Unafraid aa-3

by Michael Griffo

  “And I haven’t heard from Mum either,” she said. “So I hate to break it to you, but this was kind of a wasted visit.”

  She thought her words would act as a dismissal, but looking in the mirror she saw that they had the opposite effect. Ciaran propped up the pillows and sat on her bed, his arms and ankles crossed. She was about to tell him quite sternly that she didn’t want his shoes on her comforter, but she knew that he had seen her jumping on her bed—and his bed and Ronan and Michael’s bed—countless times before with her shoes on, so it would be a request without merit. The only option she had was to continue the conversation. At least one part of it. “It isn’t as strange as you’re making it out to be.”

  “What isn’t?” Ciaran asked.

  “Mum’s silence,” Saoirse replied, sitting at the foot of the bed. She lifted up Ciaran’s feet and placed them in her lap. She raised her one knee and then the other and watched his shoes rise and fall, thinking it was better to focus on them than look at Ciaran, so he wouldn’t see that she was now lying.

  “It’s quite normal when you think about it, and anyway isn’t her silence gobs better than her stroppy attitude and nasty insults?” It was a smart plan, but even though Ciaran had not grown up with Saoirse, he was proving to be a very insightful and observant brother.

  “You don’t believe that,” he said. “Your upper lip is twitching like it always does when you’re nervous and lying.”

  Saoirse was too touched by Ciaran’s comment to try and convince him he was wrong. Despite being caught, it was nice to have someone know you very well, not completely, but nearly. “Well, fine then,” she said, squeezing the tip of one of his penny loafers so tightly that it made him wince.

  The sound Ciaran made was a mixture of a cry and a laugh. “Ow!”

  “It is flippin’ strange,” Saoirse said, releasing her hold on him, “but that’s Mum. She’s a strange bird.”

  Swinging his legs off Saoirse’s knees, Ciaran bounced once and sat on the edge of her bed next to her. “Strange, yes, and if she was just being elusive toward us, I wouldn’t think twice about it,” Ciaran confessed, pressing his shoe into the floor as if that was going to soothe his toes. “But Ronan hasn’t heard from her either, not in months.”

  The twitching stopped, but Saoirse’s concern only grew. “Months?”

  “Ever since your impromptu birthday party,” Ciaran replied. “Regardless of how she can act sometimes, I’m worried about her.”

  And now Saoirse was worried too. She hadn’t given her mother’s absence much thought. While she boarded at Ecole des Roches, there had been long stretches of time when she hadn’t seen her mother and only had the briefest of phone calls in between visits. Edwige wasn’t a typical parent and could not be described as maternal, Saoirse knew that, but she also knew that her mother was always reachable. She always knew how to get in touch with her even if she never took the initiative. What was most disturbing was that she also knew that Edwige was never out of Ronan’s life for very long. If that was now the case, if she had suddenly cut off communication with her eldest child without any explanation, then something was definitely wrong. Unfortunately, Saoirse didn’t have the time to investigate it. “I guess we’ll just have to wait until Mum decides it’s time for her to make a return engagement,” she said.

  That’s exactly what Ciaran had told Ronan initially, but after thinking about it for a while he had come to realize it was hardly the most effective course of action. If he had learned anything through his lab work, it was that you had to try and seek out a solution to a problem. If the first experiment failed, you started another and continued on until one succeeded. “So, we just do nothing?”

  Saoirse didn’t know what to do about her mother, but she did know how to handle Ciaran. The most effective course of action in dealing with her brother was to be direct. “For now, dear brother, the only thing I have to do is write a paper on some daft, recently discovered F. Scott Fitzgerald short story,” she announced as she walked toward the front door. Opening it, she leaned against the frame, both hands holding the doorknob behind her back. “And since you are not the literary genius in the family, you can’t help me.”

  “Sorry about that,” Ciaran replied, slowly standing up.

  Relieved that Ciaran had taken the bait, Saoirse relaxed a bit. “Dumbarse Yankee should’ve kept his bad work hidden better, so I could have a free afternoon.”

  Smiling at his sister, Ciaran wished that he possessed her ability to rebound so quickly, to allow bad news and worry to roll off his back as easily as a fallen leaf can be swept up by the wind. But he was more like a tree whose roots burrowed deep into the earth. “Please tell Ruby that, um ...”

  “That you stopped by to offer your services as Seeing Eye bloke,” Saoirse said, finishing Ciaran’s thought in her own inimitable style.

  Blushing a little, Ciaran smiled. It was not at all what he was going to say, but his sister’s less formal approach might actually work better. Just as Saoirse was about to shut the door behind him, Ciaran whipped around and held it open. “I almost forgot.”

  “What now?” Saoirse cried, unable to hide the exasperation in her voice.

  “You need to come to the lab so I can run another test.”

  Thankfully Saoirse had years of training hiding her true emotions, so she was able to keep her expression blank and not offer her brother a clue that his suggestion was inappropriate in-the-hallway conversation. “I don’t know, Ciar,” she whispered. “I think I’m done with all that.”

  Ciaran pushed on the door a bit harder, but Saoirse held tight to the doorknob and pushed back. She even went so far as to raise her hand against the doorjamb so Ciaran would understand that she didn’t want him to come back in her room so they could continue their conversation in private either. It worked; Ciaran got the signal, but he wasn’t yet finished with the topic. “You have to,” he persisted. “I found out some stuff about Michael, and I need to run another test to compare the two of you.”

  Knowing that Ciaran wouldn’t leave until she agreed to once again be his guinea pig, Saoirse reluctantly conceded to his request. “Fine! Make an appointment with my girl, and she’ll put you on my calendar,” she joked. “Now go!”

  Not taking the chance that Ciaran would ask another question or come up with another reason to prolong his visit, Saoirse slammed the door in his face. She held her breath and pressed her ear against the wood to make sure she heard him bound down the stairs. Only when she heard the outside front door shut did she turn around, just in time to see another boy come out of her closet. “I thought he’d never leave!”

  “Sorry,” she said, awkwardly shoving her hands into the side pockets of her school skirt. “I didn’t want to be rude.”

  Maybe it was because of the easy way he leapt onto her bed and fell back against the pillows or maybe it was because he wasn’t her brother, but Saoirse had no desire to tell him to get off. She didn’t care if he had his shoes on; she didn’t care if he rumpled up her bedspread. He looked good sitting there, like it was where he belonged.

  “You didn’t mind lying, though,” he said. “You didn’t tell him the real reason you haven’t seen much of him lately.”

  Slowly, Saoirse walked over and sat on the foot of the bed. She was self-conscious that her skirt rode up a few inches above her knee, but she stopped herself from pulling it down. That was something a less confident girl would do, and she was determined to prove that she wasn’t nervous. “I thought you wanted to keep things between us a secret,” Saoirse replied, her finger tracing some imaginary pattern on the bedspread. “Until we know for sure that this isn’t just a passing fancy.”

  The boy smiled, and his hazel eyes gleamed, green and brown and even amber all sparkling together. He ran his fingers through his loose curls for no other reason than because it felt good and latched onto one exceptionally curly strand of hair, straightening it and then letting it go, letting it bounce back against his cheek. If his jaw hadn’
t been so square and his nose so thick and flat, he would have looked like a girl. When he spoke, however, there was no denying that he was all guy.

  His voice was deep for a seventeen-year-old, a rich baritone, and Saoirse thought he could be an opera singer or someone who talks on the radio for a living, the sound was so beautiful. She loved to listen to him talk. Because English wasn’t his first language, he would often put the accents on some words in the wrong places. So even on those occasions when he talked about himself for way too long, rambling on about his Scandinavian heritage or his opinions about world politics, she wouldn’t listen to the words, but only to the sound. It was sometimes more interesting. “And until I’m more than just the new kid on the block.”

  “Which should be any day now, right?” Saoirse asked. Part of her enjoyed having a secret life, but the other part wanted to let the whole wide world know that she had a boyfriend.

  “Well, I have some tryouts today,” he said. “So if I make one of the teams, I guess it’ll mean I’m part of the ‘in’ crowd.”

  Looking at his body, Saoirse had no doubt her boyfriend would make any team he tried out for and possibly give Ronan competition as unofficial top athlete on campus. He wasn’t as muscular as Ronan was; he actually looked more like Michael, but way more defined. He had broad shoulders, a small waist, and long legs with lines and lines of fine blond hair all over his thighs and calves that Saoirse had found herself staring at all summer long. Shaking her head, she focused on the boy on her bed who was dressed in the Double A uniform and not the one in her mind who pranced about in a tank top and shorts. “Even if you don’t make it, you’ll still be part of the ‘in’ crowd,” she said. “I’m sure of it.”

  Unexpectedly, he sat up and pushed Saoirse down on the bed. She was startled by the sudden movement, but when she saw his face smiling down at her, adorned with a crown of curls, looking like a cross between an angel and a scalawag, she knew he was only being playful. His question, however, was a bit more businesslike. “What kind of secret lab work are you doing with your brother?”

  Blast you, Ciaran! I knew someone would hear us. “Ooh you make me sound like a spy,” Saoirse teased. Her stomach flipped when she thought about the implications of her comment. If it were true, wouldn’t that make her boyfriend her enemy?

  “Seriously,” he continued. “Sounded rather cryptic. What’s up?”

  Desperate to change the subject, Saoirse thought that if his smile could work wonders on her, hers might put a spell on him as well. “Why so many questions?” Saoirse asked, smiling as seductively as she knew how.

  It didn’t work. “Why aren’t you answering me?” he retorted.

  Boys! They really could be infuriating. Always wanting to have their way, always thinking their questions were super important, never considering for a second that they didn’t have to know everything in the entire world. Infuriating, but really cute too. If only Saoirse’s hands weren’t being held down, she could just reach up and touch those curls, marvel at their softness. And then touch the little bit of stubble on his chin and marvel at its roughness. Infuriating, cute, and disorienting. If she was a spy she was the worst one in the history of spydom. Time to take back some control.

  “Well, you know us spies, we don’t like to be interrogated.” And if her words didn’t do the trick, her actions might. In one easy move, Saoirse flipped her boyfriend on his back, his curls spilling out onto the bed like little curlicues of sunshine. The sight made her heart skip a beat, even though she knew she had to keep her wits about her until all talk of lab work and experiments had passed. When she felt his chest and stomach move underneath her and heard his deep laugh, she knew she was safe.

  “That’s what I like about you,” he said. “You’re not like other girls; you’re fearless.”

  Suddenly self-conscious about lying on top her boyfriend, she rolled off of him. She stared at the ceiling and wished there were a mirror up there so she could see how they looked lying side by side, their hair freely mingling together, his a few shades lighter than her own blond hair. It must be a beautiful sight. “I’ve learned this past year that there isn’t anything in this world that I need to be scared of,” Saoirse admitted.

  “Except maybe a boyfriend.”

  Saoirse wasn’t completely honest when she replied, “I’m not scared of you.”

  “Not yet,” he said. Turning to face Saoirse, her boyfriend wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close to him. He closed his eyes and let instinct take over so his lips could find hers.

  Saoirse kept her eyes open, but only because she liked how weird his face looked so close up. His eyelashes were outrageously long, and the pores on his nose looked huge. The examination was brief because the kiss ended as quickly as it had begun. “Let’s just keep us a secret for a little while longer,” he said.

  Nodding, Saoirse touched the side of his face and slid her fingers deep into the labyrinth of his curls. She pulled her hand away and was transfixed by how white some of the strands looked. “I’ve got a lot of secrets, Morgandy,” she said. “Why not one more?”

  chapter 9

  So this was what it felt like to be blind.

  Eyes closed, Fritz walked down the center aisle of the library in total darkness, his fingers scraping against the spines of one book after another. It wasn’t so bad; in fact it was kind of interesting to feel the world instead of see it. Thick, thin, leathery, smooth, he had no idea what books he was touching, but he was amazed at how different they all felt. He had never noticed that before. Of course none of them felt as good as Ruby did.

  Her arm was entwined with his, and although he could only feel a small patch of her skin, it was incredibly smooth. He figured she must use mounds of moisturizer to get it that soft. His skin, in contrast, was kind of rough in places.

  He opened his right eye, just a crack, to take a peek at her. Amazing! She was one of those girls who looked just as good in profile as they did if you looked at them straight on. Fritz thought it had to do with her nose. Ruby’s was perfect—not too big and, thankfully, not too small, not one of those little pug noses some girls had that Fritz hated, that made them look like they were always putting on airs, thinking they were too fancy for their own good. Her nose was even prettier than Phaedra’s, and Phaedra had a really nice one. Ruby’s best feature, however, were her eyes.

  Peering at the girl through one half-closed eye, it was like he was spying on her through a keyhole.

  Fritz only saw a sliver, but it was enough. He could only see her left eye, but even from this angle it was sparkling blue, filled with light, and though it was useless it appeared to have focus. Unblinking, Ruby glided down the aisle like somebody who could see. She didn’t stumble; she didn’t trip; she didn’t question her path. Fritz figured it had something to do with the expertise of her guide.

  A smile formed on Ruby’s lips, and she slowly turned to face him. Wow, he thought, she looked like she was really looking at him, like she could really see him. But if she could, then she could also see that his eyes weren’t closed like he had said they were when they started to walk down the aisle.

  Maybe he was being paranoid, but Fritz got the strong sensation that Ruby knew he was lying.

  He shut his eyes tight and was engulfed by darkness once again. He faced front, and his fingers now held onto the edge of the bookshelves for support as he walked, every once in a while getting whacked by the partitions that separated the various collections. Fritz was so discombobulated he couldn’t even remember what book Ruby needed to find, let alone what section they were supposed to wind up in.

  Was it history? No, that wasn’t it. Maybe classical mythology? He had no idea, so of course he started to panic and pick up speed. If you have no idea where you’re going, might as well try to get there as fast as possible. Until you crash into something and get knocked to the ground.

  “What the ... !”

  When Fritz opened his eyes he saw Ruby staring down at him and Ciara
n lying in a similarly awkward position at his side. “Eaves! What the hell?!” Fritz cried out. “Why’d you knock me down?”

  “I didn’t knock you down,” Ciaran shouted back. “You knocked into me.”

  “I didn’t even see you!”

  “That’s ’cause you had your bloody eyes closed!”

  “He was doing it for me.”

  Ruby’s voice shut both boys up and reminded them that they weren’t alone. Scrambling to stand, they both automatically started to brush their hair back into place and tuck their shirts in, even though the object of their admiration couldn’t tell if they were unkempt or picture perfect.

  “Hi, Ruby,” Ciaran said, a bit out of breath.

  “Hi, Ciaran,” the girl replied, staring right in his direction. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  Not fancy at all, calculated actually. After his rather disappointing conversation with Saoirse, Ciaran had decided to take action and make a move before Fritz made too much headway in his pursuit of Ruby. Turned out to be a worthwhile risk. “I’m always here,” Ciaran lied. “Working on a paper or something.”

  “Then maybe you can help me,” Ruby said, reaching out to touch Ciaran’s arm. “Would you happen to know where the science books are?”

  Science! Fritz finally remembered where they were supposed to be heading.

  “I need to do some research on a horticulture project, and Professor Chow told me the library actually had some books in Braille on the subject—not a complete section, but mixed in with the regular books about science,” Ruby explained. “And it seems that Fritz has lost his way.”

  “I did not!” Fritz protested. “I know this library like I know the back of my bleedin’ hand.”

  “So were you, uh, taking the scenic route?” Ciaran asked.

  Fritz felt like pushing Ciaran against the bookshelf for making such a crack, but when he heard Ruby laugh he realized it was kind of funny, so he just joined in. “Guess the blind really shouldn’t lead the blind.”