Trying the Knot by Todd Erickson Page B

Portnorth’s only traffic
light. The most congested time for traffic was weekdays at three
o’clock when the local schools set free their captives, or when the
churches released their Jesus devotees on Sunday mornings. There
was no actual rush hour because the town’s only industry, the
quarry, worked its employees in shifts around the clock.
    At the gas station across the street, Ginny
Norris sat in her white Mustang convertible. Her wispy short blond
hair blew in the wind, and she looked carefree as ever. Her
sparkling blue eyes fixated in the direction of Ben’s motorcycle
and a dreamy expression befell her face. Even from the distance of
three stories, she radiated a delightful vitality that was
pleasantly intoxicating.
    “Thad, man, if you’re going to stick around
this fall, you should join the bowling league,” Ben suggested.
    “I don’t think so.”
    “It doesn’t matter if you bowl like a girl,
everyone’s usually too drunk to notice,” Ben said, running his
finger along the edge of the paper to secure the joint.
    A loud voice startled them from behind. “Hey!
What’re you cats doing up here?”
    Both Ben and Thad bolted upright, but they
laughed with relief when they noticed it was merely Nick. Satisfied
he had sufficiently startled them, Nick jokingly taunted, “Ah-ha,
caught in the act. Wouldn’t this make a nice headline?”
    “I can think of a few more scandalous ones,”
Thad said under his breath.
    As Nick pulled up a chair, his easy-going
nature remained unaffected; he ignored Thad’s remark and its
obvious implications. In spite of everything that had transpired
since morning, Nick was in too good of a mood. It was as if he
believed hard enough, then his wedding would unfold as perfectly as
Kate imagined.
    Nick asked jovially, “Enjoying the view of
the sprawling metropolis?”
    “Sure thing, man,” Ben said. He attempted to
secure the joint Nick had all but wrecked by scaring the hell out
of them.
    Thad withdrew from their casual banter, and
he returned his attention to the scene unfolding across the street.
He managed to catch a glimpse of Chelsea in the middle of her daily
run. Smiling proudly, Ginny Norris offered her daughter a friendly
wave, but Chelsea failed to notice. Thad wondered if she was
thinking about Evangelica too.
    With a little wink, Ginny paid the gas
station attendant and drove off as if without a care in the world
because for the most part, it was generally the case.

    The languid air was gentle and warm against
Chelsea’s skin as her feet pounded their way into its caresses.
Most of her chin-length blond hair was pulled away from her
distinctly angular face. Her thick bobbed hair was her crowning
glory, and she proudly advertised it had only ever been home permed
once in her lifetime, back when she was a misguided eighth grader
who sported an unfortunate butch mullet. Her face was a series of
angles. Everything about her suggested a square, from her
cheekbones to her disposition.
    Back in high school, she had been a record
setting distance runner, the volleyball captain and all-around
overachiever. Her accomplishments had made her cover girl of the
local newspaper. For more than four years, barely an issue of the
Portnorth Porthole did not contain her name somewhere multiple
times. Her mother kept a scrapbook documenting her accomplishments.
But overnight, college had transformed her into a mere nobody among
a swarm of materialistic snobs raised on the New Yorker, L.A. Times
or Chicago Tribune. The shock proved too jolting, and she felt
washed up at twenty-three; she never anticipated she would rack up
her greatest achievements before the age of eighteen.
    Although Chelsea spent her college years less
than half an hour away from the largest metropolitan city in the
Midwest, she squirreled her time away holed up in a studio
apartment maintaining a 3.9 GPA, too afraid to step outside. What a
waste, she thought now. But she never felt wasted when in her
adopted