Page 72 of Fire and Icing

“I’m trying on names ‘til one sticks. You know, like throwing strands of spaghetti at the wall?”

“I don’t mind Firecracker.”Especially not the way he says it.

“I kinda like it.” He smiles into the mirror. “I’ll give it a test drive today.”

I laugh lightly.

Dustin takes the seat on the love seat next to me and extends his hand. “Let me see what they’ve got planned.”

I hand him the itinerary and then I sit back, watching him while he reads it over.

Predictable. I didn’t mean that in a stodgy, boring sense of the word. I’m a fan of predictability. I can count on Dustin. Maybe not in the way a woman deeply needs to count on a man. I don’t really think there’s a man alive I can count on in that way, but Dustin’s definitely been steady and constant.

“Surprises are overrated,” I accidentally say out loud.

His eyes lift from the printed brochure to meet my gaze.

“Surprises can be fun,” he counters. “Sometimes the best things in life come out of nowhere and surprise us.”

I beg to differ, but I don’t tell Dustin that.

I’ve had enough surprises to last me a lifetime …Surprise! We’re moving to Italy!…Surprise! I’m leaving you for brighter horizons…Surprise! Vanessa got another contract in town that should have been mine.

No more surprises, please.

At dinner, we sit with three other couples at an eight-top. There are a total of twelve couples in the contest, all of them seated around different tables, chatting away excitedly. Conversation flows easily and the food is delicious. After dinner, we’re all eager to retire to our rooms to get some sleep. Tomorrow the actual competition begins in the morning. We need to be rested so we can focus.

Back at the room, Dustin changes into his pajama bottoms and a thin white undershirt in the bathroom. He’s moving pillows off the head of the bed when I walk out of the bathroom in my pajamas.

True to his word, Dustin constructs a barricade of pillows down the center of the bed. Each of us will end up with a third of the mattress on each side of the pillow wall.

“Is that going to be enough room for you?” I ask.

“Not after all I ate tonight,” he jokes. “I think I have a food baby.”

I laugh. “Seriously, though. Are you going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine. You?”

“I’m good. Great. It’s good.”

Dustin just smiles at me. And then he climbs into his side of the bed, reaches his arm out and turns off the lamp on his side table.

I stare at the bed for a beat. Then I take a breath, climb in on my side and turn off my lamp.

The room is dark. Out in this part of Tennessee, there’s no noise at night except the chirping of the crickets and the high-pitched rhythmic trill of tree frogs. And Dustin’s breathing, slow and steady. I shift around on the mattress. Then I flip onto my other side, tuck the blankets up around me. Flip again. Rearrange the blankets again. Fluff my pillow. My eyes are wideopen. I shut them. My mind hums like the buzz of a thousand cicadas in the summer branches.

“I can hear you thinking from all the way over here, Firecracker.” Dustin’s voice is low and sedate.

“You can not.”

“Can so,” he rolls over, props himself up on one elbow and peers down at me over the wall of pillows. “Everything okay?”

I roll onto my back and look up at him. The darkness muddles his features, but I can make out his eyes, fixed on me, and that irrepressible smile he’s always wearing.

“I can’t settle,” I admit.

“Pre-contest jitters,” he aptly diagnoses.

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