LOYD BURL AND THE HOOTER’S GIRL

CHAPTER 13

Saturday, April 30, 1988

HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE YOUR FEET IN SANDALS, OH PRINCE’S DAUGHTER! (Song of Solomon 7:1)

            I saw her there on the rocks! She was as beautiful as ever as she gazed out at the expanse of Lake Superior. She was wearing a knee length denim skirt, and her shapely legs were stretch out in front of her. She also had on a white blouse that seemed to glow in the sunlight, giving her an angelic appearance.

            Her auburn hair was pulled back into a ponytail. An open Bible was on her lap, and a pair of sandals were about a foot from her hip. When I approached her, part from her back and part from her side, I notice a wisp of hair that had broken free from being corralled by a hair tie. It is interesting that something like that is technically messy, yet somehow makes a girl look all the more lovely. How is that?

            I couldn’t move. I just stood there and watched her. I don’t know how much was fear, and how much was simply being entranced by her beauty. After a while she reached for her sandals and slowly put them on. As she did so, I recalled the numerous times I massaged her tired feet after her shift at Hooters.

            She stood, turned, and then froze when she saw me. Her hand went to her stomach as her mouth gaped open. Her blouse wasn’t a maternity garment, and you could make out her baby bump. My baby! Our baby!  My heart rate accelerated as a sentimental smile grew onto my face before I said, “Hello Kitten.”

            To my relief, she grinned from ear to ear and ran the short distance to me. She hugged me and as she said, “Hello Kickypoo.”

            I was relieved when she smiled, happy when she hugged me, and excited when she placed two soft kisses on my cheek and one on my neck. Then she pushed away, cupped my face in her hands, and smiled warmly as a tear leaked from her eye. “Oh how I missed you!”

            The words in my throat were urgent. But putting my lips on hers even more so. I kissed her hungrily. She giggled and pushed away from me again. So I let the words come forth. “Then why did you leave me?”

            Her face fell, and she looked away from me as she said, “I just had to.”

            “Why?”

            She looked at me, her lovely green eyes seemed to be anguished. “I’m no good for you.”

            “So you’re basically saying the old cliche ‘it’s not you, it’s me.’”

            She shook her head. “You don’t understand. I’m different, a loner. I have a history of being volatile. I’m no good for anyone.”

            “Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?”

            She shook her head some more, but not as vigorously. A good sign? She took hold of my hand and placed it on her stomach. “If you knew how to find me, I’m sure you know about her.”

            “You know it’s a girl?”

            “Not officially, call it woman’s intuition… So, Kenny called you a presume?”

            “He paid me a visit and spent the night at my place.”

            Her eyebrows arched in surprise. “He flew out to Iowa just to tell you I’m pregnant and living in Two Harbors?”

            “He said he wanted to meet the guy that broke down your barriers.”

            She snorted a sarcastic laugh. “Figures.”

            “Why did you lie to me, Cat?” I asked gently.

            She arched an eyebrow inquisitively. “You mean by not telling you about our baby?”

            “No, about your sister…You said what happened to your sister with date rape happened to you.”

            “What happened to her did happen to me,” she said bitterly, dropping my hand, looking away and hugging herself. Then her voice quavered. “Especially her taking her own life. She was a beautiful, fragile person. And feeling defiled by that… that… Guy broke her.”

            I hurt for the pain she would always feel for her sister. My voice cracked and my eyes welled. “I’m truly sorry, Cat.”

            She turned her gaze on me again. She smiled warmly as she pressed her thumb against the corner of my eye, squishing a tear that hung there. Yet she ignored the two streams running down her own cheeks.

            “No one feels and loves like you. You have empathy like no one I’ve ever met.”

            I kissed her on the mouth again and she let me. When we separated, I gently asked, “Why didn’t you tell me your supposed boyfriend at Whitney was a friend only? Why didn’t you want me to know that you were a virgin?”

            “I was hoping it would push you away.”

            I didn’t ask why, but there was one more thing I wanted to know. “Did you know you were pregnant when you fled?”

            She looked away from me and nodded.

            “Cat, did you try to get pregnant?”

            She smiled sheepishly and nodded again. I couldn’t help kissing her again before saying, “Help me understand.”

            “How can I make you understand me when I don’t understand myself? I didn’t want a relationship, but I wanted, almost had to have, this being that is part you and part me.”

            “Marry me, Cat!”

            She put her hands on my chest and shoved, not hard. “No, don’t. I can’t marry you.”

            “Cat, why? We’re having a baby.”

            I felt a wave of butterflies. Another woman was having my baby as well. I had to, what? Confess? Acknowledge?

            “Even if I was ready for a relationship,” she said. “I am finding peace with God here in Two Harbors. I also don’t want to live in Chicago. Congratulations, by the way.”

            “I haven’t made the team yet.”

            “You will.”

            “Woman’s intuition?”

            She smiled and shrugged. It was so frustrating, and emotionally painful, to be so close, and yet so far away from this woman I loved and adored. We quietly gazed at each other. Then she said, “I’ve experienced a new birth.”

            I frowned, thinking she was talking about our baby. Not understanding that she was speaking of a spiritual awakening, I recalled her grandmother being a midwife. I asked if that’s what she meant.

            She giggled. “No, silly. Before I came to Two Harbors, my brother baptized me. I’ve experienced a spiritual rebirth. I’ve given my life to Christ.”

            “Good,” I replied a little puzzled. After all the Biblical conversations we had during our half year together, I assumed she already had. Being a Christian in name only back then, I hadn’t recognized her anger toward God. Especially how she blamed God over her sister’s situation. But self-deception can come across so subtly.

            “And it was you who helped me, Kickypoo,” she told me sweetly as her face radiated joy. I thought about going to one knee and begging her to marry me.

            “I helped you? How?”

            “Our conversations about truth. I hope this doesn’t sound arrogant, but by trying to teach you what the Bible actually taught about things like the Sabbath, prophecy, and the dangers of spiritualism, it got me back into the Word of God. It had been about a decade since I truly studied the Bible. I used to every morning and night before my sister died. Then I became angry at the one source that could have helped me. For the most part, I put the Bible on the shelf until I met you.”

            “Oh,” was all I could seem to utter.

            “Once I was out in California, I humbled myself before God. I asked for forgiveness, I asked him back into my life. You see, God won’t force Himself on us. Satan does! But God pleads with us with the still small voice of the Holy Spirit.” (1 Kings 19:11-13)

            “You mean like what you once told me, He stands at the door and knocks,” I piped in. (Revelation 3:20)

            “Yes, Kickypoo!” she beamed. “And that is part of what I’m saying about the roll you played. I remember sharing that with you, because it stuck in my mind, and didn’t leave until I did something about it on that beach in California where I prayed.

            “So get this. Right after I pray, I open my Bible just randomly, and do you know what my eyes landed on?”

            I shook my head.

            “Hebrews 13:5, where it says, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ And then, not ten minutes later…”

            She gasped, put a hand to her chest, and whimpered as tears sprang from her eyes. Yet she smiled, and her eyes shone with pure joy as she gazed skyward. “Dear Lord, I love you, thank you for this opportunity to share what you did for me.”

            Dear Reader, I have never seen a more beautiful woman in my life! With Lake Superior in the background Catalina’s appearance was angelic, and it would be etched into my memory forever. But I had to know. “What happened ten minutes later?”

            “There was this older woman walking on the beach handing out pamphlets,” she told me. “She actually made me think of my own grandma. It was part of the reason I decided to come here to Two Harbors.”

            “What kind of pamphlet?”

            Cat opened the front of her Bible and handed me a sheet of paper. On it was a poem entitled ‘Footprints.’ I read it.

            ‘One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand; one belonged to him, and the other to the Lord. When the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the lowest and saddest times in his life. This really bothered him, and he questioned the Lord about it. “Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, you’d walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life, there is only one set of footprints. I don’t understand why when I needed you the most you would leave me.” The Lord replied, “My precious, precious child. I love you and would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”

            I looked from the paper to Cat. She said, “Wasn’t that beautiful?”

            “Just like you,” I told her.

            She went on to explain her conversion experience. I told her about my time with her brother. I also told her about my encounter with her grandparents. In particular her grandma and the broom. She laughed so hard; she doubled over clutching her stomach. I wondered what our baby thought.

            “Grandma was just testing you,” she told me after she gained her composure. “I know she’d like you if she understood what a man of integrity you are. Right now in her mind you are mostly the guy that knocked up her granddaughter out of wedlock.”

            Her calling me a man of integrity caused butterflies to flutter again. “There’s something I need to tell you.” So I told her all about Becky.

            To my surprise, it didn’t seem to faze her. She simply said, “Wow, so you’ll be the father of two children only about a month apart in age.”

            “Don’t I know it.” And then I asked, “Are you mad?”

            She shrugged. “How can I be? I ended things with you. Actually, you should ask her to marry you.”

            “I already did, and she said no.”

            With mock disgust, she said, “So I was your second choice.”

            “No, when I asked Becky, you were out of my life. All I knew, or thought anyway, was that you were somewhere in the big state of California. As a matter of fact, I thought you might be with your old boyfriend, who I now discovered is actually gay.”

            “Sorry,” she replied meekly.

            Cat and I talked the afternoon away. At five she invited me to have supper with her at her grandparents. Recalling Granny with the broom, I said ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ Since Cat made it clear that she wasn’t going to marry me, I drove the four hours back home.

            I spent most of the drive wondering how often I would see my two children if I made it onto the Chicago Bear’s roster. I would be residing by Lake Michigan. One child would be residing by Lake Superior, and the other child by an infinitely smaller Lake MacBride.

            When I arrived home, there was a message on the answering machine from Becky. She requested that I call her when I got a chance. Since it was only around nine, I called. She told me she needed to talk to me in person, and could we have a late lunch tomorrow? I told her that would be fine. She assured me that nothing was wrong with our baby, which eased my mind, but left me wondering what was so important that she wanted to talk to me in person.

            I arrived at Becky’s at 12:50pm. She wore a perky smile, which made me smile. Her dark red hair was in a ponytail, reminding me of Cat’s the previous day. She also wore a denim skirt, similar to Cat’s yesterday. Was I entering the Twilight Zone? Thankfully her blouse was light green. It went well with her red hair.

            “So, Becky, what was so important that you needed to see me in person?”

            “I understand you went to see Cat this weekend,” she said as she put a brown sandal on her foot that to my male mind looked identical to Cat’s. I think I was in the Twilight Zone. Their similar appearance was starting to feel like a bad omen.

            “I did.”

            “Did you ask her to marry you?”

            “I did.”

            “Did she say yes?”

            “She didn’t.”

            “Good.”

            “Good? I have two women carrying my child and neither of them want to marry me.”

            “Not true,” she said with a coy smile. She was putting on her second sandal as she said, “If your offer of marriage still stands, I accept.”

            As my brain fought to comprehend her words, my eyes stared at her sandaled feet. The sandals that in appearance ran to me, hugged and kissed me on the shore of Lake Superior yesterday. Life can certainly be a strange trip.