“But you don’t actually know him, right? You never talked to him before?” Emily looked as confused as I felt. Again, the familiar pull to clam up stirred within me; but it was faint, letting another less dominant part come forth.
“Not before today, but right before class, I ran into him on the steps outside the front of the school.” I swallowed, glancing up at Emily’s blinking face. This was more than I had planned on admitting.
Emily jumped on the new information. “You ran into him? What do you mean you ran into him?”
It was too late to change my mind. She would expect to hear the whole story now. As I told it to her, leaving out a few of the more perplexing details, Emily had no idea this was actually painful; not only because that sort of raw hatred gnaws like fangs on flesh, but because it went against every instinct I had. Speaking freely, for me, was like trying to ascend a mountain walking backward.
Emily listened intently, having turned to face me, propping her chin up with her fist.
When I was finished, spent from the retelling and concurrent emotions freshly stirred, she said, “So . . . he freaked because you accidentally knocked into him? Even after you said you were sorry and picked up all his stuff?” The pure look of disgust on her face wasn’t directed at me, though it made my stomach clench with familiarity. “Anything else? Like, oh, I don’t know, maybe, ‘I’m out of meds and my psychiatrist can’t be reached.’” Emily’s cheeks were flushed. “I hope he chokes on a chicken bone,” she muttered, ripping a straggling fiber from her frayed shorts.
As she continued to stew about it, sporadically growling and prodding me for more information, I realized something I’d overlooked due to my own consuming shock. Emily wasn’t angry . . . she was upset. Upset for me. Scolding myself for the impetuous moment of honesty and consequently bringing her further into this mess, I strategized about how I might fix this. I needed to act fast. More than ever, it was imperative that this part of my life remained unchanged. If I was going to convince her I was all right, though, I would need to convince myself first. I closed my hand around my pass, sharp edges poking into my palm. The discomfort helped to clear my mind. Listening carefully to the light and airy voice in my head, I practiced a few times before trying it aloud.
“You know, Em . . . the whole thing really just got blown out of proportion and . . . it’s over now.” Nodding to myself, “I think it’s best to let it go and just forget about it, you know?”
Satisfied with the dismissal, I glanced up expectantly. Emily—mouth parted in a gasp and eyes buggy with incredulity—was clearly not satisfied. “You are not serious, are you?” Setting her chin, she railed, “Foster! That tool belt just humiliated you in front of everyone. He deserves to suffer,” she said between clenched teeth. “Multiple times.”
I considered her vitriol a definite step in the right direction. Relieved the wounded expression had dimmed, I realized I still had a serious problem on my hands—Emily, the retribution-seeking vigilante.
“Even if he does . . . deserve to suffer,” I managed to say, the words tasting, “if you get into trouble, then your whole team is out their best player.”
Emily Considered this. “Fine,” she said. “But . . . I can’t be responsible for every accident that happens at school.”
“Em . . .”
“What? We live in dangerous times, Fost. Did you know Jenny Valdetti had her iPod stolen last week? It’s a shame, really . . . anyone”—she shook her head, glancing toward the ceiling—“hypothetically, of course, could vandalize Dominic’s car during class and there would be no one to see who did it. So if his tires were to get slashed or the paint scratched, well, you could hardly blame me.”
I’d underestimated Emily; she was already hatching schemes.
Suddenly very tired, I pressed a cheek across my kneecap, wrapping myself into a ball. I should have known better. A smile continued to twitch at Emily’s lips while she contemplated something I was positive wasn’t legal. Trying to dissuade her from retaliating was futile. I recalled Jake’s water polo game a few months back, and the boy from the opposing team who pinched him in the side, just as Jake had been about to score. The second Emily spotted the gruesome nail marks, she went ballistic. The boy was lucky to leave the natatorium with only a bloody nose.
Nobody hurt Jake. Well . . . other than Emily, of course.
A phone buzzed. Emily reached into her shorts and as she read her message, I found myself thinking of him. I saw his face; not the furious one, but haunted eyes, utterly afraid of me. Pressing my fingers to my temples, I wagered what I possibly could have done to elicit such a visceral reaction? Had he just been surprised? Taken off-guard by the collision? Surely he had to have seen me coming though, right? A low growling noise broke the hold to my deep concentration.
“That dirt bag earned me a detention.” She glared at her phone, turning it sideways, and scrolling with angry thumbs. I swear I’ll kill that guy when I find him.”
“Em . . .” I spoke softly into my knees. “I’m sorry. I’ll find a way to—wait. A detention? Why?”
Emily froze. Then she put her phone back in her pocket and stretched forward to grab her ankles.
Emily stalled about as often as she wore black. “When Jake texted me and I found out what happened to you, I didn’t ask the teacher for a pass. I just got up and left.” Laughing, she said, “Don’t look at me like you put the gun in my hands. It was my decision, you didn’t make me leave.” This was true, but it didn’t make me feel any less responsible.
“I’m sorry, Em,” I repeated uselessly.
“Don’t be,” she said. “A couple more minutes of sitting through Mr. Boring’s lecture about some British dude who died a million years ago, and how he built the first—” she snapped her fingers.
“Gravity road,” I finished mechanically. Mr. Borning also taught my A.P. History class last year.
“Yeah. What was his name again?” she asked, suddenly interested in seventeenth century World History. That by itself should have clued me in that something was amiss. John Montressor was the name on my lips, but as my tongue moved into place, something inside my brain did the same. A detail, much too small for me to take notice of, nagged like a child desperate for attention.
Emily said when Jake texted her. But how could Jake have known? He wasn’t in my class.
I gasped. My back bowed as if an ice cube had been dropped down the back of my shirt. “Emily, how did Jake know what happened?”
“Crap, I was hoping you missed that part.” She sighed. “Annalee Jeffries texted him.”
A tiny mallet hammered away at my left temple. “And how did Annalee know?”
My eyes locked on the silver E dangling from Emily’s neck. It served as the point of focus and nothing more. Images of wide smirks and whispering faces huddled together, flashed before my eyes, threatening an encore showing of the little food I managed to force down at lunch. I looked up as Emily exhaled, staring at me with resignation. She grudgingly unleashed the whole sordid story.
“Well . . . Connor, who’s in your class, texted Amanda, whose boyfriend is Jordan, who is best friends with Jake . . .” She paused, looking up to see how I was taking it. Apparently not very well. The hallway dimmed and started to fade around the edges. “Foster!” Emily grabbed my wrist, shaking me roughly. “Breathe!” she shouted.
A burnt wheezing breath stumbled down my throat. Meeting her eyes, I nodded, thanking her for being there to order a directive.
One at a time I lifted all ten of my fingers from my knees, until strips of yellowing marks faded to a slightly paler white. On some invisible cue, we both leaned back into the lockers.
“It’s not that bad,” Emily announced, “there’s still another period left. Someone’s bound to do something stupid or scandalous. What happened with you is hardly tabloid worthy.”
“You—” I cleared my throat, “You think so?”
“I do, and if people do start talking about it . . .” She lifted a
brow, shrugging. “Then we’ll just have to give them something else to talk about. I have loads of blackmail on the guy’s water polo team. It could just happen to become public knowledge.” Emily looked almost giddy at the prospect. “Oh, speaking of which, you won’t believe what Blane Dirkson tried to smuggle in his suit today.”
“Thanks, Em,” I said a few moments later, still giggling.
“No worries.”
As it was nearing the end of the period, I wanted Emily to know how much I appreciated her. The words to do this pressed fervently at my mind, but each time I came close to giving them volume, they suddenly vanished like the music from a passing car. Exertion shook me as I labored after the right words.
Don’t do it.
But she’s my friend.
No. She doesn’t even know you.
I couldn’t deny the voice of reason, though the voice of foolishness had put up more fight than I would have thought capable. My body went slack, resigned to the decision I’d made.
Emily chuckled beside me. “I’m relieved I could finally tell someone. Blane’s girlfriend is cool, so for her sake, I didn’t give him a hard time.” In a fit of giggles again, she tilted her head back, whimpering, “Oh, that’s just too good. I have to remember to tell Jake that one. Anyway”—she made an effort to control her laughter—“there was no way I wasn’t going to tell you.” This made sense; obviously Emily knew I had no other friends to share secrets with. “Best friends are exempt from the code of secrecy.” I wouldn’t have thought I had the energy left to be completely dumfounded. I did, though. Best friends?
Emily and I both jumped, startled when the shrieking bell made the most of the acoustics. Kids spilled into the hallway almost immediately. We rose to our feet, getting out of the way as people stopped at their lockers. One by one, as every person passed, they turned to stare at us—correction, at me. I stared at my feet. It helped tremendously when I couldn’t see the heady groups slowing to confirm their suspicions. But then I heard them.
“Is that her?” a girl whispered, an undertone of pity in her voice.
“Is she a new student?”
“I think I have a class with her,” a male voice struggled to corroborate his inference.
“Seriously?!” This person was peeved. Absorbed by the effort it took to not flee, it was a second before I recognized the voice as Emily’s. “Get a freakin’ life!” she shouted.
There was no hiding my face. It spoke for me inaudibly, without any need of vocal chords. Pressed against the lockers, I began to sway. Thinking people would have no interest in what had happened, simply because I was involved, was another ridiculous notion. I wasn’t interesting—but Dominic was. And the wolves had descended.
I needed to get out of here.
Grabbing my backpack from the floor, I took off down the hall without saying goodbye to Emily. I didn’t trust my voice right now. My throat was pulled tight, with a fist-sized fraying knot lodged in there. Faces continued to blur past me as I walked as fast as my wobbly legs would carry me. I struggled against the current of students flanking my side, shoving me backward, forward, and pulling me down like a merciless undertow. I fought being trampled—not only physically, but figuratively—hearing my name spoken over and over again. Some whispered it, some thought it would be funny to pretend they knew me and one even shouted, “I’ll be your partner,” then erupted in hysterics.
I didn’t look up once; not even when someone reached for my backpack, shouting over and over again, “Foster, wait up!” Panting, I wiggled out of their grasp, almost falling to my knees. Too late, I realized it had been Jake’s voice calling for me, lost and indistinguishable in the din of the dozen others.
Crashing against bodies in a fight for solitude, I didn’t slow until coming to the door of the office building. Just get inside. After throwing myself into the door, repeatedly, I glanced down and saw the silver handle. It slipped off my hand and vibrated noisily, though not nosier than the crystal clear susurrant mantra, “That’s her!” behind me. Using both hands, I thrust down on the handle and spilled into the office. I took a moment to rest, leaning back and forbidding entrance into my sanctuary.
~
When I was a baby, my mom would read to me from The Brothers Grimm. By the age of three—so my mother claims—I could no longer wait until bedtime and would steal away to a chair, swing, or lawn blanket to read by myself. To me the stories were magic. When I was in their world it felt right. I felt right. Leaving was often very difficult, and I would cry. The moment school, meal, or bath finished, there was only one place I wanted to be: the place that wanted me too.
It didn’t matter to me if the stories were happily-ever-afters or broke my heart. The characters were my only friends, and whether they made me happy or sad made no difference to me in terms of my loyalty. Somewhere along the way I expanded my reading repertoire, welcoming Emily Bronte, Jane Austen, and Fitzgerald to my life; however, in my heart, sanctity remained solely for my beloved fairy tales. Of all of them, a certain fascination has always existed with the story of Rapunzel. I cannot explain it. I only know that something about her resonates with a part of me—safe and untouchable.
This fondness, I believe, explained why I instantly bonded with my room; the very first time I heard my footsteps echoing across the solid oak floors, felt protected beneath the beamed, vaulting ceilings, and caught sight of the oasis stationed outside my balcony doors. Awed into silence, I half expected the golden-haired beauty herself to emerge from the bathroom and banish me from her chambers. I did check just to make sure. It took some time before I was fully convinced the tower belonged to me. The sketches and pictures I’d seen beforehand did nothing for the extravagance with which my room had been decorated. Of everything, my eyes went first to the centerpiece of the room—my bed. The Circular, iridescent gold bedspread shone, etched with a copper paisley design and piled high with more plump and incongruous pillows then I had ever seen. To mount it without first taking a running start, a stepstool was required. My first moments were spent learning this as I—attempting a swan dive—bounced off the side of the bed.
I wasted no time in picking myself up off the floor, anxious to investigate the balcony. Gently pushing the sheer curtains aside, I opened the French doors and got my first sight of the russet and crimson bougainvillea setting the place on fire. It grew everywhere; in licking flames splayed along the inner and outer walls, blazing through an overhead trellis and shooting up in fiery sparks from large basin-sized pots. Glancing upward, I noticed someone had already taken care of installing a chandelier to a beam in the trellis. This had immediately given me an idea. With the “help” of my father, we managed to haul up a recliner, positioning it directly under the chandelier so I could read beneath the light at nighttime. Waiting for the sun to set that first day was torturous. Summertime offered days that lasted until nearly eight p.m. When it finally happened, and the first stars made their appearance, I could hardly breathe. When the moon rose, there weren’t any words to describe the enveloping beauty that awoke to take the place of day. What had been turbulent color a few hours ago was now replaced with lush greenery that tempered the fevered atmosphere. Sitting there nestled in the recliner, “Rapunzel” in my hands, I found a peace I didn’t know existed outside of music.
That is where I needed to be right now.
However, it seemed as if the day was conspiring against me to keep that from happening. Red lights, slow pedestrians, and detoured roads made the normally five minute drive home closer to twenty. Rhoda, while supernaturally sensitive to the human mood, could not deny her rumbling belly. And when the brand new bag of doggy food refused to open, and then changed its mind erupting into a shower of kibble, I wondered if I would ever make it to my room. The moment I scooped the last bit of food off the floor, my dad came into the kitchen, wanting to talk plant. Almost an hour after leaving Shorecliffs, shaking from pure exhaustion and the effort expended in not worrying my father, I finally arrived at the famili
ar oval door. Staring at the black padlock that no longer functioned, I opened the door, took one look at my bed, and the sobbing recommenced.
After washing my face, I shrugged off my skirt and blouse, and slipped into black leggings and an oversized gray sweatshirt. I felt half-human again. The other half materialized when I sank into the soft recliner and pulled a quilt over me. I fell asleep before pulling the lever.
When I awoke sometime later, I knew my mom had been up to check on me. On top of the pile of books stacked haphazardly on the ground, was a carton of strawberry yogurt and Wheat Thins. I took them inside and laid them on my nightstand untouched. My stomach wouldn’t welcome food right now. I felt utterly haggard and my head was an overcrowded fish tank. I was in no shape to begin sorting through the inextricable thoughts revolving in circuitous loops. First, I needed to clear my head, and then maybe some of this would start to make sense. I crossed the room and sat down behind my baby grand piano.
With the curtains pulled back and doors ajar, I could hear the birds outside, singing a cheerful melody. Neither did the oblivious sky, preening its array of sunset colors, hold back any of its joy. This made me feel even worse, I realized, and T.S Eliot’s The Waste Land instantly surfaced in my mind. I had it memorized; so numerous were the times it had been recited it to me. My grandmother, a contemporary jazz singer and poet, named my mother after Marie Lloyd—the woman Eliot makes mention of in the poem—admiring both Eliot’s talent and Lloyd’s tenacious spirit. It was a story my grandmother loved to tell, and did with every visit. With my eyes fixed on the stunning view before me, it was the first lines, however, that whispered against my ear.
APRIL is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
It really did seem cruel that the world outside would be blatantly happy, celebrating in color and song, while I was feeling bleak and miserable—the dead of winter. From a disheveled pile on the floor next to me, I rummaged through some sheet music, looking up when the door creaked open. Rhoda nosed her way in, and trotted over to the piano, tongue lolling. I stroked her soft, black head and leaned down to plant a kiss between her tawny eyes.
Awakening Foster Kelly Page 17