Contents
Copyright Information
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
PEARL
Copyright © 2012 by C.E. Weisman
Cover design and ebook formatting by Indie Author Services
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from the author.
PROLOGUE
A crash blasted against her wall, ripping Pearl from her innocent dreams. She had been a princess in a faraway kingdom when a jolt like a thousand bolts of electricity forced her eyes wide open. Her breath quickened as her eyes searched through the dark of her bedroom while the rumble of commotion increased. Her fingers wrapped tightly around her snuggle bear as she sank deeper in her bed. Another smash, like a blast of glass shattering, landed against the wall attached to her parents’ room. She began to tremble, wondering what could possibly be wrong. Was there an intruder? Were her parents safe? Was she safe?
Raging voices filled the darkness of her room. Two distinct voices were engaged in a quick-paced match. To Pearl it sounded like one long, piercing scream. She pulled the covers over her head, sinking her tear-streaked face into her bear. She whimpered for her mother as she tightened the pillow over her ears to drown out the exploding roars of her father.
Through this distress, she heard a soft, faint crying. She cracked open her door and saw no light down the hall, save for the soft glimmer around her parents’ closed bedroom door. The screams were unbearable. She covered her ears with her hands. Her My Little Pony nightgown swished against her skin as she ran to the room across the hall.
There in his small crib lay her weeping brother, his puffy cheeks wet from fallen tears. His eyes met hers, and instantly he softened his cries to a whimper. She hushed him as she stroked his soft hair, humming quietly a song her mother often sang. He watched her, his eyes lowering, heavy with sleep. She continued to hum through the screams and the shattering objects as they hit her parents’ door. She sang so that he only heard her voice and not the yells coming down the hall. She did it to calm him, and herself. By the time the enraged voices turned to tight rasps, her heartbeat had slowed to its normal pace.
When her brother was back to his peaceful sleep, she sneaked out of his room and back to her own. She had just closed her door when her parents’ door flew open.
“Please, I’m begging you,” her father’s voice barreled down the hall. “Don’t go. We can work it out.”
There was an eerie silence before an echo of padded feet scurried on the wooden hall floor and down the flight of steps.
She pressed her ear against the wall and listened to the creak of the front door as it opened. She rushed to her window just in time to see a flurry of white race across the open dirt field in front of the house. Her mother’s long blonde hair flowed behind her as she ran in her pale nightgown.
The girl pressed her small hand against the window screen and propped it open to catch a cool breeze on this stifling summer night. She opened her mouth to speak and thought she heard her gentle voice beg her mother to stop.
But her mother didn’t turn around.
Instead, she kept running. Running like she couldn’t wait to disappear. Running like she was fleeing to break free. Running like she needed to escape.
The girl stood there, glued to the window, one hand on the screen, one safely in the grasp of her snuggle bear. She watched as her mother found her way to the bottom of the field. The girl waited for her mother to take one last look up at the house, to see her daughter standing through the glass. She held her breath and silently begged her mother to turn around. Please turn around. Come home. Or, if her mother’s plan was not to return, then she wished to follow her to wherever she was going.
Pearl’s heart began to pound as the distance between them increased. She watched her mother fade into the dark. Even the white of her dress now became a blur. The girl closed her eyes to fight the tears that were leaking from her closed eyelids. She didn’t want to see her mother take the last turn around the bend, signifying she was gone for good.
She opened her eyes wide to pierce through the dark of the night. Not even the moon shone over the rocky terrain. She searched for her mother but saw nothing. She choked back a sob just as a high-pitched squeal reverberated through the silent night. The girl dropped her bear and covered her ears. Though she could not see, could not understand what this howl in the night was, she felt it deep in her bones. The sound took the breath from her lips as she slumped to her knees and sank to the floor. She gasped for air as the world closed in around her and blackness became the new light.
CHAPTER 1
Pearl Waters took a drag of her cigarette, counting the seconds it took for the toxins to fill her lungs. One…two…three…. By the time she got to four she slowly exhaled, releasing her anxiety with the smoke rings. Damn her shaky fingers. They trembled at her lips. Her body shuddered as though she was chilled. But cold was the last thing she felt on that July night in the foothills of Tucson, Arizona.
She checked her watch. Eleven fifty-three. She took another drag and felt the burn in her chest as her body pushed beyond its comfort for an excruciating six seconds. Her lungs gave out, sending her into a raging coughing fit. Bending over, holding her arms to her face, she tried her best to not make a sound. She had been so good, so quiet, and now the whole plan would be ruined. She would have to explain why she was standing under the awning, at this hour, hiding in the shadows.
She stubbed out her cigarette, wrapping it tight in a tissue. No one but Roy knew she smoked. It was Roy who taught her how. Told her she would look sexy, older, and more mature if she did. She coughed again and gasped for breath, hoping this was not the moment Roy chose to pull up.
She listened intently for her father’s footsteps, sure they were bound to come. Had she left the back door unlocked? Would she have time to make a quick dash back in before he saw her? She counted the seconds, not meaning to hold her breath as she waited. When she knew she was safe, she closed her eyes, once again doing her best to calm her nerves. She took a step, catching her reflection in the garage window. The demure image staring back at her was not the same girl she felt like on the inside.
Pearl. It was all in a name. As if by fate, the name mimicked her life to be everything a pearl represented. She radiated with smooth silky skin and iridescent hair so cool and light it shimmered with hues of baby pinks and soft violets. A treasured jewel, her father called her, with a beauty most would envy. She looked herself over, scrutinizing every last detail, from her pale skin to large fish-like lips. She did not live up to her name. Not in beauty, nor in magnetism. She was the pearl rejected from the pile, tarnishe
d and flawed. A pearl held captive in its shell, unable to be released, sinking to the bottom of the ocean.
She turned away from the vision. She would break this curse. Tonight was the night she was to be set free. She checked her watch again. Eleven fifty-seven. In three minutes she would be eighteen. In three minutes she could begin the next chapter of her life. She could learn to be young again. Come and go as she pleased.
She no longer had to answer to anyone.
And with that last thought the apprehension subsided, and a small smile spread across her full, pink-stained lips.
Was this how her mother felt eight years ago as she ran across the dirt field, on a night very similar to this night? Pearl had stood numbly by the window and watched as her mother fled to start a new life without her. It was the last time she saw her mother, and the last day of her childhood.
If Pearl had known her mother was to leave for good, she would have cried out for her to stop. She would have run down the road after her, begging her not to leave her with so much responsibility. She was too young to care for her little brother, Billy, to become the woman of the house, and to care for her depressed father. She was only ten—how was she expected to become an adult overnight?
She kicked at the dirt, cursing for comparing herself to her mother. Yes, she was leaving as well, but, unlike her mother, she would be back. She was not abandoning her family. She was not running off to become a singer like her mother had. Her father called her mother a gypsy of the land. She was famous, her father had told her, and Pearl had a copy of the CD to prove it. She had listened to her mother’s voice croon over her stereo for years. She paid attention to her words, wondered if her mother was speaking directly to her. She felt tormented by the songs, which gave her such a thrill to hear her mother’s voice, and yet knowing her mother was out there, continually rejecting her.
No, she was not like her mother. She would be back. She just needed time to drop the weight of obligation and feel the wings of freedom.
She bit nervously on her red chipped fingernails. She looked at her watch again, the hand ticking closer and closer to midnight. She sneaked back into the stucco house, leaving the back door slightly propped open next to her luggage. She entered her bedroom for one last time. Besides a few empty hangers in the closet, it looked as if she hadn’t touched a thing. Along with clothes, she took a few photographs, the necklace her father gave her when she turned sixteen, and the drawing from a five-year-old Billy of the two of them holding hands under a rainbow. She wanted to stuff her whole room into one bag but only had space for what was necessary in her small suitcase. Huddled next to the same window from which she had watched her mother escape, she waited for the signal that would her tell her it was her turn.
Though the lights were off, she could see the outline of Roy’s white pickup truck. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, held it, and counted to ten. This was it. The moment she had been waiting for, and there was no time to waste. She had to hurry. With shaking hands she signaled with her flashlight to let him know it was clear. Tears of exhilaration and heartbreak slipped down her cheeks as she softly caressed the two envelopes she would leave on her bed, one for her father and one for Billy. She took a swift look around her room, hoping she hadn’t forgotten anything. She slipped softly into her brother’s room, stepping carefully over the monster trucks left scattered on the floor. She watched his face as he peacefully smiled through his dreams. Though he was ten, the same age she had been when their mother left, he was still just a baby to her.
And she was the only mother he had ever known.
She tried to forget about the movie she had promised him, or the gift he had picked out for her that he couldn’t wait for her to open. She laid a soft kiss on his cheek and through a whisper promised she would be back, and that one day when he was older, he would understand. Then she silently left his room, and headed to the back door to her bag and to the rocky dirt field she had sworn she would never cross.
Pearl ran swiftly, praying that this would work, and, in the back of her mind, praying that she would get caught. The field seemed never-ending. How long had she watched her mother run? Seconds, possibly minutes, which turned into years?
Roy met her where the dirt turned to pavement, grabbing her suitcase and tossing it into the back of the truck. They didn’t say a word, yet the smile on his face helped give her the motivation she needed. She fell into the truck, her gaze catching the numbers on the radio clock: 12:02.
So, she thought, this is what freedom feels like.
With one last glance at the only home she had ever known, she said goodbye to her youth. Roy jumped in next to her, giving her a squeeze on the hand that told her he promised to take care of her. This was where life began.
She prayed she was ready.
They drove five hours straight without stopping. The farther they drove, the more she began to relax. Roy kept his hand solid on his thigh, every once in a while leaning over to give her leg a squeeze to see if she was still awake.
“Don’t fall asleep on me, baby,” he would say. “Gotta keep me awake, keep me on the road.”
She couldn’t fall asleep if she tried. Her stomach rumbled, and her bladder ached. And yet she was too afraid to pull over, as if stopping the truck would break the trance. They had to keep driving. There had to be enough distance between them and Arizona that she couldn’t ask Roy to turn around.
“Baby, light us another smoke,” Roy said, while giving her leg a good shake.
She put the cigarette to her lips and fired up the end. He winked when she passed it over.
There was no denying that Roy Blackwood was handsome. Pearl had no idea how she managed to steal his heart when he constantly told her of the women who turned heads at him. His broad shoulders hung loosely from holding the wheel for so long. He wore a faded denim shirt with rolled cuffed sleeves, leaving the top two buttons undone to expose a hint of his muscular chest. His strong, sturdy legs stretched out under the tight faded Levi’s he always wore. His skin was dry but golden from working construction in the sun. His eyes were cool and black, matching the hair that fell over his ears. When he smiled, the coal in his eyes turned to a milky chocolate, and that was what she lived for. He was five years older, with a lifetime of experience ahead of her. She craved to suck up his knowledge of life and be as well-traveled as he was.
She relaxed into a smile, lounging back while watching the cars drive by, fascinated by the different license plates. She imagined their own journeys, heading to new destinations. Maybe even some would be heading to Oregon as well.
“Look, Roy!” Pearl exclaimed, sitting tall in her seat. “They’re from New York! All the way from New York!”
“Hmm,” Roy said, giving a short glance in the direction she was pointing.
“I wonder where they’re going,” she said. “Who would want to leave a place like New York?”
“Pearl, don’t be ridiculous,” Roy grunted.
She sat quietly fantasizing about where she and Roy would end up. They were driving to the West Coast, to the state of Oregon, but she really didn’t know exactly where it was located on the map. Roy told her it was next to California. That was all she needed to hear. She had seen many movies about California, and if Oregon was anything like that, she would never want to leave. She told Roy she wanted to go to the beach, to Disneyland, Hollywood, and see palm trees. Roy would only laugh.
Another hour passed, and Pearl’s legs tingled with numbness. She fidgeted on the worn leather seat, trying to get comfortable, shifting her body to rest her head on the window. The sun was coming up, making its way through the clouds. Her father would be awake, possibly reading the morning paper with a hot bowl of oatmeal. How long until he noticed she was gone? Had he already checked on her? Would it be noon before he realized she had not come down for breakfast? He’d fume in a mad rage that she had stayed out all night, breaking her ten o’clock curfew—which would no longer exist when she turned eighteen. Inevitably he w
ould assume she was with Roy. He’d never liked Roy, which Pearl didn’t understand. Her father didn’t even know Roy well, so how could he despise him? But Jack Waters prided himself on being a good judge of character. And he stated that if a man can’t even walk you to your door at night, or have dinner with your family, maybe he ain’t worth knowing.
If he could only see them now, see the smile on Roy’s face when he looked at her, the softness of his hand as he played with her hair.
“We are in for a real adventure, baby. You’ll see. Now we can do things our way.” His fingers trailed down her exposed arm, tugging at the strap of her sundress.
“No more curfews or people telling us when we can and can’t see each other.” She smiled, enjoying the tender touch of his fingers. “Now we don’t have to pretend to go out for ice cream when we really just parked and fooled around.”
Roy laughed. “I still took you to ice cream.”
“I want real dates,” Pearl continued. “I want nights that you don’t have to leave me at ten to go hang out with friends. I want to know the people in your life, and…”
“Okay,” Roy said, dropping his hand from her arm. “Let’s not get too carried away. We’ll be living together. I think that’s a start.”
Pearl grinned. Her father had Roy all wrong. And if he could have only taken the time to see that, he would be happy for her. Maybe then she could have told him her plans, rather than just leaving behind a letter.
Roy lit another smoke from the butt of his still-burning cigarette while singing along to Bob Dylan. She sang the words in her head, knowing for the first time that she too was a rolling stone.
“Hey, baby,” he finally said, “how ’bout we stop and get some pancakes?”
She shrugged. She had told him how she couldn’t eat pancakes. It was the only meal her mother knew how to make just right. Pearl had not touched pancakes in years.
Pearl Page 1
