I watch Bethyl Ann study the screen, the corners of her mouth curled up in that sly Mona Lisa smile of hers. For a second, I wonder if she’s hiding something from me, if she knows more than she’s willing to tell. Sighing, I sit back. That’s silly; what reason would she have to keep information about Henry from me? What I should be wondering is: What’s wrong with me? How can I even consider that any of this might be real? The guy in the tree—the entire episode, in fact—was nothing more than a daydream or an illusion, a latent image created by exposure to a bright reflection. A distorted photograph.
I’ve been thinking about Tate nonstop, watching him in school, wondering why he hates me and wishing he didn’t. Every time our eyes meet, he looks away. Or his face flushes bright red, like he’s angry with me. In the hallways, I’ve seen him go out of his way to avoid passing me. Just yesterday, he turned midstride to walk the opposite way. I conjured him into that photograph, superimposed his likeness over that of the tree. I turned Tate into our resident ghost. A hot, brooding monochrome figment of my imagination.
I take off my cap and fan my face with it, assuring myself the reason I’m so warm has nothing at all to do with Tate Hudson. The library doesn’t have central air.
“Oh, geez…are you okay?” Bethyl Ann presses her palm to my forehead just as her mother appears at our table. “You’re burning up. Isn’t she red as a beet, Mama?”
If I didn’t know better, I would think Mrs. Pugh is Bethyl Ann’s grandmother instead of her mom. She wears her gray hair pulled into a ponytail, and her face is a roadmap of wrinkles. “You do look a bit flushed, Tansy,” she says. “Are you feverish?”
“No, but I’m a little dizzy.”
“Looking at microfiche makes some folks a bit seasick, believe it or not.” Mrs. Pugh blinks rapidly, her eyes concerned behind her giant wire-framed glasses.
“It might just be because I didn’t eat breakfast,” I say. Or sleep last night.
“We have leftovers at home, Bethyl Ann,” she says. “Cold meat loaf and pasta salad with extra mayo, just like you like it. Why don’t you girls go make yourself a plate?”
“Oh, good! I love meat loaf.” Bethyl Ann flashes her red, white, and blues.
“My mom gave me money for lunch. Enough for both of us to eat out,” I say.
Bethyl Ann looks disappointed. “Mom makes really good meat loaf,” she says.
I start to say that I don’t eat anything that once had eyes, a nose, and a mouth, but her hopeful expression stops me, and I feel a pinch of guilt for ever thinking that someone as young and innocent as Bethyl Ann might be scheming me. “Okay. We’ll go to your house.” Lifting the bird book from my lap, I add, “I want to check this out first, okay?”
“Of course.” Mrs. Pugh takes the book from me. “I’ll make you a library card.”
Bethyl Ann and I follow her mother to a desk up front. The truth is, I’m really not all that hungry, and even if I was, I would never eat meat loaf. The thought of mayonnaise-covered pasta makes me nauseous, too. But I’ll force down the noodles. Bethyl Ann has been helpful, and I should be nice to her. She’s the most normal thing in my life right now.
Beside me, she yawns noisily, and Mrs. Pugh looks over her shoulder, frowns, and says, “Don’t forget you’re in a library, young lady.”
“Sorry, Mama. Couldn’t help it.” She yawns again, quieter this time, then leans close to me and whispers, “Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale. Shakespeare, in case you’re wondering. King John. Act three, scene four.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. Bethyl Ann, normal? If I’m starting to believe that, I really do need an appointment to have my head examined.
11
As I’m driving home after lunch at Bethyl Ann’s house, I can’t quit thinking about Henry hurting himself on purpose. I wonder if that’s true or just another rumor. One of my classmates in San Francisco was a cutter. Even during the hottest days of summer, she always wore long sleeves, but once I caught a glimpse of her wrist peeking out from the black cuff of her shirt, and I saw the horizontal red scars on it. Why would someone do that? Just thinking about it scares me. I felt so sad for that girl.
I arrive at the house and park alongside Bill Dilworth’s truck. Sheriff Ray Don stands at the top of a ladder that’s propped against the front of the house, painting a small section of the siding a pretty shade of sea foam green. I kill the engine and climb out.
The sheriff turns to look down at me, the paintbrush poised in his hand. “Hi, there.”
“Hey.” I shut the van door.
“So, what do you think of the color? We’ll paint the shutters cream.”
I lift my gaze to the painted patch. “It’s all wrong.” The certainty comes to me from out of nowhere. “The siding should be white, the shutters black.”
“Oh.” He frowns. “This is just a test sample.” Squinting at the paint again, he mutters, “White, huh?” When his brother comes around the corner of the house carrying another ladder, the sheriff says, “Bill, did Eloise put white on the list of approved colors?”
I don’t wait to hear Bill Dilworth’s answer. Muttering another hello, I walk past him and up the steps to the front door.
“Tansy?” Mom calls down from her office when I enter the house. “That you?”
“Yeah, it’s me.” I start upstairs, and she meets me on the second-floor landing.
“Hailey called.”
I flinch. “What did she want?” The moment the words are out, I regret my harsh tone. It isn’t Mom’s fault that Hailey betrayed me.
“She wants to talk to you. Why haven’t you called her back?”
“I don’t want to,” I say, moving past Mom. Hailey’s the least of my problems now.
Following at my heels, she says, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“About what?”
“This thing between you and Hailey that has you so miffed.”
I stop in front of my bedroom door, but I can’t bring myself to look at her or answer her question.
Mom places a hand on my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
I force myself to meet her gaze. “It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing you can do about it, anyway.” I turn my back to her and open my bedroom door. “I’m going to hike out to the canyon. I want to see the bridge and take some pictures. Where’s Papa Dan?”
Mom’s stare burns the back of my neck, and I know she’s debating with herself. Should she press the issue of Hailey or let it drop? Lucky for me, the latter option wins. Her sigh sounds like it weighs fifty pounds. “He’s napping. He shouldn’t walk that far, anyway.”
Kicking off my sandals, I grab my sneakers and sit on the bed. “He’s not sick, is he?”
“Just tired. For some reason, he spent all morning wandering around the mulberry tree.”
The watch. I feel the blood drain from my face. He was searching for where I dropped Henry’s watch. Hoping Mom doesn’t notice my startled reaction, I hurry to change my shoes.
“Before I forget,” she says, “we have internet service now. It’s a little slow pulling it up out here in the country, though, so you have to be patient.” She pauses, then adds, “If you don’t want to call Hailey, maybe you could at least shoot her an email.”
I could, but I won’t. Why should I? I don’t owe Hailey anything, not even my time.
I strike out toward the part of the canyon that borders our property. I’m not sure why I’ve waited so long to go to the bridge. Maybe because I have mixed feelings about seeing the place where Henry died. A part of me is curious, but another part doesn’t want to imagine him taking the plunge, and I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to wipe that image from my mind once I’ve been there.
I snap shots while I walk. A twisted mesquite tree. A jutting rock formation. A trio of tumbleweeds scampering across the field. After a few minutes, I rest beneath a small grove of cottonwood trees beside a boulder that’s shaped like a bench. The rock formation is so unusual that I squat to get a shot of
it, positioning the camera in front of my face.
Panic slams into me. I freeze.
Tate’s look-alike lies stretched out along the smooth rock, a faded gray guy in a colorless world. His hands are laced behind his head, his booted feet crossed at the ankles. A violin lies across his lap. He stares beyond me with narrowed eyes, his face molded into a crooked half smile.
My pulse thunders in my ears as I stumble backward and land on my butt, my hat flying off my head, the camera strap tugging at the back of my neck as it falls. I pick up the camera, look again, and gasp. “Who are you?”
He stays as still as the rock—as if he’s a part of it.
“Are you Henry?” I whisper, but of course he doesn’t answer, doesn’t blink. His hair remains unruffled by the gusty breeze that tousles mine.
A voice inside my head tells me to run as fast as I can and not look back. But I’m paralyzed by the fear that, if I move, he’ll reach out and grab me. I have to force myself to lift my hand to take the picture. Once it’s shot, I grab my hat, put it on, and scoot backward, until I’m far enough from the rock that I feel safe to stand again. The camera bangs against my hip as I run, but I don’t stop. My lungs feel like they’re about to pop as I sprint across the field.
I hit a trail that weaves through another sparse grove of trees. The trail turns sharply at the far side of the grove, and ahead steel girders curve up into the sky like the arched skeletal spine of a giant centipede. The sight stops me short. Panting, I glance back, afraid I’ll see the guy from the bench rock coming after me, relieved when I find that I’ve outrun my delusion, at least for the moment.
I turn around, lean forward at the waist, plant my hands on my thighs, and try to calm down. The bridge looms ahead of me. It’s a spectacular sight. Larger than I ever imagined, tarnished and daunting and eerie…like Henry. Maybe the bridge absorbed Henry’s essence when he fell from its side. I can’t wait to capture the image on film, but when I look through the camera lens, my breath catches in my throat. He’s there—the guy from the bench rock. Henry. Standing at the far end of the structure, bent over the railing, staring down into the craggy canyon below. My stomach folds in on itself when he steps up onto the railing’s lowest rung.
No! Don’t jump! I grip the camera so tightly my knuckles ache. But as fast as the thought flashes through my mind, another one follows. He moved. I zoom in, and just as I realize the guy on the bridge isn’t Henry but Tate, he steps down and starts walking across the bridge toward the trail, looking down at his feet. I lower the camera and turn to go, anxious to escape before he sees me.
But only a few steps down the trail, I stop. I’m so tired of Tate’s game, whatever it is. I’m ready to confront him, to come right out and ask what I did to tick him off. I swing around, and when he sees me walking toward him, he pauses a few seconds before he continues my way. Coward, I think, then wait until he’s only a few steps away before calling, “Do you want to talk to me?”
“No, why?” He pauses. “I was just heading home.”
I shrug. “I thought you might want to tell me what’s bothering you.”
“Nope. I’m good.” Tate starts past me.
I sigh loudly, then murmur, “Jerk.”
Tate stops walking, turns, and narrows his gaze on me. “I’m a jerk?”
I didn’t mean for him to hear me, and at first my polite instincts insist that I apologize then slink away. But then my pride kicks in. Why should I apologize? He has been acting like a jerk. “No, you’re an ass!” I shout. “And I guess you couldn’t care less, right?”
“What people think of me is none of my business.”
“Wow. You’re a tough guy, too.”
“Maybe I am. So what?”
“Well, I’m not impressed.” I turn my back on him and stomp off down the trail toward the bridge.
Less than a minute goes by before a shrill whistle pierces the air. Hesitating, I glance over my shoulder. Tate starts jogging toward me. You finally want to talk? I think. Fine. I won’t blow him off and leave, but I won’t meet him halfway, either.
Stopping in front of me again, he jams his hands into his pockets, a sheepish look on his face. For one long, awkward moment that feels like ten, we both stare down at our shoes, silent. Then Tate clears his throat and says, “I’m sorry. Can we start over?”
My eyes lift to his.
He gestures toward the bridge. “So, what do you think? Pretty cool, huh?”
“It’s amazing. I didn’t expect it to be so—” I can’t find the right word to describe the awesome sight of the towering structure.
“I know,” he says. “I’ve tried a million times to write about it—you know, do it justice, but I can never explain how incredible it is.”
My irritation begins to melt like butter in a microwave. How can someone who’s so frustrating and rude most of the time also be so tuned in to what I’m thinking? I doubt many guys would see the beauty in a bridge, much less feel it deserved to be portrayed in a flattering way. Still, I’m not going to let down my guard. I don’t completely trust this warmer side of Tate. I’ve experienced it once before and learned the hard way how fast he can go from hot to cold.
“You’re probably better at it than you think,” I say. “Believe me, I know as well as anyone how insecure writers can be. When my mom’s in the middle of whatever book she’s working on, she’s always convinced it’s total crap and her career is ruined. Then she turns it in and her editor loves it or she gets a good review or a ton of fan letters and she struts around like she’s the most talented writer on the planet. That lasts until she starts the next book, and then it’s the same routine all over again.” I roll my eyes. “She can be a real drama queen.” Embarrassed by my nervous speech, I look down at my shoes again.
Tate laughs. “In my case, though, what I’m working on is crap.”
I glance up and make a face. “See? You’re no more secure than my mother.”
Tate falls silent. He pulls his hands from his pockets and taps his fingers against his thighs. “You were right, by the way. I have been a jerk.”
“An ass,” I correct. “No kidding.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me sometimes. What happened a second ago—I was just in a bad mood. It wasn’t anything you did.”
“That doesn’t explain the way you’ve acted toward me every other day since I started school here.”
He clears his throat. “I guess I haven’t made things any easier on you—being in a new place, I mean. Moving so much must suck.”
“Yeah, well, we move a lot, so I guess I’m used to it.”
“Really?”
“No.” We both laugh.
“Why did you move to Cedar Canyon?”
For some reason, anger jabs at me again. “Excuse me for upsetting you by being here.”
“Is that what you think?”
“Well, you’ve acted like you despise me ever since you found out I wasn’t just some girl passing through town. Someone you could flirt with at your uncle’s café then forget about.”
He lowers his head, then looks up at me slowly, moving only his eyes. “I don’t despise you. It’s just…some stuff happened, and I guess I sort of took it out on you.”
“Like that makes sense. What stuff? What did I have to do with it?” I cross my arms.
“Nothing. It’s my dad, mostly. He’s been on my case about a lot of things.”
“Football, you mean.”
“How did you know that?”
“I heard you two arguing behind the press box the night of the Watermelon Run.” When he scowls, I add, “I was at the top of the bleachers taking pictures and then you were just there. I couldn’t help overhearing.”
“It doesn’t matter. Dad is fanatical about me playing college ball.”
“You don’t want to?”
“I don’t care about football. I never have.”
“Then why do you play?”
“It’s a really big deal to him.”
If my dad were alive, would pleasing him be so important to me that I would do something I hated just to make him happy? Maybe that’s what’s going on with Tate, but I get the feeling there’s more to what’s bothering him than just his dad and football. His mom, for starters. Probably not a good idea, though, to let him know that Mary Jane and J. B. blabbed about that, so I decide not to bring up the subject. “I read in the paper that you pretty much won the game single-handedly last night.”
“I don’t want to talk about football,” Tate says. “I just wanted to apologize and say that I hope we can start fresh. You know…maybe be friends?”
I hope he can’t tell how ridiculously happy that question makes me. But since he deserves to sweat a little, I make him wait for my answer. I suppose I’m feeling cantankerous, as Papa Dan used to say.
“Well?” he asks. “Any chance of that?” Tate’s lighthearted tone of voice and the teasing glint in his eyes don’t hide his discomfort. I recall Bethyl Ann’s claim that he used to be really full of himself, and I’m pretty sure he’s not used to apologizing for anything.
“That depends,” I finally tell him. “Will you let me read something you wrote?”
“I don’t know…” Tate’s brows tug together. “I’ll think about it.”
“What’s to think about?”
“It’s embarrassing.” He kicks a rock and it skips across the trail. Slanting me a look, he says, “I might, if you’ll let me see some of your photos.”
“We’ll see.” A smile twitches my lips. “Maybe if you behave yourself and act nice for a change.”
“I’ll try. It’ll be hard, though.”
“I realize it’s not in your nature.”
We grin at each other, then he offers me his hand. “Truce?”
“Truce,” I say, and we shake.
Tate nods toward the bridge. “You want me to give you the tour?”
“Sure.” We walk along the trail side by side, and I can hardly believe how our relationship has gone from agonizing to awesome in less than an hour. If only the same thing could happen with everything else in my life.
Through Her Eyes Page 12
