I reached over for some tissues and then moved my hand to his pulsating hardness as I pressed my body against his leg and began a slow gyration. If he was shocked, he didn’t say, nor did he pull farther away. Instead, he turned to kiss me and then repeated my name as if he had to memorize it.
We exploded at the same time and then stopped like two thieves caught in police spotlights. Neither of us spoke. I rose and went into the bathroom. When I returned, he was out of my bed and had his robe on. Still naked, I approached him, and he embraced me, opening his robe to include me. He kissed me and smiled.
“I guess I have to take back what I said about nature,” he said. “It’s a bit ungrateful to complain about being caught in a storm now.”
I was still reeling, floating with the realization of just how intimate we had been. How long would it have taken for us to be as loving if there hadn’t been a storm? I was confident that sooner or later, it would have happened.
He released me, closed his robe, picked up his candle, kissed me again, and went to the door, pausing to be sure no one was out in the hall, that no one being especially my mother.
“ ’Night,” he whispered, and walked out.
I put on my nightgown and got back into bed. For a while, I just lay there luxuriating in the sensuous memory of what we had done. Tired again, I leaned over to blow out my candle but stopped when light entered my bedroom. Of course, my first thought was that he was returning. I was going to tell him it would be better if he woke up in his own bed.
But it wasn’t Dillon.
It was my mother. She stood there looking at me just the way she often did in my dreams involving Ryder.
I didn’t know what to say. Had she seen Dillon’s candle in the hallway? My answer came quickly.
“I hope you are being careful, Fern,” she said. “Trouble has found a home in Wyndemere. It won’t give it up easily, and it will more than welcome a new opportunity.”
She wasn’t waiting for my response, not that I had one. She turned and left, the light rushing away behind her as if it had been forgotten and leaving me in the weak light of my own flickering candle, flickering like my heart. I didn’t think I would fall asleep again quickly, but maybe it was a combination of one emotional crescendo after another, or maybe it was simply a way to escape.
The electricity was still not on when I awoke. Samantha could be heard complaining to my mother in the hallway as if it was my mother’s fault. She was hoping to watch television all morning since school was closed. She was demanding that Mr. Stark do something.
“He’s supposed to!” she cried. “My father’s going to be very upset.”
“Get dressed, Samantha,” I heard my mother say. “We’ll deal with it.”
Samantha slammed her door. I waited to see if my mother would yell at her, but from the sound of it, she simply turned and went down the stairs.
At least the clouds had begun to break and some sunlight was slipping through and giving us enough light from windows to move about easily.
I washed and dressed in a sweater and jeans and then hurried to Dillon’s room. I was surprised to see he wasn’t there. He couldn’t have cleaned off his car and driven off this soon. I saw Samantha had opened her door again, but she was sulking now in her room, sitting up in her bed, her arms folded. When she looked at me, I turned away.
I hurried downstairs. Halfway down, I heard laughter coming from the dining room. When I entered, there was Dillon at the table and Mrs. Marlene sitting across from him with Mr. Stark. There was a large candelabra on the table, all lit, even though there was a lot of light coming through the large picture window. They turned as I stepped in.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Lucky we have a gas stove,” Mrs. Marlene said. “Or your guest and Mr. Stark would be starving.”
“I lived plenty of days without electricity, thank you. Rather eat by a fire anyway,” Mr. Stark said.
“With the Native Americans you claim to have known? Listening to him, you’d think he was over two hundred and twenty and helped the pioneers.”
Dillon laughed. Mr. Stark smiled.
“Turns out your friend Dillon here has worked with an old friend of mine,” Mr. Stark said. “Rube Gibson. Has that farm over in Billsbury. Best sweet corn in the state. As Mrs. Marlene was just saying when she was giving me credit for bringing her the corn.”
“Farm?” I said.
“Only part-time,” Dillon said.
I stared at him. What other surprises were in store for me?
“Doing what?”
“Harvest season. When I was younger. My Woody Guthrie days,” he added.
“I like a young man who’s not afraid of getting his hands dirty,” Mr. Stark said. He slapped his together. “Well, I’d better get started now that the snow has stopped. I’ll be picking up your father in an hour, so I’d better get the driveway passable,” he added as he stood.
“Where’s my mother?”
“Maids couldn’t show up, so she’s in the doctor’s office hunting down the defiant dust,” Mrs. Marlene said, rising. “Dillon had an omelet. You?”
“You already had breakfast? What time did you get up?” I asked him.
“About an hour ago.”
“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Marlene. I will have an omelet,” I said. I poured myself some juice and sat across from Dillon. Mr. Stark left, and she went into the kitchen. “You never told me you worked on a farm.”
“It was a couple of years ago. We haven’t really told each other too much about ourselves yet, Fern,” he said, and smiled. “Got to leave something for tomorrow,” he added. “I was just fourteen. My father got it into his head that I should be earning my own allowance, and he knew Mr. Gibson’s brother. I had to take a bus and walk two miles. You know who Woody Guthrie was, right?”
“A folk singer, part of the labor movement. He wrote ‘This Land Is Your Land.’ ”
“I am impressed.”
“I did a report on him for history class. He was one of the choices. I guess you slept all right. Afterward,” I added.
“Conked out. Everything all right?” he asked.
I poured myself a cup of coffee and buttered a roll. “My mother knows you came to my room,” I said. “I thought I’d better warn you. Unless she said something already.”
“No. Am I in trouble?”
“Not yet. We’d both be, anyway.”
“I’d better get to my car, dig it out, scrape the ice off the windows, and make my escape.”
“I’ll help,” I said. “After I have my omelet.”
He laughed. “Where’s Little Miss Muffet?”
“Complaining and pouting. Probably waiting to see if my mother will bring her curds and whey.”
“Will she?”
“I don’t know. Not if I can help it, but I usually can’t help it.” I sipped some coffee. Suddenly, the lights came on.
“Civilization again,” Dillon said.
I rose and blew out the candles. “Let me check on my breakfast,” I said.
Dillon poured himself more coffee.
I returned with my omelet just as my mother stepped into the dining room.
“Morning, Ms. Corey,” Dillon said immediately.
“Good morning.” She paused as if she was going to say something intense. I held my breath, but she just nodded at me and went into the kitchen.
“So is that mad?” Dillon asked in a whisper.
“Worried,” I said. “I’d better find you a pair of boots. You’re not going to shovel snow and scrape off ice in those loafers. Are you about a nine?”
“Yes. What, is there a shoe store here, too?”
“No,” I said. “I took a guess. My brother’s a nine and a half, but you should do all right in them.” I finished my omelet and got up. “I’ll be right down.”
“Okay,” he said, and surprised me by beginning to clear off the table. “Got to work on your mother.” He winked.
When I got to
the top of the stairway, Samantha stepped out of her room.
“Is Dillon still here?”
“Yes, but we’re going to clean off his car so he can go home.”
“I knew it,” she said. “I knew he wouldn’t stay to play checkers like he promised.”
“Some of us have important things to do, Samantha. Get dressed and go down to breakfast so Mrs. Marlene can work on other things.”
She scrunched up her nose.
“If you want, come out and help us clear off Dillon’s car,” I said.
There was a flicker of interest in her face. “You’ll be done before I get out there,” she decided.
I shrugged. “If you had gone down to breakfast instead of sulking, you’d be ready.”
“Who cares?” she said.
Yes, I thought, and walked away. Who cares?
I went into Ryder’s room slowly and stealthily like a thief in the night. Of course, it was still in the wrecked state it had been in, something my father had ordered to be left that way. Why was a question that I thought was haunting my mother as well.
Avoiding looking at it as much as I could, I went to Ryder’s closet to look for a pair of boots Dillon could use. Ryder had a few different pairs. I took the ones I thought were most functional and had started to close the closet when something I saw froze me.
There in the opposite corner, crumpled up, was what looked like my prom dress, the dress that had belonged to Ryder’s mother, Samantha, the dress we had found together in the attic. My mother had had it tailored for me. Hesitantly, I knelt and reached for it. When I held it up, there was no question. It was the dress. I’d had it practically buried at the far left corner of the rack in my own closet. Since I had moved back to the main house, I had looked at it only once. In my mind, it was part of all that was forbidden now.
How had it come to be here?
Could Samantha have brought it to him? Would she ever confess to it?
Had my father seen it? My mother?
What should I do with it now? Should I tell my mother about it?
I knew my father still suspected me of giving the framed picture to Ryder. Why wouldn’t he suspect me of doing this as well?
Because of my father’s orders, no one had been in this room to organize and straighten out things, especially the clothing. The chances were very good no one except the one who put it here knew the dress was in this closet.
I made an instant decision, hoping it was the right one. I stuffed it under my arm, checked to be sure Samantha wasn’t out in the hallway, and then hurried to my room. I put the dress back in my closet, took a deep breath, and went downstairs, where Dillon was waiting in the entryway.
“Hey,” he said. “Thanks.” He put on the boots and nodded. “Mr. Stark’s plowed out a lot around my car, but the windows are caked with ice,” he said. “He gave me one of these.” He showed me the scraper. “I have one of my own in the car, just not as good.”
“Let’s go, then,” I said, and reached for my coat and put on my boots.
We stepped into the brisk, just-above-freezing morning with a partly cloudy sky and a diminishing wind. Mr. Stark was just about finished with the driveway. He had already shoveled out the front walk. I started on the side windows while Dillon worked on the windshield. When we looked at each other, our breaths seemed to want to join in midair. He laughed at my determined efforts to get the ice glaze off. I was using both hands now.
He had started the engine, and the heater was doing some of the work for us. Mr. Stark left his tractor for a few minutes to help us do Dillon’s back window and then said he had to go for my father.
“I don’t think my mother’s going to let me go anywhere today, Dillon.”
“Not all the roads are even plowed yet,” Mr. Stark said, overhearing me.
Dillon nodded at him. “I’ll call you and we’ll practice some lines over the phone,” he told me.
We watched Mr. Stark drive off.
“I’ll go in and thank your mother again,” he said.
When we entered the house, he started to take off the boots.
“You can hold on to them if you need them,” I said.
“Those are Ryder’s,” we heard, and turned to see Samantha standing there.
“That’s fine. I don’t need them now. Just driving straight home,” Dillon said, smiling.
“Are you coming back?” Samantha asked.
“Someday,” Dillon said. “Hold the checkers.”
“You won’t come back, and if you do, you won’t want to play checkers with me or pool or anything,” she said with the air of a biblical prophet. She turned and walked toward the dining room before either of us could respond.
“I thought I had a bitter view of things,” Dillon said. “Now I feel as happy as one of Santa’s helpers.”
My mother appeared in the hallway. She had stepped out of my father’s office.
“Thanks again, Ms. Corey,” Dillon called to her.
“You just be careful on those roads. I’m sure they’re far from perfect,” she said.
“Will do.” He put on his shoes and opened the door.
I looked back. My mother had gone into the dining room.
“I’ll call,” he said.
We kissed, and he walked out. I stood in the doorway and watched him get into his car and drive off.
After I closed the door, I looked up at the stairway. The dress, I thought. How did it get from my closet into Ryder’s closet?
The answer to that would surely reveal another secret.
12
MY PHONE WAS ringing the moment I had stepped into my bedroom a little more than an hour later. I had helped Mrs. Marlene clean up the kitchen. I smiled, imagining it was Dillon letting me know he was home safe and maybe telling me how much he missed me already. But I was wrong.
“How was the pizza? Did you get home safely? What about Dillon? Was he upset that I couldn’t come? You’re still trying out for the play, right?” Ivy asked, firing her questions at machine-gun speed.
“Are any of those questions multiple choice?”
She laughed. “I’m just going a bit crazy locked up. We’re still waiting for our driveway to be plowed. My mother and I shoveled our walkway. My Internet was down as well as our cable TV. Were yours?”
“I never checked, but late last night the electricity went off for quite a while. So, a review and summary: We didn’t get pizza. My mother wanted me home because the storm was flying in, and when we got to Wyndemere, it was wild, and the roads were already impassable, so my mother invited Dillon to stay over, and we had dinner here.”
“What? Stay over? Did he do it?”
“He had no choice, but I think if he had, he would have chosen to stay,” I said, my voice full of suggestion. “Did you know that Dillon once worked on a farm?”
“No. To be honest, Fern, as I told you, I really don’t know all that much about him. Whenever I asked him questions about himself, he would just shrug or smile and say, ‘What’s the difference?’ I just stopped asking.”
I wondered if she even knew he was adopted but quickly decided that anything Dillon had told me about himself would remain a secret. Considering where I lived, keeping secrets wasn’t a problem.
“Well, what did you two do all night?”
“We had a nice dinner, and then he played checkers with my brat sister and pool with me until it was time to go to sleep.”
Enough said, I thought.
“You probably can never be bored in that house. Nothing else happened?”
“I told you, the electricity went off.”
“I was hoping to hear about it going on,” she said, and giggled.
“You know, I haven’t done any of my homework,” I said, moving to change the subject. “I’m lucky we have the snow day. Better get to it. I’ll see you tomorrow. We’re definitely going to audition for the play. Practice your lines.”
“Okay,” she said. “ ’Byeeee.” Her voice drifted off like
that of a deserted little girl, desperate for a friend.
Loneliness had a way of inserting itself into your life in so many ways from the day you were born, I thought. There were many times when I was left alone like Ivy with few lifelines to friends. Did that make me stronger, more independent, or more insecure? Maybe what attracted me most to Dillon was his complete indifference about navigating friendships. I could easily envision him brushing off Ivy’s personal questions. With a simple shrug, he handled so many questions and comments. Understandably, that would bother most people. If he was depicted in a cartoon, the balloon above his head would have the word Whatever and nothing else. Maybe because of all the tension in Wyndemere, his lack of concern made him even more attractive to me, made me more envious. There was power in indifference. At minimum, it illustrated self-confidence.
I really did have homework to do, so I went to my desk and began. I had no idea how much time had gone by until I heard a knock on my door and saw that I had dived into my work more than an hour and a half ago.
My mother stood in the doorway looking in at me. There were so few times in my life when her face had taken on this same deep expression of gloom and doom, so deep that it seemed to freeze into a hard ceramic mask. Whenever I did see her like this, it was easy to believe she would never smile again. I held my breath, my heart as taut as a bowstring.
“What’s wrong, Mummy? Something about Ryder?”
“Your father needs to speak to you. He’s waiting for you in his office.”
“Is it about Ryder?” I insisted.
“Of course,” she said without hesitation.
“Did something more terrible happen to him?”
“He’s the same. It’s about you as much as it is about him, Fern. I want you to promise me that you will be completely honest with your father, that you will tell him anything he wants to know.”
Echoes in the Walls Page 19
