“I was,” he answered, without elaboration.
“Oh. When you were younger?”
He moved to the edge of my desk and sat on it. “Yes, when I was younger.”
He was not giving me much information, but my mother had always drilled me not to pry. I knew that he was not a student at the high school, but it was likely he was older and had already graduated. I just had to be patient and maybe he would tell me more as we talked.
“You like your job here,” he said. It was not a question but a statement.
I walked around him and sat in the chair, facing him. His eyes were brown, not the mud brown of ordinary eyes but a lighter, amber color that caught and reflected the light. They were fringed by feathery lashes the same shade as his hair.
“It’s quiet,” I responded, agreeing. “It gives me plenty of time to think.”
“And you are a thinker.”
I grinned. “My physics teacher would not agree with that statement,” I said. “I got a D on my last test.”
“I wasn’t very good at physics either,” he replied with that same slight smile. It lit his eyes but barely touched his mouth.
“I know that it would come as a shock to Mr. Rafferty if he heard me say this, but I don’t care how long it would take a rolling ball traveling on a flat surface to intersect with a parallel line,” I added. “It doesn’t strike me as one of the great unanswered questions of the world.”
“It isn’t, Cory. You can bet on that.”
I froze in the act of reaching for my pack. “How did you know my name?” I asked, startled.
“I was here earlier when that other lady was waiting for you to come,” he said. “I heard her mention your name.”
“You were here? Did you talk to Benti?”
He shook his head. “No, she didn’t see me.”
That didn’t ring true. Benti didn’t miss anything. I unzipped the pouch thoughtfully and displayed a plum. “Would you like one?”
“No, thank you.”
I bit into mine and regarded him closely. He had a vivid, angry scar on his forehead, twisting into his scalp beyond the hairline. Otherwise he was quite attractive, not handsome exactly, but manly and compelling in a quiet, understated way. He interrupted my reverie by reaching out across the desk and touching my face. I was so shocked I almost dropped the plum in my lap.
“Why did you do that?” I whispered, staring at him.
“I wanted to know what it was like to touch you,” he said simply. His fingers trailed down my cheek to my lips, wet with plum juice. He traced my mouth with his forefinger and then dropped his hand.
I swallowed hard, trying to regain my lost equilibrium. This guy was an original, all right. It was for sure he hadn’t been hanging around Delaware Valley High recently. He didn’t pick up that technique in the boys’ locker room.
“Did I frighten you?” he asked suddenly, concern in his voice. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“No, no,” I answered hastily, the picture of nonchalance as I tossed the rest of the fruit in the wastebasket. “I was just surprised, that’s all.”
He stood and jammed his hands in his pockets. “You must bear with me, Cory. I’ve been out of touch and I’m really not sure how to act. You should tell me if I do anything wrong.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” I assured him, not wanting to hurt his feelings. “The guys I know aren’t usually so . . . direct, and I was startled. I’m over it now.”
“Perhaps they would be more direct if they knew how little time there was to waste,” he said enigmatically.
“Why have you been out of touch?” I asked curiously, sidestepping that.
“I’ve been away.”
“Far?”
“Very far.”
“Are you glad to be home?”
“I’m very glad to be here with you,” he replied, crossing his legs at the ankle and leaning against the wall. “Tell me about your school.”
“My school? Dullsville, there’s nothing to tell.”
“Humor me, Cory. What do you study there?”
“College prep, the usual courses. Two years of a foreign language, four years of English, a lab science, the Boredom Express.”
“When do you go to college?”
“In two years. I’m a junior.”
“I wanted to go to college,” he said, so wistfully that I felt ashamed of my offhand remarks.
“Why didn’t you?” I asked him.
“Oh, I didn’t have the money, and then . . . I just never made it,” he said vaguely.
“You could still go,” I said. “You’re young.”
He straightened. “I’m older than you think, Cory.”
“You have me at a disadvantage,” I said, using a line from an old movie I’d seen. “You know my name and I don’t know yours.”
“I’m Tom,” he replied, moving to stand next to me and extending his hand. “How do you do?”
His fingers were long and slender, very warm. “Cory Simpson, pleased to meet you,” I recited.
“Not as pleased as I am to meet you,” he responded, holding on to my hand.
We stood that way for a long moment, as if posing for an election night photograph. I was mesmerized by his intent, watchful gaze.
He glanced down at the desk. “What are you reading?” he asked, finally releasing my hand.
“The Bell Jar.”
He looked blank.
You’ve never heard of it?”
“No.”
“It’s supposed to be a famous study of disturbed adolescence. The author of it committed suicide years later.”
Tom looked very sad. “What a terrible waste. I don’t understand how a person could throw away life like that. So many people die who want to live. How could anyone choose to give up what others prize so highly?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, uncomfortable with his vehemence. “It’s a pretty depressing story. I would have been better off with Treasure Island.”
“What?” he said, blinking.
“We had a list of books to choose from for this report. I almost chose Treasure Island.”
“Oh, I see. Stevenson is still popular?”
“He is with Miss Kenworthy, my English teacher,” I said darkly.
“Miss Kenworthy has good taste,” Tom said, smiling.
“You wouldn’t think so if you had her for The American Novel. There are only twelve of us in the class; it’s an advanced seminar for interested students. That is, we were interested when we began it. It meets first period when everyone is still asleep, and Kenworthy contributes to the snores with her line readings from Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. The course is now known as The American Coma.”
Tom laughed. It was a hearty, infectious sound in the still, silent office.
“It isn’t funny,” I said, smiling in spite of myself. “You try listening to The Fall of the House of Usher at eight o’clock in the morning. It hasn’t fallen yet, and I keep wondering what I can do to bring it down a little sooner.”
He cupped my chin in his hand and looked into my eyes. “Would you move away so you couldn’t work here any more?” he asked out of the blue.
“Only if I got Miss Kenworthy for English again next semester,” I replied, joking.
“I’m serious, Cory,” he stated, searching my face.
My smile faded. What was this? “My mother has a job in town, Tom. I’m not going anywhere.”
His expression softened. “Then you will always come back here.”
“As long as I need the money. Right now that looks like always to me.”
“Good,” he said, sounding relieved. He dropped his hand and stepped backward, as if he had accomplished his mission.
I regarded him thoughtfully, puzzled. What on earth had made him ask me that? It was not the sort of subject you broached with a new acquaintance: Hi, how are you, are you moving away? He was different, but the difference intrigued me, as differences always did
.
“Were you worried that I’d ditch my wonderful, high- paying executive position here?” I asked.
“I was worried that you’d do exactly that, yes,” he answered. He smiled reassuringly. “But I’m not any more.”
I really didn’t see what my continuing employment had to do with anything, but I let it go. He seemed placated; his face was relaxed. I was very glad of the change. His lightning transition to that odd mood had given me the creeps.
The phone rang, and I answered it while Tom watched me, his arms folded casually. It was a client trying to reach one of the agents. I gave the number where the agent could be located and hung up.
“The people who work here all sell real estate?” Tom asked.
“That’s right.”
“And they have cars to drive around town?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a car?”
I rolled my eyes. “My mother has a car. She even lets me use it on rare occasions. I think I had it during the last solar eclipse.”
“Then you know how to drive.”
“Opinions differ on that subject. I have a driver’s license, but my mother believes I printed it myself.”
He stared at me blankly.
“She thinks I’m a terrible driver,” I explained.
“Is it difficult to drive?”
I glanced at him, surprised. “Don’t you know how?”
He looked embarrassed. “I lived on a farm. I drove tractors. I never learned to drive a car.”
“I can teach you. It’s easy.”
“Aren’t you afraid you’ll hit one of the other cars on the road?”
“Sure,” I said dryly. “That’s what’s known as an accident.”
The doorbell sounded behind me. “Excuse me, I have to get that,” I said, standing up to go to the entrance. It was Agnes Harrington, one of the agents, signaling me through the window.
“Forgot my key,” she said breathlessly as she brushed past me. “I need the papers for that closing first thing in the morning.” She went to her desk and began rummaging in a drawer.
I hesitated, realizing that the door had been locked after all. I turned to ask Tom about it, and paused, amazed.
Agnes and I were alone in the office. Tom was gone.
I didn’t move for a few moments, trying to collect my wits. Was he in the rest room? No, the door was ajar and I could see that it was empty. Everything else in the office was open to view, and he wasn’t anywhere.
I trotted down the steps and touched Agnes’s arm. “Did you see that guy I was talking to just now?” I asked her.
She was rummaging through the piles of papers and folders on her desk. She didn’t look up as she answered, “What guy? Jeez, it’s cold in here.”
“He was here when you rang the bell. Young guy my age, tall, with brown hair.” I hadn’t noticed that the room was chilly.
“I didn’t see anybody,” she said, making a disgusted face and tossing a half eaten sandwich she’d uncovered into the trash.
“Agnes, you must have seen him. He was standing right behind me.”
“Honey, I didn’t even see you. I was looking in my purse for that lousy key. I didn’t register who was inside until you opened the door.”
“The door was locked? You tried it?”
She finally looked at me, her eyes wide as if I were deranged. “Of course it was locked; why do you think I rang the bell?”
I saw that it would be wise to stop this line of questioning. Agnes already thought I was a flake. She had once asked me to drop off a client of hers at a house she was going to show. I took her car and left the woman off at 1312 First Avenue, and then went back to the office. About an hour later, Agnes showed up at 1312 First Street, which was the actual address of the property up for sale. Agnes and her erstwhile buyer spent the rest of the evening wandering around town looking for one another. Needless to say, this did not endear the client to Werner Real Estate, or Agnes to me. It had taken six months for her to stop calling me Daniel Boone (the trailblazer, wonderful sense of direction).
“Okay,” I responded inanely. “Thanks.”
Agnes located the folder for which she was searching, and departed with a preoccupied wave. I sat behind the desk and stared at the map of Yardley on the wall.
How had Tom gotten in with a locked door? How had he gotten out without walking past me?
And most important, would I ever see him again?
I walked home in a daze, reliving my meeting with him. My mother was correcting papers at the kitchen table when I arrived. Stella threw herself against my legs several times, and then collapsed, panting, in her corner by the door.
“Listen to this,” my mother said as I dumped my things on a chair and headed for the refrigerator. “‘The island of Molokai is famous for its colony of leapers,’” she recited, reading from one of the essay books she had piled in front of her.
“I presume that is supposed to be ‘lepers,’” I responded.
“This kid will never learn to spell,” she muttered, slashing through a word with her red pencil.
“I wouldn’t be too sure that’s wrong,” I said. “You’ve never been to Molokai. Maybe there’s a bunch of leapers there too, leaping around the beaches in sarongs.”
My mother merely looked at me, and then went back to her work.
I poured myself a glass of milk and watched her for a while. I look like her; we both have the same wheat blond hair and china blue eyes. “My Viking Princesses,” my father used to call us. But that was before, when he and my mother still got along.
She felt my gaze on her and looked up. “How was the world of real property tonight?” she asked.
“Real enough,” I answered. “Agnes Harrington dropped by to pick up some papers.” I was careful not to mention the evening’s other, more significant event. My mother didn’t like me to socialize with boys unless she had gone to kindergarten with their mothers. She considered everyone else “outsiders.” This encompassed the entire population of the planet beyond Yardley.
“Hmmph,” my mother said, not commenting further. She didn’t have to. Agnes had defeated my mother for the coveted position of head cheerleader at Delaware Valley High. This event had taken place twenty-four years ago, but as far as my mother was concerned, Agnes’s name was mud from that day forward.
“I’d better go up and finish my homework,” I said, gulping the last of the milk.
“You didn’t get it done at work?” she asked, frowning at some fourth grader’s incomprehensible handwriting.
“Not all of it,” I said vaguely. “I’ll see you in the morning. Good night.”
“Night,” she responded, holding the notebook up to the light. I felt sorry for her. She was always buried in paperwork.
Stella resurrected as soon as she saw me heading for the stairs. She loved to sleep on beds, and she knew she was more likely to get away with it when she accompanied one of us into the sack. I was usually too tired to argue with her, and even my mother got sick of shooing her off after a while. Stella was in her element when we both left our doors open and she could commute between the two rooms. She liked to fling herself on us dramatically in the middle of the night. She was heavy, too, and immovable as the Rock of Cashel. If we nudged her to suggest she might give us a little more room, she glared at us with offended dignity.
There was no doubt about it, the dog ran the house.
I changed to my pajamas and dashed off a wildly incoherent book report that would probably set Miss Kenworthy back a few years, and then turned out the lamp. I lay in bed watching the pattern the leaves made on the ceiling in the faint illumination from the streetlight.
How could I find Tom if he didn’t show up again? I didn’t even know his last name, or anything else about him. I sighed dispiritedly as Stella rolled over on my foot.
It was going to be up to him. If he didn’t search me out at work, our relationship would be over before it began.
* * *
By lunchtime I was bursting to tell Linda about Tom. She was sitting at our usual table, but my heart sank when I saw she was with Gina Fusco. I didn’t want an audience for this revelation.
“Hi, guys,” I said, dropping into a seat across from them and opening my bag. “What’s new?”
“Helen Stenberg broke her finger in gym this morning,” Gina said.
I looked over at her. I tried not to hate Gina, but it was difficult. She looked like an Etruscan bronze: cascading coal black hair, huge sloe eyes, a matte olive complexion and perfect, chiseled features. One glance at her and you knew why all those ancient Romans spent a lot of time in their country villas. Without makeup, my eyelashes are invisible. Gina’s look like a mascara commercial.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Mary Halpern landed on it when she was doing a back flip. You could hear the crunch across the room. Landers almost had a nervous breakdown.”
Mrs. Landers was Gina’s gym teacher. “I’ll bet,” I said. “‘Girls, girls, girls,’” I went on, doing my Landers imitation, “‘you must develop control. Learn to comport yourselves like mature young ladies.’”
Gina and Linda laughed. “She was comporting herself like a nut case. You would have thought Helen was dead, the way Landers was carrying on. She probably thinks she’s going to get sued,” Gina commented.
“Somebody should sue her for unlawful impersonation of a gym teacher,” Linda added darkly. Mrs. Landers had flunked Linda twice, on demerits. Linda rarely had her gym suit, and her locker was always like the Black Hole of Calcutta. She fully expected to be making up physical education credits until she was forty.
Gina looked up from the table and suddenly became very attentive. I followed the direction of her gaze. Jack Donovan, a senior football player and her latest flame, was lounging by the cafeteria entrance, signaling to Gina.
Season of Mists (Young Adult Paranormal Romance) (Cupid's First Strike - Teen Love In The 80's) Page 2