by Lael Littke
“Define exciting,” I snapped. “Define opportunity.” I looked out of the window, scowling at the green hills we were passing. The hills of home. Wasn't there a song about something like that? If there wasn't, maybe I would write one.
Abby reached over to grasp my chin and turn my face toward hers. “Hel-LO. Selene, dear, your elevator is not going all the way to the top floor. Exciting because it's a whole new element in your life. Opportunity because…” She paused to grin. “Because if your present family ever goes flat, you have a spare.”
I stared stonily at her.
“Bad choice of words,” she said. “Sorry. Foot in mouth.”
“Forgiven,” I said. “Don't bring it up again.”
“Okay,” she said. “But I just wish you—”
I held up a warning hand. “Don't even,” I said.
The rest of the way to school we whispered about Bryan Embree. For just a little while I felt like any other sixteen-year-old with a crush on a cute guy. A guy who was coming to see me on Friday night, if only to rehearse our parts in the play. But at least he'd be there, right in my own house.
Would Mom and Dad stay out of sight while he was there? Would Keith?
“I'll be embarrassed,” I told Abby, “if my family hangs around and listens.”
“Families are so embarrassing,” Abby said, and we both giggled.
I noticed that Lex glanced back at us every now and then. Could he hear what we were saying?
Did it matter?
There was a mailbox at the end of the block across from the high school. “Gotta mail something,” I told Abby as we got off the bus.
“I'll wait on the steps,” she said. “I need my energy for English class. We're reading Shakespeare today. Big-time concentration required.”
Dodging school-bound kids, I hurried down the street, pulling the brown envelope from my book bag as I went. I tried to forget what was in it. I was going to do this thing. I couldn't chicken out now.
When I heard footsteps behind me, I thought Abby had changed her mind. But when they came up beside me, I saw it was Lex.
“Mailing something?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Just doing my morning jog.”
Immediately I regretted smarting off again. To show I was friendly today, I grinned at him. This was my old buddy Lex. Faithful and forgiving as Hoover.
He grinned back at me. “Feeling better today?”
“A lot.” I dropped the brown envelope into the mailbox and turned back toward school.
Lex cleared his throat. “Selene,” he said.
“Present.”
He hesitated. “Selene,” he said again, “on Saturday, are you going somewhere with Bryan Embree after the play rehearsal? Is that why you can't go with your grandpa and me?”
I stopped, looking up at him. Abby's words came back to me: “You know how he feels about you.”
No, I didn't know. Or hadn't known.
I did now. It was all there in his face. He was jealous. And he was jealous because… Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, I recited in my mind to avoid thinking about what I'd just realized. Oh say, can you see, by the dawn's early light…
Out loud, I said, “I don't think so, Lex.” I wished the look in his eyes would go away. “I don't know what I'll be doing,” I went on, which was true enough. “Maybe I'll even go with you and Grandpa after all.”
“Good.” Giving me a suddenly shy smile, he turned and loped away toward the gym. “See you at lunch.”
I staggered the rest of the way to the steps and up to where Abby waited.
“He loves me,” I croaked.
Abby raised her nose from her literature book. “Who? What did I miss?”
“Lex,” I said. “He doesn't think of me as a sister. He's in love with me.”
“Well, the light has come on at last,” Abby said. “You know, Selene, it's a good thing you're not a lighthouse or all the ships would have run aground.”
“Fun-nee,” I said.
But I didn't feel very funny. Was this new realization another complication in my life?
Or not?
Chapter 8
Lex was the subject of discussion all morning, but only between me and myself. I felt like a ball at a tennis court, being slammed from one side to the other. Or at least definitely like a split personality. Was this thing with the Russos going to make me mentally ill?
One part of me (Selene maybe?) was flattered and touched by the realization that Lex loved me.
The other part (Micaela?) backed away a little scornfully. Tall, skinny, nosy, bumbling Lex? Did I want him to be in love with me? Lex, with his nerd-pocket of ball-point pens and his pink-cheeked, kiddish looks? Lex, who slurped yogurt and wheat-germ mixtures like other people consumed double chocolate shakes?
This part of me visualized Bryan Embree and said, “Now, there's a guy I wish would be in love with me.”
But wimpy Selene shivered at that thought and said, “Are you sure you can handle Bryan Embree? I mean, what about his playboy rep ?”
Now, wait a minute. Since when was I wimpy Selene? Who was calling me wimpy? Was it wrong to be a little leery of someone who had a reputation like Bryan's? Wasn't he the kind of guy we were always being warned about in our Standards Night presentations at church?
For the first time it occurred to me to wonder if the Russos were churchgoing people. Did they know I had grown up Mormon? What faith would Micaela have been?Russo sounded Italian, which could mean Catholic.
But not necessarily. They could be anything. Or nothing.
The ongoing inner discussion trashed my concentration, and I didn't get much out of my classes that day. But at least I didn't mouth off at any of my teachers the way I'd done to Miss deWinter yesterday.
Abby smiled and rolled her eyes every time she saw me all day, and when we got on the school bus that afternoon she motioned for Lex to come sit on the seat ahead of us. Now I was the one who was suddenly shy, and I let the two of them do all the talking, although when Abby took out her harmonica I did make an effort to harmonize with Lex on a few verses of old camp songs. That was something familiar and harmless.
I was glad that the next week would end the school year so I wouldn't have to ride on the bus every day with Lex.
There was nothing in the mail from the Russos that day.
Nor the next.
I was grateful.
But on Friday there was a fat letter for Tyler from the Missionary Department in Salt Lake City. His mission call.
“I let him know,” Mom said. “He's driving up this evening from Provo to open it.” She was in the kitchen, whipping up another of her multilayered Special Occasion cakes. Keith was standing by, dipping a finger into the batter whenever he had a chance.
This would be a happier occasion than what the last cake had been for. That had been a consolation cake for me. This was definitely a celebration.
“It will be nice to have Tyler home,” I said.
But how was it going to fit in with Bryan coming to my house?
My adrenaline level went up a few points.
• • •
Bryan arrived right at 6:30 P.M. I'd just finished getting dressed, after agonizing about what I should wear. I didn't want to look too grubby, but on the other hand I didn't want to dress as if this was a date.
It wasn't, was it? No, just a preliminary rehearsal for the melodrama.
I settled on my fashionably faded blue jeans and a bright green shirt. Green was one of my good colors.
From my upstairs window I saw Bryan's little red car drive into our yard and stop. I'd heard that he had his own car.
Well, Lex did too, didn't he?
But Lex's car was an old brown family station wagon. Bryan's was a nifty little Jeep Wrangler with soft roof and roll bar.
What was I going to say to him? I didn't have a whole lot of experience with guys.
But Lex was a guy. I didn't have any trouble talking to him. Or at least I hadn't had
trouble until I realized he was in love with me.
What was I going to do about him?
That was something to think about later. Right now I was about to face Bryan Embree.
Micaela would know how to talk to him. She was a city girl. Sophisticated.
I took several deep breaths. “Good-bye, Selene; hello, Micaela,” I said as I sprinted down the stairs and outside.
Bryan waved when he saw me. “Hi, Selene,” he said, getting out of the car. “Nice place.”
His eyes took in the surrounding mountains, the green fields, the stand of quaking aspen with the creek running through it, the red barn and white house surrounded by the lush lawn and Mom's flowers.
“Thank you,” I said. “Do you live on a farm too?”
He laughed. “What else, in this county? Ours is just over there, about twenty miles as the crow flies.” He pointed toward the south. “But it's out on the flat, with the mountains in the distance, and no creek. This is more the kind of place I'd like someday.”
I hadn't figured him to be a future farmer. It changed my opinion of him. I didn't know any farmers who were out-and-out playboys. Their work was too hard.
“Not as my major home. The work is too hard,” he said, echoing my thoughts. “I want a place like this as a retreat. Somewhere to come home to.”
“From where?” I asked. “What are you aiming to be?”
His eyebrows went up. “An actor, of course. What else?” He held up the playbook for Hitched in January, Ditched in June.
I didn't know whether he was serious or not.
“Stick with me, babe,” he said, “and we'll both see our names up in Hollywood lights.” He sounded like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, Abby's favorite old-time film.
I remembered how Lex had said a few days before that he and I would be seeing our names on the marquee of the Worm Creek Opera House. Lex and Selene. Now I visualized Bryan and Selene in Hollywood lights.
No, Bryan and Micaela. That sounded more Hollywoody.
Better still, Micaela and Bryan.
“We have a lot to look forward to,” I said.
“We sure do.” He grinned wickedly at me, and I changed my mind again. He was a playboy. There was something about his deep blue eyes and firm mouth that said things I didn't really want to read. He wasn't as tall as Lex, but was broader and better built. A football jock. He looked as if he worked out with weights or something. More than just farm work.
“We'd better start reading.” I pointed at his play-book. “It's going to take a couple of hours. Come meet my family, and then we'll find a place to settle down.”
Dad hadn't come to the house yet, but Bryan was cool about meeting Mom and Keith. He sniffed the air in the kitchen and said he was staying around until whatever was baking came out of the oven, which pleased Mom, who told him about Tyler's mission call. He high-fived Keith and asked if he liked to play soccer, which is Keith's favorite sport. I wondered how Bryan made the right guess. Saying the right things seemed natural to him.
I saw Mom watching him as he spoke with Keith. Apparently he passed whatever test she had in mind because she made no objection when he said, “Let's go find a place away from the house where we can read. It's too nice an evening to stay inside.”
Picking up my playbook, I followed him back outside. He wasn't as scary as I'd anticipated, I decided. In fact, he seemed really nice, as long as we stayed on safe subjects.
We walked together across an alfalfa field to the stand of aspen where Dad had built a rustic bench that Mom called her “soul restorer.” It looked out across the creek to the mountains in the background.
I told Bryan what Mom called it.
He gazed off into the distance. “I can see why.” His voice dropped. “‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.’”
“I love that passage,” I said. “Do you read the Bible a lot?”
He shrugged. “I go to seminary every day, just like you do.”
I sat down on the splintery bench. “How do you know I do?”
He sat down too. “Doesn't every Mormon teenager go to seminary? Do we have a choice?”
I turned to look at him. “Do you want a choice?”
“Sometimes,” he admitted. “Don't you?”
I wondered if I should tell him I had a choice. I could choose to be full-time Micaela and fly off to Minnesota where I could be whatever the Russos were.
Or weren't.
But it wasn't the right time.
“Sometimes.” I grinned at Bryan. “Would you have memorized that ‘Lift mine eyes’ verse even if you didn't go to seminary?”
“Maybe,” he said. “I'm a poet at heart.”
“You're a football player,” I said.
“Football players can be poets.” He grinned back at me, then looked at the mountains again. “I wish we had time to ride up to that big pile of rocks. Ever go up there?”
“Yes,” I said. And for some reason I told him all about Grandpa and his search for Selena Marie.
“Wow,” he said when I finished. “What a great story. Really romantic. Maybe I'll write a play about it someday.” He looked again at the rocks. “Have you looked everywhere? I mean every where?”
He stood up as I named all the places we'd looked for clues of Selena Marie. The pile of rocks. The caves by the river. The dark valleys between the mountains.
“How about closer to home?” he asked. “The house where your grandpa lived? The house where Selena Marie lived?”
“Yes,” I said. “Everywhere.”
He pinched his lower lip as he turned all the way around, examining the territory.
“How about special places they liked to go?” he said. “Like when they wanted to make out?”
“They didn't make out,” I said huffily. “This was almost fifty years ago.”
He gave me another of his wicked smiles. “People made out fifty years ago.”
I didn't want to talk about things like that. He was back to being dangerous, just when I'd started to trust him.
“Okay, we'll leave that.” He kept the maddening grin on his face, and I felt myself blushing. “How about secret love notes, then. Stuff like that. Know of anyplace they could have left that kind of thing?”
“I don't know,” I said. “The only secret place for notes that I know of is a hole in a tree that Abby and I used to use as a mailbox. Abby's my best friend.” Lex used to leave notes too, when we were younger, but I didn't mention that. I didn't want to think about him. About Lex, who loved me. “Grandpa told me once that Selena Marie liked to leave notes there.”
“Let's go look,” Bryan said. “Is it far?”
“No, but shouldn't we be reading the play? Isn't that why you came?”
“The mystery is more fun,” Bryan said. “Let's check the tree, then I promise we'll read.” He struck a pose with his hand on his chest. “On my honor as a noble hero.”
I stood up. “Okay, hero, let's go. It's about a quarter of a mile away. Halfway between Abby's house and mine.” I remembered something Grandpa had told me. “Selena Marie's aunt and uncle used to live where Abby does now. She stayed with them during the summers. She wasn't from here. Grandpa always said she was ‘from off.’”
“Maybe she just went back home,” Bryan said.
I shook my head. “Grandpa checked. Her parents didn't know where she was.”
“Or at least they didn't tell him,” Bryan said.
I stopped, staring at him. “I never thought of that. I've always just accepted what Grandpa said.”
“New eyes look at things in different ways,” Bryan said. “What about the people she was staying with? What did they say?”
I searched my memory. “Grandpa said they told him she'd just gone. Away from him, from them, from the Church, from everything she was. They said she was confused about what she wanted to do with her life.”
“Sounds reasonable. So why doesn't your grandpa believe that?”
“I don't know. Except that he's stubborn.” Maybe too stubborn to accept that she would leave him without a word, when they'd been planning to get married.
“Too stubborn to face the truth,” Bryan stated. “Maybe.” I knew how stubborn Grandpa was, but I'd never considered that the stubbornness itself might be standing in the way of the truth.
I thought about that. Maybe I needed new eyes to take a look at my life.
Bryan entertained me as we walked along the path to the tree by quoting poetry, or making it up. Sometimes I wasn't sure. He seemed to know as many poems as Grandpa did, although they weren't the action poems that Grandpa liked. Bryan liked the poems of Coleridge and Browning, he said.
“Do you know ‘The Cremation of Sam Magee’?” I asked.
“‘There are strange things done in the midnight sun,’” he said in a low, storyteller's voice.
“Okay,” I said. “I believe you. I don't need to hear the other ninety-nine verses.”
Grandpa would like Bryan, I decided.
He liked Lex, too.
Forget Lex, I told myself. I was enjoying being with Bryan. He was a lot different from Lex. I'd never known anybody quite like him. It was a relief just to kid around and relax after the intensity of the past few days.
When we got to the tree, we found that the hole Abby and I used to use as a mailbox was full of decayed leaves and slime.
“It's been a long time,” I said.
Bryan began pulling the leaves out. “It's a great mailbox. Very romantic.”
Romantic again. He seemed to enjoy that aspect of Grandpa's story. “Childish,” I said. “Abby and I didn't use it anymore after we were ten or eleven. We telephoned.”
“Maybe everybody didn't have telephones back when your grandpa was young,” he said.
He had all the leaves out now and was searching inside the hole, which was about the diameter of a two-gallon bucket but much deeper, extending almost all the way through to the other side of the large tree. I used to wonder how the tree could live with such a big hole in its trunk, but it seemed to survive all right. Stubborn, maybe, like Grandpa.
“Nothing here,” Bryan said.
“Did you really expect something to be here? After all these years?”