I kept focus on him, refusing to believe what he was telling me, and trying to find another way these words could make sense.
Dominic was inexorable; he wouldn’t meet my eyes, but continued to stare at the hand holding the phone.
“Look at your phone,” he repeated, a curl unfolding at the left side of his mouth.
Trembling, I raised my hand, turning the phone over in my palm. The screen was black. I pressed the home button and instantly a message popped up. It read:
Thank you, everyone, for coming out to audition. You made me proud today and every one of you deserves this opportunity. The person Mr. Flemming and I selected is Foster Kelly.
And now I needed to sit down.
Chapter Thirty-three
The dull roar of a crowd filtered up the stairway, down the hall, and into my room. I stuck my head out the door and heard the toneless television announcer’s voice relaying information play by play in succinct fragments. Now he was screaming, his voice surging with excitement over the sound of a buzzer. The cheers and hollers erupted to an ear-shattering decibel, like an excited flock of seagulls.
Then everything went silent.
Mediocre was not a characteristic espoused by James and Marie Kelly; when pursuing a goal or learning a new concept, the feat was sought with diligence and determination. The same rule applied now, as they familiarized themselves with a sport none of us knew much about—basketball. I would bet my life that by the time my parents arrived at my school tonight, they would not only be fluent in basketball vernacular, but will somehow have whittled the entire game down to a matter of angles and velocity.
It had taken over twenty minutes, pacing the length of my kitchen, to work up enough to nerve to seek out my parents in the greenhouse. This news would be portentous and shocking—especially to my mom; she hadn’t seen me perform anything by myself in over ten years. After dancing indirectly around the happenings of my day for another ten minutes, I realized that there was no simple or easy way to tell them, and decided to blurted it out.
“I’m finally caught up in all my classes, and I’ll be singing the Star Spangled Banner tonight for a couple hundred people.”
Like a two-headed statue, their heads—bent over side-by-side microscopes—rose at the precisely the same second, turning equally dumfounded expressions in my direction. Not surprisingly, it was my dad who found his voice first, happily congratulating me, then walking over to give me a one-armed hug. My mom, however, was like one of those wind-up toys that pre-wind, did absolutely nothing, and post-wind, lost all sense of control, bounding in any and all directions. She clasped her hands together and spun around the greenhouse in a manner suggesting I’d just told her I had been inaugurated as the first female president.
“Mom,” I said, laughing and trying to remain calm all at once, “it’s just one time.”
I don’t think she heard me. Eventually she found her way back to the work area, though, and taking my hands in hers, I found myself caught up in her jubilation, recounting the details with vigor while she listened raptly.
Moments later, the three of us walked back into the house, breaking off in separate directions to go and prepare for this evening. It was there, alone in my room, that the full understanding of what was to happen in less than three hours, scraped every last bit of air from my lungs.
The T.V. suddenly blared to life again, replaying the scene my parents had watched a few minutes ago. This method of study—observe, analyze, formulate—was very familiar to me. They often instituted these same tactics in their work. Anything less than a hundred percent immersion was not acceptable. Not because they were implacable people, but because they were people of integrity.
Even knowing this, listening as they educated themselves in basketball, it amplified my worry until I was cocooned with it; poisonous thorns digging into my sides. I could name each and every thorn: doubt, embarrassment, ridicule, failure, disappointment. They would never admit it, but my parents had to cancel their plans to attend a Botany seminar tonight—an event they had been looking forward to for months. I’d cringed when I found the flyer tacked to the corkboard in the kitchen.
Disentangling the systematics of the genus Phlox
Special guest speaker: Dr. James Kelly
Discussing Polyploidy, gene flow and species boundaries
Although I wanted them there, their forgoing a special commitment in order to attend my performance tonight added another helping of pressure to my already packed plate. I wanted this to be worth their while and I wanted to make them proud. All of this was confirmation that what I believed was true: high expectations I would never live up to.
Showered and changed, I peeked into the living room, finding my parents cuddled together on the deep-seated couch. My dad had an arm draped around my mom’s shoulders, and she sat with her feet tucked beneath her, a clipboard balanced on her knees. Both had their eyes riveted to the T.V. screen.
“I’m not quite sure I understand everything,” my dad mumbled, moving his glasses from the front of his shirt to the bridge of his nose.
My mom raised the remote, ostensibly pressing the volume button.
“What part don’t you understand? Maybe I can explain it a little better.”
“Um.” He scratched his temple, his lips screwing to the side into something between a grimace and a smirk. “All of it.”
My mother’s tinkling laughter filled the room. “Okay. Well, let’s review the basics,” she said, referring to her clipboard. “So, a jump ball is a method of starting a play and determining ball possession. This happens when an official—also called a referee—stands between two players from opposing teams and tosses the ball into the air. Each player will then jump in an attempt to try and tap the ball to their respective teammate.” She trailed her finger along a clipboard as she explained each step. “Obviously the team who gains possession of the ball now has the upper hand and can attempt to score a basket. Does that make a little more sense?”
“Quite a bit, actually, thank you,” he replied, though still appeared consternated. He stared at the clipboard silently.
“Is there something else?” she nudged.
My father sighed. “Well . . . I’m a little embarrassed you’re catching on so much quicker than I am. One would think that I, the male, would carry some inherent knowledge of such things,” he muttered, nonplussed.
My mother smiled and leaning forward, pressed a lingering kiss to his lips.
Having clearly enjoyed that, he blinked through dropping glasses. “What was that for?”
“Because I love you,” she answered serenely. “And also because only something that antiquated and chauvinistic could sound endearing coming from your mouth.”
Immediately my dad’s face flushed berry red. “Oh,” he said, full of rue and embarrassment. “Marie, I didn’t mean—”
“I know you didn’t, my love; hence the kiss.” She gave him another kiss, much briefer, then spotted me out of the corner of her eye.
“Hi, baby, we were just—” She stopped abruptly when the doorbell sounded, ringing in unison with the grandfather clock. She raised her eyebrows. “That’s probably for you.”
By the fifth gong I had reached the door. Despite our somewhat tense goodbye, I was desperate to see Dominic and mend things; I had this in mind as I flung back the door and found him leaning a shoulder against the stone wall. Only, I forgot that the sight of Dominic after not seeing him for a while always took some getting used to. My heart went about its normal routine, flip-flopping around my chest like a slinky.
The breeze carried his alpine scent through the doorway. Not a hint of chlorine loitered on him, though his hair was still a bit damp. He had changed out of the spare clothes, in lieu of dark blue jeans and a long sleeved shirt, almost identical to the one he had on before. Instead of green, though, it was a dark red, almost maroon, hanging loose around his abdomen and clinging possessively to the contours of his chest and arms. The color swept more rouge than usual into h
is cheeks, setting off the tone of his skin by turning it a deeper shade of bronze. I saw all of this without being aware of what I was seeing. When Dominic was near, I seemed to ingest his appearance concurrently, taking all of him like a vertical panoramic picture.
He smiled at me. “How’s that for punctual?” he asked, glancing at his phone, as if he’d been waiting until it was precisely 5 p.m. before ringing the doorbell.
“You couldn’t have been any earlier,” I replied happily, rolling up onto the pads of my feet.
“Well,” he said, pushing off the wall and stepping toward me, “that’s not exactly true. In fact, I could have been much earlier.” He leaned down, resting his forehead against mine. “I’ve actually been parked in your driveway for the past twenty-five minutes.”
“You have? Why didn’t you come sooner?”
He brushed his lips lightly across my forehead, sending a shiver up the back of my shirt.
“I don’t know . . . I thought maybe you could use some time to yourself,” he said quietly. “I felt like maybe I was crowding you.”
I tipped my chin up, meeting the sincerity in his deep blue eyes. “You could never crowd me, Dominic.”
What would crowd me, I kept to myself, was the hundred or so people gathering for tonight’s basketball game.
~
Sitting passenger in Dominic’s car, intermittently picking pale pink lint balls off my cashmere sweater and compulsively smoothing down my gray, knee-length linen skirt, I became aware that I was perfectly dressed—for tea and crumpets with the Queen of England.
Glancing at my bare wrist, I decided I had made at least one good decision regarding my outfit choice. The matching pearl bracelet and necklace set would have been too much. I left only the earrings and tucked the rest back into a jewelry-box containing heirlooms and fancy baubles I hardly ever wore. Still, I couldn’t help but think I was dressed like a schoolmarm, or one those porcelain dolls little girls carried with them everywhere they went.
I caught my reflection in the side view mirror, reading the script below me: objects in mirror are closer than they appear. Was this true? Or did my hair truly look like a silly-string experiment? Without words, I reprimanded my reflection. Now was not the time to be harsh and unkind to myself.
The drive back to school was brief and quiet. I stepped out of Dominic’s car, leaving him twisted in his seat, grasping for something in the back, his torso looking like a piece of very dark licorice.
As I put one foot on the ground, a sharp twinge of pain shot through my toe. I grimaced at the silver strappy sandals embellished with small crystals. They were pretty, but certainly not very comfortable. The fact that each foot was a different size wasn’t helping the matter. The right foot was faring well enough, but the left . . . brutally shoved into the confines of webbed vinyl was my smallest toe, glowing a livid shade of red. What I was thinking, choosing tonight to break in the never-before-worn shoes, I didn’t know. I had a spare set of sneakers in my locker, but they didn’t exactly go with my outfit. Maybe I could stick a piece of toilet paper in there at some point. Or possibly if I just wiggled it in a little further. Determined, I braced my hands on the roof of his car, not noticing when the wind, bending and blowing everything beneath the sky, began to push on the door.
“Foster!”
So startled I jumped, I looked up to see Dominic staring at me from the other side of the car, his eyes full of warning. There wasn’t enough time for me to move out of the way, though.
With enough force to knock the wind from me in one pained breath, the heavy door thumped against my back, dragging me forward like a powerful wave. The sound it made as we collided—the sharp crackle of spine, which I immediately assumed meant it was broken—came only seconds before my brain recognized the pain. The combination of the two made me gasp, then gag.
I felt the unyielding metal dig into my flesh like a dull butter knife into the rind of an orange. Fortunately, I was already gripping the doorframe and didn’t fall forward. My back was already throbbing, like someone had taken a baseball bat to the area above my tailbone. Dominic was at my side in less than an instant, flinging the door away with such vehemence that it whined miserably, bouncing back on the hinges to finish me off.
Dominic, angling his body, positioned himself to deflect the door’s impact while managing to not to injure himself. Frantic, he raked his eyes over my back. “Are you okay? Where did it hit you?”
Still catching my breath, I slowly began to turn to face him. “I’m okay,” I said uncertainly, reaching my hand behind me. Stifling a wince, I tried to laugh off both the pain and the embarrassment. “I think it’s possible your car might be holding a grudge for the damage I inflicted on it.”
Not apparently finding my joke humorous, he didn’t so much as flicker a smile. He searched my face, his own expression dour and grim.
“You’re hurt,” he stated, sighing angrily. “Damn it. I should have warned you that door can slip.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, reassuringly. “I just,” I took a deep breath, “I just had the wind knocked out of me, that’s all.”
“That’s all?” he repeated, indignant. “Foster, that door probably weighs forty pounds and with the wind . . .” He trailed off, raking a hand through his hair, utterly distressed. “We should get you to a hospital and make sure nothing’s broken.”
“No, I can’t,” I said quickly. “My parents will be here in less than an hour.”
Dominic peered down at me incredulously. “Your parents?”
“I need to make sure I save them seats.”
He laughed, without one bit of humor. “You were just crushed by a door and you’re worried your parents won’t have good seats?” He shut his eyes and slapped his palm against his forehead, holding it there. “Will you at least let me take a look?”
The air left my lungs loudly, fizzling through my lips like can of shaken soda. “You mean—” I gulped, a sudden warmth flooding my cheeks. “At my—at my back?”
This, however, he did find slightly amusing, his lips forming a partial smirk. “Well, I’m content to stare at your face all evening, but that won’t tell me whether or not you’ve injured your back.”
Unable to enjoy my head to toe flush, he added wearily, “You were hit hard. I just want to make sure you didn’t fracture any bones.”
I pressed the heel of my palm gently into the affected area. It throbbed, but nothing like the agonizing and incessant ache of something snapped or twisted. “It doesn’t feel broken.”
“No. I doubt anything is broken.” He sighed, wincing. “But I heard the crunch from where I was standing.” Jaw clenched, he spoke through his teeth. “Please? Just a very quick look. I’ll be gentle, I promise.”
I couldn’t imagine refusing him; not when he looked like that—fraught with worry. The glands in my mouth were working overtime. I could feel the saliva pooling, nervousness constricting the thin tube of my throat. I didn’t dare open my mouth to speak, only nodded and spun around slowly.
I braced myself against the doorframe as I had a moment ago, waiting for his hands to lift my sweater and lower the waist of my skirt. Somewhat of conciliation, I was hardly thinking about the pain just now, the anticipation of him undressing me—even if it was strictly professional—took precedent. I tried to quiet my heavy breathing, grateful now to the loud wind.
It took me a second to realize that nothing was happening. I angled my head without turning around. Dominic met my eyes with reservation.
“Did you—do you want me to—” One eyebrow was raised high and his eyes darted up and down rapidly, looking from my face down to my back, and back up. He swallowed and cleared his expression to something less ambivalent. “Should I go ahead and . . .”
I smiled. “I can do it, if you rather not?” It wouldn’t be easy—not too mention dangerous—for me to hold myself still and push down my skirt, but Dominic appeared to be as nervous as I was about touching me.
He shook his
head, dismissing my offer. “No, of course not. I can do it,” he said, dropping into a kneel. “I’m going to apply light pressure,” he explained formally. “Let me know if at any point what I’m doing hurts you.”
When his eyes flicked up for confirmation, whether it be only my nerves or the diligent way in which he approached the situation, I answered with a small laugh. He returned the smile briefly before his expression reassembled into solemnity.
I turned back around, the fierce wind forcing me to squint.
Once more, however, I was afflicted with anxiety as I waited for his hands to rest on me. When they did, I wasn’t surprised by their warmth—Dominic was always warm, it seemed—but I did not expect the fingers to move with such nimble expertise. I hardly noticed the fabric lifting from my skin, feeling the faintest of touches when his fingers grazed across the small of my back. He began to poke tenderly.
As slow and inconspicuously as I could manage, I craned my neck, watching his face as he examined me. Once I could actually see his fingers touching me, I felt his touch more poignantly, though there was nothing intimate in the inspection. He worked with purpose, maneuvering with precision and entirely engrossed in the task at hand. I knew I shouldn’t be, but for a brief moment I felt foolishly insecure that he seemed to not consider the somewhat intimate ministrations anything special. Pushing those thoughts aside, I countered with the knowledge that Dominic would never use a hapless situation to his advantage. After all, he’d made it abundantly clear that he wouldn’t be kissing me until after our date.
While his scruples for my virtue was just one more reason among countless others why I loved him, at this point I wouldn’t have been opposed to altering this one rule. The idea of me breaking any rule was enough to give me a laugh.
And apparently I had. Mistaking this noise for pain, his hands flung away from my body, as if my skin were fire. “Did I hurt you?” he asked, his voice low and tense.
“Hm? Oh! No.” I took a deep breath. “No, you didn’t. Sorry.”
Immediately, he set back to work, lowering the waistline of my skirt to just below the two small dimples in my back. He was true to his word, moving with genteel caution and gentle precision. However, when he pressed a little more firmly at the spot directly above my sacrum, I had to bite into my lip to suppress the small whimper. As a reflex, my entire body had gone rigid. That he noticed.
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