“Thank you, Amy. Clay needs friends.”
“Oh, I’m not his friend. I don’t think he wants friends. And he’s not shy or anything, because he always meets your eyes. He’s just… just off by himself. You know what I mean?”
“Only too well.”
“It’s too bad, too, because he’s cute.” Amy punctuated her sentence with another crunch.
So Amy thought Clay was cute. Elise couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of Amy as a tutor for Clay. Who better to work with the boy than the daughter of the man teaching his history class? Certainly Amy would know exactly what information Clay should have. Elise broached the subject with all the caution her enthusiasm would let her muster.
“Amy, I just had a brilliant idea. There’s only one person who’s right for this job. And I happen to know that person would like to earn a little extra spending money so she could buy a certain designer dress for the Get Acquainted Dance.”
“Me?”
“Got it.” Elise opened the oven door and bent to lift out the casserole. “What do you think?”
“He’s cute, but he’s so strange, I don’t know if I can help him.”
“Are you afraid of what your friends will say?”
Amy crunched the last of her carrot. “Sure. A little.”
Elise appreciated her honesty. “Is ‘a little’ too much to keep you from doing it?”
“He’ll pay me?”
Elise nodded.
Amy visibly struggled with her answer. She wasn’t as much a victim of the high school herd mentality as some, but peer pressure had its effect on her, too. Finally she nodded. “I’ll give it a try. But not at my house. I probably won’t even tell my dad unless he asks where I’m going.”
“If you think it’s going to be a problem with your dad …”
Amy giggled. “He’s always telling me how important hard work is and how I’ve got to earn my way in the world. If he finds out and says anything, I’ll tell him I did it for him.”
Elise tried to stifle a smile. “I’m never going to have to worry about you. You’re going to be all right, aren’t you?”
“Sure am,” Amy agreed blithely.
“When’s your friend coming, honey?”
Clay met his great-aunt’s eyes and shrugged. “Sometime around four.”
“I baked brownies. It’s not often I get to have two young people in my house for the afternoon. I’m glad your father’s over in Gainesville on Wednesdays doing his research.” Lillian Tyson dropped an affectionate kiss on Clay’s head. “I’m glad you’re going to be studying here.”
Of all the adjustments in his life, Clay decided that the most pleasant one was getting to know this great-aunt who seemed to care about him no matter what he did or didn’t do. It was so strange knowing that in her eyes he was accepted just because he was a Tyson. Certainly she was the only person he could ever remember who had felt that way.
No, that wasn’t quite true. Elise Ramsey seemed to care about him, too. For some unknown reason Elise seemed to understand his feelings and want to help him. And her concern didn’t seem to be based on how he did in her class or whether he told her what she wanted to hear. She just seemed to care. Period.
He supposed that on some level Sloane cared, too. Once he was over the shock of being presented with a son who was obviously going to be a problem, he had tried to do his duty. That was caring in action as they would have called it at Destiny. Love was what you did for others, not what you felt. If you clothed or fed someone, that was caring.
Sloane did those things for him, and he didn’t have to. He could have denied paternity, relinquished any rights over this stranger who was said to be his son. No one would have blamed him. He supposed he was really lucky that Sloane had saved him from the foster home where he’d had to stay until the child welfare people untangled his background. But at least in the foster home someone had been paid to take care of him. He wondered what reward, if any, Sloane was getting.
“Clay? You were staring into space like a zombie.”
Clay pulled himself back into the present. “Sorry.” He wondered if he dared ask his great-aunt if she knew what he could do to make his presence a little easier on Sloane. There must be something he could do to soften the grim expression that so often crossed Sloane’s face when he looked at him.
“Don’t be sorry, boy. Tell me what you were thinking.”
Clay shook his head. “Just about my homework.”
The doorbell chimed. “Well, that’ll be your friend,” Lillian said cheerfully. “Why don’t you get it?”
Clay rose obediently and crossed the room. Amy Cargil was standing on the front porch, her books clasped in front of her. She was wearing a pale-yellow shirt and shorts to match. Clay thought she was just as pretty on the front porch as she had been the first day of school when she rescued him from her dragon-father.
“Hi, Clay. Am I late?”
Clay shook his head. “No, come on in.” He waited until Amy was inside, then introduced her to his aunt.
“Glad to have you help Clay here,” Lillian’s voice boomed. “Now I’ll leave you two youngsters alone. There are brownies in the kitchen when you get hungry. And soda pop.”
“I didn’t think I was going to be fed, too,” Amy said after Lillian had left the room.
“Lillian… Aunt Lillian,” Clay corrected himself, “likes to feed people till they burst.”
“Do you live with your aunt?” Amy asked curiously.
Clay shook his head. “No, I live with Sloane, down the street a ways.”
“Is he your brother or something?”
“My father.”
“You call your father by his first name? My dad would eat me alive if I tried that.”
“What do you call your father?”
“Daddy, or Dad sometimes now that I’m older.”
Clay tried to imagine calling Sloane either of those things. He smiled a little.
“Do you think that’s funny?” Amy asked with an edge to her voice.
Clay realized she thought he’d been making fun of her. “No. Not at all.” He didn’t know what else to say.
“Maybe we’d better get started,” Amy said. “Where do you want to work?”
Clay pointed to the table where his books were all spread out.
“Good grief! You’ve got the whole library there.”
“Just the history section.” Clay sat down and motioned for Amy to take a seat.
“You don’t have to read all these books, Clay. If you do you’ll know more than my dad, and he’ll dislike you even more.” Amy bit her lip as she realized what she’d said. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “That was awful.”
Clay frowned. “What was?”
“Saying that thing about Daddy.”
“It wasn’t awful. It was the truth. He does dislike me.”
Amy was quiet for a moment as if she had to adjust to his words. “Well, doesn’t it bother you?” she probed.
“Sure. Nobody likes to be picked on. Not even that ‘strange kid from New Mexico.’“
Amy winced at the direct quote. “I wish people wouldn’t say things like that. They don’t really mean it.”
“Sure they do.” Clay looked up from the table where he’d been clearing a space for them to work. “People almost never say things they don’t mean. They may not tell the whole truth, but when they say something they’re telling part of it.”
Amy was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. She was used to her friends hedging when a subject was controversial and to boys who rarely met her eyes for any length of time. Clay was so different. Already their conversation had been more honest and more serious than any conversation she’d ever had with anyone under twenty. “Do you always say whatever’s on your mind like that?” she asked. “It’s kind of unsettling.”
“Why? I always think it’s unsettling not to know what someone is thinking.” He thought of Sloane. “In fact, I hate it when people play games with me
.”
“What kind of games?” In spite of her discomfort, Amy wanted to find out what he meant.
“If somebody’s feeling something about someone else, he ought to tell the other person. That’s the only way that person is ever going to understand. At school it’s so different. Everybody plays games. They pretend they like somebody and then they talk about them behind their backs. Or even if they do like somebody and nobody else does, they won’t talk to that person because they’re afraid of what other people will think. It’s weird.” Clay examined Amy’s face as he talked. She looked utterly flabbergasted. Maybe Amy wasn’t really any different from everybody else.
“We’d better get to work,” she said finally.
Clay shrugged. “All right. Where do you want to start?’
Amy wished she had the nerve to tell Clay where she really wanted to start: with a full explanation of where he had come up with these ideas and more importantly, where he had got the courage to talk about them. Why was he so different? Most boys couldn’t manage a sentence unless it was about football or their favorite rock group or what kind of skateboard they were getting. Clay really was “that strange kid from new Mexico,” and at that moment, Amy didn’t know if she liked him or not. But one thing was certain, he was sure more interesting to talk to than anyone she’d ever met.
Clay watched Amy stare at him, and he wondered if he ought to tell her she could go. Obviously they weren’t going to be able to get anything important done. But as he watched, she smiled a little and seemed to pull herself together.
Amy sat down and opened her book. Then she lifted her eyes to his. “Clay, you’re a very different kind of person.” She gave him a wide, brilliant smile that did funny things to the muscles in his chest. “But you know something? This may turn out to be an education for both of us.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Elise sat outside on the rusty front porch glider and waited for Bob Cargil. The early October air was mixed with a gray drizzle that promised to get heavier as the evening wore on. She shut her eyes and pictured all the Miracle Springs High School girls who were at that moment trying to figure out how to keep their hairstyles intact on their journey to school. It was the night of the Get Acquainted Dance, an annual event that was already old when Elise had been at Miracle Springs High, and along with Bob, she had agreed to chaperone.
Traditionally the weather could be bad this time of year. Summer was officially over, but the temperature hadn’t yet given in to autumn. Drizzle and gloom might go on for weeks as the thermometer dropped one degree at a time.
The bad weather didn’t matter to Elise. It matched her spirits. As the weeks had passed, she’d sunk into a depression so utterly foreign that she had no idea how to pull herself out of it. She had been unhappy before, but rarely had she felt this bone deep apathy.
Maybe her mother’s death was catching up with her. Maybe she was thirty-five with little to show for all her years. Or maybe she was starving for the feel of a man’s arms around her—Sloane’s arms.
The last possibility didn’t even shock her. She had grown so used to it she was no longer surprised when it resurfaced. Sex was a natural part of life; Sloane had taught her that. Years of abstinence were unnatural, and those years were taking their toll on her spirit.
Of course Sloane wasn’t the only man in the world. There were probably plenty of men who would be glad to oblige her. But she remembered only too well what it was like to slip into lovemaking with a man she didn’t really want. She had tried so many times to find pleasure with Bob, and had rarely succeeded. She had been thankful when that part of their relationship had died a natural death, and she had been in no hurry to try again with another man.
But Sloane was back now, reminding her every time she saw him of what was missing in her life. Oh, he didn’t say anything provocative; in fact he rarely said anything at all. He just looked at her as if he saw straight through to her soul, and nodded his head in greeting.
The simple gesture was enough. She was so aware of him, that she froze whenever she encountered him. The night in the river had destroyed the pretense that the year could be got through safely. Her defenses had toppled and now all her energies went toward making sure they didn’t tumble to the ground. If she was depressed, that was why. She had absolutely no energy left for daily living. Her entire body, mind and spirit were caught up in a battle.
She pictured a hundred miniature Elises shoring up stone after stone of a wall that was being steadily shaken by earthquakes. No wonder she was emotionally exhausted. If the rest of the year continued with this output of energy, she’d be a true mental case by the time Sloane left town.
The sound of a car stopping in front of her house alerted her to Bob’s arrival. She got reluctantly to her feet and peered through the drizzle. She could see Amy’s silhouette in the back seat, and as she watched, Bob’s door opened and a big black umbrella pointed toward the darkening sky. She straightened the skirt of the black and white dress that made her look properly imposing and waited for him.
“All ready?” Bob temporarily closed the umbrella and shook the water off it, then turned to Elise. “You look very nice in that dress.”
“And you look nice in that suit.” She smiled a little and stepped forward to straighten his tie. “Ready to face a gym full of cavorting adolescents?”
Bob grimaced. “How’d we get into this?”
“By being responsible, dedicated teachers. And by being in the wrong place when Lincoln asked for volunteers.”
“Next time he gets that certain look on his face, let’s head for the hills.”
“Let’s.” For a moment Elise tried to imagine what it would be like if she tried once again to have a relationship with Bob. They did have things in common. They were both lifetime residents of Miracle Springs, they both enjoyed teaching, they both loved Amy. And in their own ways, they both needed someone. Good relationships were built on much less, she mused. With difficulty, she tried to concentrate on what Bob was saying.
“I wish you’d talk to Amy. I don’t know what’s getting into her, but she’s gone all the time lately.” Bob’s tone was whiny, and it snapped Elise out of her speculations immediately.
I must really be lonely and repressed to consider a life taking care of Bob Cargil.
“She’s a teenager, Bob,” she said. “She’s not your caretaker.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Elise sighed. “Forget it. I’m edgy tonight. We’d better get going.”
“You’ve been edgy for weeks,” Bob said. “Does Sloane Tyson coming back to town have anything to do with your behavior?”
The remark was so close to the truth that Elise couldn’t even summon up the energy to tell him to mind his own business. She just shrugged. “I don’t intend to stand on my front porch talking about my feelings.”
Bob’s expression was the same as a child who’s just discovered that throwing a temper tantrum doesn’t get him another cookie. “You really have changed, Elise.”
“If so, it’s the first time in thirty-five years. Come on. Amy’s waiting.”
The rock band made up of students from a nearby community college was still setting up when they arrived. Amy, wearing the new dress she had bought herself, left to repair her damp curls, and Bob went to help the band haul in more equipment. Elise wandered around the crepe-paper-bedecked gymnasium talking to the students who were already there and commiserating with the chaperoning parents. More students arrived until the huge gym floor no longer looked empty, and finally the band, after numerous sound checks, began to play.
Elise watched from the sidelines as the students selected partners and began to gyrate around the gym. Amy was dancing with Greg Thompson, and to Elise’s jaded eye, she was the prettiest girl there. Her pale-golden curls set off her clear skin and light-gray eyes, and she had a smile that most girls her age would die for. Just four weeks into the first term, Amy showed signs of being one of the more popular girls i
n her class. She hadn’t been chosen to represent the sophomores tonight, but Elise had been present when the votes were counted. She knew just how close the totals had been.
Bob came to Elise’s side and stood watching the teenagers dull the finish on the handsome maple floor. “We’re supposed to let them dance for a while, then I’m going to announce a ladies’ choice.”
“That’s hopelessly old-fashioned. The girls are already choosing the boys.” Elise pointed to the other side of the room where a girl was leading a boy onto the dance floor where they were waiting for the music to start again.
“I’d better not see Amy do that.”
Elise couldn’t tell if Bob was kidding. She wasn’t sure if he knew, either. But just as she opened her mouth to comment, she saw Amy cross the room and disappear into a cluster of boys who were standing by the gym door. She reappeared holding Clay Tyson’s hand.
Elise wasn’t sure what surprised her most, the fact that Amy would ask Clay to dance or that Clay would even be present. She knew the tutoring sessions were going well. Every once in a while Amy let slip some comment about Clay. Elise knew he was rapidly outdistancing his tutor and Amy couldn’t believe how smart he was or how much he remembered. She even knew that Amy was now spending three afternoons a week with Clay rather than the two they had originally agreed upon. What she didn’t know was how the tutoring sessions were affecting their personal relationship. Obviously she was going to find out tonight.
“Who is Amy dancing with now?” Bob asked, squinting across the room.
“Clay Tyson,” Elise answered, preparing to do battle.
“He’s got nerve asking my daughter to dance.”
Elise’s vision clouded with anger. “For your information, your daughter asked him to dance.”
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