by S. L. Naeole
Fifteen hundred years of living with the gift to charm people into doing what you want, to will them to bend to your whims had made him arrogant and cocky in some ways, and it took a simple seventeen year old girl like me to bring him down a peg. I admit that among all of my achievements in life—and there really aren’t many—this was one of my finest. Even Lark, Robert’s sister appreciated my doing so.
“What are you thinking about now?”
“Ugh,” I groaned, realizing that once again, my train of thought had unknowingly left him behind. “I was thinking about your ridiculous inability to control yourself and how I’m being made to suffer for it.”
Seeing his confused expression was almost enough to make me forget that his sudden vow of kissing chastity had also become mine by proxy. Almost. “Ugh,” I groaned again, and shook my head at the impossibility of it all. How could I stare at such beautiful, mercury eyes and an impossibly perfect face and not want to attack it in a primal, feminine way?
“Ahh.”
Well hooray. He’d finally gotten into my mind.
“You’re thinking about that again? Why? I’ve made some concessions about this, Grace-“
I cut him off. “Yes. You agreed that while you wouldn’t kiss me like a boyfriend would, you’d kiss me like my dad does. How utterly romantic of you, and how selfish of me to want otherwise.” I felt my bottom lip slip out of its grimace, forming the pout that seemed to be ever-present now.
“Grace,” he began, “You’re being ridiculous, you know that? I’m trying to protect you. It’s difficult for me to deny myself the same things that you want, but you have to be patient and understanding.”
I threw my hands up, exasperated with his patience and understanding mantra. “It is ex-haus-ting, being so patient and understanding,” I snapped, but immediately felt contrite when I saw the hurt spread across his face. “Robert, I’m not asking for you to make love to me in the snow, or anything even remotely similar. Although if you want to, I’m not going to object. I’m only asking that you not take away the only real form of physical intimacy we share.”
I hadn’t meant for it to sound like I was pleading with him, but that’s exactly how it came out, and I hated it. I didn’t think I was truly that desperate until the words were out of my mouth.
Robert sighed; the sound was sad and troubled, the same way he sounded after returning from answering his call. “Grace, please. Let’s talk about this later, okay? I wanted to discuss something with you.”
So he was changing the subject. Fine. I made a mental note that when we finally did discuss this, he’d be unable to discuss anything but.
“What is it?”
Holding onto my chin, he forced me to look towards the Gazebo that was nestled between two large trees. The last time we were here, a newlywed bride dipped her husband in an unconventional sealing of her wedding vows. That was the night I met the bride’s grandmother, a kind woman named Ellie who had not only been an Electus Patronus, but also one of the few women who knew Robert in a more intimate way, a way that I never had. And with the way things were going, never would either.
“So what am I looking at?” I asked, taking note that the gazebo was shrouded in the white cloak of snow.
Robert grinned. “I’m going to set up a spot over there for us to celebrate the New Year. I’ve already spoken to your father and Lark is going to bring you here to meet me. I want you to wear the green dress again, if you don’t mind.”
“Why do I have to wear a dress?” I grumbled, not exactly enjoying the idea of being in the cold winter air in a dress that had only been barely tolerable when the ground still had some green to it. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the dress—the dress had been beautiful—it was more that it was…a dress. It had taken Robert actually purchasing it himself in order for me to put it on. It was the same night that I had told Robert that I loved him.
It was the same night that I had met Sam…
“Don’t think about him, Grace. That’s not how I want you to remember our first date.”
“I don’t think I can think about that night without thinking about him, Robert,” I argued. “I’m not going to pretend that he didn’t exist, that what happened…didn’t. It did, and I can’t forget it. The only thing I can do is hope things are better for us in the future.”
Robert sighed before finally releasing my chin and wrapping his arms around me. He whispered into my ear, “So do you want to hear what I have planned?”
I shook my head. “Surprise me.”
ARRANGEMENTS
The gross argument that friendship and dating go hand in hand is one that I had mistakenly adopted just a few months ago with my best friend, Graham Hasselbeck. He had abandoned our friendship after I had foolishly declared my love for him on the hood of his old Buick, and I fell headfirst into a deep depression that stained my life with the dark and lonely thoughts of being dejected for the crime of loving someone.
Fast forward four months and you’ve got an anxious me waiting on that very same hood for him to return from Christmas break with his mom. Lark, Robert’s sister, had insisted on waiting with me, and so the two of us perched ourselves on the hood of his little green clunker, watching for the cab that would bring Graham and his mother back from their vacation in Florida.
“Have you ever been to Florida?” I asked Lark, remembering Robert’s comment about beaches.
She nodded her head, her long hair that running like liquid onyx down her back and swaying ever so gently with the soft motion. “Sure. We’ve been to every state in this country, and almost all of the major continents. Robert thinks that North America holds the most promise though.” She looked slyly at me at that last bit, the silver in her eyes so light, it was almost colorless. I blushed, the heat of embarrassment at the innuendo burning the red into my cheeks. It didn’t help that she could read her brother’s mind and know what was hidden there. It bothered me though, knowing that she could also see that he was trying to remain physically distant.
“Grace, he’s being a complete idiot. But he’s doing it for the right reasons.”
I looked at her and took note of her conspiratorial smile. “What are you plotting, Lark?”
She shook her head. “I’m not plotting anything. But I know someone who is.”
I knew I could have asked her who it was, and she would have been nothing less than compelled to answer, but I couldn’t abuse her trust in me like that. If something or someone was planning something, I’d simply have to wait to find out.
“Thank you,” Lark sighed, having heard my reasoning. “Your difference never ceases to amaze me, you know.”
Her comment annoyed me. Different was my least favorite word—especially when used to describe me.
“Oh let it go, Grace. You’re going to have to face the fact that you are different. You’re living in a small town which makes differences that much more noticeable. Everyone here is different. Stacy is different because she’s the only girl who could kick every guy’s butt on the football team. Graham is different because he’s the most popular guy in the school whose best friend happens to be the least popular girl in school. Robert’s different because he’s dating you. I’m different because I’m blind.
“But, different doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”
She turned away then, a blush spreading across her face as she looked down the street. A yellow cab was heading towards us, and I could see that the conversation was over. “He’s coming,” she breathed, and I smiled at the tiny secret that she revealed with that subtle gesture.
The yellow sedan pulled up into the driveway fronting Graham’s house, and Lark and I both sat up straight as we waited for its occupants to emerge.
Or…occupant.
“Hey guys,” Graham called out as he stepped out alone. His hair had been cut since the last time I had seen him, and it had grown lighter; Florida sun would do that, I suppose. I felt a quick catch in the rhythm of my heart as he smiled, his evergreen eyes spa
rkling with satisfaction.
Where’s his mother?
I looked at Lark and shrugged, the question hanging at the back of my throat was begging to be asked. I waited until the cab had left and Graham was standing in front of me before I did.
“She’s staying in Florida,” he answered me matter-of-factly, his face unaffected, his smile still sweet and genuine. “She and Dad aren’t dealing so well together—well, you know that—so she’s staying with my aunt down in Tallahassee.”
“Oh,” Lark and I said at the same time. Me by what I had heard him say, Lark by what he didn’t.
Lark seemed quite uncomfortable at that moment, and started fidgeting with the buttons on her designer coat. Feeling oddly inadequate with my one size fits most jacket, I started preparing the list of questions I’d wanted to ask about his vacation, getting them mentally on deck so that perhaps the awkward silence that we’d given birth to would go away.
“I’ve got to go…powder my nose. I’ll be right back,” Lark suddenly blurted. She leapt off the hood and ran to my house in a slightly non-human burst of speed. It was only made more startling because Lark’s supposed to be blind, and she did it without once opening up her walking stick.
“Wow. She must’ve really had to go,” Graham mumbled, and then sighed. It wasn’t a sigh of disappointment, like I had partially expected. I might not have an angel’s ability to read minds, but I certainly could tell when my best friend wasn’t himself, and whenever he was around Lark, he was definitely not himself.
Sighing once again, Graham ran his fingers through his hair, now too short to be affected by the rough raking. “Look Grace, I didn’t want to say this in front of Lark, but the real reason my mom’s not here is because she’s filed for divorce. She told me while we were in Florida.”
Stunned, I sat there with my mouth glued shut. The entire list of questions I had disintegrated into a pile of dust as I understood what the ramifications of this sudden change would bring to Graham’s life.
“When is she coming back?” I asked, thinking about Ivy Hasselbeck’s cold, icy stare the last time I had seen her just a few days after the last day of school, when Graham had come over to drop off his Christmas present to me, and pick his up in return.
“She’s not. She wants me to move down there with her, but I told her I didn’t want to. I mean, we’re halfway through the year, and it doesn’t make sense for me to end up graduating from some school I’ll have only attended for a few months,” Graham rationalized, his hands shoved in his jacket pockets, pushing down on them like he needed to drive home the point more to himself than to me. I agreed with him; it made no sense. But it was different for me.
I couldn’t picture—no, I didn’t want to picture Graham out of my life once again so soon after he had wanted back in. That ache was still fresh in my mind, and I could feel the memories clawing their way to my heart, wanting to come out and rage at this new threat to our friendship.
“So, what does your dad think?” I asked, trying to distract myself from the burning need to hear him promise that he wasn’t going to leave me again.
Graham’s foot kicked the tire of his car as he stared up at the darkening sky. “He thinks that I should stay with him. But he’s not taking the whole divorce thing so great. Sales at the store are down and he’s had to let some people go. Add mom moving away on top of that, and then her wanting me to go with her and he’s just become one big mess, Grace. I mean, he’s been drinking like it comes out of the tap, and I’m just not sure I want to stay with him either. Not like that.”
My heart hurt, literally ached at the thought of him being stuck in the middle of this little tug of war between his parents. I knew that neither Ivy nor Richard would have forced him to make a decision, but the fact that Graham felt guilty on both accounts must feel like he’s being torn in two pieces.
“Hey, I didn’t mean to upset you. Cheer up. At least I’ll be staying at Heath, huh?” Graham said, punching me lightly in my shoulder and giving me a half-hearted smile.
“Yeah. At least…”
He straightened up as Lark reappeared, her face stony and her eyes lighter than usual. “So, you seem to have memorized your way around Grace’s house pretty fast. How’d you do it? Braille for your feet?”
The look on her face gave me the impression that if she tried to smile, her face would crack into several pieces, the sound probably deafening the two of us while she stood there staring with her sightless eyes.
Taking my cue, I sighed and repeated the lie that Stacy and I had already said several times in the past few weeks regarding Lark’s seemingly unnatural ability to find her way around while blind. “She’s memorized the distance between each place, Graham. She counts the steps.”
“Oh. Hey, that’s pretty cool. You’re going to have to teach me that sometime so I can find my way here in the dark.”
Lark should have rolled her eyes. Lark normally would have. But this Lark wasn’t doing anything but staring at me. Her face was void of emotion, of color, of anything that would suggest she was even alive. “Yeah. Sure,” she responded finally when she realized that an answer was necessary before I had to start lying again.
Graham brushed his hands through his hair again, obviously not pleased with such a stoic reaction. “Um, so how was your Christmas?”
I raised my eyebrows. He hadn’t asked that question of me. He had forgotten I was even there, because something he hadn’t said, something that Lark had picked up on in his mind, made her smile. And how I felt when I looked at Robert, I was almost positive was the exact same feeling that was causing the ridiculously goofy grin to cross Graham’s face.
“We spent it here, with Grace,” she answered lightly, turning to smile at me. Gone was the stony expression, and her eyes were once again light gray, a slightly watered down version of her brother’s. I saw a flicker of annoyance, and knew that my description hadn’t pleased her. Oh well.
“That sounds like fun. Did her dad play that Christmas cat record again?”
I groaned as Lark smiled and nodded her head, knowing what was coming: my comeuppance. “Yes, he did. And Grace sang along. Quite loudly, as a matter of fact. And off-key, too, but that’s okay. She didn’t have the benefit of a drunken audience, so she was pretty brave, all things considering.”
Graham’s guffaw began deep within his chest, and barreled out until it was booming all around me. He laughed so hard, he was running out of breath, and the wheezing caused him to bend over. “I-can’t believe you-you actually-you sang along?”
I felt my arms fold across my chest, and my lips purse in frustration. “You’re not encouraging me to pursue my singing career, Graham.”
He laughed even harder, and I could hear the duet of bells in my head as Lark began laughing as well. Great. Now the two of them were laughing at me. I felt my mouth twitch, my pursed lips traveling to the side in mock offense. In truth, I had been worried about the cold look on Lark’s face. What had caused her to change moods so suddenly?
I stared at her, waiting for her to respond to my unasked question, but she continued to laugh, filling my head with a harmony of sounds that echoed in my mind. It was definitely a lot nicer than the icy sting that she could inflict with that very same mental voice.
“I’m sorry, Grace. Oh goodness, look at your face. You’re so embarrassed, and I’m just acting like a complete jerk. You wanna tell me how your Christmas went? Besides the meowing?”
I frowned at the snickering—he tried to hide it behind his hand, but was failing…miserably—and sighed in defeat. “I think that this Christmas was probably the first and last time I’ll ever play back-up singer to thirty-three cats, my dad, and Lark.”
“Wait, Lark sang, too?” he asked—well, shouted really—and gaped at Lark, her face turning red from embarrassment. “I would’ve loved to have seen that.”
Ah. It wasn’t from embarrassment. It was something else entirely. I grinned at the cold stare she shot my way at my thoughts. Th
is was going to be quite interesting, indeed.
“Grace, dinner.”
I looked at the doorway of my little house and saw Janice standing there with her hand on her belly, my little brother nestled comfortably within. How odd, to call him my little brother. I had been an only child for so long; this entire experience should feel far more foreign than it did.
“I’ll be there in a minute, Janice!” I called out to her, and looked at Graham, knowing I didn’t even need to ask the question he had been waiting to hear. Instead, I turned to Lark, knowing that though she had been quite lax when it came to keeping some things about her a secret from Graham, there was still the need to keep up with the pretense of her being absolutely normal, in the incredibly beautiful, Greek goddess sort of way.
“Do you want to stay for dinner, Lark?”
She shook her head, and winked at me. “I’ve got to get going. I have some things I need to do, and I needed to speak to mom about a few things.”
The general lack of specificity in her answer was meant to keep her from having to tell the truth, but I detected something different. The void of details seemed like more of an…invitation?
“Hey, do you need a ride home, Lark?”
“Yes, actually, I do need one. Would you mind dropping me off?”
I watched the two of them, once again forgotten; I was the hood ornament on the green rust bucket while the two of them existed in their own world. It almost felt like I was standing outside of my own life and watching myself, only I was in Graham’s body. His face held as much awe and interest as mine probably did when I had first looked at Robert.
“Um, Grace, could you, you know, get off my car?”
I stared into two green eyes and turned to see two pale gray ones. “Oh, sorry.” I scooted off the hood and stood on the sidewalk as Graham opened the passenger side door for Lark. She stepped in gracefully, her lithe body sliding into the car like silk wraps around skin. I had never managed to do something like that; I always ended up looking more like wet burlap falling into a bucket.
