Past Forward Volume 1 (53 page)

“Right. The boy has it right. I was just
concerned is all.”

Her glee at the appearance of the man in
black shriveled into concern as the rope fell. “‘I do not think you
know what that means!’“

“Don’t trust him, Westley!”

“How do you know it’s Westley?” Chad
countered.

“I’m not an idiot,” she retorted, indignant.
“Wow! Isn’t the sword fighting beautiful? Their verbal sparring is
equal to it—it’s brilliant!”

It took all of Chad’s self-control not to
dissolve into fits of laughter, as Willow cheered for Westley and
then collapsed into gales of hysterical laughter at Fezzik’s “my
way isn’t very sportsmanlike.” With each passing second, the
tension mounted. “He’ll never do it. That man is too big!”

The prince’s arrival annoyed her. “Go back
to your castle you buffoon! I don’t trust you.”

At the test of wits with Vizzini, Willow
chewed her already short nails nervously. “Oh, just drink it
already. Westley lives, so take death like a man!” she shouted at
the screen on her knee.

Princess Buttercup’s indignation amused
Willow. While she protested her undying love for Westley, his
impatience with her apparent faithlessness spurred further comments
from Willow’s personal peanut gallery. “You tell her Westley. This
is a fairy tale; she should have known in her heart that you were
still alive.”

That was an argument Chad had never heard.
His sister had often declared that true love “knows,” and even his
father asserted that if she’d be truly in love she wouldn’t marry
someone as revolting as the prince. However, before he could
comment, Buttercup pushed him down the hill and his cry of “as you
wish” sent Willow into a fit of squeals and laughter as Buttercup
tumbled after him.

As the grandson complained about the kiss,
Chad watched Willow’s face. She blushed, but something in her face
intrigued him. She was drawn into the romance of the story—living
it, as it were, with Buttercup.

“Oooooo… The Fire Swamp. I don’t like this!
Now I know how Bill feels about outside! He probably learned it
from this movie. I hope there are no more R.O.U.S—AAAK!”

At the sight of an enormous rat attacking,
Willow’s knees flew into the air. Chad dove for the DVD player and
grasped it firmly in his hands. “Why don’t we put down the tray,
and I’ll just hold it up close enough for us to see it.”

“They have to get out of there. My mind
knows it is going to be ok, but something overshadows it and makes
me think everything is going wrong.”

The movie flew by in bursts of excitement,
dread, and nervousness. Instinctively Chad put an arm around her,
but moments later rearranged himself on the couch with both hands
holding the player again.
After you told her that people might
misunderstand—don’t risk it.
he warned himself silently.

“Oooo… a dungeon!” was followed quickly by,
“Yeah! Boo! Boo!” as Buttercup the queen entered the scene. “The
Queen of Putrescence! How hysterical!”

As Inigo Montoya found the unconscious
Westley brokenhearted, Willow’s eyes teared. When they met Mad Max,
she sat up expectantly. However, at the announcement that Westley
was only “mostly dead,” she laughed again.

“Humperdink, Humperdink, Humperdink!”

On tenterhooks, Willow waited for the
ceremony to begin. “No! Hurry, Westley—” was cut off with the
opening sounds of the priest announcing, “Mawwiage is what bwings
us togever today.”

Chad actually enjoyed watching her watch the
movie as much as he enjoyed the movie. He quoted with the priest,
“Wuv, twue wuv…”

“What a coward,” Willow said disgustedly as
Count Rugen ran. Seconds later, she screamed for Westley to hurry
before Buttercup killed herself. “Goodness, girl, get a grip on
yourself. No one wants to be smothered like that!”

“He’s not complaining,” Chad muttered under
his breath.

Willow started to reply but Fezzik appeared.
“He is so sweet!”

The credits rolled. Willow sat in thoughtful
silence. Chad noticed and, against his better judgment, asked
“What’s wrong?”

“Five perfect kisses? This is better? What’s
so big about a kiss anyway? Two lips smashed against each
other—well, kisses like that. Whoop-dee-do.”

“Well maybe you’ll think differently after
you’ve been kissed.”

She gave him a look of absolute disgust.
“I’ve been kissed for heaven’s sake. What kind of mother do you
think I had?”

“It’s not the same, Willow,” he said
laughing as he removed the movie and replaced it in the box. “It’s
not the same.”

As she lay in bed thinking over the movie,
reveling in the beautiful clothes, the chivalry, the treachery, and
suspense, Chad’s words continued to echo in her mind. “
It’s not
the same Willow…”

“Hogwash,” she muttered to herself. “Smashed
lips are just smashed lips. He’s pulling my leg, so I’ll make a
fool of myself and kiss someone to prove me right. I won’t give him
the satisfaction of laughing at me.”

Willow hobbled into the waiting room and
glanced around her. “Darla went next door for coffee,” Lila, the
receptionist, said as Willow stepped to the desk and asked.

“I need to pay for today and last
Thursday.”

“A Mr. Franklin called to take care of it,”
Lila assured her. “He made an appointment for you in Rockland for
this afternoon…”

“Yes. I wasn’t ready to go, but apparently
people don’t care about little things like housework and—”

“And ambulation.”

Willow’s face pinked slightly. “Ok, so maybe
you have a point.”

Lee Wu burst into the door. “Ok, so I’m
late. I saw Darla and told her I’d take it from here. Let’s
go!”

Halfway to the road between Fairbury and
Rockland, Willow wondered aloud whether they’d have time to stop at
Boho. “Oh well, I didn’t bring the sketches anyway—”

Lee whizzed down a side street, took two
rights, and turned left back onto Market Street. “Let’s go get
them!”

Like nervous parents, Bill and Lee sat in
the waiting room at the physical therapist’s office. They flipped
through magazines, examined the detailed pictures of muscular
structures, and in general, avoided eye contact at all costs. For
an hour, they stared at every feature of the room without meeting
one another’s eyes.

“She’s late.”

“They’re teaching her how to do things at
home—it’ll take longer than a simple hour session,” Lee
retorted.

“If she lived here, that wouldn’t be
necessary. I hope she takes that job.”

Lee’s face fell. “I do too, but she
won’t.”

“You want her to take it?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Lee questioned
indignantly. “It’s an amazing offer! To design for one of the most
popular and exclusive boutiques in Rockland? Who wouldn’t want to
do that?”

“So why are you trying to stop her?”

She stared at him as though he’d taken leave
of all of his senses and a few other people’s as well. “Who’s
trying to stop her? I drove her back so she could get her
sketches.”

“But at her house—”

“I pointed out what
she
was saying. I
backed her decision. It
is
her decision!”

Bill’s voice escalated slightly. “What
decision! I didn’t hear her say—o”

“Having fun you two?”

Willow’s arrival stopped the heated
discussion. Leaning on Bill’s arm as they left the building, she
told Lee about the exercises her therapist had shown her. “It’s
just like I’ve been doing. She said it’s ok if it hurts but not if
it feels like it’s tearing.”

In Lee’s car, Willow sank into her seat
exhausted. “Maybe we shouldn’t go to Boho. I’m so tired.”

Bill forced himself to be silent. He wanted
her to talk to Suki face-to-face, certain that if Willow could see
the job and all it entailed, she’d see what a fascinating
opportunity it was and accept.

That night, alone on her porch swing, Willow
mulled over her options. Suki wanted an answer immediately. Her
excitement over the sketches was stimulating. They’d talked for
over an hour about fabrics, styles, and the necessary pieces to
create the collection they wanted for next spring.

On her bed, a stack of the proposed spring
fabrics waited for her hands to convert from a flat sheet of
nothingness into three-dimensional clothes. Though anxious and
eager to start sewing, the cool, breezy night tempted out to the
porch where the crickets chirped and the frogs sang their last
songs of summer. The empty seat beside her squeezed the breath from
her as she fought back tears—another favorite memory, gone.

Headlights slowly advanced up the driveway.
It must be after ten,
she thought to herself as she saw
Chad’s pick up pull into his accustomed spot.

“Hey, what are you doing out here?”

“Freezing. Easy night?”

Chad reached inside the door, grabbed a hand
knitted afghan from the back of the couch, and brought it to her.
“Yep. Beat ended at nine, I caught up on paperwork, went over to
the Jenkins’ and told Alton to go to bed or I’d run him in, and
then the night was over. B-O-R-I-N-G.”

He unbelted his gun belt and set it inside,
disappearing long enough to bring back glasses of water. “Drink up.
I know that therapist said you weren’t drinking enough.”

“How’d you know that? Did Bill call?”

“No. But anyone can tell your skin is
looking dry and your lips are getting chapped. It hurts to walk, so
you don’t get up.”

“Observant.”

“Occupational hazard. So Bill was there? I
thought Lee took you.”

Willow nodded. “She did, but Bill met us
there. Something about insurance and billing. I don’t understand
it, but I’ll have to look at it when I don’t have painkillers in my
system.”

“I thought you weren’t taking them
anymore?”

“Only for actual physical therapy sessions,
but I assumed it’d take a long time for them to get out of my
system. We went to Boho too. She sent home fabric.”

“Oh.”

Thankful for a captive audience, Willow
plunged into a discussion of the fabrics, designs, and expectations
of the store. “I brought it home—I’ll make them because it’ll be
fun but—”

Chad shifted. “But what?”

“I’m going to have to turn down the job
offer.”

“Why?”

Her eyes snapped to his face at the sound of
relief in his voice. “Because they want an answer now, and I can’t
do that. I cannot decide something that affects the rest of my life
in the matter of a week or two.”

“Well, if you didn’t like it, you could
always just come home.”

She shook her head emphatically. “That’s
just it. I can’t. If I left tomorrow, half the food I need to
survive wouldn’t be picked, stored, canned, butchered, and in every
other way, ready for winter. If I don’t let some things go to seed,
I won’t have seeds for next year—”

“You could buy your food and seeds—” Her
deep sigh cut off his protest. Tucking the blanket in around her
feet, Chad shrugged and said, “You know what you’re comfortable
with. I don’t want to influence you either way.”

“My life here isn’t just playing at farming.
It’s about survival and living life to the fullest. We have our own
corner of Walden here, and I can’t just give that all up because I
have a wonderful opportunity to do something different.”

“I still think they should let you do it
here.”

“That’s my goal. I’ll bring my finished
garments to the store and submit a proposal. They’ll either accept
it or reject it.” Her hands rubbed together at the thought of
making the clothing.

“What will Bill think?”

Excitement dissolved. “He’ll think I’m
crazy. He’ll probably stop coming out here to see me, and he’ll
work even harder to make my money grow to make up for it.”

“Why would he stop coming? So you don’t move
to Rockland. That doesn’t mean you guys can’t—”