Just Pru

by Anne Pfeffer

  “Now, open.”

  We were on a wooden deck overlooking the ocean, so close that I could hear the lapping of waves against the sand. Nearby, a set of stairs led down a steep bluff to the water.

  I turned to him in amazement. “You’re right on the beach?”

  He nodded. “It’s something I always knew I would do, live by the ocean.” He gazed out toward the horizon as if he owned it.

  “You could die in a tsunami.”

  He shrugged. “So be it.”

  I was struck by his certainty. “So… you wanted it, and you got it? Just like that?”

  He hesitated. “Well, not just like that. I worked hard for it. For years.”

  “What else did you know you would do?”

  “I wanted to work for myself. So I hung out my shingle, right out of college, with one client.”

  “Your roommate’s mother?” I asked, remembering his conversation with her on Wednesday.

  He grinned. “Yep. I was lucky. She liked me so much, she sent her friends to me, and it grew from there.”

  Adam seemed so grown up compared to me. “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-one.”

  An Older Man. He had six years on me. Still, in terms of having his act together, I’d put him ahead by more like twenty.

  “Anyway,” he said, “let me show you around.”

  The tour of the downstairs took five minutes. “It was a tiny fixer-upper when I got it.” Small, true, but Adam had made it beautiful with maple hardwood and green granite and big windows to let in natural light during the day.

  “Upstairs is a master suite that I added.” Adam led the way. Like the living room below it, the bedroom had a large deck overlooking the ocean.

  I leaned against the railing, overwhelmed by the beauty of the place. “Do you always get what you want?”

  “No.” Adam placed his hands on the railing and stared out to sea. “For one thing, I hadn’t expected to be living alone in this house.”

  “You thought you’d be married?”

  “Yeah, but Melinda obviously wasn’t the right person.”

  I hated to think of Adam gone and someone else living across the hall from Ellen. It was silly of me to care, since I would most likely have to leave, too. Maybe even tomorrow, or the next day.

  I wished I could freeze my life into place, just the way it was now. “I don’t want you to go.”

  “I’ll only be twenty minutes away,” he said.

  And then, he stepped toward me and gently lifted my chin with his finger.

  I held my breath.

  I knew from a thousand romantic scenes watched over and over again that this was a probable kissing moment. I was pretty sure I was supposed to stand there and wait until he did it. Or was I?

  “Are you going to kiss me?” How would he do it? What did he expect of me?

  His eyes twinkled. “I was thinking of it.”

  The problem was, the way you kissed seemed to depend on the channel you were watching. On the Wholesome Family Channel, it was a peck on the lips and goodnight. On the steamier channels, the kissing was a little scary, as it usually involved the crashing of bodies into furniture and wild ripping off of clothing. Did Adam expect me to do that?

  “What about germs? Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “Oh, I’ll man up….” He pulled me toward him in a way that made me feel tingly all over. “If it means I get to kiss you, Pru.”

  Delirious, I closed my eyes, waiting, then just as quickly opened my eyes, stepped back, and clutched my stomach. “I’m so nervous!”

  “Nervous!” Adam took on a complex expression, as if many thoughts were chasing each other in his mind. “Why?”

  When I didn’t answer, he asked, “You’ve been with other men before, right?”

  I tried to think of an even slightly truthful answer that wasn’t embarrassing. Nope. There were none. “This would be my first time.”

  “I didn’t bring you here to seduce you. I mean….,” Adam faltered. “I’d like to, of course, but I wouldn’t expect anything like that….”

  “No, I meant this would be my first kiss.”

  Adam’s jaw dropped open. His arms stiffened around me.

  My lip trembled. Why did I have to say that? Who at age twenty-five hadn’t been kissed? Now that he knew how strange I was, he wouldn’t want me.

  Adam’s look was fierce and tender. “Hold that thought.” He disappeared, leaving me alone. I stood on his deck, cursing my stupidity, shivering a little in the night air that suddenly seemed cold.

  My parents were right. I couldn’t do anything. I wasn’t good for anything. My hands gripped the balcony railing, knuckles turning white.

  “Pru?” Adam’s arms were filled with stuff he was attempting to put down. A blanket, which he smoothed out on the deck. A warm sweatshirt, which he zipped me into. “I noticed you looked cold,” he said. A bottle of champagne with two flutes and—I smiled when I saw them— even some candles and a lighter.

  “You brought all this here?” Mental Note: romantic behavior by a male was a major aphrodisiac. “Why?”

  All the wonderful qualities that made him Adam were spewing off of him like points of light off a diamond. Sweet, gruff, smart, romantic, and—my breath caught—masculine. Adam was all of those things.

  “I’m going to woo you,” he said.

  My knees turned liquid, and my breathing stopped.

  The doorbell rang.

  My eyes met Adam’s and I could see him thinking, what kind of person would be at the door of his empty house at this hour? It had to be almost midnight.

  I already knew. The blood in my veins turned to ice. This—right here, right now—was my punishment, my payback for not giving Lloyd and Phyllis what they wanted.

  “Stay here and don’t make a sound,” Adam said, leaving me.

  Forget that. I clattered down the stairs right behind him, prepared to sacrifice myself, to throw my body in between him and any missiles or grenades sent by my parents to destroy him.

  But the men at the door didn’t want to talk to Adam. “We’re looking for Prudence Anderson,” one of them said.

  They wore matching dark short-sleeved uniforms. Their belts bristled with objects clearly intended to shoot, stun, and subdue troublemakers such as myself. Adam insisted on inspecting the men’s badges before he let me take even a few steps out onto his driveway with one of them, an Officer Marks. The other stood guard over Adam like he was a criminal.

  “Miss Anderson, is everything okay?” the officer asked me. His radio spat loud static into the night air, making me jump.

  “Yes, of course. Who sent you here?” I demanded, even though I knew. My mouth held the bitter taste of disappointment. Adam was supposed to be wooing me right now, not hoping to avoid arrest.

  “A report was filed. Witnesses saw Mr. Sanford allegedly pulling you into his car. A photo taken of the license plate allowed us to identify it.”

  “That’s wrong! He invited me. I agreed to go out with him.”

  “So you’re here of your own free will? No force or coercion was used?” Marks made notes on his clipboard.

  “None. We’re on a date.”

  Marks studied me, as if he were trying to decide if he believed me. “Did you come here in Mr. Sanford’s car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you like us to escort you home?”

  “No, thank you. I’d rather stay.”

  Marks walked back with me to where Adam and the other guy were standing. “I see no basis for this complaint. Sorry to bother you.” Accompanied by more loud static noises and the riffling of paperwork, they got into their car and left.

  Adam and I stood there in a horrible, awkward silence. Finally he said, “Your parents, I presume?”

  I nodded, unable to speak over the lump in my throat.

  Adam’s voice was cold. “They’re bat-shit crazy, you know.”

  I stared at him miserably. “You asked why I was running awa
y.”

  “They lied to the police about me. I could have been arrested. For kidnapping.” He jammed his hands in his pockets and stared broodingly out toward the ocean.

  “I’m so sorry.” I wanted to scream and rage at my parents, throw things, tell them how much I hated them, never wanted to see them again.

  “I’m going in to call you a cab.”

  “But we’re not done!”

  “Oh, we’re done.”

  It felt like he’d slapped me.

  Without another word, he disappeared. I stood outside in his sweatshirt looking at the ocean. Amazingly, I was dry-eyed. No tears could relieve this pain. Or lessen this anger. Would he forgive me after some time went by? Please let him forgive me, I prayed. It wasn’t my fault.

  I knew exactly whose fault it was. My heart hardened into a mean, cold little ball of hatred. I would never, ever, in a million years, forgive my parents for this.

  I realized it then. I had to go see them. Now. No delays.

  “Can I use your phone?” I asked Adam when he came out again.

  Still silent, he handed it to me.

  When my father answered, I said only, “It’s Pru. Where are you?” I repeated the address my dad gave me, which Adam scribbled down on a receipt from his pocket. For a split second his eyes held the tiniest glimmer of approval.

  But when I looked at him again, my wonderful romantic Adam was gone and in his place was a distant stranger. With cold politeness, he insisted on paying the cabbie when he arrived. Devastated, I began to unzip his sweatshirt, but he said, “Keep it. So you don’t get cold.”

  On the ride to my parents’ motel, my mind spun in the deepest, blackest anger I’d ever experienced. I would slice them and dice them and send them away. If they came near me, I would get a restraining order, or a guard dog, or whatever it took to keep them as far away from me as possible. I would monitor their movements by satellite and adjust my position so I was always at the exact opposite end of the planet from them.

  They would pay for this, that was for sure. After tonight, they would never, ever see me again.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  From Pru’s Journal:

  The only kind of failure, Dr. Abbott said, is giving up. Persistence, he said. Persistence is key.

  ##

  My mom and dad had set up Operation Prudence at an inexpensive Travel Inn a mile from my apartment building. Lloyd’s directions took me up a set of ugly concrete exterior steps and along an uglier walkway to an orange door marked 214. It looked like a futuristic storm bunker or some other place you would never go voluntarily, let alone pay money to inhabit.

  I knocked.

  The door opened, forcing me to make the long look up to the glittering yellow-brown eyes of my six-foot-six-inch inch father. My mother stood behind him in pedal pushers and a matching cardigan set. She’d pinned on a large enamel brooch shaped like a sun.

  “What on earth are you wearing?” she said to me, her nose wrinkling. My clothing seemed to be a theme with her on this trip.

  “It’s…” I hugged Adam’s sweatshirt around me.

  My dad shut the door behind me, effectively trapping me with them in the small beige and brown room. “You’re wearing his clothes?” He could wither a stand of oak trees with one well-placed remark. Now he gave my mom a look that said, This is even worse than we thought.

  My stomach fell into the heels of my thin-strapped sandals.

  “Exactly what is your relationship to this person?”

  Automatically, I reached for an answer, then bit it back. Dr. Abbot’s voice: You don’t have to explain yourself. Just tell him courteously what you plan to do.

  “Answer me, Prudence.”

  I tried not to jump or react. Already, any thought of slicing and dicing my father had vanished. When you dealt with Lloyd, your only concern was survival.

  “Your silence is your answer.” My dad stalked between the two beds. “I cannot tell you how deeply ashamed I am of your behavior.”

  “What did you tell the police?” I had finally found my voice. “Did you tell them Adam grabbed me and forced me into his car?”

  “That’s neither here nor there.” Lloyd waved his hand imperiously, while Phyllis sat nearby on a bed, legs crossed at the ankles, nodding her agreement to everything he said. A grayish-green water stain ran down the wall behind her, giving the impression that it was flowing into a hole in her head.

  “You knew Adam didn’t do that. You knew I went with him willingly.”

  He drew himself up.”Which is why I’m so disappointed in you!”

  “But you accused him, falsely, of a serious crime. You could have destroyed his reputation, his business.”

  “And whose fault is that? It was your irresponsible and selfish actions that forced my hand. I only did what was necessary to protect you from your own foolishness and poor judgment.” He had taken on this long-suffering, sanctimonious tone that made me want to do some serious damage to something… five years ago it would have been myself. Today it might have been that brown-on-brown stuffed armchair. Yeah, I could happily picture myself slashing it to ribbons with a razor.

  As he talked, my mom sat by, nodding her head in agreement to the beat of his sentences. It was your irreSPONsible and SELFish actions that FORCED my hand. My mom’s head dipped down at each accented beat, like some insane computer-programmed bobble-head doll.

  Nausea began a slow, steady infiltration. I would never win in a fight with my dad. He would always stoop lower and hit harder than me.

  Dr. Abbot’s reassuring voice. Avoid the finger pointing. Just state how you feel and what you want.

  “I will continue to see Adam.” That is, if—please, please— he would ever have me again. “I’ll be living with Ellen and working as her assistant.” I almost winced as I said it, fearing my dad’s reaction.

  At my words, Phyllis snapped to attention. “Ellen? Is that the girl we met?” Her brow wrinkled. “She seemed a bit… bohemian.”

  Lloyd overrode her. “You will do what you’re told!” he roared at me, his face turning purple.

  When I was little, his explosions had scared me so badly that I would say or do anything to prevent them. Yes Daddy; I’m sorry, Daddy; anything you say, Daddy. He had never laid a hand on me—he hadn’t needed to.

  Even now, my insides turned to jelly. As calmly as I could, I continued. “I will support myself by working. I will speak to you often, but I can’t guarantee it will be every day.”

  Lloyd’s lip curled. “Any other parents would have institutionalized a child like you, a child that required around-the-clock care. But no—we, and in particular, your mother, gave up our lives for your sake.”

  “Well, you don’t have to do it any longer.” I walked toward the door.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Home.”

  “Your home is with us!”

  “No, it’s not. I have an apartment and a roommate and … and a job!”

  “You mean, what you were doing today?” My mother’s eyebrows rose as if she couldn’t imagine anything more ridiculous.

  I drew myself up rather grandly and opened the door. “That’s right. I’m personally responsible for the mental well-being and physical safety of the show’s star. It’s really important.” If it all hadn’t been so awful, I might have laughed at their expressions—astonished suspicion on my dad’s face, blank confusion on my mom’s. “I have quite a lot on my plate, so if you don’t mind, I’ll be going.”

  In two strides, my dad was beside me, reaching out to grab my arm.

  I wrenched it away. “Don’t you dare touch me!” Every ounce of anger and pain inside me flew out of my mouth and hung there in the room, as if I’d thrown up a banner. I’d never spoken to him like that. His mouth fell open and he paused, his hand outstretched toward me.

  In that moment, I dashed out the door and ran for the motel office to call a cab. I needed to get out of there before they regrouped. Which the
y would do. They didn’t give up that easily.

  But then neither did I. In that way, I was starting to learn, I took after them.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  From Pru’s Journal:

  In addition to daily goals, Dr. Abbot said I should set long-term goals—things relating to career, marriage, and stuff like that. I couldn’t think of any, but he said that was okay. I would think of them when I was ready.

  ##

  The next day, I looked for Adam in the hallway and parking garage as Ellen and I headed for work. I wanted so badly to see him and gauge his mood. Sometimes things seemed better after a good night’s sleep, I thought, hopefully envisioning a well-rested Adam rushing over here to forgive me.

  I had never got to kiss him. Maybe now I never would. I thought of the expression in his eyes last night, before everything fell apart. He had liked me. Then, anyway.

  When I met with Blake, he was strangely aloof, but had a determined look in his eye. “I’ll do the harness today,” he told me. Good thing, I thought, since the opening night was tomorrow. All business, we ran lines for a while, then I went to tell Ellen we were ready.

  “Okay, after lunch,” Ellen said. She had just gotten off the phone and wore a strange expression. We were on stage, conferring while the set crew worked around us. Holding her clipboard, she doodled on the edge of a page with a marker.

  A little ball of tension formed in my stomach. Now what? Had my parents called the cops on her too?

  “Pru….” She hesitated as if she hated to ask. “Did you start a fire in my apartment?”

  I should have known she’d find out. I owed her the truth. “I set a potholder on fire. But I put it out right away.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because… I felt so stupid. And there was no damage. Although I still have to replace the potholder.” I realized guiltily that I’d forgotten about that.

  Ellen stared at me over the top of her tortoiseshell glasses. “That’s all?”

  “Yeah. I swear.” I felt like she wasn’t telling me something. “Who told you about this?” I asked, thinking Thanks a lot, Adam.