Set In Stone

by Balmanno, Beth

  We walked in silence. Noel opened the door for me and I stepped past him. I paused at the first classroom.

  “The physics class is two doors down.” I pointed to an open door. “Do you want me to show you?”

  “Yes,” Noel said. “But you don’t have to. I don’t want you to be late.” Still, he lingered by my side.

  “OK.” I stood awkwardly. Should I watch him walk to his classroom, make certain he found the right door? Or should I just say a quick goodbye and find my seat?

  He put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Thank you,” he said. And then he added, “I’m glad we found each other, Valerie.”

  Chemistry flew by that afternoon. Not because Mr. Hall’s lecturing skills had improved but because my thoughts were consumed by Noel. I replayed the events of the last few days over in my head, from the weekend camping trip to Noel’s arrival at school. I didn’t know who he was or why he had shown up at my school. Could it be, as he’d said, serendipitous? Was it simply fate? Maybe some divine force in the Universe had realized I’d gotten a bum deal with Jessica moving and had sent Noel in her place? I laughed to myself. I didn’t know if a gorgeous boy who appeared to be stalking me was a good substitute for a lost best friend.

  My thoughts kept returning to the stone in my pocket. It had felt like a dry ice cube, its coldness slowly seeping into my leg throughout art class and on our walk to the science building. However, once we’d said our goodbyes and I’d found my seat in class, it had slowly warmed and now did its shuffle between hot and cold. What was it about this rock? It wasn’t just the strange temperature fluctuation that fascinated me, but the fierce possessiveness I felt about it. That morning, while hurrying to ready myself for school, I’d toyed briefly with leaving it at home, of tucking it away in my jewelry box. But as soon as I’d formed those thoughts, I’d pushed the idea aside, placing it firmly in my pocket instead.

  I was almost certain Noel knew about it, though I didn’t have any proof of this. I was sure it was the reason he’d approached me at the campground and why he was here, enrolling at my school. What I couldn’t fathom was why he wanted it. And more importantly, what he might do to get it.

  Chapter 8

  It was a race to get from the science building to the student parking lot across campus. I knew Peter would hold to his threat and I didn’t want to be stuck begging a ride from someone else.

  Peter was unlocking the driver’s side when I showed up, panting and out of breath. His car was an older model black BMW, a hand-me-down from his dad. He got in, reached across, and unlocked the passenger door. I settled my backpack on my lap and was still fastening my seat belt when he peeled out of the parking lot.

  “So I heard there’s a new guy,” he said. “He’s in one of your classes?” The Upper School enrolled less than five-hundred students. It was no surprise that news of Noel’s arrival had spread like wildfire through the school.

  “Yep.” His car reeked of stale, cigarette smoke and I tried not to speak—or breathe—too much.

  “Well…?” Peter waited.

  “Well what?”

  “What’s he like? Ashley said you offered to show him to one of his classes—that pissed her off to no end, you know.”

  “I didn’t offer, he asked. And he’s fine. Nice.” I didn’t add that he was the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen, or that I’d met him at a campground a hundred miles away two days earlier.

  He snorted and cranked up the radio. Bass vibrated throughout the entire car as a rapper belted out profane lyrics.

  Peter drove faster than my mom and we were back at my house in just under six minutes. “Thanks for the ride,” I said. I wanted a shower to wash away the stench of cigarettes clinging to my clothes.

  “See ya.” He gunned the engine and was speeding down the street before both of my feet hit the sidewalk.

  Mom sat at the dining room table with Fiona, the next-door neighbor. Stacks of books and papers surrounded them and I looked closer: design books, wallpaper samples and paint chips littered the cherry wood surface. I wondered what had happened to her appointment at the salon.

  “Hi Valerie.” Fiona was the one to greet me. “How was school?”

  “Fine,” I answered.

  I studied my mom for a minute. No new hairstyle or highlights. It probably had been a Botox appointment.

  I looked at the mess on the table. “What’s all this?”

  “Your mom wants to redo the master bedroom.” Fiona dabbled in interior design. She’d helped remodel several of the houses in the neighborhood.

  “And bath,” Mom added.

  Of course. Mom was always remodeling, much to Fiona’s delight. Last year it had been the kitchen, a major overhaul that involved tearing down walls and gutting the entire existing space. We ate out for four months straight, which was nothing new. Mom rarely cooked. I’d pointed this out to her when she’d started planning that particular remodel but she’d just pursed her lips and said nothing. Prior to that, she’d focused her attention on the sun room, adding a flagstone fireplace and French doors that opened out to the matching flagstone patio she’d had constructed the year before.

  “We could redo your bedroom,” Mom suggested. “Some new paint and furniture…?”

  “No thanks,” I said. “I like my room just the way it is.”

  She frowned and returned to the wallpaper and paint samples in front of her. I made a quick detour into the kitchen to grab an apple. The kitchen had turned out nice, I had to admit. Mom had chosen only the best, selecting teak cabinets and black-marble counter tops, installing brand-new stainless steel appliances, and creating a breakfast bar. Nestled between two floor-to-ceiling columns and topped with black marble, it spanned nearly the entire width of the kitchen. It was my favorite place to eat. But not when my mother was nearby.

  I headed upstairs, to the level of our house filled with bedrooms, rooms for all of the brothers and sisters I would never have. The walls between those rooms were thin and when I was much younger, huddled under my covers in the darkness of night, I would hear Dad’s low, tentative voice bring up the “A” word, usually a month or so after Mom’s latest visit to the doctor or hospital. Mom would say loudly, firmly, “I don’t want to talk about it,” and they wouldn’t speak of it again, at least not until the next dead baby. They hadn’t mentioned it in years. The bedrooms waited.

  I walked past those empty rooms now, rooms brimming with furniture, all beautifully decorated—and then redecorated again—but still empty of the things she craved most. My feet sank into the thick beige carpet as I reached the end of the hallway. My own room was there to welcome me with its graffitied walls and furniture. It was the only room in the house that belonged to me. The stress of the day melted away as the walls of my room embraced me.

  The graffiti had started innocently enough, a spontaneous, late-night inking of my signature on the wall next to my bed, the ball-point pen whispering across the pale pink wall. I spent countless nights retracing that signature with my fingertip until one night, I’d imprinted it with a thick, black Sharpie. My artistic venture was met with thin-lipped silence by Mom when she’d discovered it a few days later. She’d told Dad about it the following morning as he’d hurried out the door.

  “What’s the big deal, Julie?” he’d said. “It’s her room. She can write all over the walls if she wants to.”

  And with Dad’s seal of approval, that’s what I did, arming myself with Sharpies and, as I grew more confident, spray paint. The writing was innocent enough—quotes from books and famous people, silly ramblings and sayings that only Jess and I would understand—but Mom made her displeasure clear by avoiding my room at all costs. Her offer to redecorate did not suggest generosity; it spoke of her intense dislike for my particular sense of style. I didn’t care. I liked it.

  I switched on my computer and finished my apple while I waited for it to load. I checked my email. The number of new messages flashed zero, as I’d known it woul
d. I clicked on my Sent folder and scanned the list of messages I’d written to Jess. The last one was from a month ago, the subject line, “WRITE ME.” She had never responded.

  I felt the tears threatening. For months, there had been no letters, no phone calls, no email. It was as if she no longer existed. As if I no longer existed.

  I glanced out my window, over the treetops of ashes and oaks until my gaze settled on the familiar black-tile roof. It seemed like just yesterday that the moving truck had pulled up in front of their house, the two-story, white Colonial that stood kitty-corner across the street from my own home. We’d sat on my front steps and watched, huddled together in our winter coats and hats, braving the blast of arctic air that hinted at snow as the movers deftly loaded her family’s belongings into the truck. It amazed me that the contents of a house—an entire house—could fit so completely, so compactly into the back of a moving truck. Her family had left shortly after the movers finished, spending their last night in town at the Hay-Adams in DC before catching their flight to Anchorage the next morning.

  The decision to move had been sudden. No one expected her dad’s job as a lobbyist for a big oil company to morph into a supervisory role at a drilling exploration site in some remote region of Alaska. Jess and her mom had balked at the move but her dad wanted to serve as the corporate/government liaison. To him, it was an adventure, not the life catastrophe that Jess and I saw. The move was supposed to be temporary—at least that’s what her dad had promised us both—and so their house waited, empty, like the bedrooms in my house.

  Chapter 9

  There was a knock on my door. “Valerie?” My mother.

  “What?”

  “You have a phone call. A boy.” Her voice was a mixture of amazement and disbelief.

  No one ever called me, much less a member of the opposite sex. In my stupefied silence, I tried to think of who it could be. For some reason, the only image that popped into my mind was one of Noel.

  My hand flew to my pocket. “Tell him I’m not home,” I said through my closed door.

  “What? Why?”

  “Just do it,” I said. “Please.”

  Her sigh was audible but she didn’t press the issue.

  I slumped in my chair. It couldn’t be him, I thought. How on earth would he have gotten my phone number? It was probably someone from school. Someone needing a homework assignment.

  Curiosity finally got the better of me and, switching off my computer, I ventured back downstairs. Mom and Fiona had finished with the design books and had moved out to the patio. They lounged at the glass-topped table under the shade of the big umbrella, chatting while they sipped their iced tea. I perched on the arm of one of the empty wicker chairs and waited for a lull in their conversation.

  “Did he leave a message?” I asked.

  Mom looked at me. “Yes.”

  I picked up a glass from the tray and poured it half-full. “Well? What was it?”

  “He asked for you to call him. Something about borrowing movies.”

  She handed me the slip of paper and my face fell. Geoff’s name and number were printed in my mother’s neat script.

  “It was Geoff? I thought you said it was a boy.” I didn’t know why but I was disappointed.

  Mom laughed. “Doesn’t he qualify?” She noticed my scowl and said, “Really, Val, I didn’t know who it was at first. He didn’t identify himself until after you refused the call.”

  “Oh,” I said. I felt as though she’d played some kind of joke on me…and that she’d enjoyed it.

  “Why don’t you call him back?” she suggested.

  “I will,” I said. I plucked some grapes off of the fruit platter.

  “How was your camping trip, Valerie?” Fiona asked. Her hair looked different. I looked closer and saw subtle red highlights streaked through her short brown hair.

  “It was fine. The weather was nice.” And I found this amazing stone. And a boy followed me home.

  “And how’s school going? What are you involved with these days?” She seemed genuinely interested.

  I exchanged small talk for a bit before excusing myself. I debated whether or not to call Geoff back. I would, I decided, but later. I wanted to run first.

  I ran upstairs to hunt for shorts with a pocket. Finding a pair, I transferred the stone and laced up my tennis shoes. I bounded back down the stairs and out the front door.

  I started slowly, warming up, heading in the direction of the park. Past Fiona’s brick mansion, across the street and past Jessica’s abandoned house, down one more block past Peter’s house. I concentrated on the feel of the wind and the steady sound of my feet pounding against the pavement until all other thoughts—about Jessica, Geoff, even Noel—had disappeared.

  Dad constantly suggested I join the track team; I was fast and I loved running, especially distance running. But I didn’t want to run for sport. I didn’t want it to become an event where I was scored and judged, or, worse yet, pitted against others. Dad didn’t understand. Neither did Mom; I knew she saw my indifference toward track as yet another wasted opportunity.

  I reached the park in less than ten minutes, a decent time, and debated whether or not to keep going. I grabbed a quick drink at the water fountain, grimacing at the slightly metallic taste, and looked around.

  The park was alive with activity. A couple of boys, middle-schoolers, I thought, practiced tricks on their skateboards, using one of the wooden, park benches as a jump. Straight ahead, kids shouted and squealed as they navigated ladders and bridges and slid down twisting slides. Swings flew in unison, the tiny legs of each occupant pumping furiously, propelling those seats higher and higher into the sky.

  The park had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember. So many days had been spent there, climbing on the playground, swinging, digging in the sand box or exploring the trails that snaked through the shaded park. When I was younger, much younger, Mom would walk down with me and Jess and we would race around while she read or talked to other moms. Back then, when Dad hadn’t made partner yet and the hope and promise of more babies still burned brightly, she often played along with us, initiating games of tag and hide-and-seek. Sometimes she would surprise us with a special treat in the backpack she carried with her: bubbles or sidewalk chalk, and always, juice boxes and cookies.

  In 4th grade, Jess and I were given permission to go to the park alone, without adult accompaniment for the very first time. There were strict orders—cross in the crosswalks, don’t talk to strangers, be home promptly at 5:00. We’d felt brave and important as we walked the streets by ourselves, arriving at the playground on our own. Heads turned and younger kids whispered in awe, or at least we imagined they did. Our visits to the park continued throughout middle school and even high school, but as we got older, we would walk past the playground and find a bench or a tree to sit underneath, to talk and complain or, sometimes, just to think.

  With Jess gone, I wasn’t sure what the park meant to me. I didn’t know what it could be without her here. Maybe it was no longer a destination. Like my run today, perhaps it was just a stopping point along the way.

  Chapter 10

  I called Geoff later that night, after I’d showered and eaten a piece of delivery pizza from the box on the counter. Dad was out with a client and Mom was getting ready for her yoga class.

  He answered on the first ring.

  I tried to keep my curiosity in check. “Mom said you called. Something about movies?”

  I moved about the kitchen, pouring another glass of water, putting my dirty plate in the dishwasher.

  “Well, you seemed sort of interested in the James Bond movies. I got a few from Netflix and well, I thought that if you wanted to borrow a couple…you know, you could watch them and then send them back when you’re done.”

  “Oh,” I managed to say. I’d completely forgotten our movie conversation.

  “You don’t have to,” he said quickly. “I just thought…”

  “
No, you should bring them over.” I had zero interest in watching them but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That would be cool.” It was cool, I thought. Not the movies, but that he was offering to share them with me.

  Mom walked in. She grabbed her keys and purse from the counter and, with a quick wave goodbye, slipped out the door to the garage.

  “I could bring them over tomorrow, sometime after you get home from school? I’m finishing up driver’s ed and I need to get a couple more hours behind-the-wheel.”

  We talked for a couple more minutes, decided on a time, and hung up. The house was silent. The sun had set; from my vantage point in the kitchen, the living room and dining room were dark, the hint of street-light shadows playing against the walls. I shivered. The dark had never bothered me before. But tonight, with thoughts of Noel suddenly creeping back in, with the stone in my pocket making its now-warm presence known, it did. I raced upstairs for my backpack and brought it into the kitchen, settling into position at the bar. I plugged my iPod into the docking station on the counter and hit shuffle, hoping the sound of music would drown all the nagging thoughts swimming through my mind.

  Chapter 11

  Tuesday dawned dark and dreary. I saw Noel in the hall after first period. He waved to me and started in my direction, his eyes drifting over me before settling on the left front pocket of my jeans. I darted into my English classroom and breathed a sigh of relief when he didn’t follow me.

  I found my notebook and anthology and set them on the desk. Was I just imagining things? How on earth could he know where the stone was? More importantly, why did he care?