Not Alone

by Frederic Martin

  Blue went immediately to her bench to read or draw or spy or all of the above, and Sam and Rose started playing basketball with Wu and Will. Sam started out with enthusiasm, but without Nate there as his cheerleader, he quickly lost momentum. Rose was impossible—she clearly did not want to be doing this and she showed no effort at all. Wu and Will were exchanging glances of exasperation and Will was beginning to think this was going to turn into a long afternoon. Then all of a sudden he heard a vox. “Rosie! Rosie, I’m open, throw the ball to me!” And there was Blue, on the court, behind Wu.

  Will was shocked, and so was Rose, but a big smile appeared on Rose’s face, and she chucked the ball as best she could towards Blue. Blue was lightning quick and dashed around Wu, who was caught completely off guard. She snapped up the ball, dribbled, and then passed it to a grinning Sam, who gave it one of his patented best-effort shots at the basket. It totally missed, but the game had turned around. It was now three on two, and Rose finally showed some interest in the game. It turned into another crazy but fun game which wound up with new rules—if any of the little kids even touched the basket or net with the ball, they got two points. The big boys had to shoot outside the line and it only counted two points. In the end, the big boys still won with 22 points but the little kids had 20 points and were ecstatic. It was clear, however, that the little guys only had one game in them. Blue, characteristically, was done when she was done, and Rose and Sam lost interest, but on their way to the swings chattered excitedly about each of their baskets.

  Blue went to the swings also but was lost in her own world. Will and Wu found a couple of other boys and started a new game. They stopped from time to time to check on Sam, Rose, and Blue. Rose went over to some girls she knew from school. Pretty soon it was time to head back, so Wu and Will went to collect their “charges.” Blue was back at her bench bent over her drawing pad, and Sam and Rose were with her watching her intently. Wu and Will looked over their shoulders.

  Blue was making a drawing of two creatures that were clearly caricatures of Sam and Rose. The two creatures were on a basketball court, and the Sam-creature was throwing a pumpkin toward the basket.

  “Whoa, Blue, that is really cool!” said Wu. “I had no idea your drawings were that good. That really looks like Sam and Rose!”

  Blue kept on drawing intently but said, “Thanks, Wu.” Will was surprised because he thought that Wu would have seen some of Blue’s drawings by now since they lived in the same house.

  Sam was very excited. “Yeah, and look how realistic the pumpkin looks. And the fur! It looks a lot like the characters from ‘Realms of Zokar!’ Blue, do you think you could draw my avatar sometime? That would be sooo cool! Please?” begged Sam.

  Blue smiled her very slight and crooked smile and said, “Maybe.” Will thought he caught a tiny sparkle in her eyes.

  “Sam would really like that. Me too,” voxed Rose to Blue. Blue looked at Rose and her face became very hard to read. She didn’t reply to Rose, instead, she appeared to take in a long slow breath and then let it out just as slowly.

  The moment was interrupted, as Wu spoke up. “Well, that will have to wait 'cuz we have to get home and help with dinner prep, so pack up your stuff.” And then he leaned over to Blue and said in a low voice, “Very cool.”

  Dinner at the O’Days was a fairly raucous affair. Pa Bill encouraged conversation during the meal and could keep things going with interesting stories of his own. Ma Beth was the quiet one at dinner. The kids were more than willing to share their adventures.

  Sam was enthusiastic describing the basketball game with its own special rules. Pa Bill exclaimed “Ingenious! Adaptability is a very fine quality!” And he gave an appreciative nod toward Will and Wu.

  Wu responded, “Well it all started because Blue jumped in and got things going the right direction.”

  Blue didn’t look up from her plate but put on her half smile.

  Rose spoke up and said, “Yeah, she snuck in behind Wu and then . . .”

  “Rose! Be careful! Don’t say vox!” Will gave Rose an intent look of warning. Blue froze, her fork halfway to her mouth.

  “. . . And then she . . . signaled to me . . . to throw her the ball! So I threw it to her . . .” “I wasn’t going to say ‘vox’!”

  “Passed it to her . . .” interrupted Will. “And now we’ll never know . . .”

  Rose stuck her tongue out at Will.“. . . passed it to her, and then she went right around Wu and passed it to Sam and Sam took a shot!” “Stop voxing!”

  “Well done, then, Blue!” Pa Bill responded. “Did Sam get a basket?”

  “You stop voxing!”

  “Not that time,” said Sam, “but then we changed the rules so it was easier for us to get baskets. It worked out really well!”

  “No, YOU stop voxing!”

  “Children!” Rose and Will glanced carefully at Blue in shock. She had a motherly scowl on her face.

  “Well that sounds like fun,” said Pa Bill. “I wish I could still move well enough to play basketball again.”

  Wu said, “You should come play sometime. We could make up some new rules.”

  “Thank you, Wu. You know I might just do that sometime,” replied Pa Bill.

  Will breathed a sigh of relief. They got through that without revealing anything. He was going to have to have a little talk with Rosie about being extra careful now that Blue was in the equation. It was easy enough between themselves to conceal their vox because they had years of practice, but they didn’t have much experience with an outsider.

  After dinner, Will and Rose were incorporated into the O’Day family drill. Rose and Sam cleared the table, Nate washed dishes, Will rinsed, and Wu dried and put them away since he knew where everything went. Ma Beth took care of all the other clean-up details. Blue had the night off. Apparently, Pa Bill never did dishes. “My job is to put food on the table,” he said. “Not clean it off.”

  “Hmph,” was Ma Beth’s reply to that.

  Nate was putting washed dishes in one basin of the sink. Will picked up a dish, rinsed it under clear hot water, and put it in the dish rack next to the sink where Wu would pick up a dish, dry it, and put it away. The three quietly went about their work, but after a few minutes, Wu said, “Guys, check this out.” He nodded his head through the broad entrance to the family room. In the corner, Blue was sitting in front of the computer that Sam used to play his RPG games. She was intently working on a drawing while glancing up at the screen, and Sam was jumping up and down. Sam was a very excitable guy, and he twitched and giggled, and then every now and then would point to something on the screen. Rose was excited, too, but much more reserved—at least outwardly. Inside she would make this interesting little chant that went something like this: “Eee eee eee ah eee ah eee ah, ooh aah aah eee eee ah oooh ah” which of course only Will, his family, and now Blue could enjoy.

  Blue had her crooked grin on, which meant that she was enjoying the appreciative audience of Rose and Sam.

  When they were finally finished with dishes, they went over to where Sam and Rose were admiring the finished work, which Blue had pulled out of her sketchbook. Sam was ecstatic. “This is soooo ridiculously cool, I can’t believe how cool this is, I can’t wait to show it to Chip and Merv and Tucker. Blue, you are a genius, you could make jillions doing this stuff!” He was on his back rocking back and forth with the drawing at arm’s length above him.

  “Well c’mon, Samster, let us look,” said Nate. Sam jumped up and held the drawing up to them. “Look at how she got everything—the Sword of Gilfarunda, the Crystal Pouch, the Fleet Boots, and the Star of Elikar!”

  “Whoa, look at that,” said Will, who didn’t know what the heck Sam was talking about but could clearly identify the items that he was referring to in the drawing. The drawing was skillfully done, with beautiful shading and shadows, and very realistic folds and texture in the clothing. There was even a sparkle in the eyes of Sam’s avatar.

  Nate said, “You are
going to blow everyone away in art class at school.”

  “Thanks,” said Blue with a little more emotion than she usually did.

  “Congrats, Sam, you should pin that up above your computer,” said Will.

  “I’m going to scan it and post it in my game. When I do, I bet everyone will want you to do their avatar, Blue,” said Sam.

  “Hmmm,” said Blue, and her face fell a little. “I only do this for family.” She gathered up her things and headed for the back stairway.

  “You could charge for them, I know lots of kids that would pay you. Really, you could get rich!” said Sam, but Blue was already heading up the stairway.

  Ma Beth said, “Money isn’t always what motivates people, sometimes it is just for the love of being creative.”

  Will watched Blue, thinking this was finally the opportunity to talk to her, but as he watched her go up the stairs, something told him he should not follow.

  Blue went up the stairs slowly, clutching her sketchbook to her chest. She was savoring a rare moment where it seemed like everything was in balance and she felt comfortable, safe, and relaxed. She was happy. Part of it was Sam’s reaction. It was so genuine and effusive, it was hard not to feel his joy. Part of it was the game in the park. It was the first time she felt like she had used her vox, for fun. At least the first time in a long, long time. And then there was dinner. Will and Rose bickered with their vox just like she and her sister had done long ago, and Blue bantered back—and she didn’t feel the dreaded panicky fear and anxiety swelling up.

  Since the moment she first had contact with Will, she had been tentative about voxing with him, but now she could tell, that page had turned. Instead of feeling tentative, she now suddenly felt like she couldn’t wait for an opportunity to talk to him. She stopped and turned around. Why not now?

  She stood there for a moment, about to step back down, but instead she sat down on the stairs and just listened to the sounds flowing through the hallways and rooms of the house—the chatter and laughter, the thumps and creaks and groans of the floors as feet moved across them, the night sounds outside the open windows. It was a healthy, living, and breathing home.

  “Hey Blue, c’mon down, we’re going to play Settlers of Catan,” came Sam’s voice.

  And at that moment, she knew what her next step was.

  14

  Not Alone

  It was a hot, humid night, and Will’s only window was as wide open as he could get it. He had stripped down to his boxers to get some relief from the heat, but sweat beaded up on his forehead anyway. He laid on top of his covers trying to find a comfortable position, but nothing worked. He was as restless as the warm breeze that was rustling through the bushes outside his window. It wasn’t the heat making him restless so much as what was bouncing around in his head. It was buzzing with what happened the night before at the O’Days. Blue’s drawings were amazing. Not just good. Amazing. Sam’s reaction was priceless. Sam loved stuff like that—people with animal traits, all that mythology and fantasy stuff. Will had to admit, it was pretty cool. But what he was really thinking about were the sketches she had shown only to him.

  After their game of Settlers of Catan (which Nate won, much to Rosie’s disappointment) Blue had taken Will aside into the front hallway and shown him drawings she had done of the two men in the park. She had made them into animals, but she had done more; she had drawn a sequence, like a page from a manga novel, showing what they were doing.

  She didn’t say anything, just showed the drawings to him. He looked at them admiringly, but then as soon as he figured out what they were doing, his jaw dropped.

  “You’re gaping,” she voxed.

  He snapped his mouth shut and looked at her with a creased brow. “Are these pictures supposed to mean . . .”

  “. . . that they’re dealing drugs. Yes.” That was all she said, and then she had to snap her book shut because the boys were coming out of the family room. She flashed one last vox, “We have to talk.”

  Will managed to reply, “Yeah, but when?” And that was it. The boys were in the room, and it was bedtime, and bedtime at the O’Day’s meant you went to your room. You could stay up late and read or write, but no TV or internet after 11 p.m. and no more social time—it was quiet time. Will hadn’t talked to her since. But at least she said what he felt: “We have to talk!”

  He couldn’t stop thinking about her drawings. If they really were doing drug deals in the park, he wondered how he had missed it. Of course, Blue was more or less on her own while they were playing basketball or frisbee or catch, even though she did continue to join in from time to time. When she did, she was pretty good, too, surprisingly good. She moved like lightning and was aggressive. But they could never get her to play for very long. When she was done, she was done. And then she would wander off on her own, and now Will knew where and why.

  Will thought it over. Drug dealers in Westbury? It didn’t seem possible, but maybe this is just how it starts; two innocent looking people just hanging out in the park. He knew kids at school that smoked pot and drank alcohol, but he couldn’t picture that together with “drug dealer.” He never thought very much about how they got their pot and booze. He had always figured “a friend of a friend of a friend.” Maybe that’s who those guys were, friends of friends. He knew he recognized the younger guy from school. A guy named Jack.

  Drug dealers. In the park. He just didn’t want to believe it. He sighed and stared at the shadowy blankness of his ceiling. The blades of the ceiling fan flitted across his vision, doing their best to push warm air down and around his exposed skin, cooling the spots where his sweat had dripped down and on to the bedspread. His eyes followed the blades as they went around and around and his eyelids grew heavier and heavier. Drugs, drawings, pigs, lizards – they all started dancing around in his head in a swirl, and they would have lulled him down into an uneasy dreamland except a gust of warm air from his window swept his hair across his face and tickled him back alert. God, he thought, I’m never going to get to sleep. He stared back up at the ceiling and tried to empty his mind. He listened to the night noises. The wind had picked up and made a rushing sound in the trees and there was a tapping on his windowsill. It could’ve been a branch from the bushes outside, but there was something oddly rhythmic about it. And it was accompanied by a chiss-like sound. It was like a squirrel was sitting on his windowsill tapping his claws and voxing, “cht, cht, cht . . .” He sat bolt upright. Squirrels didn’t vox. He looked at his window. It was a dark night, but something materialized while he stared and when he recognized what it was, he nearly jumped out of his skin. It was a face pressed against the screen.

  “Are you going to let me in?” came a wry vox from the window. “Or are you just going to sit there with your mouth open?”

  “Jesus, Blue!” Will hissed in a loud whisper. “What in hell are you doing here?” He realized he was sitting there half-naked and started frantically searching for his t-shirt.

  The dark head-shaped shadow in the screen tilted in disapproval. “Really? You want to let the whole world know I’m out here?”

  “NO! Well, maybe! Jesus! What were you expecting? You surprised the hell out of me!” His hand landed on his crumpled shirt and he seized it. “You shouldn’t be here! You could get us both in so much trouble!” He thrust his arms up through the shirt and heard a rip as he yanked it down over his head.

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” and she nodded at the window sill. “Are you going to let me in or not?”

  He hesitated. Letting a girl in his room at night through the window? A little voice in his head was saying “bad idea, Will!” but the voice seemed tiny against the regular rock band of other stuff going on inside him. His heart was beating hard, his eyes were still trying to make sense of the film noir scene in front of them, his brain was still making the transition from imaginary little animals dancing in his brain to a very real human standing outside his window.

  “Well, should I leave?” Blue ask
ed impatiently.

  The little voice inside his head reacted in panic, “Don’t you dare! nothing good will come of it!” Will hesitated, and then stepped over to the window.

  “No, no! I’ll let you in. Let’s just be careful and quiet.” He pulled at the catches on the screen and it popped out suddenly causing him to fall back onto his bed still holding the screen. Blue slipped lithely through the open window.

  “So this is your idea of being careful and quiet?”

  He gave her a dirty look and hoped she could see it through the dark. “You might find this shocking, but I am not used people showing up in my window in the middle of the night!”

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry I surprised you,” voxed Blue. “Sorta. Kinda. Well, let’s face it, I’m having a hard time not laughing.”

  “Ha. Ha.” Will set down the screen and tiptoed to his door. He listened carefully. It didn’t sound like anyone was stirring. All he could hear was the pounding of his heart. He looked over at Blue. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor below the window as if this was the most normal thing in the world. There was just enough light that he could make out her familiar form. She was wearing black jeans and a dark shirt and her loose dark hair flowed down around a face that had a faint look of amusement on it. He sat down on the bed and let out a long sigh. He wondered if he had breathed at all until that moment.

  “Really, what are you doing here?” he asked her.

  “I got tired of waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. He didn’t even know why he asked it. Here they were. Alone. Finally. Able to converse without looking over their shoulders or hiding anything. All this time trying to find a way to interact, and here it was. So simple, so risky. It was brilliant. They sat without moving for a moment as the warm breeze gusted through the screen-less window carrying the sounds of rustling leaves and the hiss and chirps of the night critters.