by Hart, Stella
“Hi,” he said. His voice was rich and deep. That nervous, fluttery feeling immediately returned to my chest.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, shyly averting my eyes from his mesmerizing gaze a few seconds later. His expression was slightly sour, but his hazel eyes were so beautiful that it wouldn’t have mattered if he scrunched his face up into the ugliest expression ever. He would still be the most handsome boy in the whole universe, and I wouldn’t be able to look at him for more than five seconds without my face burning up.
“These look delicious,” Frank said, taking one of the beignets from me. “Thanks, kiddo.”
“Yes, thank you very much, Jolie. They smell absolutely divine,” Marie said with a nod, taking a beignet as well. She bit into it, then let out a blissful groan. “Mmm. Wonderful.”
“I’ll tell my mom you liked them. Anyway, are you enjoying your visit?” I asked. I was trying to sound mature by repeating things I’d heard my mother say to guests in the past.
“Very much. I actually grew up near here,” Marie said. “Frank is originally from Connecticut, and we live in New York now, so it’s lovely to come back here and show these boys what they’re missing.” She gave both Mason and her husband friendly nudges.
Mason rolled his eyes. “She makes us visit all the time.”
“Oh, you love it,” Marie said with a teasing smile.
“If it’s so great, why do James, Ella and Andrew get to spend their summer in Africa? You didn’t drag them here.” Mason crossed his arms across his broad chest.
Marie flashed me a good-natured smile. “Mason isn’t happy that his siblings went overseas this summer.”
“Oh, you have other kids?” I said, my brows shooting up.
“Yes. But they’re a bit older, and they’re doing volunteer work for Habitat for Humanity this summer.” She turned to Mason again. “Which I recall you describing as ‘boring’, young man. So why would you even want to go with them?”
He grunted and took a bite of the beignet I’d brought over for him. The sour look on his face immediately vanished. “Shit. This is good. Think you could grab me another one, Josie?”
My face fell, and my chest felt heavy. He didn’t even remember my name properly. Was this what heartbreak felt like?
“It’s Jolie,” I said softly.
“Sorry. I have a shitty memory.”
“Stop cussing,” Marie hissed, swatting him on the arm.
I smiled awkwardly. “I’ll get you another beignet.”
I stepped away, but a heavy hand on my shoulder stopped me a second later. “Hey, wait up, Jolie. I’m coming with you.”
My heart lifted and mended itself immediately. It was Mason. He remembered my name this time, and he actually wanted to hang out with me! This was the best day ever.
“I figured I can carry more of those things than you. Besides, you live here, right?” Mason went on, loading up a napkin with beignets as we arrived at the table.
I nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“So do you know any cool spots around the place?” he asked. He leaned down to my level and adopted a quiet, conspiratorial tone. “Somewhere we can get away from all this weird crap, I mean. These people kinda creep me out, but my parents want to hang around just to be nice.”
Even though I found some of my father’s church stuff quite boring sometimes, it still rubbed me the wrong way when other people insulted it. This time, however, it simply made me giggle. I was too lightheaded with excitement to care about Mason’s ignorant comments. Besides, I could teach him. Maybe he and his family would join the church one day, and then I could see him all the time.
I knew my father had warned me about boys and said I was too young to think about them or hang around them, but this was different. He told me to keep the Ashwoods entertained, so really, I was just doing what I was told, wasn’t I?
“I can take you to my favorite pond around the other side of the house,” I replied. “I’ll show you how far I can skip stones.”
“I bet I can throw ‘em farther than you.” Mason flashed me a grin.
I smiled back. “I bet you can’t.”
I led him away from the marquee and around the other side of the mansion. Then I skipped ahead on the grassy path that led toward the pond I liked to play around whenever I was outside. It was big with a glistening surface and thick green reeds along the outer edges. On one side, a live oak tree provided shade for part of the water. It was a nice spot to sit and read sometimes, but the place we were standing right now was the best part to skip stones from.
“Okay, watch,” I said confidently. I picked up a flat rock and skipped it across the water, watching the ripples disrupt the flawless reflection of the oak branches.
“Hm. Not bad.” Mason nodded approvingly. “But watch this.”
His stone barely skipped before sinking into the pond. I giggled, and he looked at me with an embarrassed grin. “Guess I’m actually pretty shit at this, huh?”
I crossed my arms. “You aren’t supposed to curse.”
“There’s no adults here. So who cares?”
“He can hear,” I said.
“He who?”
I pointed into the sky. Mason nodded knowingly. “Right. Got it. Well, I’ll stop doing it when I’m around you as long as you show me how to skip stones. Deal?” He held out a hand.
“Deal.” I held my right hand out and let him shake it. It was tiny in his grasp, and as we touched, I felt like a net of butterflies had been released in my stomach. I grudgingly pulled my hand away a moment later and nodded toward the little rock pile I’d gathered next to the water. “The main trick is to pick a flat stone.”
I showed him how to flick his wrist when he threw it. This time, his stone sailed across the water and went even farther than mine.
“That was good!” I said, clapping my hands together. I took a deep breath before throwing caution to the wind and blurting out the rest of my thoughts. “I’ve never really hung out with a boy before. Most of them are gross. But I think you’re cool.”
“Thanks.” Mason flashed me another heart-melting smile and ruffled my blonde hair. “You know, you’re actually pretty cool too. Especially for a little church kid.”
I folded my arms. “I’m not a kid,” I said indignantly. “I turned seven nearly four months ago!”
Mason held up his arms. “Oops, sorry. Didn’t realize you were that old. I better go call the retirement village you escaped from.”
I laughed, even though I knew he was teasing me. “How old are you?”
“Fifteen. Nearly sixteen.”
My eyes widened. “Wow. That’s really old.”
He raised one eyebrow. “Might feel like that to you now, but wait till you’re my age. I don’t feel old at all,” he said. “Trust me, our parents are the old ones. Mine have been married for more than twenty-five years. Can you imagine that?”
I couldn’t. Twenty-five years seemed like forever to me. “That’s a long time. They seem happy, though.”
I wasn’t just being polite. They really did seem happy with each other, unlike my own parents. I hadn’t seen them touch each other affectionately or smile at each other in a long time.
Mason nodded. “Yeah. They are.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Do you love them?”
“Look at you, asking all the deep questions.” Mason chuckled and cocked his head to the side. “Anyway, yeah, I guess I do. We fight sometimes, but I know they’re cool deep down.” He hesitated for a moment, his brows drawn. “How about your family? How’s your mom with your dad’s church stuff?”
I thought of all the recent arguments about the direction my father was taking his church in, and the broken glass my mom swept up after the last one. It made me squirm uncomfortably in my spot.
Why couldn’t my parents just get along all the time? Why couldn’t my mom just listen?
“I don’t think she likes it much. She told me he wasn’t religious when they first met, and that he�
�s changed a lot. She thinks he uses it to get his own way sometimes,” I finally said.
After blurting that out, I felt a sudden burning need to defend my father. I was probably making him sound bad. He wasn’t, though. He was just doing what our God commanded him to do. It wasn’t his fault that people were naturally so sinful and refused to listen half the time.
“A lot of other people like his new church, though,” I hastily continued. “It has over three hundred members now. They all love my father and think he’s nice and very smart. Some of them didn’t believe him at first when he told them what he knows, but he changed their minds.”
“So he’s charismatic,” Mason muttered. “Figures.”
“Charismatic?” I frowned. I wasn’t familiar with the word.
“Never mind. Big word. You’ll learn it in school one day.” He shielded his eyes from the sun and squinted into the distance. “Hey, what’s that over there?”
I followed his line of sight to a decaying white clapboard building in one of the distant fields. Once upon a time, it had been a beautiful church with a large bell, carved detailing above the stained glass windows and a tall steeple rising from the gabled roof. Now the paint was peeling, the windows were long gone, and parts of it were sagging or falling down. Mom never let me play near it because it could be dangerous.
“That’s a really old chapel. It was here when we bought the land,” I explained. “My mom said some early settlers built it more than two hundred years ago. They abandoned it when it flooded.”
“It flooded?” Mason frowned. “But it’s in the middle of a field. The nearest swamp is nowhere near it.”
“She said they tried to build some sort of basement below it, but they didn’t know much about the ground here. Apparently the water table is high, and that can cause flooding if you try to build underground stuff. The flooding made the rest of the building weak.”
He nodded slowly. “Oh, right. You sure know a lot about it, smart-ass.” He grinned and ruffled my hair again.
I blushed. I wasn’t smart. I was just parroting what I’d heard from adults.
Mason took a few steps away from the pond to try and get a better view of the old building. “Can we go explore it? It looks cool.”
I shook my head. “I’m not allowed there. It’s dangerous.”
“How so?”
“It’s falling apart. I think my father is fixing it up, though. I’ve seen men hanging around there with all sorts of building stuff for a long time now.”
“Oh, okay. That’s cool, I guess.” He turned back to the pond, lips pressed in a thin line. His interest was clearly waning. I was boring him.
“There might be treasure there,” I said, desperate to keep him entertained. I liked hanging out with him, and I didn’t want him to leave.
He lifted a brow. “Really?”
I nodded vehemently. “I asked my dad what the men were doing there once, because a few of them were digging in the ground with a big machine. He said they were searching for a huge treasure.”
“That’s awesome. Do you know what it is?”
I had no idea, but I didn’t want to lose his attention. “I think it might be something left by pirates.”
“Pirates? Here?”
I nodded. “They came here.”
“Right.” He laughed and skipped another stone across the water. I saw him glance to the side for a second, and I wondered if he was thinking about returning to his parents.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” I asked, figuring it was now or never.
He flashed me an incredulous look. “A girlfriend?” He shrugged and grimaced as if I’d asked him to lick the mud off my shoes. “I guess there’s a few girls I hang around after school sometimes, but that’s it.”
My courage deflated and my shoulders sagged. Mason obviously wasn’t keen on the subject. Maybe he didn’t like girls yet, even though he was much older than me. Elena once told me that boys matured slower than girls. She also told me that sometimes, they never liked girls at all. Only other boys. “Oh,” I said softly.
“Why?” he asked, cocking his head to the side. “Are you asking to be my girlfriend, little Jolie?”
My spirit leapt. “Do you want me to be?” I asked, widening my eyes.
He tipped his head back and laughed uproariously. I suddenly felt cold and hollow, like he’d reached inside and scooped my heart right out.
He noticed the stricken look on my face and abruptly stopped laughing. “Oh, I’m sorry, Jolie. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Do you think I’m ugly?” I asked in a small voice.
He rubbed his jaw and sighed. “Oh, fuck… no, it’s not that,” he said. He briefly touched one hand to his mouth. “Sorry, I forgot you don’t like bad words.”
“It’s okay,” I whispered.
He reached out and tilted my chin up, forcing me to look at him. “Trust me, you’re a very pretty little girl. You’ve got really nice eyes. Do you know how rare green eyes are?”
“No,” I said glumly. Why did that matter?
“They’re very rare. I bet a lot of boys are gonna look at you one day and think ‘wow, she’s gorgeous, check out those eyes’,” he said, staring down at me. “Don’t worry. It’ll happen.”
“But not with you?”
He grinned, but this time I knew he wasn’t mocking me. His eyes were twinkling, and I could tell from his soft expression that it was a kind smile. “You’re cool and all, but you’re a little young. If I was gonna get a girlfriend, I’d want her age to be in the double figures.”
I perked up again. “So when I turn ten you’ll be my boyfriend?”
He chuckled. “You’re persistent, aren’t you?
“My mom said girls have to be twice as strong and persistent to get half as far as boys in our world, because a lot of boys are mean and try to push girls down,” I said, staring out at the rippling pond before turning my gaze back to Mason.
He studied my face carefully. “Your mom sounds like a smart woman. I bet that’s where you get it from.”
“Get what?”
He tapped my head playfully. “Your brain. You’re a smart kid, Jolie. Smarter than most other little kids I’ve talked to. One day you might run the whole country.”
I furrowed my brows. “Oh, no. My father says that’s not a woman’s place. He says we’re better at nurturing and caring. We aren’t supposed to be in charge of things.”
“He says that, huh?” He cocked his head to the side. “Honestly, kiddo, I think you should listen to your mom more than your dad.”
“But he’s a genius,” I insisted. I moved closer to him and spoke in hushed tones. “Only our church members are supposed to know this, so don’t tell anyone I told you, but he gets messages sent to him directly from our God. He chose him because he’s so smart.”
“Hm. That’s convenient, isn’t it?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
Mason waved a hand. “Forget it,” he muttered, looking at the oak tree across the pond. Then he glanced back at me. “Hey, listen, I feel bad for upsetting you before, so I’m gonna make you another deal. Okay?”
“What sort of deal?”
“When you turn eighteen, I’ll come and visit you again. We can hang out and skip rocks like we did today, and if we still like each other, we can keep hanging out.”
I smiled widely. “Promise?”
He winked. “I promise. I’ll come back for you.” He grinned and skimmed another stone across the sparkling pond. “I totally owe you, anyway, because you taught me such a valuable life skill.”
I giggled. Mason might not have agreed to be my boyfriend, but he was still a boy who was a friend of mine now. That was pretty cool. I felt proud of myself for being brave enough to bring up the subject with him, too. If I hadn’t, I would’ve wound up mooning over him for weeks, wondering what might’ve happened.
I couldn’t wait to tell Elena. I knew my father didn’t like her very much, because she was so
smart and outgoing for a girl, but I still liked her. She was a good friend to me.
Mason looked at his watch and frowned. “We better head back.”
“Okay.”
We trudged around to the marquee and returned to Frank and Marie. They were talking to my parents now. My father must’ve finished his phone call.
“You’re welcome to stay a while longer,” he was saying as Mason and I approached. “It was a surprise to see you today, but a very nice one all the same.”
“Oh, we’d love to,” Marie replied. “But we really have to get going. Our flight back to the city is very soon.”
Mason looked at me and winked. I giggled. This drew the attention of the adults, and they all turned and smiled at us. “There you are,” Frank said in his friendly, booming voice. “We were just saying we need to get going. You ready, Mason?”
“Sure.” He patted me on the back. “It was good to meet you, kid. I’ll see you round.”
My father was studying my face now. I was careful not to look too excited when I replied to Mason, in case it made him suspicious about the time I’d spent with him. “Nice to meet you too.”
The Ashwoods went to their car, and I watched sadly as it headed down the driveway. When it was nothing but a speck on the horizon, I went and found Elena so I could share some dessert with her. We spoke between mouthfuls. As I predicted, she was over the moon to hear about my little adventure with Mason.
“You’re totally going to marry him one day,” she said, eyes shining.
I chewed on my bottom lip. I wasn’t actually sure if I’d ever see Mason again. Even though he’d promised to come back for me, he might forget. After all, my eighteenth birthday was a long way off.
“Who’s Jolie going to marry?”
I jumped with fright, but as soon as I realized it was my mother, I calmed down. She was nowhere near as strict as my father.
“We were talking about a boy Jolie knows,” Elena said tentatively.
Mom smiled. “Ah. We’re already at the boy stage, are we?” she said. She leaned down to give me a hug. “Best not to talk too loudly about that when your father is around, okay?”
