“There you go.” Sarah grinned and actually blew on her knuckles and wiped them on her shirt to everyone’s laughter.
“What are you going to do now?” Fern asked him.
“I’m going to go find her. I’m not going to marry the woman I was engaged to, but eventually, I’ll find someone to marry. I just want this solved, and maybe my life can get back on track, I hate chaos in my life. It isn’t productive.”
Angie actually giggled. “Do you still make lists? I vaguely remember when you planned the wedding, I thought it was so cute that you had written everything down and followed it. Even at such a young age.”
“Of course.” Christopher looked offended. “Without lists, then you’d never get anything done. You need lists to have goals and purpose in life.”
“And what about people who live by the seat of their pants, so to speak?” Fern asked, and smirked at her parents and brother. Because that was precisely how Wanda lived. They watched as Christopher actually shuddered.
“Impossible, no one can live like that and expect to succeed in life. No, you need a list for everything. Without lists, your life would be in chaos. Chaos causes misdirection, and you’ll be lost. Lists give you the drive to succeed, you make a list, cross off things as they occur, and everything is so impeccable and orderly. Life is so much simpler that way, less messy.”
“If you say so,” Fern smirked. “You’ll stay for supper?”
“Only if I won’t put you out. I’ve been staying in your apartment above your garage for the last week. I don’t want to put you out.”
“No problem.” Fern smiled and opened the refrigerator. As she began cooking supper, with her mother’s help, she asked. “I take it you’re leaving here tomorrow to go find Wanda?”
“Yes. Would any of you like to go with me?”
“No,” they all said as one, which surprised him.
“We agreed that we would respect Wanda’s wishes. We trust her to tell us if she needs us. I don’t want her to feel that we violated that trust,” Randall said. “You can tell her how you found her, but tell her that we respect her privacy. If she wants us to come to visit her, then have her contact us. Otherwise, we’ll continue as we have.”
“And we won’t e-mail her that you’re coming,” Angie said. “But you have to promise me one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“If she has a heart attack, you get her to the doctor as quickly as you can and tell them she’s in remission for Leukemia and is on medication for a donor organ. I don’t think she’ll have a heart attack, her heart isstrong and healthy, normal. But you never know what’s going to happen.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t be surprised that once you contact her.” Doug snickered, “You’re well organized, and your list making way of life flies out the window.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Wanda’s a fly by night and by the seat of her pants kind of girl. Just look at all the locations she’d been before she settled in Arizona. I’m guessing that if it were you, you would have made a planned out, exact route to follow, not jump all over the place. That’s a classic thing for Wanda, go where the whim takes her.”
Christopher actually shuddered again. “I can’t do that, have never been able to. Causes too much chaos. Even my coming here was thought out. I planned my drive from my home in New York City directly to my parents’. With the intention of stopping for one night then straight to where we lived in California. It worked wonderfully. Everything went according to plan. Same as coming here, once I found out you had moved here, I sat down and planned the route and came directly here. And before you ask, I drive everywhere, airports cause too much chaos.”
“Tonight, I’ll go back to the apartment and plan out the route to Arizona. I’m not going to push it, so I’ll plan on being on the road for a week. Meet up with Wanda, have her sign whatever papers we need and two, three days tops and I’m on my way back to New York.” He sounded like he actually meant it and the others held their smirks in while they studied him.
“Can I ask you something without being rude?” Sarah asked.
“Sure.”
“Do you have a plan for your meals during the week? I mean like pasta on Monday. Pork on Tuesday. Beef on Wednesday. Fish on Friday, and so on?”
“I do. See if you plan ahead, you’ll never wonder where you’re going or what you’ll have to do. It’s all in the planning to control the chaos.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Sarah asked with a frown.
Fern laughed. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been gone for a week and just opened the refrigerator to see what we had. Hope you like chicken, because we’re having chicken pot pie.” She grinned as she slipped the dish into the oven.
Christopher grinned. “I always plan chicken on Sundays.” They groaned and sat down an hour later, to a meal and conversation. The next day they all saw him off and after his taillights faded in the distance, Fern turned to her family and grinned.
“I think Mr. Christopher Evans is about to get the surprise of his life in about a week. I think his list making, plan ahead, prevent chaos at all costs life is about to take a turn on its axis.”
