Life Happens on the Stairs

by Amy J. Markstahler

  “This is beautiful,” I said.

  “Yeah, we hang out here a lot.”

  Tyler parked the car and led me inside, holding my hand tight in his. The dining room was full of people dressed in polos and khakis, eating and chatting. Everyone had a similar appearance with the exception of color choices (which ranged from shades of blue, red, and black). Tyler shook the hands of several men as we passed through, each one glancing my way with a smile. Then, Tyler casually led me toward a table tucked in the corner of the room. Greg was staring out the floor-length windows overlooking the golf course.

  “Hey, Dad,” Tyler said as we walked up.

  “You made it.” Greg stood up and gave Tyler a quick hug. “Nice to see you again, Elsie.”

  “Nice to see you, too.”

  “Where’s Mom?” Tyler asked, as we all settled in our seats.

  “Oh, she had a homeowner’s ass meeting,” Greg said with a chuckle.

  “Dad hates the homeowner’s association,” Tyler murmured to me.

  I shook my head. “I don’t even know what that is.”

  “Well, you’re better off!” Greg laughed. “Stupid people. All they want is to control what you do with your own house.”

  “Mom supposedly wants to monitor their tendencies, as she calls it, but she’s as much of a control freak as any of them,” Tyler said, then he took a sip of water. “So, what’s the verdict?”

  Greg glanced at me, then Tyler. “May I speak freely?”

  “Of course,” Tyler said. “Let’s get this over with, I’ve been avoiding the subject.”

  Greg scrunched his brow at the comment. “Okay. You’ve received letters from seven places: Columbia, U of I, Stanford, UT, Northwestern, Brown, and Yale.”

  Columbia? Yale? Brown? What the hell?

  “You have offers to go to all those schools?” I blurted. “So, she was serious?”

  “Who?” They asked in unison.

  “Your grandmother! She said you started college at sixteen, is that true?”

  Greg flinched. “You haven’t told her?”

  Tyler timidly shook his head. “I started to one day, but we were interrupted.”

  “You’re always so damn modest.” Greg rested his elbows on the table and started talking like Tyler wasn’t there. “He studied like crazy his freshman year of high school. Then, after he turned fifteen, he took his ACT to prove his mother wrong, as usual.”

  Tyler sighed.

  “And he scored a thirty-six,” Greg continued. “Every school in the country contacted him. He started at Vanderbilt the fall after he turned sixteen, and now he’s almost done with his bachelor’s. These are his choices for graduate school.”

  I sat there in disbelief. “You’re almost done with your bachelor’s?”

  Tyler inclined his head without a word. An awkward silence settled around the table. Not sure how to react, I looked down at my lap, and then I heard Greg push back his chair.

  “Why don’t we get something to eat?” he said. “The chef’s serving a buffet tonight.”

  Greg stood up. Tyler and I didn’t move. Greg took his cue and walked away. Tyler started spinning his water glass between his fingers, chewing on his bottom lip.

  “Does that bother you?” he asked, staring at the glass.

  “Um, no. But I don’t understand why you haven’t told me. If you want me to trust you, you have to be honest with me, too. You definitely haven’t mentioned being a child prodigy.”

  “I’m not. I just test well,” he said deadpan, and then he let out a burdened sigh. “I didn’t mean to keep it from you. I just didn’t want to scare you off.”

  “Tyler, you couldn’t scare me off for being smart. It’s pretty obvious you’re not dumb. I thought you were on scholarship for cross country.”

  “I’m on scholarship, but cross country’s only one aspect of it,” he said. “I was offered that after I started. I was kind of young to compete at that level at first.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  He rested his arms on the table, looking me over with gentle eyes. Once again, I couldn’t be mad when he looked at me that way. I quickly ran my options through my head. I could make a big deal of it, throw a fit and ruin the night, or I could just do as he had asked, and trust him.

  Tyler leaned in and brushed his lips across my cheek.

  “Let’s get some food,” he whispered in my ear. “We have all night to talk about this.”

  “Okay.”

  He stood up and held out his hand. I accepted and followed him to the buffet table. My mind raced as I filled my plate. He’s brilliant. Who scores a thirty-six on the ACT? A bachelor’s degree before he turned twenty? That was insane. Next thing I knew, I had more food piled on my plate than I could ever dream of eating. Chill, Elsie.

  Greg had waited for us to return before he started eating. “We all good?” he asked.

  “Yep,” Tyler said.

  I smiled, and took a bite of scalloped potatoes.

  “Okay, so where are you thinking?” Greg asked.

  “Well, Stanford and Brown are great,” Tyler said, “and the U of I has the best engineering program in the country, but I’m not sure that’s what I want to do. You said Yale and Columbia, too?” He smirked behind his fork. “No way. Flattering, but no way.”

  “Really?” Greg said. “You don’t want Yale?”

  Tyler set down the utensil and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “No. I don’t want to live out East. I like Stanford, always have. But I’m curious about Northwestern.”

  “Chicago, eh?” Greg grinned. “Your grandmother will have a fit.” Chuckling, he picked up some food with his fork and held it midair. “Won’t that make the holidays fun?”

  “She’s going to have to let it go, Dad. I’m already pissed at her.”

  “Yeah, get in line. I promised you could choose your graduate school. I’ll deal with her.”

  Tyler nodded and dropped the subject. Greg made dinner pleasant for the rest of the evening, talking and laughing about the neighbors’ bad habits.

  After an hour or so, we said goodbye and headed for Tyler’s house.

  Chapter 19

  In less than five minutes, Tyler turned on a concrete driveway, leading up a slight incline to a beige brick, two-story house.

  “Nice,” I said.

  “Like it? We’ve lived here since I was six.”

  Within minutes, we were walking to the back of the house across a sandstone patio with a bean-shaped pool in the center. He led me through French doors into a warm living room done in muted shades of brown. One wall had a fireplace with an enormous TV hanging above the mantel. A long, russet leather couch faced it. Behind the couch, the space opened to an expansive kitchen. Rustic, oak cabinets and stainless steel appliances lined the walls in an L shape, cupping a woodblock center island.

  “So beautiful,” I said.

  “Thanks. Mom’s an interior designer. She’s pretty good, too.”

  He tossed his keys on the kitchen counter, opened the refrigerator, and bent down to inspect the contents. He handed me a Pepsi and grabbed another one for himself.

  “My room’s upstairs,” he said with a wave.

  I followed him, scanning the photographs on the walls. Family portraits, years of baseball pictures, candid shots of him and his mom at a ski resort. He headed up the stairs. Frames lined the stairwell, displaying certificates of academic awards. I walked slowly to inspect each one. He stopped at the top landing and turned around.

  “Don’t mind all that,” he said.

  “Are you kidding? I’m going to learn as much as I can. You called me guarded... Jeez, look at all of this.”

  He blushed and waited. The last one I read was a certificate for the President’s Award for Educational Excellence, signed by President Obama. What in the world? Tyler was smarter than my whole gene pool combined.

  Trying to process all the new information, I followed him to the end of the hall. He turned around and wrapped his
arms around me. Staring into my eyes, he leaned down and gave me a kiss.

  “I’ve been waiting all night to do that,” he said. “I loved taking my girl to the club. First time I’ve done that, thanks to you.”

  “You’ve received an award from the President, but never taken a girl to the club?”

  “Yep.”

  He stepped aside and pushed the door open. I walked into a blend of a bedroom and living room. A brown couch stretched down the wall with a wide-screen TV hanging on the opposite side. Framed prints hung all over. One was a picture of a long, winding road with perseverance printed at the bottom. Another framed poster in black with white text read: Your body can stand almost anything. It’s your mind that you have to convince. At the far end of the room, a king-sized bed was covered in navy and white bedding. An oak desk piled with books, papers, and a laptop were nestled in the corner. Above the desk, two shelves were stacked with golf and baseball trophies, medals, and a rainbow of martial-arts belts.

  He flopped on the couch and grabbed the remote. “Ah, it feels good to be home.”

  ESPN sportscasters filled the screen. I sat down at the other end of the couch, and nudged his leg with my foot. “Obviously, you haven’t told me everything.”

  “Sorry about that,” he said. “I’m a little... advanced.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Like freaky smart.”

  “Yeah, like freaky smart.” He laughed. “I’ll be sure to use that on my résumé.”

  “Glad I can be of service.” I bowed my head. “Where did you go to school?”

  “I started out in private school, but I kind of got kicked out in junior high.”

  “What for?”

  “Um, fighting,” he said, tilting his head. “I have a bit of a temper if I’m pushed.”

  “You don’t seem like the type to hurt anyone.”

  “I didn’t, really. There was a no tolerance rule for fighting. The kid deserved it. I’d watched him pick on a sixth grader, Cillian, for weeks.” He shrugged. “So, I beat the guy’s ass. It didn’t take much. Bullies are all talk.”

  “Where did you go after that?”

  “I studied at home. I could go as fast as I wanted to and study whatever I chose. Mom was pretty cool. She helped me figure out what worked and made sure I had plenty of arts and culture, including languages,” he said. “It worked because Tennessee looked at it as private schooling. She’d turn in my grades to the counselor at the high school, and I had access to all the extracurricular stuff. Hell, I played golf every afternoon at Spring Creek for two years.”

  I leaned forward to take his hand. He clutched my wrist and pulled me across the couch. Giggling, I snuggled beside him and laid my head on his chest.

  “Why did you take the ACT so early?”

  “Mom kept giving me work that I’d already studied or knew in general. She insisted I complete the curriculum. I had to prove it to her somehow.”

  His deep breath rippled underneath me.

  A 36 ACT score...

  “How did they react?” I asked.

  “They freaked out,” he said. “Within weeks, they had me enrolled at Vanderbilt, and I headed to Nashville that fall. What sucked was Mom did, too. Talk about helicopter parents. Since I was only sixteen, she didn’t want me there alone. By second semester, I finally convinced her to go home.”

  The bedroom door flew open.

  “Tyler!” his mom squealed.

  She slowed down when she saw me. I sat up. Tyler didn’t flinch. She looked from me to him, then stepped his way and held out her arms.

  “Hi, Mom,” he said, standing up to give her a hug.

  “I’m so glad you’re home,” she said, patting his face with a loving look. She turned to me. “Elsie, right?”

  “Yes. Nice to meet you again.”

  “Awfully nice of you to come along,” she said with all sincerity.

  “You have a beautiful home, Mrs. Vaughn.”

  “Oh, please, I’m Katherine,” she said. “Y’all are staying the night, correct? It’s too late to drive back now.”

  “I’d planned on it,” Tyler said.

  “Great. I’ll make breakfast in the morning. You should take her to downtown Memphis tomorrow. It’s a beautiful city, Elsie.”

  “She has to get back early,” Tyler said. “But we can do breakfast if it’s before seven.”

  “Will do.” She looked around the room, and then she eyed Tyler. “Where do you plan on sleeping?”

  “In here,” Tyler replied like it was a stupid question.

  She leaned toward me. “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen,” I said. “I’ll be eighteen soon.”

  She cringed. “Tyler. I’m not exactly comfortable with that.”

  “All right,” he said. “One of us will crash in the spare room.” She pursed her lips. “I promise, Mom. It’s all good. You know that.”

  “Okay, then. Your dad’s on his way home. I’m beat, so I’ll leave you two alone.” She gave Tyler a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t stay up too late.”

  “Goodnight, Mom.”

  I smiled and waved.

  “See you in the morning,” she said, as she closed the door.

  He flopped back down on the couch. “Wanna go for a swim?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t bring a swimsuit.”

  His eyes danced.

  “What does that look mean? I can’t figure you out sometimes.”

  “You don’t want to know what I’m thinking. Do you have a pair of shorts?”

  “Yes.”

  He got up and started across the room. “I have a T-shirt.”

  “What you have is a lot of energy.”

  “Yes, I do,” he said over his shoulder. “And I need to burn some, or it’s going to be a painfully long night.”

  He opened the top drawer of his dresser. Digging through layers of shirts, he held up a white T-shirt and grinned.

  I laughed. “I don’t think so.”

  He put it back and grabbed a black one. “This is too small for me now. It should fit you.”

  He handed me the T-shirt and walked to a door beside the couch.

  “Bathroom’s in here,” he said. “I’ll go down the hall.”

  After he walked out, I stepped inside to change. The room was done in navy tile lined in bright white grout. I scanned the counter, curious as to what products he liked. Nothing in particular, with the exception of a bottle of Sauvage cologne by Dior. I popped the lid and inhaled his scent. Nice. Tyler in a bottle.

  When I stepped out, he was sitting on the couch in long, black swimming trunks and a T-shirt. He hopped up and led me through the low-lit house into the humid night air. He headed to the pool house beside the patio, returning with two towels, tossed them on the patio chair and pulled off his T-shirt. I held my breath as he walked away. Michelangelo couldn’t have created such beauty.

  He stepped on the diving board, bounced in the air and dove in with hardly a splash. I decided to follow him. Walking across the board, I bounced, grabbed my knees, and did a cannon ball in the center of the deep end. I couldn’t touch his grace, might as well cannon ball.

  As I surfaced, I took a deep breath, wiping my face. He swam to me and pulled me close. I clutched his smooth shoulders as he gave me a long, wet kiss. After he pulled away, the wake of the water moved between us.

  “You have no idea how much I dread going back to school,” he said.

  “Me, too.”

  “I wish we were ready to start our own lives,” he said. “We can make an amazing life together, you know? But I have to finish school first. Please... wait for me.”

  “Tyler, I’ll wait for you for the rest of my life if that’s what it takes.”

  “Good,” he said, and then he kissed me again.

  After we let go, we swam a few laps together. He wasn’t lying... he needed to burn some energy. I swam until I had to take a break, then made my way to the edge, and watched him swim ten laps at record speed. Meanwhile, a guy w
ith curly brown hair came strutting across the patio. Lean, at least six feet tall and with olive skin, he wore plaid flannels and a green Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle T-shirt.

  “What the hell, Vaughn? I saw your car in the driveway. You’re in town, and you don’t call me?” He stopped short and crossed his arms when he saw me. “Oh, I see what’s going on.”

  “I thought you were in France,” Tyler said, swimming the backstroke.

  “We got back Sunday. Who’s your friend?” The guy kicked off his shoes, sat on the edge of the pool and shoved his feet in the water.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know,” Tyler said, then he rolled in the water and winked at me.

  The guy kicked his feet, splashing Tyler in the face. Tyler splashed him back.

  “Come on, man, you’re never with a girl.” He waited. Tyler kept swimming. The guy waved. “Oh, forget you.” He looked at me with a crooked smile. “Hi, I’m Zach.”

  “I’m Elsie.”

  “Nice to meet you,” he said, and then he nodded at Tyler. “She’s pretty damn hot, man.”

  My cheeks burned, and I looked away. Tyler swam to me and wrapped his arm around my waist. I clutched his neck.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he said.

  “It’s not like I’m up for sale,” I murmured.

  “I know...” Tyler whispered back.

  “Must be nice,” Zach said. “I did meet a sexy French girl while we were in Paris. She might have been an anorexic, though.”

  Zach had big dimples and round cheeks, an adorable baby face that hadn’t quite caught up with his muscular built. Tyler kissed my cheek and swam to the middle of the pool.

  “Elsie’s from Morris Chapel, it’s not far from Savannah. Well, actually, she’s a Yankee who migrated south.”

  I splashed him. He laughed and disappeared under the water.

  “How did you two meet?” Zach asked me. “It’s not easy to get the guy’s attention.”

  “At his grandmother’s house. My mom cleans there.”

  “What?” Zach burst out laughing.

  My stomach sank. Why did I introduce myself that way?

  Tyler surfaced. “What’s so funny?”