Amanda James never looked at the magazines.
But that fall afternoon – a week into her second year teaching drama at Washington’s Woodland High – after she put her Wheat Thins on the check stand, and as she reached into her cart for the ten-pack of string cheese, her eyes broke rank and she looked.
She looked and there he was. Josh Nelson, the one guy whose memory was never more than a sunset away. His face filled the cover, positioned next to one of Hollywood’s top starlets under the bold statement, “Will Josh and Jennifer Elope?”
Look away, she told herself. At the chewing gum or candy bars or packs of batteries. Anything but the familiar photo on the cover of the magazine. But her eyes weren’t taking orders. The string cheese slipped from her hand and fell with a smack back into her cart.
“Do you want the cheese, Ms. James?” The checker was a former student, graduated the year before. “I need it up here if you do.”
“Oh.” Before she had time to reason with herself she snagged the magazine and the string cheese in a single move and tossed them onto the belt. “Yes, thanks. Sorry.”
And like that, the magazine was hers. She was in her car before it hit her what she’d done. The place in her memory where Josh Nelson lived had been locked shut for years. Until now.
The drive was as familiar as it was refreshing, the gentle curves and hills, the evergreens that framed the roadway and allowed just an occasional glimpse of Lake Merwin to the south. Amanda gripped the steering wheel and stared straight ahead. She needed this, the time it would take to reach her cabin on the lake. Josh was a movie star now, a different person than the one he’d been eight years ago. No matter what the magazine told her it wouldn’t be the exact truth or the whole story, but it would be all there was now.
All that was left.
When she was home, when she’d ordered every stray emotion back to the basement of her heart, when her food was put away and she was out on the balcony soaking in a view of the lake that never grew old, she finally pulled the magazine from its bag and thumbed to the center.
The story was brief, a two-page layout of mostly photos. A person would have to be living in another country to have escaped the obvious. Josh and his most recent leading lady, Jennifer Owens, had fallen for each other. Amanda bit her lip. So what did that have to do with her?
She set the magazine down and looked across the lake again. She loved September in Washington State. The afternoon sunshine cast diamonds across the water and in the distance, a pair of eagles soared and dipped. How long had it been? That last day of summer all those years ago? Amanda drew a slow breath and her memories came to life unchecked.
The annual meeting place was an Oregon coast church camp – Twin Rocks, it was called. It consisted of a handful of nicely kept cabins, a cozy lodge and an activity building plus the usual amenities – a rope swing, a fire pit, volleyball, and a 9-hole miniature golf course. Connecting the camp to the beach was a covered footbridge that crossed busy Highway 1.
Amanda and Josh met the summer they turned twelve. Amanda’s dad was a former pro baseball player, and that year he was the camp’s keynote speaker. By then, Josh and his family had been coming to Twin Rocks from Seattle for seven years, and always they took care of the music. Amanda was busy with her sister, but on the first night of camp Josh performed a solo, a song about faith and love.
His voice was golden, and when he finished singing, Amanda’s heart was in her throat. She tapped her sister on the shoulder, leaned close and whispered, “See that boy?”
Her sister was younger. She angled her head, her eyes on Josh. “Yeah?”
“Don’t tell him,” Amanda covered her mouth, smothering a giggle. “I’m going to marry him when I grow up.”
Amanda’s family made it back to Twin Rocks each of the next five years and she and Josh became friends, keeping in touch between camp visits. But they didn’t fall in love until that last summer, way before camp. The weeks flew by in a blur and suddenly it was the last day of camp.
The last time Amanda ever saw Josh Nelson.
