“How do you explain the millions of people who successfully drive a standard transmission every day?”
“Freaks of nature,” I informed him loftily. “Anyway, I’m finished for today. It’s almost six. Shouldn’t we go help your mom with dinner?”
“She’s probably still in the greenhouse, but my dad might be starting up the grill. Let’s go see. Here, switch seats with me. I’d have you drive us down to the house, but we’d like to eat before midnight.”
I made another face at him that sent him into more shouts of laughter.
His father was indeed at the grill when we arrived at the house. Michael led me directly around to the back when he smelled the coals. Luke Sawyer was built very much like his son. His hair was blonder, and his eyes were brown, but he had the same charming smile that so captivated me in Michael. He was dressed in faded jean shorts, scruffy-looking sneakers and a t-shirt that had seen better days. He was poking at the coals in a large stainless steel tub with a thick, round stick as we approached.
“Something smells good,” Michael called.
His dad’s head jerked up in surprise, then his face relaxed into a smile.
“Hey,” he greeted us. He laid the stick across the tub, rubbed his hand across his shirt as though to wipe it off, and then extended it toward me. “I’m Luke Sawyer. You must be Tasmyn. I’m really happy to know you.”
I shook his hand and smiled, and he grinned at me in return. “Thanks, Mr. Sawyer—Luke. I’m glad to meet you, too. I had a wonderful time exploring your nursery today. It’s just awesome.”
His smile was sweet and mellow. “Thanks. We like it here, too. I hope you’ll feel welcome enough to come back anytime.” He poked his son in the ribs with his elbow. “You don’t even have to bring this one if you don’t want.”
Michael feigned offense. “Better watch it, you’ll lose your most dependable employee,” he threatened teasingly.
“Maybe we’ll trade up,” his father replied. “Tasmyn, what do you say? Are you interested in a job in horticulture? Might be cheaper to pay you than to feed him.”
I laughed. “If I learned anything today, it’s that Michael’s got it all over me when it comes to plants and trees. I am really impressed with his knowledge.”
Luke fairly beamed. “We raised them talking the talk and walking the walk. Michael has an affinity and talent for the growing end, like his mom and me. Lela takes more of an artistic bent—did you get to see the shop?”
“I did. It’s lovely.”
“And she does flower arranging, too. We’re very proud of both of our offspring,” Luke told me, hugging his son around the shoulders.
“Okay, enough of the sweet talk,” Michael laughed. “Are the coals ready? Can we bring out the meat?”
“I have strict instructions from your mom not to put Tasmyn to work. She told me that you’re to show her the house, get her something to drink and sit out on the deck until dinner is ready.”
“Oh, no,” I protested. “Really, I don’t mind helping at all.”
“Hey, when Marly gives me an order, I don’t second-guess it. Go show her around,” he told Michael. “I’ll see you out here when you’re done.”
The Sawyers’ home reminded me of the family themselves: Straightforward and welcoming. We went in through the back deck, entering a warm and open living room. The furniture was soft, in muted brown tones, with splashes of bright color coming from knit blankets and afghans tossed casually over the back of chairs and couches. The rounded coffee table in the center of the room was covered in magazines and books.
A hallway led off the living room, and Michael led me toward it. “This is my parents’ office,” he said, throwing open a door. “You can see their organizational styles are a little different.” One side of the room was neat, with hanging folders, a bulletin board and shelves. On the other side, the desk was covered with papers, magazines and pictures, spilling over onto the chair.
“Believe it or not, my dad is the organized one,” Michael chuckled. We moved down the hall, and Michael pointed out the bathroom, his parents’ room and his sister’s room.
“What about you?” I teased. “Do they make you sleep in the garage?”
He grinned. “Nah, actually I have the best room in the house. Come on.”
Pulling me by the hand, he led me back out through the living room to a set of stairs that I hadn’t noticed before. They opened to a huge loft, with a high, beamed ceiling and wide windows. A simple bed stood in the corner, and along the wall were a dresser and wardrobe. The floor was hardwood, with a few throw rugs scattered here and there. There was a desk in the corner opposite the bed, and a worn-looking sofa and chair were nestled on the far side of the room.
“It’s amazing… how did you score such a great room?” I marveled. “I’m surprised your sister didn’t want it—or did she?”
Michael laughed. “No, she didn’t want it. First, there’s really no privacy to speak of up here, and I guess girls like to be able to close a door. It doesn’t matter to me because no one comes up here anyway, and my parents have always respected my need to be alone sometimes. And second, there’s no closet in here—and Lela likes a good closet. So this has always been my space.”
“Have you lived here all your life?” I asked, looking out the windows at the view below.
“No, when my parents first came here, they had a little house not too far away. That’s where they lived when Lela and I were born. But when they acquired the additional property, they decided it made more sense to live on-site, and they used some of the extra space to build what they always wanted—a log cabin. We moved in when I was in second grade.”
“A second-grade boy would love all this space,” I mused.
“You know it. At one point I had a hockey net and basketball hoop set up in here. My mom hated it, because of the noise it made downstairs, but she let me do it anyway.” He smiled, remembering. “My parents have always been pretty tolerant and supportive.”
“I guess so!” I laughed. Michael was looking at me steadily. “What?” I asked, mystified. “Why are you staring?”
“I was just thinking that this is one of those situations I have to beware of,” he admitted. “The most beautiful girl in the world, the only one I love, alone with me in my bedroom… well, it’s dangerous.”
I felt my face heat. “Then maybe we should move along downstairs. Didn’t I hear your dad say something about a cool drink on the porch? That sounds like heaven.”
He rolled his eyes at me, and then laughed in resignation. “You’re right, of course,” he assured me, taking my hand and twining our fingers. “Doesn’t make it any easier, but you’re still right. Let’s find you that drink.”
Dinner with the Sawyers was relaxed and fun. I felt comfortable enough to laugh along with them at their stories of the day at the nursery, and Michael kindly shared the high and low points of our first stick shift lesson. He and his dad got another good laugh at my expense.
Marly shook her head in mock severity at both her son and husband. “I think it was very brave of Tasmyn to try something new,” she proclaimed. “You two should be ashamed of yourselves for laughing.”
“You weren’t there, Mom. It really was funny,” Michael informed her.
After dinner, I insisted on helping with dish cleanup. When Marly protested, I gathered my courage and replied, “If you really want me to feel at home, you have to let me help. I’m not used to being pampered. I’d like to help.”
I saw Marly shoot Luke a secret smile before she answered me. “Thank you, Tasmyn. I would love to have your help—and your company—in the kitchen.”
We worked together with the same sort of light chatter I shared with my own mother. I was enjoying myself immensely, to the point that I lowered my perpetual guard and before I knew it, I was hearing Marly.
…Like her so much… sweet girl, but something different about her too, just what Michael needs. Someone to keep him on his toes… so glad that
he chose someone I can love, too. Wonder what Lela will think of her… she’s been the princess around here so long…
I frowned in concentration and with effort pulled the wall back into place. Marly, who I noticed was as perceptive as her son, saw my face.
“Are you all right?” she questioned, concern tingeing her voice.
“Oh, yes, thank you. This whole evening—afternoon, day—has been such a treat for me. You have a beautiful home, and a wonderful family. Thank you for letting me visit.”
“Tasmyn.” Marly laid her hand on my arm. “I don’t say this lightly. You are welcome here, anytime. We love the fact that Michael’s friends consider the nursery a second home, and they’re here, frequently. But you’re special. I hope that you’ll visit often, and that you’ll look at our home as yours, too. And on Luke and me—well, not as parents, certainly, but as friends, I hope.”
“Thank you,” I murmured. “You can’t know what that means to me.”
“I think I can understand a little,” she answered. “Michael told us that moving your whole life forced you to be a little isolated. That’s hard for me to truly understand, because I lived all my life in one place, until college and then until Luke and I lived here. And once you’ve found the person you’re meant to be with, it doesn’t really matter where you live, because where he is becomes home. But I can imagine that for a child—and an only child, at that—it must have been quite lonely.”
I nodded. “I don’t think I realized how lonely until I moved here—until I met Michael and found out what I had been missing,” I confessed.
Marly smiled and gently hugged me to her. “As far as I can see, loneliness isn’t going to be a problem anymore,” she promised. “Matter of fact, you might get tired of all of us and need some time on your own. That’s fine, as long as you know that we’re here for you, whenever you need us.”
My first month at King High School passed much less eventfully than my first week. I fell into an easy rhythm of classes, homework—and Michael. My friendship with Anne continued to blossom, too, which I think made my parents feel slightly better about the amount of time I spent with Michael, either at home, at school or out at the nursery.
It was a new way of life for all of us, as I watched—and felt—my parents adjust to the reality of me having a boyfriend. That Michael continued to be respectful and responsible seemed to ease their minds. And Anne, who often spent afternoons at our house when Michael was working and I was free, spoke of him with such obvious affection that my parents couldn’t help but be impressed. She shared the stories that Michael never would have; tales of his kindness to her and to others over their years in school, how hard-working he was, and that he had already been offered several scholarships and early acceptance to two colleges.
The idea of college and Michael going was something that hadn’t really occurred to me until Anne had mentioned it. The thought of him leaving King—and me—caused such a choking panic in my heart that I could hardly breathe.
For the most part, though, I was more relaxed and happy than I had ever been. What surprised and somewhat dismayed me was that the more comfortable and settled I became in my new life, the harder it was to keep up my mental wall. It seemed that it was impossible to relax one part of me without letting down all my guards. It was frustrating to hear so much more than I wanted to know, not to mention the constant base of chatter that filled my head whenever I was in school.
On the bright side, Nell’s open enmity toward me seemed to have settled into a seething hate. For the most part, she ignored me completely, as did the rest of her crowd. Occasionally she would throw a stinging barb my way, but if I failed to rise to the bait, she let it go at that. More troubling was that my lowered mental block meant that I could hear and feel even more of Nell’s dark feelings. I concentrated harder on maintaining that wall in Chemistry class than at any other time; no one besides Ms. Lacusta talked to me in that class anyway, so I wasn’t missing anything by keeping my head down and my mind closed.
It was difficult to keep Nell out during History, since I really liked that class and its teacher, Mr. Frame. Most of the time she kept her thoughts down to a low roar, but because the subject matter obviously bored her—unlike Chemistry, I guessed—her mind was prone to wander more in this class. I did my best to stay out of its way as it did so.
English class was usually the high point of my academic day. Well, what wasn’t to like: there was assigned reading, which was cool, and the only numbers were on the pages of the books. I enjoyed Mrs. Cook, the English teacher. She was interesting and fair-minded. But on this particular day, English was slowly killing me through monotony.
We were reading Shakespeare, which is a totally worthwhile pursuit. But when you’ve read all the major plays on your own and done a lot of research on the meanings and nuances, class kind of drags as the teacher tries to explain these things to a roomful of students who couldn’t really care less.
The bright spot on the day’s horizon was a pop-quiz. That would take up at least fifteen minutes. As Mrs. Cook passed out the papers, Amber Cole slid breathlessly into the seat in front of me. She was flushed and nearly late, and not a little flustered. I empathized, because I hated to come into class late myself. But it seemed more than tardiness that was upsetting Amber. Her hands were shaking slightly, and waves of intense emotion were breaking off her and overwhelming me. I automatically took the quiz paper from Mrs. Cook and tried to block Amber. But she was emanating terror, and as I looked down at my paper, I heard her as clearly as if she were shouting: What have I gotten into? What am I going to do? She says it’ll be all right… but… what do they want from me? I don’t know… should I go with them? Trust them? All these years of her torturing me… why should I believe her now? But she changed… she said she changed… I’m so scared.
I glanced at Amber as subtly as I could. She was bent over her own page, nervously drumming the eraser of her pencil on the desk. Her body language bore out what I was hearing. And what I felt from her was nearly suffocating me.
I redoubled my efforts to tune her out and focus on the quiz. Thank heavens Julius Caesar was a play I knew so well. Mrs. Cook’s quizzes were simple and predictable: ten short answer content questions and one brief essay question to test our ability to interpret the work. I flew through the first ten, wrote a fairly long paragraph for the last question and turned in my paper up front. Mrs. Cook smiled appreciatively at me and glanced at the clock.
“Five minutes, everyone,” she announced. There were some muffled groans and muttered curses. I took my seat and tried not to stare at Amber for the rest of the class. At least it distracted me from the boredom that was English class right now.
I remembered Amber’s reaction to me during my first few days at King. She wasn’t exactly friendly. I hadn’t thought too much of it at the time, absorbed as I was in getting to know Michael. But now I considered her. We only had the one class together, but I saw her here and there throughout the day. I tried to remember if I ever saw her with other girls, with a special boy, but nothing came to mind. I knew that Anne had mentioned Nell’s long-time abuse of Amber in earlier days, and I wondered if that had anything to do with whatever was going on today.
I was glad when the bell rang, meaning it was lunchtime for me. Michael and I had fallen into a routine: he always made it to the cafeteria ahead of me because he had a free period for independent study preceding lunch. He chose our food, and I struggled to eat even a portion of what he got. Usually we sat at the table inside with his friends, which I enjoyed, since it gave me a chance to visit with Anne. But sometimes, on particularly pretty days, he would find a table outside for just the two of us.
Today seemed to be one of the outside days. I scanned the lunchroom for Michael, giving a brief wave to our normal lunch table. I didn’t see Michael, but I did see Amber. She had beaten me to the lunchroom and was sitting with Nell Massler and her group.
I tried not to gape at that sight as I pushed out
through the swinging door. Michael was sitting at our usual outdoor table with two trays. Most of the other tables were empty.
“Is this seat taken?” I asked as I swung my leg over the bench. His smile was slow but sweet.
“I was saving it just for you. As you can see, I had to fight off the throngs.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty exclusive out here, isn’t it?”
He grabbed a crouton off the salad on one of the trays and crunched on it. “Do you mind eating out here? It’s quieter. But I guess it’s kind of hot, too, so if you’d rather be inside…”
I shook my head. “No. Quiet is good. I wanted to talk about something kind of private anyway.”
Michael raised his eyebrows and looked at me speculatively. “Good private or bad private?”
I gave him a light punch on the shoulder, and he caught my hand and held it. Happiness flooded my heart. I’d have to eat one-handed, but I was willing to make that sacrifice.
“I just have some questions for you. And I want to tell you something.”
“Okay, fire away.”
“How well do you know Amber Cole?”
Michael was quiet for moment, thinking. “I don’t know her really well, but we’ve gone to school together all the way through. She’s a year behind me, but I remember a little. She’s always been pretty quiet. I think she had a few friends when we were in elementary school, but mostly they drifted into other groups when we hit junior high. I think she’s alone a lot. Seems like a nice girl. No boyfriend I know about. Not one of the high achievers or a loser either. Just in the middle.”
“Hmm,” I responded. “So would it be kind of odd that she’s sitting with Nell and her crew today?”
Michael made a face. “Yeah, that whole thing is odd. I told you before Nell wasn’t the nicest kid when we were in grade school. Amber was one of her targets. She used to bait her, tease her. But I’ve seen Amber hanging out with Nell this year. It would be pretty out of character for Nell to change her mind about someone, but I guess it happens.”
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