The Gingerbread Boy

by Lori Lapekes

  She swallowed hard as a warm breeze ruffled a strand of hair across her face.

  Daniel raised his arm as if in slow motion, and let it pause near Catherine’s face. His eyes did not leave hers, no smile formed on his mouth. At last he took the flyaway strand of hair between two long, delicate fingers, held it lovingly, as if it were something he had never touched before, and drew it away from her eyes. When at last he spoke, his voice wasn’t much more than a whisper.

  “I’m so sorry, Catherine,” he said.

  Catherine stared hard at him, her eyes filling, as he added, “Do you hate me?”

  Catherine’s lips quivered. Her voice came out a croak. “I’ve been trying.”

  “You have every right to.”

  She made no reply.

  At last Daniel shifted his weight into a straighter position, and looked away. It was then Catherine noticed the dark rings beneath his eyes. Her eyes traveled down the length of him, from the faded green sweatshirt with the arms cut off at the shoulders to his baggy blue jeans and sloppy leather sandals. He was no longer the flamboyantly dressed “Robin Hood,” but an average, down-to-earth young man with a strange loneliness in his eyes. What had happened to him?

  Suddenly Catherine’s books toppled to the porch floor. She lunged at him, sandwiched her arms tightly around his waist and pressed against him like steel. She would never let him go… never.

  She felt him sigh, felt his arms enfold her as she rested her head against his chest. He reached down to kiss the top of her head. “I don’t deserve you,” he whispered.

  “No, you don’t.” Catherine sobbed, “But you’re stuck with me anyway. And I could never hate you, not in a thousand years.” She pulled away from him enough to look him in the eye. “But I need to know… where have you been?”

  Daniel managed a weak grin. “I have a lot of explaining to do, I know.” He raised his finger to wipe the wetness from her cheeks. “I’ve had what some could call a… a breakdown,” he said, still attempting to dry Catherine’s tears. Suddenly he looked away. Catherine gazed at him soundlessly. She re-tightened her grip around his waist. She yearned for him to continue talking, to continue the explanation for his disappearance. A breakdown? How? Why? What brought it on? She hated herself for hoping it was true, because even having a breakdown of some sort was better than the alternative Beth had suggested.

  Daniel shook his head. “I’ve lost track of things, I’ve gone too fast. I need to pause… I need to escape these invisible rapids that spin me along. It got overwhelming. I needed to take a look at myself, away from myself. It’s like being lost in some huge, dark city, not knowing what road to take to your destination. Too many signs, too many corners, intersections, dead ends. I tried to rise above it, to look down on that city from the sky so things would make sense and the direction become clear.” Daniel looked straight into Catherine’s eyes and she swallowed hard, trying to comprehend what she was hearing.

  An identity crisis? Daniel? Joanne had once said she thought he was confused. Maybe she’d been right. She pushed back a thousand questions as Daniel continued.

  “The band is getting so hot, Catherine, that sometimes it scares me. The responsibility that implies is that we potentially have the power to shape people. We can plant morals and ethics in them or we could corrupt with every word we sing and every note on the guitar. Sometimes it scares me, and I want to run or hide from it all. The responsibility of it all.” He sighed, shrugged a bit. ‘My mom still calls me her Gingerbread Boy, because of my, well, my tendency to sometimes run from problems. Not a great nickname to have, I suppose.”

  At that word nickname, something inside Catherine quietly sank, as a bittersweet memory from long ago resurfaced. Her legs went weak with the memory.

  Nicknames.

  She’d had one once, besides Daniel’s silly “fluffy-puppy fixer.” Once, long ago, when her mother was still reasonably “normal” she had called Catherine her “Cinnamon Girl.” And just because Catherine had loved to pour cinnamon all over her toast as a little girl before she went to school. Once, she’d even accidentally dumped the little can of spice all over the floor, then pressed her buttered toast in it. Her mother had looked lovingly down, and called her that name. Her Cinnamon Girl. And she called her that for several more months before she began to … to change. Tears pricked her eyes. Catherine buried her face into Daniel’s chest, pushing aside the memory. She could not go there.

  “Are you all right?” Daniel asked.

  Catherine took a deep breath, nodded. ”I’m fine. Just getting my bearings.” She looked up at Daniel, and steadied herself, letting the memories wash away. She had to help Daniel. “Don’t give up your dreams. No matter how far off they seem.”

  Daniel’s hands slid off of Catherine’s shoulders and he raised them in the air. “Can you imagine what we’re up against? The evil out there is so vast. We’re a band of goldfish swimming in an ocean of barracudas. Sometimes I wonder if our input will matter at all.”

  “Daniel!” Catherine said, stunned at his admission, “You’re wrong. It’ll help. Don’t worry about the war, keep your focus on each little battle and win those. You’ve got a long time to fight.”

  “Time?” Daniel asked, shaking his shaggy head, “I don’t understand time. What I just said is now in the past, when a second ago it was in the future. Time is meaningless.”

  Catherine looked at him wide-eyed, frustrated with his remarks. Where was all of this sudden insecurity was coming from? Something had gotten to him, something had changed since she last saw him. Then a movement in the window just past him caught her eye, a flick of the drapes, a face pressed against the glass.

  Penny.

  Just as soon, the face was gone. Catherine put the incident out of her mind. Daniel was back. He was here, now, and he was confused and hurting. He needed her. She brushed aside uncomfortable thoughts of the recent moments when she really needed him, and he hadn’t been there like he’d promised. She hadn’t even known where he was.

  He leaned next to her on the wooden porch rail. “I’ve got to arrange my priorities” he said, clasping her hands in his. “And the first on my list is you. I’ve spoken with Joey. I know what you’ve been through these past few weeks. I know what Cave Pig did to you, and I know what happened to Hazel. I was so caught up in myself, Catherine,” he stressed, tightening his grip on her hands, “that I forgot about everyone else. Especially you. You’ve been through the wringer… and I wasn’t there. I can’t do anything about that now except pray you can forgive me and promise it’ll never happen again.”

  Catherine fought against the stinging in her eyes. Part of her wanted to lie to him, wanted to claim that the last few weeks hadn’t been bad… yet they had been bad. And she’d suffered through them without his help.

  Yet, apparently, Daniel had been suffering, too.

  There was another movement in the window, and Joanne’s bulging-eyed face was pressed against the glass. Soon Penny’s face was next to it. Both roommates were staring at her and Daniel as if they had just flapped their arms and risen three feet off the porch.

  Catherine pretended she didn’t notice. If Daniel knew they were being watched, then this conversation might end. She needed to hear his explanations and grievous apologies. There was no doubt in Catherine’s mind that Daniel meant every word he said.

  Daniel slowly released her hands, and then reached down toward his feet. “Here,” he said quietly, “I have something for you. It will shock you at first – but there’s an explanation.”

  Catherine’s eyebrows drew together as Daniel pulled something small and roundish out of his pocket and held it toward her.

  “Don’t panic,” he urged as Catherine backed against the rail. “It’s not real. It’s just a dummy made of cloth. See?”

  Catherine gazed in horror at the ghastly object. It was a … a head. A small, brown, plum-sized head with its eyes and lips sewn shut and a tangle of long black hair sewn into its skull.


  “Touch it,” Daniel whispered.

  Ever so slowly, Catherine reached out to touch the thing. It was cool, dry and repulsive. She pulled her finger away. Over Daniel’s shoulder, she could see Penny and Joanne squint in morbid curiosity.

  “Remember when I told you my parents once worked with a tribe of Indians called the Achulas,” Daniel asked, “descendents of the Tivaro tribe, the headhunters? Yes, they really did shrink heads at one time,” he added, raising his eyebrows at Catherine’s expression, “but that was a long time ago. Some anthropologists may disagree, but it’s a custom I’m glad to see eradicated.”

  “So why do you have that?” Catherine gasped. “And why do you want me to have it?”

  Daniel chuckled. “For symbolic reasons. I haven’t gone completely over the edge. I want you to have this to use against me, in a way. To remind me that any time I start to get big-headed and think only of myself, I can be brought back down to size. That I’m not infallible. That I’m human. I don’t ever want to swell up so much in myself that I neglect you. If I do, remind me with this dummy. Stick it in my face, throw it at me, put it on my driver’s seat, whatever.”

  The mention of a driver’s seat brought something back to Catherine. Daniel’s car. Where was it? She leaned back to try to peer around the corner of the house deeper into the driveway. She could make out a big blob of turquoise. Bruiser.

  “Where’s the Corvette?” she asked as Daniel handed her the head. She accepted it with a shudder, quickly turning the face down into her palm so it couldn’t stare at her through its stitched-shut eyelids.

  “I decided to sell it, but that’s a long story and it’s not important,” he sighed, then leaned in closer and added earnestly, “Please Catherine, please bring me back down to size if I ever start becoming a jerk again.”

  Catherine gritted her teeth. This was important to Daniel. He was trying to make sure she’d never allow him to be an inconsiderate, irresponsible twit again…at least not with her.

  That was all she needed She allowed herself a smile. “Okay. I’ll take the head, and I won’t let you ever become inconsiderate and irresponsible again.”

  He sighed. “Good. I don’t ever want to be where I was several days ago, either.” He reached to cup his hands around her face, and then kissed her mouth. The kiss made Catherine forget all about asking where the Corvette was and if he knew it’d been wrecked. She even forgot about the grisly round object tucked in her hand. The kiss was so warm, so gentle, and so very there… at last. It went on and on until Catherine thought she might tip breathlessly over the porch rail and tumble into the bushes from the wonder of it.

  When Daniel pulled away, his eyes were shining. He wrapped his arms snugly around Catherine’s waist and picked her up off her feet. Leaning back, he spun her around and around until her feet whirled through the air like rags in the breeze. Around went the glistening new leaves, the damp grass, the paint-scarred porch rail and Joanne and Penny’s faces still pressed against the window. Around and around she went, Daniel’s hair tickling her nose while she breathed in the aroma of spring. She smiled broadly, she laughed. Another sound of laughter came to her too… she recognized it as Daniel’s voice in her ear. Then his laughter died down, and he whispered, “I love you.”

  Around they went again, Catherine’s eyes tearing, not certain she’d heard what she’d heard. Finally Daniel slowed, her feet skimmed the floor, and then they were back firmly on the porch, resting back against the rail. Then came a splintering sound. The rail shattered, and Catherine and Daniel fell backward through empty air. The four-foot tumble was broken by bushes, and the branches clawed at their backs as they broke through to the soggy earth.

  “Are you all right?” Daniel gasped beneath Catherine’s back, his leg still tangled in the branches, the other propped high against the wood slats beneath the porch.

  Daniel felt warm as she lay with her back flat against him, her hand still fiercely clenched around the shrunken head. Catherine stared at the pointed, cream-colored gables of the house above, at the milky blue sky beyond. Suddenly she laughed, thinking of how ridiculous she and Daniel would look to passers-by on the sidewalk. She flicked a chunk of broken rail off of her arm, feeling Daniel’s chest vibrate beneath her from his growing chuckles.

  “I guess that means you’re okay,” he said in her ear, raising an arm to wrap lovingly around her neck.

  Catherine giggled. “You’re the one who took the brunt of the fall.”

  “I rather enjoy this position.”

  Catherine’s laughter subsided into a delicious relishing of the moment. Oh, if time could only stand still.

  “My hair is in your face…isn’t it?” Catherine asked, scarcely daring to move, praying Joanne and Penny would realize she and Daniel were okay and not come out of the house and break the mood.

  “It tastes good.” Daniel whispered. He paused. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Catherine raised the shrunken head in the air. “I’m fine! Kept my head during the whole thing.”

  Daniel moaned at the joke. Suddenly Catherine felt him twist, felt his arms tightening around her. In a whirl she was the one pressed against the ground. He gazed mischievously into her face, his hair lapping his shoulders. She giggled, reaching to pick some twigs out of the curls. It reminded her of when she’d stayed overnight at his house and had the nightmare, and he’d raced into the room wielding a knife, his shorts on backward, lint and down clinging to his hair. She would have never dared to touch him back then.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. “I wish I could take you to some magical place where things could never go wrong and problems could never find us. If I could just shrink you down and keep you in my pocket every minute of the day, I’d never have to worry about anything again.”

  Catherine thought of making some cute comment about the Indians being able to accommodate Daniel on the shrinking down notion, but she was silenced as Daniel’s mouth came down on hers.

  A subtle clicking in the back of Catherine’s mind warned her to fight this euphoria, this meandering bliss which was spreading across her soul, anesthetizing her against all reason. As Daniel continued to kiss her, she forgot all about the confusion and anguish of the past few weeks. She forgot about the pain she felt over Daniel’s disappearance, the shock of Cave Pig’s attack, the sorrow over Hazel VanHoofstryver’s stroke, the misery of lackluster grades.

  Daniel was back…and that was all she needed for the time.

  She loved him.

  Eventually the sound of embarrassed laughter and murmuring voices filtered through the air. Daniel lifted his head to see several students clustered on the sidewalk about ten yards away, pointing. He raised a hand and sheepishly waved. A few students waved back.

  “I think it’s about time to step back into reality,” Daniel said, carefully rolling off her. Catherine nodded her agreement, smiling, her eyes still closed.

  Daniel pulled himself into a sitting position and lifted Catherine up to rest against him.

  “You’re probably going to miss the campus bus because of me,” he said, watching the crowd of students break apart and continue on their way.

  “I’ll be fine,” Catherine assured him. “I was early, anyway.” She checked her watch. “I still have half an hour.”

  “That’s good, because I have something else to show you. I don’t want you to think all I gave you for a peace offering was a shrunken head.”

  Catherine stared curiously as Daniel stretched enough to reach into his back pocket, pulled out a blue and white envelope and placed it in Catherine’s free hand.

  “What is this for…?” Catherine began, and then noticed the graphic logo across the front. Leighi Travel. Her hands began to tremble.

  “Open it.” Daniel encouraged.

  Catherine lifted the flap and out slid two airline tickets. She peered closely at the destination. Baltimore, Maryland. The date of departure was Saturday. Five days away.

  She lifted fl
abbergasted eyes and stared at Daniel,

  “It’s as close as I could get to your home town.” Daniel offered. “I knew you’d give anything to go see Hazel, but that it was financially difficult for you to go right now. He paused. “I hoped that maybe, just maybe, we could get away this weekend.”

  Catherine gazed at Daniel in wonder. Had he sold his car for these tickets? What else had he done while he was away?

  He must have mistaken her expression for shocked objection, for he said “Don’t worry, we can always cancel the flight and make it for later, any time you choose.”

  “We?” Catherine muttered. “You really want to come along?”

  Daniel nodded. “I want to do something right for a change. I’d like to come with you for moral support. That is, if you’d like me to.”

  “What about your gigs? Joey said they’ve had to cancel some while you were gone.”

  “We’ve worked it all out.”

  Catherine shook her head. “These tickets had to have cost hundreds of dollars. I can’t let you do this!”

  “You’d like to see Hazel, wouldn’t you?”

  Catherine took several moments to reply. “I’d give anything to see her. She needs me.”

  “And I was hoping that you’d need me.”

  Catherine crushed her arms around Daniel’s neck. “Thank you! I don’t even know what to say!”

  Daniel put his hands firmly on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Just say that one day you might be able to forgive me for what I’ve done.”

  “I can manage to forgive you right now.”

  Daniel’s eyes grew misty. “Thank you.” Then he hugged her tenderly, whispering in her ear. “All I can hope and pray is that I’ll never do anything stupid enough to need your forgiveness again.”

  ****

  Across the street, two houses down, a luxurious black car sat nestled against a hedge in a church parking lot. A scowl marred the driver’s beautiful face. She peered intently out the tinted window, craning her neck to see through a gap in the shrubbery at the young lovers embracing in front of the house she’d recently vacated.