“Wow, so that was it? Was there another barney rubble?” asked Frankie with a slight giggle.
“It ain’t funny,” Alex said. “Anyway, that teacher never messed with me again, but it didn’t matter. By then I was always cutting his class; I was serious about never going back. Surprisingly, though, I wound up passing the class.”
Frankie chuckled and said. “He must have liked what he felt; I know I do.”
“I’m not a fag,” Alex said strongly.
“I know,” said Frankie. “Trust me, I know.” She put her arms around his shoulders. “It’s hard to shrug off that vulnerable feeling. Sometimes you feel like everyone is out to take advantage of you somehow. It seems as though everyone wants to get to that intimate, private place. I get it all the time. I know that look. And worst yet, people make excuses to brush up next to you, to feel you like they are entitled to feel you up because you’re famous. It’s horrible. You can’t help but feel guarded and always defensive.” Frankie sat forward in contemplation.
She turned back to him. “You know it’s not me. I’m not that sexy girl in the picture—it’s just a picture. People think that however they see us is who we are, always judging the cover and not the book.” She laughed. “Most people don’t even want to take the time to read the book. They just want the cover. So if they see something sexy, they think you’re easy.”
Alex ran his fingers through her wild mane of blonde hair. “I am so glad I took the time to read the book,” he said. “If I had only judged the cover, I’d be missing so much.”
Frankie turned to him and smiled sweetly. “Me too,” she said.
Alex rolled forward toward Frankie and buried his head between her neck and shoulder. She held him tightly around the shoulders and rubbed his back. The words came to her mind and she very much wanted to say them, but worried of the reaction. It’s our last night, she thought, why not?
“I love you,” she whispered in his ear.
“I love you, too,” he said and then kissed her cheek.
It was nearly 2:00 a.m. when Chase pulled into the Robinsons’ driveway. Everything was dark and all the lights were out in Frankie’s house except for the porch light. Alex got out of the back seat and then held out his hand for Frankie. As he walked her to the house, contemplating whether or not to give her a goodnight kiss, he half expected Marcus to be at the door with a shotgun.
On the porch, Frankie proceeded to open the door and gestured for Alex to enter. “I was told I had to be home by two,” she said, “but he didn’t say that you had to leave.”
Alex chuckled and said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“It’s my house too,” asserted Frankie.
He gazed back at Chase, who was standing by the car, smoking a cigarette. “Go ahead,” said Chase. “I’ll just curl up in the back for a nap.”
Alex was still unsure about following Frankie inside, but she seemed determined not to let him go just yet.
“Chase must be a saint, putting up with you guys,” she said, flipping on the kitchen light.
“He’s a great friend,” Alex replied, looking through the patio door at the Robinsons’ pool. It was almost as big as the pool at the Hollywood mansion.
“We can sit outside, but I think it’s too cold.” She grabbed a whole bunch of snacks—chips, cookies, and pretzels. “What kind of soda do you want? We have all kinds—cola, orange, cherry, and even grape.”
“Grape,” he replied, still uncertain about staying.”
With the snacks and sodas in her arms, she gestured toward the living room. “I love staying up late watching B-movies. There so bad, it’s funny, and sometimes you can catch a dirty movie,” she said with a wink.
“That’s the last thing I need is for your father to catch us watching a dirty movie,” replied Alex as he followed her to the living room.
“No, the last thing would be him catching us having sex, which isn’t going to happen,” she said with a smile, “We got that out of the way earlier.”
Frankie plopped down on the couch and ripped open a bag of chips. She patted the seat of the couch. “Come on, don’t be a square.”
Alex sat down next to her and grabbed a handful of chips. “If I am murdered tonight, my blood is on your hands.”
“You are so paranoid. You’re not going to be murdered . . . maybe roughed up a bit, but not murdered,” she teased.
Frankie turned through the channels and discovered an alien movie; it looked fun. She sat back on the couch, nestling next to Alex. She looked at him glued to the television while drinking his grape soda. “You know, it wouldn’t hurt if we made out for a little bit,” she whispered and then kissed his cheek and chin.
Gazing down at her, he wanted to do so much more than kiss her; but he knew once the kissing started, things would get heavy pretty quickly. “Do you mind?” he whispered in her ear. “I’m trying to watch the movie.”
“Let me fill you in,” replied Frankie. “People encounter aliens, the aliens suck out the humans’ brains, and then the hero rescues humanity from the evil aliens. The end,”
“Oh, man,” replied Alex, reaching for a handful of chips, “you just ruined the whole thing for me.”
Frankie turned to face him, not to be denied a kiss. He laughed and kissed her back. It was then that the lights of the hallway flickered on and footsteps could be heard. Frankie quickly maneuvered herself away from Alex and sat alongside him. Within seconds Marcus appeared in his pajamas and robe.
“I thought I heard noises,” he said, looking intently at Alex.
“It was the aliens on TV,” replied Frankie casually.
“Uh-huh,” he grunted sleepily, but there would be no sleep for Marcus tonight.
“We were back by two,” said Frankie. “So we’re going to hang out for a while.”
Marcus regarded the situation—Frankie wearing Alex’s tuxedo coat over her gown and sitting way too close to Alex for Marcus’s comfort. He nodded, unsure what to do, and then headed back up to his bedroom.
When he reached the bedroom he nudged his wife awake. “He’s downstairs.”
Geraldine checked the clock and then laid her head back down. “Marcus, she’s twenty years old. If she wants to be up all night with a boy, we should let her.”
“You’re going to allow this in our house?”
“What are they doing?” she asked with a yawn.
“Watching a movie, eating snacks.”
“Sounds more like a slumber party with a bunch of girlfriends then hanging out with a date,” replied Geraldine. “They should be making out.”
“I can’t have this in my house,” Marcus said, getting riled up.
Geraldine lifted herself up in bed. “Here’s what you do: turn the hallway light off, sit at the top of the steps, and if they do anything inappropriate, like hold hands or God forbid kiss, you can be right there to intervene. But take note: you will forever be the bad guy to Frankie.”
“My daughter’s reputation is worth playing the bad guy,” said Marcus.
“What it is about him that is so bad?” asked Geraldine. “Was he rude or offensive in any way?”
“No, I just don’t like the way he looks—the long hair, those dark eyes. He looks like someone you’d come across in a dark alley,” replied Marcus. “The kid reminds me of a Molly Maguire gangster; he even has a black eye.”
Geraldine laid her head down and closed her eyes. “The very reasons you don’t like him are the same reasons that Frankie does. Get used to it, Marcus, this is just the beginning.”
Marcus shrugged heavily and lay down beside Geraldine. He was exhausted by the lateness of the hour and the stress he felt. But fin
ally he fell asleep, but then woke around 5:00 a.m., thinking that Alex had surely already left by then.
He climbed out of bed and walked past Frankie’s room only to find her bed had not been slept in. He carefully descended the stairs, fearful of what he might find. He turned the corner and saw Alex and Frankie both asleep, passed out on the couch. The television station was off the air and only static was visible.
Marcus walked over and shook Alex on the shoulder. “Okay, date’s over!”
Alex woke up, blinking his eyes, and then rubbed his neck. For a moment he didn’t know where he was.
Frankie lifted her head and looked around. “What time is it?”
“Time for your date to leave,” Marcus said.
Both Alex and Frankie stood up and she walked him to the door, following him outside where dawn had just begun to show in the sky. Alex rapped on the car window to wake Chase. Chase sat upright behind the wheel of the car, immediately ready to go. When Alex turned around, Frankie wrapped her arms around him. They kissed, not wanting to part.
“Wrap it up!” yelled Marcus from the front door.
Alex glanced up at Marcus and then down at Frankie with a sad discouraged look.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“I feel like I’m losing my very best friend,” he said.
“You’re never going to lose me. I’m always going to be your friend.”
Alex dared to kiss her once more. “I’ll call you when I get home.”
“I’ll be waiting,” she said.
Alex stepped away from Frankie. He felt he needed to say something to Marcus, but not sure of the words. He settled for, “Goodbye, Mister Robinson.”
Marcus said nothing and merely waited for Frankie to return to the house. She didn’t until Chase had pulled out of the driveway and the car was out of sight. She turned and said to Marcus, “I can’t believe you were so rude to him.”
Marcus didn’t care; Alex Rowley was on his way home to England and away from his daughter.
Lonely Girl
It was a beautiful, sunny morning in September when Alex headed back to England. The plane lifted off from New York’s newly named John F. Kennedy International Airport and circled the city until it reached its proper flight elevation and leveled out. As Alex sat looking out the window, watching the city get progressively smaller below him, a knot formed in his stomach. Somewhere down there, amongst the masses of metal structures and countless streets, he had left his heart. It was the last thing he had intended to happen when he first came to America. He had certainly expected to break a few hearts by the end of the tour but never imagined his own heart would be broken.
Alex didn’t want to go home; he didn’t want to be in the band. At that very moment he didn’t want to exist at all. He couldn’t believe that leaving a girl could make him feel so empty. Frankie was the only one he had met who truly understood him. And he had meant it when he told her he felt like he was losing his very best friend. In actuality he was.
Meanwhile, at the same time Alex’s plane was taking off, Frankie was driving her mother’s silver 1963 Cadillac De Ville out to Rockaway Beach. She parked the car, slipped off her sneakers, and walked out to the shore.
The beach was sparsely dotted with various walks of life. Besides the sandpipers and seagulls, there were a few elderly couples walking hand-in-hand, the occasional beachcomber strolling along the sand, and a number of stationary individuals who appeared to be searching for answers to questions in their minds by staring pensively at the waves. Frankie felt that she could relate to these most of all—here she was, twenty years old, feeling melancholy, and already sensed that she had lost her soul mate.
She raised her hand above her eyes and strained to see if she could find Alex’s plane in the sky. When she saw no trace of any plane, she stepped a few yards away from the waves and sat down in the sand, resting her chin on her knees. She thought of how much she and Alex had in common—both of them were teenaged performers, who loved to swim and eat heartily, and shared a wry sense of humor along with an independent, rebellious streak. She never knew she would meet a boy so much like her who lived so far away. She couldn’t help thinking that while she had been living here, going to school, attending dances, taking ballet lessons, and working, Alex had been growing up at the exact same time on the other side of the Atlantic. She wondered how their lives would have been different had they grown up together or lived in the same town and dated as students.
Questions like these plagued Frankie’s mind as she leaned back, placing her hands in the sand. Of all the men she had dated or experienced mutual admiration with, only Alex measured up. It was he who had captured her heart.
She wondered if she would ever see him again.
Alex and the other Dark Knights arrived home to England only to be greeted by a flood of fans when they landed. At the airport Alex did his best to produce a slight smile and give the mobs a friendly wave of acknowledgment. Security guards did their best to push all the band members through blinding camera flashes and microphones being thrust into their faces as they escorted them toward a black sedan waiting to take them to another press conference. Alex secretly wondered why the world never seemed to get enough of their stupid responses to reporters’ inane questions.
The press conference soon became such garbage that Alex and the rest of the band began to make up answers, or often retorted with questions of their own. It was as if five young working-class lads were expected to have all the answers to the world’s problems. Deep down, they knew that what they were meant to do was distract people from the world’s true hardships—poverty, violence, oppression, and war.
At twenty-one years of age, Alex had absolutely no clue what any of it meant and honestly didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, everyone else could figure it out; all he wanted was to be left alone. The press conference ended not a moment too soon.
As the sedan drove through the crowd of screaming young women, Alex recalled his youth. It seemed like only yesterday he was skipping school, hanging out, and smoking with a bunch of like-minded pals. There really wasn’t any more to it than that, except for his guitar. Funny, he thought, to have known that learning to play the guitar would change my life so dramatically.
He could have ended up just like any of the other blokes—landed a square job, taken a wife, and pumped out a few kids. He sometimes imagined how life would be if he held a square job and had fallen in love with a local girl who might have inspired him to stay home. But Alex had none of that; ironically, it was his wanderlust and lack of discipline that had bought him to the height of success. Perhaps that was the big joke.
The driver of the sedan dropped Alex off in front of the house he shared with his girlfriend Sarah. Upon seeing him arrive home, she immediately rushed out of the house, ran across the green manicured lawn, and fell into his arms.
“Oh, it’s so good to have you home again,” she said and then kissed him on the face.
“Yeah,” he sighed, pushing her away. He really couldn’t handle any woman hanging on him at this moment. “I’m really exhausted.”
Sarah picked up his bags. “Of course . . . I understand.”
Alex walked straight to his bedroom and collapsed face-down on his pillow. It felt good to rest in his own bed, but Sarah hovering over him made him uncomfortable.
Sarah crawled into bed alongside him and ran her fingers through his hair, down his back, and over his butt.
“What are you doing?” he mumbled with his face in his pillow.
“I just want to be with you; you’ve been gone so long.”
“Sarah, honey,” Alex said, “I really just want to be alone right now and get some rest. I didn’t get much sleep on the road.”
&nbs
p; “Okay,” she said. She rose from the bed and then reached for his suitcase.
“Now what are you doing?” he asked sternly.
“I was going to wash your laundry.”
“It can wait,” snapped Alex.
Sarah slowly released her grasp of his suitcase. “All right, I’ll leave you alone.” She closed the bedroom door and walked into the living room. She missed him so much while he was away and now that he was home, all she wanted to do was be with him. Even though he had locked her out, Sarah forced herself to maintain a positive attitude that at least he was home and in their bed.
Unlike Frankie, Sarah no longer had any support, love, or guidance from her father. Devon Moore was a dashing BAF pilot—tall, with wavy dusty-blond hair, a big toothy smile, and the daring, “here today, gone tomorrow” demeanor. While Devon physically had returned home from war, he remained emotionally adrift. His own personal space became precious and even though young Sarah, her siblings, and her mother all longed for his attention, Devon seldom had much to give. Her father soon became bored with civilian life and abandoned his family in pursuit of more exciting adventures and affairs.
Devon’s abandonment of his family wrecked his wife’s emotional state. She blamed herself for not being beautiful or charming enough, for not keeping a clean house, and a number of other imagined shortcomings. She cried constantly for her failings and it was her older daughter, Sarah, who was there to pick up the pieces. As Sarah tended to the chores that her mother formerly performed and looked after her younger siblings, she vowed to achieve perfection in all her endeavors; no man would ever run off on her. She would fashion herself into the perfect package that no man would be able to resist.
Much like her father, Sarah grew into a tall, dashing woman with a great deal of charisma. She dreamed of obtaining an acting job in film or television. This was partly due to her desire to be in the limelight, but mostly it was because she hoped her father would see her and regret ever leaving.
Saying Goodbye (What the World Doesn't Know) Page 15