AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As she tiredly washed her dishes in the sink, her wet hair drying a bit from the breeze of the open window, Molly thought of Rodney. Would he be proud of her? Would he recognize the girl he married in this new woman--one who went where the wind took her (quite literally), and lived by her wits? Would he wish she'd stayed home, found a job, and lived a more conventional life? She'd never know for certain, but there was one thing she clung to: the feeling of Rodney beside her. No matter where she'd traveled so far, she could feel him watching over her, prodding her to make the right choice, keeping her out of harm's way.
Absentmindedly, she touched the pearl that hung on a thin rope around her neck.
In Nishinomiya Rodney had been right behind her on his grandparents' doorstep, nudging her elbow to force her to knock. In Fiji he'd stood over her, mopping her brow on the boat as she drifted into port in a haze of fever, and he'd helped her climb into the hospital bed in Rotuma. He'd guided her safely to New Zealand and Australia, seen her back to her hostel safely after she'd had beers with college students, and he was there in Madagascar now, standing sentry outside her apartment door to make sure she was safe at night as she slept.
She knew this as surely as she knew anything.
As she sunk to the bottom of the well of sleep that night, Molly held an image of Rodney in her mind, remembering him as he'd been the first time he'd come to pick her up at her house in his beloved red Chevrolet pickup truck. He'd worn tight jeans with a slight bellbottom and a fitted white t-shirt, as was the fashion in 1973. Rodney's black hair had been slightly longer at the back of his neck, making him look like a "damned hippie," as Molly's father had said every time he saw a boy with long hair and sideburns (the memory made Molly smile in her sleepy state), and he'd slid out from behind the wheel of the truck with a nervous smile, holding a bouquet of wildflowers in one hand.
The fact that he'd shown up with flowers had charmed Molly completely--not to mention her mother. Mrs. Kimble stood in the kitchen, flustered and blushing as she'd snipped the stems of the flowers and placed them one by one into a vase of water, her hip leaning against the counter girlishly.
"You kids going anywhere fun?" she'd asked, trying not to appear too interested. At the time, Molly had found her annoying and overbearing, but in hindsight she realized that her mom had just been excited for her, and that as a grown, married woman with children, Mrs. Kimble was most likely living vicariously through the excitement of her oldest daughter going on a date with a boy for the first time.
"I was hoping to take Molly to Winchell's," Rodney had said, glancing nervously in Molly's direction. "If she wants to."
"I'd love it," she'd assured him quickly, smoothing the front of the skirt that her mother had sewn for her on the old Singer machine. Everyone loved Winchell's, the only drive-in restaurant in town, and the place where teenagers gathered to see and be seen. The onion rings were crispy, the Coke ice cold, and the socializing satisfying.
"And then maybe just to drive around for a bit." Rodney wiped his own hands down the front of his pants nervously, giving away the fact that he had sweaty palms. He glanced at Molly again, clearly hoping that they could leave soon.
Mrs. Kimble threw a glance over her shoulder at the back door to the kitchen and then lowered her voice. "If you run into Mr. Kimble out there, maybe don't mention the driving around part--I don't think he'd like it."
Molly knew he wouldn't. She'd considered not telling her dad that Rodney was Japanese, but in the end, she knew that it would get back to him somehow, and that if he found out from a coworker or a neighbor that his daughter had been out cruising around town in the passenger seat of a boy who was anything but white, trouble would follow.
It had been Mrs. Kimble who'd smoothed things over between them. When Molly's dad had insisted that her dating a boy of another race was a mistake, Mrs. Kimble had gently reminded him that his parents hadn't exactly approved of her, either. Mind you, they were both white and Catholic, but Mrs. Kimble had come from an extremely poor family with a bad reputation in their small Idaho town. Her father was a known gambler and womanizer who beat his wife and children, and Mr. Kimble's parents had told him outright that marrying a woman of such low social standing was unacceptable. He married Molly's mother anyway and had never forgiven his parents for saying that. So he understood his wife's message, and while he still did not approve, he had at least agreed to be outside in his shop and to not interfere with this first date.
"Have her back by ten?" Mrs. Kimble said to Rodney, though it was not a question but more of an order.
"Yes, ma'am," Rodney said, bowing his head just a fraction of an inch out of polite deference.
They'd gone to Winchell's that night and sat there on the bench seat of the truck, talking shyly and looking around every time a new car pulled in on either side of them. Being seen at Winchell's on a date was the fastest way to let everyone know that you were an item (or rapidly becoming one), and Molly felt butterflies in her stomach every time she thought of herself holding Rodney's hand at school, or of the possibility that she might show up to prom on his arm. Rodney Kobayashi was--in her opinion--the best-looking boy in school. Her friends could all have the Clay Tuckers and the Herman Jensens of the world, and Susanna Ricketts could date the captain of every sports team under the sun if she wanted to, but all Molly wanted was to spend hours and hours sitting next to Rodney with his smooth, muscular arms, staring into his gorgeous eyes as he flipped his shiny, inky black hair off his forehead. A normal girl might have felt intimidated by the thought of having to meet his parents and to undergo the scrutiny of his family the same way he was going to have to undergo the scrutiny of hers, but Molly was so convinced of their rightness together than she didn't even feel a twinge of fear.
In fact, that night they had driven out to the lake in Rodney's truck, parked, and gotten out to lay on the slightly dented hood, faces turned up to the stars. Molly wore a white prairie skirt that fell around her thighs as she laid on her back, her bare feet up on the hood of the truck, knees pointing at the sky.
Beside her, Rodney was quiet, his hands clasped and folded on his chest as he stared up at the twinkling light show overhead. He was quiet for so long that she started to wonder whether he was regretting being there with her, but then her insecurities gave way to hopefulness and she began to imagine that maybe he was simply formulating a way to ask her to be his girl.
"Rodney," Molly said, swallowing her nerves as she turned her head and looked at his profile. His nose was perfect and his cheek smooth, and she smiled as she watched him blink slowly, the stars reflected on the shiny surface of his dark eyes. "What are you thinking about?"
It was a hopeful question asked by millions of women over the history of time, and with each ask, the woman had secretly hoped that the answer might be something along the lines of, "Thinking about you and how beautiful you are," instead of the more common replies, such as: "Just wondering which animal in the wild I could actually take down with my bare hands." Or, "I'm thinking about what it feels like to get ripped through a black hole." Sometimes the response showed even less sign of creative brilliance, landing somewhere in the sports arena, like: "I was just thinking about the time the Dolphins quarterback did the yadda yadda with the thing and the whatsit."
But still, Molly watched Rodney hopefully, expectantly, dreaming that the answer might have something to do with them being together forever.
Rodney cleared his throat. "I was actually thinking about how hot the clay tile roofs get in Spain in the summer."
Huh,Molly thought.That's not what I was expecting. She turned her face back to the sky, a slight frown creasing her brow. "Why Spain?" she asked, trying to sound nonchalant and as if she hadn't cared what he was thinking about, and hadn't hoped that it would be her.
"It's the first place I want to travel when I get out of here."
Molly sat up slowly, pulling herself into a criss-cross position there on the hood of Rodney's truck. She looked down at him as he gazed up at the sky. "You're leaving?"
Rodney's eyes darted over to her, landing on Molly's face. "Yeah. Of course. California isn't my final destination. I want to go to Japan and meet my grandparents. I want to sail around the world. There's so much to see, Mol."
Mol. This would be the first of thousands of times that Rodney called her Mol, and it gave her a thrill to hear a nickname roll off his tongue so easily. "Your grandparents are in Japan?"
"Yes. My dad's parents are there, and my dad won't talk to his dad anymore, so I've never met them. But that's not all," Rodney went on, sitting up so that they were eye to eye. "I want to see Iceland and Brazil and Fiji. I want to sail on the open water with nothing but sky and sea." He was rhapsodizing about a future journey that she most likely wouldn't be on, and he suddenly stopped, looking right at her. "Do you want to see the world, Mol? What do you want to do? You only have one life--how do you want to live it?"
Molly blinked a few times. This felt like a big, important question, and she wanted to answer in a way that made Rodney see her for who she truly was: a girl with a ton of curiosity, a sense of adventure, and no fear. Well, okay, she knew she had a normal amount of fear, but she would never be content to play it safe. While her friends wanted to settle down, marry, and have kids before the age of twenty-five, there was nothing that Molly wantedless. It wasn't marriage that she was opposed to, or finding someone to love, but the idea that she was setting her entire future in stone before she'd seen or done anything important stopped her cold.
Without overthinking it, Molly answered. "I guess I want to see what's out there," she said carefully. "I want to eat different foods, and meet people I never would have known if I stayed here and had a couple of kids. That's not enough for me."
