Coming Attractions (22 page)

“I think it’s a beautiful addition to your wedding. Why don’t you do it? I wanted Christy to release hundreds of butterflies
at her wedding. I had a hard time finding a place that would sell enough butterflies for her to do it. Does this company rent
the doves, or do you have to buy them?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t pursue it. I think the man who runs Animals R Us was a former student of John’s, and he now trains
animals for TV and film. You can throw away the card. Do you want something to drink?”

“Sure. Just water.”

As Julia went into her small kitchenette for the water, Katie tucked the card into her pocket. She had a plan.

Before the day was out, Katie had made a strategic phone call to Animals R Us. The quote she received on the cost of one hundred
doves was astronomical. She had to buy them since, unlike homing pigeons, these doves weren’t trained to return to their cages.
The cages and delivery costs were almost as much as the cost of the birds. So much for that idea.

Then, while working on her ridiculously overdue final project the next night, a brilliant thought came to her. Julia and her
beloved didn’t need one hundred doves. Only one.

Dashing down to Nicole’s room, she found her friend already in bed.

“Hey, wake up. It’s only eleven-thirty. What are you doing?”

“Sleeping. You really should try it some time.” Nicole turned on the light next to her bed, squinting at Katie.

“This is the best idea ever. I couldn’t wait till morning to tell you.”

“Katie, I thought something was wrong!”

“No, something is right. Or at least it is going to be right. Beautifully right.” Katie launched into a rundown of how Dr.
Ambrose wanted doves at the wedding and Julia had said to throw away the card, but Katie had called for information.

“Here’s my stroke of genius. When you design the flowers, you can make my bouquet so that it has a hidden cage big enough
for one dove.”

“Katie…”

“No, listen, it’s perfect. I’m not talking about a bunch of doves. Just a single dove. This will be my surprise for them.
I’ll release it from the bouquet right after they say ‘I do.’ Or after they kiss. Or maybe right before they go down the aisle.
It will be perfect! Don’t you see? Dr. Ambrose will love it. The single dove symbolizes, when Julia came down the aisle, that
she and Dr. Ambrose were two separate people with two hearts. The mystery of marriage is that the two become one. One dove.
One heart. United as one. Don’t you love it?”

“Actually…” Nicole was sitting up now and had stopped blinking in the bright light. “I do love it. What a great idea, Katie.”

“Told you it couldn’t wait till morning.”

“I don’t think it would be that difficult to incorporate a small cage in the center of the bouquet. As long as the dove is
a magician’s sort of dove that doesn’t mind being confined to a small space.”

“We’ll ask for a nonclaustrophobic dove. How will that be?”

“You’ll have to have a big bouquet. That’s fine because Julia’s bouquet is going to be big too. She left it up to me to decide
on your bouquet, so she probably wouldn’t question what I design for you. How fun!”

“I know. Dr. Ambrose will love it.”

Katie and Nicole sat together on her bed for the next hour going over Julia’s wedding plans.

“I could use some help shopping for my woman of honor dress too. Any ideas you have would be greatly appreciated.”

“What style or color does Julia want you to wear?”

“She said it’s up to me since I don’t have to match anyone else. I was thinking of going with basic black. What do you think?”

“I think that’s a good way to go. We should be able to find something stunning for you. When do you have time to go shopping?”

The two of them figured out when they had open time on their calendars and then moved on to graduation party plans.

“I sent my invitations last Monday,” Katie said.

“So did I. I have extras, if you need any more.”

“No, I have a lot of extras too.”

“You sent one to your parents, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I doubt they’ll come. I didn’t order graduation announcements or anything, so the party invitation served double duty
for me. At least my parents will know that I graduated. That is, if I finish everything in the next few weeks.”

“I hope your parents come, Katie. You said things were a little better with them at Christmas.”

“Yeah, Rick and I went down late on Christmas day. I told you that, didn’t I? We took them some presents. My mom made some
soup, which is about as fancy as my parents ever get now with food. Our time with them was okay. Not jolly but okay. We were
there for a total of about two hours. My dad thanked us for coming to see them, so I think it was worth it.”

“Maybe he’ll think it’s worth it to come up for your graduation.”

“Maybe.”

Nicole yawned and politely covered her mouth.

“I should let you sleep,” Katie said, getting up. “Thanks for listening. I’m glad you like my idea.”

“You buy the dove, and I’ll design the bouquet with the hidden cage.”

Katie trotted down the hall to her room, stopping to talk to two other night owls who were still up, roaming the hall in their
pjs. Katie recognized their spacey, stress-incited looks. She encouraged both of them by saying they would make it through
the semester. “Get extra vitamin C in you whenever you can.”

“Thanks, Mom,” one of the women said with a grin.

“Your immune system will thank me for this.”

When she returned to her room, she took her own advice and went looking for her supply of vitamin C. Taking three of the chewable
tablets, she plugged in her hot pot. She wasn’t particularly interested in tea, but a box of instant Thai noodles sounded
good. Within six minutes she was back at her laptop. The steaming bowl of noodles wafted their spicy fragrance like a blessing
over her middle-of-the-night study session.

“This is going to happen, isn’t it? I’m going to finish this tonight at long last. I’m going make it through finals, and I’m
going to graduate.” She slowly sipped the noodle broth, feeling warmed inside her belly as well as inside her spirit.

Taped to the wall beside her desk were five cards on which she had written some of her favorite verses. Her glance landed
on a verse she had written out over a year and a half ago, when she and Christy were roommates. She had fixed her thoughts
on that verse before she started going out with Rick.

Psalm 138:8 — The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me.

“I believe you did that, Lord. You still are fulfilling your purposes for me.”

The verse on the card next to that one was from Exodus 20:24:

Build altars in the places where I remind you who I am, and I will come and bless you there.

She remembered that she had come across that verse last August during the RA retreat on Catalina Island. In response, as her
own unconventional act of worship, Katie had built a small altar and dedicated the coming year to the Lord.

Reaching for a third card, she pulled it off the wall and smiled. This one, from Psalms, was the verse some women from her
floor had selected especially for Katie for the year. It also was written out next to her photo in a collage that had been
up on their wall since the beginning of the school year. Katie had walked past that wall so many times and had read all the
verses by the photos so often that she had become immune to “her” verse.

The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever.

“You did that too. You guarded and blessed all my months of going out with Rick.”

Katie knew it was extraordinary to feel so at peace about how everything had turned out with Rick. “You blessed my going out,
and now I believe you’re going to bless my coming in. Coming into what? Coming in for a landing on this long flight called
the College Express. All I ask, Lord, is for a safe landing. After that… what? What do you want me to do?”

Katie pulled a blank index card from a stack on her desk and wrote a note to herself. All school year she had been making
up mental notes to herself. It seemed fitting that she at long last should write out one of those notes with real paper and
ink.

Surprisingly, the note ended up not being written as if she were the one doing the speaking. She didn’t plan to, but she wrote
it as if God were writing it to her.

Dear Katie, I have it all figured out. Keep trusting me and stay tuned for coming attractions. Don’t forget: You too are a
victim of my grace.

Love, God.

T
he day before Katie’s graduation, her cell phone rang at 3:05 a.m. At first she thought she had set her alarm and tried to
turn off that feature on her phone. When her phone kept buzzing, her eyes adjusted to the glow of the screen, and she saw
that Eli was calling.

“Eli, what’s going on? Are you okay?”

“I’m good. Do you want to do something a little crazy to celebrate that we’re about to graduate from college?”

“Crazy? Eli, I think it’s crazy that you’re calling me at three o’clock in the morning on a day that I could have slept till
noon if I wanted!”

“You can sleep all you want next week. Come with me. I’m going to watch the sunrise.”

“Where are you going?”

“To the mountains.”

“It will take two hours to get there.” Katie was sitting up now and wrapping her mind around the spontaneous idea.

“Which is why we need to leave right now if we’re going to catch the first light. Are you in?”

Katie hesitated only a moment. “Yeah. Why not? I’ll go with you.” Even though she was responding calmly, Katie felt her spirit
stir with anticipation. After all the pressure of the past few weeks, this was like a get-out-of-jail-free card.

She was the one who usually suggested outlandish adventures to her friends, so it felt good to have someone else invite her
to a crazy outing in the middle of the night.

“Where do you want me to meet you?”

“I’ll come over to Crown Hall and meet you out front.”

With a blast of energy, Katie was up and pulling on warm clothes. By the time she stepped out of the lobby and into the dark
chill, Eli was climbing out of the campus security cart.

“Tell me we’re not driving that clown-mobile anywhere.” Katie pulled a beanie cap from her shoulder bag and tugged it over
her head.

“No, I just got off duty. I was hoping you would drive. I still haven’t gone for a ride in your new car. Or should I say in
‘Clover.’ ”

“Yes, my little green Clover. Sure, I’ll drive. I think Clover is up for an adventure too.” Katie fished around for her keys
and fell into stride with Eli. They walked to her car in steady measure and got in. Katie started the engine and backed up.

“Do you know where we’re going? Big Bear? Lake Arrowhead?” she asked.

One of the things students from other states loved about Rancho Corona University was its location. A person could drive an
hour west and be at the beach, an hour southeast and be in the desert, or two hours northeast and be in the mountains.

“I printed a map,” Eli said. “Have you been to Crestline or Rim of the World before?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure.”

“One of the guys I work with used to live there. He said to go to a place called Strawberry Peak Fire Lookout. The map says
it takes an hour and fifty-five minutes from here.”

“I’ve never heard of Strawberry Peak Lookout. But I’ve been sledding at Big Bear. Or maybe it was Lake Arrowhead. Anyway,
how about if I get us on the freeway, and you tell me where to go from there?”

“Sounds good. Thanks for coming with me, Katie.”

She glanced at him and offered a contented smile. “Thanks for asking me to go. I do love an adventure.”

“I know you do. So do I. I was making the usual rounds tonight in my clown-mobile, as you call it, and realized I’ve been
here for almost a year, but I haven’t gone to the mountains.”

“It’s too bad you didn’t decide to go during the winter when there was snow. Have you ever seen snow before?”

“Of course I’ve seen snow.”

“Well, your being from Africa and all…”

Eli looked amused. “We have a few mountains in Africa too, you know.”

“Really? Like mountains that get snow?”

“Have you heard of Kilimanjaro?”

“Maybe.”

“It’s across the border in Tanzania, but it’s not far from where my parents live. The summit is almost 20,000 feet.”

“Twenty thousand? Wow, it would catch a little snow at that height.”

“Kilimanjaro is the tallest mountain in Africa. My dad and I hiked it two years ago. Not all the way to the top. You need
to be expedition outfitted to trek to the summit of the highest peak. We went far enough to freeze our tails off and take
some awesome pictures.”

“Oh, yeah, now that I think about it, I did see some of those pictures in the presentation you did for chapel.”

“That was Kilimanjaro.”

“I want to go to Africa someday.”

“You do?”

Katie glanced at him. “Haven’t I ever told you that?”

“No. I’m surprised.”

“Why?”

“When the outreach team met a few months ago, you went to the first meeting but walked out after twenty minutes.”

“I received a text saying I needed to go back to the dorm for a problem that came up. I don’t remember now what it was. I
didn’t attend the next meeting or sign up for the trip because of Rick.”

“Why? Didn’t Rick want you to go?”

“He didn’t come out and say it, but I knew he wouldn’t understand why I wanted to go. At the time, things were so great for
Rick and me that I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize our relationship.”

Katie paused a moment before adding, “How pathetic is that? I held off going to Africa, and look how everything turned out.”

“I don’t see your decision as pathetic.”

“Thanks, Eli, but in a way, it was.”

“How is it pathetic to be committed to someone you deeply care for? I think the level of loyalty that both you and Rick showed
toward each other and your relationship was impressive.”