The Whitney Chronicles

“I’m serious, Whitney. This could be your big break.”

“Mom, you sound like this man is a job opportunity! Is he taking résumés?”

“Just consider it, dear. You are thirty, you know.”

“All too well, Mom. All too well.”

September 29

I’m already feeling guilty. EEAT met and I didn’t go. (No matter what the name of the group, it will always be EEAT to me.) Kim talked me out of it. “Are you kidding? Start a diet when you’re leaving for Las Vegas—buffet capital of the world?”

“Maybe it would keep me from falling on my face in a chocolate display and eating my way out,” I suggested timidly.

“Nonsense. Start trying to lose weight when you get back. I tried to diet on a cruise once, and my sister found me at the midnight buffet, clinging to a loaf of bread shaped like a swan and whimpering, ‘Give me butter and jelly.’”

Smiling, I succumbed to the wisdom of her experience. Still, I will be aware of what I eat at every moment. To do that, I’m leaving my rubber bands at home. There will be no way out.

September 30

Church was great today. I felt so energized and lifted by the music. The typos in the bulletin didn’t hurt, either.

There was an announcement about the upcoming Spiritual and Physical Health and Wellness Seminar.

Don’t let stress kill—let the church help.

You will hear a top-notch presenter and heave a delicious lunch.

The sermon, however, seemed written for me alone. It was based on the parable of the sower. The parables have always fascinated me. They are so childishly simple and yet so profound that once you understand them, they can rock your world. The sun that melts ice hardens clay. The parables are like that—they have different effects on people, depending on where their hearts are.

I’m blessed that my parents raised me off the path where the seed couldn’t root and grow. Nor was I grown in shallow soil that couldn’t support my faith. My family and my church offered me rich, dark earth in which to send the roots of my faith downward and grow a system that is firm and healthy. But there’s always the danger of weeds springing up to choke out healthy plants and make them die.

It’s so easy to be distracted by life—work, money, greed, busyness—that I’m in danger of forgetting that what I have is to be used for God’s causes, not my own. I imagine myself pulling up weeds in my life one by one—the weed of laziness, which prods me to sleep in on Sundays, the weed of ungratefulness, which reminds me of what I don’t have rather than what I do, the weed of jealousy, which makes me miserable and cranky—and the weed of greed. That one makes me put my energy into earning money to buy things I don’t need to get results I don’t want.

Put weeding my heart on my goal list—to be done often and with thoroughness.

As we were singing our closing hymn today, it occurred to me that Christians are economical with the truth when they sing. As I sat in the pew paging through the hymnal, I began to read the words of the hymns. I mean, to really read them….

“Where He leads me I will follow…” Sometimes He leads us through deep water and we resist—big-time.

“I lay my sins on Jesus…” But we keep picking them up again.

Or “I surrender all….” All? That’s a pretty inclusive word. From now on, I’m going to sing those words and mean it.

OCTOBER

CHAPTER 3

October 3

I’ve never decided which I like less, packing or flying. I’m green with envy over those sleek, designer-clad, Vogue-toting businesswomen, who, after dropping off their Hermès luggage at the counter, walk nonchalantly to the gate, onto the plane and into the first-class section without ruffling a hair. I bring every possibility with me. The weather may be bad and I may not fit into the wardrobe I’d planned. Then again, the clothes may fit after all and maybe I’ll have time to exercise/run/shop/lie by the pool. My logic is that I’ll make my decisions once I get to my destination. And, because I want to be comfortable on the trip, I chug into the airport in tennis shoes, linen drawstring pants and an unstructured jacket, dragging the largest suitcase made, its little wheels splaying outward from the weight inside. I also have a large shoulder bag filled with all the reading and work I plan to get done while I’m gone.

Since I’ll be in a new environment, I assume that I’ll be able to do heroic things, so I bring everything from magazines dated six months prior, to recipes I want to recopy on cute cards and put into a matching book. That’s particularly interesting, because I rarely cook. There are also the sixteen letters I need to write, those three books that are almost due at the library and the cuticle emollient I’m planning to wear to bed every night until my hangnail is history. And my purse—with PalmPilot, cell phone, gum, breath mints, emery board, lipstick, package of powdered diet shake, apple… It isn’t pretty. And that’s not even considering the condition of my linen suit by the time I arrive at my destination looking like an unmade bed.

And I’m even worse at flying—at least, I used to be. Every noise was a wheel falling off. Every takeoff or landing was a walk to the gas chamber. If flying is so safe, I wondered, why do we have to come and go from a terminal?

It wasn’t until I could visualize God in control of my life wherever I am, on the ground or in the air, but always cupped in the palm of His hand, that I conquered my fear. If He can keep the sun and the moon up in the heavens, then He can handle a little old airplane.

I trundled through to first class, and as I searched for my seat got a major surprise.

“Whit! Hey, Whitney!” It was Eric. The lady behind me bowled into me with her carry-on, and I stumbled into Eric’s otherwise empty row.

“What are you doing here?” I greeted him. Dressed in tailored trousers and a polo shirt, Eric looked downright handsome. Immediately realizing I may have sounded less than gracious, I amended, “I mean, hi.”

“Hi, yourself. Dad called yesterday,” Eric explained. “He bought me a ticket to fly to Las Vegas to meet him for an air show. It’s only vintage planes and will be so cool. They’re having 1941 deHavilland Tiger Moths—both the Canadian and Australian models, a 1946 Piper J-3 and a Piper ’37 J-2. Piper discontinued that model in 1937.” A light dawned in his hazel eyes. “And you’re going to a trade show.” His expression brightened. “I can get you a ticket to the air show if you have time. You’d love it.”

“Thanks, but I’ve got to work. By the time I get done manning the Innova booth and contacting clients, I’ll be a zombie.” My hip bumped against my carry-on. “And I brought work from home.”

“Dinner then?”

“Sure, sounds good.” Then I eyed him suspiciously. “You will remember that you asked me, right?”

“Aw, Whitney, are you ever going to let me live that down? So I’ve been late a few times….”

“Three months late?”

“I meant to call. You know that. I was helping a buddy restore a plane. The money was good, and I just got so engrossed….”

As always, my heart softened. No doubt Eric slept on a cot at night to be near the plane and ate every meal out of a take-out carton and was completely true-blue. I knew he wasn’t seeing anyone else. He just wasn’t seeing me, either. If anything with wings passed by, he was off trailing that.

“Okay, I forgive you. We’ll have dinner. But no mushy stuff. I want you as a friend. You’re far too unreliable for anything else.”

He seemed delighted by the idea. “Friends?”

“Friends.” I glanced around the almost-full plane. “I’d better go find my place.”

“What’s your seat number?”

“Row twenty, seat B.”

“Welcome. I’m seat A.” He patted the chair beside him, and I dropped into it gratefully. Then he turned and looked me straight in the eye. “And, someday, maybe, if things work out, could we renegotiate that friend thing?”

My stomach did a little flip-flop. I knew what he was asking and it scared me. Why, I wasn’t sure. Maybe it was because I knew how easy it would be to love Eric. He saw the deer-in-headlights look in my eyes and drew back.

“Never mind. Just friends.”

I couldn’t say for sure, but I’m ninety percent positive he added under his breath, “For now.”

As we walked out of the Las Vegas terminal, waves of heat shimmered up from the concrete. I felt as if I’d stepped into a life-size toaster oven. The linen I didn’t think could wilt any further did, like a lettuce leaf in boiling water. My shoulder-length hair is thick and heavy. (Mom calls it my “crowning glory.”) Unfortunately I didn’t put it up for the trip, and as soon as I hit the heat, it clung to my neck and forehead, making me look as though someone had dumped a glass of water on my head. I was not in great shape to see Eric’s father, who was there to pick him up.