Starry, Starry Night

by Lurlene McDaniel

  The ultimate threat. Ellie’s mouth went dry. She didn’t want to lose Chad. “I’m just saying we shouldn’t get too involved right this minute, that’s all. I’m nervous.”

  “I won’t hurt you, baby. I just want to make us both feel good.” His hand slid up her thigh.

  Ellie trembled inside and out. It would be so easy to let herself go with him. Chad loved her. He’d told her so many times when they were making out. Holding back was difficult, but still, she didn’t want to go all the way with him. The idea scared her to death. She racked her brain for something to say, something that would back him off but would also keep him from dropping her. A flash of headlights shone through the curtains. “It’s Mom!” Ellie cried.

  “Don’t panic,” Chad said. He scrambled to stuff his shirttail into his jeans.

  “Hurry!”

  Chad planted a quick kiss on her mouth. “Next time,” he said. “No interruptions.” He bolted for the kitchen door at the back of the house.

  Ellie followed and locked the door behind him. Then she raced back to the sofa and flung herself under an afghan just as her mother’s key slipped into the lock. Ellie shut her eyes tightly and, with her heart thudding, feigned sleep.

  “I’m home,” her mother said, coming into the room. “Ellie, haven’t I told you not to watch TV with the lights off?” She flicked on two lamps.

  “Oh, hi, Mom.” Ellie yawned, stretched, and sat up. “Sorry, I must have fallen asleep.”

  Her mother flopped into the nearby easy chair. “Why is the sound off? Is the thing broken? Because if it is—”

  “No. I—I must have muted it.” Ellie grabbed the remote. “No wonder I dropped off.”

  “Turn it off. I have a splitting headache. That’s why I came home early. My supervisor said I could.” Mrs. Matthias leaned back and rubbed her eyes wearily.

  “Can I make you a cup of tea?”

  “That would be nice. But make it herb tea. I have to be at the office early tomorrow.”

  Ellie darted into the kitchen, filled a cup with water, and put it in the microwave. Her hands were shaking so badly she could hardly control them. Tonight had been too close a call. As she waited for the microwave to beep, she sagged against the counter.

  Her life felt out of control. Her parents’ divorce in the spring, her father’s moving away, her mother’s struggling with two jobs just to make ends meet, Ellie’s own problems with Chad—nothing was normal anymore. With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, Ellie had never felt less in the holiday spirit.

  The microwave signaled that the water was hot, so Ellie removed the cup and fixed the tea the way her mother liked. She brought the cup into the living room and placed it on the end table beside the chair. Her mother, still wrapped in her coat, looked as if she hadn’t moved a muscle. “Do you want some aspirin?” Ellie asked.

  “I took something before I left the store.” Her mother swallowed a sip of the tea. “Everything go all right here? Did Marcy give you any trouble?”

  “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

  “You two didn’t fight, did you?”

  “Not once. I threatened to drown her hamster if she didn’t mind me.”

  “I can’t referee you girls anymore. You’re going to have to get along.”

  “It was a joke, Mom. You used to laugh at my jokes.”

  “I used to not have to work day and night. But if we’re going to have any kind of a Christmas this year …”

  Ellie cringed. She knew all too well what was wrong with their lives these days.

  “Did you get the laundry finished?”

  “I had homework.” Guiltily, Ellie realized that Chad’s visit had chased her other responsibilities out of her head. She hadn’t finished her homework, either.

  “For crying out loud, Ellie, I can’t do it all by myself. I need help around this place.”

  The phone rang and Ellie jumped. Maybe it was Chad. “I’ll get it in my room.”

  “Don’t run off. We need to discuss this.”

  “Later,” Ellie called, shutting her bedroom door and grabbing the receiver.

  “Ellie? This is Kathy Tolena. I called to talk about that English project.”

  Ellie’s spirits sank. Kathy was the last person she wanted to talk to. “It’s not due for another three weeks.”

  “But it counts for half our grade this nine-week period. I want to get on it.”

  Just that afternoon, Mrs. Browne had assigned a killer project in English class. Then she’d paired off the students and told them to get it finished before school was out for the holidays. Why had Mrs. Browne paired Ellie with Kathy? Because if there was one person in the entire school Ellie wasn’t crazy about, it was Kathy Tolena—or as Chad and his friends called her, the Ice Princess. Kathy had moved to Lakeland from Miami and started at the high school, where everybody knew everybody else. At first some of the girls, including Ellie, had tried to make friends with Kathy, but Kathy hadn’t been interested. She kept to herself, leaving school every day as soon as the bell rang.

  “All right,” Ellie said with a sigh. “How about right after school tomorrow? We could meet in the atrium. Or a vacant room.”

  Ellie’s afternoons were free, for the most part. Marcy stayed in after-school care at her elementary school, and Mom picked her up on her way home from work. Weekdays, Ellie had a three-hour window in which to do homework and help around the house before her mom and Marcy arrived home. Then the three of them had dinner and Mom left for her mall job.

  “No can do,” Kathy said. “I have an after-school job. I baby-sit for the couple I live with. I have to be home as soon as school’s out.”

  Ellie’s ears pricked up. “I didn’t know you didn’t live with your parents.”

  “It’s a long story. Listen, wait for me in front of the school tomorrow, and as soon as the bell rings, I’ll drive around and pick you up.”

  Kathy had her own car? Lucky girl. “I have things to do at home.” Ellie didn’t want Kathy to think she didn’t have a life.

  “I’ll bring you home after we talk about our project and set up a work schedule.”

  “A schedule?”

  “Of course. I’m really busy, and we’ll have to plan around my schedule.”

  “What?” The nerve! Who did Kathy think she was, bossing Ellie around and telling her what to do?

  “See you in class tomorrow.”

  Ellie heard the buzz of the dial tone. Kathy had hung up.

  Two

  “You sure look down in the dumps.”

  Maria’s voice startled Ellie. She’d been so absorbed in her thoughts that she’d actually tuned out the noise in the cafeteria. “It’s been a bad day.”

  Maria set her tray down and, settling beside Ellie, popped open her soda. “Want to talk about it?”

  “Not much to say.”

  “I saw Chad flirting with Theresa Riggs. You two have a fight?”

  Ellie knew all about Chad and Theresa. She’d seen them huddling in the hall before the first bell had rung. By lunch, the entire school knew about his defection. She swallowed the lump in her throat. It wouldn’t do to burst into tears here in the cafeteria. “No fight. Maybe he’s just getting bored with me.”

  “Too bad. I know how much you like him.”

  Ellie couldn’t tell Maria the whole truth. Chad was bored with her always telling him no about touching her. “It’s okay. I’ll get over it.”

  “Maybe he just doesn’t want to buy you a Christmas present.”

  Maria’s attempt at humor fell flat. Ellie picked up her tray. “I don’t want to be late for class.”

  “You didn’t eat any lunch.”

  “It tastes like cardboard.” Ellie hurried out, aware that every eye in the cafeteria was on her.

  After school, as she waited for Kathy, Ellie felt miserable. She couldn’t think of anything she wanted to do less than discuss some stupid project. But when Kathy pulled up, Ellie’s jaw dropped. Kathy was driving a brand-new sp
orty black convertible. “Hop in,” Kathy said.

  “Is this yours?”

  “The Davidsons lease it for me. That’s the couple I work for.” Kathy eased the car into traffic and headed for the freeway.

  Ellie gawked at the car’s racy, lush interior. The child’s car seat in the back looked out of place. “For their baby?”

  “Yeah. I take him places sometimes.”

  “All this and they pay you, too?” Ellie was astounded. How had Kathy landed such a cushy job? Ellie thought about how hard her mother worked. It didn’t seem fair. “Who watches the kid while you’re in school?”

  “There’s a housekeeper.”

  “Where’s his mother?”

  “The Davidsons are both lawyers at the same firm, and right now they’re in the middle of some really big case. They can’t be around much, so it’s me and the housekeeper. We take care of little Christian.”

  Ellie settled comfortably into the leather seat, pleased that some of Chad’s friends had seen her get into the car. Let them take that back to him, she thought. Within a few minutes, Kathy had exited the freeway and turned into one of Lakeland’s most beautiful and exclusive neighborhoods. A guard motioned her through the front gate. “You live here?” Ellie couldn’t conceal her surprise.

  “Everybody has to live somewhere.”

  The house was a sprawling mansion, set back by a lake and accessible only through wrought-iron gates. A huge circular driveway looped around blooming poinsettia plants and stately Sabal palm trees. Kathy parked in a four-car garage. Two bays were empty; a third held an older gray car. A side door opened and a plump, fiftyish woman emerged. “Hola, Kathy. Christian is up from his nap and in his playpen. Señora Pam has called to say that she and Señor Parker will not be home until very late.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Garcia. This is Ellie. We’re working on a project together for school.”

  Mrs. Garcia smiled, got into the gray car, and backed out of the garage. Ellie followed Kathy into a mud room, where they hung up their jackets. They walked through a kitchen of gleaming white ceramic tile and into a magnificent living room blanketed in plush, cream-colored carpeting. Overstuffed sofas and chairs, glass-topped tables, ceramic and brass lamps—all in shades of cream, ivory, and gold—graced the room. The whole back of the house opened onto a glass-and-screen-enclosed patio that surrounded a pool of shimmering aqua water. Beyond the patio, a thick green lawn and colorful flower garden sloped down to the shoreline. There, a boat dock jutted into the gray-green depths of a lake dappled by bright Florida sunshine.

  Dumbstruck by the house’s grandeur, Ellie could only stand and stare.

  Kathy hurried to a playpen, where a baby sat chewing on a plastic toy tiger. “Hey, Chris.” Kathy leaned over and tousled the baby’s blond curls.

  He tossed the toy aside and stretched out his arms. “E! E!” he cried, his face breaking into a sunny smile.

  Kathy scooped him up and hugged him close. “This is Ellie.” Kathy waggled the baby’s arm in Ellie’s direction.

  Ellie grinned, and Christian offered a smile that showed a couple of top and bottom teeth. “He’s so cute! How old is he?”

  “He’ll be a year December twenty-fourth.”

  “A Christmas baby. How neat!”

  “Let’s go to my room. He can play on the floor.”

  Kathy’s “room” was really a suite of rooms. Her bedroom was carpeted in emerald green, and in the center stood a wrought-iron bed draped with filmy white fabric. On one wall was a fireplace; on another, French doors leading out to the pool. An adjoining study held floor-to-ceiling bookshelves along with a desk, a computer, and a printer. A stereo and a large-screen TV had been built into a separate wall unit; a sofa, changing table, small crib, and toy chest completed the furniture grouping.

  Ellie swallowed her amazement. Who knew that Kathy lived like royalty? “What’s through there?” she asked.

  “My dressing room and bathroom. Check it out if you want. I’m going to drag a few things out for Chris to play with.”

  Ellie passed through a giant room with built-in dressers and closets full of racks of clothes. Kathy’s bathroom was flooded with light that streamed through a thick glass wall onto a sunken spa tub and a vanity sink topped with pale-pink granite.

  Ellie scarcely knew what to think. No wonder Kathy had never jumped at the chance to be a part of Lakeland High’s “in” crowd. Kathy really was too good for the lowly high-school bunch. Why would she be interested in them when she had everything money could buy? Who could compete with this?

  Ellie returned to the study. A pile of toys had been heaped on the floor, and Kathy was sitting cross-legged in front of the baby, holding out a colorful plastic block. “Is this what you do after school? Play with the baby?”

  “Well, I take him places. I feed him and bathe him and put him to bed at night, too.”

  “And for that you get to live like this?”

  Kathy looked up at Ellie, her face expressionless. “Yes.”

  Ellie thought about her own house full of old hand-me-down furniture from her grandmother. She thought about her father, who’d moved away and was out of touch with his family. She thought about her mother, her two jobs, and how hard she struggled to pay the bills. And she thought about Chad, and how she was losing him. A lump swelled in her throat and tears filled her eyes. It wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t she have Kathy’s life?

  Three

  “Is something wrong? You’re crying.”

  Ellie turned her head to hide her sudden meltdown. “Must have something in my eye,” she told Kathy. Mortified that she’d compared her life to Kathy’s and felt sorry for herself, Ellie struggled to regain her composure. She plopped onto the floor. “So, how do you play with Chris? Does he talk?”

  “He says a few things—Mama, Dada, ’poon—that’s spoon and means he wants to eat. And he calls me E because he can’t say Kathy yet.”

  Chris threw a block and said, “E, ’poon.”

  Kathy laughed. “Now we’ve done it. He wants a snack.” She leaned close, touching her nose to the baby’s. “You want a graham cracker?”

  Chris started crawling toward the door.

  Ellie said, “That’s cute. I didn’t know babies were so … well, that they understood stuff at this age.”

  “Sure they do. Don’t you ever baby-sit?”

  “Only for my sister, Marcy. All the families in our neighborhood don’t need sitters. I want to get a real job, though, because I hate never having any money of my own.”

  “Why don’t you get one?”

  “Mom won’t let me. She says there’s plenty of work for me to do around the house. She wants me to concentrate on getting good grades.” Ellie had argued with her mother several times about getting a job, but her mother had remained adamant—Ellie’s “job” was attending school. “Last summer, I did yard work and housework for an elderly woman in our neighborhood,” she told Kathy. “I stashed every dime because for Christmas I want to buy myself a clock radio with a CD player. It’s expensive, so Mom suggested I wait until closer to Christmas, when it might go on sale.”

  Ellie felt self-conscious telling this to Kathy, who, from the looks of her surroundings, never had to pay for anything.

  Kathy picked up the baby. “Come with me to the kitchen so I can feed Chris.”

  “What about your family? How come you don’t live with them?” Ellie asked as she followed Kathy.

  “My dad’s in politics, and last summer he was given a diplomatic post in Kuwait—that’s in the Middle East. It was a great opportunity for him, and he wanted to take it. I have two younger brothers. They’re only in the fourth and sixth grades, so they didn’t care. But I didn’t want to go. So, Mom and Dad are really good friends with the Davidsons, and Pam and Parker said I could stay with them and finish high school in the States.”

  All the while Kathy talked, she was settling Chris in his high chair, tying a bib around his neck, and getting graham crackers from a w
alk-in pantry. “Don’t you miss your family?” Ellie asked.

  “Well, sure, but I’ll go over and see them this summer. Besides, I’ll be going off to college in the fall, so this is sort of like boot camp.”

  Some boot camp, Ellie thought. She said, “I’d love to go someplace on the other side of the world. I’ve been stuck in Lakeland all my life.”

  “You wouldn’t want to be stuck in Kuwait. It’s always hot.”

  Still, Ellie thought any place would be better. “You’re lucky,” she told Kathy. “My parents are divorced and we haven’t heard from my father in months.” Instantly Ellie reddened. Why had she told Kathy that? She hadn’t meant to. “So what do you think of Lakeland High?” she asked, changing the subject.

  “I think the place is very ‘high school’—which is to say, very petty. I’ve heard girls grousing in the bathrooms and halls about the stupidest things.”

  “What things?”

  “Like if some guy doesn’t speak to a girl, or something. I saw a girl crying her heart out the other day because she had to sit home on Friday night.” Kathy rolled her eyes. “Please. Give me a break. That girl doesn’t know what a real problem is.”

  “And you do?” Kathy’s attitude offended Ellie.

  “I know that a dateless Friday night isn’t the end of the world.”

  “The problem was real to her,” Ellie said, in defense of the nameless girl. She knew firsthand how lonely life could be without a boyfriend.

  “But it’s hardly serious.”

  “There are a couple of private schools you could have gone to,” Ellie told her coolly. “You didn’t have to come to ours.”

  Kathy shrugged. “I considered them, but the private schools were too small. I just wanted to get lost in the masses.”

  Had Kathy just insulted her? Ellie wasn’t sure. “Well, I like our school. And my friends.”

  By now the baby was finished eating. Squished graham-cracker gunk covered his face and hands and was smeared on the tray of the high chair. Kathy wiped him off with a damp cloth. “To each his own,” she said, releasing the tray. “But I finished with high school and its petty problems over a year ago. I’m going now just to get my diploma.” She picked up Chris and balanced him on her hip. “Come back to my room. We need to get started on the project. It sounds like we both need the good grade.”