by S. B. Niccum
I thought about this for a moment and the thought came to me, that his gift was more subtle, “wisdom”.
“You are wise,” I told him, not really sure where I got that particular thought from. The word seemed to have fallen into my mind like dew…from heaven. However, once I said it, it made perfect sense. He was wise; he based his decisions on the long-term picture and not just what he wished for at the moment. We discussed this for a while, me giving him proof of all the instances that I could think of, when he had proved to be wise beyond his years. Whenever we got too hot, we jumped in the water to cool off. The afternoon wore away in this most peaceful way, ignoring the dark cloud, which his impending departure cast over us.
We got a text from his dad, right around five o’clock, saying that we had dinner reservations, and to head back. This we did, and docked right at his backyard dock. The trail that led from the dock to the house was lined with solar lights, and to either side his yard looked perfectly manicured, like a golf course.
“I have to go back to Charlotte’s and get my clothes,” I told Alex, as we walked up the path.
“Already taken care of,” he said smugly.
“How?”
“Katie just got her license and has been dying to drive around and do errands, so I sent her to Charlotte’s to pick up some of your clothes.”
“But everything is packed up, how would she know which bag has what?”
Alex stopped abruptly and looked at me. “What do you mean, everything is packed up?”
“Just that. I was supposed to move out once I turned eighteen, but they let me stay until graduation. That was today, so I was leaving.”
“Where were you going?”
I told him all about my summer job plans, and how they agreed to let me come earlier and help clean up the camp in preparation for the campers. He looked at me with utter shock.”
“Well you’re not going.”
“What do you mean? Of course I am! Where else would I live?” I said defensively.
“You can live here.”
“No I can’t. Besides, I need to work. I’ll need some money for school.”
“Work around here,” he ordered, and this bristled me.
Just when I was about to tell him exactly what I thought about his orders, his family came out to greet us—well, me, actually. They each took a turn embracing me and telling me how proud they were and so forth. Katie told me that she had picked up all of my belongings and had also brought Dorian. In the background I saw him; he was standing in the kitchen eating a cookie.
Alex immediately proceeded to tell his family about my plans for the summer, and they proposed the same option but more politely. Katie took my side, saying that maybe I wanted to do this, and was not just doing it out of necessity. The fact was; that I was doing it out of necessity and would rather not go, but I didn’t say it, so they let the issue go.
After we showered and dressed, we boarded the sailboat again, and we all sailed to a restaurant that had its own marina. I was amazed at the fact that we were in the same town, right smack in the middle of Texas. This was indeed a whole different world, and I felt oddly transported to another plane of existence.
After dinner, we sailed as we ate our dessert by the faint glow of golden Christmas lights that Katie had strung along the railings and the mast of the boat. Then, as planned, we tried to stay up all night. We started by taking pictures of each other and then printing them. We then skirted the edge of the lake and talked some more. Here he managed to convince me to not take the summer job—after he apologized for being bossy. We later took a dip in the hot-tub, and ate more ice-cream, then we watched a movie and then—
“Alex … ” Dane whispered, shaking Alex slightly, “time to wake up son.”
I didn’t open my eyes, but I was awake and mad for losing consciousness. The last thing I remember was a conversation about Agatha. We were discussing her in general and we were speculating what had happened with her. We were both very sleepy and our words got fewer and fewer, until all went blank. It didn’t seem like we had slept for very long, but I was bitter nonetheless for the loss of those precious minutes together.
Alex got up off the couch, trying not to wake me. “Thanks, dad,” he mumbled, then stretched. His father left and Alex bent over me, kissing my cheek.
“Good morning, beautiful.”
My eyes fluttered open at the sound of his voice, and I tried to commit his face to memory. This moment and his face would stay with me forever.
We all ate breakfast in silence. Dorian had been taken back home, but the Admiral was here this morning. He was the only one talking while the rest of us ate in silence.
“Pilots in the Navy have short missions,” he explained. “Not like us sailors. Pilots fly in, do their thing then fly out, end of story; nothing to worry about.”
Valerie snorted in reply.
Once we got to the base, Alex took his time hugging each member of his family and saying some last minute parting words. I was last. He embraced me tightly, then kissed me and cupped my face. “I’ll see you in my dreams.” He winked, trying to sound cheerful.
Katie, Valerie and I held each other while we watched his plane take off. He was being flown to some secret naval base somewhere. He wasn’t allowed to tell us, but it was safe to assume that it would be in harm’s way.
The moment his plane left my sight, I felt a knot in my stomach and got a sharp pain in my head, and much like a character in a Jane Austin book, I got sick and swooned. Unfortunately, it wasn’t done delicately like in the books where the heroine is so stricken with grief that she takes to her bed for days, needing her forehead to be dabbed now and then with a cool rag. No. Not I. I puked, all over, twice on the way back to the Preston’s, and twice at their house. Then I got feverish and passed out, so they had no choice but to keep me in their guest bedroom until I recovered.
All I recall from those days are odd, faint conversations, that I’m not sure really happened at all. I vaguely remember Charlotte, bending over me asking, “Is she contagious? Maybe I shouldn’t be here.” Then Alex, in uniform, telling me, “I got to my destination … I have my first mission tomorrow … are you okay?” Then Dane, “I hate to say this, but her getting sick has been a good thing for Val. It’s been keeping her busy, mothering someone … she’s not falling apart—yet.” And Celeste, “Tess … everything will be fine.” Then weeping … someone sitting next to me, weeping a lot. The only thing that they all had in common was the echo. Everything everyone said had an echo that only intensified my headache and made me even sicker.
After three or four days of this delirium, I came out of it. The Preston’s were gracious enough to beg me to stay with them and not take the summer job. In private, Dane told me that I would be doing him a personal favor, since his wife had gotten quite attached to me and needed someone to commiserate and gripe with about Alex. I agreed with him, that griping about Alex was all I wanted to do, so it was settled.
Libby gave me my old job back at the aromatherapy store, and I took a second part-time job at a boutique. My crochet group took me in and Valerie joined us, wanting to learn the art. In my spare time, Valerie, Katie and I talked about Alex and, inspired by Valerie’s art studio in her home, I started designing my own dress line. It turned out to be one of the best summers I had ever had.
The weeks revolved around the letters we received from Alex. And my nights revolved around the brief dreams I shared with him. The dreams were few and far between, because we hardly ever slept at the same time. He never revealed where he was stationed, but it must have been far away, because he was always about to wake up when I was just falling asleep. It was mostly I who did all the talking; he wanted to know what we were all doing. He said that he would write about what he was doing, so I would be eager and surprised when the letters arrived.
In the fall, I headed to college in Alex’s Jeep. I was soon settled there, but I returned ‘home’ almost every weekend. Dorian would often be
invited to the Preston’s during those weekends, so I got to see him quite often. I still worried about what I would do in a few months, when he turned eighteen. I didn’t have enough money to pay for housing for both of us. Even with the money he got from the government, it wouldn’t be enough. The Admiral had been hinting that he would love a roommate, but I wasn’t sure if Dorian would even go for that. I brought up the matter to Dorian a few times, but he never responded and looked most unconcerned about the matter. His behavior only exasperated me more, to the point that I was now getting seriously worried.
“Tess, are you sure you can handle this?”
Agatha smiled. Every time she heard people call her by that name, she got a thrill. Her smile turned cynical. “Of course I can!” She had planned this moment for months now. Everything was in place; all she had to do now was execute the plan. She got in close, pretending to give Carleene a pat on the back, but instead she injected her with an overdose. As Agatha watched her writhe uncomfortably on the floor, she clinically took a mental inventory of the sequence of events that were to follow. She would have to be quick, but she couldn’t look to be in a hurry, she had to be perfectly innocuous if this was to work.
After leaving Charlotte’s house, Agatha had drifted for a while, only knowing that there were places she wanted to see. When she finally settled in the San Diego area, she came up with a simple idea—steal Tess’ identity—only in name of course, because here no one needed any papers. However, living on the streets was only fun for a little while. Then it got boring.
One day, she reached the end of her rope. As Agatha watched a man come out of a black Limo, and enter the back of the club where she usually hung out, she realized that she was an outsider to the real game being played here. This enraged her. If only she still had that book! That book was a gold mine of information.
“You will write your own,” the voices promised her, and this gave her hope.
She had quickly become the leader of her little pack of drifters, but this was no longer enough. The truth was, she was a nobody, leading a bunch of losers. That should have been her getting out that Limo. If she could get the information of the ancients, the information from that book, she should soon be where she wanted to be.
The idea came to her to take a walk down the more respectable parts of town and examine how the world worked there. She learned an important lesson that day. She learned that, though she looked intimidating, she was really a joke to the world at large.
“The most dangerous people, don’t look it,” the voice said.
“But—” she was about to answer out loud, but decided against it. Agatha had learned a thing or two about those voices—they couldn’t read her mind. She was going to point out the fact that the voices were the ones that told her to dress this way and come out here, in the first place, but then she decided to keep that to herself. Every time she tried to rise against them, they would tear her down. So she started to keep her own mind to herself.
They were right though; if she was going to be taken seriously she had to make some changes, but not here. She needed to start fresh. And to start fresh, she needed money, lots of money. That’s when she hatched this plan. Now all she had to do was execute it. First, Carleene had to be out of the way. After that, all she had to do was make the drop off for her, then the pick-up, take a detour … find two disguises, and she would be free. She knew that she would be followed for part of it, but she was prepared for them.
She took Carleene’s place at the exchange point. As expected, the two morons assigned to follow her were a couple of meatheads that looked every inch like the average Hollywood thug. They watched from their car as Agatha made the exchange, then they slowly followed her as she walked away, heading toward the club.
Agatha walked confidently, like nothing was out of the ordinary. She stopped by a gas station, and went into the bathroom. There, hiding behind the stall, she had planted a backpack. She changed into a cycling outfit, complete with a wig and a helmet. She stuffed all her other gear in the backpack, including the money and slung it over her shoulders. When the two idiots were distracted, she opened the door and walked out casually. She mounted the bicycle that she had stolen earlier and rode away right under their noses. They looked around stupidly, wondering what they had missed. They got out, checked the empty restroom, and finally realized that she had somehow gotten away. After much thought and aimless driving, they put two and two together and started looking for a blond riding a road bicycle.
Agatha rode quickly to a decoy location, a crowded diner. There she had another stash and she changed yet again. Now dressed like a common, frumpy-looking girl with brown hair and glasses, she exited the diner and started walking. A few blocks away, she hailed a cab that took her to the bus station. With a bit of anxiety, she waited until the bus pulled out and carried her safely out of town. After a long nap, she started planning her next move. This bus would take her to Phoenix and there she would begin the permanent changes, tattoo and piercing removal. Next she would go to Albuquerque and there she would change her hairstyle. She had no intention of hanging around in Texas, were she was still wanted, so Oklahoma City was her next stop. There she would shop for new clothes. She thought it would be fun to get pampered in Nashville, so there she would go to a spa to get buffed and made over for her debut in Richmond.
“In Virginia,” she thought, “I will start my new life as Carleene. Poor Carleene, she never saw that one coming. Well … that’s what she gets I suppose, for hanging out with the wrong crowd,” Agatha thought indifferently.
Once Agatha stepped out of the bus in Richmond, she was a new woman. No one would have ever guessed that not even a month ago, the girl with the pixy-short blond hair, perfect make-up, manicured nails, and trendy clothes, was a former homeless Gothic-chick who pushed drugs on the street. Now, armed with her new look, she enrolled in school, got a job and found some roommates.
“Are you two idiots?” Eros looked at the two men, then waved a hand. “Of course you are. I hire idiots, and I get this type of result.” He made a movement of the head, which his bodyguards behind him understood to mean, “get rid of them”. The other two started backing away, fear registering in their faces. “W—w—we’ll find her! We promise we will!”
“Too late,” Eros said, unconcerned.
“But—but, we know what she looked like when she left the restroom!”
“She’s probably half way to Mexico right now!” Eros said casually, but this gave him an idea. “What did you say her name was?” he asked with new interest.
“Tess DeLeon.”
“DeLeon you say?”
The two nodded.
“And she’s worked for me for how long?”
“About a year,” the two said looking at each other, hoping that maybe this would somehow save them from being maimed.
“Mmm … DeLeon … how interesting. I wonder … ” Eros cocked his head again, signaling to his bulldogs that it was now time to teach these morons a lesson. Ignoring the noise behind him, he got up and dialed a number on his cell phone while looking out of his dingy window. “Get the plane ready, I need to go somewhere,” he ordered, then hung up. He stared out the window for a few more minutes, and thought some more about the implications of what he was about to do. It would be somewhat risky, but he had to find out.
Chapter 16
For Christmas break I came back to the Preston’s home. Dorian was invited for the duration, and for the first time we got to experience a Christmas with gifts from people we knew. Dorian and I made our purchases together and had a great time doing so.
The Preston’s had some traditions that they followed, and we got to experience those as well. The only thing that put a damper on it was an anonymous Christmas card that came in the mail, addressed to me. I didn’t show it to anyone, not even Dorian, because I knew who it was from. The card looked innocent enough; it was a picture of a cute little cat in a Santa suit. There was no signature, all the card said was, �
��Have a purrfect Christmas.’ There was no point in telling them, they wouldn’t believe me, and even if they did … what could they do? Agatha was deranged and that’s all there was to it. If they did find her, what would they charge her with? Sending a postcard?
Valerie and I had gotten quite close. We bonded over baby pictures of Alex and by quietly spending hours at our respective hobbies. To pass the time, and keep from falling apart, Valerie painted and I sewed. She set up my things in her studio, and there we spent many quiet hours together.
Katie spent most of her time outdoors, and since she had gotten her license, she had started to volunteer at the zoo, so she was hardly ever home. When Dorian was with us, he too took up a spot in the quiet art studio and did what he always did—sketch. Dane was thrilled to see us thus engaged, and would often reward me with a tight hug. Dorian, who never let anyone touch him, would let Dane shake his hand.
Over Christmas break I finished my first dress from scratch. I did the sketches, the pattern, and sewed the whole thing. I did make some mistakes, but was able to correct them as I went. The final product was a beautiful, formal, dress-suit, one that a queen could wear. The material was off-white inlaid with gold. The collar and the cuffs were the most dramatic features, and the body was a form-fitting, mermaid style. Both Valerie and Katie were awestruck by it, and took turns trying it on. Then they insisted on me trying it on, and when I did, I had to admit that it fit me perfectly.
Immediately after this, Valerie took me to the fabric store and insisted that I make her and Katie a dress too. They each chose fabrics and dresses from my drawings. Katie chose a less formal dress that she wanted to wear to her graduation. Valerie chose a formal dress in the same shade as her eyes, that she said she would wear to a wedding someday.
Nervous now, I set out to make the two new patterns, and hoped that I got them right for my two first customers. I had to go back to school before I finished them, but I dutifully drove back every weekend and worked on them.