“I really don’t mind,” I told her. “I’m getting used to having her around.”
“That’s sweet and I appreciate it.” Her voice started to crack. “She hasn’t had the easiest time keeping friends the past few years. That’s my fault.”
“Nah,” I said to my feet. If it was difficult enough to look at Kate for very long to start with, it was impossible when she was upset.
“Thank you,” she said, and just like Sara, she came forward and hugged me with no warning.
“It’s okay,” I said, and hugged her very lightly. I really wasn’t sure where it was okay to put my hands. “I like having her around,” I told her. “She doesn’t bother me, honestly.”
“That’s very sweet of you, Jake,” she sniffed. “But Sara’s my responsibility, not yours, or your dad’s.”
“Okay,” I said. “But I really don’t mind her hanging around.”
After a moment she let me go from the long hug. “Sorry again,” she said. “You don’t need another one.”
I shrugged, shook my head, mumbled something, and managed to say nothing of any meaning.
“She’s waiting for you,” Kate said. “Go on down before she suspects we’re talking about her.”
I got out of there without any arguments. I wasn’t used to having these cake-bringing, problem-having, emotional, very pretty women around. Although, I figured as I was walking, I could adjust all right, if things settled down.
15
Sara went home with Kate after dark Tuesday night, and returned again later to find me waiting on the dock. She was talkative while we were on the dock and seemed only mildly disappointed when it became apparent that I was fading out for the night. We stood, I stretched and she hugged herself, and we started up the dock. I went along slowly, my whole body feeling weighted, with her tagging alongside. Once to the grass we lingered there between the shop and the house.
“I know you need sleep,” she said with her hands drawn into her sleeves. “You look pretty rough.”
“Thanks,” I yawned.
“Maybe we can swim tomorrow when you get home.”
“I’ll be ready, for sure.”
“Okay,” she smiled faintly in the dark. “Go get some sleep, you.”
“I can walk with you.”
She shook her head. “Go in. You can barely stand up.”
“All right.” I felt myself wobbling. I breathed deep, holding back another yawn as she started off and, after a few steps, looked back over her shoulder.
“Night, Jake.”
“Night, Sara.”
“See you tomorrow.”
“Yup.”
“Bye.” She waved by the corner of the shop.
“Bye.”
I waited until I guessed she was inside, and then staggered into the house and up the stairs where I crumbled into my bed. My bed felt softer than ever before. I was glad that she’d left in a good mood. I might have thought more about everything if I’d not fallen instantly asleep.
I blinked. My alarm said 1:49. I was suddenly awake, but not in a panicked or uncomfortable way. I held very still, breathing gently. There was no sound in my room other than the trees moving outside my window, but there was a feeling, a pressure, that I did not understand. I tried to roll over and found that I could not. Something prevented me. I looked, lifting and turning my head. My eyes adjusted in the dark room, first picking up a shadow, a shape, and finally a clear picture. I could see the bright color of her sweatshirt against my dark comforter and the lightness of her hair. Sara was in my room, in my bed, huddled as close as she could get to me with her face on the unoccupied corner of my pillow. I shifted away, creating a space, and rolled over toward her, feeling her pressure leave and then return as I faced her. She was looking back at me with those wide-open eyes as silently as a mouse.
“I don’t wanna sleep without you,” she whispered from what seemed a great distance but so close that I could feel her breath.
“Did you dream?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay now?”
“Yes. Don’t make me go.”
“I won’t.”
“I know I shouldn’t have.”
“It’s okay.”
“You won’t make me go?”
“No.”
“Promise?”
“I promise,” I said. But as I slipped back into sleep, I knew the trouble it would cause me come morning.
It was very early when I woke with a strange feeling. The room was shadowy gray, the house silent, and the outdoors through the window dead calm, just before sunrise. There was a feeling, an uneasy feeling. My memory kicked in and I turned my head enough to see Sara sleeping quietly. I watched her for a moment before I slipped out of bed and put on a sweatshirt and jeans. Nudging her gently, I woke her, whispering that we had to go, that I was sorry to wake her so early but it had to be done.
In slow sleepy movements she threw her legs out from under the covers and sat up, then got to her feet and stepped into her sandals. Her eyes were half-open and her hair looked comically disheveled. When she was steady enough to walk, I took her hand and led her out, quietly, down the hall, tiptoeing on the stairs, stiff legs and feet loosening, heart beating nervously as we made our way through the living room, past the hall to Dad’s room, into the kitchen, the floorboards lightly creaking. Then we were through the doorway to the porch, the screen door closing gently, and across the pale yard through the cool dew to the drive, where we stopped before the shop.
“I’m fine now,” Sara said softly. “You go back.”
“All right.”
“I’m sorry, Jake.”
“Get in before she notices.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“No. You just need to get in.”
She nodded and let go of my hand. I started turning away but stopped when I felt her grab my arm. She sprung forward and kissed the side of my face, then just as quickly turned and ran for home. I stood there watching her run in her light bouncy way. Everything came effortlessly from her hips and through her long legs with the small torso seemingly unmoving, her arms raised and barely swinging and her messy hair streaming behind. When she was gone, I went up onto the porch, dried my feet with yesterday’s towel hung to dry after swimming, and went in to get my socks and boots to row. It felt like I was a burglar in my own house.
In the boat I rowed out into the new morning. Over my shoulder I watched the little camp moving away behind me, wondering what she was doing now and wondering if we’d actually gotten away with it. I faced ahead again and rowed on harder away from the shore. I hoped that my head would clear as the distance grew between me and everything on the shore.
It was another typical morning on the water. I felt the oars in my hands as familiar as old friends with the rhythmic dip and push of each stroke. My muscles soon loosened and my lungs filled nicely with the chilly air. Around me the morning mists were breaking up, thinning and rising under the growing light of day. But as long as I rowed that morning, the fog clouding my thoughts refused to lift.
16
All that Wednesday morning I waited for my old man to confront me. I knew it wouldn’t come in the form of any trouble for me—it was Sara that I was concerned with. Setting aside the strange details that I didn’t fully understand anyway, plainly and simply, I didn’t like her feeling so badly in the first place. Staying awake all night alone and sneaking around was nothing compared to whatever was driving her to do so. I could handle that part, her behavior. It was what might happen because of it that worried me, the not knowing. Kate might take her away if she felt she was losing control of the situation. Or maybe not. Maybe they were truly out of options. I didn’t know one way or the other, and my mind kept circling around the matter.
But nothing ever came of that night. At work we got on better than the previous day, and as a result the day moved by at a more comfortable pace. I was able to focus on the task before me, as I had always done, guided by my father’s careful instruction,
where I felt most comfortable. By the day’s end I’d reached the point where it almost felt like the old days again—just the old man and me.
Around half past five we rolled up the driveway, both of us feeling that glad-to-be-home feeling, tired but satisfied with our accomplishments for the day. The old man had some billing papers to go over and told me not to wait. He would join me for a swim, he assured me, as soon as he was finished.
I sat on the rock cooling after a good but hot day. I was feeling good about things, good and clearheaded and sensible, a little hungry, and I was looking forward to seeing Sara again. Maybe she would get over things in time, settle in comfortably so that it would no longer be necessary to worry about the nights. Her bright side could take over, forcing out the rest. Kate and Sara both would be more at ease then. So would the old man and me. Problem solved. Moving on. It could all be good, the way I was seeing it then, practically sixteen and a part-time builder’s apprentice.
With her daytime bounce and exuberance, Sara came out in a different bathing suit. It was white and it made her skin look darker. She waved from the beach, kicking off her sandals, and then she was splashing and swimming, nearing, coming up alongside me on the rock, dripping and breathing, pushing back clumps of wet hair and asking if I’d noticed the new bathing suit.
“I did, actually.”
“Do you like it?”
“I do. I was thinking I might ask to borrow it sometime.”
“Shut up,” she laughed, looking down at it. “Can you believe it was on fall clearance for nine dollars?”
“No way.”
“Uh-huh. Mom had the day off so we went shopping all day, and out to lunch.” She looked back up to me happily. “Have you bought new school clothes yet?”
“No. Where did you eat?”
“You think with your stomach, I swear.”
“I’m hungry. Where did you eat?”
“Wait. You seriously have no new school clothes?”
“No.” I smiled. “Where?”
“Subway. Stop trying to distract me. I’m not that blonde. Why haven’t you got clothes yet?”
“Because I don’t care.”
“Don’t you want to feel good and look good in new things to start the year out on a positive note?”
I shook my head. “I hate school.”
“That’s sad.”
I shrugged.
“I don’t mind school,” she said. “Changing halfway through the year is what I hate.”
“That’s understandable.”
“It’s awful.”
“Well, hopefully you’re done with all that changing and moving.”
“I hope so,” she smiled. “While we’re on school, I have a question.”
“Shoot, Goldilocks.”
“Okay, so it’s not exactly a question,” she said, her face slowly taking on a strategically sadder look. “I was hoping you would show me around the first day. I’ll be nervous and trying to find my way around and it would just be really nice if you’d walk with me and help me get off to a good start.”
“If I have to,” I teased. It was a knee-jerk reaction of my mood.
“I’m serious, Jake.” Her eyes narrowed. “Will you walk with me and show me around?”
“You’re dead serious?”
“Yes.”
“You know I will.”
“That’s what Mom told me.”
“You honestly think I’ll go off and leave you standing there lost?”
“I don’t know what you’re like at school, around other people.”
“I change into a real bastard around other people,” I laughed.
“It’s not funny.” She punched my shoulder. “You hated me at first, remember?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Seriously, it’s awful at a new school having all those kids staring at you and talking about you. And some people do act different.”
“Okay,” I said. “Yes, I’ll show you around the first day. But it’s really nothing to stress over, trust me. It’s not a big school. You couldn’t get lost in the building unless you were blindfolded. We don’t even have a football team.”
“I still want someone to walk with.”
“You have someone to walk with.”
“Thank you,” she smiled.
“But people will still talk because you’re new. You can’t stop that part.”
“It won’t bother me if I’m with someone.”
“Alright, problem solved,” I said. “How easy was that?”
“Just think,” Sara began in a lighter tone, “now people can say, ‘Hey, look at Jake Thornton walking around with that beautiful, glamorous new girl.’”
“Glamorous,” I laughed, because of my mood, not because I intended to mock her. “Everything is so serious.”
“Whatever,” she sighed, and she moved over against my side, letting her head down onto the shoulder she’d just punched. “I know you adore me.”
“Yeah?” I said quieter. Her wet gold hair was tickling me.
“Uh-huh.”
“You’re pretty confident now.”
“I know it’s true. And you were right about stressing over it. There’s no point.”
“So can we stop being so serious now?”
“I’m done with it. I just had to ask.”
“We’ve got a week of summer left. Let’s not waste it thinking about school, or anything serious.”
“I can try.”
“I can do it easily.” I waited, but she said nothing more of it. So then I asked her what she got at Subway.
“Geez,” she laughed lightly. “Turkey.”
“A twelve or a six?”
“Just a six. I can’t eat all that like you.”
“I’ve downed two in one sitting before.”
“Oink, oink.”
Maybe, I was thinking, the old man will be in the mood for Subway after he swims.
17
That night I read on the porch. While my old man dozed in his recliner, I fished the river with Nick Adams. I read until I saw movement over the top of the book, Sara’s silhouette moving in the last light. I went out to meet her.
“Dad’s in the chair. Up for a walk?”
“I don’t know.”
“Just in the driveway this time.”
“That works.”
We started down the drive, walking quietly on the springy pine needles. After a few steps I felt her hand reaching again, and I closed mine around it.
“Reading Nick again?” she asked, her soft voice very near under the thick awning of trees.
“Of course.”
“Do you ever read other kinds of books?”
“Not really.”
“So I take it you don’t like fantasy-type stories?”
“I’ve never given it much of a chance,” I admitted, and I could tell she was disappointed. “So that’s what you like?”
“I love it.”
“What are you reading now?”
She told me the title. I had never heard of it.
“It’s a series of five,” she explained, “with at least six hundred pages per book. I wouldn’t even know where to begin describing it.”
“Give it a shot. It’s a long driveway.”
“You’re sure?”
“You’re wasting driveway,” I smiled.
“Well, there are lots of characters involved, but most of the story revolves around one special girl and one special guy. It’s a destiny thing—fate and all that. There’s some romance to it, and a lot of magic involved, and it’s crucial for them to be together because the whole world depends on it, to fulfill a certain prophecy.”
“Oh,” I said so she’d know I was listening.
“The problem is,” she continued, sounding more excited with each word, “the forces of evil are trying to keep them apart and destroy the magic so they can cover the world in darkness. The two of them have so many close calls, it just kills me sometimes.”
; “You have fun reading that?”
“Yes.”
“It sounds stressful.”
“It is! But the good parts are worth it. I’m on the fourth book now, my second time through the series. And the best part lately—” She paused suddenly. “If you make fun—”
“I won’t.”
“This is like, a big deal for me.”
We were moving out of the pines now, our steps crunching on the dirt away from the cushioning of the pine needles. Overhead, between the shadows of the hardwood leaves, I could faintly make out the differently dark sky and the intermittent twinkling of stars.
“Go on,” I said.
“The main guy character sort of reminds me of you,” she said.
“How’s that?”
“He’s just always there for her. He helps her. And he cares for her so much. It’s really sweet.”
“That’s cool,” I told her, but I felt warmly embarrassed. I couldn’t see how she could make such a connection. They didn’t sound like real people to me. But I did my best to hide it. Clearly it meant something to her if she was on her second time through the series.
“You help me,” Sara told me.
“Yeah?” I could feel her eyes on me. As dense as I am sometimes, I knew where she was going with it all, and the realization of it unnerved me a bit.
“Yes. You do.”
“I’m glad, Sara.”
We were silent for a while amid the small sounds of our steps and the crickets in the night. I wished she’d say something.
“Does this make you feel weird, Jake?”
“No,” I lied, looking ahead. We were nearing the road where the light shone pale over the dark pavement. “I don’t know what to say is all. I’ve never read those books.”
We stopped on the pavement. The last traces of the day’s warmth radiated from the still-tacky road.
“Should I keep these things to myself?”
“No,” I said. “You can talk about anything you want. I just thought you … liked to avoid some things, if possible.”
“I know I’m a pain.”
“I’m not saying that.”
“You must think it sometimes.”
“Not really.”
All Things Different Page 9