Glimpse (7 page)

Mom opened our bedroom door and stuck her head in.  “When you two are finished changing, come out to the back yard. I need help weeding the vegetable garden.  Melody, pick up your skirt and hang it in the closet.”

“But, Mom,” I began, trying stay calm, “I promised Claire I would meet her out at the lake at three and now it’s too late for me to call her and cancel.”

“She has a cell phone doesn’t she?  Call her on that.” She shook her head at me. “You know, you didn’t ask for permission to go anywhere this afternoon.  I don’t appreciate that at all, young lady.”  Mom drew her head back into the hall and closed the bedroom door.

I couldn’t help it; I threw one of the sandals after her. “Crap!  What am I going to do now?”

“I guess you’re going to help me and Mom weed the vegetable garden.  You ruined my entire afternoon. I was supposed to be talking to Andy Cook on the phone since 1:30.”  Melody picked up the sandal.  “But no, Mom thinks there’s something going on and I get dragged along on the sick people visits to keep an eye on you.”  She threw the sandal back at me, just missing my head, and then flung the bedroom door open.  “I can’t wait to help you weed Mom!  Zellie can’t either!  What a nice way to spend an afternoon!”

I sunk down to the floor and leaned back against my bed.  I hoped Avery wouldn’t be too mad at me. Worst girlfriend ever.

The fumes from the wood stain made Avery dizzy. He was pretty sure that he should be wearing some sort of breathing mask.  It was just further proof that his father enjoyed torturing him.  He slapped the paintbrush against the porch railing. 

On a pissed off scale of 1-10 he figured Zellie was going to be about an 8.  Their first kinda sorta date and instead of kissing her and talking to her and kissing her some more, here he was sweating his butt off, asphyxiating in the sun with his dad.  Worst boyfriend ever.

“Make sure you get the stain in there real good. This isn’t the time to be doing a half-assed job.”  His dad stood over him. “Okay…that’s better. Good job.”

Did his dad just give him a compliment? He was up to something.

The Adams men worked on staining the front porch for over an hour before his dad spoke.  “Son, what were you doing with Zellie Wells during church today?”

Avery became intent on the railing he was working on.  “Nothing, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His dad set his paintbrush down, then took him by the shoulders, looking into his eyes.  “You both came into the service late at the same time this morning.  You have to be careful around her.”

“Why?” Avery asked, backing out of his father’s grip.

This time when his dad grabbed him by the shoulders, it was not so gently.  “Listen, this is for your own good.  Break things off with her now before you get in too deep.”

“Dad, I like her, she likes me, that’s it.  I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of this.”  Avery resumed working on his railing.

“I don’t want you to get hurt like…I need to keep you safe.”

Avery was really confused, where was all of this coming from?  Then he remembered how his Dad had behaved with Zellie’s mom at the birthday party. Was he jealous? “We’re not you and her mom, y’know.”  His dad blinked hard, taken aback.  That
was
it. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t be with her, when you can’t seem to be without Mrs. Wells.” He tightened his grip on his paintbrush handle. “Don’t think the entire town hasn’t noticed how embarrassing you two are with each other.”

“You will do as I say because I’m your father and I said so.  That’s reason enough.”  He let go of Avery’s shoulders, looking at him with a glimmer of sadness in his eyes.

“Can we just finish staining the deck?  I have a lot of homework to do.”  Avery turned away from his dad, more determined to be with Zellie than ever.

Sitting on his bedroom floor with his back against his bed, Avery pulled his shirt out from his chest and sniffed it.
Great
, he totally reeked of wood stain.  He dialed Zellie’s phone number, hoping she wasn’t too mad at him for not showing up at the lake.

Pastor Paul answered the phone.  “Hello?”

“Hi, uh, is Zellie there?”

“Who’s calling?”

“It’s Avery Adams, sir.”

“Oh, Avery, hi, Zellie’s mom has her doing hard labor out in the garden.  Can I take a message?”

Wonderful, so it wasn’t just him being imprisoned by his parents? What were they up to? “No, that’s okay.  I’ll see her at school tomorrow.  Thanks, um, bye.”

“Bye.”

Later that night he lay in bed fully clothed, listening for his parents.  He’d heard his dad turn off the eleven o’clock news about a half hour before.  They were sure to be asleep by now.

He crept from his bed, inching open his bedroom door and stepped out into the hallway.  The wood floorboards creaked beneath him.  This would have been so much easier if he could’ve fit through his bedroom window.  He made his way to the garage, opened the side door and wheeled his bike out to the street before getting on it. He looked back at his house, everything was dark and still.

Riding his bike at this time of night was peaceful.  All the houses were quiet, only a few had their TV’s on, the light strobing though sheer curtains. The park by Zellie’s house was empty, so much calmer when there weren’t any kids in the sandboxes or on the swings. Avery noticed that they had reached the time of year when the city left the fountain flowing constantly. The night was hushed enough for him to hear the water cascading from the cherub’s pitchers into the pool below.

He parked his bike at the end of the Wells’ gravel driveway and made his way around the side of the house. 

Walking down the length of it, he ran his hand along the siding to balance himself in case he tripped over something in the dark.  Standing to the side of what he thought was Zellie’s bedroom window; he tapped his fingers on the glass. 

Someone was shaking me.  “Zellie, wake up!” Melody whispered, “Avery’s at the window.”

“What?”  I opened my eyes. I was clutching my belly. I’d been dreaming his vision.

“Avery’s at the window, Zel.  He wants to talk to you.”  Melody backed away and pointed outside. Avery waved at me.

I got up and opened the window.  “Hey,” I said, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. God, I must look horrible!  Not to mention the fact that I was wearing my Minnie Mouse night shirt.  The embarrassment, it seemed, would never end.

He stuck his head into the room and gave me a quick kiss on the mouth.  “Hey, can you come with me somewhere?”

I looked at Melody sitting on her bed watching us like we were in a movie.  “Right now?”  I wanted nothing more than to go with him, but I was also afraid of getting grounded for the rest of my life.

Avery looked to Melody.  “You’re not going to say anything, are you Mel?”

“Not if Zellie gives me her allowance for the next two weeks, I won’t.”  Melody spit on her hand and stuck it out to me.

I spit on my hand and shook Melody’s.  “Deal.” 

The excitement of what I was about to do was thrilling.  I grabbed a pair of jeans from the closet and pulled them on under my night shirt. I debated for about two seconds whether I should put a bra on, but decided I couldn’t be incognito enough to get it on with Avery standing right there.  I was thankful for my nice little B-cups for once in my life. I slipped on my flip flops and then went to the window, trying to figure out the best way to climb through it without making too much noise.

Avery held the window all the way up while I stepped up onto my and Melody’s desk.  I slung my leg over the sill and ducked under the window pane. He put his arms around my waist, helping me out the rest of the way. 

I let the window slide closed with a soft thud and mouthed “thanks” to Melody. Avery took my hand and led me around the side of the house down the driveway to where his bike was. “I’m sorry I didn’t meet you at the lake, my dad made me help him stain the deck.”

I smiled. It was a relief to know that I wasn’t the only one whose parents forced them to do chores.  I think Claire would have to look the definition of chores up in the dictionary.  “Yeah, well I was in weeding hell all afternoon and couldn’t get away either.”  I put my arms around his waist, hugging him to me.  “You’re here now and that’s all that matters.  So, where are we going?”

Avery took my hands from around his waist.  “Let’s walk over to the park across the street.  I have some things I need to talk to you about.”  He took hold of my hand and started walking.

This couldn’t be good.  Had he decided that I was a dork after all?  Had he realized that I was not worth his time? Was I too freakishly tall?  Melody said guys didn’t like it when you were the same height as them. Did I not know how to gauge his feelings at all?  No.  I knew him.  I already knew him.  It had to be something besides me that was getting in the way of us.

We sat down on a bench underneath a street light. I could hear the water spilling from one level to the next in the fountain behind us. If what he was going to tell me was really bad I could always go drown myself in it.  Let the cherubs take me down.

Avery turned to me, still holding my hand. “My dad doesn’t want me to start seeing you. He says that it’s for my own good, to keep me safe.  Do you have any idea why he would say that?”

My hands began to tremble. Before I was kinda kidding about the fountain, but now maybe not.  I’d been with Avery not even two whole days and now his dad was making him break up with me? And was he going to obey him and do it? “So your dad knows about us?  What did you tell him?”

“I didn’t tell him anything.  He saw us both coming into church late and put two and two together I guess.”  Avery scooted closer, wrapping his arms around me to quiet the trembling that was taking over my body.

I searched his eyes, he was telling the truth. Of course he was.  This was something our parents were doing to us.  Avery still wanted to be with me. “My mom must know too, that’s why she kept me from meeting you today.  I honestly don’t know why they would be trying to keep us apart.”

He nodded. “You know they were engaged?  Your mom and my dad?”

“Yeah, but for like a minute.” Could that be why? That didn’t seem fair at all and it was so long ago. I shook my head.  “They were high school sweethearts.  My mom said they broke up when she went away to school in St. Louis. They’ve been over for more than twenty years. You don’t think that has anything to do with us, do you?”

“I don’t know.” Avery shrugged. “It just seems like the most logical explanation.”  His eyes grew wide and he loosened his grip on me just slightly. “Hey, you don’t think we’re, like, related or something?” 

“No!  Gross!” I slapped him on the chest.  “There is no way that’s what’s going on.  Yuck, I can’t believe you said that!” Okay, it had crossed my mind for like a nanosecond, but I didn’t want to have to change my firm “no” stance on incest, so I’d let it go. Too skeevy. I tried to pull away from him, but he just pulled me closer, laughing. 

“Our moms were best friends too,” he said.  I’ve seen a picture of them with my dad and Jason’s standing in front of your mom’s old house before their prom. Maybe it has something to do with them not being friends anymore?”

“Maybe.” I chewed my lower lip.  This was something Claire and I had debated several times. “Do you know why they don’t like each other?  I mean, they were as close as me and Claire and I can’t imagine us not being friends.”

Avery looked up at the street light. “I think it might have something to do with my sister.” His eyes met mine, his face somber now. “Did you know that?  That I had an older sister?  Her name was Erin. My family never talks about it.”

“No, I’ve never heard any mention of her.” That surprised me, not that I knew everything about Avery, but Rosedell was a pretty tight community, surely I would have heard about him having a sister?  Something really bad must have happened— Oh. The now familiar smell of pine began tickling my nose. “What happened to her?” I asked, not really needing to.  Images of a baby girl, sprawled out on a hospital bed, tubes running up her nose and into her arms, flashed through my mind.

“She had leukemia.” His eyes filled with tears and he looked away.  “Actually, my parents partly had me because my bone marrow maybe would’ve helped her. She didn’t…she died before I was old enough for it to be harvested.”

This was the thing that Avery lived with. I was realizing his life wasn’t as perfect as I’d always thought.  Of course it wasn’t.  He could be beautiful, do well in school, be on every sports team, but he was born to save his sister and he thought he had failed at that.

Avery wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, facing me again. “Anyway, this one time after church? We were like, nine, I guess? I saw our moms having an argument over by the coat closet.  Your mom kept trying to hug my mom, but she pushed her away.  They were both crying.  Then I heard my mom say Erin’s name and your mom say she was sorry.”

I turned in Avery’s embrace, resting my head against his chest. “
I’m
sorry that happened to you. All of it.  I don’t know what my mom’s deal was. Both of her parents died when she was our age and she can’t…she probably wasn’t there for your mom like she should’ve been.”

Or she’d known what was going to happen and didn’t say anything.

Mom always had the right answer in the game.  It wasn’t a parlor trick; she wasn’t reading my mind, she was checking out my vision. She was like me, or I guess, I was like her. I felt a little relieved, knowing now that at least one person would believe my secret.

Guilt stepped on the back of relief’s heels. Of course, Mom had royally screwed things up and broke her best friend’s heart. I couldn’t do that to Avery.

I had to get this over with and tell him. Holding back the vision from him, it was the wrong thing to do. “I have something to tell you.  Kiss me first.”

Avery took my face into his hands and pressed his mouth to mine, sliding his tongue between my lips.  It was the most wonderful sensation. I tried to block out all the thoughts that were scratching at my brain and let myself go, relish the moment.