The Summer of No Regrets (23 page)

I opened the window and Luke reached out his hand. My mind flashed to the clothing rope he’d climbed down with Randi Marchietti on
Presto!
(Had he realy gotten her pregnant?) I climbed out anyway, too weak-wiled to resist his slow smile.

He guided me from branch to branch without a word. Once we reached the grass, he cocked his head in the direction of the pond. We walked there silently, not touching. The moonlight reflected off the water. The night was warm. Luke stepped around a wooden Adirondack chair and ducked under a weeping wilow. I folowed him in, the branches creating a curtained canopy over our heads.

Luke slid his hands around my waist and gazed at me. “I can’t believe you’re here,” he said in that same out-of-place accent.

“I can’t believe you’re Trent Yves.” I hadn’t planned on saying that right off.

Luke lowered his head. He took a breath and let it out. Then he met my eyes. “Does it bother you?”

I took a step back from him. “You lied to me!” I took a step back from him. “You lied to me!” He released me. “I did,” he said quietly. The moonlight through the wilow leaves made patterns on his face, his hair going dark and light.

“I don’t want you to be Trent Yves.”

“I know.” Luke put his hands in his pockets and looked out at the water. His mouth was the same mouth I had loved, his chin the same chin. And it was the same face a milion other girls had falen in love with, taped in their lockers, used as a screensaver.

“How can I believe anything you say? You made promises to me. I counted on you. You said you’d be there.” I took a ragged breath. “And then you come back with the excuse that
something
suddenly
came
up
? Do you have any idea how lame that is?”

Luke turned slowly away from me, resting his hands on the wood of the Adirondack chair. He’d been with Gwen. The realization burned a hole in my hopes. He’d been with Gwen that day, and now he couldn’t face me.

“I’m talking to you!” I shouted at his back. “For once you’re going to stay and listen—not take off for Aruba or LA or wherever it is you go when I get boring.”

He didn’t move.

“You left, and they kiled them. They kiled the kittens, Luke.

They’re dead. And maybe it didn’t mean anything to you, but it sure did to me.”

His shoulders tightened. He didn’t answer.

I pictured him with Gwen, her bikinied body wrapped around him by his pool. That had to be a lot more interesting than wildlife. “But why should you care?” I spat. “You’ve got important things to do. Why would you care about a couple of cats and some hippie-freak girl in a tree?”

He rounded on me. “Don’t tell me what I do and do not care about!” His muscles were taut, his hands in fists.

I stood my ground. “It’s obvious what you care about. Read your press,
Trent
.”

He winced.

I barreled ahead. “You care about being beautiful. You care about being seen. You care about hooking up with the latest
Celeb’
poster girl—especialy if she’s got more boobs than brains!”

“You don’t know anything about my life, Brigitta!” He had fire in his eyes.

“Wel, you’ve got that right! Stupid me for thinking I knew you! Stupid me for trusting you! Stupid me for waiting when you said you’d be back. But you were never realy there to begin with, were you,
Trent
?”

His face darkened. “Wel, maybe I wasn’t!” he shouted. “You want to know where I was? I was in New York, watching my mother get drunk in the green room in front of Cher. I was in LA, losing yet another role. I was at home, paying for my lack of talent by having to fight my mother for a bottle of painkilers. I wish I could save everyone’s life, Brigitta. But this month I could only save one.” He sagged against the trunk of the wilow. “And don’t call me Trent.”

I was rooted to the ground. “Your mother tried to kill herself?”

He nodded.

“Where is she now?”

“Betty Ford.” He slid to the base of the wilow.

“Is she going to be okay?”

He shrugged. “She’s alive.”

All the gossip mag talk about Wendy Burke—plus the vague bits Luke had actualy shared with me—and I’d been too preoccupied with my own sorrows to give a care.

I sat down beside him. “I’m sorry.” I put my hand on his back. “I didn’t know.”

His shoulders relaxed. “Wel, I don’t exactly make it easy,” he said to the ground. We sat for a while, listening to each other said to the ground. We sat for a while, listening to each other breathe. He let me pull his head into my lap. I ran my fingers through his hair and found the bird-beak scar behind his ear.

“How did you do this?”

“
Laser
Boy
. Pyrotechnics got a little out of hand. Nearly burned my hair off.” He sat up. “Brigitta, you don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be all right.”

I still wasn’t used to his accent. “I’m sorry I caled you Trent.” He flashed me an ironic smile.

I drew my knees up. “I don’t know what to call you,” I whispered. “You don’t sound like Luke anymore.” He bowed his head, running his palms down his thighs. “This is how I talk,” he said quietly. “But I won’t if it…if it upsets you.

I’ll go back to American.”

I opened my mouth to answer and found that tears were sliding down my face again.

“Hey,” said Luke. “Hey. Shh.” He wrapped his arms around me, and I let him rock me and rub my shoulders. Here he was taking care of me again, when maybe he was the one who needed taking care of. He put his chin on my hair, and we were back where we had started: hanging onto each other for dear life under a tree. Only now there were a few things about his life I’d rather not have known. He bent his head to kiss me, but I stopped him. “Why didn’t you tell me who you were?” Luke sighed and leaned back against the wilow. “You were the only one…who didn’t know.”

My stomach tightened. “Am I that clueless?”

“No! That’s not what I mean. And it’s not a lie. I’m not him.

I’m not Trent.”

“Except when you’re sword fighting on a moving horse.” He smiled. “Wel, then I’m Felix.”

I took a breath. “How about when you’re kissing Gwen Melier?”

Luke looked me in the face. “Brigitta, I don’t want you to worry about Gwen.”

worry about Gwen.”

I drew circles in the dirt with my finger.

He put his hand on my knee. “I don’t kiss her unless a camera’s roling.”

I closed my eyes for a moment. My stomach hurt. “Luke, I’ve seen pictures.”

He nodded. “Trentwatch, Perez Hilton, Celebitchy, and I think
National
Enquirer
’s got a few. I try not to look, but Kenny, my manager, keeps sending them to me.”

“Then what—?”

“They’re not me, Brigitta.”

“Like Trent’s not you. Yeah, I get that, but if you think I’m wiling to—”

“No. I mean it’s realy not me.”

I raised my eyebrows in a question.

“Brigitta, you can’t go to the press about this.”

“You don’t think I’d do that.”

“Okay,” said Luke. “His name is Bryan Kohler. We hired him as a decoy during the second season of
Presto!
” I remembered how blurry some of the photos had been. And in the Trentmobile footage, there was only a flash of him before he’d puled Gwen into the backseat.

“We can’t send him out in public except in the car—and it’s got tinted windows. He’s pretty much holed up at my ranch right now. But the paparazzi’ll come by the house in trucks with the cameras on these big turret things so they can shoot over the fence. It’s crazy. They can never get a very good shot from that far away, but it’s enough to keep the gossips in business.”

“So he’s kissing Gwen.”

“She likes him. They got acquainted during
Imlandria
. And it helps her press to be seen with Trent. It’s a win-win.”

“Unless somebody finds out.”

“Right,” said Luke significantly.

“Was that him doing a striptease on
Letterman
?”

“Was that him doing a striptease on
Letterman
?”

“That,” said Luke, “was Trent.”

“Luke, it’s obnoxious when you do stuff like that. Stripping on
Letterman
? Teling that reporter you couldn’t believe she could keep her hands off you?”

“Trent is a role I play.”

“Then who are you?”

Luke stared at a floating log. “Did you see
Rocket
?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

He shifted his gaze to the Adirondack chair, but he didn’t continue.

I remembered that scene—the one he wouldn’t talk about in interviews—where Theo died and Rocket went crazy and beat up his dad. And when he’d broken down sobbing I’d been bothered by how much it affected me.

I touched his arm lightly. “Was that you? Rocket? When Theo was shot?”

“I’ve never cried well on camera. But that time…” He trailed off.

“I believed you,” I said. “And it scared me.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It scared me, too.”

“Do you still hate your dad?”

He looked at me sharply. “You could tel?”

“You beat up Christopher Walken.”

Luke ran his hands through his hair. “You know, I realy hurt Chris. He had bruises afterward.” He stared at the chair again, avoiding my eyes. “They had to pull me off him,” he said, so quietly I almost couldn’t hear him.

I didn’t say anything, and finaly he went on. “I won an award for that film,” he said. “And there may be more coming. But there’s something kind of wrong with that. Because it was just me, going crazy.”

I squeezed his shoulder. “You’re not crazy.” He laughed. “I’m glad you’re here, Brigitta.” I finaly let him kiss me.

kiss me.

I leaned my head against his chest. A swarm of cicadas started their chorus.

“You know, I did try to save them,” he said finaly. “Felix and Kalimar. As soon as I saw your blog, I caled Kenny. I wanted to get on Twitter and make some kind of a plea, but Kenny’s got somebody else doing all my tweets, and he wouldn’t pass on the message. He said it would backfire on us and create bad press.

So I got on the phone and caled Cedar Haven myself. I offered them a bunch of money, even.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. But it was too late. They’d already done it.” He was quiet. “Those cats were…otherworldly. Every time I held one it seemed like they could transport me somewhere. That night I sat up with them and carved, it was like they’d taken me Where the Wild Things Are.” He laughed wonderingly.

I raised my head. “You too?”

He nodded. “Maybe that’s where they are now, Brigitta.” I leaned my head back. Through the wilow leaves I could see constelations. “I hope so.”

Luke puled me to my feet. We walked the edge of the pond as the moon rose, spotting frogs and a raccoon. Somehow it seemed that Felix and Kalimar were folowing right behind.

Out in the open field we lay on our backs, staring up at the Milky Way. I showed him the three brightest stars in the summer sky: Vega, Altair, and Deneb.

Luke roled onto his side. “What were you doing in Indiana, Brigitta?”

“Cherrywood. I went back there.”

“Yeah?”

I told him about circling the house and about almost getting caught. “All I want to do is go in there and walk through the rooms. Just once. I need to find whatever it was I lost there. It’s like an angel with a flaming sword is barring the gate to Eden.” Luke sat up. “We could go.”

“Go where?”

“To your Eden. To Cherrywood. You said the guy was going to be gone until Friday, right?”

“Yes, but I want to go inside the house.”

“Brigitta, you know when I did
Rocket,
I did all kinds of research. They got me an interview with a class two felon. He taught me how to break into a house.”

“You can’t be serious.” My heart was beating fast.

“We can do it with a credit card. We wouldn’t damage or touch anything. And if all you want to do is walk around in there, I don’t see what harm it would do. The guy’s not even there.” It was crazy. And Dad would be coming here with a driver in a few hours.

“That is nuts,” I said.

“Wel,” said Luke, “maybe that’s who I realy am.”

We made it to Cherrywood in half the time it had taken me by bus and cab. Luke parked his dad’s car two blocks away, and we approached on foot. The house was dark, with not even a porch light. We went around to the back, and Luke slid his debit card out of his walet. In the moonlight I could make out the name “Michael ll. Boeglin.” What would I have done if I’d read his real name on that card in Westport? Should I have looked then?

Luke put his hand on the door. He had done this in
Rocket
, Luke put his hand on the door. He had done this in
Rocket
, only Rocket had been breaking into his own house. Now he was breaking into mine.

“Is this realy going to work?” I whispered.

“Watch,” he whispered back. He worked the card between the door and the frame and pushed. We were in!

Luke smiled at me in the dark and took my hand. “Here we go,” he mouthed.

The garage smeled of grass clippings and gasoline. It made me think Opa was still in the house, dreaming of going out on his rider mower. We crept into the basement where Nonni used to hang clothes up on a line—even after she had a working dryer.

The woodworking projects Opa had given me were gone, cleared out by Aunt Julia. All of them must have gone into the Dumpster.

We climbed the stairs cautiously, even though there was no one in the house. We emerged into the alien kitchen. Luke opened a window. “Escape route,” he mouthed. He crept to the living room and opened another one.

I paused by the stove, breathing in, trying to find Nonni’s presence. I shook my head and walked toward the halway.

Opa’s study was gone! The entryway, study, and living room had been opened into an enormous “entertainment area” with a pool table. There was no chance of sensing Nonni here.

But the bunk room! The scraps could still be there inside the secret panel. I took two steps and realized: the window in that room looked out on Virginia Riley’s house. I’d have to work up my courage.

I led Luke to the attic where I used to play with Aunt Julia’s old dolhouse, built by Opa. Once I’d found Opa’s old love letters to Nonni in a trunk up here. “And now my love,” he’d written, “I must to bed, kiss your picture, and go to sleep to dream only of you.” Finding them hilarious, I’d taken them downstairs to read aloud to Nonni and Opa. Opa was not amused. The trunk was gone—at Aunt Julia’s I supposed—and amused. The trunk was gone—at Aunt Julia’s I supposed—and now the attic was crammed with boxes, a telescope, an artificial Christmas tree. Luke saw my face and took me to the window.

“Look,” he whispered. It was the same moon, the same woods that had always been here. But the attic was empty of Nonni.

We stole back down to the awful living room. Where was she? I felt panicky. Luke put a steadying hand on my back. I led him to the French doors. Out on the porch we’d be able to hear the cicadas and be draped in the warm air. I had forgotten about the parrots. The first one woke immediately. “He shoots—he scores!” it said. Another one woke. “Nevermore!” it croaked.

“At least the owner’s got a sense of humor,” said Luke.

“Shh!”

“Don’t worry,” said Luke. “The house is empty, right? No car in the garage. He’s gone.”

That was when we heard footsteps. “Who’s there!” caled a voice. Lights were switched on in the halway, in the living room.

Luke pushed me ahead of him into the kitchen. Out to the window. The drop was fifteen feet. I balked. “I’ll go then,” whispered Luke. “And I can help you down.”

He was hanging by his hands when the man appeared and flipped on the kitchen light. The man wore nothing but a green bathrobe. A fireplace poker was clutched in his fist. He stepped between me and the window. “What the hell are you doing?” he snarled.

I couldn’t speak. The man took a step toward me. “Who are you?” he yeled. “Don’t you move. You stay right there.” I couldn’t have moved if I’d tried.

And then behind him, Luke hoisted himself back up through the window and climbed inside. The man whirled around with the poker, narrowly missing Luke’s head. “We can explain,” Luke said.

“Wel, you damn sure better start now.”

In the next room, one of the parrots said, “Fourscore and seven years ago!”

The man stared from one of us to the other, clinging more tightly to his poker. His eyes darted around, as if looking for the phone, but he stayed planted where he was. “What did you steal?” he barked. “Give it here, now!”

“I didn’t steal anything!” I was shaking. “This is my house!

You’re in my house!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Brigitta,” said Luke in a warning tone.

I kept going. “It is my house. I didn’t want to steal anything. I just wanted to be here.”

The man lowered his poker a few inches, making sure he kept Luke in his line of sight as well as me.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Brigitta Schopenhauer. My dad sold you this house, but it was a mistake. It was never supposed to be sold. I even left something here.”
If
it was still here.

Now he was eying me warily as if I might suddenly start tearing his hair and my own out in clumps.

“What did you leave?” he said.

“It’s in the bunk room. In the secret compartment above the bed.”

“What secret compartment?”

“I’ll show you.” I prayed Aunt Julia hadn’t discovered it.

He made us go ahead of him into the bunk room so he could brandish his poker in our wake. This room was largely unchanged, except for the pop machine and the plants. The man’s covers lay askew on the lower bunk. On the dresser was a picture of a young red-haired woman. His daughter?

I went to the bunk bed, and Luke moved carefuly between me and the man. I pushed up the panel and put my hand inside the compartment. I came out with fabric scraps: red polka dots, plain navy blue, small purple flowers, green plaid.

“What’s this?” the man said. “Have I got mice?”

“What’s this?” the man said. “Have I got mice?”

“They’re my grandmother’s. She made me this coat.” I took it off and held it out to him. Onawa’s claw marks were fraying now.

He looked at the coat and at the scraps on the bed. “I’m caling the cops,” he said.

And then the phone began to ring. “Is this a setup?” he chalenged.

I shook my head.

The phone rang a second time, a third, a fourth. He picked it up. “Yes?” he listened. “Yes, who is this?” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Your daughter?” He shook his head. “Yes. Wel, you’d better come get her.” He hung up. “This is ridiculous.” He punched three numbers into the phone and waited. “A burglary,” he said. “In progress.”

The man herded Luke and me to the couch and stood over us with his poker. In his other hand, he had the phone on speaker, the police dispatcher still on the line. Luke held my hand, his face white as beach sand. What would this do to him, if they found out who he was?

Dad arrived first. The man went to the door, never turning his back on us. When he saw Dad, he visibly relaxed.

“Schopenhauer,” he said, opening the door. “It is you.”

“Chuck,” said Dad. “Brigitta!” Dad ran to me. “Oh, thank God!”

Chuck set the poker back by the fireplace. “So this realy is your daughter.”

Dad held me so tight, I could hardly breathe. Luke sat with his hands in his lap, the color just beginning to come back into his face.

Dad let me go and put his hands on my shoulders. “Why would you do this, Brigitta? What a foolish, foolish thing to do.” He looked at Luke. “And I’m not even ready to get started on you,” he said.

“Mr. Schopenhauer, I’m—”

“Mr. Schopenhauer, I’m—”

I moved out from under Dad’s grasp and interrupted. Chuck sat down in an armchair and stared at us. I didn’t care. “This was my place,” I said to Dad. “My real place. Cherrywood.

With Nonni and Opa. It was where I came to—to be me.

Where there were no people running around with drums and no eco-workshops and no pounding dirt into tires. When I was here I belonged. Someone knew me. They had time for me. And you sold it! You sold Cherrywood! So that you could build your dream. No one even asked me about mine.”

“Brigitta,” Dad began, “things change. They died, honey.

Nonni and Opa died.”

“I know they died! Do you think I don’t know that? And if it hadn’t been so important to you to prove how brainless they were, then maybe we could all miss them!”

“Honey, Brigitta, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“You were all freethinking then, and now you’re all spiritualy evolved and non-Eurocentric. But you never had any room for them. You were too busy being mad at them all your life. And they loved me! They realy loved me! And I’m your daughter!” I couldn’t stop crying.

Dad opened his arms. I walked into them. “Oh, love,” he said.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He was crying, too.

He held me tight. He smeled of wood smoke and cedar boughs. Once when I was very small I had gotten my foot wedged in the branches of a falen pine at the edge of our property. I’d been stuck there nearly an hour before a frantic Dad had swooped in, freed my foot, and wrapped me in his arms, just like now. “I’ve found you!” I remember crying then.

“Daddy, I’ve found you!”