Cloudburst

  I returned to my homework, but from the way my mind kept wandering, I knew I wouldn’t get much done until I confronted this question. Finally, I made the call. My heart was thumping so hard in my ear while the phone rang that I wondered if I would hear him when he answered. If he was in the slightest way sarcastic or nasty, I was determined simply to hang up immediately.

  “Central casting,” I heard, and for a moment, I did think I had called the wrong number.

  “Ryder?”

  “Ah, and to whom might I be speaking this fine day?” he asked in a pretty good Irish brogue.

  “Mademoiselle Sasha Porter,” I said.

  “Herself, is it?”

  “In the flesh. Do you always answer your phone like that?”

  “I don’t usually answer my phone,” he said.

  “Then why have it?”

  “You know why Linus in Peanuts had a blanket? Same reason.”

  “Oh, you’re really funny.”

  “Believe me, it’s my full intent to be.”

  I had to laugh. “Okay, I’m calling to ask if you would like to come over to the March residence after school tomorrow, after you drop off your sister, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Of course you’ll come or of course after you drop off your sister?”

  “To this foggy brain, they seem one and the same. In a word, the answer is yes. Do I need anything special to get onto the property—a passport, blood tests, FBI clearance?”

  “Normally, all three, but tomorrow is a free day, so you’re in luck.”

  “I’m truly grateful.”

  “You don’t know where I live or anything, do you? Or did Gary describe it?”

  “Now, let me think before I answer that. I don’t want you to think I’m some sort of fortune hunter or anything.”

  “I have no worry about that. I have no legal ties to anything here, so it wouldn’t do you any good, anyway.”

  “Oh.”

  It occurred to me that I might be assuming too much. How many of the students at Pacifica really understood that I was a ward and not an adopted child?

  “Disappointed?”

  “Actually, relieved,” he said. “The parents of the last heiress I went out with had me fingerprinted and followed.”

  “That still might happen,” I warned. Knowing Jordan, I was actually only half kidding.

  “Now you do make it sound interesting. Shall we discuss the details at school tomorrow?”

  “Every chance we can get,” I said, and he laughed.

  “I’m beginning to think that with you, I might not need a magnifying glass after all.”

  “The jury’s still out for me as concerns you.”

  He laughed again. I heard some noise behind him.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m in Santa Monica,” he said. “On the beach.”

  For a moment, I couldn’t speak, nor could I swallow. Did his going there have something to do with me? Was he trying to imagine what my life had been like?

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I just needed my dose of ocean. It calms me down. Did it do that for you?”

  “Sometimes,” I said. “I wasn’t exactly a visitor, a tourist, and I didn’t have the luxury of leaving or turning it off.”

  “Understood. I’m on my way home. To be continued,” he added, and hung up before I could say another word.

  Kiera would never stand for a boy hanging up before she had, I thought. She would let him know it, too, and maybe never see or speak with him again. I was trying to keep myself from getting too aggravated about it when my phone rang. It was Ryder.

  “I forgot something,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Good-bye.”

  He hung up, and I shook my head. Should I laugh or cry, encourage him or run from him? I went to my computer.

  Okay, Kiera, I began. Ryder Garfield knows my name now, and in fact, I’ve invited him over tomorrow after school. He’s very complicated, maybe even too complicated for you. He seems—no, strike that—he obviously has a chip on his shoulder, and I almost got into some out-and-out fights with him when we first met and afterward, but somehow, don’t ask me exactly how, we warmed to each other, and I guess I can say he’s interesting. He thinks I am, too.

  Yes, he’s very good-looking, but there are a number of good-looking boys at Pacifica. I can’t say exactly what it is about Ryder that both attracts and discourages me, but whatever it is, it’s different.

  He can be funny but very sarcastic—mean, actually—and then suddenly, he’ll say something so sweet or complimentary, and I don’t know how to react. I know I stop fighting, but I’m not sure I’m doing the right thing. You don’t have to tell me how quickly you would destroy him. I know, but for some reason, I don’t want to get the better of him, even though I do or, rather, know I could.

  It strikes me that we’re both in some sort of complicated situation with men. You are far more along than I am or maybe ever will be, but still.

  I’ll tell you more after I spend tomorrow afternoon with him.

  In the meantime, Jordan tells me you called her and told her about Richard. Have you made any decision yet about the ring? Can I give you some advice? Don’t accept it before they meet him. You never listen to anything I say, so I don’t expect you will now, but I want to be on record as giving you that advice.

  Please don’t call me after midnight tonight. Have some mercy.

  Sasha

  I sent the e-mail. I was feeling better, so I returned to my homework. Later, after dinner, just before I started to prepare for bed, Jessica called.

  “Why didn’t you call me?” she asked.

  “For what?”

  “Thanks a lot. I thought I was your best friend. What about Ryder?”

  “I don’t have anything significant to tell you about him yet. I’ll tell you when I do.”

  “So, you are going to see him?” She pounced.

  “I’m going to explore,” I told her.

  “Explore? Oh.” She was silent for a moment and then asked, “What does that actually mean?”

  “It means I’m going to see if we have anything to say to each other, share anything in common, even have the slightest possibility of having any sort of relationship.”

  “I don’t know how to do that,” she said. “Boys still confuse me.”

  “There’s no specific way, Jessica. You spend some time with someone and see where it goes. Stop looking for recipes and formulas for everything, especially your relationships. It’s never that simple.”

  “I don’t, but you do make it sound easy.”

  I laughed. “It’s far from that, believe me, especially for me.”

  “Sometimes I wish I’d had experiences like you had,” she said.

  Lately, this romanticizing of my hard time with my mother when we were homeless and the subsequent mean things that were done to me when I came to live with the Marches angered me. It was so typical of these rich and spoiled girls to try to see my life as they saw one of their soap operas. It was truly as if they believed someone could shout “Cut!” and all the nasty and unpleasant things would fade away with the stage lights.

  “That’s because you never did have those experiences, Jessica. I’m here because my mother was killed crossing the street on a rainy night, and I was almost killed as well. I was in great pain, both physically and emotionally, and although I don’t show it, I still am. You have your mother and father. You have a family.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she quickly recited. “I didn’t mean anything.”

  “No, you didn’t. That’s the problem, really. Very few of you mean anything,” I said, and hung up, still fuming.

  I sat there with my hand over the phone. If she called right back crying, I’d probably say I was sorry, too, but apparently, I had been so sharp and biting that she was afraid to redial. When I reviewed my words and the way I must have sounded, I realized I resembled Ryder Garfield.
Even after so little contact with him, was I taking on some of his bitterness? I didn’t even know why he was so bitter. What was his pain?

  After I calmed down some more, I did feel bad about the way I had spoken to Jessica. I shouldn’t have taken it out on her. She wasn’t the only one who treated me this way, and after all, I was partly responsible for the way they thought about me. From the way I lived now, it did seem to them as though none of what had happened was that devastating. I did well in school. I was attractive and witty. I didn’t mope about, and I wasn’t seeing a therapist, nor did I act out and get into trouble. I was popular and of course, I had so much in the way of material things, things they cherished. Why wouldn’t they envy me?

  Before I got myself ready for bed, I decided to call her back and tell her I was sorry I had jumped down her throat. She was so happy I called that she couldn’t stop apologizing herself. I thought I would make her night by telling her about my inviting Ryder to the March estate.

  “And he’s coming?”

  “I think so,” I said. “When I’m sure, I’ll tell you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t say anything about it, please. He’s not comfortable at Pacifica yet.”

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  “Great. I can’t wait to hear how things go between you two.”

  One thing I was grateful for, I told myself when I went to bed, was that I didn’t have to live my life vicariously through someone else, like Jessica was doing through me. It always amazed me, regardless of what I had and could do now. No matter how obvious and clear it was that I should be the one envious of Jessica and the others, they were envious of me.

  Whatever gifts you gave me, Mama, I thought, were surely wonderful, gifts most other girls my age apparently never have. I fell asleep easily, wrapping myself snugly in the sound of my mother’s voice, the scent of her beautiful freshly washed hair, and the softness of her lips on my cheek. As long as I could remember all of that, I would be safe, even here, I thought.

  When Ryder drove into the school parking lot the next morning, I saw that he was alone. Once again, he arrived moments after I had. Actually, I had stalled getting out of the car in the hope that he would, and when he did, I got out, joining him.

  “Where’s your sister?” I asked.

  “I forgot today was her inside-out day.”

  “Inside-out day? What’s that?”

  “She sees the therapist my mother arranged for her to see. He turns her inside out and looks for cracks and holes in her head.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t you have a therapist? I thought it was like having a dentist around here,” he said as we started for the entrance.

  “No, but my foster sister, Kiera, has one. She was seeing him regularly and now sees him only when she’s home.”

  “See? Like a dental checkup. He takes mental X-rays and looks for cavities.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “I have one, too,” he revealed at the door. I paused. “He thinks I need a mental root canal.”

  He walked in ahead of me. I caught up, and we started for homeroom. Every one of my girlfriends lingered to say good morning, obviously looking for him to reply. He didn’t.

  “How long have you been seeing a therapist?” I asked.

  “I can’t remember when I wasn’t,” he said, and paused at the classroom door. “Why? Scare you? It’s all right. You don’t have to look for any excuses to avoid me. I won’t come over to your palace today,” he added, and went to his desk, again leaving me stunned.

  Everyone was rushing in around me, trying to start conversations, but I would be damned if I was going to put up with his tantrums. I marched across the room and stood by his desk. He looked up.

  “I was only making conversation, Ryder. I am not afraid of you or put off by your seeing a therapist. As you say, it’s equivalent to seeing a dentist, and from what I can see, you might need some root canal after all.”

  I turned and went to my desk, my rage so evident that all eyes were on me. I plopped into my seat and didn’t look at anyone. I wasn’t sure whom I was more angry at, him or myself for permitting him to get under my skin so quickly. Jessica and many of the girls were looking at me and then at him and then back to me. She made a gesture to indicate What’s up? and I shook my head. The bell rang, and Mrs. Nelson called for everyone to take his or her seat and be quiet. Sometimes Dr. Steiner began the day with an announcement or two. I looked up, surprised, when I heard Mrs. Nelson say, “Yes, Ryder?”

  I turned to look at him. He stood up.

  “I’d like to apologize,” he said.

  “Apologize? To whom and for what?” Mrs. Nelson asked.

  “To Sasha Fawne Porter,” he said. “For my being a nasty bastard.”

  There was a little laughter, but everyone was more surprised and shocked than amused.

  “I don’t think that sort of language is called for, Mr. Garfield, and I don’t think it is necessary for you to make your apology to another student a public thing in any case,” Mrs. Nelson said.

  “Seemed like a good idea at the time,” he replied, and sat.

  Everyone looked to see what she would do or say next, but Dr. Steiner came on the public-address system to talk about a change in the schedule. The faculty was going to have its meetings early next week instead of in two weeks, and students would not attend classes. There was a loud cheer from our homeroom and from all of the ones down the hallway in celebration of a day off.

  Mrs. Nelson took attendance. Just before the bell rang to start the day, she asked Ryder to come up. I left the room with everyone else, and of course, Jessica and my other girlfriends wanted to know what that was all about.

  “What did he say to you?” Sydney asked.

  “Was it really nasty?” Keana Welles wanted to know. She was obviously hoping it was.

  Jessica stood there waiting with the others for my answer. When I had a confrontation with any other boy, as I’d had with Shayne Peters recently, they were all eager to hear about it, and whenever any of them had any problems, they did come running to me for advice. I knew I shouldn’t be annoyed at their interest now, but somehow, I did feel differently about Ryder Garfield. He wasn’t just a big challenge. There was something deep down inside me that kept me attracted to him.

  “Since he apologized, I don’t think it’s right for me to say,” I told them.

  There were audible groans of disappointment. I deliberately walked slowly.

  “Are you very upset about it?” Jessica asked in a whisper.

  “No,” I said. “I’ll tell you later,” I promised, and she smiled so brightly she practically glowed.

  Kiera was famous for doing this, I told myself, making one of her girlfriends feel special by promising to tell her something none of the others knew. She spoke to others the same way. Before she was finished, half a dozen of them would claim to be her best friend.

  I glanced back and saw Ryder come out of homeroom.

  “I’ll catch up with you,” I told Jessica, and turned to wait for him.

  “She’s scary,” he said, nodding back toward homeroom. “I saw two long fangs start to grow while she was bawling me out.”

  “You’re such an idiot. Why did you do that?”

  He shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea to me. Public confession was supposed to be purifying, according to the Puritans.”

  “You won’t find any Puritans here,” I said, and he laughed.

  “You haven’t said whether or not you forgive me,” he said when we reached our first classroom.

  “You’re on probation,” I told him.

  “How did you know?” he replied, his face deadly serious.

  I stared at him, not knowing what to say. Was that why he was so standoffish? Then he laughed and entered the room.

  “You creep!” I cried. He looked back, smiling.

  Being with him was definitely like riding a roller coa
ster, I thought. Was he bipolar? Or was he just an angry, insecure young man? Once again, I had to question whether I wanted to get more involved with someone like him. There were a number of boys in our class, besides Shayne Peters, who were so much less complicated and probably would treat me like a little goddess.

  To satisfy Jessica’s curiosity, I blamed what had happened between Ryder and me on his concern about his sister. I imagined that everyone would learn about her seeing a therapist, anyway. No one would be all that shocked. Ryder wasn’t too far off when he referred to it as being like seeing a dentist around here. At lunch, Ryder and I talked about after school. We again sat apart from everyone else.

  “I don’t have to go home first now,” he said. “I can follow you if you want.”

  “Sure, that’s great.”

  “So what are you planning? Studying together or arm wrestling?” he asked.

  “No studying, unless that’s something you want to do. Besides, I have a feeling we’d be terrible at it.”

  He laughed. “That’s for sure. Okay, so? What does one do on a palatial estate?”

  “There’s a lake. We can go rowing, and although I’m not that good, we can play tennis. Do you like tennis?”

  “I can take it or leave it. My mother hired a pro to give me lessons when we lived in Spain one summer. I was only twelve, and she was afraid I’d be bored.”

  “You’ve been so many places.”

  “Yeah. My passport is full. You been anywhere out of the country?”

  “No,” I said. “Unless you want to count this,” I said, gazing around.

  He looked at me for a moment and then smiled. “That’s very good. I think I might get to like you,” he said.

  “Thanks. I’m so flattered.”

  He looked at the other students watching us and then leaned toward me. “You sure you’re not one of those narc plants or something and you’re not really about twenty-four?”

  “I’ll check my birth certificate,” I said.

  He nodded. “No, I’ll check it.”

  We both laughed. I looked at the other students again. Aside from his conversations with Gary Stevens, who seemed disinterested in him now, Ryder had not made a single other male friend in the three days he was here. Whatever he had done or said had discouraged them.