Off Limits

by Glen Robins

  “Rob thinks it was pretty stupid,” he said glancing over his shoulder toward the table where his friends sat. “He’s probably right. I’m lucky this is all I got.” Collin waved a hand in a circular motion in front of his face.

  “That kid needed to know that what he did was wrong.”

  Collin chuckled nervously. “Yeah, I really taught him a lesson.” He kicked a pebbled and twitched his shoulders.

  “Probably best those two guys stopped you,” she said.

  Collin looked down at himself, the smile disappeared.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just…that guy was a total jerk and a bully. I doubt he would’ve known when to stop.”

  Collin lifted an eyebrow. “You’re probably right.” He paused, twisting his mouth as if deciding what to say. “It was pretty cool of you to jump in there and let him have it—with words, I mean.”

  Emily felt sheepish. “I figured he needed to be called out.”

  “I think you did a better job of it than I did. You really put him in his place—without getting any blood on your shirt.”

  Emily smiled. “You’re brave and funny. I like that.” She pulled a strand of hair behind her ear as her cheeks flushed.

  An awkward silence ensued. Neither knew where to take the conversation. Emily pulled her lips into a tight smile and was about to say good-bye when Collin blurted out, “Hey, you want to eat lunch with us?” He froze, seeming to be suddenly embarrassed. “I mean, if you’re not already eating with someone else.”

  She looked at the table surrounded by fawning girls and began to shake her head.

  Collin grew suddenly bolder. He ignored her timid response. “Come on, it’s OK. These guys won’t bite.”

  Collin held Emily’s gaze, taking one step backward, then another, silently inviting her to follow until he arrived at the spot where he had been sitting. The flock of girls shot glances of disdain toward Emily as they tossed their hair and swished their hips and made their exit.

  Collin ignored them. “Hey guys, this is, uh—”

  “Emily.”

  “Yes, Emily. My new friend. Say hi.”

  Rob’s face broke into a wide smile as he rose. First, with one hand across his midsection, he bowed at the waist. Then, he reached for her hand and kissed it lightly. “A friend of Collin’s is a friend of mine,” he said with theatrical flair. “Robert Baden Howell the third. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Emily.” His voice became very aristocratic, caught halfway between an exaggerated upper-crust old man and a British Royal.

  Emily blushed and blurted out a half-laugh. Everyone else at the table scoffed or groaned or rolled their eyes at his homage to the 1960’s TV sitcom, Gilligan’s Island.

  “You can just call him Rob,” said Collin, shaking his head. “He seems to come up with a new middle name each time he introduces himself. Lately, he seems very fond of adding ‘the third,’ even though he is the one and only.” This comment brought even more laughs from the assembled group.

  Next, the fair-haired kid with the glasses gave a stiff wave as he stood. “Lukas Mueller. So nice to meet you, Emily,” he said with a slight Germanic accent.

  Finally, it was Darrell’s turn. “I’m Darrell Greely,” he said as he pushed himself up from his seat. “I saw you there yesterday. You’re the one with the Kleenexes.” His head bobbed slightly from side to side as he spoke, his eyes fixed on the ground between them.

  “Yes,” she said, fiddling with the strap again. “I always have some in my backpack. Something my mother taught me.” Emily could feel her face growing warm and worried that it was also turning a rosy pink color in front of all these new people.

  “You told Rick off. That was cool,” Darrell added in a halting but endearing manner. “I’ve never seen anyone shut him down like that.”

  “Yeah,” said Rob. “You’re the first person I’ve seen tell him off. Very well done. We need someone like you around. Along with putting Magliano in his place, you never know when old Braveheart here is going to rush into battle and need to be bandaged up. Might I suggest to beef up your supplies in preparation for the next round?”

  Emily laughed and the warmth that comes from belonging worked its way down to her chest and circulated all throughout her being. These guys were just the cure for the new-kid-in-school blues.

  * * *

  By the time Halloween arrived, Emily knew she was falling for Collin Cook. She scribbled his name on her notepad while trying to take notes about Shakespeare. All too often, she got caught in class daydreaming about him when the teacher asked her a question. Jealousy entered her heart whenever she heard other girls whisper about him and how cute he was. His name was on every page of her journal.

  On October 28th, he shyly approached her after sixth period. “Hey, Emily,” he said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

  “Hey, Collin,” she said, suppressing a smile.

  “Hey, I was wondering,” then he took a long pause, as if steeling his courage. “Well, I was wondering if you, you know, if you wouldn’t mind…I mean, if you’re not too busy, I was wondering if you wanted to go to a Halloween party with me on Halloween night.”

  It was all she could do to wait for him to get the words out. “Yes, I’d love to,” she said, then wondered if she sounded too eager.

  “Really?” he said. “Oh, great, then, I guess I could, or my parents could, or me and my parents could come by and pick you up at around 6:45?”

  She blushed. It was so adorable how nervous he was. “Yeah, sure. That’d be great.” She gave him her address on an index card she fished out of one of the pockets of her backpack. “What are you going as?”

  “Uh, I wanted to be a Power Ranger. You know, the Power Rangers, right?”

  “Of course I do. I watched TV as a kid, too. Which one are you going to be?”

  “Red Ranger, of course. What are you dressing as for Halloween?”

  “I guess I only have one choice, don’t I? I’ll be Pink Ranger. Where do you get costumes in our sizes? Do they even make them this big? Are people going to laugh at us or with us? Is it going to make me look like a dork? Or will people think it’s cool?” Emily’s mind and mouth were both racing a hundred miles an hour, which always happened when she got nervous. She had to stop and take a long, slow breath.

  “Whoa. That’s a lot of questions. Um, I—”

  “You don’t have to answer them all. It’s just that I talk too much when—” she reached out and grabbed hold of Collin’s forearm, which made him stop and look at her hand. An adorable shy grin twisted across his face and his eyes lit up. “Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he caught her hand as she pulled it away. It’s OK.” He flashed that smile again. “Hey, I’m going to the costume shop tonight. Want to come?”

  “Maybe I can meet you there. Depends on whether my parents are home tonight.”

  Since her parents were out for the evening, as expected, Emily was able to persuade Margarite to drive her to the costume shop. She never mentioned anything about meeting Collin there. Not that she didn’t trust Margarite, but she figured it would be better to play it safe.

  As they pulled into the parking lot of the store, Emily’s heart was racing, and her stomach was doing somersaults. She couldn’t understand why she was so anxious. It was just costume shopping.

  It didn’t take her long to find Collin, who was in the back corner of the store where the larger sized costumes hung on hangers across a rack. She had passed a few eager families doing their last-minute shopping as she worked her way through the aisles, looking for the Power Rangers. When she found him, he had picked out both a Pink and a Red Ranger costume already and was inspecting the labels. His face lit up as she approached.

  There was no one else in that section.

  “Here, I think this will fit you,” he said excitedly. “Why don’t you try it on. They have fitting rooms right here. And I’ll try on mine.”

  Whe
n they emerged from the dressing rooms at roughly the same time, Emily burst into nervous laughter. “Oh, this is great. It’s like being a little kid again.”

  Collin stopped in his tracks, surveying her with a look of awe. “You look great. Wow. I mean…”

  She turned to see herself in the mirror and realized how form-fitting the costume was. She blushed and bit her lip, feeling a bit self-conscious and thrilled at the same time.

  Collin’s mouth hung open as he stared. Then, he took a step toward her. “I didn’t expect—”

  Emily’s eyes met Collin’s and her heart skipped. She took a step, too, and leaned closer to him, watching his lips.

  Collin leaned in slowly until she could feel his breath on her cheeks.

  In that moment, it felt to Emily like time stopped and they were the only two people in the world. She had never kissed a boy and now it was happening, just like she had dreamed…except she was wearing a Power Ranger costume. But so was he, so it was OK. Collin’s lips were warm and soft, and she felt like she was melting as they kissed. She didn’t want it to end, but it did when a mother and her young daughter, probably a second or third grader, practically ran them over as she turned the corner into their aisle.

  There was an awkward pause as the mother and daughter scooted past them. Collin snickered, which made Emily burst into a hushed laugh. They giggled as they made their way to the changing stalls. It continued when they emerged with their costumes in hand and all the way to the cashier, reaching for each other’s hands as they went.

  Emily recorded in her journal every detail of every moment she had spent that day with Collin, doing double and triple underlines under certain parts of her description and hearts in the margin to show how she really felt. It was her best day ever.

  * * *

  As she closed her journal, Emily felt grateful for her new group of friends, especially Collin. But she couldn’t escape the fact that her home life was unraveling. Unhappy about leaving the prestige of Harvard and her association with the social elites of its environs, Katherine Burns had increasingly turned to fine wine and cognac to dull her loneliness. She had also turned more of her attention toward ascending the social ladder of the Greater Los Angeles Area, as well as Orange County. Her father followed suit, allowing himself to be led in whatever new direction his wife steered him.

  She also couldn’t help but reflect on her older brother, Thomas. His and Emily’s lives were heading in polar opposite directions.

  Back in the affluent Boston suburb of Cambridge, where her father taught and led a research team at Harvard’s School of Medicine as a premiere cardiologist, her brother had struggled to find his place in the world. A lost soul, he became a target for the misfits. Almost predictably, it was the Goths at school that befriended him.

  Soon, his wardrobe showed who he identified with. His style choices included black cloaks and clunky boots, practically matching his freaky-looking friends. These were the first outward signs of her brother’s internal struggle. That’s when the obsession with all things black and dark began. Alcohol and drugs became staples and bailing him out of jail happened more than her parents would admit.

  With these influences giving him an easy place to land and to fit in, he had strayed well beyond the reach of his image-obsessed parents.

  Prior to Thomas’s “fall from grace,” the Burns family must have seemed to have it all, at least from an outsider’s perspective: wealth, prominence, looks, respect, intelligence, status. Sometime early in his high school experience, Thomas began caving under the pressure of following in his father’s footsteps.

  By his senior year, Thomas Burns was the drug supplier of choice for the rich decadents of Charlestown.

  Emily once had a healthy relationship with him. He was four years older, but they liked to listen to music and watch movies together up until he started his Sophomore year. Both liked Green Day, U2, and Linkin Park. Despite his tough exterior, he loved watching Disney movies with his sister and made sure she was up on her Star Wars trivia. They often talked late into the evening about societal issues and family problems. They discussed politics and religion and education. She knew the angst he felt and why. She shared her goals and dreams, and he was amazed at them.

  Thomas was smart, but not good at school. He learned differently than others and was passionate about things they didn’t teach in the high-minded private schools the Burns’ insisted he and Emily attend.

  Once he started with the drugs, their frequent conversations ceased. He folded into himself and became curious about subjects like death, hell, and torture. He spurned everything his parents embraced. He got a tattoo, scarred his arms, dyed his hair, and pierced his eyebrow, making himself almost unrecognizable from his freshman yearbook photo.

  Years later, as Emily reflected on her brother’s demise, she realized that her parents’ vain attempts to save him from his self-induced destruction highlighted the shallowness of their parental concern. None of their efforts were about saving him; they were about preserving appearances. They never focused on his needs, never listened to what he had to say. Instead, they tried to lecture him about how to comport himself in public and how to behave “properly.” When that didn’t work, they sent him out to behavioral correction camp for a summer. To Thomas, it was nothing more than a self-funded prison. It didn’t matter how pristine or tranquil the setting of the facility, the transformation the Burns were looking for never stuck.

  Thomas’s problems escalated as the power of his several addictions grew, as did the strife within the Burns family. His eighteenth birthday erupted into a shouting match unrivaled in family history.

  Katherine was preparing to go to another charity fundraiser rather than celebrate as a family. “Thomas,” she shouted from her bedroom. “Where is my sapphire broach?”

  “Why are you asking me? I don’t even know what the hell a broach is,” he yelled back.

  “It was here Friday. I wore it to the gala at the museum,” she said.

  “Maybe you lost it there,” he said. “Ask one of your hoity-toity friends, why don’t you?”

  “I’m asking you, because I know what kind of friends you have.”

  “You know nothing,” he screamed. “You don’t even know it’s my birthday today.”

  With that, Thomas stormed out of the house.

  He must have returned quietly sometime in the wee hours of the morning because Emily found him sprawled out on his bed when she woke up for school and checked on him. That day marked the beginning of the second semester of Thomas’s senior year of high school. He slept through it. Emily was in eighth grade. She was old enough to grasp the fact that her family’s dysfunction was creating chaos within her brother. He needed help, not recrimination. He needed love, not accusation.

  That night, as Emily sat at her desk in her upstairs bedroom, unable to focus on her homework and afraid to approach any of her family members, an ominous knock on the front door echoed off the marble floors and hardwood paneling of the grand foyer and into her room. Thomas was passed out on his bed, still wearing his strappy boots and long black coat. Their mother was locked in her bedroom with the television blaring. Their father was ostensibly working on another one of his academic tomes in the library downstairs.

  The pounding on the door jolted Emily. Nothing happened. Another forceful knock followed. Emily heard the door to her father’s study creak open and his slow, plodding footsteps as he crossed the floor. “I’m coming. I’m coming,” he muttered, as if he had anticipated the dreaded moment.

  She opened her bedroom door and snuck out to the banister. She peered over the railing. Two police officers, with snow on their hats and shoulders, stood on the front stoop and spoke in hushed tones with her woeful, resigned father.

  Her father pointed upstairs towards Thomas’s room, next to Emily’s. She ducked back into her room, but kept the door open enough to witness what was happening.

  The officers pushed past her father and charged up the stai
rs. They burst through Thomas’s bedroom door and soon were dragging his inert body down the curved wooden stairway. His hands were cuffed behind his back and the toes of his boots thumped on each of the hardwood stairs.

  The next time Emily saw her brother, he was in an orange jumpsuit talking to her on a phone and looking at her through a thick plexiglass barrier. She had the maid sneak her in for a quick visit on the way home from school two days after his arrest. She had high hopes for his release and return to the family. He scoffed at her naivete.

  “Truth is,” he muttered. “I took it. And pawned it. I needed the cash.”

  “Took what?”

  “That stupid sapphire thing Mom was on about the other night.”

  “You did? How could you?”

  “Easy. She got so much of that stuff and she leaves it out. I didn’t think she’d notice. But she did.”

  “How’d the cops find out it was you?”

  “They leaned on the pawnshop owner. He rolled on me to protect his other interests. Couldn’t afford to have the cops too close for too long, so he ratted me out. Mom and Dad OK’d the cops to throw me in prison, so here I am.”

  She sat in stunned silence, unable to comprehend the depths to which her brother had sunk. “You sold Mom’s jewelry for drugs?”

  “Had to. I owed some people, and I couldn’t move the merchandise. Too much heat on me these days, know what I mean?”

  Emily couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Not only was he confessing to some serious crimes, but he was also doing so with the vernacular and slang of a street thug.

  “You’re ashamed of me?” he said.

  She was speechless; too stunned to say anything.

  His eyes fell to the tabletop in front of him. He shook his head. With a doleful look on his face, he hung up the receiver and skulked away.

  The conversation ended seventy-five seconds after it had begun.

  Emily’s heart sank and hot tears stung her eyes. Her pleas for him to come back and talk to her went unnoticed. He never turned around. She sobbed uncontrollably until Margarite came and put her arms around her shoulders and escorted her out of the building and into the car.