Holly in Love (11 page)

“You look like a pro football player,” said Christopher.

My father more or less rolled me into the car to take me to Kate’s and embarrassed me horribly by hanging around to chat with everyone about drugs. He’s not very subtle. He’d heard the drug scene was getting bad again, and he wanted to know for sure so he buttonholed each of my friends and asked them where they bought drugs. Everybody said, “I don’t buy,” and “I don’t associate with people who do,” which was probably correct, but they would have said that to Dad no matter
what
the truth was. Everyone kind of stumbled around hoping not to be asked any more questions.

There was a bad moment when I thought Dad would say a blessing over the picnic basket and the thermoses, but the moment passed without a prayer (except mine to stop him!). My leg was strapped onto the snowmobile to prevent it from falling during the ride and getting tangled in the moving parts (a rather hideous thought), and thanks to Kate’s maneuvering and Stein’s basic lack of interest, I was settled behind Stein.

Actually it was easiest that way. I didn’t have to pretend enthusiasm or utter little sentences of pleasure, because Stein is a doer, not a waster of time on meaningless chat. He just grinned, and we took off.

The engine made an appalling amount of noise. It was the sort of grinding, screaming mechanical racket that is totally offensive when you hear it in the distance, and yet when
you’re
making it, and it’s
your
noise, the racket is kind of comforting.

Deafening, though.

Others had used the path before us, and often. It was worn to a smooth road of ice. We’ll all be killed, I thought, as Stein took the curves at speeds that would qualify us for an Olympic bobsledding team. I wondered if Jamie would come to my funeral.

We covered the eight miles to the waterfalls in mere seconds, or so it seemed. I hadn’t even noticed Swann’s Wood go by because I’d been too busy clinging to the grip. Stein and I arrived first. Either the others had less horsepower or they were more sane.

Stein stopped the engine and for a moment we just sat there, gazing at the waterfalls.

From between the scattering of evergreens came rays of winter sun, turning the ice to fire and the snow to stars. The waterfalls had frozen as they fell, in great gleaming icicles and enormous rounded nobs and tiny delicate plumes of ice sugar spray. Windblown snow and frost decorated the firs like patches of old lace. Every cluster of pine needles was thick with hardened snow in tight cruel balls, so that the pines looked decorated for Christmas by the icy hand of winter.

Near the skis of the snowmobile was a young fir no more than eighteen inches high. A filigree of ice clung to its tiny branches like a cathedral window star.

The sun reflected so blindingly I got tears in my eyes and had to blink to see.

Thank you, God! I thought unexpectedly. Thank you for so much that’s beautiful. For the ice and the sun and the blue of the sky!

I’ll be darned, I thought. There are still little pockets of religion in me. Who would have guessed?

Immediately, having made friends with God by complimenting Him on his terrific frost patterns, I began wondering what it would be like to talk to God about boys. “God, I think the mating pattern you allowed to evolve here is altogether too difficult. I want you to intervene in my life. Miracles will not be necessary. I want only a softening of the path.”

I giggled softly, and Stein said, “Nice, huh?”

“Yes. Thanks for bringing me.”

“Any time,” said Stein, and he sounded very serious. As if I could phone during the next blizzard at three
A.M.
and Stein would gladly go out again to admire Nature’s best with me.

I ached to be able to jump up. Circle the little pond. See how the frozen falls looked from behind the stand of birches. Look down into those animal prints immortalized in the crusted snow and guess who visited the pond.

The other snowmobiles roared. No, don’t come! I thought. Leave me here to think about the little fir trees.

Three snowmobiles tore into the clearing. Stein yanked off his seatbelt and helmet and began unfastening me. Gary yelled a warning and slid to a precipitous halt inches away from us, Kate squealing with delight and Lydia yelling not to destroy the snowmobiles because she wanted her deposit back.

When I looked down, I saw that Gary’s snowmobile had run over the tiny fir, destroying forever that tiny frosted work of art. There was nothing left now but a torn raw stub and a little mangled branch twisted in the skis.

Kate leaped off, and she and Gary hugged each other and looked self-consciously at all of us and then kissed lightly, and Lydia said, “Later, children, later.”

“Why?” said Gary. “Best things first.”

Susan and Ross claimed to be starving and dying of thirst, so they broke out the thermos of hot chocolate and the first bag of ham sandwiches. Stein, of course, shunned anything as pleasant as a hot drink and fished out a cold Pepsi. He even produced a plastic cup into which he dropped the tip of an icicle from the falls to ice his drink satisfactorily.

“I wouldn’t use that for an ice cube,” said Lydia. “It’s probably frozen acid rain.”

Everyone but me laughed.

“Say, what’d you think of the game?” said Stein at large. Everyone huddled around the food, talking about how exciting the game had been.

I could not believe they were sitting around talking about ice hockey and crunching taco chips.
It was all so beautiful!
Why weren’t they gasping in awe and weeping because they hadn’t brought cameras and offering their taco chips to the birds in homage to the best Nature had to offer?

I gazed over Stein’s ample shoulders at the top of the falls, and for a moment watched a hawk circle lazily in the sky, a black and graceful creature against the deep, impossible blue of the sky.

The snowsuit was too warm. Who would ever have thought that Holly Carroll could get too warm? It mellowed me. I decided not to tell them that anyone who adored ice hockey was a barbarian and that Jamie Winter and Holly Carroll were the only outposts of civilization in a deteriorating world. I decided not to say that in my opinion a hockey stick was shaped exactly like a scythe—for slicing cheeks open, though, instead of reaping grain. I even decided to smile at Stein while he bragged about his chances at pro hockey and while I remembered Stein’s opponents who had left the rink needing stitches.

I am practically a saint, I told myself. I am a big, big person.

I glanced down at the huge fat beast I was with the snowsuit on and thought ruefully that there were two ways to interpret “big.”

“So, Holly,” said Lydia, in that sharp, cruel tone she uses to introduce torment. “So how’s dear little Jamie?”

Inside the suit I shriveled. Jamie was private. He was my fantasy. Lydia had no business introducing him here, for everyone to kick around like a downed hockey player. “He’s fine,” I said, trying to be casual. The blushes came and went on my cheeks like tides in the Bay of Fundy.

“Jamie who?” Susan wanted to know.

“Win—ter,” said Lydia, as if those two syllables described something utterly comical.

“Jamie Winter?” repeated Susan. “You mean that junior?” She managed to make a junior sound as remote as an Afghan.

“Right,” giggled Lydia. “Hollyberry here is crazy about him.”

Kate jumped in. She was not so much being a pal as she was preserving my chances with Stein. “Drop dead, Lydia,” she said crossly. “You’re like Hope Martin. Always nipping at somebody’s heels. Stop starting rumors.”

Susan had never once listened to Kate, and she wasn’t listening now. “But Holly,” she protested, looking at me with confused, surprised eyes. “Jamie’s so young. I mean I’m practically two years older than Jamie. Don’t you feel there’s a tremendous gap? What could you possibly talk about?”

Everything, I thought. A thousand more things than I could ever talk to
you
about. I found myself wondering how the eight of us had ever managed to get together. I wasn’t even sure any of us liked anybody else in the group very much. I certainly didn’t like Lydia. And Susan was pressing me pretty hard. And if Kate kept trying to sell me on or to Stein I wouldn’t like her anymore either. I said, “Actually, he’s kind of a neat person.”

I did it, I thought. I admitted it. I didn’t pretend he’s nothing but a clod to carry trays.

“She’s really into cradle-robbing this year,” said Lydia, smirking. “You know what else Hollyberry is into? Dollhouses.” Lydia’s distinctive laughter pealed out over the ice and vibrated in the woods. I considered violence.

Gary said mildly, “Jamie’s six feet tall, Lyd. Little large for a cradle.”

I forgave Gary for running over the fir tree.

And then Stein said (
Stein
!), “He
is
a neat person. He’s kind of weird. Doesn’t like sports even though he’s got the build for them. Lifts weights, though, I think. But he can do anything mechanical. He’s got a parts inventory in that garage of his like a J. C. Whitney catalog.”

I forgave Stein for being a jock.

When God moved through Gary and Stein, He was definitely moving in mysterious ways.

Kate moved the conversation into the conditions on the various ski slopes, and pretty soon everyone was busy defending Loon versus Waterville.

I slid into a ski dream of my own…water skiing…off the West Coast, not down a mountain…under a hot California sun…with Jamie Winter.

M
Y ANKLE CAST WAS
turning gray and ragged. I hated it now. It was a prison. I was even daydreaming about the moment the cast came off and I could have the glorious joy of kicking my foot and bending my ankle.

Dad drove me to school, because I found getting on and off the bus too difficult. We drove past my stop. The same kids were playing in a new layer of snow. The ones who usually leaned against parked cars and telephone poles were silently leaning. And Jamie was standing alone, staring off into the sky.

He didn’t see us drive by.

Okay, I said to myself. The situation here is really very simple. I have determined that of all the boys in high school, I like him best. Unfortunately, I have alienated him. Justifiably, he no longer wants to attempt to be around me. I must retrieve the situation. I have to take the first step.

It sounded so easy, sitting there in the car next to my father, who could always take any step.

I saw myself trotting down the hall after Jamie, Hope on one side making remarks about how I couldn’t even
talk
to a college man and Lydia on the other side, wanting to get tips on cradle-robbing. Meanwhile, a hundred other passing students were listening and giggling and pointing. Then I’d corner Jamie and explain that while I had said he was nothing but a young clod to carry trays, actually I adored him and could we go out? I’d pay, he wasn’t to worry about that.

Then, of course, Jamie would look at me in absolute horror because all he
was
doing was carrying my tray. While Hope and Lydia laughed themselves sick, Jamie would flee down the hall, never to be seen again.

I no longer care about Hope and Lydia, I said to myself. They stink. Their boyfriends stink. All they want is to be unkind to other people and prevent other people from having fun.

I got out of the car and said good-bye to my father and went into the school with such determination I practically dug holes in the floor with my crutches.

And then, of course, I didn’t so much as catch a glimpse of Jamie.

In English class I stared out the window, thinking about him. Our high school is built on a bill and from the top floor you can see through the tracery of naked trees to the college ski slope. It wasn’t as crowded as on a weekend, but there were plenty of skiers. Tiny figures of scarlet, emerald, vibrant yellow, and royal blue danced against the white snow. Little feathered trees separated us. I daydreamed, half asleep. Was Jamie daydreaming of me? Or of hot buttered muffins in the Pew? Or of steam engines and college?

After school was the big meeting to organize the high school participation in the college’s Ice Sculpture Festival. Tens of thousands of people come to the weekend, and for the last few years the high school has run children’s games and small booths to raise money. This year our project was building a solar greenhouse off the biology rooms, and we needed several thousand dollars for materials. It had to be a lot more professional than in previous years, but it was a bad year for raising money; what with the economy and inflation, people weren’t going to be eager to throw dollars away on stupid little nothing prizes and games.

There were probably forty kids at the meeting. About half were seniors and the rest were a mix of freshmen, sophomores, and juniors. Jamie was one of them.

My heart jumped when I saw him. It seemed to me the whole room would turn around and see me breathing quicker, but no one did. Not even Jamie.

He was sitting on the far side of the room. On one side of him was an empty chair and on the other side sat a junior girl named Elsa Worrell.

My heart sank as quickly as it had risen. Elsa is a dreadful name, but Elsa’s one of those perfect, sparkling little gamines who make you wish you, too, could be named Elsa and be a perfect, sparkling little gamine like that. Jamie was laughing with her. He was not going to look up and see me because the view of Elsa was far too nice to expect anything better to come in the door.

I could sit in the empty chair, I thought.

But Gary and Kate were already thrusting out a chair for me next to them. What if I went on by, and sat with Jamie, and he never even looked up from Elsa? Or looked up and was annoyed, and embarrassed?

It’s only a
chair,
I thought, despising myself. This is just a dumb
meeting. What is the big deal
?

I sat down next to Kate. We were on the Executive Committee. I rather like committee work. It’s always inside, I’m always good at it, and it keeps me busy.

“Okay, men,” said the faculty advisor, Mr. Hastings. “Let’s get this show on the road.” How dare he call us men, I thought.