Page 74 of A Journey For Jasmine

“Am I early?” she asked.

“No. I got out early and stopped at the store. I’m glad the rain finally stopped.”

“Me too,” she said. “I’ve got sausage and mushroom pizza and a dozen wings. I’m starving. All I’ve been doing is running around like crazy today.”

“How come?” he asked, getting the bags of food out of his trunk.

She followed him into the house and set the pizza down and then went back to help him with the food. “Just busy. The phone has been ringing like crazy. Violet was working on orders; Chris was doing deliveries. I’ve been to the greenhouses twice to get things and come back.”

“We didn’t have to do dinner tonight,” he said. “If you were busy.”

“It’s all good. I wasn’t busy when I started, but busy is good. It slowed down in the past two hours, but by then my stomach was requesting more food than the quick smoothie I picked up on one of my trips. I knew I’d pig out tonight.”

Once all the bags were in the house they started to unload the food to put it away. “I got us ice cream and hot fudge.”

“My hero,” she said.

“You said you wanted it the other day. I wasn’t sure what kind of ice cream you liked. I went with chocolate chip cookie dough.”

“Now I know you’re a dream come true.”

He laughed. “It’s my favorite. That is really why I got it.”

“I’ll eat just about any kind of ice cream as long as it’s not plain. I like something in my ice cream. But if it’s plain vanilla then I’ll settle for having toppings on it instead.”

“What else do you like besides hot fudge?”

“Peanut butter,” she said. “Do you have some? Melt it in the microwave and then pour it over the ice cream. Oh wow. I know what I’m having after dinner.”

They finished up the groceries fast, got plates and filled them with the pizza and wings. “It’s nice and cool outside. Want to sit on the patio?”

“Always,” she said. “I love it out there. It reminds me about a lot of the places I lived growing up.”

“You had pools where you lived?” he asked. That surprised him since she’d always said they were in poor areas.

“No,” she said. “The landscaping back here. Your flowers and gardens. I know you have someone that comes and takes care of it all for you. This would be so peaceful for me to do. To just see it nightly and relax out here. The mornings with coffee. It does bring me peace.”

He was watching her shovel the pizza in and wondered what might be going on. She’d been here a lot and never brought this up once.

“I’m glad,” he said. “I wouldn’t know where to begin if I tried to maintain this myself. I’d think you’d be sick of it though yourself after doing it all day and coming home to it.”

“Never,” she said.

They continued to eat in silence and when her pizza was gone she started on her wings. “Something on your mind?”

She looked up and had sauce around her mouth. Geez, she was inhaling the food and he burst out laughing and handed her a napkin. “What?”

“If you could see your face right now.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m being a pig. I know it. I love pizza. It’s one of those American things. I never had it until I came here. I would have eaten it every night if I could. The only good thing was a lot of kids do in college so at least I didn’t stand out that way.”

He hated to think she was afraid of everything that she did she might have stood out. “I had my fair share of it in college too.”

“You’re probably wondering what is going on with me, aren’t you?”

“I’ve had an idea something was tonight. You can tell me anything.”

“My parents are coming to town the same weekend as Ivy.”

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