Arabeth looked sad. “That’s what they told me. I can’t imagine where I came up with it.”
I had nothing to say.
She said, “I don’t know why these things are happening to me.”
I sure as heck didn’t know either, but I felt like spiders were crawling on my skin.
“I have some questions about the people in the scrapbook,” Arabeth said, changing the subject. “I don’t want to bother her parents. Can I ask you?”
I nodded. She picked up the book, opened it, flipped it toward me, and pointed. “Who’s this?”
Wyatt grinned out of the picture, his arm slung casually around Elowyn’s shoulders. I recalled the photograph because I had taken it. It had been after a volleyball game, at a time when they’d hadn’t been crabby with one another. A grab shot that turned out like a million bucks. “He was her boyfriend.”
“I guessed that. She was happy when this was taken. He didn’t always make her happy, did he?” Arabeth smoothed her hand across the picture.
The movement looked intimate and her words surprised me. Shamed me too, because Wyatt and I had kissed. “Did you have a reaction to him too?” I asked, remembering what she’d told me about seeing my picture.
“I got happy and sad at the same time. I—I got a lump in my throat just looking at them together.”
There was plenty I could have told her about Elowyn and Wyatt. Who’d known them better than me? Instead I stood up. “Look, I’ve got to be going.”
“Really?” She looked disappointed. “I have more questions.”
“I—I have an interview for a summer job.” The interview wasn’t for another week, but I wanted to go. My brain felt overloaded, like I was being bombarded by data I couldn’t compute. How could this Arabeth have such an inside track to Elowyn?
“Can you come back?” Arabeth asked.
I wanted to yell “No way,” but I heard myself saying “Sure.”
Then I hurried to my car, anxious to put distance between me and the girl with Elowyn’s heart. And, without explanation, the memories we shared.
Because there was no one else I could talk to, I flew to Wyatt’s house. He was cutting the grass, and when I drove up he turned off the mower and jogged to my car. I said, “Got a minute?”
“You look like you’ve had a bad day.”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
“That’s not what I meant. You just look wound up.”
He opened my car door and I climbed out. We sat under a shady oak tree in his front yard, and I started talking about my meeting with Arabeth before we’d settled down. I told him everything, spilling my guts in rapid spurts, telling things out of order, backtracking, repeating myself, my tongue snapping over words like gunfire.
“You’re spooked,” he said.
“You got that right. She knows stuff. Who knows stuff about someone she’s never met?”
“El’s parents might have told her things.”
“Like ‘Sugar Plum’? Get real.”
“Okay, it doesn’t make sense.” Wyatt pulled his knees to his chest and rested his chin on them. “I want to meet her.”
“She didn’t ask to meet you.”
“Don’t care. Be a friend and arrange it.”
“Why?”
“I want to meet her for myself. Check out the things you’ve told me.”
“Don’t you believe me?”
He grabbed my hand and his eyes held mine. “I believe you. But if she says she has questions, who better to answer them than you and me?”
Linking us together like a couple didn’t sit right, but I had no power to refuse him. “I’ll talk to her,” I said, and pulled my hand from his.
· 18 ·
Arabeth
I watched Kassey drive off, feeling as if I’d blown the visit. I should have kept my mouth shut. Stupid! Stupid me! Without a doubt she thought I was a nut job. Of course she wanted to know how I knew the things I did. So did I. I kicked the bowl of ice cream and sent it rolling across the porch floor, spilling a gooey mess in a stream. I swore I’d never eat Chunky Monkey again, no matter how much I craved it.
Mom took me shopping for summer clothes before school let out. I kept choosing items off the racks that caused expressions of disapproval from her, and when I couldn’t ignore her anymore, I asked, “What’s the problem?”
“Your tastes have changed.”
“Is that bad?”
“No,” she said too quickly. “Just a comment.”
I pulled on a top with sparkles across the chest. “Maybe I’m sick of jeans and plain tees.” I admired myself in the mirror, watching the sequins and small sparkles twinkle in the light. “I wear uniforms to school. I’m sick of dull and drab. Besides, everybody’s wearing this stuff.”
Mom picked up the price tag and blanched. “I’m not paying this for a T-shirt. The price is outrageous.”
In truth, the shirt wasn’t me at all, and that was problematic because I wanted it. I felt compelled to own it, to change something fundamental inside me. “I’ll work extra at the inn all summer.”
Mom eyed me. “Take it off. If you want something like this so much, then we’ll go to the fabric store and buy a kit for you to redo some of your old shirts.”
“Make one? Mom, no one does that.”
She ignored me and stepped out of the dressing room. I knew the conversation was over. I fumed as I fumbled my way into my boring clothes.
Athena Academy had a ceremony to celebrate the graduating seniors and the passing of us other girls to the next grade level. I became a sophomore, but if I got my way, I’d be attending the big public high school in the fall. But on the night of the ceremony, the headmistress threw me a curve. I was offered a full scholarship because of my excellent grades, an honor given to just three underclasswomen in the school.
Mom was so thrilled, she almost popped a cork. At home, I kicked off my shoes, saying, “You promised me I could go to whatever school I wanted next year.”
Her jaw dropped. “Are you saying you want to turn down this opportunity? Are you serious?”
My back was up. There would have been a time when I’d have fallen over this opportunity, but right now I felt like getting my way. “You told me I could choose.”
Mom stared at me and I knew she was weighing her words. At last she said, “I can’t even imagine why you’d trade a first-class education—a paid-for education—for a lesser education at a public school.”
“That’s not fair. Roswell High is a good school.”
“Athena is a great school.”
“It’s not what I want.” My body went hot. I knew she was right, but I couldn’t let go of it. “I don’t want to go to Athena in the fall.”
“Think!” she demanded. “Athena is a free ticket. With a diploma from Athena, you’ll be eligible for a first-class college and for good scholarships. You’re smart. You’ve done so well. Don’t walk away from this opportunity.”
I felt like shouting “I’m a social reject, Mom!” How would attending Athena help me in the one area I wanted so much? I was boring and dull and friendless. And forget about me ever having a boyfriend. I was a girl with a stranger’s heart inside me and a colorless future ahead of me.
“Look,” she said, her voice soothing. “Let’s just step back. I don’t like fighting with you. You don’t have to make a decision now. Let’s see how the summer goes. You may feel totally different by the time school starts.”
My head pounded. I was in a tug-of-war with forces I couldn’t define and desires I couldn’t grab hold of.
I’m smart enough to know that life is defined by seminal moments that are mostly unplanned and unexpected. A friend who dumps you in front of the coolest girls in school. A jeep stopping at your front door on a steamy hot afternoon. A phone that rings and a voice that says, “We have a heart.” These moments became touchstones of my life. But the one that blindsided me that summer was the one that arrived with Kassey on a hot morning in Jun
e, a boy most amazing, who made my heart leap and my pulse race from the moment I first laid eyes on him.
Kassey had called the day before and asked, “Can I come over?”
I was astounded because I never thought I’d see her again. “Absolutely,” I said.
She drove up in her car, an old Honda that looked like a freedom chariot to me. I was barely fifteen, with a learner’s permit and a year to go before I could get my license. There was a passenger in her car and when I stepped out on the porch, I squinted to see who she’d brought with her.
When Wyatt stepped out of the car, he was his photograph come to life. My heart almost stopped, then leaped with a joy I couldn’t contain. I wanted to run down the steps and hurl myself at him. I gripped the porch railing to keep me steady and to stop me from following through on my impulse.
“Hello,” he said, looking up at me. “I’m Wyatt Nolan. I’ll bet you’re Arabeth.”
“I’m Arabeth,” I chirped like a parrot.
He bounded onto the porch. He was a force of nature with a hundred-watt smile. I stepped backward, unsure of what to say or do.
“Remember me?” Kassey asked.
My face burned for momentarily having forgotten she was coming up the steps with him. “You’re Elowyn’s friends,” I said. “I’m glad you’re here. There’s so much I want to know about her.”
“We knew her best of all,” Wyatt said.
“Then maybe you can tell me about her. And why I feel like she’s looking over my shoulder even though—” I stopped myself.
“Even though she’s dead?” Wyatt offered, finishing my sentence. His expression had turned guarded.
I’ll bet I turned five shades of red, each deeper than the one before. “I’m not making this up,” I said.
Kassey stepped around Wyatt. “I don’t think you are,” she said. “We’re here to help you figure it out.”
· 19 ·
Kassey
I knew things were going to go weird from the minute Wyatt got out of the car and faced Arabeth. She was smiling at him with utter delight, as if he were a long-lost friend—an intimate friend, as if she knew what he looked like naked. It made my tummy twist. Sure, Wyatt was good-looking, but she’d only seen photos of him, so why was she looking at him as if she were ready to pounce? I shook my head to chase away the disturbing image.
“Sodas?” Arabeth asked, never taking her eyes off him.
“Sounds good,” Wyatt said, looking dazed.
“All right,” I said, not sure I could keep anything down.
When she went inside, I grabbed his arm. “What’s going on? You look blown away. Do you know her?”
“Never saw her before in my life.” He faced me. “It was a trip, though. She … she reminds me of—”
I interrupted. “Don’t say it. She’s not her.”
“It was déjà vu,” Wyatt said. “Like I was seeing through a time warp.”
“Arabeth doesn’t look anything like her. Not one bit.”
“True. But it’s not this girl’s looks. It—it’s something else. I can’t explain it.”
Neither could I, but the impression was definitely there—Arabeth felt familiar. Thinking back to our first meeting, I had been struck then by a sense of commonality with her. When she’d brought out the ice cream, I’d been unnerved. I had more questions for him, but just then Arabeth came out the screen door carrying sodas on a tray, the same tray she’d used for the bowls of ice cream.
“Grab one,” she said, setting the tray on the wicker table and sitting in the rocking chair. That left the sofa for me and Wyatt. We sat awkwardly. She continued to stare at Wyatt and he at her. She said, “I know that technically we’re all strangers, but when I sit here seeing you both … well, you don’t seem like strangers to me. Does that make sense?”
It did, but I wasn’t going to say as much.
Wyatt chirped in with “It does to me.”
“Maybe it’s because you’ve seen the scrapbook,” I suggested, shooting Wyatt a “chill out” look. “Power of suggestion.”
“I’ve pored over it,” she confessed. “Sometimes a picture seems as if I’ve seen it somewhere before. It’s like grabbing smoke, though. I can’t ever quite catch it.”
Her face was troubled. I had no choice but to believe her. “So what do you think is happening?” I asked.
The rocker squeaked on the painted wooden porch floor. The June heat felt like a damp blanket on my skin. She held my eyes with hers. “I wish I knew. Maybe I’m just going crazy.”
“Then so am I,” Wyatt said. “Because I feel like I know you, and I don’t.”
Their gazes connected and I felt heat pass between them. In one fell swoop, I felt myself shoved aside, like a forgotten and unimportant item in a stack of old clothes.
“Could you have been a little more fawning?” I snapped sarcastically at Wyatt as I drove us home.
“What?” He sounded irritated.
“You were the skeptic before you came today.”
He shrugged. “I can’t deny that something’s going on here. Don’t tell me you don’t think so too.”
I did, but I was cranky and feeling out of sorts. “So what are you going to do to figure it out?”
“Not sure.”
I was sure. “You going to date her?”
He stared out the window, but I knew I’d hit on his thought line. “I’ll see her again for sure.”
“She’s fifteen, Wyatt. You’re seventeen.”
“So?”
“She’s a kid.” I felt threatened and didn’t understand why.
“I’m not going to marry her, Kassey. I just want to get to know her better. Don’t you?”
She gave me the creeps. “She isn’t Elowyn,” I said.
“I know that.” He picked at his thumbnail, a nervous habit of his I’d noticed over the past several months of togetherness. “But you got to admit that she reminds you of El. Crap, Kassey, she even smells like El. She must use the same perfume.”
I’d noticed it too. “She’s strange,” I growled.
We didn’t speak again until I dropped him off. “You mad at me?” I asked.
He leaned into the window. “I just can’t figure you out. We both think this whole thing needs to be examined, but you act like I’m committing an act of treason when I say I’m going to get to know her better. What’s with you anyway?”
I only wish I knew. “Call if you come up with any answers,” I said, and drove away.
• • •
At home, I opened my e-mail on Mom’s computer and sorted through the messages, all mostly junk. One e-mail stopped me cold. It was from my dad. He’d left it to me to contact him and I never had. Now he was making first contact. What had happened to my message of “leave me alone”?
I started to push the Delete button, but realized I couldn’t. Mom wouldn’t understand and my guess was that he’d tell her. I opened the e-mail.
Kassey,
I would have liked this to have been a response to an e-mail from you, but I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to write. I want to ask your forgiveness for leaving you and your mother years ago. I was wrong. Certainly I can blame the drugs and the hold they had on me. I can blame my own stupidity for walking away from the best thing I ever had going—my family. But to put the blame on anything except my shoulders is a cop-out. I’m an addict. It took me years to admit it, two years to clean up.
I’m clean now and working in Colorado and rebuilding my life. I have no illusions that I can have what I threw away with you and your mom, but I do want to have a relationship with you both. Susan has been in touch and has forgiven me. I’m grateful. That leaves only you. Susan has told me that you need time to accept me again, to believe I’m for “real.” I accept that. I’m not rushing you, not begging you. I only want you to know I’m sincere from the bottom of my heart. You’re my only child. I’ve missed years with you. I want to know you. My heart is always open, my life recommitted to being a fath
er to you.
Contact me anytime. I love you.
Dad
Well, there it was, my dad longing for togetherness. My dad asking for forgiveness. My mom had already forgiven him! Didn’t they realize I’d been hurt and robbed? It’s not so easy to say “Sure, all is forgiven.” I struggled against a knot of emotion rising in my throat. My feelings were raw nerve endings. I’d been so long without a father in my life, I didn’t know what I felt anymore. I didn’t know how to accept him or where to fit him in. I had so few memories of him. No birthdays, no Christmases, no holidays of any kind. He was a blank wall in my mind. Maybe even an intrusion.
As I tried to conjure up memories of my father, all I got were images of Elowyn’s dad, Matt. He was my standard-bearer for fathers. She was his Sugar Plum. When we were younger, he’d tell us both, “You two are the prettiest trout in the pond. I’m going to have to beat the boys off with my fishing pole.”
Elowyn would twirl and say, “Oh, Daddy, I’m prettier than an old fish. And don’t you go threatening the boys with sticks either.”
Matt would tip his head. “Not much prettier than a trout leaping out of the water on a fall day.”
“Daddy!”
Then he’d hug her hard and pat my head. “You know I’m joking, honey. There’s nothing better-looking on this earth than my baby girl.” And he’d add for my benefit, “Or her best friend.”
Matt was a shining example of fatherhood to me, my own dad, a shadowy flicker.
I left the e-mail in my inbox. I didn’t answer it, but I didn’t delete it either.
· 20 ·
Arabeth
I’ve never had a boy’s undivided attention until Wyatt came along, and it about blew me away. The first time he called me, my heart felt like it was going to hammer itself into smithereens. He called on our business line, and I answered, “Honeysuckle Bed and Breakfast. How may I help you?”
“Arabeth? It’s Wyatt. How’re you doing?”
My voice stuck in my throat. When I answered, it sounded like a croak. “Fine.”