“Okay,” he smiled and threw up his hands in defeat. “Well, see you on Monday,” he smiled and seemed a little embarrassed.
It was rather endearing, I must say, to see a tall, broad shouldered, good looking guy like him getting flustered.
But what on earth was I going to do? I agonized the entire elevator ride back up to Lisa’s room. I didn’t want to tell Cheryl about him moving his car deliberately to trick her. It would enrage her. She’d be hurt and humiliated and furious - at me, somehow, I’m sure. And in addition, I felt that Chad had sort of enlisted me as his co-conspirator and I couldn’t betray him. He’d been nothing but nice to me. I had no interest in coming between them or getting involved in their messy relationship in any way, but in not betraying him, wasn’t I betraying Cheryl? But did I care because I felt loyal to her, or because I was afraid of her?
The elevator arrived at the top floor all too soon. I gave a little knock before I opened the door to Lisa’s room. She had resumed watching the movie. I put the tea down on the bedside table for her as well as a little packet of biscuits I thought she might like.
“Oh thanks,” she said without looking up. “Could you go in my desk drawer and get me a little packet of stevia?”
I obliged and she pushed her computer back and sat up for a moment to stir the powder into her drink.
“I got you some cookies, too,” I pointed out, “just in case.”
“Thanks, but you can take them. I won’t eat them,” she said without even looking at them.
“Alright. Well there’s a free supply of them down there if you change your mind!” I said trying to sound even a tiny bit humorous.
“Look, please don’t tell Cheryl what I told you about her cousin,” she entreated me. “She’d kill me if she knew I told you. And I was just upset and emotional…”
“It’s alright. I won’t mention it. I understand,” I assured her.
“No, really. She made me swear on my life that I would never tell anyone. The police actually did get involved, you know. She’ll kill me if she finds out I told you,” she said again.
“Don’t worry. I get it. I’ll never breathe a word.”
“Thank you,” she exhaled. “Because that would be my life over.”
“I know,” I said.
“You know what? I’m alright. I’m just going to watch this movie and rest. You can just go back to your own room.” She scrunched up her nose as she said it – she wanted me gone but at least she felt a little bit bad about it.
“Oh no problem,” I said.
My feelings were a tiny bit hurt, but I told myself not to take it personally. She probably did really need to rest.
“Do you want me to come back later and check on you?” I asked.
“Nah, it’s okay. I’m fine. Really. And if anything really bad happens I’ve got my phone and I can call 911!” she said half jokingly.
“Oh I feel really bad about leaving you,” I fretted.
“No, don’t worry. I really just want to be by myself. You can take Cheryl’s laptop to your room – the wifi might just reach. And take the cookies, too,” she ordered.
“Alright,” I reluctantly agreed and gathered everything up and left.
I sat down on my bed and sighed. I didn’t quite know what to make of Lisa’s revelations to me about Cheryl’s sex life. None of my friends at home even had sex lives, let alone scandalous ones.
And speaking of my friends back home, the first thing I did when I saw that the wifi did indeed reach was to get on the internet and check my email. There was nothing from home, and it stung a little bit that my friends had so easily forgotten me. I told myself that it was probably my turn to write anyway, so I sent an email to Jackie, my best friend that I had grown up with since kindergarten. I hadn’t seen her since June, and I couldn’t believe that 2 months could so easily erode a life long friendship. It wasn’t just the distance – I knew she felt funny about my family being “rich” now. But I didn’t feel rich. So far being rich had been nothing but a big pain in the ass for me. I shook my head and tried not to dwell too much on it lest it bring back that horrible weight of depression that had haunted me for too long already.
I answered the short answer questions on Jane Eyre for both myself and Cheryl. I was careful to use different page set ups and fonts for each of us, and although I wrote smart answers for Cheryl’s questions, I used simpler grammar and vocabulary and was sure to make several spelling errors.
When I was done, I was very tempted to go down the hall to knock on Lisa’s door to check on her. But I didn’t because I was worried that she might have managed to fall asleep and I didn’t want to wake her. And she had told me not to bother. But still, I was preoccupied with how she was doing.
I changed into my nightgown and turned off all the lights in the room, save for my little bedside table lamp. I snuggled down under my comforter and just as I was getting really settled, I felt the warmth of Stefano encircling me as if by magic.
“Oh, thank goodness for you!” I murmured as I turned my head to smile at him.
“Oh no, it is I who should thank goodness for you,” he said as he nuzzled his face into my hair.
I enjoyed just being there with him for a moment, and then I asked, “Do you think it’s strange that a girl my age has never been with a boy?”
He chortled. “Well, I’m from a different generation than you. If you were alive in my time, you might have been betrothed or married already. But young girls certainly didn’t “date” a variety of young men as they do now. Not respectable ones, at least.”
“I’m asking because I feel like a bit of a freak here. All these girls have terribly sophisticated relationships with boys and I can’t relate to them. I feel slightly inadequate!” I explained.
“Are their relationships sophisticated?” he asked me and I could tell he was being rhetorical. “Because from what I’ve gathered they’re all actually terribly primitive and immature,” he commented as he gave me a knowing look.
“Ha,” I said, “Right as usual. Where do you get your powerful insight from?!” I teased.
“Well I’ve been around a while,” he smirked good-naturedly. “And I think that a beautiful young woman’s friendship with an ages-old Italian aristocrat from an other-worldly realm is much more sophisticated and complex than these girls and their torrid romances with pimply faced young boys!” he joked.
Chad is hardly pimply-faced, I thought.
“Friendship?” I exclaimed. “We have something a little beyond friendship, I hope!”
“You know we do, my love,” he said and he tightened his arms around me and pressed his lips to the top of my head.
“God! It’s a torment, my dear girl. I didn’t think it was possible to feel a physical aching, but I do. I ache for you. I feel if I could just somehow strain beyond the way in which I manifest, just a little more, I could somehow become of earthly flesh again and I could really touch you and smell you and hold you in my arms…” he trailed off in frustration. “I could be so much more for you.”
I felt exactly the same way.
“It’s alright,” I whispered. “You’re already everything to me! You’re my confidante, and my best friend, I feel like I’ve known you forever. I like to think,” I paused before I continued because I did not know how he would take it, “I secretly like to think that maybe we knew each other in life, in your life, and that maybe you’ve loved me before.”
I held my breath waiting for his response.
He said nothing but sighed heavily and buried his face in my hair again. I lay stock still, waiting.
Finally he spoke and his voice was quiet and strange.
“I never wanted to say, because I feared it might insult or diminish you in some way, and perhaps it was only wishful thinking on my part anyway…” he began.
“What was? What was wishful thinking?” I was alert now. My spine tingled and I felt he was about to tell me something that would change the world as I knew it.
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“You have a look of her about you. Something in your aspect, I don’t know, I can’t quite put my finger on it. But sometimes when I look at you, I see her.”
I was stunned for a moment. He had never even hinted of this before.
“Do you think?” I started.
I couldn’t quite bring myself to say what I was thinking in case it was too ridiculous.
“Do you think I might be her?” I said at last in a very small voice.
I looked up at him and he was gazing upon me with heavy lidded eyes.
“I don’t quite know,” he whispered thickly, “I really don’t. But you put me in mind of her, and she of you. I think of her sometimes, and I’ll be recalling a particular day or something she said and I’ll realize that it’s you that I see. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I hope it does not offend you. It’s very confusing for me, you understand.”
“Noooo, no, no!” I whispered to him as I gently took his face in my hands. “I’m not offended at all. You have nothing to apologize for.”
“But you understand why at first, I wanted to be with you all the time, but I tried to restrain myself because my thoughts and my feelings were a mystery even to myself…”
“You don’t need to explain,” I soothed him. “It’s fine. I’m the one who should be sorry. I had no idea you were going through any of this.”
“I just wanted to see you and be with you all the time, but then I was tormented by guilt because, was it a betrayal of her? But I could have sworn there was something of her in you, and I didn’t know if I was merely telling myself that to alleviate the guilt…and then of course I also didn’t want to become a distraction from your real life, which I am afraid I have become despite my better intentions…”
“Shhhh. Don’t start that now,” I whispered as I wrapped my arms up around his neck. “You’ve never told me – what was her name?”
He froze. He took a deep breath and then he locked his eyes on mine.
“Caterina.”
CHAPTER 16
We stayed curled up tightly together and I suppose that we must have eventually fallen asleep that way, because the next thing I remember was waking up alone to the sun streaming into my room.
I was intrigued. I wanted to know more about this girl now, this Caterina. I wanted to hear all about her and how were similar or different and whether or not it might be even the tiniest bit possible that I might be she reincarnated as me.
But those mysteries would have to wait for Cheryl. I had slept late – it was nearly eleven already and I wanted to get her laptop back to her. I was also curious to hear where she had been all night. I knew, after all, that she had not been with Chad.
I padded down the hall and tapped lightly on Cheryl & Lisa’s door.
“Who is it?!” Cheryl sang out loudly and I could tell she was in good spirits regardless of what may or may not have happened the night before.
“It’s me, Catherine!” I answered, and the door flung back and Cheryl was standing there in her underwear and a headfull of Velcro rollers.
“Uhhh,” I was at a loss for words and I just stood there laughing at her in her bra and panties with the door all the way open for anybody and everybody to see!
“Well don’t just stand there! I’m half nekkid for chrissakes! Come in! Come in!”
I tumbled into the room laughing. “Oh my god, Cheryl! Anybody could have walked by!”
“Ahh, but they didn’t! Too bad!” She winked at me.
“How are you feeling?” I asked Lisa. She was fully dressed and lounging on her bed applying clear polish to her nails.
“Fine,” she shrugged and hardly even looked up at me.
“Well I just wanted to bring your laptop back right away. Thanks so much for letting me use it,” I said to Cheryl as I handed it back to her.
“Oh! Did you do my English homework for me?” she grinned coquettishly and batted her eyelashes at me.
“Yes, I did! Both of ours are in a file called Jane Eyre. Yours is called Cheryl’s obviously and mine is called Catherine’s. I was going to ask – would you mind printing them out? I noticed you guys had a printer,” I added.
“Oh, you didn’t print them?” she said in that high pitched voice of hers that I knew meant she was aggravated and pretending not to be.
“No, I didn’t want to come back and disturb Lisa last night,” I answered.
“Ugh!” Cheryl groaned in dramatic fashion. “Alright, I’ll do it later. Just put my laptop down on the desk,” she ordered me as she moved to survey the parking lot from the window.
“Oh yeah – how was your night last night? Did you find Chad?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Well!” she turned with a great flourish and grinned at me, “I drove into town to find whatever party he was supposed to be at –“
“Oh, c’mon. Do I have to hear this story a third time?” Lisa cut her off.
Cheryl rolled her eyes at Lisa a little.
“You see, Catherine, if you had a cell phone, we could have texted you and you could have come for breakfast with us this morning and you would have already heard this story!”
She was grinning like mad and I thought that whatever the story was, she was going to be happy to tell it over and over and over again. She was reveling in it and Lisa was clearly becoming quite tired of it.
“Have you eaten? I’ll go downstairs with you and get a cup of tea and tell you what happened while you eat!” she took me by the elbow and began leading me out of the room.
“Do you want anything, Lisa?” she said as after thought.
“Nope,” Lisa replied bluntly.
“Of course you don’t,” Cheryl muttered as the door closed behind us. “Food might actually make you stop looking like a shriveled, dried up little leaf!”
“How is she feeling, really?” I asked, thinking that perhaps she was still recovering from yesterday.
“Oh god, she’s fine. She’ll milk it for all it’s worth, though,” Cheryl groaned. “But who cares about her. Let me tell you about what happened last night!” she squealed.
There were a few other girls in the elevator with us, so Cheryl had to wait impatiently for us to get all the way down before she could tell me her story.
“So, Janice came with me to town to look for the party! Well, no, back up. First of all I thought he might have gone to the movies, so the first place we went was the movie theatre. His car wasn’t there. We drove up and down the main street a few times, but his car wasn’t there either. Then we started cruising through the residential streets looking for some sign of a party somewhere. There was one – at this random house. I couldn’t see his car anywhere, but I figured, well, if he’s going to a party in town tonight, this is probably going to be the one. So I found a place to park and we went in. Except there was NOBODY from school there! It was college kids! They don’t go back to school until this week, so they were having a huge party to celebrate their last weekend of summer. Oh my god, Catherine, there were some seriously hot guys there. You should have come!”
I didn’t bother to remind her that I couldn’t come because I was too busy looking after her best friend and doing her English homework for her.
“Anyway, there was this one guy there named Joe…he was soooooo cute. Like six feet tall and dark hair and really nice body. Oh my god! We were flirting all night and he was giving me beer and we wound up….well, making out!” she giggled. “He’s been texting me non-stop ever since! Here, I’ll read some of them to you – “
“Cheryl,” I cut her off. “How did you get back home if you were drinking at this party?”
“Huh?” she looked at me in annoyance.
“Did you drive back?” I asked in disbelief.
“Oh god. It’s fine,” she said and did a dramatic eye roll for emphasis. “I had, like, one bottle of beer and I don’t think I even finished it. But thanks for caring, Mom!”
Her voice was dripping with irritation at me. She dropped her phone back i
n her purse and turned her back.
Well at least I’d been spared having to hear her read out her texts to me.
“So you never wound up finding Chad?” I deftly changed the subject back to him.
“No!” she turned around to me again as I grabbed a pastry to add to my tray.
“And this is the really weird thing – his car still isn’t in the parking lot this morning. So wherever he went last night he stayed the night,” she said as her brow furrowed.
“That’s weird. Maybe he got up early this morning to go out somewhere?” I suggested, knowing full well he had never gone anywhere at all last night.
“I doubt it,” she grimaced at me. “I got home at around three in the morning and his car wasn’t there. I got up at nine this morning and his car wasn’t there. So I’m really very curious about where he went.”
Her brows were knitted together completely now and I felt the tiniest twinge of guilt.
“Do you know where the party’s going to be? I mean, this Friday, before the dance?” I asked.
“No. I haven’t talked to him about it yet. I guess it’ll either be our room or his room,” she said as we found a table and sat down.
“But if he comes to your room, won’t Trevor come with him?” I asked, thinking of how Lisa would feel about that. “It would be better to have it in their room, so at least that way Lisa can decide not to go if she doesn’t want to see him.”
“Oh god. You know what? I hadn’t even thought of that, but really Lisa needs to get over it. If me and Chad get back together – no, scratch that – when me and Chad get back together, Trevor is going to be around a lot, too, so she’s either going to have to learn to deal or find a new roommate.”
“Are you still thinking of getting back together with him?” I was confused. “I thought you said you met this great college guy last night that you really liked?”
“Oh, he’s nothing. He was just a little something to take my mind of off Chad for one night. I was nearly crying last night when we were driving around trying to find him. I’m actually really upset that I don’t know where he is. What if he met some girl?”
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