The Color of Grace

by Linda Kage

  For some reason, his answer wasn’t disappointing at all. Surprising but definitely not disappointing. Architecture, like photography, was simply another form of creativity, which still gave us a small bond together.

  Embarrassed by my own thoughts, I cleared my throat as I bore a hole through the Ferris wheel with my gaze. “I guess all the things in these pictures did have to be designed by architects, didn’t they? I always just think of houses, and malls, and skyscrapers when I hear the word architect.”

  Ryder nodded, his eyes lighting up as he smiled. It was as if he’d just discovered he’d found a kindred soul. “You’re right, most people do think that. But really, architects construct all physical structures.”

  He wanted to be an architect. I mean, he really wanted it. It wasn’t just some passing oh, hey, architects makes money; I’ll be that wish. By the way his eyes sparkled and his smile bloomed, I could tell he actually loved architecture.

  I liked that about him too, dang it. And I couldn’t help but notice he didn’t seem so very upset about me standing in his room, looking at his posters. It was as if he’d never said, “You don’t belong.”

  “Did you know the Ferris wheel was named after its designer, George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr.?” he mused aloud as he studied the poster. “It was made in 1893 and was put into the World’s Columbian Exposition in order to provide some kind of competition for the Eiffel Tower that had been made only a few years before. Which I don’t really understand,” he added, casting a conspirator’s look my way. “Since the Ferris wheel was only two hundred sixty-four feet tall and the Eiffel Tower was over a thousand feet tall. That’s not really any comparison at all if you ask me. But you know what does amaze about the first Ferris wheel?”

  “Hmm? What’s that?” I said, wanting to watch the amazing light in his eyes continue to beam as he blathered on. But honestly, he charmed me with the fact his passion could so fully suck him into raving about something as trivial as year and size and names of people no one had ever heard of.

  “The first wheel could carry over two thousand people at a time. It was made of thirty-six cars and sixty people could fit into each one. Isn’t that crazy? Do you have any idea how much it would cost to construct something like that today? But back then, they only charged fifty cents a ride.”

  Todd appeared next to us, shaking his head. “How the heck do you know all that?”

  Ryder shrugged. “Read about it somewhere, I guess.”

  Todd laughed as he clapped Ryder on the shoulder. “Man, you are such a freak.”

  “Who’s a freak?” Kiera demanded to know as she danced over to us. When she spotted the poster we’d gathered around, she rolled her eyes. “Oh, brother. Are you talking about that stupid Ferris wheel again?” Cupping Ryder’s face in both hands, she looked him deep in the eyes. “Baby, no one cares.” Then she pecked him on the mouth and twirled away to prance off toward her friends.

  I frowned after her, wanting to smart something off like she should care. Since this kind of stuff mattered to her boyfriend, then it should matter to her too, by God. No one wanted the people closest to them to make fun of their biggest passions.

  Setting my shoulders with determination, I spun back to Ryder and pointed to the next poster. “So how tall is the Statue of Liberty?” I challenged.

  “One hundred fifty-one feet,” he rattled off the answer before giving me an odd look. “Why?”

  I shrugged and stared up at the jolly, green woman holding a torch. “No reason. I’ve just always wondered.”

  “Did you know the copper it’s made of is only two point four millimeters thick?”

  Lifting my eyebrows because, honestly, I thought that was way too thin for something so enormous, I said, “Really?”

  “Yeah, it was built in—”

  “Grace,” Kiera called out, interrupting her boyfriend. “You haven’t friended Ryder on Facebook yet.”

  Spinning away from the posters, I gaped up at the second level where she now sat in front of the computer with three other people perched over her shoulder, studying the screen.

  “I…uh…” I glanced, panicked, toward Ryder before looking up at his girlfriend and saying, “He never sent me a request.”

  “Oh.” She smiled and turned back to the computer. “Well, then I’ll send you one for him right now.”

  “Hey, how do you know my password?” Scowling, Ryder moved away from me to climb the ladder and crawl up into the second level where Kiera sat at his desk.

  “I don’t,” she answered. “You never logged out.”

  “So you’re on my Facebook page right now?”

  Kiera grinned and blew him a kiss. “Of course.”

  He groaned but didn’t demand she get off as he stood, staring over her shoulder, watching her send me a friend request.

  A few seconds later, Kiera took her hands off the keys and smirked down at me. “There. I’ve sent you a request from him.”

  I sent her a sick smile. “Great.”

  “Thanks for accepting my friend request, by the way,” Mindy said from the couch. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to befriend all of us so soon after just meeting us.”

  I nodded and finally slumped down onto the couch next to her since her boyfriend was off, clustered over with Todd in front of the television.

  “I still don’t understand how I had so many requests as soon as I got home from school. You guys work fast.”

  “Na. We just sent them from school.”

  “Really?” I lifted my eyebrows. “That’s cool. They blocked social networks on our computers at Hillsburg.”

  “Oh, they block them at Southeast too.”

  I crinkled my brow and sent her a disbelieving look. “Then, how did you get in?”

  “Easy.” She shrugged. “You just type S after the HTTP part of the web address.”

  “Huh?” I said, blinking.

  “Add an S. You know, S for secure.”

  Above us on the upper level of the room, Kiera snorted. “Yeah, kind of like L for—”

  “Kiera,” Ryder hissed, grabbing her hand and yanking down the L she was forming off her forehead as she smirked directly at me. “Cut it out.”

  “What?” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and sent him an innocent, choirgirl smile. “I was just teasing.”

  I really did not like that girl, and it wasn’t just because somewhere deep inside me I was jealous she’d stolen my man. Kiera was simply evil. That’s all there was to it. It was petty, spiteful girls like her who gave nice, hard-working cheerleaders a bad image.

  As Ryder scowled suspiciously at his girlfriend, Todd clapped his hands to gain the room’s attention. “Okay, we’ve decided on tonight’s activity. We’re going to bowl. Who wants to play?”

  “Bowl?” I repeated, ever being my clueless self.

  “Yeah, on the Wii.”

  Ryder had a Nintendo Wii, too? It was official, I decided; the boy had everything.

  So we Wii bowled. I fully planned to sit out and watch, but somehow Todd sucked me into joining the game. I’d never played any game on a Wii before and was shocked I even needed to create my own Mii person before starting.

  It felt strange, realizing a Mii Grace would forever more dwell on Ryder’s Wii. But I had little choice in the matter as Todd created my avatar for me.

  Turned out, I was a natural at Wii bowling. On the first game, I hit three strikes in a row, with Ryder following at a close second place.

  He scowled at me after the final scores tallied.

  “One more game,” he announced, and the two of us openly competed against each other as we took our turns. Everyone in the room encouraged it, having fun as they cheered against Ryder and rooted me on.

  I won again, hitting five strikes in a row and four spares on the second game.

  Ryder demanded yet another replay, his competitive streak shining through. But Kiera wanted to play something else. So the Wii was put away and Ryder’s Xbox Kinect—which I’d nev
er even heard of until then—was dragged out. Yeah, yeah, I know. I was sadly behind in the gaming world.

  On Kinect, we played Space Pop. I totally sucked at Space Pop because I felt like a total moron jumping around in front of a television without any kind of controller in my hand. Motion censored games were so not my thing.

  Todd won all the Kinect games we played and gloated mercilessly in Ryder’s face, which didn’t really win him brownie points in my book. A smug winner was worse than a sore loser.

  By the time everyone grew tired of him chanting, “You lose, sucka,” it was a quarter after eleven. A couple people had already left and Mindy and her boyfriend were digging their coats out of the pile we’d made on the floor.

  “Man, I still have to study for that history test in the morning,” the boy who’d ridden with Todd announced as he stretched his arms over his head and let out a resounding yawn.

  “I do too,” one of the cheerleaders said. She glanced meaningfully toward Todd.

  Happy I wasn’t the first to poop out, I nodded when Todd gave me a look, silently asking if I was ready to leave as well.

  We climbed up and out Ryder’s window, the girls making jokes and giggling as everyone piled back into Todd’s Jeep. The seat under me felt extra cold as we waited for the engine to warm. I huddled deep into my logger’s jacket as exhaustion stole into my body and fuzzed my brain.

  I didn’t talk much as Todd drove the three in the back seat home first. As we dropped off the last girl, however, he grinned over at me. “Still half an hour before your curfew,” he reminded. “What do you want to do?”

  “Go home.” I yawned and wiped at my dry eyes. When I realized how rude I sounded, I dropped my hand. “I’m sorry, I mean, I’m really tired. If you don’t mind…”

  His shoulders had slumped but he nodded as he pulled out of the cheerleader’s drive. “No problem. I can take you home.”

  “Thank you. I live close to the school on—”

  “I know where Dr. Struder lives,” Todd cut in, sending me a knowing smile.

  “Oh.” I swallowed, wondering how the people around Osage knew so much about Barry.

  We pulled into my new driveway five minutes later. “I’ll see you to your door,” Todd said as he killed the engine.

  It was dark, cold, and foreign, so I didn’t argue. I opened the passenger side door and waited for him to come around to me since the sidewalk to the front porch sat on my side.

  He walked close; our arms bumped occasionally as we dodged icy spots before finally stepping under the overhang of the porch. Someone—probably Mom—had left on the light by the entrance, so when I turned to Todd to thank him, I could see his face clearly.

  He really was an attractive boy. His hazel eyes glittered in the porch light. I found myself eye level with his goatee. There was a bare spot on his chin, just under his lip, where no hair grew. Thinking back on that moment, I have to wonder if Todd thought I was staring at his mouth, while honestly, I was wondering why that tiny little space was bald.

  “Did you have fun tonight?” he asked.

  I lifted my face. “I like bowling,” I had to admit. Actually, I liked beating Ryder. He hadn’t pouted about losing, but he’d been just competitive enough to make me feel awesome about winning.

  “Good.” Todd’s smile was pure pride as he added, “Maybe you’ll like this too.”

  My eyebrows wrinkled in question, and I opened my mouth to ask, like what? But he swooped down and pressed his lips to mine so quickly the words muffled in my throat.

  I’d like to say shock froze me those two—or three, possibly four, okay, five—seconds we stood there kissing. I was shocked; there was no doubt about that. But curiosity held me motionless as well. I’d never been kissed, felt lame for being so inexperienced. I wanted to know what all the fuss was about, wanted that little item checked off my life’s to-do list.

  Been kissed?

  Check.

  But as I realized I really wasn’t thrilled by the sensation, I grew a little indignant.

  I mean, what the heck was he doing? He hadn’t even asked. This was my first kiss; shouldn’t I have had some say in who got to be the boy to deliver such a memory?

  Guess not.

  Todd seemed to think he had every right because after those frozen five seconds of mashing our mouths together in a most uncomfortable fashion, he stepped closer and wrapped his hand around my jaw, tilting my face up so he could keep on kissing me.

  That’s when I jerked away with a gasp.

  “G’night.” I spun away from him, reaching blindly for the front door.

  For a split second, I feared Mom might’ve locked me out and I’d have to stand outside with him as I dug my key from my pocket. But thank goodness, the handle gave under my fingers. I twisted hard and shoved my way inside, shutting Todd out as he opened his mouth to say, “Grace—”

  Once I was safely tucked inside, I licked my tingling lips, then grimaced as I tasted Todd’s foreign flavor. Frantically scrubbing at my mouth with the back of my hand, I wished for the umpteenth time I could have a rewind button to start the entire day over.

  Chapter 12

  Like the third room in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of The Red Death, I’m overwhelmed with green. A new bud on a spring tree, awakened to the world and beginning to grow or a baby puppy, learning to walk through tall grass, I can only stumble along because I’m inexperienced, a tadpole with new gills as I take my first breath of womanhood. Is every first kiss so awkward? Does every girl feel disappointed afterward…as if she just pressed her mouth to the wrong boy?

  * * * *

  Mom and Barry hadn’t waited up for me, thank goodness. I hurried through the dark house to my new room and quickly shut the door, flipping on a light. As I did, I continued to scrub at my mouth. Though no one could see me, I blushed.

  Honestly, the whole messy business was plain embarrassing.

  I kept wondering why Todd had kissed me, why I hadn’t liked it, why I’d let him continue so long.

  My mind wandered to Ryder. Of course. After asking myself if it would’ve felt the same to kiss him, I immediately banished that question from my brain and decided I shouldn’t be thinking about him at all.

  Too keyed up to sleep, I flopped onto my bed and pulled my laptop out of my book bag that lay cushioned on a pillow. After booting up, I logged into Facebook, hoping maybe some of my Hillsburg friends were online. I needed a good dose of the nerd herd after the night I’d just had. Craving conversation with people more like me, I typed in my password and logged on.

  I should’ve known better. At this time of night, they were no doubt sleeping peacefully in their beds. But the little red number 1 in my friend requests box reminded me of Kiera’s request from Ryder.

  Biting my lip, I stared hard at that number. If I ignored it, everyone would know, especially after Kiera had made such a big deal of sending it, and they’d think I didn’t like Ryder. Or maybe they’d know I did and was too mortified to friend him. Then again, Ryder hadn’t bothered to tell Kiera to stop, so he must not care whether we were Facebook friends or not.

  I was seriously over-thinking this, so I decided to just do it. Letting out a shaky sigh, I clicked on the red number and then slid the cursor over the accept button. I hovered on top of it a moment before holding all the air in my lungs and quickly pushing down.

  And Ryder Yates became my friend, on Facebook anyway.

  Temptation was impossible to resist, I clicked his link and checked out his profile. He had two hundred thirteen friends, twelve of which we shared. His profile picture showed his truck, the new extended cab I’d seen parked in his driveway. In the text box under that, he’d written, “Yeah, I’m that one guy who goes to that one school.”

  I rolled my eyes but sucked in a breath when I saw how his relationship status read, In a relationship, with Kiera’s link under that. I clicked back to my own profile before I could open any of his photo albums and torture myself further by staring int
o his gorgeous green eyes.

  Bridget had invited me to a party in Farmville.

  As I began to reply, I noticed a new friend had logged on. Hoping Bridge couldn’t sleep either, I checked to find out who was online with me and gasped.

  Ryder was on Facebook.

  Ugh.

  I was about to disconnect when my chat box popped up and, yes, he wrote to me.

  “Hi.”

  I froze, totally petrified. Ryder Yates wanted to chat with me on Facebook. At midnight. Not that the time mattered, but still. I briefly wondered if I should quickly go ahead and logoff, but I’d already stalled too long not to be able to see his comment without being able to say, “Oh, I must’ve missed it before I logged out. Sorry,” tomorrow in school if he asked why I’d ignored him.

  So I typed in a quick “Hi,” hoping he was one of those people who just liked to acknowledge everyone he saw online, and that would be that.

  He wasn’t one of those people.

  “What’re you doing up?”

  Grinding my teeth, I kept my answer simple. “Unpacking.” Probably what I should be doing, anyway, instead of chatting with him on Facebook.

  “Really?” he wrote back. “I would’ve taken you for the tidy type to have all your things in order by now.”

  Was he making fun of me? There was no way I could keep a simple response after that comment. “I AM the tidy type. That’s why it’s taking me so long. I have no idea where to put everything.”

  My room hadn’t been nearly this mammoth in Hillsburg; it still felt weird sleeping on a king-sized bed. I was used to the single I’d had at home. There was almost too much storage with all the closet space and bureau drawers I had now. I felt like a little beggar girl who’d broken into a five-star hotel for the night. The place definitely did not feel like my room.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Ryder typed.

  His admission sent warmth around my belly. Something about guys showing their soft side always made me feel all sigh-worthy. But I didn’t want to get mushy toward Ryder Yates any more than I already was. Not wanting to disconnect because, well, I felt all warm and mushy toward him, but not wanting to actually show those feelings, I decided to keep things light.