Set In Stone

by Balmanno, Beth

  He laughed. “Only you would think of that.”

  “Well, it is gross,” I repeated. I let my mind wander, filling in the what-if’s. “I’d want a bed. A nice, soft bed…”

  His mood shifted, turning somber. “I hope that’s how it is for you, when it does happen. It should be special.”

  The implication was there—it wasn’t going to be him. At least, he didn’t want it to be. I didn’t respond and we walked back to the car in silence. But this quiet was different; charged with my unspoken thoughts and the emotions we both fought to keep under control.

  When we pulled up in front of my house, Noel left the car running as he got out to open my door.

  “You’re not coming in, are you?” I already knew the answer.

  “No.”

  “It’s probably a good thing,” I said, trying to convince myself as much as him. I thought back to the promise I’d made to my mom.

  “I’ll be back before you know it,” he said. He leaned over and kissed my cheek. “You’ll see.”

  He waited until I was inside before driving away. I moped around the house the rest of the night, missing him. And later, when I finally crawled into bed, I thought about how the night would have been different if he had stayed. How I might have been different the next morning. I didn’t know whether to feel disappointed or relieved by the choice he’d made for both of us.

  Chapter 45

  Time passed. Noel and I spent every day together at school and we were nearly inseparable on weekends. Leo stayed away, permanently, it seemed. I didn’t see him again until the following weekend. It was Friday night and Noel and I had just finished dinner, sharing chicken curry at a tiny Indian restaurant tucked away on one of the darkened, narrow side streets of Old Town. I saw him sitting at a table on the outside patio of a French restaurant on Duke Street, a bottle of beer in one hand, the hand of a stunning brunette in the other. He saw me and Noel and smirked, raising his bottle to us in a mock toast.

  Noel shook his head and smiled. “Leo and his women.”

  “Why is he like that?” I asked. What I really wanted to ask was why Noel wasn’t. He was the polar opposite, a perfect gentleman since the evening at the theater.

  He held my hand as we walked back to his car. “Leo? It’s who he is. Think of summer and all that it represents—the earth is fully alive, warm, everything is in bloom. Life is a big party during summer and he treats his entire existence as such. It’s his birthright.”

  “What about you?” I asked.

  He thought for a moment. “Well, the god of winter. Let’s see. Winter is a time of rest, a time of patience. A time to reflect on life’s lessons and a time to hope for the rebirth and renewal of the Goddess. Of Mother Earth.”

  He kept his description brief. I studied him as he helped me into the car and then again when he climbed in next to me, turning the key in the ignition and shifting the car into drive. He was the embodiment of everything he’d just described, but he was so much more. He was beautiful and kind and wise, the very best sort of protector. I sighed.

  He turned to look at me, a smile on his face. “What are you thinking about?”

  “You.”

  His smile widened. “Hmm. I’m thinking about you, too.”

  “What about me?”

  “Things I want to do with you. Things I want to see. Before I go.”

  It was my turn to smile, to hope. “Like what?” My mind filled in the details and my insides turned to jelly.

  “Just things.”

  But I wanted more. “Tell me.”

  He kept his eyes on the road but I could still see the amused expression on his face. “Not a chance.”

  We pulled up to my darkened house and Noel shifted the car into park, leaving the engine running.

  “Come in,” I said. “It’s still early.” It was only nine o’clock.

  “It doesn’t look like your parents are home.”

  “They’re not. Dad’s at the office and Mom is out with some friends.”

  “I don’t --”

  “Please. Just for a little while.”

  He shook his head but I saw the tiny smile lurking. “Fine. But just for a few minutes. And not in your room.”

  I opened the front door and flipped the light on. He followed me down the hallway and through the kitchen, into the large, open family room that we rarely, if ever, used. This was my dad’s space, to hang out and relax on the few occasions he was home, off-limits to my mom and her decorating schemes. Sports memorabilia decorated the walls: pennants from his favorite teams, a signed Magic Johnson basketball jersey he’d bid on and won, much to my mother’s dismay, and a life-sized, wall cut-out, of a slam-dunking Kobe Bryant.

  Noel sat down on the leather couch, faded and creased more from age than use. It was the first piece of furniture my parents had purchased when they married and Dad refused to toss it. To say he was a little nostalgic about it was a huge understatement. I picked up the remote from the wooden trunk that served as a coffee table and positioned myself next to him. I pressed a button and the stereo flicked on. I flipped through the preset stations until I found my favorite station.

  I leaned against his chest and his arm curved around me, holding me to him. I sighed and closed my eyes. I wanted more—so much more—from him. But I would settle for this. I would take whatever I could get, whatever he would give me.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “What you said in the car. Things you wanted to do with me.”

  “Fixated on that, huh?” I heard the smile in his voice.

  “It’s kind of hard not to.”

  His head was against mine. I couldn’t see him but I listened. “I just wish we had more time. I want to show you things. Explore. Live. I want to go horseback riding with you. I want to go to the beach and spend a week with you, just watching you in the sun and in the waves. I want…” his voice trailed off.

  I didn’t move. “You want what?”

  He sighed. “I want everything.”

  “We could,” I said. “We could do it all. If you’d stay.”

  I knew I could turn to him right then. I could lift my face to his and he would kiss me, he would hold me tight and I could let him take us wherever he chose to go. But I didn’t.

  He didn’t answer, just gripped me tighter. I knew it was foolish to think this, foolish to hope for something so futile, but I did. We stayed like that, silent and thinking, each of us wrapped up in the projection of a future we both wanted but could never have.

  Chapter 46

  It was morning and I was cold. The sun streamed through the open shutters of my window. Flecks of dust sparkled, suspended in the rays of light that filtered through. I shifted in my bed, blindly searching for the blankets I’d somehow managed to kick off during the night. My hands found my comforter and I reached out to pull it closer to me when I encountered something cool and firm against my back.

  “You’re awake.”

  I was instantly, immediately awake. Noel lay next to me, his elbow propped on the mattress, his hand against his temple as he studied me. His dark hair was mussed and his eyes were hooded, as if he’d just woken, too. I noticed again how long and thick his eyelashes were, how perfectly they framed those stunning blue eyes.

  “What are you doing here?” I whispered. I knew he was real. I knew I wasn’t dreaming. I could feel him—his feet touching mine, his hips pressed against me. His chest was bare, a smooth expanse of flawless, ivory-toned skin. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

  “Because I wanted to wake up with you,” he whispered back. “Just once.”

  I closed my eyes and lived in that moment and the fantasy of what could be. Noel continued to shower my hair with soft kisses.

  “Seeing you sleep and then watching you wake up…this is one of the memories I wanted with you.” His voice was muffled, his face buried in my hair. “I needed this. To see you in bed, to be with you here, just once. To see you in the morning,
bathed in sunlight. You are so beautiful.”

  I pulled him to me and tried to kiss him, but he wouldn’t. “Kiss me,” I said but he shook his head no.

  “Dammit, this isn’t fair.” I sat straight up, pushing him away from me. “How can you be here—in my bed—and not kiss me? I am burning up with wanting you and you’re content to just kiss my hair?”

  He leaned over and silenced me with an urgent kiss that almost stopped my heart. I put my hands on him to steady myself and fell even deeper when I encountered his skin. I ran my fingers up his chest, over his shoulders and on to his back, pulling him to me. I forgot where I was, that it was Saturday morning and my parents were down the hall in their own bedroom, that either of them could conceivably walk in at any moment. I didn’t care.

  “No, no, no,” Noel mumbled against my mouth. It was his turn to sit up. He raked his fingers through his hair. “What was I thinking?” he muttered under his breath.

  Before I could say anything, before I could even form a suitable response, he was gone from my bed, pulling a gray t-shirt over his head.

  “Don’t leave,” I said. “I’m sorry.” For what, I didn’t know.

  He turned to stare at me, his mouth agape. “You’re sorry? You don’t have anything to apologize for.” He was angry. “You’re not the one sneaking through windows in the middle of the night, climbing into bed with someone, wanting something that can never be. Will never be.”

  He was wrong on at least one of those counts. I did want the same thing he did.

  “I’m being selfish and unfair and all of those things I don’t want to be.” He returned to my bed and crouched down so his face was level with mine. “Will you forgive me?”

  There was nothing to forgive, at least in my eyes, but I nodded.

  “I should go.” But his voice told me he didn’t want to. “I need to go.”

  I clamped my mouth shut and watched him leave. It tore me apart to see him suffer and to know that he was suffering because of me.

  After that, I played by the unspoken rules Noel had established. Seeing him unravel that sunlit morning in my room haunted me. Like he had once told me, I did not want to be the source of any pain or hurt.

  It was the weekend again and we were in DC on the Mall, enjoying a Sunday afternoon at the museums. We finished a quick visit to the Hirshorn and were resting outside before going to the American Indian Museum. Noel bought two water bottles from one of the vendors that lined the streets and we drank these while we lounged on the grass. The skies had cleared and the early June sunshine warmed my skin. I rolled up my pant legs to bask in its glow. A group of kids attempted to fly their kites across the vast expanse of the Mall and I watched them as I sipped my water. The wind did not cooperate but one dark-haired boy refused to give up. He ran again and again, up and down the length of the grass, hoisting his goldfish kite skyward, waiting for the nonexistent wind to lift it and take it further. Noel studied the boy’s flushed cheeks and heaving chest for a minute before gently, surreptitiously blowing in his direction. A breeze flitted across the grass and propelled the goldfish up. The boy squealed with delight and I smiled at his kindness.

  “So,” Noel began. “Your birthday is coming up. This Friday, right?”

  I groaned and he frowned at me. “Since when is celebrating your sixteenth birthday a bad thing? I heard Ashley talking about hers the other day. It sounds like a lot of people have a huge party.”

  According to the gossip at school, Ashley had thrown the Party of the Year for her sweet sixteen. Her parents had rented the entire clubhouse at Belle Haven for the event, hiring limos to transport guests to and from the party. I endured days of whispered planning and excited chatter in English between Ashley and Emily. Even though I hadn’t received an invitation, I knew all the details: the menu, the music, Ashley’s fantastic designer dress and, after the party, which basketball player she’d hooked up with at the party. In the bathroom.

  “Not me,” I announced. I hated birthday parties and making a spectacle of myself but there was another reason I was dreading this particular birthday. June 7th did not just signify my birthday; it brought me that much closer to the moment I’d been dreading. I’d cried yesterday morning as I flipped my calendar to June. The month of choices, and of saying goodbye to Noel, had arrived. But celebrating my birthday would be even harder. It meant I was two weeks away from Midsummer and the decision I had to make. My stomach convulsed at the thought.

  “You know your mom wants a party, right?”

  I nodded miserably.

  He chuckled. “I suggested you’d be much happier with a simple dinner out. At the country club.”

  Ugh. Dinner out with my parents was not how I wanted to spend my birthday, either. I wanted to spend it with him. Only him. I wanted to run away with him, as far from the stone as possible, and hope that I could somehow make him forget the real reason he was here on this earth.

  I pulled a blade of grass and trailed it over the palm of my hand. “When did you talk to her about that?”

  Noel shrugged. “The other day. I don’t really remember. She invited me along, if that’s OK with you.”

  “Really? She did?” My mood brightened a little. “Having you there would definitely make things more tolerable.”

  “Then I’ll come,” he declared. “This Friday.”

  He stood then and pulled me up with him. I tried resisting but he was too strong.

  “Come on.”

  I was still irritated by the birthday conversation. “What?”

  “We’re going to have some fun.”

  “I don’t want to have fun.”

  “Yes you do,” he told me. “You just don’t know it yet.”

  He held my hand in his and half-dragged me to the ancient carousel on the Mall, its blue and yellow canvas top sun-faded and worn. He pulled two tickets out of his pocket and handed them to the attendant before helping me on to a horse, a black horse with a blue-black mane and clear blue eyes.

  The music started and the carousel began to turn. Noel leaned against the horse next to mine and watched me, a smile on his face as we circled around and around. And afterward, after he’d paid for another ride, he spirited me away to the Sculpture Garden and then to a museum, and another, so that my day and my mind were occupied with the here and now and not what waited for me in the too-near future.

  Chapter 47

  I blinked and it was Friday. Well, at least it seemed that way to me. Getting ready for school that morning was like moving through quicksand. I struggled in the shower and with getting dressed, as if each thing I did took concerted physical effort. I dragged myself to school in the foulest of moods. All I could think of was the deadline looming on the horizon. Two weeks. I only had two weeks. Noel noticed right away.

  “I’m not sure if I should say this or not but happy birthday.” He kissed my cheek.

  “Thanks,” I muttered.

  “Could you show a little enthusiasm? Let’s celebrate!” His grin was so genuine, so infectious, that I couldn’t help but smile.

  “I have something for you,” he confided as he walked me to class. “A gift.”

  “What is it?” I asked. “Where is it?” He wasn’t holding anything in his hands.

  Noel laughed softly and ruffled my hair. “Patience, Valerie. You’ll get it tonight.”

  “Do I get a hint or something?” I complained. He was right. I had zero patience.

  He thought for a minute. “Hmm, let’s see. It’s a special gift. Something only I can give you. And something I know you’ll want. How’s that for a clue?” he asked.

  I looked at him, at his hooded blue eyes and suggestive smile and my heart stopped beating for a minute. Was he actually talking about what I thought he was talking about? I flashed back to the morning in my room and all those times before when one of us had struggled with desires and emotions that threatened to veer wildly out of control. What had happened to make him change his mind? Had he changed his mind?


  I dressed carefully that night, choosing a black chiffon dress with spaghetti thin straps. The bodice was tight and dipped low, giving the illusion of more cleavage than I actually had, and the knee-length skirt flared out, soft and cloud-like. I rummaged in Mom’s closet for a pair of shoes to wear with it, for once thankful we wore the same size. I settled on a pair of strappy sandals and hoped I wouldn’t kill myself in the two-inch heels.

  “You look stunning.” Dad greeted me as I walked down the stairs. “You’re all grown up, aren’t you?” He planted a tentative kiss on my cheek.

  Mom appeared, an angel come to life in a beautiful white dress and matching shoes. Her auburn hair was down, a mass of gloriously styled waves, her make-up perfect.

  “I told Noel to meet us there at six o’clock,” Mom said. She transferred a tube of lipstick and her cell phone into her small sequined handbag.

  Dad scowled. “He’s still planning on coming?”

  “Of course he’s still coming. And I think you should put in a word for him. At the club.”

  “Mom, he’s only seventeen!” I protested. “He doesn’t even golf.” And he won’t be here much longer.

  “The club has much more to offer than golf, Valerie,” she said. “He’ll be introduced to the best people and he can spend the summer there at the pool with you…” Her voice trailed off and I knew what she was thinking. Noel and I swimming together, playing tennis together, sharing leisurely summer dinners at the club, courting through college and culminating in the wedding of the century. It was an exact duplicate of her own life.

  “I don’t like him,” Dad declared. “He spends too much time around Valerie. And he has no guardian, for God’s sake. How do we know what kind of boy he really is?”

  “Stop it, Michael. I’ve seen him with Val. He treats her like a princess.”

  I said the first thing that came to mind. “You don’t have to worry, Dad. Noel’s very religious.” I tried not to smile as I said this. After all, how much more religious could he get? He was a god.