“Ready,” he said when I'd caught him staring at me.
Startled, I said, “Sure.” And I quickly replied to Madison that I would talk to her later. I wasn’t exactly sure of what I was ready for especially because I was doing my best to block any thoughts of Ethan from my mind that weren’t appropriate.
Following him back a familiar path, we ended up in the “darkroom”. Of course, all lights were on, and I was shocked by what I saw. Hanging from the clothesline were several pictures of me. My jaw, loose from being surprised to see myself, didn’t allow me to interpret the noise I heard in the background. Click.
Each picture showed me in a different light. My attempt at charades with my crazy impression seemed pure and honest. Click. I paused at one where my hair looked like it was spinning in the air as he caught me mid twirl. Click. His pictures of me made me look almost beautiful. Click. Once I finished looking at the last one, I turned to him to see my camera aimed at me. Click.
Sighing, I put a hand up and out, and he lowered his arms to look at me. “What is all this?” I asked, unsure how I felt about seeing only pictures he’d taken of me hanging from the clips.
Letting the camera fall to hang by the strap around his neck, he reached over and handed me a stack of more 8-by-11 pictures. He hadn’t spoken. My attention, however, was now riveted to what lay in my hand. Looking at each one, I was brought back to the moment I’d snapped the shot. I had no idea what I was doing, but I’d caught some great pictures. The guys playing football, the crying kid over the spilled ice cream, and Ethan. I paused.
The first picture he hadn’t known I’d been looking. His expression was haunted, looking out into the space in front of him. The second, he was on to me. His mouth was quirked in a half -smile amused at me. In the third and final one, he was all too close, making that first contact with me. Looking at it, it seemed like so long ago.
Moving on, the picture leaped from my hand with the flight of the butterflies we’d disturbed. I was in awe of all the different colors, and how I’d taken such an amazing shot.
“You have a good eye,” he said, sounding serious.
Looking up at him, I said, “I can’t believe I did this.”
“You’re a natural,” he said, I waited for the punch line, but there wasn’t any.
I finished with the pictures and looked up at him. “So why are those hanging there?”
Grinning, he said, “I’m hanging them out to dry.” Rolling my eyes, he added, “Let’s head out back while we wait?”
“Sure,” I said, but he was already making a path out the door.
Stopping, he grabbed two bottles of water before we made our way out to the deck. When I started to grab a chair, he kept moving. We headed out further and ended up in two lounge chairs by his pool.
“When you finish the roll,” he said, handing me the camera, “We can start your first lesson in developing.”
Taking it, I looped it over my head and aimed it like him. Putting up a hand, I said not taking my eyes from the viewfinder, “So you don’t like it when it’s pointing at you.”
Giving me a look that said he knew just how much the camera loved him, he smiled, and I took advantage. After a few more clicks, he stood and pulled his shirt over his head, giving me a smug look. “Might as well get the whole deal,” he said too dangerously for my taste. Was he flirting with me? The danger of hope started to overwhelm but then guilt steps in. Allie's boyfriend, I remind myself.
That stood as a reminder of what Allie told me. He was now dating his missing girlfriend’s best friend. Did that make him a insensitive jerk? Still, here I was actually enjoying his company. What did that make me?
Putting the camera down, I wouldn’t give his ego any more ammunition. It was bad enough I was impressed with his chiseled torso. His body was the perfect example of the male specimen. And he didn’t need to know how much I thought so.
“Want to go for a swim?” he asked, letting his sweatpants fall to his feet. I think my heart dropped out of my chest. I hadn’t expected him to do that. Shocked, I closed my eyes. What was I, a kid? I opened them, but I didn’t focus on him for a second. My eye instead caught a flash of fabric as he kicked the offending garment to the side, and something else caught my attention.
Pointing, sounding horrified I asked, “What is that?” even though I was sure I knew what it was.
Looking down, he sat, quickly scrubbing his hands on his face. “Shit, I forgot about that,” he said, more to himself and sitting back down. “I’ve lived with it so long, I hardly remember its there.”
Saying nothing, I waited for him to continue. My mind raced in the meantime. The LoJack type device around his ankle said many things, and none were good. First it said he’d committed a crime and had been found guilty. Second said, it suggested he was dangerous enough that the police felt the need to monitor his movements by GPS courtesy of the irremovable device around his ankle. Third, he was dangerous. Silently, I thanked the heavens, I’d driven myself over here.
“What, the princess thinks she’s hanging out with a frog?” he asked, sounding resentful.
Confused by this turn of events, I lashed out with a quick tongue, one that was honed from years by a brother who liked to torment me. “What, once that is removed, you’ll be a prince again?”
“I was never a prince. Just a wolf in prince clothing,” he said, stoically.
“And now you’ve led the lamb to slaughter,” I said, pensively. Though not really believing he was going to kill me. Not letting myself that is.
Huffing out a laugh, he said, “I didn’t lead you anywhere. You came on your own.”
Knowing he was right, I said nothing for a moment. “How’d you get it?” I asked, quietly.
“Maybe you should have asked that before you became judge and jury and convicted me,” he getting to his feet.
Pointing out that he had obviously already been convicted seemed in poor taste, so I watched him start to head back the house. Getting up, I trailed after him. “Wait,” I said, feeling remorseful.
On a dime, he turned. “Look, I have somewhere to be.”
Dismissed, I thought. “Ethan.”
“Don’t waste pretty little words on me, princess. Go back to your castle and live in your fairytale world where everything is a black-and-white as you make it seem.”
“I,” I tried to say.
“If you continue to stay here, I’ll have to prove what a big bad wolf I am.” His eyes stripped me naked. I was for sure he could see right through my clothes. “Run to daddy. That’s what you want.”
My eyes stung. I was pissed but felt like there was nothing for me to say. He’d come back with a quick retort, and it would be never ending. So I opened the back door and raced through the halls to the front. Never did I look back as I exited the house. I just got in my car and headed home.
Chapter Twelve
The week went by with no further contact from either Allie or Ethan. The first night I did some research on the web to find the story about Carly James. She’d been in a few movies and was supposed to have been the next “it” girl.
What Ethan hadn’t told me was in black-and-white. According to the newspaper article online, Ethan, Carly, Allie, and a boy named Sam were coming home from a party one evening. Ethan had been intoxicated over the legal limit, and he was a minor. He’d wrapped his car around a tree. Everyone was fine with only minor injuries of cuts and bruises except Carly went missing. Ethan, Allie, and Sam had corroborated stories that Carly had just “walked” off into the night and never returned. They claimed they tried to find her, but found nothing. Police searched for days and collected some evidence that she had in fact been in the woods.
Further research gave an account of a trial. The reports claim that the police thought Ethan was a person of interest. He’d been dating Carly, but party-goers said that they’d been fighting that night. And she’d broken up with him. All had been hearsay and not enough for a grand jury indictment.
The article also went on to talk more about Ethan. The headline read “Prodigal Son finds himself In Hot Water like his Father.” It turned out that Ethan’s Dad killed himself in his home after an indictment for the white-collar crimes of embezzlement, fraud, tax evasion, and other various charges. Ethan was reportedly in the room when it happened. The article further showed Ethan to be a troubled teen who used drugs and alcohol quoted by an unnamed teacher from his previous school.
Unable to convict him on murder because of a lack of evidence and a body, prosecutors charged him instead with reckless driving and intoxication. Normally, teen drinking and driving meant an automatic suspended license, which he had endured for the first six months. But then the sentence was cut to allow him to drive because of extenuating circumstances. I bet it had something to do with his mother not being in town. As a compromise, he was given the ankle bracelet and couldn’t leave the state of Maryland.
With nothing more to do than to tell my friends the tale with their sympathy, I called Madison.
“Holy Crap, Batgirl,” Madison said. “Good thing you got out of there. He sounds like the Riddler.”
“Riddler,” I questioned.
“Yes, because he’s got you all confused and not in a good way.”
I wasn’t convinced. “I don’t know. As weirded out as I was, I don’t get that vibe from him.”
“Hun, he’s wearing an ankle bracelet. What more proof do you want?”
“Madison, if you saw his house,” I shook my head, but she couldn’t see my face. “He watched his father die. That’s a lot to handle.”
“Facetime,” she said, immediately ending the call. Hanging up, I waited for my phone to ring again. When it did, I answered, video clicking on. “Look me in the eye and tell me this guy is worth it. He’s got a girlfriend. So why take the chance that he’s not some psycho.”
She was right about one thing, he was taken. I thought about Allie saying he needed friends. Now I understood. But I’d messed up. I’d judged him without knowing the facts. I just couldn’t believe he’d murdered his girlfriend. “You’re right,” I said to her defeatedly. If I saw him again, I’d apologize for not at least giving him a chance to explain.
After hanging up with Madison, I picked up my summer reading first. Then, I helped box things for my Dad in the attic while he was at work. Madison’s Mom ran an in-home daycare, and Madison helped during the week. And she had the job at the movies evenings and weekends. Bradley worked at his Dad’s office during the week. I didn’t get to see them much. And so for the week I was left to the attic, summer reading and my own devices. I was so bored, I even decided to help my Mom at the bistro. And it was fine I guess, occupying my mind with these mundane tasks. It wasn’t until Saturday my shift collided with Allie again.
During the first lull, Allie turned to me with a serious face and said, “You know don’t you.” I study her face for a second but not having the heart to lie, I nodded.
"About the accident?" I mumble, looking down at the register.
Glossing over that fact and right into the heart of it, she asked, “You don’t think he was responsible for Carly, do you?” I shook my head no, and said the word because that is what I wanted to believe that he was innocent, a good guy. “Good, because he’s been through enough as it is. He already has enough guilt.”
Feeling compassion for the boy that I feared, maybe just a little, I said, “What has he been through? What is he guilty of?”
Exhaling a breath, she looked away before saying, “To answer your second question, he blames himself for Carly.”
“Why?” I asked. If he says he didn’t do anything, why does he blame himself?
She stilled and looked at me. “He thinks that if he hadn’t had the accident, Carly would have never walked in those woods and not come out.” And then I understood. I would have felt the same. “As far as your first question, about what he has been through, his Dad killed himself.” I knew that from the article. “He did it in the house.”
I forced on a smile for the customer until they walk into the exhibit. After a long moment of silence, where I felt her eyes on me, I opened my mouth. “Do they know why?” I asked, even though I’d read the article. Allie was a friend. She would have an inside view. And I doubted Ethan would talk to me.
“Unfortunately. His Dad was an investment banker who was under investigation by the FBI, SEC, and other branches of government I can’t remember.”
“Oh,” I said before cursing.
“Yeah, he acts like everything is okay,” she said, sounding genuine in her concern for him. "He's not. No sane person would be." She finishes softly. He’d seemed to have lost it all, his Dad, his Mom, and his girlfriend. If he wasn’t guilty, I’d sure made him feel that way by jumping to conclusions. There still was one question I needed an answer to. “So how did you and Ethan end up together?” That was the million dollar question.
Sighing heavily again, she said, “You mean because he was dating my best friend?” Yeah, I wanted to say, but bobbed my head slightly instead. “It wasn’t like we set out to hook up. I was dating Sam, and I think he was all messed up over what happened. He hadn’t been drinking, but let Ethan take the wheel. He didn’t get punished with community service like I did.” She said gesturing around us. Well, that answered one question. She was working here as a volunteer because of her enforced community service. She continued, unaware of my thoughts, “But the ridicule sent him and his family packing for the Midwest to stay with relatives. That left Ethan and me. We hung out more because everybody was looking at us weird. Him, more than me. As the days passed and no word of Carly, things just kind of happened.”
We got an influx of customers and didn’t have a chance to speak much more on the subject. When Ethan came, my shift was over. He didn’t speak to me, but moved like a specter through the place swift, silent, and every bit captivating. I cowardly didn’t speak to him either. I didn’t know what to say, nothing I really felt I could say short of apologizing. In which case after everything he'd been through, he'd probably gotten sick of people saying 'sorry'.
There was one thing I gleaned from the information I gathered. I could understand why Ethan began drinking too much or at all or even why he might have used drugs if that were true. I blamed his mother. How could she leave her son in the first place? She’d taken everything and left him in an empty house that could only serve as a reminder for all he’d lost.
For the next week, everything was again radio silence from the two. Allie was in Hollywood filming and Ethan was obviously done with me. I hoped maybe Allie would say something to him, and we’d work it out. Instead, I feared that I’d blown my potential friendships out of blind fear. I’d passed judgment before I knew all the facts. A part of me blamed Ethan for not saying he wasn’t guilty. The other rational part now knew why. He still felt guilty because of the circumstances.
The next weekend at work, Allie acted normal. She filled me in on her week on the West Coast after my gentle prodding. I had a healthy curiosity for what it was like to be a celebrity. She didn’t make it sound all that fun.
Somehow, the unthinkable happened. The paparazzi found her out. Near the end of my shift, a crowd of photo-snapping panthers came out in droves. They leaped, climbed, and did everything possible to get her picture with no care for her privacy.
Having no choice, Allie looked at me like a lost puppy. “I think I better go,” she said.
“Yeah, bye,” I added quietly.
She bowed out, leaving me to cover the rest of her shift. I had no idea how she eventually got out. I imagined Ethan or someone came to her rescue. Maybe she had some sort of disguise. But with only me handling the booth, I had no way of knowing other than she’d left through one of the back exits and hadn’t come around front. The crowd brought curious people, thinking the exhibit was the target. Ticket sales that day were through the roof.
After a very long day, with the Paparazzi trying to wheedle Allie's wherebouts from me, I
made my way out the door. Though before leaving, I checked the schedule. Ethan wasn’t scheduled for the next two weekends. His name was listed for shifts during the week. Had he changed schedules to avoid me? The thought had my gut twisting. But I don't say anything. I didn’t call him. I’d felt like such a coward. The weeks just passed. Allie didn’t come either the next weekend, not that I expected her to, the paparazzi was still hanging about. I ended up on the all-day shifts for the next couple of weekends until school started.
Finally, two weekends before school started, I did end up calling Allie. I was rewarded with a recording that said that her number was out of service. Fear caught me. Did she think I ratted her out? Had she changed her number because she didn’t want to talk to me? I didn’t want to think that. Was her phone number compromised to the paparazzi? And did she think I gave it out to them? It wasn’t like I’d ever called her until now. I let it go and ended up telling Madison everything as I'd always seem to do recently.
“Wow, Jess, that’s crazy,” she said.
“I know. I couldn’t tell you. I’m sorry,” I admitted.
There was a brief pause. “I’m a little pissed you didn’t trust me and tell me,” she said sounding ticked off. After a long pause, she added, “But, hey, I forgive you.”
Trust. There was another secret I was keeping from her. From what I gathered all our conversations lately, Bradley still hadn’t told her. I let it go. “Do you think she’s mad at me?”
“I doubt it,” Madison replied. “Maybe she figured that if someone found out about where she worked, they could have gotten her cell information. Maybe someone called her?
That sounded plausible. After we hung up, I lay in bed wondering if I should just call Ethan and ask.
Chapter Thirteen
Even though my brief friendship with Allie felt real, cowardly I didn’t call Ethan. After a run on Wednesday morning, I found a large envelope hanging out of my mailbox. Inside were all the pictures he’d developed for me. All of them. For a second, I thought maybe he’d been following me. I mean, he had to know that I’d come from my run and find them. But then coming to my senses, it wouldn’t have mattered who gotten them. My family would have known it was for me. The outside of the envelope said in beautiful script, Jess.
Through The Lens Page 7
