by April Marcom
* * *
This time I had no trouble staying awake, although I climbed under my blanket in my dress and pretended to be asleep when my mother came in to tell me good night. The image of Mason kissing me under the full moon that hung in the sky that night played through my head over and over.
The reserve I felt previously when he came during the night just wasn’t there. I knew Mason so much better, now. I trusted him completely. And I was desperate to spend any precious time I could with him.
When I was sure my mother was in bed, I sat up and looked out the window. For nearly two hours I watched the young trees blowing in the wind and the empty street below. Then I saw someone walking down the road, coming closer. I watched him for a minute, waiting for him to move out of the shadows before I was sure it was him. The thrill that only he could bring shot through me as I hurried silently down the stairs and grabbed my coat.
I ran down the sidewalk and wrapped my arms around his neck when I met him right in the middle of the street at the corner. He put his hand on the back of my head and held it against his shoulder. “Mm, you feel good,” he said quietly into my hair.
“So do you.”
“It almost feels like I haven’t seen you in weeks. We haven’t had two seconds to ourselves like this.” He let go of me and took one hand. “Do you want to come to my place, just for a little while?”
“Okay.”
We walked silently through the night until we reached the rickety old stairs. We had to climb them slowly to avoid making any sound. At the top, Mason used the same bobby pin to unlock the door. Then we were plunged into complete darkness. I felt him turn to face me as he put his arm behind me to hug me again. “It really does feel like weeks since you were here with me…that perfect rainy day,” he said.
“I know. I’m glad that wasn’t the last time I saw you.”
He leaned back and then I felt his lips brush against my cheek. “I couldn’t let you go.”
A shiver passed over me, and then desire. I ran my fingers through his hair, having to find it in the dark, and then leaned up, hoping I would kiss his lips, but I got his jaw line instead. He laughed in a slow, deep voice. My first kiss is a failure. “Sorry,” I said, feeling humiliated.
“For what?”
I couldn’t answer.
“Alexandra—what are you sorry for?”
“I don’t know; I did that wrong.”
He put his hands on my face and ran his thumbs gently against my skin. “No, that was perfect.” I looked up to where I knew his face was, wondering if it was moving closer to mine, wondering if he would ever kiss me.
His head came to rest against mine for a second, and then I couldn’t feel him at all. “I can’t stand this anymore,” he said. His hand touched my arm. He felt his way down to my hand and then began leading me down the hall.
“Can’t stand what?”
“Not being able to see the most beautiful face ever created. You’re right beside me and I can’t even look at you.” A few seconds later a door was opening ahead of me and moonlight was washing over the tall roguish figure in front of me. He looked back and smiled. “That’s better.”
This has to be another wonderful dream.
Mason walked over to a thick blue blanket lying on the floor on the right side of the greenhouse room and let go of me to lay down on it. I wasn’t sure what to do. “Will you look at the stars with me?” he asked. I sat down and hugged my knees to my chest. Lying on the ground beside him wasn’t how I wanted to get my first kiss. “You can lay down. I’m not going to hurt you, Alexandra.” He laid his arm out beside him, indicating that I should lay on it.
I continued to stare forward. There were just some things I had to stand up for. “I can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“This...intimacy...it wouldn't be right.”
Mason shot up and looked at me seriously. “That's not what this is.” He took my hand, which I realized was shaking a little. “I have a great deal of reverence for what you're so afraid of right now. And I'm glad that you obviously do, too. I would never ask you to do that, Alexandra. I may not be an upper class man, but I'm not that kind of guy...I just wanted to look at the stars with you; it's easier to do when you're lying down...But we don't have to if it makes you uncomfortable.”
“No…I don't mind.”
He laid down and held an arm out for me again. I rested my head on his shoulder and scooted up against him. He held me close with the arm I was lying on.
“Mason—I didn't mean to imply that I think or expect any less of you than I do of anyone else,” I said.
“I know you didn't.”
“Because I don't think of you that way. I think you're perfect—” I reached across my stomach to hold his hand. “—and I'm still waiting to wake up from this fantastic dream.”
He kissed my forehead. “If you're waiting to wake up to me being gone, it's not going to happen.”
“I hope not.” We just smiled at each other for a minute.
Mason looked up through the glass ceiling. “See that star there? It almost looks blue.” He pointed to the sky and I looked around until I saw it.
“Yes.”
“It kind of looks like the tip of an arrow. Look at the stars lined up under it and the way they branch out at the end...” We looked at and talked about the stars as we enjoyed each other’s company. And for the first time, the fear I always felt of him eventually getting tired of me wasn’t there.
Half an hour passed by before I felt Mason's hand squeeze mine. “I should probably get you home,” he said.
I looked over at him. “Not yet. I don't want to leave you.”
“I don't want you to either, but it's really late, and we don't want to fall asleep like this.”
“I'm not tired.”
“Neither am I.” Mason sat up and pulled me along with him. “But it wouldn't be right for me to keep you up all night. I've already been selfish enough in keeping you awake this long.” He stood, and helped me up before he hugged me. “I just had to see you.”
“It wasn't selfish at all. You have no idea how happy I was when I read your note, knowing I would be seeing you tonight.”
As I stared at him, the desire to kiss him began to return. In those few seconds it felt like all that mattered was kissing him. But when I leaned up, he took my hand and began walking to the stairs. What did I do wrong? I followed him into the dark hallway and then outside, trying not to think of the way he suddenly seemed so unwilling to kiss me.
He didn't say a word until we were standing on the sidewalk in front of my house. “I'll see you after school tomorrow,” he said as he pulled me close.
“So you'll be there when I get out?”
“Unless I get run over by a car on my way.”
I laughed. “I can't wait.”
He kissed my cheek and watched me walk into my house.
As soon as I shut the door behind me, I saw something that made my heart pound. I didn't want to see what I was seeing. I didn't want to believe that the kitchen light was on and that I was probably in the biggest trouble of my life. “Come along, Alexandra,” my father's voice called out.
I took a shaky breath and made my way to the dining area, not even bothering to take off my coat. Both of my parents were sitting at the table, my mother crying quietly into a handkerchief. Katy sat there, too, with her sleeping head resting on the table and a thin puddle of drool leaking from her open mouth.
“Sit down,” my father said, keeping his eyes fixed on his clenched fists. My shaking legs carried me to the empty chair at the table. “I would have expected better from you, Alexandra,” he said.
“I just went for a walk, Father. I couldn't sleep.” I figured it was best not to bring up Mason.
My mother gasped. “Now you're lying, too? Oh Alexandra, you've always been such a good child. You've never gotten into trouble...” She stopped to take in a deep breath. “Now you're running around in the night, havin
g sex with a boy you just met!”
“I am not.”
“But you were with him. Katy—” She looked over at Katy and shook her arm.
Katy let out a snort as she jerked her head up. “Oh, hi Alexandra,” she said sleepily.
“Tell her what you saw,” my mother said.
“I just saw Mason walking up the road and then you walked away with him.”
“So you told them?” I said in shock. I never would have expected this from Katy.
“No, Mother came to check on us a little later and panicked when you weren't here. Father was going to call the police. It was the only way I could stop him.”
“Don't reprimand your sister,” my father said. “It's your own fault for sneaking out. I would say she did the right thing, but that would have been to tell us right away. She'll be punished for that later.”
“Come on. I didn't do anything.”
“Hold your tongue.”
Katy crossed her arms and sat back in her chair.
“What are we going to do with you now? You could be pregnant,” my mother said.
“No—”
“He'll marry her if she is,” my father said.
“No, I didn't have sex! I've never had sex. I wouldn't do that,” I interjected.
“Then just what were you doing?”
“Walking, looking at the stars.” My father glared. “I'm not lying.” I turned to my mother and took her hand. “I've never lied to you, Mother, you know that. Mason's been working so hard, he just wanted to take me for a walk, just me and him, so he asked me to stay awake and wait for him.” I turned to my father when I heard his heavy sigh. “I haven't done anything wrong.”
His eyes looked like they might pop out of his head as he pointed a shaking finger at me. “You left in the middle of the night to see this...this scoundrel!”
“He's a good man.”
“Alexandra,” my mother said as she pulled her chair around the table to sit right beside me. “I know you’ve never lied to me. Will you promise me that what you have said is the truth?”
“Yes, I promise.”
She let out an enormous, shaky breath and pulled me into a bone cracking hug. “I'm so relieved.”
“Lillian—” my father said.
“Ted, I know my daughter better than my own self. I wouldn't have expected her to go out during the night, but I know she's telling the truth. If you have any faith in me at all, you'll believe her too.” My mother looked at him with fiery, determined eyes I'd rarely seen before. My father stared back at her for a long time, as if they were deep in silent conversation.
My father finally pulled his gaze away and looked over at me. “You're grounded. You're not going to that dance,” he said.
“No!” my mother and I said at the same time. “It's her first dance and she bought a dress,” my mother said.
“And Emmaline's really looking forward to it. I can't back out on her,” I added.
“And you will not see Mason again,” my father said, looking back and forth at our pleading faces, showing no signs of mercy.
“No.” I burst into tears. Anything but that.
“That alone would be punishment enough,” my mother said. “Can't she please go to the dance?”
“No, no, no,” I said, hysterically. “I'll miss the dance. Ground me for as long as you want, just don't take Mason away.”
“He asked you to leave during the night with him. He’ll do it again. And who knows what other sort of things he’ll be asking you to do.”
“I’ll never do this again, please Father. I…” I choked on a great sob. “I’ll do anything you ask, just please let me keep seeing him.”
My father’s eyes softened as he watched me cry. “I’ll need to speak with his parents.”
“Why?”
“Because if things are so serious and you've been with him during the night—” I opened my mouth to object, but he only raised his voice. “—innocent or not—his parents should know what's going on, what sort of man their son is.”
“His mother's dead, though.”
“Where's his father, then? He never did say.”
I bit my lip and tried to think of a way out of this. What could I say to throw them off? His father's dead, too? No. “I can't tell you that,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Because I promised I wouldn't tell anyone.”
“Then you'll never see him again.”
“No!”
“Tell me who his father is.”
“If, if I tell you...will you let me continue to see Mason?”
“All I can promise is that if you don't tell me, you’ll never be allowed to see him again.”
I looked down at my hands as a tear fell on them. Certainly Mason would understand me telling them if it was the only way to keep seeing him. “Will you promise not to tell anyone else?” I asked, glancing over at my mother, knowing that this was the sort of information she lived for.
“I'm not agreeing to anything until you answer my question,” my father said.
My mother took my hand. “I won't tell anyone, Alexandra.”
“It's Sydney Algoth.”
“What?!” my father roared as a broken scream came from my mother, followed by a loud bump as she fell out of her chair and hit the floor.
“No way. He's my favorite gangster. How come you didn't tell me about him before?” Katy said.
“I don't ever want to hear you say anything like that again. Go to your room right now,” my father said to her.
“But I want to hear more about Mason's father.”
“Room NOW!”
“Fine.” Katy stood up and stomped out of the dining room.
“You're dating a member of the mob?” my mother said dramatically, looking up at me from the floor with terrified eyes. “This is worse than I thought. We're all in danger,”
“He's not in the mob, and neither is his father.”
Someone grabbed my arm and jerked me out of my chair. My father began dragging me out of the dining room.
“Ted, wait,” my mother called after him.
“Mason hasn't even spoken to his father since he went missing in New York City.” He began pulling me up the stairs. “They're not gangsters. Father, please, listen to me.” He pushed me into my room and locked it from the outside. “Father, wait!” I pounded my fists against the door. “Please...don't take him away from me.”
I leaned my head against the door and cried. I wished Katy hadn't said anything. At least if the police had been called, Mason wouldn't have gotten dragged into it.
Walking over to my closet, I pulled the coat Mason had given me off of its hanger and hugged it. After putting it on, I moved over to my bed and turned on my lamp. I reached into my pocket and pulled out what I was sure would be the last note I ever got from Mason. I blinked away my tears to read My heart is yours. I burst into a fresh wave of tears, crying even harder than before. His heart was all I wanted. How would I ever give it back to him?