Mayne Attraction: In The Spotlight

by Ann Mauren

  It was misty and kind of cold for June and I must have been too open with my temperature issues because without a word he came from behind and wrapped his arms around me, cocooning me inside his jacket. At the same moment, from my peripheral vision I could have sworn that Max took a picture of us.

  Great.

  But I had to concede that the increasingly physical relationship I seemed to have with my host would be an important development, from their perspective.

  I reached into my day pack and pulled out one of Hoyt’s most treasured possessions, second only to my mother herself: a Nikon D700 Digital SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera. I hadn’t even considered asking him for it, since I knew for a fact that it actually cost more than the huge fifty-two inch flat screen TV he’d bought when they finished the basement, a four digit figure that appalled and upset my mother much more than her gadget loving husband would ever know. But just before I had walked out the door with Gray, he handed it to me, with meaningful purpose, as though it was the reason for my trip in the first place.

  Mentally, I was hesitant to accept it, but it was obviously a very significant gesture on his part and I didn’t dare step on his feelings by refusing it. It would definitely make documenting the journey more enjoyable, and the memories, aided through visual reference, could have no better source. I accepted Hoyt’s temporary bequest gladly, with enthusiasm and profuse offerings of thanks, which apparently made an impression upon Gray.

  The next morning at breakfast, in another turn of overwhelming indulgence, but unassailable logic, Gray presented me with a newer version of the same camera, but with even more memory and upgraded features. I tried to dismiss the gift in embarrassed irritation, but he assured me that I’d thank him later if I dropped, or splashed water on, or heaven forbid I lost, what was, in effect, my baby stepsister. Thinking through the ramifications of such plausible scenarios changed my mind, and Gray’s suggestion that I simply place the memory card full of pictures back inside Hoyt’s camera before returning the camera to him appealed to my fondness for sly ruses, perpetrated on parental authorities, sealing the deal.

  I was secretly, however begrudgingly, delighted with my awesome new toy, which Gray also referred to as my graduation present, and I used it to gather images of our hotel and the incredible surroundings. I collected shots of scenes around Upper Waterfowl Lake, Kicking Horse River and the Canadian Pacific Railway, as it cut a path through the wilderness. And then there were the views at Lake Louise where the camera’s password protection feature that could be used on individual images proved invaluable—just like the digital memories it guarded.

  This place I was standing in today was so panoramically diverse in majesty, grandeur and picturesque perfection that I could have been legally blind and still shot cover photos for National Geographic. It sounds like an exaggeration, but the description couldn’t do justice to the beauty. Words simply weren’t up to the task.

  Gray was highly perceptive and I knew he had sensed the change in me after my life-altering encounter at the head of Lake Louise. Even an unperceptive person would have picked up on it, but to his credit, he did not ask me to explain myself. Yet just as I had feared, there was no way to contain the aura of joy radiating out of me, and broadcasting with particular and intractable intensity from the vicinity of my chest.

  After a stern lecture from the park representative about staying on the trails, and not picking flowers and avoiding the bears, we set off from the parking lot to explore the paradise beyond. The trail took us along the edge of a lake which color was the very same shade as my engagement ring. Perhaps my ring wasn’t made from a frozen drop of water from a tropical sea after all. Maybe it was truly a drop of Lake O’Hara, turned to stone. That possibility made me smile as I unconsciously patted my chest and the forms of my locket and my ring securely stowed there under my shirt, reassuring myself of their presence. It would be so wonderful when I could wear them openly without any fears.

  We left the view of the most dazzlingly beautiful lake imaginable behind us as the trail opened to an Alpine meadow, bearing a profusion of wildflowers. I had to stop every several yards to take pictures, as one vista was topped by the next in this place.

  After crossing over stepping stones at the edge of lazy tarn and a footbridge spanning an icy stream, the trail led us into a climb up the side of a glacier-clad peak. Gray was quiet while we walked, taking my hand as we crossed over wet spots, but then releasing me when the trail was more suited for single file progression.

  We reached a ridge and made a sharp turn into a completely different environment, leaving green behind for a strange, rocky landscape that was somehow just as beautiful, in a bleak and barren way. Gray explained that we were walking over a massive rockslide. Passage here became more difficult and I had to really concentrate on my footing. There simply could be no walking and looking at the scenery on this portion of the trail, unless I was interested in viewing things from the perspective of belly or my butt. My close attention to the two feet of ground ahead of me helped to preserve the shock and surprise of the vista that awaited me as we finally crested to a more level place, with large flat rocks on which to sit and observe the part of the trail that I had missed while concentrating on moving but not falling.

  Here high in this moonscape indentation in the mountain was an opalescent lake, rich with minerals leached from the glacier high above, sitting like a sunken iridescent jewel in the side of the mountain. It was completely hidden from lower elevations, but the view was a huge reward for the energy expended to reach the spot.

  We settled on one of the large flattened boulders perched above Lake Oesa and stared quietly at the scene. I lost myself and all track of time peering at the strange but lovely colors of the unusual body of water below. Eventually, I became aware that Gray was not looking at the lake—he was turned slightly and staring at me. I tried to ignore this for as long as I could, but I started to feel rude and I was tired of pretending not to notice any way, so I turned to meet his gaze. The look in his eyes was intense and brooding, and kind of scary, actually. My reaction quickly registered with him and his eyes seemed to soften a degree as they bored into my own, mining for secrets, it felt like.

  “Did you know that you were with me the last time I sat here? But I prefer this version of you infinitely more.”

  He smiled, breaking free of his dark abstraction and taking my hand, rubbing it between both of his own to warm up my icy skin.

  “That was about this time last year. What were you doing last June?”

  “Sleeping.”

  And thinking about you, and being miserable when I wasn’t sleeping. How ironic.

  He chuckled at my non-committal answer.

  “I wondered what it would be like to bring the most beautiful girl on earth to the most beautiful place on earth. Now I know. It’s nice.”

  He brought my now warmer hand up to his lips to kiss it. I started to pull back before I could catch myself, knowing I’d have to answer for my behavior—for that action and all of them that had led me to this moment here with him today.

  “Something’s changed in you, and I’m trying to understand it. I thought you felt the same for me as I do for you…but now…it doesn’t seem like it. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  It was coercion. He had not let go of my hand, and I knew he had no intention of doing so until he got his answer from me—the answer he wanted. I breathed deep and sighed longingly.

  How could I frame the truth in a way he could understand, and accept? I knew it was impossible. He wasn’t going to take any variation of ‘no’ for an answer from me. I still had to be truthful with him, though. He deserved that much from me.

  “You’re right. About everything. I used to have a huge crush on you. At Grandpa’s funeral, seeing you again, holding me the way you did, made me lovesick for you, all over again. But you never called. I was depressed and heartbroken and miserable. I knew I was too young, and that you had better things to do. It took a while,
but I finally got over it. I met someone else, who does call me. I’m better now.”

  His calm façade would have been convincing, if I hadn’t seen his eyes. There was a violent storm brewing there, ready to break out over me.

  “Why are you here then, if you love someone else?”

  He had moved in closer. His tone was even, but there was an edge of desperation.

  “Because I was invited to be an intern on a geological survey.”

  I was starting to feel and sound very defensive.

  “And you didn’t think there was any more to it than that?” There was derisiveness in his tone now. My hackles were all the way up.

  “I think my suspicions were correct, that my ‘intern’ job was just a joke, a ploy, so that you could have another one of your pets with you on your trip…like Dana.”

  Dana was his girlfriend who had accompanied him to Reykjavik. She wasn’t really an intern either.

  His face looked like I’d slapped him.

  Good.

  There was a very long and uncomfortable pause, but I had nothing else to say. I returned to gazing at the lake.

  “Ellie, honey, the only person here with a master…is me.”

  His demeanor transformed. He looked defeated. I frowned, but the uncertainty I felt must have played clearly in my eyes. He explained.

  “You’ve owned me since the night I met you. You don’t understand that do you?”

  He looked away, seeing something far away. He was still looking away when he began speaking again.

  “When you came to Reykjavik, and my dad asked me to take you with me on that snowmobile trip the first week, I was pissed. I’m the future president of the company, right? Not a baby-sitter. But part of running a company is handling the details and accepting challenges. So I sucked it up and played Grayson Poppins. But then you turned out to be so smart, and cute, and…bizarrely funny.”

  He looked over at me, checking my reaction to see if he was giving offense.

  “I couldn’t read you at all, obviously, but it seemed pretty clear that you weren’t impressed with me. I’d never encountered that before…in girls, at least.”

  He smirked and raised an eyebrow, wordlessly acknowledging his own arrogance.

  “When it dawned on me how I was feeling about you, I was disgusted with myself. You were just a little girl, for crying out loud. I didn’t want to believe I was in love with you. I was angry and way into denial. I went back to school and things got better after a while, but then I saw you again at the funeral.”

  He paused, thinking deeply for a moment. Then he rubbed his forehead, as though it hurt.

  “That pushed me over the edge. Once I got back to Cambridge, I was miserable. I couldn’t stop seeing your face and hearing your voice in my mind. I couldn’t function. It was so bad I was ready to pack up and move to Louisville.”

  He looked away again, shaking his head as if to banish an unpleasant thought. After a pause he began again.

  “Dad showed up unannounced in England; he was that worried about me.”

  He sighed and his expression looked like he was admitting a fault.

  “He’s my best friend. I told him everything. I had to confess because he wouldn’t leave until I explained why I was so messed up…and depressed.”

  He looked deep into my eyes now, searching for something. I could tell he was deciding about what to say next.

  “Then he made me a deal. He promised to keep an eye on you for me if I’d just get my head on straight and finish my obligations at Cambridge and let you finish yours in high school. It was only for a year or so.”

  There it was: that final piece in the puzzle, making the picture perfectly clear. If only I had known. Why did everything have to be a secret?

  He laughed, nervously, but there was only discomfort in the sound of it—no mirth.

  “Ellie, I’ve been in love before. But not like this. Never like this, but in a way. I know what it’s like and I just couldn’t do that to you, not until you were old enough to handle it, to do something about it. I had to sit back and bide my time, waiting until I thought you were ready, hoping no one would steal you before I came back…but keeping an eye on things to make sure. If anybody made a move on you, I was going to be right there, blocking.”

  He laughed, but again, there wasn’t any humor.

  “Guess I couldn’t block what I didn’t see.”

  What I didn’t see ruined my life for a while. What he didn’t see brought me back from the dead. And now I had one foot in both worlds.

  I was starting to understand him but I was still on the defensive.

  “Why didn’t you call me or send me a postcard or an e-mail? I figured you didn’t care. What was I supposed to think?”

  He nodded, acknowledging my logic.

  “I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t feel like I could engage you directly and not take it too far. So instead, I settled for sending you care packages every month, always on the seventeenth, until you turned eighteen, then always on the eighteenth. Did you not receive them?”

  Care packages?

  “What are you talking about? What care packages?”

  I asked the question, but a sickening awareness was settling in, and I knew that hearing the answer would be like opening the door on a monster in the closet.

  “Well, the first month I sent you seventeen yellow roses.”

  I remembered that. I thought they were a belated gesture for the funeral from a tardy sympathizer, wishing to remain anonymous. I nodded, confirming their receipt.

  “The next month I sent you the big box full of every size Hershey Bar they make.”

  I remembered that too. It was sort of like the game show ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’ but with the theme ‘Who Wants to Eat Chocolate?’ instead. I chuckled at the memory. I was delighted, initially, at the jackpot of chocolate I’d received, and the funny, homemade trivia game that accompanied it, but ever since then I hadn’t been able to eat another Hershey Bar. I probably never would again.

  “When you got your license I sent you the little pink Corvette.”

  He smiled big at his memory of that. I did too.

  “That was you? I loved that! But how did you know to include a Skipper, instead of a Barbie?”

  He seemed pleased to explain.

  “Well, I heard your grandpa call you ‘Skipper’ and I took a chance. It seemed pretty likely, though. You do look very much like a Skipper doll, you know,” he teased me.

  “Yeah, I know. Short, skinny and no chest. A perfect likeness. Wonderful isn’t it?” I retorted in a self-deprecating huff.

  His eyes melted and I could feel the answering warmth in my chest.

  “Yes. You’re wonderful, Ellie. I think you…and your chest…are absolutely perfect.”

  He smiled that rakish grin I loved and I tried to focus on that instead of being embarrassed about my Skipper figure, which he’d just commented on.

  So the truth about the packages wasn’t like a monster after all. Instead it was a happiness to learn the real identity of my generous and humorous secret admirer. But it also meant I’d been wrong about whom to be grateful to.

  “Those were from you?” My words were still catching up with my thoughts.

  “Who did you think they were from?”

  He laughed like I’d said something funny.

  “Well, it was hard to tell. There was never a return address or card inside, Gray. Did you forget you were dealing with me, and that I’m not the brightest bulb in the fixture?”

  He shook his head in disagreement.

  “You’re as brilliant as the sun…and just as warm.”

  The smolder in his eyes was back in full strength.

  “I have something else for you, another care package, sort of,” he said as he pulled something small out of his pocket.

  “This is something I had specially made, just for you. I designed it myself. I’ve always imagined giving it to you here, in this place.”

/>   His eyes were bright with enthusiasm.

  Then he took my left hand and slipped a ring on the third finger.

  How unbelievably surreal was that?

  When I examined my hand, my heart skipped a beat and then screeched to a halt. It was exactly the same ring as the one I already owned, with one notable exception. The gemstone was not aquamarine. It was deep pink, nearly magenta in tone, perfectly flawless and without equal. I couldn’t take my eyes off it, trapped in stunned amazement.

  Gray was extremely pleased at this reaction and he reached over to pull me in and kiss the top of my head.

  I knew what it was, but I still couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Bixbite. He’d actually had a bixbite ring made—for me!

  Grandpa found a piece of bixbite on a mineral-collecting trip he’d taken years ago. I’d heard the story a hundred times; it was my very favorite. That rock was his most prized possession, and he had some sweetheart possessions when it came to his rock collection. He’d found his one and only bixbite specimen in the Thomas Range, a mountainous area in the western desert of Utah, one of only two places it has ever been found.

  Bixbite is so rare, so scarce, that it holds the distinction as the rarest gem on earth. In fact, it’s so rare that most people have never heard of it. Despite that it’s highly valuable due to its unique beauty and extreme scarcity. And this specimen, resting on my finger (very heavily all of the sudden) was almost three carats in size, and possibly the largest cut piece of bixbite on earth. And it was on my hand! I’d felt ill when I realized how much Ash had paid for my aquamarine…now I felt terminal.

  “Do you know what that is?” Gray asked, smiling, and looking just slightly smug.

  “Bixbite,” I whispered, as if in the presence of great majesty.

  “That’s right.”