After I brought my parents home, I lingered on the front porch, watching for some sign of Brayden while they showered and dressed. The look of abandonment actually began to annoy me. How could anyone move into a new home and not want to do anything—change curtains, clean, straighten up the yard, get some flowers planted, whitewash the porch railings, anything? They seemed more like squatters than tenants. And really, what did Brayden do all day? If he had to hang around the house, why couldn’t he do any of those things? All of this mystery had become irritating. I told myself that I should never have spoken to him and certainly shouldn’t have accepted his invitation to go for a walk. He really was too strange.
I regretted mentioning him to Ellie and Charlotte. Forget him, I told myself, and I was very happy when my parents came out and we got into the car to go to the diner.
“You sure you saw one of our neighbors?” Dad asked. “I mean, someone really moved in there? It’s so dark. It looks just as deserted as ever.”
“Maybe they went out to dinner, Gregory,” Mom said.
“And didn’t leave a light on for when they returned?”
“Amber told you Mr. Matthews was an economist. He’s saving on their electric bill.”
She looked to me, but I had nothing to add, no explanation.
Dad shrugged and started the engine. “I haven’t heard anyone mention anything about them—except you, of course, Amber,” he said as he backed out of the driveway.
“They just moved in,” Mom said.
“And Risa Donald hasn’t said a word to anyone? That’s a first,” he replied.
He drove off, and I didn’t even look back.
But when we rounded the corner of our cul-de-sac and headed for Main Street and the way out of the village, I was almost sure I caught a glimpse of Brayden looking out from behind the large maple tree on Mrs. Carden’s front lawn.
“What is it?” Mom asked when I spun around so abruptly.
If he had been there, he was gone.
“Nothing,” I said. “I thought I saw something.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” I repeated.
“Was it that interesting new boy?” Dad asked. “I suppose we could have asked him to join us for dinner as a way of welcoming him to the neighborhood. That way, we could beat Risa to the gossip headlines.”
“No, it wasn’t him,” I said. I was angry at myself for reacting so dramatically to a possible sighting of him, as if he were a movie star or a singing star.
Mom picked up on the tone in my voice and turned back to Dad. “She told you she wanted to get to know him better first, Gregory.”
“Okay, okay,” he said. “I’ll never mention him again until one of you does.”
Under those conditions, I wondered if he ever would.
3
Safe
We all enjoyed our dinner at the old diner. There were many local people there. I thought my father could easily run for mayor. Everyone loved him, wanted to speak with him and say hello to Mom. After all, my family was now one of the oldest families in Echo Lake. I bathed in the glow of my parents’ popularity even though I was not very talkative.
I knew my parents sensed that something was bothering me. Sometimes I thought my mother was so tuned in to my moods and feelings that she felt and experienced them as if they were her own. Of course, if anyone should know you inside and out, it should be your mother. At one time, at least for nine months, you were literally a part of her, and what flowed through her veins flowed through yours, and vice versa. There were all sorts of theories about how a mother should behave while she was pregnant and how that behavior would affect and form her child, not only physically but also mentally and emotionally.
Mom once enrolled in a meditation class specifically designed for pregnant women. It was supposed to create an inner harmony between a mother and her child even before the child was born. Dad was a little skeptical until he saw Mom in action after I was born. He saw how quickly she could anticipate my discomfort and unhappiness and how easily she knew how to get me comfortable, satisfied, and happy. I wouldn’t say she didn’t still have that connection with me, but I did feel that as I grew older, we gradually grew a little further apart. However, it felt natural. I realized that I should be more of my own person, a totally independent being who by definition had to be somewhat unpredictable.
Dad just thought that unpredictability and spontaneous bursts of emotions were the major characteristics of all females. He said that the man who didn’t know how to tiptoe around his wife was a husband with many bumps and scars. Mom kidded him about his own peculiar sensitivities, and they would then begin one of their amusing sparring sessions, never ending in anything but laughter.
“You should take more time off,” Mom suggested at dinner. “Do more with your school friends, Amber. You’ve got your summer-school assignments and work at the store,” she said, brushing back strands of hair from my forehead. She did that so often when we talked that I thought she would still do it when I was her age and I was doing it to my own daughter or son.
“I’m all right,” I said.
“No, you need more time just to relax and have fun,” she insisted. “Besides, your father and I have been thinking about giving Millie Williams a little more part-time work. She’s been great as a stand-in from time to time and very trustworthy. She could use the extra money since her husband, Fred, died last year.”
I shrugged. There wasn’t much I was dying to do with any of my school friends, but I also knew that wasn’t exactly a normal attitude, especially in today’s world, where kids my age were actively looking for ways to avoid work and responsibilities. Nothing was more important than just hanging out, being out from under parents and away from teachers and anything else classified as adult.
“Whatever,” I said. My indifference didn’t please either of them.
“Well, we’ll put Millie on from Friday to Monday. You should at least have your weekends free,” Mom insisted.
Her suggestion made me think more about Bray-den again, despite my trying to convince myself that he was too unusual for me to have a satisfactory relationship with him. When I thought about it now, especially the way Ellie and Charlotte had reacted to my mentioning him, the prospect of showing him around our community, introducing him to others in our school, and spending some serious time with him was attractive. Maybe I should give it another chance, I thought. I was even thinking of possibly going over to his house to speak to him about Charlotte’s party, but when we returned home, I noticed that nothing was different at Brayden’s house from the evening before. There were no lights on downstairs. Even the attic was dark.
Dad commented about it as we drove by. It wasn’t really very late.
“You’re absolutely sure someone moved in there?” he asked me.
“Yes, Dad. I’m sure.”
“They go to sleep very early, I imagine,” Mom said.
“Yeah, maybe, or they could be vampires,” Dad kidded. “Did you check this boy’s teeth, Amber Light?”
“Very funny.”
“It’s not so unusual for people to go to bed early, Gregory. Amber did tell us that the boy’s mother was on medication. That often makes people tired,” Mom said.
“What, is he taking it, too?” Dad asked, still joking. “I think he needs to get out and about. Who better to help him do that than our Amber Light, huh?”
“I thought you weren’t going to mention him again,” Mom said, half chastising.
I thought about Charlotte Watts’s premature July Fourth party. I hadn’t seen most of my classmates since school had broken for the summer. I wasn’t dying to see any of them, but I wasn’t at the point where I couldn’t stand being around them, either. Usually, Ellie was a pretty good friend. She was a very good student and enjoyed most of what I enjoyed.
I mentioned the party when we entered the house.
“Does Stan Watts know about it?” Dad asked.
“How could he not if
she’s asking so many friends?” Mom replied for me. She thought a moment and then added, “You might think about asking the new boy to go with you, I suppose. It would be an easy way for him to break the ice and get to know people his age.”
I shrugged again, even though I was giving it some serious consideration. This time, my reaction bothered her more.
“Don’t be so indifferent to everything, Amber. It worries me,” she said with a rare show of some irritability. She went upstairs to change into something more comfortable, and Dad went to watch a documentary he had TiVo’d from the History Channel. I thought about going up to start reading again but decided instead to go out and sit on the porch. It was a warm enough night, and if I was going to be honest, I would have to confess that I was hoping to see Brayden despite all of my rationalizations for avoiding him and not caring about him.
I didn’t think I wouldn’t see him anyway. It was just too quiet around his house. Could it be that he really did go to sleep when his mother did? Maybe she exhausted him. I could only imagine what it might be like caring for someone in so deep a depression that she wanted to shut herself away from people and just work on her paintings.
It was very quiet on our street. Even on beautiful nights like this one, people seemed to roll up their sidewalks and lock their doors to gather around the TV the way I imagined cave people gathered around fires. Anything that shut out the night and the darkness was welcomed. It was as if people no longer wanted just to sit and think. It was more than simply boredom, too. People were afraid of what thoughts they could have.
I sat there for nearly a half hour, wondering and worrying about myself, about the way even my mother was starting to see me. I’d heard the fear in her voice at the diner, and I had certainly heard it when we came home. Had I permitted myself to become dull and indifferent? Was it all really my fault? Why wasn’t I as enthusiastic about most of the things girls my age were? Why was I so damn serious about everything and so critical about everything my friends did or said? What other girl my age in this town would just shrug if her parents told her they wanted her to have more freedom, even if it meant just wasting time hanging around and gossiping about silly things with friends? I was aware that my lack of excitement about boys and dates and even sex was creating a wall of distrust between me and the other girls and most of the boys at my school. No one, even Ellie, bothered anymore to tell me about her experiences. It was as if most of the time they believed they would bore me or it was simply a waste of their time.
“Feeling sorry for yourself?” I heard, and nearly leaped out of the front-porch chair. How had he come around to this side of the house and sat himself on the railing without my hearing or sensing him so close?
“You frightened me,” I said, holding my right hand over my heart. It felt as if it was rattling more than thumping.
“Sorry, but seeing how deep in thought you were, I didn’t think it possible not to.”
“You could have just walked up the street and through our front gate instead of sneaking around. I would have had some warning then. What did you do, slip through the hedges again?”
“Something like that.” He tsk-tsked his lips like a chastising old biddy. “So touchy tonight? Fight with a boyfriend or something?”
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I said.
“That could be your problem.”
“What are you, some sort of teenage therapist or something?”
“Something,” he said. He smiled that smile that could infuriate and charm me simultaneously. Then he leaned back against the wall and wrapped his arms around his raised knees. For a few long moments, neither of us spoke.
I stared ahead but kept an eye on him, watching the way he seemed to draw in everything around him, looking around as if he could see through darkness. A softer smile lit on his face. He took a deep breath, reminding me of someone who had come up out of a smoggy city to the clear, fresh mountain air. I realized that he was wearing that same military-style shirt he had worn when I first saw him between the hedges. I didn’t want to seem as if I was criticizing him about it, so I didn’t mention it.
“The nights here are quite spectacular,” he finally said. “You rarely get so full a view of the stars, the constellations.”
“Better view than the nights in Italy, France, China, India, Spain, Portugal, and Switzerland?” I rattled off, exaggerating.
He laughed. “You forgot Japan.” He thought a moment and then added, “I have seen many beautiful things, spectacular things. Most of the time, I was alone or with a maid or a guardian while my parents were off, my father at a meeting and my mother shopping or doing things she thought would bore me. She never missed a single art museum, no matter how unknown the artist.
“Besides,” he continued, turning to me, “it’s true that seeing beautiful things alone isn’t even half as satisfying and wonderful as seeing them with someone you know shares the same appreciation and respect for these things.”
“You mean, like a girlfriend?”
“Well, when I was older, a girlfriend. Just a friend would have been nice when I was younger.”
“You didn’t have any close friends?”
“You can imagine how hard it was to make friends, good friends, for someone whose family was always moving on. I was like what they used to call an army brat, going from one base to another. A good friend is like anything else of value. It takes time. You have to build trust, eventually care about each other.”
“What about a girlfriend? You never had one who was something like that?”
“Not like that. I was always on the search for her, of course.”
“Was?”
“Well . . . as I said, we moved around too much for me to form any significant relationships. I’m easy to figure out.”
“Oh, yeah, easy.”
“Now, you, on the other hand, anchored here since birth, should have many close relationships.”
He held his gaze on me, and I looked away.
“You don’t, do you?” he asked. “Have you ever . . . had anyone like that?”
“That’s really none of your business.”
“But isn’t that what you’re sitting here wondering about, why that is?”
“I said, none of your beeswax.”
He laughed. “Touchy, touchy.”
I felt like pushing him off the railing. “How do you know what I’m thinking about, and how old did you say you were? You sound like someone’s wise old grandfather or something, sitting on a pedestal and looking down at me.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I really don’t mean to be condescending.”
“Well, you are,” I said sharply, so sharply that even my eyes burned.
“Pardonnez-moi.”
I fumed for another moment and then calmed. Now I was wondering more about myself. How could he tell that I was thinking and worrying about myself? Was I so obvious that even someone who really didn’t know me could sense my thoughts and feelings? If he could, couldn’t people who knew me for years do that? Or did he have something special, some older, more mature perception and sensitivity that he had developed because of his mother’s condition? Nothing could age and mature you faster than a parent being seriously ill, I thought. I was wrong to be so resentful.
Okay, I told myself. Behave. He was the new kid on the block. He was the one who should be vulnerable and afraid, the one looking for a friendly face, listening for a friendly voice. After all, for teenagers especially, moving into a new community and going to a new school were like being thrown into a lake and told to swim or drown. At least, that was the way it was always described in books and the way I viewed new students when they first entered school at Echo Lake.
“Were you in town today?” I asked.
“I passed through, yes.”
“Passed through? You could do that in all of five minutes. Why didn’t you stop in our store and say hello? I could have shown you around a bit.”
“I was on an errand and had to get
back home,” he said.
“Oh. When’s your father returning?”
“That’s top secret.”
“Well, why would he leave you alone here after just moving into a new house?”
“Duty calls.”
“Doesn’t his first duty lie here?”
He was silent.
“Sorry. Now I’m putting my nose into your beeswax.”
He stared into the night. I thought to myself, Go for it, Amber. Shake him out of his darkness.
“One of the girls in my class is having a July Fourth party Saturday night. Her family is one of the wealthy ones in town. They have a big place, almost what you would call an estate. There’s going to be fireworks and great food. She’ll spare no expense with her parents’ money.”
“It’s not July Fourth this weekend.”
“I know, but her parents are away this weekend.”
“Oh, I see. When the cat’s away . . .”
“So?”
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I want to wait a while before getting involved with the gang,” he said, making gang sound juvenile.
“They’re not the gang. They’re just who might be your classmates if you stay here. What are you, James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause?”
He laughed. “Yes, I’m just like James Dean. Thanks for the invite, anyway.”
“Well, how about meeting my parents, then? They’re just reading and watching television. No big deal. They’d like to meet you and later your parents when they can. It’s not every day we get new neighbors.”
“No, I’d better get back,” he said, now sounding a little frightened and insecure for the first time. “It’s not a good time. Thanks.”
“Why isn’t it a good time?”
He didn’t reply. How frustrating he was. Why am I bothering? I thought. I looked at his house and then back at him. Was it his mother? Couldn’t he leave her longer than he had taken to walk with me?
Before I could ask anything more, he slipped off the railing and was almost absorbed by the darkness when he turned his face away.
Into the Darkness Page 7