A Little Bit Engaged

He sighed, then frowned, then found both women looking at him.

“Sorry we were so rude,” Kate said.

“No. It’s not that. I was just thinking of…a problem I need to address.” His own shortcomings.

“Melanie and I went to high school together,” Kate said. “This is Melanie Mann. Melanie, this is Ben Taylor.”

Melanie picked up a tiny, yellow Post-it note. “Ahhh. That explains it. Charlotte just handed me a scribbled note that I think says, ‘Ben, ten-thirty, today.’” She turned to Ben, “That would be you?”

“That’s me.” He held out a hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“You, too. But I’m afraid we have a problem. Charlotte didn’t check with me before scheduling a time for you to come in, and she already has a ten-thirty appointment. With Kate.”

“It’s all right. I can wait,” Ben offered. He was already in hot water with Mrs. Ryan. Another few minutes away from the office wouldn’t matter. “Besides, I just called this morning. I’m betting Kate’s had an appointment longer than that. She looks like the organized type.”

“Oh, definitely,” Melanie said.

Kate hesitated, then said, “You don’t have to be somewhere?”

“My morning’s clear.” So was lunch. Too bad he couldn’t ask her. Not if she had a fiancé.

“Well, if you’re sure, I do need to go ahead. I have paperwork to look over and a lunch meeting and three clients coming in this afternoon.”

“Go ahead,” Ben said, noting she’d said lunch meeting, not lunch date.

No lunch date. No wedding date. Still, none of his business.

Then he remembered she’d said she had two sisters. Maybe one of them would have lunch with him. If that didn’t work out, maybe he could start a singles group at church….

Just so you can get a date, Ben?

Okay, he was sleep deprived from sitting up late into the night with a distraught couple while their baby had emergency surgery, and he was getting a little silly now, thinking to solve his non-social-life problem in one single morning out on the town. It wasn’t as if the issue was urgent. He’d been here this long and not done a thing about it. The issue would still be there next week, next month, probably next year.

He really hoped he didn’t wait until next year to do something about this.

Kate was giving him a funny look. So was Melanie.

“Sorry.” He yawned deeply, unable to hold back the motion at all, and then said, “I can be easily distracted, and I was out way too late last night.”

Which made it sound as though he was partaking in some blatantly unministerly things. “Working,” he added. “I was working.”

“Me, too,” Kate said, giving him a puzzled look. “But I wouldn’t have pictured you as the workaholic type.”

“Which means what? That you are?”

“Well…” Kate hesitated.

“She most definitely is,” Melanie said.

“What do you do?” Ben asked.

“Kate has her own mortgage brokerage company. She’s the youngest person in our class to own her own business,” Melanie said, sounding proud.

“It’s not much,” Kate claimed. “Me, a desk, a phone, a fax, a computer and an assistant. That’s it.”

“Still, it’s all yours. I wish I had the guts to start something like that and make it work,” Melanie said.

“It wasn’t guts,” Kate said. “You know how I like to do things my own way. Starting the business was the only way I could earn a living and not have someone else telling me what to do all the time.”

She laughed when she said it, but Ben thought he must be right. A well-organized, ambitious workaholic who couldn’t find time to plan her own wedding?

Not for him at all.

So why had he taken such an instant liking to her? Why did he feel as if someone had just opened a door and he wanted to walk through it?

The phone on Melanie’s desk rang. She excused herself and picked it up. Ben and Kate took seats in the small waiting room and smiled politely at each other. He tried to think of a way to bring up the fiancé thing without being too obvious and then gave up on the obvious part.

“So,” he said, because he felt the need to have it drilled into his head, “you’re engaged?”

A pained look crossed her face. She hesitated way too long over her answer, then said weakly, “Yes.”

That was interesting.

“Sorry.” Ben frowned. “I’m being nosy, but…you don’t sound too sure about that.”

“No… I mean…” She frowned, too. “Honestly, I don’t know what I mean.”

He didn’t know whether to feel guilty or happy. He really did try to do the right thing. He didn’t succeed all the time, but he felt it was important to try.

So what was the right thing here?

She certainly shouldn’t marry the guy if she didn’t love him….

They looked at each other again, her waiting to see what he said, him not knowing what to say but wanting to know more.

“Want to tell me about it?” he tried. He’d had a lot of success with that particular phrase. A lot of times people thought about it and decided they wanted to talk, and there he’d be. Maybe she wanted to talk.

“Maybe,” she said, frowning. “Maybe it would be easier with a stranger. I mean, if I just brought up the idea that Joe and I might not get married to one of my siblings, all three of them would hear about it within seconds, and they’d have questions that I just couldn’t answer, because…I don’t know what to do, and I hate that. Don’t you hate not knowing what to do?”

“I find myself quite often not knowing what to do,” he admitted. Like now. Right now. What did he do now?

“But don’t you hate it?”

“I don’t like it, but…I guess I just think that’s mostly what life is—stumbling along, not knowing what’s going to happen, a lot of times not knowing what I should do but hoping I can figure out the right thing to do.”

“It’s awful. Life should be simpler,” she argued. “We should always know what we should do. We should always be able to figure it out.”

“And you can’t figure out what to do now?”