Awakening Foster Kelly

by Cara Rosalie Olsen

  A roll call of entertaining and mundane questions followed, his choice first, then mine. Favorite flavor of ice cream? Dog or cat person? Rhoda spoke for herself. Favorite song? Most memorable moment? I had to fudge a bit on that one. Last Monday when he’d arrived on my doorstep unexpectedly with an espresso was highly memorable. So was the moment I thought he might be about to kiss me. I pushed that silliness aside, reminding myself that I was thankful for his friendship. We talked more about The House of Hope, the joyful and the discouraging aspects. Dominic nodded his assent, reminding me I must accept them both if I am to be a role model. It was odd thinking of myself that way—a role model. I suppose it was a natural consequence of volunteering, but I hardly ever thought of it in terms of providing a service. My only endeavor was to love them.

  “If you could spend the entire day doing just one thing, what would it be?” he asked, angling his head so that it hung to the side, facing me.

  I cringed wondering how it would sound, confessing to be the number one fan of an author who’d been dead nearly two centuries. If I was going to expect honesty from him, though, I needed to do the same. Resisting the familiar urge to evade questions that might expose my lackluster agenda, I answered truthfully. The question was amusing, because in actuality I did spend nearly every weekend curled up with a Jane Austen book, either in the library or my room, and occasionally in the backyard. Not surprisingly, Dominic was nothing but polite and interested, asking what particular novel was my favorite. Again, I answered and was rewarded with one of his unrestrained smiles. This was because as a child, his mom had read to him from a book of classics, preferring their controversy and colorful characters over the predictability of fables.

  The smile faded and he turned away, staring with melancholy into the placid water below the bridge. “I’m glad she didn’t try and fool us with ‘Happily Ever Afters,’” he said. His voice, while soft and wistful, held a sharp note, something I didn’t quite understand. He breathed in deeply, then released what sounded like frustration and weariness. “You don’t get too many years before learning that life isn’t a fairy tale. So why lie for those first couple of years? It only makes it that much harder when you’re denied a happy ending.”

  I wasn’t in complete disagreement with this reason of thought. He had a point. Nor was I in complete agreement with it, however, though I chose not to comment, feeling the moment called for sensitivity and discretion. He was lost remembering something, stuck between here and there. It wasn’t the usual tenebrific expression I had begun to expect, but something quieter and less pungent to his memory. I took a long pull of surplus oxygen around me, hoping this might calm the trembles just beginning in my hands, moving like mini-whirlpools in my stomach. I had been waiting for the moment when I might ask him—much gentler this time—the question of an hour ago. I heard the urgent voice in my mind speak out: Just ask!

  I turned my body toward him, preparing. “Dom—” I cleared my throat and began again. “Dominic?”

  “Hm?” His eyes floated up, a dreamy quality to them.

  “I wanted to ask you a question.”

  He smiled and his eyes cleared. No longer was he there but only here, all of his attention on me. The whirlpools pervading my abdomen increased in volume and speed as I thought forcibly on what I had been about to ask. Amnesia. It was gone. Just like my sensibility, it had evacuated my being and left me in a fit of trembles and nervy breathing. He was still bent over the balustrade, leaving me with the illusion of height. Slowly, inch by inch, his back straightened and forearms began to lift from the railing. He took only one small step forward and I was dwarfed.

  “Sometimes you do,” he said. “Sometimes . . .” Looking down at me, his eyes were blue fire, liquid topaz. As long as I had lived, never had I seen anything so blue. “The happy ending is the beginning of something else.”

  I could hardly hear what he was saying. The blood rushing through my temples, washing up the side of my skull drowned out both his voice and my thoughts. I saw his arm raise, his hand coming nearer to me. My own hand, the right, rested on the railing. This was where he was headed. Somehow I had taken my eyes from his. I couldn’t remember doing this, but with the distance closing I could look nowhere else, think of nothing else. When he was inches away from touching me, I held my breath only to realize it had been much too long since oxygen had entered my body. My chest ached; the tightness throbbed at my ribs above my heart which had turned to mortar. Its beat struck my ribs with hard, bullet-fast thumps. Everything hurt.

  Then his skin was on my skin. With the tip of his thumb, he grazed my smallest finger. The warmth was what I noticed first. I felt it everywhere. In my throat. On my neck. Soaking each individual hair on my head. It was a moment before I could feel how feather light his touch truly was. Up and down, he continued this movement, over knuckles and nail, again and again. I felt Emily’s words crash into my mind like a meteor, summoned into my conscious by what I was not willing to believe. Believing he felt about me the way I felt about him was not only dangerous—it was foolish.

  It’s guilt, I answered back to Emily. He’s feeling guilty.

  This whole time he was touching me, I could only stare. Stare at our hands, our fingers touching. I took an imperative breath and raised my head. The shock knocked the wind out of me again. Every look ever given to me, all those that came before this one, were made obsolete, made insignificant and foggy. For the first time, I was being seen by someone. Not for my bizarre intelligence, not because I had tripped in the hallway or misspoken in class, or fallen into a daydream. Dominic was looking at me like I was . . . his.

  “I remember,” I blurted, my voice husky and deprived of intonation. “I remember my question.”

  His hand began to retreat. “Foster . . .” His voice was a strangled whisper. “Before you say anything.” He paused and gripped the railing. I watched his throat work, swallowing furiously. “Before you ask me, I need—”

  His sentence was cut short as a swirling transient vapor began to appear all around us. I blinked, certain this was all part of my imagination. I had finally stopped breathing and was beginning to see things. Of course that wasn’t true—nothing as fixable as that. Almost sickened by how close Dominic had come to sharing something important with me, I glanced toward the ceiling—hoping to prove myself wrong. I wasn’t. Dominic tilted up his chin too, and laughed without humor, blinking against the misters releasing fizzy rain. When I saw him again, through lashes thick with moisture, his shirt was quickly turning from light gray to dark slate. It was a fine mist, but with over a hundred installed—I knew because I had helped—it wasn’t long before the greenhouse had transformed into a diaphanous labyrinth. It wouldn’t take much before our clothes were sopping wet. As if to confirm this thought, a large droplet dribbled down my forehead, sliding off the end of my nose.

  He ducked his head at an angle, smiling and squinting at me. “We should probably get out of here, yeah?” I thought I detected relief in his voice, but could have mistaken that for urgency.

  “Yes, okay,” I agreed, dour and halfhearted. My lashes grew even heavier, clumping. I was certain my heart was doing much of the same.

  Quickly making our way back over the bridge, Dominic right behind me, I focused on not slipping. I used my arms to lead the way, stretching them out in front of me. Visibility was no more than six inches. Little by little, we moved closer to the exit, all the while I felt him behind me, though he didn’t touch me. Forming a constancy with my gait, I allowed myself a indulgent moment to consider Dominic’s unfinished sentence. Dozens of possibilities slapped across my mind, and there would have been more too, I was sure, had I not in that same moment of lackadaisical negligence stepped into the snare of a tangled hose. Trying to prevent it, I only made it worse and felt my body jerk hard to the left. For one mind numbing second, imminent pain struck the middle of my forehead, telling me I was about to land head first into a ceramic pot. The next second I was in Dominic’s hands, both of
which were gripped securely around my waist. I barely had time to register this change before he’d righted and deposited me, moving me directly behind him in one agile maneuver.

  “T-thank you,” I huffed, out of breath. I sent my first and only thanks to the mist too, for camouflaging the cheeks burning with humiliation.

  His arm reached around, palm open. “Take my hand.”

  The way it was spoken didn’t feel precisely like a demand, but going from tenderness and soft touches of a moment ago, to a gesture of obligation, it felt wrong to take it.

  My fingers involuntarily curled inwards. “I’m okay. I just didn’t see the hose,” I explained, mindful of the back of his heels as we shuffled forward. He stopped abruptly, and I knocked full into him.

  “Foster—please take my hand,” he repeated peremptorily.

  The hulk of his back loomed in front of me, his head turned but only a little. I knew better than to believe my stumble had irritated him, ascertaining that the dour mood was likely resultant of the same spoiled moment I was upset over. I reached down in search of the hand presumably waiting for mine. Sloppy and slick our palms collided. Dominic wrapped his fingers around my wrist, repositioning our hands until they were neatly stacked like shallow bowls.

  “Thank you,” he said, less gruffly. “It’s easier to keep you from hurting yourself when I know where you are.” The comment left me feeling a little raw. I was already embarrassed and the ridicule only made the sting burn.

  “I didn’t see the hose,” I repeated in soft monotone.

  He had our hands pressed against his back at the base of his spine, so I felt gentle shaking the moment he began to chuckle.

  “I’m not laughing at you,” he said as if prompted, the laughter evident in his voice. “I was just thinking about your face.” Head ducked, I continued concentrating on not clipping the back of Dominic’s ankles. I watched the lines of spray shoot up from the back of his sneakers.

  “My . . . face?”

  “Yes,” he replied evenly, a quiver in his voice. “It’s probably the prettiest shade of pink right now, I’d think.”

  With his free hand he pushed the glass door outward, carefully pulling me around in front to exit first. He remained holding me until I was safely deposited on a large stepping stone. Letting go, I wobbled on the embossed orchid, but managed to stay upright as Dominic turned back to close the door behind him. When he faced me he was already smiling.

  “Ah, there it is,” he declaimed as he leapt, deftly landing on the stepping stone just in front of me. “It’s just like the moon; even in the dark I can still find it.”

  I stared at him, blinking owlishly. A flash of heat rose up over me like a cloud made of lava as I stood clutching my elbows, shivering in defense against the brisk night air. I hadn’t heard the last thing he said. If I had to guess, my first thought is it would have been something playful or derisory; however, I lacked the faculty of thought to determine that just now.

  Dominic was soaked. While my hair—helmet-like—barely felt damp, Dominic’s black hair was shining, matted like a cap to his head and separated into thin strips that lay pressed against his forehead. From the tips, they released wavy rivers of water that coursed down his cheeks like artificial tears. The rest of him was equally sodden. The shirt I had once thought of as fitted, now clung to his body like a very thin second skin. Every ridge and hollow, every curve of his chest, the gentle swells and rises of his stomach stood out as if he had been chiseled from limestone. He was not limestone, however, but flesh, bone and sinew. A statue, while often impressive in its replication of the human body, now seemed dim and unsubstantial by comparison with the real thing standing no more than three feet from me. The tendons like cords ran up his forearms, disappearing into the larger muscles of his biceps, stretching further into wide shoulders sloping first down, then upward in graceful arcs. Other than his actual skin, there was no part of him—torso to neck—not revealed. I followed the line of his throat, slick and silver under the moonlight, to his shapely chin where a rivulet turned to droplet. Heavy and oblong, it grew and then fell, landing somewhere below.

  “Foster?” His voice was somewhere between concern and amusement.

  My eyes crawled toward his, heavy with resistance. His expression was like a bucket of cold water, rousing me with the realization that I had been staring—no, not staring, ogling!—for who knew how long. Horrified, I began shaking my head from side to side, hurrying to phrase an apology for my inexcusable behavior.

  He smiled, though had a look of abashment about him. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so red,” he said gently. “I only meant to tease you, not embarrass you.” For a moment, it was confusion that met my shame. Then I could hardly believe it. Attributing his comment to my complexion, he was actually apologizing to me. Fleetingly I wondered again about what he might have said, but seeing my only way out of this unforgivable basking, I did the only thing that might mitigate both our concerns.

  “You didn’t,” I said, and forced a laugh, “but I might have to start wearing a mask around you.”

  His face relaxed. “Just so long as you’re not carrying a butcher knife,” he quipped.

  I fixed my eyes on his, permitting them barely more than a blink now and again. “Michael Myers, right? Those are some of Emily’s favorite movies.” He grinned, lowered his head forward and roughly ran his hands back and forth through his hair. Droplets of water sprang forth, shooting in every direction. I found a place on his skull and didn’t look anywhere else until he was through removing the excess water. Nearly as black as Rhoda’s coat, his hair looked similar to hers following the after-bath ritual shake.

  “Sounds about right,” he said. “She’s really into scary films, isn’t she?”

  I confirmed this with a nod, watching the clumps settle around his ears, curling slightly at the ends. “We once watched all six Halloween’s in one night, then the other two the next.”

  “Yeah, how was that?” he asked, his tone wry.

  I simpered and glanced down, brushing the moisture from my sweater in the same quick gestures he had. “Truthfully?” I said, and then looked up.

  He studied me for a moment, then smiled. “Always.”

  “Truthfully, it was a month before I felt safe enough to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.”

  His eyes closed tightly and he let out a bark of laughter. “Wow . . . you really are a good friend.” Noticing I was shivering, he came forward and put his hand on back, turning me toward the house. “Why didn’t you just suggest another movie?” he asked. “Something without psychopaths and stalkers, like Dumbo?” There was only a few inches of space between us; occasionally our arms would brush, and even without me looking, a picture of him molded in thin, wet cotton would flash unbidden in my mind.

  “It wasn’t so bad,” I allowed. My voice shook, and Dominic again misunderstanding, picked up the pace in an effort to get me inside the warmth of the house. On the contrary, I was plenty warm at the moment. “Unless it was nighttime,” I added. “Then all of a sudden every noise was a burglar, and every shadow was something about to get me.”

  “You should have had Rhoda sleep in bed with you,” he suggested, as we came to the side door. I stretched up, rising onto my toes, but his fingers were there first, flipping the latch and pushing it open.

  “Thank you.” I walked through, turning to wait for him as he shut the gate. “As comforting as Rhoda can be, I’m not sure how much help she would be defending me from a homicidal manic.”

  He raised an eyebrow, falling back into line with me. “Less Lassie, more Cowardly Lion?”

  “Afraid so.” We passed the pool, dark and ominous without lights to give it a friendly glow. “But she has many redeeming virtues to make up for the lack of bravery,” I said in her defense. “She was actually the one that found me the night I got sick.”

  “Really?” I saw his head turn in my direction, but prudently kept my eyes forward. The ground was wet and th
ere were many things to trip over; an insidious minefield of obstacles full of potential, just waiting to unleash fury on me.

  I nodded. “I don’t remember at all, but my mom said she came into their room barking, and wouldn’t leave until they got out of bed.”

  “Wow,” he said, and paused in awe. “You hear about that kind of stuff in the news, you know, but never actually think real, everyday dogs rescue people. She’s a hero.”

  “She is,” I agreed, and this time did look up to meet his eyes. Even in the dark, they were a deep rich blue, luminously reflecting pale moonlight.

  “Just like her owner.”

  “Me?” I laughed freely. “No.”

  He snorted. “Oh, you’re right,” he said, dryly. “Skipping class to help someone who’s lost consciousness, and then carrying them to the nurse’s office when they’re too weak to stand—not heroic at all.” He furrowed his brows looking severe. “Forgive me, my mistake.”

  “How is Vanya? Has she come back to school yet?” I asked, then stumbled, catching my toe on uneven pavement. “I’m okay,” I said quietly when he moved to catch me. His hand remained outstretched to me for a few more seconds, waiting. It was painful not taking it.

  “She did,” he answered without enthusiasm. “She came back a few days after you were out. Other than Music class, I don’t really see her, but from what I can tell she seems to be, ah . . . back to normal?”

  I heard the implication in his voice and smiled. “Good. I’m glad to hear she’s feeling better.” Knowing firsthand of her pain, my empathy was all the more effusive. “She was terribly sick—worse than me, I think.” Dominic laughed at this, but said nothing. Curious, I peeked at him, trying to read the expression of his face. His eyes sidled at the same moment he smirked.