Madison cheerily piped in with “I can’t believe you and Aidan are really having the wedding in Australia, Rory!”

“Neither can I,” Rory replied, and her thoughts drifted to the day she told Aidan she wanted to get married in the land down under. It had been a week or two after he had proposed to her by the fountain in the town square. They were out at their favorite steakhouse when Aidan asked her if she had started thinking about the wedding plans. Rory was still adjusting to the shock of having a rock the size of a small third-world country sitting on her left hand. She hadn’t really moved on to that stage yet. Seeing the panic begin to roll over her face, Aidan laughed and said, “This is the day you girls supposedly dream of and plan for your entire life, and you’re telling me you haven’t thought about this at all? But then again, this is you we’re talking about. This is your day, babe. What do you want?” Without thinking or hesitating, Rory blurted out, “Australia!”

“Well, that’s a helluva wedding present! But hey, if that’s what you really want, then I’ll get right on that. I know better than to tell you no,” he replied with a smile as he reached across the table to brush aside the stray strand hair that always seemed to fall into her face. The panic Rory had felt building up was brushed aside with the same stroke as the obstinate piece of hair. Aidan had an uncanny ability to calm her, even at her most frantic moments.
Unfortunately, the panic came back later on that night when she was supposed to be cleaning up her apartment. She knew exactly why she had blurted out Australia and it was not good. That was where they were supposed to have gone together for their wedding. But that would never happen now. It had been two years since she had broken up with Landon, her boyfriend of nearly six years. They had been high school sweethearts and somehow had made it through the four years of college together. Marriage seemed like the next logical step, but they had never been a couple to do anything based on logic. Thinking back, Rory realized that bit of quirkiness she felt had been the greatest part of her and Landon’s relationship was actually what had caused it to end.

Rory came out of her reverie to find both Mrs. Halbrook and her friend giving her questioning looks. She realized she had stopped talking practically mid-sentence and had been off daydreaming for quite some time. She quickly apologized and the conversation moved on. She was extremely grateful when the lunch ended and she was able to go back to her quiet apartment where the word “wedding” didn’t pop up every other minute. “Now I know why some brides bolt before they get to the altar. They’ve been driven insane by all the planning they had to do to get there and they finally just snap,” Rory mused aloud to her goldfish Dory, “I swear if I don’t find a dress soon I’m just going to walk naked down the aisle. I’m dead serious!” Dory wiggled her fins in a sympathetic manner. “Thank you, I needed that, Dory.” She spent the rest of the day looking at the travel books and wedding magazines Aidan had bought for her when he realized that Rory was serious about Australia. The pictures of the raw beauty of the Australian Outback eased her mind about the spontaneous decision she had made. Only something good could come out of a land that beautiful.

The last three days Rory had of sanity before leaving for Australia and the beginning of the really hellish part of the planning naturally flew by. She spent an entire day packing just to have Aidan empty out her suitcase and tell her that although it was winter here, it was summer in Australia, so she would not need her gloves and ski cap. So she spent the next day repacking under the careful supervision of Aidan. Most women would probably find this patronizing, but they both knew that it would be better for him to be there helping than for her to arrive in Australia in a snowsuit or to get to the airport and realize she had left the tickets by her toothpaste on the bathroom counter. Both were very likely to happen if Rory was left to her own devices in her frazzled state. Aidan spent the night at Rory’s apartment that night “just to make sure she woke up on time.” The next day they and a small group of family and best friends were on the plane to Australia much to Rory’s discomfort and dismay. “Remind me again why I thought this was a good idea,” she said while fighting back the urge to vomit, pass out or do some strange combination of the two.

“Babe, just sit back and try to relax. We’ll be in Brisbane before you know it,” Aidan attempted to console his severely airsick fiancée. Over two days and three nerve-wracking layovers later Rory staggered into the lobby of the Rendezvous Hotel in Brisbane. “Before I know it, huh?” she badgered Aidan as he checked into the front desk and led the way to their room. After unpacking their stuff, Rory decided to head down to the outdoor pool for a relaxing swim. Aidan, who had already planned a trip to the hotel bar with his father and best friend, declined the invite to join. The wedding plans started to fly through her head yet again as she rode the elevator down the ten floors to the lobby. As she mentally went through the guest list, for a brief moment Landon’s face flashed in her mind. She brushed away the thought of him as she walked through the doors out to the pool deck.

She had begun to undress near the edge of the pool when she heard a whistle and an all too familiar voice call out “Hot damn! It’s been way too long since I’ve seen that sight!” Just as Rory whipped around to find the source of the offensive remark she slipped in the puddle of water she had unwittingly been standing in and fell ass first into the pool. She flailed about in the water until a hand reached in and hauled her out. Through the sheet of water cascading from her hair she looked up into the face she never expected to see. The scattering of freckles across the permanently sun burnt nose, the sun bleached curls, that cocky grin that somehow always managed to make her forget why she was angry with him. The sight of him made her heart race and seemed to put an entire migration of Monarch butterflies into her stomach. Those feelings lasted a few seconds before she blurted out in shock “Why are you in my hotel, Landon?”

“Your hotel? Funny, I thought it said Rendezvous Hotel on the front of this building, not Lorelei’s Private Property. Nice to see you too, gorgeous,” Landon said with a wink as he wrapped a towel around her soaking body. Rory stood like a stunned deer in the blinding beam of his smile for a moment before her brain registered that he was speaking again. “I’m here for the surf competition tomorrow. One of my buddies told me about this hotel, so here I am. What’s your excuse?”

“I don’t have an excuse. I mean. Wedding. What I mean to say is-” she said.

Landon smiled at her obvious agitation “So what you’re trying to tell me is you’re here for a wedding. Which unlucky soul is tying the noose?”

It was Rory’s turn to smirk then. “Actually, that unlucky soul would be me babe,” she replied and relished watching a series of expressions roll across Landon’s face. Finally he regained control and a detached look settled on his bronzed face. Rory had seen that look many times before. That expression had dominated every fight or serious discussion she had attempted to have with him during those six years they had had together. Rory had learned from being with him that women and men deal with confrontations and problems in completely different ways. Men will just sweep everything under the rug and ignore the mound that slowly accumulated. Lift that rug up and a girl will find all the issues he refused to deal with. Women on the other hand will pick up that rug and beat the holy hell out of it and then move on. After six years she got tired of being pushed under that rug and she had given up on trying to beat it out of him.

She figured that any conversation she tried to have now would be pointless, but she made an attempt in the hopes that he had changed in the two years since she had last talked to him. “What, got nothing to say? Guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised.” When he still didn’t respond, she shrugged, got up and started to walk towards the door.

Landon suddenly stood up, grabbed her hand and exclaimed, “I’m sorry, I just need a some time to process all this. Will you please come to the competition tomorrow? We can talk then, if you want.” Rory, still recovering from the initial shock of running into him, felt another jolt hit her at his words. She had expected a continued silence from him or maybe a “That’s cool, see you around.” Basically anything other than what had just happened. ‘This isn’t Landon,’ she thought, ‘Sure, it looks like him, but I don’t know where those words are coming from.’

But he looked so eager and sincere that all she could do was nod in agreement and say “Sure. Yeah. Tomorrow.” Landon gave her one last grin before he gently placed a kiss on the corner of her mouth and walked away, leaving Rory staring after him. After enough of her confusion and astonishment had worn off for her to form coherent thought, Rory realized that the thing she needed to do the most right then was to go through with the swim she had come down to the pool for in the first place. She would deal with everything else later.

After yet another night of restless sleep, Rory woke up the next day determined to solve things. The fact that the she didn’t know what the outcome of “solving things” would be caused a twinge of guilt in Rory’s conscience. She knew that there shouldn’t be even the smallest amount of doubt in what her decision should be, but she found that six years of love was hard to brush aside. Even six years of messed up and sometimes childish love.

Since everyone was used to her wandering off for hours on her own, Rory found it easy to slip away unnoticed to the beach where the surf competition was being held. She searched the crowds for Landon for several minutes before she spotted him near one of the tents. His eyes were focused on the water while his hands mechanically waxed his board. She knew better than to interrupt his pre-surf reverie, so she waited for him to realize she was there. After nearly five minutes he finally turned and saw her. He picked up his board and walked over to her. “You actually came,” he said.

“Why do you sound so surprised?” Rory asked, “In all of our years together did I ever leave you hanging? And I sure as hell never missed one of your competitions.” She reached out and ran her hands over the bumpy texture of Landon’s freshly waxed board. He smiled at the gesture and Rory blushed as she realized what she had done. It was an old habit. The first time Landon had taken her out surfing she found that all the little parts that came before actually getting ready to go out into the water fascinated her. Something about the difference in textures between the smooth board and the rough wax drew her hand to touch it every time. He had always teased her about that little habit. Half-joking he would say that he wished she were as interested in touching him as she was in touching his board.

After a slight pause in recognition of her action, he spoke. “Nah, you never missed a competition but I figured it might be a different now, considering. But maybe you still…” he left the statement unfinished, but she could hear the hopeful questioning in his tone. She wanted to object and set the record straight. Before she could respond, though, the announcer called for the surfers of the first heat to get in the water. “Hey, I gotta go. We’ll talk after, okay?” Landon said as he hurried off, leaving Rory with her mouth half-opened in an attempted response. He grabbed his board and headed out to the water.

As she watched him paddle through the increasingly rough water, she felt the muscles in her shoulders begin to burn with sympathy pains. Rory knew what it felt like to struggle against the insistent rolling of the waves. The first time Landon had taken her out surfing, she had given up in exhaustion after only twenty minutes of fighting against what she thought to be monstrous waves and a wicked current. “Babe, these are barely three foot swells. I made sure to take you out on a fairly calm day. These are baby waves perfect for my baby surfer girl,” he had explained to her. But she didn’t care what he said. After lugging a board that was almost two feet taller than her down the beach, she felt she was justified in tiring so quickly. He was used to the physical demands of surfing. He had trained his body and muscles to take the abuses of the water in stride. Everyday there were decent waves, Landon could be found at the beach for hours upon hours at a time. Sometimes he didn’t come home from a day of surfing. He would just crash in his car or on a picnic table and get up with the sun to take advantage of the early morning waves. Rory couldn’t count the number of times Landon had come strolling into their apartment after having been gone for several days straight. All he would say was “Man babe, you wouldn’t believe the waves out there!” and would continue to ramble on for an hour or so about “huge swells” this and “crazy tricks” that. She learned to just smile and nod and not to expect an apology for not calling to let her know he’d be gone.

Rory felt an old ache return to her while watching him surf his way through the competition heat. The water had taken him from her for what seemed to be the millionth time. She looked around and saw several other girls with the same wistful look in their eyes. Rory wondered how many of them were surf widows like her. She really couldn’t blame Landon for choosing the waves over her or any other girl. The water didn’t nag at him for leaving his ratty flip-flops in the middle of the walkway. It didn’t care if he hadn’t showered or shaved in a week. Apparently, the demands the water asked of him were easier to meet than the ones she had given him. She looked out into the water just as Landon caught the last wave of the heat. She watched him ride the wave into the shore before getting up and walking down the beach back to the hotel. It felt good to finally be the one walking away. Unfortunately, her graceful escape was ruined when Landon came running up behind her.

“Hey, where are you running off to? I thought we were gonna have a chat,” he said. Right as Rory was about to explain that they no longer needed to chat, Landon stepped on a broken bottle left in the sand by a careless hotel patron. She laughed as he hopped up and down clutching his bleeding foot.

“For such a tough guy, you sure whine a lot about a little cut,” she said as she searched for something to staunch the flow of blood. A little farther down the beach, she spotted the hotel’s tiki bar and ran over to get a towel from the bartender. She noticed a laundry cart for bar towels by the bar and smiled as an idea popped into her head.

“What is that? What are you doing?” Landon asked with a confused look on his face when Rory walked back, cart in tow.

“Hop in, you’re goin’ for a ride,” she said with a grin.

He fervently shook his head and replied “Oh hell no. I remember how you drive, woman. There is no way I’m putting myself in your hands, especially not in my wounded condition.” Rory laughed, shoved him backwards into the cart and took off at as much of a breakneck speed as possible in sand. They raced into the lobby laughing and yelling and almost took out several elderly couples. Rory spun the cart around the corner to the elevators and barely missed running over another person. She turned back to apologize to the woman and looked straight into her soon to be mother-in-law’s face.

They stared at each other for a few seconds before Mrs. Halbrook decided that someone had to say something. “Well hello there, hon. You were goin’ a little fast through that intersection, weren’t you? The speed limit around here is 30. You were goin’ at least 55,” she said. She looked at Landon, who was finding it difficult to extricate himself from the cart. “And who’s your accomplice?” she asked.

“Uhh, hi Madilynn…how are you? Um, his name is, I mean this is-” Rory stumbled in her ordinary nervous way.

Landon saw that Rory wasn’t going to recover anytime soon so he jumped in, “Hi, I’m Landon. I’m an old friend of Rory’s from college,” and flashed his sunshine smile. As a seasoned lawyer, Mrs. Halbrook was not fooled by a winning grin, especially not while Rory still stuttered and blushed in the background. Landon reached out and placed his hand on the small of Rory’s back to calm her. Mrs. Halbrook raised an eyebrow at the contact and Rory jerked away from his hand.

“Old college friends, huh?” Mrs. Halbrook asked with her eyebrows still raised. All Rory could safely do was nod her head. Madilynn continued, “Well he’s bleeding, so he might want to get that checked out. Can you walk, hon, or do you need help getting to a clinic?”

“I can manage ma’am but thank you for the offer,” Landon replied. Rory fought back the inappropriate urge to giggle at Landon’s newfound manners. He shot them one last smile and then hobbled off as fast as his injured foot would allow. Mrs. Halbrook watched him as he scampered away and then turned to Rory and asked, “Care to tell me who Landon really is?” Rory understood how the witnesses on the stand must have felt when faced with Madilynn Halbrook’s insistent stare. Just like the witnesses, she broke and the story of the past two days poured out of her. Mrs. Halbrook listened patiently as Rory spoke, gave her a hug, and then asked, “So what are you going to do?” Rory would have been startled by her straight shooting question but she had been expecting a question like that. Although she expected it, she didn’t have an answer. It wasn’t as simple as all that. There was no jury to decide the verdict. Rory would gladly hand the weight of that decision over to twelve of her fellow peers but all she had was herself. “I love your son, Madilynn. You and your family have been so good to me…” she trailed off.

“Oh quit tryin’ to suck up,” Mrs. Halbrook joked, “I know all this already. But what do you know?” Rory was confused by the question and the puzzlement on her face made Mrs. Halbrook laugh. “Hon, when you figure out what you know, deep down what you know, then you’ll know what you know and know what you’re gonna do. Now while you’re waiting to know how ’bout you come to the bar with me. You look like you could use a drink or two,” she said and ushered Rory across the lobby and into the bar.

Several martinis later, Rory asked, “What do I tell Aidan? Ohhhh poor Aidan, he flies me all the way here and what happens?” She paused to giggle and sloshed the remainder of her drink down the front of her shirt. Completely composed, Mrs. Halbrook dabbed at Rory’s shirt with a cocktail napkin. Even slightly drunk she still carried herself well. Without a slur, she said “Don’t worry him with this until you’re done with you’re deciding. No sense in causing a fuss until there’s something to really fuss about.” Rory bobbled her head in agreement and promptly fell off the barstool. “Okay, I think we’ve had enough. Let’s get you back to your room, okay chicky?” she said. She helped Rory to her room and deposited her on the bed. “On second thought, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to stay here with Aidan tonight. Not in your condition. You can come stay in my room and I’ll tell Aidan that you aren’t feeling well and didn’t want to bother him with it. So upsy daisies,” Mrs. Halbrook said.

“Please could we stop moving now?” Rory moaned and swallowed hard to fight back the martinis that were trying to make a reappearance.

“Last time, I promise and then you can sleep all you want,” Mrs. Halbrook reassured her. While they were crossing the hall to the other room, Aidan strolled out of the elevator and caught sight of them. “What are my two favorite gals up to?” he asked.

“Oh just girl’s night out. You know how that goes,” his mom said and proceeded to take Rory into her room.

“Are you trying to steal my girl?” Aidan kidded.

Mrs. Halbrook didn’t miss a beat, “Something as cute as she is, can you blame me? She drank too much and asked me to take care of her so you could get a good night’s rest for all the running around tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry about it, Mom. I’ll take care of her. It’s going to be my job soon,” he said with a grin. He reached for her but Mrs. Halbrook pulled her away. They played a short game tug of war before they realized that somewhere along the way Rory had passed out. Mrs. Halbrook felt that it was safe to leave her with Aidan now that she was out, so she relinquished her hold on Rory. Aidan gave her a funny look, “Goodnight Mom. I think you need to get some rest, too. We’ll see you in the morning.” Rory let out a snore and Aidan carried her into the bedroom and with a kiss on the forehead, tucked her neatly into bed.

Rory awoke the next morning to find Aidan asleep on the love seat, which he had pulled close to the bed last night. Sometime during the night, he had reached for her hand and had somehow managed to keep hold of it through the night. Rory gazed down at Aidan’s sleeping form. Sleep softened his usually intense countenance and gave him an almost childlike appearance. Something in her melted to see him so vulnerable. He was forever looking after and taking care of her, but in that one small gesture of him reaching out for her she saw that he also needed her. With a small smile, she brushed aside the hair that had fallen across Aidan’s face.

She slowly sat up and took the aspirin that he had laid out for her the night before. Desperate not to wake her drowsy angel, Rory scooted her way to the opposite side of the bed, carefully got out from under the covers, eased her feet onto the ground, stood up, and promptly tripped over the hotel slippers at the edge of the bed. She crashed to her knees and managed to take half of the things off the bedside table, including the lamp, with her. Rory peered over the bed, hoping that Aidan had somehow managed to sleep through the ruckus, only to find him trying to conceal his laughter.

“Good try, my love, but I’ve been awake since you touched my hair. You were trying so hard to be quiet that I didn’t want to ruin your fun,” he said as he crawled over the bed to kiss her. He pulled her up onto the bed and wrapped his arms around her. “How are you feeling this morning?” he asked.

“Well, I was doing alright until I decided to bring half the room with me to the bathroom. So other than that, I’m great,” she said, “Babe, I’m so sorry-”

“Don’t finish that. There’s nothing to be sorry for. Now, you might want to apologize to the maids when they come in because you left them a nice little present in the bathroom, but other than that you were just having fun,” he said in a teasing voice.

“That’s only part of what I need to apologize for, Aidan,” she said.

“Oh, would the other part have something to do with the guy in the laundry cart yesterday?” he asked. Rory’s heart thudded and her jaw dropped. “Yeah, I saw. But like I said, there’s nothing to apologize for. I’m sure there’s a story there, but I don’t need to hear it. Whenever you figure out what it is that you need, and what it is that you know deep down, then I’ll be here,” he concluded.

“You sound just like your mother,” Rory said. They stayed wrapped up together in their little cocoon until a knock on the door and Mrs. Halbrook’s voice hollering, “Make yourselves decent and get your rear ends out here” announced that it was time to get up and get the day started.