Sunsets Read online

  She went over the departure times with them, smiling at Chet’s relief that their flight didn’t leave until late morning. “I’m not much of a morning person anymore,” he commented.

  “Now,” Alissa continued, “I have you flying out of LAX on the morning of the sixteenth. I thought since the wedding was on the fifteenth you might like to stay at one of the hotels near the airport your first night and then get a fresh start in the morning.”

  She opened the hotel brochure for them, pointing out the pictures of the bridal suite. “It’s a lovely room. You’ll be treated to complimentary champagne, chocolates, breakfast in bed the next morning, and the room has a hot tub.”

  Rosie appeared to blush. “Sounds lovely,” she said. “What kind of a room did you find for us in Venice?”

  A smile spread across Alissa’s face. “Just wait until you see this.” She opened the next brochure in their file and with great pleasure described the luxury hotel she had found for them near the romantic Piazza San Marco.

  This is why I love being a travel agent, she thought as she watched the couple’s eyes shine in anticipation of their honeymoon travels.

  Chapter Four

  Alissa attacked the chore of packing up her condo with vigor. She still had to meet with Shelly on Monday before the final decision was made, but it all felt so right. Certainly everything would fall into place.

  By Saturday afternoon she was in the thick of it, going through her bedroom like a twister, leaving nothing in her path that could be wrapped and boxed. She used to joke about how she never had to spring clean because she always moved before the task became necessary.

  Digging through the back of her closet, Alissa pulled out four boxes that were still wrapped with packing tape from her last move. Or maybe it was from the move before that. Hard to tell.

  Why am I hauling this stuff around if I don’t even know what’s in it? I probably won’t miss it.

  She plopped down on her bedroom floor and tore open the boxes. They were full of clothes—two sizes smaller than what she wore now. Alissa remembered packing them and telling herself she would fit in them again. Now, even if she lost that much weight, the outfits were so different from her current style, she probably wouldn’t wear them.

  As she pulled out a few of the pieces, each item seemed to release a picture in Alissa’s mind. Each snapshot was of events that had happened when she had worn that outfit. The navy blue mix and match pieces she had taken on her trip to Japan. The white shirt she had worn for seventy-two hours straight when her grandmother went into the hospital.

  Then came a neatly folded dress, short and black. She had chosen that dress for the first time she had met Thomas at Chang’s. Alissa sniffed at the bodice. Did she imagine it, or did it smell like Chinese food? What a wicked night that was. She let the dress crumble into a mound in her lap. Then she allowed her memory access to the places in her mind and heart she had kept locked for two years. Every thought and memory of Thomas Avery tumbled over her with frightening clarity.

  They had met at church. It was a mutual attraction. He was on the worship team, and she spotted him her first week there. She was living in Phoenix at the time. A large travel company had opened a corporate office and had transferred her from the agency where she worked in Atlanta. The first thing she did after moving into her apartment was find a “rockin” church. That was her style at the time—contemporary services, seeker friendly, lots of people, and a platform for her to stand on and sing out her heart.

  She found the perfect church, and tall, gorgeous Thomas Avery was the perfect man. There was only one problem. He was married.

  Alissa was a different person then. She was so on fire for Jesus. And she was slim and energetic with a healthy salary to support her clothes habit. Never did she wear the same outfit twice on Sunday mornings. Lots of single men were interested in her. But she was used to that. None of them intrigued her the way Thomas did.

  The first time she shook Thomas’s hand and looked into his strong face was right after she had given her testimony at a Sunday evening service. She had been attending for almost two months and had shared about her past with one of the women in the singles group. The next day the pastor had called her at work and asked if she would be willing to share on Sunday night. He also said he had heard she liked to sing and would she grace them with a song after her testimony. Of course she saw it as a high honor and went out that afternoon to buy an appropriate outfit.

  She practiced in front of the mirror all week. By Sunday night her words were honed.

  “I led a rebellious life as a teenager. My father died when I was sixteen, and my mother was an alcoholic.”

  Alissa went into detail about the party scene she became immersed in and the different guys she was involved with. “I remember one time we were staying at Newport Beach for summer vacation, and my mother was so drunk she threw a vodka bottle at me. I was used to that from her. What I remember the most wasn’t being upset with her but being mad at myself because I’d forgotten to take my birth control pills, and my date was waiting for me. He drove off without me, and I broke down and cried all over this girl I hardly knew. She was so innocent and sweet, and I felt so used up. I wished I could be like her.”

  After more details of the wretchedness of her life, she told how she had been with one guy who died in a bodysurfing accident while he was stoned. She hadn’t really cared.

  “Everything inside me was dead. Then I found out I was pregnant with his child. It seemed impossible that something could be alive inside me when I was so sure I was dead.”

  She told of her difficult decision not to have an abortion, and then how she had given up the baby girl for adoption. There wasn’t a dry eye in the congregation.

  “Then Christy, the girl I cried all over that one night, shared with me how to become a Christian, and I got saved.”

  A roar of applause had filled the church, the pastor had given her a warm handshake, and Thomas had gazed at her from the front row with piercing eyes. Alissa had felt higher than a bird.

  Then, like a bird, she sang her heart out in a praise song she had learned at her church in Atlanta. She tried not to stare at Thomas as she sang. He cried through the whole song. The tears only made his strong face more desirable.

  When he stepped forward after the service to shake her hand, his rumbling voice said, “I wrote that song.”

  They stood in front of the church talking until only four other people were left in the building. Then he walked her to her car and stood there another hour, opening up his heart to her.

  Thomas had graduated from a Christian college as a music major and wanted to become a worship leader at a church. But he was hindered by his wife refusing to attend church. They had married his second year at college and both had worked hard to make it through. After college he was hired as a music pastor in Idaho. They were married only two years when his wife turned against him. He didn’t know why. He couldn’t understand.

  As they stood in the parking lot, he told her how hard the last eight years of his marriage had been. He had lost his position at the church in Idaho and had moved to Phoenix when his brother offered him a job. After ten years in his miserable marriage, he was about to give up everything until hearing her testimony and song. Maybe he should try writing more songs.

  Even though it felt a little awkward for this married man to be so open with her, Alissa’s heart went out to him. All those years in a loveless marriage. All his musical talent going to waste.

  He called her at work two days later saying he had written a song and would she be willing to meet him that night at Chang’s Chinese Restaurant to help him with one part he just couldn’t get right.

  Alissa lifted the black dress and sniffed for the scent of Chinese food again. Was it her imagination? No, the essence of sweet and sour sauce was definitely still there. In her flood of memories there was only the sour. All the sweetness she had felt when she drove to meet him that night was long gone.
r />   Perhaps she had been too trusting. Or perhaps she knew exactly what was happening and didn’t have the maturity to resist this older man. Whatever the problem, the trap set for Alissa had been a wide one, and she had fallen in without hesitancy.

  They met regularly and talked on the phone daily. Alissa’s thoughts were filled with Thomas. What made it so intense was that they only talked. They didn’t touch. After all, he was a married man. They were both Christians. This was a spiritual friendship. She was helping him with his music, and he was helping her recover from her past.

  Thomas taught Alissa about “forgiving God.” She had never heard that concept before in any of the churches she had attended. He explained that with all the painful experiences from her past, the only way she would be able to move forward was by telling God she forgave him for all the awful things he had allowed to happen to her.

  At the time she had only slightly questioned his theology. Now she knew it was all backwards. It was the most damaging way of thinking she had encountered in her Christian life. It put her in charge, not God. But she didn’t realize how flawed that thinking was at the time.

  Then came their debut.

  Five weeks after they had met, Thomas had perfected two of his new songs and arranged for him and Alissa to sing together in church. When their harmonized voices filled that auditorium, Alissa had never felt so fulfilled. They were a hit. The thunderous applause showed they were blessing people, serving God together. Two weeks later they sang again.

  Thomas was different from any other Christian man she had known. He put a “twist” on all the basics of Christianity she had been taught. She couldn’t understand why his wife had turned against him. What moved Alissa the most was when Thomas talked about how he longed for children of his own. He shared with her the intimate details of why that was never going to happen with his wife and how sad he felt that, at thirty-two years old, he knew he would never be a father.

  The night after their fourth duet at church, Thomas walked Alissa to her car and asked if they could go somewhere to talk. They went to Alissa’s apartment. She fixed coffee, and Thomas cried. He confessed to her his deep longings for her. He wanted to leave his wife and marry Alissa. Together they would have the music ministry he had always dreamed of, and together they could have children. He made it sound so logical. Why would God want him to stay in bondage to an evil woman? God wanted him to be happy. He needed to be free of his wife to serve God.

  Even now, sitting on her bedroom floor, Alissa remembered her response to Thomas. She had sat there, listening in horrified silence. As his words washed over her, she saw clearly, for the first time, how intertwined she and Thomas had become. All of her illusions, all of her justifications and excuses melted away. She was left with the cold reality of what she had allowed to happen.

  “I couldn’t live with myself if I knew I was responsible for the breakup of your marriage,” Alissa told Thomas.

  He had cried and pleaded, saying, “Don’t you see? You didn’t break up anything. My wife did. Years ago. You are the one who has brought life back to me. I can’t live without you.” He took her in his arms and wept on her shoulder.

  Alissa knew what would happen next. After all these weeks of having a “spiritual” friendship, they were about to cross the line into a physical union. She, who had been physically pure ever since she had turned her life over to the Lord, was about to change that. Although she struggled fiercely with her impulses, the voice inside her heart spoke loud and clear, “No!”

  With a strength that came from some place beyond her own frail flesh, Alissa pushed him away. She rose to her feet and firmly said, “I can’t do this, Thomas. I won’t.”

  He crumbled, broken and lost. “What will I do? What will I do without you? You can’t do this to me!” He cried for what seemed like a very long time.

  Alissa stood firm. “You need to leave. Now.”

  Gathering himself together he headed for the door saying, “You were the best thing that ever happened to me, Alissa. I don’t know if I can keep on living without you.”

  With bars of steel protecting her bruised heart, Alissa had said, “I refuse to be manipulated, Thomas. You need to get your life together. I need to get mine straightened out, too. But not like this. Not the way we’ve been going. It’s not right.”

  She opened the door for him to leave, and Thomas slumped against the doorway. “This is it then, isn’t it? You really mean it, don’t you? You won’t take me back.”

  Alissa shook her head. All the strength and tenderness that had drawn her to Thomas had now turned to mush, and she wanted him and everything about him to vanish from her life. Without looking back, Alissa turned from Thomas, who was still crying. She disappeared inside her apartment. Then she bolted the door.

  The next step had seemed simple to her. Phoenix was a big city. She was a big girl. She would find another church and avoid all married men. She had learned her lesson, as painful as it had been, and she was ready to move on. At least she hadn’t done something really stupid and fallen for his pleadings.

  However, the next Sunday she slept in, and the Sunday after that and the Sunday after that. Then she went on a weekend cruise for work, and before she knew it, three months had passed, and she hadn’t visited any new churches. That was more than two years ago.

  Now, with the box of clothes open before her, Alissa felt as if the Thomas experience had happened to someone else. That wasn’t she. The woman she was now would never have fallen for a man like that. It seemed so long ago.

  Wiping the few tears that had come along with the memory and drawing in a deep breath, Alissa carried all four boxes of her Phoenix clothes down to her car and stacked them in the backseat. Tomorrow morning they would be in the Goodwill donation bin. That season of her life needed to be gone—from her closet and from her memories.

  In every way, she was ready to move on.

  Chapter Five

  Sunday morning dawned clear and warm, but Alissa stayed in bed. She was emotionally exhausted from reliving the Phoenix nightmare.

  In a strange way, she knew she had begun to purge herself of the strong effect the events had had on her. By recalling everything from start to finish, she felt good about herself. She had done the right thing to move on with her life. If she knew a church to attend in Pasadena—a safe church—she probably would have ended her two-year hiatus and attended this morning.

  Instead, she returned to her packing. But she continued her self-evaluation while she wrapped items and wedged them into boxes. Her inability to emotionally connect with anyone other than Chloe was probably the worst consequence of her Thomas experience. She trusted no one. And rarely opened up. What would it be like to have a roommate? Would Shelly want to talk late into the night, or would she be on the go so much that they would only communicate through notes left on the refrigerator?

  By Monday night, her questions were all answered. Shelly called Alissa at work and invited her to come to the duplex. Alissa arrived at 5:15 and knocked on the lower half of the dutch door. The top portion was open, and harp music floated from the heart of the duplex.

  “Hi, Alissa?” Shelly scurried to the door with a dish towel in her hand. “Come in, come in.” The scent of cinnamon followed her.

  Alissa liked her at once. Only a few other women had brought out that response in Alissa, including a girl named Christy, the innocent one who had shown Alissa the path to Christ.

  Shelly resembled Christy in some ways. She had long, silky hair the color of a fawn’s. Her eyes were clear and a soft brown tone, arched by curved brows. Her smile was bright, and so was her outfit—a short green top and white cut-off jean shorts. And she was barefoot.

  Alissa had worn a suit to work that day, hoping to appear professional and successful when she met Shelly. She had curled her hair, which now hung in a soft curl a bit past her shoulders. She had put in her contacts that morning, too. They tinted her eyes a cool shade of aqua.

  Alissa felt this
was a high school summer day all over again, and she was making a new friend.

  “I’m so glad to meet you,” Shelly said, shaking Alissa’s hand and welcoming her in. “That’s a beautiful necklace. Did I tell you the credit check came through? No problem. Everything is clear. Did you see the bedroom last time you were here?”

  Alissa had rarely heard anyone talk so fast yet still make sense. Shelly’s voice was smooth and clear. Alissa guessed she was younger by about two years. Maybe three.

  “No, I only saw the living room.”

  “Well, then, let me take you on the grand tour. This is the kitchen. I was just cleaning up so don’t mind the mess. I was in a baking mood when I got home. Would you like a cookie? Snickerdoodles.”

  “No thanks,” Alissa said. She noticed how much larger this kitchen was than the one in her condo. Shelly had a unique kitchen table that Alissa paused to examine.

  “I made that,” Shelly said. “It’s not a tree stump. It just looks like one.”

  A thick, ridged “stump” seemed to protrude from the linoleum floor and held up a round glass tabletop. A bowl of avocados sat in the middle of the table with a small mixed bouquet to one side. The chairs were black wrought iron with woven straw seats. It had to be the most unusual table Alissa had ever seen, and she loved it.

  “This is wonderful! What is it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I found that stump thing at a junkyard and bought the glass top. The chairs came from an old patio set. I painted them, and a friend of mine strung the seats. If that’s what you call it. I don’t know what that kind of weaving is. She was taking a class, and this was her final project. Cool, huh?”

  “Yes. Very fun. I like all your cupboard space.”

  “Oh, this place is full of storage space. Let me show you the closets in the hall. And wait until you see the walk-in closets in the bedroom!”