Zellie Wells Trilogy (Glimpse, Glimmer, Glow)

by Stacey Wallace Benefiel

  A moment later he reappeared in front of a peach stucco house with sage green shutters and cacti in the yard. The simple little house sat on a modest street that dead ended at an elementary school at one end and was eleven blocks from Venice Beach at the other.

  Wes’s mouth twitched nervously; he would have taken a deep breath if it were physically possible. Someday soon, he thought and then walked through the front door of The Society Headquarters.

  Chapter Ten

  Dinner with Dad and Melody was okay, I guess. I could tell Dad had enjoyed making dinner for us; he kept asking how we liked the chicken piccata. It was good, really good actually, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction. All I said was that I’d be fine with it if he made it again. That made him smile a little bit, so I suppose he knows that I don’t hate him. Melody was in a grumpy mood, but when isn’t she? For the most part she was quiet, except to tell me that she was having trouble sleeping without me snoring across the room and that she was bummed that Aunt Hazel was leaving. I felt for her. After a lifetime of sharing a room with my sister, I missed her too. Aunt Hazel’s leaving didn’t affect me as much; she wasn’t my mentor. Supposedly, Grandma was my mentor. What a crappy deal that was. She’d dropped us off in Rosedell last Summer, hung out with Mom for a couple of days and then bailed again. She said she’d return when the baby was born, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

  As much as I liked being in my real home for the evening, I couldn’t wait to get back to the cabin to check if Avery had found my note.

  Mom called around nine to let Dad know that Avery was headed back to his mom’s house and that I was free to come home. I finished putting the dishes from the dishwasher away and went to grab my purse from the dining room table.

  “Thanks for letting me know, Grace,” Dad said, looking down at the kitchen floor, rubbing at a scuff mark with the toe of his sock. “How are you feeling? Everything going okay up there in the woods?”

  I could hear Mom chatting away to him like she always had. I knew that she was lonely, that she missed talking to him, still loved him in a way.

  Melody called to me from our bedroom. “You leaving?”

  I walked down the hall and stood in the doorway. “Yeah, I think I’m going to take off.”

  She nodded her head solemnly. “Okay, see ya.”

  “Don’t be like that, Mel,” I said, sitting down next to her on her twin bed. All her stuffed animals were gone, shoved onto the top shelf of our itty bitty closet.

  “How am I being? You’re not the one everyone ignores. No one ever asks me what I want to do about anything!”

  I went to put my arm around her shoulders, but she pulled away from me and went to her chest of drawers, fiddling with the nail polish bottles that littered the top.

  “Aunt Hazel’s the one who told me that Mom had to go to the hospital. And even then, she told me like, three hours after it happened. I stood out in front of school waiting for someone to pick me up for over an hour before I just said, ‘screw it’ and walked home through the park.”

  “I’m sorry, Mel. It all just sort of happened. We should have called you. I should have called you.”

  She turned back toward me, tears dotting her cheeks. “Yeah, you should have.”

  This sucked. I’d been so wrapped up in my own problems that I hadn’t noticed that Melody wasn’t having the easiest time of it lately, either. She didn’t even have friends she could turn to anymore. After she became my Lookout and was taking things more seriously, they’d all dropped her. Melody may be my Lookout, but I was her older sister and I was slacking at my job big time. “Hey, are you doing anything on Saturday morning?”

  “Uh- uh.” She wiped her face with the back of her hand.

  “Well, Claire and I are gonna go taste cakes for her birthday party, you want to come with?”

  “I thought people only did crap like that when they were getting married?” She sat back down next to me.

  “It’s Claire.”

  Melody raised one eyebrow. “True. Yeah, I’ll go. You gonna pick me up?”

  “Of course! Aren’t you excited to see me behind the wheel?”

  She raised one eyebrow again. “More like deathly afraid. I can’t believe they gave you a license.”

  I elbowed her in the ribs. “Whatever!”

  “Whatever yourself, hose beast,” she said, bending her long old grasshopper legs, putting her feet against my side and pushing me down to the end of the bed.

  “Oh, it’s on.” She wasn’t the only long legged freak in our family.

  “Bring it,” she said, trying to keep a straight face while brandishing her Hello Kitty pillow.

  I grabbed the pillow and threw it out into the hall, executing my best villainous laugh. “Kitty can’t save you now!” I sprang at her, tickle fingers poised at the ready.

  “Oh, crap!” she squealed, rolling from the bed.

  I stuck my foot out and tripped her as she was trying to run from the room, causing her to fall flat on her face. She curled up into the fetal position, flattening her arm to her exposed side in a sad attempt to thwart my tickle attack, overcome by an anticipatory giggle fit. I put my foot on her hip and raised my fists in the air, victorious.

  “Retros rule, Lookouts drool!” I shouted, feeling pretty proud of myself until my sister took hold of my calf and dragged me down next to her.

  “You suck,” Melody said, smiling.

  “Runs in the family.”

  I looked for Avery’s truck on my way back to the cabin, hoping to get a passing glance at him, but no luck. It was probably for the best that I didn’t see him. The temptation would be too great to take the chance of stopping out here in the middle of nowhere to spend a few moments together. At least for me it would. I had no way of knowing what Avery was feeling, only my instincts to go by. Melody wasn’t allowed to give me a very detailed Avery report, but it didn’t sound like there were any details to give anyway. She’d said that he was doing what he always did. He sat with Jason at lunch, two tables away from her and Claire and was studying for finals like everyone else. I’d never wanted to eat lunch in the cafeteria and study for stupid finals so much in my entire life.

  Mom had already turned off all the lights and gone to bed, leaving me a note on the kitchen table telling me that she was fine and she would see me in the morning. I stood in the middle of the family room, listening to the sounds of the cabin and the woods outside. The mini-fridge running, the hum of the porch light, a pine tree dropping cones onto the roof.

  I went into my room, undressed, and put my Minnie Mouse nightshirt and a pair of thick wool socks on. As I shuffled into the bathroom and turned on the sink faucet, I rattled the toothbrush holder to make it seem like I was getting ready to brush my teeth. Quickly I removed the toilet tank lid and pulled the wet baggie from the water. The tape hadn’t stayed stuck, but the bag had remained sealed and there was a note from Avery inside!

  Forgetting to be stealthy, I turned the faucet off in a hurry and hopped into bed, excited to read what Avery had written to me.

  Hey Zellie,

  Claire told me to write you and where to hide the note, so I guess if you’re reading this then everything went the way it was supposed to.

  Are you okay? Your dad was so pissed, I was kinda afraid for you. I hated it that I couldn’t do anything. I was massively lame. Please forgive me. So sorry about my Mom and her plan or whatever. What can I say? She’s still crazy.

  Every night I’ve thought about coming to get you, about running away. I would if you would, but I know you wouldn’t. :) What am I even saying? It’s pretty much killing me to be away from you. I can’t wait until Sunday to just see you, y’know. Stupid?

  Find the loophole, Zel. Two years of this crap is too much. I LOVE YOU!!!

  I don’t know what else to write - wish I knew what your note was going to say. Oh, I’m glad your mom’s okay and that you get to stay with her. Melody told me that she has to stay in the cabin until the baby is bo
rn. Mel also said you got your license. Look out, Rosedell! Ha. Lookout - good thing you’ve got one. :)

  All right, I’m basically just talking out of my ass. My life is boring and I miss you and I’m so glad we at least went out with a bang. (almost:))

  Love,

  Avery

  P.S. I mentioned to my mom that I got you a Christmas present and what the hell was I supposed to do with it now and she said I could give it to you at church. Too bad it’s porn. Ha! Just kidding. :) I have an excessive smiley problem, I know.

  I lay back on my pillow, swooning. Holy Christ on a cracker, Avery Adams was like a perfect storm of hotness and dorkiness, and he was mine. If having to wait two days to see him was driving me this crazy, there was no way I was going to be able to stay away from him for two years.

  On Saturday, Frank and Ben arrived to babysit Mom about three minutes before I was scheduled to pick up Melody. I was out the door the instant I heard their car coming up the driveway.

  “Bye, Mom!” I called over my shoulder.

  “Bye Zellie, kiss Melody for me!” Mom called back from her nest of blankets and books she’d made on the couch.

  Ben met me at my car door. “Sorry we’re late. Your aunt was supposed to come with us but we couldn’t track her down anywhere and she’s not answering her phone.”

  I threw my purse onto the passenger seat. “Really? That’s weird. When was the last time you saw her?”

  “Last night,” Frank said, walking up behind Ben, “she and I had dinner at the See-Saw around 5:30 or so and parted ways back at the lodge with plans to meet up again at nine o’clock this morning.”

  “Huh,” I said, not really knowing what to think. On one hand Aunt Hazel was not the type to blow off a meeting, on the other she did get called away by The Society often and maybe she didn’t have time to tell us. “Why don’t you all keep trying to get in touch with her - see if she left a message on Mom’s phone? She forgets to check all the time.” I looked back at the cabin, wondering if I should be investigating Aunt Hazel’s “disappearance” myself instead of leaving it to non-family members while I went off to eat cake.

  Ben softly touched my chin and turned my head to look at him, “I got this. Go have fun with Claire and Melody. I’ll call Claire if anything’s the matter.”

  I took his hand from my face and squeezed it “thank you.” “Okay, I’ll be back this afternoon.”

  “Get a doggie bag if you can,” Ben said, smiling.

  “Will do,” I said, climbing into the car. Even though I was gonna be way late picking up the girls, I paused just a second to watch Frank and Ben walk into the cabin. I never would have imagined six months ago that I would be so thankful to have them in my life. They’d both really stepped up and proven themselves worthy of all of our trust.

  As if he could feel my stare on him, Ben flipped his hair out of his eyes and then looked back at me over his shoulder and winked.

  I gave him a weak smile and started the car. Everything would be fine with Aunt Hazel, I was sure of it, but me? Nothing was going to be fine with me until I saw my sister and my BFF for some serious girl/cake time. There were many things for us all to chat about and the enigma that was Ben was at the tippy top of my list.

  After swinging by the old homestead to pick up Melody, we hurried over to Claire’s house. I started honking the horn at the beginning of the block, windows down and stereo blaring, sure she’d be waiting outside. When I pulled up in front of her house and she wasn’t there, I was only moderately humiliated by the dirty looks from two of her neighbors out walking their fancy dog.

  “You go get her,” I said to Melody, nudging her in the ribs as I sank down in my seat, putting up the automatic windows. “If I get out of this car they might sic their dog on me.”

  Melody huffed. “Since when are you so dramatic about everything? Jesus, who gives a crap what those hoity-toity buttwipes think.”

  I bust out laughing. “Man, you have changed!” Melody glared at me. “For the better! For the better I meant!” I sat up. “I’ll go get Claire.”

  “You don’t need to,” she said, pointing to the opening front door, “here she comes.”

  With a sly grin, I started up the car, rolling the windows back down, cranking the Black Eyed Peas.

  Claire got in the back seat. “Hey! I love this song, especially since I think it’s pissing off the Millers and their designer bitch.” She put her seatbelt on. “So, I just talked to Ben and he said that Aunt Hazel had left a message on your mom’s phone. There was a top secret Society emergency as per usual, but she’ll be back in a couple of weeks.”

  “Excellent. I’m glad everything’s okay.” Thank God. None of us needed anymore drama in our lives at the moment. “Shall we commence to eating eleventy billion calories?”

  “Dude, this girl didn’t wear stretchy jeans for nothin’,” Claire said, clapping her hands. “To the bakery, Jeeves!”

  Melody scoped the bakery tasting room. Satisfied that no one besides Claire and I were watching her, she unbuttoned her pants. “I’m gonna barf.”

  Claire pushed her plate away from her. “Yeah, I think even the Golden Girls would be disgusted by the amount of cake I just ate. Yuck. Do you guys even remember which ones you liked?”

  “All of them,” Melody and I said in unison.

  “Great. Super helpful, ladies.” Claire stood up and went to the cake table, going through the identification tags in front of each cake. “Hmm. Definitely chocolate with raspberry filling and chocolate buttercream, don’t you think?”

  We nodded our heads, the sugar coma taking us down.

  “Okay, and how about the...carrot cake? Too niche?”

  “It’s your birthday. Do you like carrot cake?” I said.

  “I do. So, one tier chocolate, one carrot cake, and one white cake with champagne filling? Yeah. That’s what I’m going to do.” She sank back down into her chair. “All right, where’s the order lady? She needs to get the rest of this cake away from me before I inhale any more.”

  “Oh!” I said, remembering Ben’s request. “Can I take the rest of the cake to Ben and Frank? They wanted a doggie bag if I could have one.”

  “Please, it would be doing me a favor.” Claire eyed me. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with Ben, how’s that going?”

  “Fine, I guess.” I could feel the red heat of embarrassment climbing up my neck toward my face. “They’re at the house a lot, it’s not like Ben and I have tons of one-on-one time or anything.”

  Melody smirked. “You know it is okay to think he’s cute, Zel. Because he is. You’re not betraying Avery or anything.”

  My eyes got wide and then I quickly tried to counteract by squinting them. “I know,” I scoffed.

  Claire and Melody exchanged a look.

  “What? Did Ben say something to you all?” Panic pounded in my chest. “‘Cause he’s lying if he said anything happened between us. Nothing...well, almost nothing happened.”

  “I knew it!” Claire said, slapping me on the arm. “You are all he ever talks about! Spill now.”

  Melody leaned toward me, reviving a little of her former gossip girl self. “Yes, spill, I will live vicariously.”

  This is what I’d wanted from the day, wasn’t it? Girl time? “Don’t say anything to either of them about this okay?”

  “Please,” Melody said.

  “Cross my heart and hope to die, Zel.” Claire scooted her chair closer to mine.

  “Okay, it’s not a big deal, but Ben and I have been getting pretty close. He told me about his trigger, which was just heartbreaking and awful. And then we shared that glimpse of Mom and he was so...heroic and good to her.” I looked at Melody; she nodded her head at me to keep going. “And then he made a move on me.”

  Claire gasped and grabbed my leg.

  “It was nothing! Really.” I took her hand from my leg and put it on her own. “He’s got it in his head that if my being with Avery is futile, it would make more sense fo
r the two of us to, I mean, not even be together, but maybe be together? That’s the feeling I get from him. But then he helped me get in contact with Avery. Ugh! I don’t know.”

  “Do you want to be with him?” Melody asked, point blank.

  “No. Not the way I want to be with Avery. I love Avery more than I can say, but being with Avery is dangerous and complicated and Ben, well, he’s not very complicated and I am attracted to him.” I buried my face in my hands, starting to tear up. “I let him kiss me and, uh,” I made a circular motion over my chest area. Melody and Claire nodded like they knew exactly what I was talking about.

  “Meanwhile, I’ve been watching Avery’s dreams and he’s all about me and how in love he is. What kind of sucky girlfriend does that make me? I may not have intended for anything to happen with Ben, but when he put the moves on me I folded, like making out with him was out of my control. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, I totally checked out his butt when he was walking into the cabin today! Why? Why would I do that? Avery’s butt is the only one I want to check out. I swear, you guys!”

  Claire and Melody closed in on me and began rubbing my back.

  “Aw, Zellie, you’re being too hard on yourself, girl,” Claire said.

  “Yeah, you’ve had like the worst week ever, I’m sorry for being such a whiner the other night.”

  “You’re not a whiner, Mel,” I said, between taking little gulps of air, trying to stop crying. “I am. I’m just a big whiner and a mind whore.”

  “Oh, honey, that’s not a thing to be. No one knows what a mind whore is,” Claire pushed me back into an upright position and pulled my hands from my face. “You are confronting a dilemma that has happened to many a girl not named Claire Vargas.” She put a finger to her temple, “‘Which hot guy do I choose?’ Well, you’re in luck my friend, because I know way down deep in my heart that you’re meant to be with Avery.”

  “Thanks, Claire.”