“We were fine,” Mom said. “Don’t worry. Enjoy your weekend.”
“Okay. I’m going up.”
“I guess you’re tired,” Dad said. “Two young men in one night.”
“Gregory Morton Taylor . . .” Mom said, accompanying it with her big eyes.
“Just joking,” Dad said, and shrank in his chair to return to his book.
I hurried up the stairs. Dad was joking. He meant no harm, but it wasn’t funny to me. I felt as if I had fallen into a whirlpool of conflicting emotions, twisting and turning me every which way. A part of me was asking what I had done. Why had I suddenly been so unpleasant, so tough on Shayne? After all, what should a boy, any boy, whether he had Shayne Allan’s good looks and intelligence, athletic abilities, and wealth or not, want to do with a girl he found attractive and interesting? What’s wrong with him wanting to make love, have fun, enjoy the relationship? Why was my Prudence Perfect so stern and negative when it came to him but suddenly ready to surrender and take a chance with a boy who had the emotional and psychological baggage of Brayden Matthews? Was I looking to be unhappy, to wallow in sadness and misery?
Or was it that constant, plaguing question? Was I simply too frightened to be with a boy like Shayne Allan, too afraid of where it would lead? Did I feel more comfortable with Brayden because I believed it would lead nowhere? Look at how he had fled from me when our passion had just become emboldened.
Was what I wanted out of a boy, any boy, unreasonable at this age, this strong, extra feeling as close to everlasting love as could be? Why should I expect Shayne Allan to be as serious as I was? It was almost as if I was holding his good looks and accomplishments against him. After all, I did enjoy being with him during the day. I was excited about the boat, the house, all that he was able to offer. It was fun. What was wrong with just having fun? Besides, I knew that if I became his steady girlfriend, every girl in the school would be envious, and I would suddenly be the most popular girl in the school. Why wasn’t that enough? Why wasn’t that important enough to me? What made me so different?
Brayden seemed to be as serious as I was, maybe even more serious and more concerned. But did being around someone like him do me more harm than good?
What if I had never met Brayden, never heard his words resonating in my head, not seen his face almost everywhere I looked and felt him near me? Would I have been as cold to Shayne’s advances? Would I have been able to have more fun, to relax and let go of Prudence Perfect? I almost resented Brayden moving in next door now. Maybe I should have ignored him that day when he was peering through the hedges. Who his age does something like that anyway, and besides, where was this going? Yes, his kiss thrilled me, and yes, I enjoyed walking and talking with him, but where else would we go? Wouldn’t everyone, even my own parents, think I was a fool to choose someone like Brayden over someone like Shayne, especially if after the summer Brayden and his parents were gone? What then?
I could confide in my mother. We were close, yes, like sisters, but we weren’t sisters, and no matter what her experiences were when she was my age, they were her experiences, and they had occurred at a different time, a time when girls my age were living in a world without the same sort of pressures and values, or lack of them, as girls were facing today. No matter how sympathetic my mother was, how understanding, and no matter what similar examples she described, they weren’t going to be exactly like mine, nor would they resemble the experiences other girls my age were having now. I couldn’t imagine her having met a boy like Brayden, for example.
What I wished I had now was a truly close friend, a real best friend, someone who didn’t drink out of the cup of envy, someone who cared about me enough to think only of me and not herself in my shoes. Or wouldn’t it be great to have a slightly older sister, I thought, someone who shared a room, who went to sleep in the next bed, and who would talk all night, listen and talk, until we were both too tired to breathe another syllable? How lucky the girls in my class were to have someone like that.
All of these thoughts, these questions, wracked my brain. I sat, staring at myself in the vanity mirror and growing so dizzy that I had to close my eyes and take deep breaths. For a few moments, I sat with my arms folded under my breasts and rocking myself. Suddenly, I heard a gentle knock on my bedroom door and looked up to see Mom.
“You all right?” she asked softly, closing the door behind her.
I nodded and then shook my head.
“Oh, Amber, darling, what is it?” she asked, moving quickly to my side to embrace me.
I rested my head against her shoulder just as I always did when I was a little girl. “I’m just very confused.”
“Boys can do that,” she said, wiping strands of my hair off my forehead. “What really happened with Shayne Allan?”
I sat up and took a deep breath. “We did have a good time at the lake. He was very nice and I thought that I had been wrong to be so critical of him. I thought that his family made him act arrogantly, and I really believed that he was trying not to be, at least with me.”
“So? That sounds very promising.”
“But he was different tonight. He was more like the Shayne Allan I knew from afar, and I guess I didn’t want to be just another . . .”
“Another conquest?” she said.
“Yes.”
“I’m proud of you,” she said, and kissed me. “Don’t agonize over it. You have wonderful instincts.” She rose.
“Maybe I don’t, Mom. How do you know I do?”
“I know,” she said. Was she talking herself into it? I didn’t have her confidence.
She paused at the doorway and tilted her head. “What I don’t understand is this boy next door. You’ve met him a few times and seem to like him but haven’t brought him around. I know I should go over there to welcome his mother and father to the neighborhood . . .”
“She’s a recluse. She has things delivered to the house. I saw her in the doorway accepting groceries, but she wouldn’t even acknowledge me when I waved.”
“Well, you have to feel sorry for her, then. She surely has no friends here yet. First chance I get tomorrow, I’ll knock on their door anyway and make an effort. I’ve mentioned them to a few people, but no one seems to know anything at all about them. The real estate agent, Beverly Bell, told me all she knows is that the house is owned by someone named Marcus Norton from Portland. He owns considerable real estate in Oregon and never put the house up for sale. There’s no indication that this family is buying it, either.”
“No, just renting to see if they like it here. I told you.”
“Yes, but . . . well, maybe when I get to meet Brayden or his parents, I’ll have a better feeling about them. You haven’t met his father, either, then?”
“No. Brayden says his father’s still away.”
“Okay. Bring him around the store tomorrow, and don’t give what happened tonight with Shayne a second thought.”
I knew she was right, but I also knew that I wasn’t going to stop myself from having a second and third thought. I prepared quickly for bed and crawled under my blanket, wrapping it around me tightly and pressing my face against the pillow, hoping to rush myself into sleep.
I did fall asleep sooner than I had expected, but my eyes snapped open a little after four in the morning. For a moment, I lay there a little dazed, and then I turned and saw the glow of light spilling from Brayden’s bedroom window. I rose slowly and peered between my closed curtains. It was the first time I had seen his bedroom so bright, even though the shade on the window was drawn down completely. I stood for a while wondering what had gotten him up so late. Was something wrong with his mother? Everything else about the house was quiet and dark.
I waited and watched for as long as I could, but, growing tired again, I retreated to my bed. I didn’t fall asleep until the light spilling from his bedroom had been shut off. It was the first thing I thought of when I awoke in the morning. I had overslept again and knew that my parents were alread
y gone. I dressed and hurried downstairs. I thought I would have a little breakfast, and then I was determined to go to Brayden’s house and knock on the front door.
But when I opened mine to step out, he was standing there as if he knew I was coming.
11
Portrait
“Brayden, what’s wrong?” I asked immediately after he raised his head. The expression on his face told me that something wasn’t right. “I was just coming over to see you and . . .”
“It’s my mother,” he said. “She had a bit of a nervous breakdown last night. My father had made arrangements for her to check herself into a clinic not far from here, and she has done so. I’ll be gone for a little while.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”
“No, but thanks for asking. I’ll be around as soon as I can.”
“Has this happened before? I mean . . .”
“Yes, but it usually works out all right. She’ll be fine. A few days, maybe a week,” he said. “The doctors reconsider her medications, stuff like that.”
“Your mother can just check herself in like that? I mean, she wanted to do that?”
“Yes. She knows when she’s in greater trouble.”
“Is your father coming home?”
“He’s already at the clinic, but I think he’ll return to his work from there. He’s working in Los Angeles, so he could get to her easily today.”
“Shouldn’t he stay with her until she’s cured?”
“Amber, I’m afraid my mother will never be cured. She’ll get a little better, well enough to cope, but . . .”
“Why not?” I asked, stepping out and closing the door behind me. “I don’t understand. Does she have a fatal disease?”
“We all have a fatal disease,” he said.
“But her condition is mental, right?”
“Yes, but mental problems affect you physically, too.”
“Well, where is this clinic? I don’t know of anything like that in Echo Lake.”
“No,” he said, smiling. “It’s not in Echo Lake. It’s closer to Portland. Okay. I’ve got a few things to do in the house, get some things for my mother, and then I’m off.”
“What do you do there? You can’t stay with her, can you?”
“I can stay close to her. That’s what’s important now.”
He turned to leave. I had the feeling that I would never see him again. Impulsively, I followed him and reached for him. He turned slowly, and I thought his eyes had changed color, looking suddenly more gray in the sunlight.
“Are you really coming back?” I asked.
He smiled. “I’ll be back. I promise,” he said. He leaned forward to kiss me softly on the cheek and then turned and walked very quickly toward his house. I watched him go all the way this time. He sensed it and waved from his porch before entering the house. For a few moments, I stood there staring at the closed door. Then I turned and went back inside.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with myself. I thought about going to the store and working, even though they had enough help, but I knew that would disappoint my mother. I had been hoping to spend most of the day with Brayden, getting to know him more and maybe getting him to do some fun things with me. I actually had a day designed. I thought we’d go for a drive so I could show him some of the more beautiful places in our immediate area. I anticipated us having lunch somewhere, and afterward, I’d invite him to my house, ostensibly to do more talking but maybe to do more than just talk. In my mind, a day like this could go far to solidify a relationship between us. If that happened, I had all sorts of suggestions for other things we might do and had even thought that I might be of some assistance to him in helping his mother come out of her shell.
Once these first steps were taken successfully, I expected that I would find a way to introduce my parents to him and his mother, and that might even go further to help her. If we had some success, I thought it would ensure his family’s staying in Echo Lake. I imagined what it was going to be like to introduce him to our school, to the students I thought he might like. I foresaw the envy in my girlfriends’ eyes, and in my mind, I luxuriated and basked in the jealousy and rage I would see in Shayne’s. My senior year of high school would turn out to be the best school year of my life. Brayden and I would become that “thing” Ellie had predicted Shayne and I would be.
We would spend every weekend night together and study together, either at his house in his room or in mine. We’d be invited to all of the parties, because whoever had one would want us to be there. Everyone would see how special we were. Almost every other student in our class would want to be friends with us, hang with us at lunch, and be interested in what our plans were for the weekend. I pictured many of them listening keenly to anything Brayden said because he was so special and intelligent. Naturally, every girl in my class would flirt with him, but they would clearly see how futile it was because he was too devoted to me.
I hesitated to think of love. Despite how attracted I was to him and how much I hoped he was attracted to me, for me, love still seemed to be something beyond our teenage years, an emotion that needed maturity. Yes, we could have sex. We could express just how much we were attracted to each other. We could even cling to each other with far more passion than older couples evinced, but that final leap, that final step that in essence declared that we wanted to spend all our lives together, remained something reserved for that time in our lives when we would be truly independent, when every decision we made would be made ourselves for ourselves, and we would either enjoy or suffer the consequences without having the safety net that our parents provided.
Was all of this simply a daydream, a fantasy? Maybe none of this was in Brayden’s thinking. Perhaps to him, I was just a pleasant way of passing some time. Maybe even if he did end up staying, none of what I imagined would take place anyway. He could be attracted to a different girl. After all, there were other attractive girls in school. Just because I was the first to meet him and we had kissed didn’t guarantee any of it.
And besides, I thought, didn’t he just tell me that his mother would never be cured? What sort of a high school life could he have? Look at the way he had to live now. Parties, dates, trips, all of that seemed impossible for him. How could I have designed such a happy scenario? There I was again, living in my own movie. From the first time I had set eyes on him, I had pictured us on some big screen, acting out our developing relationship. I was still doing it.
Get real, Amber, I told myself, and sulked about it for a while.
Suddenly, I wondered why I hadn’t volunteered to go with him to the clinic, at least for the day. I could even have taken him in my car, and he could have called me when he wanted to return. I had the whole day off. Why didn’t I show him that I wasn’t selfish and immature? Surely he would have appreciated the company, even if I’d spent the whole time waiting for him in some lounge. I could have met his father, too. I hadn’t even thought of it. Maybe that was why he had come over in the first place. He had hoped I would suggest it. He certainly couldn’t invite me to join him on such a sad trip.
Sure. That was it. How stupid of me, I thought, and quickly got up and hurried out the front door, down the driveway, and around to his house. I knocked on the door and waited. I heard nothing, so I knocked again. Had he left right away? Didn’t he say he had things to do in the house? I hadn’t seen any car in his driveway when I first stepped out and watched him go back to his house after we had spoken. He must have called a taxi, or maybe he was still waiting for it to arrive. But why wouldn’t he answer my knocking on the front door? I knocked a third time and then tried the door handle. To my surprise, the door opened. It hadn’t been locked. He was surely still inside, then, I thought, and called for him. I waited and listened but heard nothing. I called again. Still, silence was all that answered.
I started to turn around to leave, but stopped. Although it was morning and there was a partly sunny sky, the house was so dark inside.
When I stepped to my left and gazed into the living room, I saw that the curtains were drawn closed. To my right, the same was true for the dining room. Its window curtains were shut. There wasn’t a light on anywhere. Because some light seeped in around the curtains and shades, it was a hazy sort of darkness, almost like a fog.
I looked at the straight stairway. It seemed to lead up to a wall of even thicker darkness. Why didn’t they want the sunshine in their home? Was this part of his mother’s illness, this clinging to shadows and avoiding bright days? She must be in some deep depression. Maybe the life they led had finally had an effect on her.
Even though Brayden and his mother had been living there for a while, the house felt empty and still uninhabited. There wasn’t an unpleasant odor, but it smelled to me like a house that still harbored a damp, dank scent. It was as if no one had cooked or baked anything in it for years. There were no aromas associated with polish or any cleaning fluid, either. I detected only the smell of the wood and the old carpet, an odor you would smell in a very old, deserted house.
When I looked at the furniture more closely, I thought that everything appeared to have been there for years. Nothing new had been bought for the house. What they had brought looked insufficient, too. The dining-room table was too small for the room, and the same was true for the sofa and chairs in the living room. It looked more like furniture from a small apartment. I wondered if it really was their furniture or furniture that they had rented for the time being.
Everywhere I looked, I saw boxes not yet unpacked. Many had books in them. Nothing had been put on the shelves in the armoire in the dining room, and nothing was on the shelves in the living room. There were no pictures on the walls in either room and no newspapers or magazines in the living room. When did they plan on doing the rest of the unpacking? What had Brayden and his mother been doing in there these past days?
I wandered into the kitchen and saw dishes and pots and pans still in boxes. There were only a few plates and glasses on the counter, along with a single dish towel. There were a few pieces of silverware in the sink and a single coffee cup. I opened the refrigerator and saw that there wasn’t very much in there. Now that I thought back, the box of groceries I had seen delivered wasn’t that large when you considered that there were two people to be fed. The cabinets were the same, barely stocked.
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