Breakfast was the usual, quiet event I expected. Charlie fried eggs for himself; I had my bowl of cereal. I wondered if he had forgotten about this Saturday.
“About this Saturday … ,” he began, like he could read my mind. I was getting really paranoid about that specific concern.
“Yes, Dad?”
He walked across the kitchen and turned on the faucet. “Are you still set on going to Seattle?”
“That was the plan.” I frowned, wishing he hadn’t brought it up so I wouldn’t have to compose careful half-truths.
He squeezed some dish soap onto his plate and swirled it around with the brush. “And you’re sure you can’t make it back in time for the dance?”
“I’m not going to the dance, Dad.”
“Didn’t anyone ask you?” he asked, his eyes focused on the plate.
“It’s not my thing,” I reminded him.
“Oh.” He frowned as he dried his plate.
I wondered if he was worried about me being a social outcast. Maybe I should have told him I had lots of invitations. But that would obviously backfire. He wouldn’t be very happy if he knew I’d turned them all down. Then I would have to tell him that there was a girl … who hadn’t asked me … and obviously I didn’t want to get into that.
Which got me thinking about prom and Taylor and the dress she already had and Logan’s attitude toward me and that whole mess. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. In any universe, I wasn’t going to prom. In a universe where Edythe Cullen existed, I wasn’t going to be interested in any other girl. It wasn’t fair to just go along with Taylor’s plan when my heart wasn’t in it. The problem was figuring out how… .
Charlie left then, with a goodbye wave, and I went upstairs to brush my teeth and gather my books. When I heard the cruiser pull away, I could only wait a few seconds before I had to look out of my window. The silver car was already there, waiting in Charlie’s spot on the driveway. I took the stairs three at a time and was out the door in seconds. I wondered how long this strange routine would continue. I never wanted it to end.
She waited in the car, not appearing to watch as I shut the door behind me without bothering to lock the deadbolt. I walked to the car, then hesitated for just a second before I opened the door and climbed in. She was smiling, relaxed—and, as usual, so perfect it was painful.
“Good morning. How are you today?” Her eyes roamed over my face, like the question was something more than simple courtesy.
“Good, thank you.” I was always good—much more than good—when I was close to her.
Her gaze lingered on the circles under my eyes. “You look tired.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” I admitted.
She laughed. “Neither could I.”
The engine purred quietly to life. I was getting used to the sound. The roar of my truck would probably scare me the next time I drove it.
“I guess that’s right,” I said. “I probably did get more sleep than you.”
“I would wager you did.”
“So what did you do last night?”
She laughed. “Not a chance. It’s my day to ask questions.”
“Oh, that’s right.” My forehead creased. I couldn’t imagine anything about me that would be interesting to her. “What do you want to know?”
“What’s your favorite color?” she asked, totally serious.
I shrugged. “It changes.”
“What is it today?”
“Um, probably … gold, I guess.”
“Is there anything material behind your choice, or is it random?”
I cleared my throat selfconsciously. “It’s the color of your eyes today. If you asked me in a week, I’d probably say black.”
She gave me a look that I didn’t entirely understand, but before I could ask, she was on to her next question.
“What music is in your CD player right now?”
I had to think about that one for a second, until I remembered that the last thing I’d listened to was the CD Phil had given me. When I said the name of the band, she smiled and opened a hatch under the car’s CD player. She pulled out one of the dozens of CDs that were packed into the small space, and handed it to me. It was the same CD.
“Debussy to this?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
It continued like that for the rest of the day. While we walked between classes and all through the lunch hour, she questioned me without a break. She wanted to know about every insignificant detail of my existence. Movies I’d liked and hated, the few places I’d been and the many places I wanted to go, and books—so many questions about books.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d talked so much. I felt selfconscious the whole time, knowing I had to be boring her. But she always seemed on the edge of her seat waiting for my answers, she always had a follow-up question, she always wanted more. So I went along with the psychoanalysis, since it seemed to matter to her.
When the first bell rang, I sighed deeply. It was time. “There’s one question you haven’t asked me yet.”
“More than one, actually, but which specific one are you looking for?”
“The most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done.”
She grinned. “Is it a spectacular story?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’ll tell you in five minutes.”
I shoved away from the table. Her eyes were bright with curiosity.
At my usual table, my friends were all just getting to their feet. I walked toward them.
Patches of red flared in my cheeks, but that was probably okay. I was supposed to look emotional. Anyway, the pretty guy in the melodramatic soap my mom used to watch religiously looked fired up when he did this scene. Thanks to him, at least I had a general outline for my script, embellished by something I’d once thought about Edythe; I wanted to keep this flattering.
Jeremy noticed me first, and his eyes were speculative. They flashed from my red face to where Edythe was and back to me.
“Taylor, can I have a minute?” I said as I walked up to her. I didn’t say it quietly.
She was right in the very middle of the cluster. Logan turned to glower at me with his fishy green eyes.
“Sure, Beau,” Taylor said, looking confused.
“Look,” I said, “I can’t do this anymore.”
Everyone fell silent. Jeremy’s eyes got all round. Allen looked embarrassed. McKayla shot me a critical glance, like she couldn’t believe I was doing it this way. But she didn’t know exactly what I was doing, or why I needed this audience.
Taylor was shocked. “What?”
I scowled. It was easy—I was pretty angry right now that I hadn’t talked myself out of this, or come up with a better way. But it was too late for improv now.
“I’m tired of being a pawn in your game, Taylor. Do you even realize that I have feelings of my own? And all I can do is watch while you use me to make someone else jealous.” My eyes darted quickly to Logan, whose mouth was hanging open, and back to Taylor. “You don’t care if you break my heart in the process. Is it being beautiful that’s made you so cruel?”
Taylor’s eyes were wide, her mouth open in a little o.
“I’m not going to play anymore. This whole prom charade? I’m out. Go with the person you really want to be with.” A longer glare this time at Logan.
And then I stalked away, slamming through the cafeteria doors in what I hoped was a dramatic way.
I was never going to live this down.
But at least I was free. Probably worth it.
Suddenly Edythe was right next to me, keeping pace like we’d been walking together all along.
“That truly was spectacular,” she said.
I took a deep breath. “Maybe a little over the top. Did it work?”
“Like a charm. Taylor’s feeling quite the femme fatale, and she’s not even sure why. If Logan doesn’t ask her to prom by Monday, I’ll be surprised.”
“Good,” I grunted.
“And now back to
you …”
Edythe kept up the quiz until we were in Biology and Mrs. Banner arrived, dragging the audiovisual frame again. When she was finished with her prep and turned toward the light switch, I saw Edythe slide her chair a half-inch farther away from mine. It didn’t help. As soon as the room was dark, there was that same electric tension, the same restless craving to stretch my hand across the short space and touch her cold, smooth skin.
It was like an itch that just got more and more demanding. I couldn’t pay attention to anything else. Hopefully whatever movie it was that we were watching wouldn’t be on the final.
After a little while, maybe fifteen minutes—or maybe it was only two and it just felt so long because of the electricity—I shifted my chair over and slowly leaned to the side until my arm was just touching her shoulder. She didn’t move away.
I thought that little contact would help, that it would take away the nagging want, but it kind of backfired. The little frisson of electricity got stronger, changed into bigger jolts. I was suddenly dying to put my arm around her, to pull her into my side and hold her against me. I wanted to run my fingers down the length of her hair, to bury my face in it. I wanted to trace the shape of her lips, the line of her cheekbone, the length of her throat… .
Not really appropriate for a classroom full of people.
I leaned forward, folding my arms on the table and gripping under the edge with my fingers, trying to hold myself in place. I didn’t look at her, afraid that if she was looking back at me, it would only make self-control that much harder. I tried to make myself watch the movie, but the patches of color just wouldn’t resolve into coherent images.
I sighed in relief again when Mrs. Banner hit the lights, and then finally I looked at Edythe; she was staring back, her eyes ambivalent.
Like yesterday, we walked toward the gym in silence. And also like yesterday, she touched my face wordlessly—this time with the back of her cool hand, stroking once from my temple to my jaw—before she turned and walked away.
Gym passed quickly. To save time, Coach Clapp told us to keep the same partners, so McKayla was forced to be my teammate again. I watched her one-woman badminton show without participating—for both our safety. She didn’t talk to me, but whether that was because of the scene in the cafeteria, or our falling-out yesterday, or because my expression was so vacant, I didn’t know. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I felt bad about that. But I couldn’t concentrate on her any more than I could make sense of the movie in Biology.
I felt the same sense of harmony when I walked out the gym door and saw Edythe in the shadow of the gym. Everything was right in my world. A wide smile spread automatically across my face. She smiled back, then launched into more cross-examination.
Her questions were different now, not as easily answered. She wanted to know what I missed about my home, insisting on descriptions of anything she wasn’t familiar with. We sat in front of Charlie’s house for hours, as the sky darkened and rain plummeted around us in a sudden cloudburst.
I tried to describe impossible things like the scent of creosote—bitter, kind of resinous, but still pleasant—the high, keening sound of the cicadas in July, the gaunt, feathery trees, the enormous sky, extending white-blue from horizon to horizon. The hardest thing to explain was why it was so beautiful to me—to justify a beauty that didn’t depend on the spiny vegetation that mostly looked half dead, a beauty that had something to do with the exposed shape of the land, with the shallow bowls of valleys between the craggy hills, and the way they held on to the sun. I found myself using my hands as I tried to describe it to her.
Her quiet, probing questions kept me talking freely, forgetting to be embarrassed for monopolizing the conversation. Finally, when I had finished detailing my old room at home, she paused instead of responding with another question.
“Are you finished?” I asked in relief.
“Not even close—but your father will be home soon.”
“How late is it?” I wondered out loud as I glanced at the clock. I was surprised by the time.
“It’s twilight,” Edythe murmured, looking toward the western horizon, hidden behind the clouds. Her voice was thoughtful, as if her mind were far away. I stared at her as she stared out the windshield.
I was still staring when her eyes suddenly shifted back to mine.
“It’s the safest time of day for us,” she said, answering the unspoken question in my eyes. “The easiest time. But also the saddest, in a way … the end of another day, the return of the night. Darkness is so predictable, don’t you think?” She smiled wistfully.
“I like the night. Without the dark, you’d never see the stars.” I frowned. “Not that you see them here much.”
She laughed, and the mood abruptly lightened.
“Charlie will be here in a few minutes. So, unless you want to tell him that you’ll be with me Saturday …” She looked at me hopefully.
“Thanks, but no thanks.” I gathered my books, stiff from sitting still so long. “So is it my turn tomorrow, then?”
“Certainly not!” She pretended to be outraged. “I told you I wasn’t done, didn’t I?”
“What more is there?”
She displayed the dimples. “You’ll find out tomorrow.”
I stared at her, a little dazed, as usual.
I’d always thought I didn’t really have a type; my former crowd back home all had something—one liked blondes and one only cared about the legs and one had to have blue eyes. I’d thought I was less particular; a pretty girl was a pretty girl. But I realized now that I must have been the most difficult to please of them all. Apparently, my type was extremely specific—I’d just never known it. I hadn’t known my favorite hair color was this metallic shade of bronze, because I’d never seen it before. I hadn’t known I was looking for eyes the color of honey, because I’d never seen those, either. I didn’t know a girl’s lips had to be curved just this way and her cheekbones high under the long slash of her black lashes. All along, there had only been one shape, one face that would move me.
Like an idiot, warnings forgotten, I reached for her face, leaning in.
She recoiled.
“Sorr—” I started to say as my hand dropped.
But her head whipped forward, and she was staring into the rain again.
“Oh no,” she breathed.
“What’s wrong?”
Her jaw was clenched, her brows pulled down into a hard line over her eyes. She glanced at me for one brief second.
“Another complication,” she told me glumly.
She leaned across me and flung my door open in one quick movement—her proximity sent my heart racing in an uneven gallop—and then she almost cringed away from me.
Headlights flashed through the rain. I looked up, expecting Charlie and a bunch of explanations to follow, but it was a dark sedan I didn’t recognize.
“Hurry,” she urged.
She was glaring through the downpour at the other vehicle.
I jumped out immediately, though I didn’t understand. The rain lashed against my face; I pulled my hood up.
I tried to make out the shapes in the front seat of the other car, but it was too dark. I could see Edythe illuminated in the blaze of the new car’s headlights; she was still staring ahead, her gaze locked on something or someone I couldn’t see. Her expression was a strange mix of frustration and defiance.
Then she revved the engine, and the tires squealed against the wet pavement. The Volvo was out of sight in seconds.
“Hey, Beau,” called a familiar, husky voice from the driver’s side of the little black car.
“Jules?” I asked, squinting through the rain. Just then, Charlie’s cruiser swung around the corner, his lights shining on the occupants of the car in front of me.
Jules was already climbing out, her wide grin visible even through the darkness. In the passenger seat was a much older woman, an imposing woman with an unusual face—it was stern and stoic, with creases t
hat ran through the russet skin like an old leather jacket. And the surprisingly familiar eyes, set deep under the heavy brows, black eyes that seemed at the same time both too young and too ancient to match the face. Jules’s mother, Bonnie Black. I knew her immediately, though in the more than five years since I’d seen her last I’d managed to forget her name when Charlie had spoken of her my first day here. She was staring at me, scrutinizing my face, so I smiled tentatively at her. Then I processed more—that her eyes were wide, as if in shock or fear, her nostrils flared—and my smile faded.
Another complication, Edythe had said.
Bonnie still stared at me with intense, anxious eyes. Had Bonnie recognized Edythe so easily? Could she really believe the impossible legends her daughter had scoffed at?
The answer was clear in Bonnie’s eyes. Yes. Yes, she could.
12. BALANCING
“BONNIE!” CHARLIE CALLED AS SOON AS HE GOT OUT OF HIS CAR.
I turned toward the house, motioning to Jules for her to follow as I ducked under the porch. I heard Charlie greeting her loudly behind me.
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t see you behind the wheel, young lady.”
“We get permits early on the rez,” Jules said while I unlocked the door and flicked on the porch light.
Charlie laughed. “Sure you do.”
“I have to get around somehow.” I recognized Bonnie’s deep voice easily, despite the years. The sound of it made me feel suddenly younger, just a child.
I went inside, leaving the door open behind me and turning on lights before I hung up my jacket. Then I stood in the door, watching anxiously as Charlie and Jules helped Bonnie out of the car and into her wheelchair.
I backed out of the way as the three of them hurried in, shaking off the rain.
“This is a surprise,” Charlie was saying.
“It’s been too long,” Bonnie answered. “I hope it’s not a bad time.” Her dark eyes flashed up to me again, their expression unreadable.
Life and Death Page 21
