“I can’t find him,” Zev said frantically as he strode into the room and came straight back to us. “Robert. I can’t find Robert anywhere in the halls.”
A buzzing went off. Zev dug his hand in his pants’ pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He immediately handed it to Odeda. “It’s a text message,” she told him after flipping it open.
“A what?” Zev asked impatiently. “Is it Robert?”
“Yes. It says: Can you come? Dad’s worse than usual. Hurry. Please.”
“Shit,” Zev cursed.
Mrs. Ginger’s stern face turned to our corner. “No foul language Ralph. And Bridget, no phones in school.”
“Yes ma’am,” Odeda muttered.
The teacher resumed getting prepared to begin her class which was to start in seconds.
“There’s a local phonebook in the car,” I told Zev. “Robert’s address will be in it.”
“Good.” My brother reached to take back his cell. “Uriel, will you come with me?”
“Of course,” I answered immediately.
Zev walked out of the room without another word.
“Be careful,” Keira told me.
“Always.”
I followed my brother out of the school’s front doors and to the Escalade in the parking lot. He took the driver’s seat and I reached under the passenger’s for the phonebook. Zev told me Robert’s last name and I found the address and read it off. Zev sped off.
It took us ten minutes to get to Robert’s place. We pulled into the driveway of a house that looked like it had space for three small rooms in it. The off-white paint was chipped and falling from the exterior. There was an old, red Camry parked askew in front of where we’d stopped.
Zev got out and I followed him to the house’s front door. He pushed it further open than it already was and we stepped inside to hear a rough, male, slurred voice yelling from down the tight hallway. I told Zev in a low tone, “You restrain the father while I call the police.”
He nodded and continued on while I dialed. “9-1-1. What’s your emergency?” I heard on the other end of the line.
I told the woman that a friend of mine’s father was drunk and violent and we needed police to come arrest him and take him away, and that it would be prudent to send an ambulance to the address as well. I thanked her and hung up without saying any more or less. Then I continued to the room Zev had disappeared into. When I walked in, I found my brother holding the hands of an angry, dirty, helpless, and pitiful man behind his back while his face was pressed against one of the brown walls. There couldn’t have been much the human could do against Zev, and he seemed to understand that. Now that he wasn’t the largest person in the house, Robert’s father lost his destructing nerve and gave up without a fight. He’d have to have been a complete idiot to think he could take Zev on in a hand-to-hand, but the man continued to issue empty threats.
Zev had to tell the monstrous man to shut up twice. I was tempted to break his arm myself, but instead, I called out to Robert. “It’s alright,” I told him. “It’s Ralph and Luca. Your father’s controlled now.”
A bruised door opened in the small room and an even more bruised Robert stood on the other side. He had a black eye, a crooked nose, and a bloodied mouth- and that’s just his face. I stepped into the doorway to support the small, battered sophomore, and saw that he’d locked himself in a bathroom before we’d come. There were towels and toilet paper with blood on them in the trashcan and on the counter.
Robert leaned on my shoulder and held a hand to where I assumed he had at least one broken rib. He slowly took a step out of the bathroom and saw Zev with the man who’d beaten him so badly. Zev asked, “Robert, are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’ll be fine. Please don’t hurt him,” Robert said.
Zev, who appeared much calmer than I would have been in his place, replied, “I’m not going to- but why?”
“It’s a bad day for us. He’s drunk. He needs help, not harm.”
Either this sixteen-year-old boy was extremely warped or he was even more mature than I was at that moment.
Two police cars and an ambulance drove up within five minutes and Robert’s father wasn’t any more trouble. He seemed resolved to the fact that he’d receive a just punishment. Robert told the police everything as Zev and I stood by making certain he imparted the truth about his injuries and how long he’d been receiving ones like them.
Zev rode with his charge to the hospital and I drove back to school.
Two charges in the hospital- and we call that a mission accomplished? Both situations could have been prevented if the two humans had acknowledged their problems from the beginning when we offered assistance. But at least now, Hannah and Robert would be safe- from herself and from his father.
I made it back in time for lunch and told Dagan about what had happened. He told Odeda during the next class they had together, and I told Keira in Spanish. We both wanted her to come over to the house after her practice, but since she couldn’t, I stayed through her basketball practice and called home for more news about my two brothers and their charges.
That night, when Zev came home, Dagan asked to play a game of horse with him on the backyard court. We thought it was simply Dagan showing sympathy toward the closely called mission, but he spent hours outside with either Zev or me or sometimes both of us over the next weekend. It seemed his individual assignment of talking Tim out of playing so many videogames had been a self-teaching on the job experience.
Exam week went by smoothly, and then it was winter break.
The Dreaded Event
I’m Coming Out
Chapter 27
Keira
The first Saturday of January had arrived. It was the night of my Coming Out Ceremony- the night I’d waited impatiently for ever since I’d first thought to have an entire evening centered around my coming out into society. It had been all I’d talked and thought about for months… Oh, hold up. That wasn’t me. That was my mother! Right!
I was the one sitting in an upstairs room in a large, impressive, old building a few cities away from High Point. I was the one who hadn’t even bothered paying attention to the location where my mother’s stuffy event would be held in a matter of minutes because I’d been blindly listening to an angry band scream lyrics while I road in the back seat of my parents’ car. I was the one waiting in that over-sized changing room all alone. Well, not all alone- I did, of course, have my dependable companions for situations such as this one- Mimi, Aphrodite, and Victor were with me.
As I tried to get my mind off my nerves, I gazed into the gargantuan mirror attached to the powder-applying desk I was sitting at, and scrutinized the work that had been done to me minutes after arriving on the site. The two young women who had been herded into my changing room had just left after spending an hour or more on my hair and make-up. I’d tell you their names, but I was never told them- as Mother says: they aren’t paid to talk but to work.
Both of the frightened college-aged-looking girls had been very gentle with me, which is more than I can say for several of the other people Mother’s had make me over before. My brown hair was put up in such an intricate do that I couldn’t reproduce it if my life depended on it, even though I had watched the girl push and pull it up the whole time. As her finishing touch, Brigitta- what I’d started thinking of her by- pinned little pearls sporadically around my crown and bun. Once Brigitta was finished, Ingrid- the make-up girl- started on my face. After they both bowed out pitifully and I was left alone, I was free to unashamedly declare that my eyes were so dramatically made up I felt like I should be backstage on Broadway with someone yelling at me that I was on in five.
When Ingrid and Brigitta left the room, Mimi, Victor, and Aphrodite turned up. I knew they wouldn’t be there if Uriel hadn’t invited his family and my friends from school to come and witness my humiliation. He’d done it out of love, thinking that if I had people present who I cared for, it would make the night less dreadful. It didn
’t. Now I had to worry about not looking like a fool whereas with only my mother’s snobby guests watching, I couldn’t care less how the thing went. I would’ve been fine with screwing up the whole thing, but now it had to go well. With the best of intentions, Uriel had put pressure on me to act perfectly in front of all of my friends. Well, all but one friend.
I’d kept my promise to not call Elly and to let her contact me first. She didn’t call until the morning of my Coming Out Ceremony, and she only did that to say she wouldn’t be there; she wasn’t ready to go out quite yet. I wouldn’t usually hold it against Elly. I’d never be caught dead at one of the events like this one unless I absolutely had to. The thing I had a problem with was that she didn’t say anything else. I wanted to know she was okay and how exactly she was doing, but the second she told me she wasn’t coming, Elly hung up the phone after a quick “bye.”
In this absent-minded state, I did what I’ve taken to doing over the previous week whenever I was sitting anywhere, doing nothing but thinking to myself- I reached up and ran my fingers over the ring on the necklace I never ever took off. It was my engagement ring from my angel; the most beautiful, pure, simple diamond ring I have ever seen had been given to me as a Christmas present. Am I the luckiest girl in the world or what?
I’d given Uriel an iPod, since it was about time the music-lover got one for his infinite collection to be downloaded onto, and a trumpet that had been played and signed by Dizzy Gillespie. It’d taken me a good while to find it, but my extensive search was more than worth the look on Uriel’s face when he unwrapped the instrument. Of course, his happiness could not have compared to mine when I opened up a very large box and found a smaller box with a diamond ring inside it. In addition to the secret ring, he gave me two other things: a radar detector- hardy har har- and a written promise to take me to drive on the Autobahn in the near future. I was going to get to drive his Bugatti Veyron as fast as I could without having to worry about any annoying cops stopping me.
A contented smile was on my face when a rapping sounded on the changing room door. But when the door opened without my invitation, my good mood plummeted and I tucked the ring into my dress as quickly as I could before my mother strode into the room with the imperial, naturally disapproving air that only she can manage to keep up all the time. She had on some name-brand designer dress from one of her “friends” and a pair of stilettos I actually didn’t think was half bad.
“Keira, you have ten minutes and then we’re starting. You had better be ready by then. And don’t forget: when the social part of the evening begins, smile and speak to all of your guests.”
You mean all of your guests, I thought bitterly. But instead of voicing my correction, I compliantly nodded.
Seemingly satisfied with my obedience, she started to go back to the door.
“Mother,” I called her back.
“What, Keira?” She sounded stern and impatient.
I wasn’t sure if I was searching for approval or trying to get under her skin by keeping her from her last-minute preparations or something else entirely as I asked, “How do I look?”
Mother’s calculating gaze slid over me as I stood and smoothed out the bottom half of my dress. She said in a hard tone, “The girls did a fine job with your hair and make-up. The dress is adequate as well.”
Then she exited without another word.
I was left in awe of how the woman could manage to compliment everything about the event but me. Even the no-name “help” had gotten a “fine job.”
That window doesn’t look locked. I walked over to one of the three windows in the room and peered down to the ground two stories below. Maybe the fall wouldn’t hurt too badly.
I was still contemplating escape when my favorite voice spoke gently from behind me. “Mmm. I’m experiencing a wonderful sensation at the sight of you in a white dress.”
“Is that so?” I turned to face my angel and was struck dumb by the perfect vision of eloquence in front of me.
Uriel was wearing what he had been instructed by my mother, but he pulled it off looking like he was made for the mandatory attire. He had on a white, button down shirt with a white cummerbund and white bow tie. Any other man I probably would have laughed at for sporting a bow tie, but Uriel somehow made it look seriously attractive. Over the white, he wore the demanded black suit with tails. And man! If he can’t pull off tails, then I’m a monkey’s uncle. Now that would be a bad situation: I’d get hauled off to be experimented on by some evolutionists in white coats and it would mean that I’d be a guy. I don’t think my angel would feel the same way about me if I were a man- with or without a primate nephew.
Anyway, Uriel looked drop dead gorgeous as he walked over to stand by my side and take my hand. He knew how I’d dreaded this night.
I looked in the mirror that was now on the other side of the room. My angel of perfection appeared just as handsome in the reflection as he did in person. From the distance we were from the mirror, I could see us from head to toe. I was wearing the white dress I’d picked out- a small, happy thing about this night had actually gone my way. It was the one with unknown pockets. It hung off my shoulders, hugged to my waist, and then got slightly fuller until it ended somewhere around my knees. Mother couldn’t refuse that I had filled all of her quotas; it was spotlessly white and obviously meant for a formal occasion. But it did give a small hint that it wasn’t willingly formal. If I looked at it a certain way, I could swear there was some rebellion in the built-in creases of the lower half.
“You look fetching,” I divulged.
“You are absolutely breathtaking.”
I flushed with pleasure. “Breathtaking enough to warrant a kiss from you?”
Uriel leaned down to me but stopped just before our lips touched. “Do you know what Edmond Rostand wrote in Cyrano de Bergerac about a kiss?”
I shook my head and reminded myself to breathe.
He whispered, “‘A kiss! When all is said, what is a kiss? An oath of allegiance taken in closer proximity, a promise more precise, a seal on a confession, a rose-red dot upon the letter i in loving; a secret which elects the mouth for ear; an instant of eternity murmuring like a bee; balmy communion with a flavor of flowers; a fashion of inhaling each other’s heart, and of tasting, on the brink of the lips, each other’s soul!’”
Oh! He was driving me mad! “I know you can quote flawlessly but prove to me you can put those words into action.”
And boy did he prove it. Uriel closed the very small space between our lips and kissed me till my head was spinning.
Once apart, I struggled to remember what we’d been talking about before… My voice was still a little weak as I said, “A tux suits you, and that’s not something I would say about most people.”
Uriel cleared his throat and picked up on the previous topic quickly. “James Bond wore a suit in every novel and movie.”
“Yes he did,” I allowed. “But I will swear in front of Bond groupies everywhere that you are way hotter than Daniel Craig and Pierce Brosnan and all of the other 007s put together.”
Uriel smiled. “Would you do me the honor of being my Bondgirl this evening, Miss Fairchild?”
“No, no, no. This is my coming out evening, so I’d have to be considered a Bondwoman now.”
He laughed at my casual joke about the night I’d been shrinking from for months.
“When did you get here?” I asked him. “And, what I mean by that is: How long have you been so close to me without my being aware of it? I would have seen you sooner if I’d known you were here.”
“Azra, Odeda, Dagan, and I got here only fifteen minutes ago. After making it plain that she didn’t approve of guests arriving early, your mother directed me to a room a few over from this one. I was instructed to change and wait for inspection.”
“And did you pass?”
“She appeared surprised while she said I was ready. Then she swept out without another syllable.”
“That is her
way… Did you leave Zev at home or something?” I remembered he’d left his furriest brother out of the line-up.
“He actually said he’d meet us here before taking off before the rest of us were ready to leave.” A pensive expression crossed Uriel’s face. “I don’t know what he was up to. He was acting strangely nervous about something…”
“Like Zev has a reason to be nervous,” I said glumly.
Uriel squeezed my fingers. “Would it make you feel better to sneak down and see the others?”
“I wouldn’t have to feel better if it was just you here,” I criticized.
“Keira, I will not apologize for including your friends in this event. Your father asked me for some names. He thought you wouldn’t mind the ceremony if some people you actually knew and liked were present.”
“And so you told him everyone I’m friends with?”
“Just the guild, Meredith, Josh, and Alicia. And Elly.” Uriel’s gaze was scrutinizing. He saw the worry flash across my face. “Let’s slip downstairs.”
Uriel pulled me through the doorway and down the hall. We poked our heads around the wall that ended when the grand staircase began. There were expensive-looking flowers hung on the banister leading down to the main level where a dance floor was the center of the enormous room. Tables made to seat groups of ten were positioned on the outskirts of the dance area. I didn’t allow my eyes to linger on those tables or else I might actually feel some form of grudging respect for the work Mother had put into organizing the ceremony. Instead, I swept the large space for familiar faces. Most guests were arriving since the appointed arrival time was seven o’clock and it was, according to a grandfather clock positioned in the hallway Uriel and I were standing in, five minutes past seven.
“I never-”
Peering up at Uriel, I wondered what he had started to say. He was staring down to the first floor with astonishment splashed across his features.
Defiant Destiny Page 36