“I haven’t thought about it too much, but I think maybe I’d like to go to acting school.”
I eyed him, but he was so focused on getting the line through the pole that he wasn’t looking at me. “Acting school? Is there even one nearby?”
“Yeah, in the city.”
“How far is that?”
“About three hours or so.” He finally looked at me with a brisk change of subject. “Where do you see yourself in two years?”
“This is an awfully serious conversation for a sixteen-year-old and seventeen-year-old to have,” I mumbled. No one had ever asked that before. I could hear my mother’s voice in my head: Marry a good Christian man and raise a family. But I didn’t want that anymore. Ethan had shown me there was so much more to live than going to church and doing all the things I had secretly hated for so long. Maybe there was life outside religion.
“I don’t think so,” Ethan announced, standing and handing the pole to me. He showed me how to attach some pink bait paste he had in a container in his pocket, and then how to flick the rod just right to cast it into the river.
“It’s so fast,” I noted, “are there even any fish in there?”
“Some.” He shrugged. “It’s not about what you catch, it’s about how much fun you have doing it.”
I smiled at him, then kissed his cheek. “I always have fun when I’m with you.”
He grinned from ear to ear. “Me too. But you didn’t answer my question.”
“Didn’t I?” I was stalling and I knew it. Ethan talked so much at great length that I rarely had to think about how to respond. He was always full of stories, anecdotes, and narratives. He had his whole life planned out, and here I was, just trying to get through today. I loved listening to him talk; how was it my life was in another country, but his was so interesting? He also had his whole life ahead of him, even if his parents were absent a lot, and all I had to go back to was my parents and their church. I decided to try another tactic. “So are you going to move to the city after your graduate?”
He reeled in his line and then cast again before answering. “I don’t know. It’s pretty expensive. And it depends on ...” he trailed off. “Maybe I’ll get some roommates or something.”
“That sounds good.”
“Or I can just buy a 1990 red Bronco and live out of it on campus.”
I tightened the grip on my pole and blinked at him. “That’s oddly specific. What about the Silver Beast?”
“There’s a possibility my parents might have to sell it soon.”
The sadness in his voice was so evident I reeled my line and stared at him before I cast again. “Why is that?”
He shook his head. “Never mind. It’s fine. So... Germany next week, huh?”
I didn’t want to answer him. It was too sad to think about leaving him. I didn’t want to have this conversation. “If you can live out of a Bronco, maybe I’ll get one of those school busses I keep seeing on the Internet and renovate it into a house and I can see the rest of America instead of just this little town.” It was the most I’d said to him outside the theater in a few weeks, and I blushed at the thought of rambling on to him. I gulped. “I mean, pipe dreams and all that, right?”
Ethan pulled his rod line and stuck it in the soft ground next to him. “Okay, I can work with this.” He bent his knees and put his palms on both knees. He grabbed his pole like it was a walking stick, and in a gravelly voice he announced, “Are you a swamp witch, Miss Taylor? Surely you can help me with my problem with your magical potions?”
I laughed. His bit as a grouchy old man reminded me a lot of my Papa. I didn’t know he was going with this, but I decided to play along. I pushed my hair back and took my rod, waving it like a wand in front of me. “My dear kind sir, I am no witch, but I have certain ... abilities. What ailments do you have that I may treat them?”
“Oh, great Miss Taylor, help, I need help on this math test, what do I do?”
“Here, have a potion!” I picked up a smooth rock from the bank and tossed it to him.
He pretended to pop off the imaginary lid and ‘consume’ the rock. “Miss Taylor, what have you done, my skin is bright purple now!”
I burst out laughing.
“Miss Taylor – I really need help with this song I’m writing. Do you have any more potions?”
“Okay, here you go!” I tossed a leaf this time plucked from a nearby bush.
He caught it and crumbled it over his head. The dark green remnants spread in his blond hair. “Thanks, I really like trees now.” While I laughed even harder, he said, “Miss Taylor, I really want to run a marathon. Can you help me?
“This should fix you right up.” I plucked three berries from the same bush and threw them at him. He dodged them all.
“Thanks, now I’m really good at tap dancing!” He did a little jig, spinning on his heel and turning to take a bow.
I laughed so hard then I snorted, then promptly slapped my hands to my mouth. My eyes went wide in my embarrassment.
“Okay, that was freakin’ adorable.” Ethan was laughing, too.
I relaxed. My greatest fear had been realized – and he actually liked it.
How in the world could I leave this man behind?
“I have an idea,” he announced, and sat down on a flat rock behind him. He yanked off his shoes and socks and then told me to do the same.
We left our poles on the bank, having caught absolutely nothing, and waded down into the current. He gripped my hand as I slipped a little; my poor tender feet weren’t used to the slimy, slippery feel of the creek bed rocks. We only waded out a few feet, and I held my skirt up with my other hand. I’d worn a shorter one today, but the hem was still soaked as the steady creek current lapped against the rocks.
“It’s the current a little fast for this?” I gripped his hand tighter, but it was still wet from our charade a few minutes ago and throwing rocks at each other.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got you!”
But then he didn’t.
My hand slipped out of his and I lost my footing, then landed promptly on my rear in the water. My skirt immediately swirled around me, soaking and weighing me down. I struggled to stand and reached for Ethan, but the current was too strong, and my skirt wrapped around my legs so tight I couldn’t even take a step. I fell again, and flailed wildly, reaching for something, anything, to stop my fall. I felt a sharp pain to the back of my head as I went down on a jagged rock behind me, and only saw blackness after that.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was blue curtains. Curtains? Stretched all the way around my bed? Where was I?
A vision pierced my mind of my sister in a hospital bed with those same curtains around her. Her frail body should have been hooked up to all sorts of tubes and wires and machines. Her little, thin chest should have moved only with the help of the beeping machines surrounding her, but instead my grandmother’s quilt was just pulled up to her chest. My mother and father were there, praying, sending her soul into the void peacefully. Was that what would happen to me if I went back to Germany? If I got sick or had an accident? Without Ethan there, who would make sure I was taken care of if my parents didn’t?
“Taylor!”
Ethan’s strained voice had me struggling to sit up in the hard hospital bed, the memory blessedly fleeing, only to find my head swam with the worst migraine I’d ever had in my life. I reached my hand up to gingerly touch my temple and felt the rough gauze of a bandage wrapped around my forehead. My vision was blurry but started to clear slowly as I felt Ethan scoop up my hand in his.
“What... what happened?” My voice sounded dead, groggy, like I’d been sleeping for days. I felt sleepy, but my heart raced at the same time. “How long was I out?” I asked, trying to no avail to clear the thickness in my throat. I couldn’t let Ethan see me panic.
“Not long,” Ethan blurted, a smile crossing his face. “Maybe a couple hours. The doctor said the shock of falling and hitting your head would put
you out a little while.”
My eyes widened, my heart slamming into my chest now. “Papa! I was supposed to be home. He’ll be worried.”
“I called him,” Ethan said, and squeezed my hand. “I’m so glad you’re awake. The doctor explained maybe it’s a concussion, but they wouldn’t know until you woke up. You slipped...”
“And hit my head. Ow.” I pressed a hand to my head again as the throbbing pain washed over me, but with Ethan holding my hand, I felt the anxiety flood out of my body. I sank back against the pillow behind me. “I can’t believe this.”
“What?”
“You said, ‘I love you.’”
Ethan chuckled. “I’ve said it before. The night we...”
I held a shaky finger to his lips. “Shh. I know. I just like hearing you say it.”
“Well, I love you.”
“I love you, too.” I smiled at him. “I still can’t believe the lake tried to kill me.”
That made Ethan full on laugh. He opened his mouth to say something, but the curtains at the foot of the bed parted, and a nurse came in then. She smiled widely at me and glanced at the tablet in her hand. “Well, Miss Berm, how are you feeling?”
“I have a throbbing headache,” I muttered, not looking at her. Nurses freaked me out. “But otherwise fine, I guess.”
She nodded while she took my pulse and other vitals, then stepped back and typed into her tablet. “Well your vitals are strong, and the small laceration on your head didn’t need stitches. The doctor will come in and check for a concussion, but otherwise you are doing great.” She dipped her head at us and disappeared from behind the curtain.
I looked over at Ethan. “I want to go home. Can you take me home?”
Ethan eyed me. “We should wait for the doctor...?”
“Ethan? Are you in here?” an unfamiliar voice sounded from the other side of the curtain. I tensed. This wasn’t the doctor, who would be here for me, not Ethan.
A tall, slender man with hair the same dusty blond shade as Ethan’s poked his head through, then opened the curtains on either side of him like he was a grand prince entering a throne room.
Just as dramatic and over the top as Ethan? It must be his father.
“Hi, Dad,” Ethan didn’t even bother looking up at him. “Mom must have called you. Where is Mom, anyway?”
“She’s in the city, and I was just home packing some things. She said something about you being in the hospital in her email?”
I looked between them, begging Ethan silently to explain what the heck was going on. The panic that had subsided a few minutes ago was back full force. Packing? The city? What was he talking about?
“Oh, you’re emailing now, huh?” Ethan’s voice dripped with sarcasm and he rolled his eyes. His hand fell away from mine and he leaned forward in his chair with his hands clasped together. “It sure is nice of you to show up over an hour after I called Mom.”
“Ethan, what...” I tried to interject, but another face appeared in the crowded little area.
“Taylor? Are you... Tay!”
“Papa!” I was so happy to see him, even if he did give Ethan a brief death glare. I held out my arms and he hugged me, then held me out at arm’s length.
“Are you okay? The nurse mentioned a concussion...”
“Maybe a concussion,” Ethan added. “The doctor hasn’t been in yet.”
“And from the looks of it, there won’t be much room for him to fit in this area,” Ethan’s dad muttered. “Come on, son, we’d better give these two some space.”
Ethan shook his head. “I’m staying with my girlfriend.”
“She’s not your girlfriend,” Papa barked at him.
“And when were you going to tell us this?” Ethan’s dad snapped at the same time. He turned and glared at Papa but stuck his hand out warily. “Rick Hersbill, Ethan’s dad. You must be...?”
“Tech master Sargent Allen Berm,” Papa addressed him, eyeing his hand but shaking it firmly anyway. “Retired, that is.”
“Ah, a military man. Well, good for you,” Mr. Hersbill muttered. He dismissed it, turning back to Ethan. “I said, let’s go. Your sister is in the car and she’s worried sick – more so about Taylor than you, which is strange.”
“I—” Ethan started, but his dad cut him off, holding up a hand.
“We need to talk about how your sister knows about this girl, and when she was at our house. Amy said she stayed overnight a few weeks ago?”
I gasped, and Ethan’s face turned bright red. Papa’s death glare burned holes into me and I couldn’t even look at him.
“Hi, am I interrupting?” The fifth person in a barely six-foot by six-foot area squeezed in – a man in a white lab coat with a silver name tag that read “Dr. Fortune.” Under any other circumstance I would have giggled at such a name for a doctor.
Mr. Hersbill stepped aside, next to Ethan’s chair, and laid a heavy hand on his son’s shoulder. “We were just leaving, Doctor.”
Dr. Fortune seemed a little bewildered that there were so many people crowding my bed but seemed to recover quickly. He snatched the tablet at the end of the bed and scrolled through it for a minute. “Ah, so possible concussion. Let’s see here.” He side-stepped Papa, who gracefully backed away, and pulled a tiny flashlight from his pocket and flooded my eyes with the bright, white light. “Look to your left if you would, Taylor?” I did as he asked. “Okay, good. Now right? Up? Down. Good!” He clicked off the flashlight and stuffed it back in his pocket. “I don’t think you have a concussion, and it sounds like an unfortunate fall, but given the location of the laceration, I would like to get some X-rays done just in case, all right?”
I nodded, gulping hard. I’d never had an x-ray in my life. I’d never even been in a hospital. I glanced at Papa, pleading with him to intervene, but he didn’t. This one time he didn’t hold to my parents’ extreme beliefs? Seriously? I wrapped my arms around me and snuck a glance at Ethan. His face was full of terror, his eyes wide. He looked just as lost as I was.
The doctor was discussing something quietly with Papa, and beside me Ethan winced as his dad pinched his shoulder. “Come on, son,” Mr. Hersbill commanded this time, and Ethan reluctantly stood. He mouthed, I’m sorry, and he looked so helpless it tore at my heart. I reached for him, but his father tugged him along behind him.
The doctor was turning to leave after having Papa sign some sheets of paper, but he turned around just as he was about to leave. “Oh, one more question, Miss Berm. What’s the date of your last period?”
“I... uh...” I gulped harder, glancing at my Papa. I didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know?”
The doctor frowned. “Is there any chance you could be pregnant?”
Ethan’s eyes widened behind my Papa. His eyes danced frantically around the room.
I remembered the morning after pill I’d taken, just in case. Ethan had been right about it all along. “No,” I answered firmly. “I’m not. I believe my last period was about a month ago.”
“So you are sexually active, then?” the doctor pressed.
I looked straight ahead at him and not at anyone else. “Yes.”
Ethan’s dad’s eyes bulged out of his face and his hand gripped his son’s arm even harder. “Ethan...” he hissed, “tell me you didn’t ... in our house... with your sister there...” he groaned.
Ethan just gulped and looked up at him. “I, um...oh god.” He looked at me. “Taylor...”
“Well, I’ll just get these x-ray orders in,” the doctor mumbled, clearly trying to escape. I didn’t blame him as he scurried away under the curtain.
“Oh, I’ve had enough of this!” Papa exclaimed as soon as the doctor left. Unfortunately, he turned his ire on Mr. Hersbill. “Why don’t you try educating your son not to take advantage of innocent girls like my granddaughter here?”
“Excuse me?” Mr. Hersbill’s voice was rather high-pitched. “If my son did anything I’m sure it was consensual. And he’s very responsible. He
even purchased birth control for his last partner, and I...”
“Birth control?” Papa’s voice rose so much I winced. He turned to me. “We’ve talked about this, Taylor! You know what the Bible says about birth control...”
“It says nothing about it!” Ethan expelled finally. “And Taylor and I are old enough to make our own damn decisions!”
“Disgusting,” Papa muttered, crossing his arms over his broad chest. He glared at me. “I’m disappointed in you, Taylor. What were you thinking, violating biblical standards like this?”
“I love him, Papa,” I announced in a voice not much my own. “I love Ethan, and I would do it a hundred times more if I had the chance.”
“Well, you won’t, and you don’t,” he said firmly. “You’re going back to Germany in five days.”
“Ethan, let’s go,” Mr. Hersbill announced again, this time a little softer.
“I won’t go,” I insisted. “I’ll run away.”
“Me too,” Ethan blurted. We shared a look. He was as serious as I was.
“This is insane!” Papa threw his hands up. He pointed a finger at Ethan and his dad. “I already told you, boy, to stay away from her.”
“You don’t get to tell my son what to do, he’s not your son!” Mr. Hersbill hurled back. “Not to mention, your granddaughter is the star of my son’s play, which opens in a couple of days. But you probably didn’t know that, did you?”
Ethan gazed up at his father, his eyes wide. “You... you know about my play?”
His father smiled down at him. “Of course I do, Ethan. I may not be around much, but I’ve always been proud of you for following your dreams. And if you cast this girl in your play, she must be something wonderful to you.” He chuckled slightly. “Just please don’t have her stay the night again, okay?”
“Yes,” Ethan whispered.
“And as for you,” Mr. Hersbill looked at Papa pointedly, “shame on you if you think you can keep two teenagers apart like this. Weren’t you a teenager yourself once, sir?”
Taming of the Shoe Page 20