Cloudburst

  “Of course he wouldn’t. You’re a lost cause,” I told her, and started out of the parking lot.

  “Okay. Out with it. Everything has gotten more interesting now. So let’s hear what he said to you in the hallway.”

  “He commented in two words on an answer I gave in English class.”

  “That was it?” she said with obvious disappointment.

  “Maybe he’s restricted to only a dozen words an hour,” I muttered.

  “What was the two-word comment?” she asked.

  “ ‘Neat answer.’ ”

  “That was it? Weren’t you disappointed?”

  “Jessica, I wasn’t devastated by his mere presence. Stop making it into a thing.”

  She nodded, but I could see she wasn’t satisfied. “Maybe he’s the strong, silent type,” she said, looking for a positive explanation.

  “Maybe just silent.”

  “I’d like to be the one who finds out.”

  “Then practice sign language,” I said, and she laughed.

  “I still love the way you treated Shayne Peters.”

  I smiled, remembering again how much I wanted to e-mail Kiera about it—and this new student, I guessed.

  Jordan was home when we arrived. She was happy I had chosen Jessica. She was very friendly with Jessica’s mother, who was part of what Mr. March called her “clutch lunch gang.”

  “How was school?” she asked us.

  “Certainly not very boring today,” Jessica said.

  “Oh? What happened?”

  “Among other things, a famous actor’s children were admitted,” Jessica replied before I could.

  “What actor?”

  “Bradley Garfield. You know who he is married to?” Jessica asked Jordan.

  “Beverly Ransome. Isn’t that nice?”

  I wasn’t surprised that Jordan knew. She had at least two dozen magazine subscriptions, and from the way she described some of her “clutch lunch gang” lunches, celebrities were often the chief topic of discussion. The celebrities set the fashions they all followed.

  “How old are the children?” she asked me.

  “One is in eighth grade.”

  “Her name is Summer,” Jessica said, “but I knew both their names before they came to our school.”

  “And the other child?”

  “Not a child,” Jessica said. “He’s in our class. Ryder. He’s soooo it,” she added.

  Jordan raised her eyebrows, smiled, and looked to me. “Oh?”

  “Yes,” I added, “the drooling began immediately. Our custodian, Mr. Hull, is going to have to work hard at cleaning up the mess.”

  Jordan laughed. “Well, I don’t see how he couldn’t be good-looking with those two as parents. Is their daughter pretty?”

  “We only saw a little of her, but she’s pretty,” I said.

  “And apparently a handful,” Jessica added.

  “Oh? Why?”

  “Let’s not start spreading rumors so soon, Jessica. Give them twenty-four hours.”

  “I’m not spreading rumors. I—”

  “Does Mrs. Caro know I have a guest?” I asked Jordan quickly to change the subject.

  “Yes,” Jordan said.

  “Okay. Let’s get on to our homework,” I told Jessica.

  “I’ll see you before I leave,” Jordan said, and Jessica and I went up to my room.

  While she chose music for us, I began an e-mail to Kiera. I didn’t want to finish reading her e-mail to me from last night while Jessica was there. She also knew that I didn’t like anyone looking over my shoulder when I wrote to Kiera.

  I described the episode with Shayne Peters in detail and even included my little joke about Nobody at lunch. Then I mentioned Ryder Garfield, but I didn’t go into any detail, and I certainly didn’t describe any of my feelings about him.

  What were my feelings, anyway? I wondered. I’d be the last to say he wasn’t very good-looking, and I had to confess that I was looking at him whenever I had the chance to do so. I just made more of an effort not to be as obvious about it as most of the other girls. His initial nasty attitude had turned me off, but his reaction to my response in English class not only turned me back on to him but, despite the way I spoke to Jessica, made me even more intrigued. I did want to get to know him and looked forward to tomorrow.

  Jessica had chosen music for us to listen to, but she was already on my phone talking to Claire Simpson about Ryder Garfield. Claire had graduated last year and was at UCLA. Jessica was friendly with her because their parents were very close. Claire’s father worked for the Hollywood Reporter, so if anyone at our school would have some nitty-gritty for us, it was she. I finished my e-mail just as Jessica finished her phone call.

  “Okay, I got it,” she began as if I had asked her to do it. “The Garfields bought a new house near the school, but Claire made a phone call while I was on hold and thinks there were some problems at their old school, which was also a private school, of course.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  “She’s not sure, but she thinks it involved Summer. She’s digging into it for me.”

  “So maybe that was why he was so angry at her in the parking lot.”

  “Exactly. Claire is confident she can find out.”

  “I’m sure she can. She probably works for the CIA. What difference is it going to make, anyway?” I asked, and went to my book bag.

  “You’re not really going to start on our homework, are you?”

  “I’m not going to sit here and talk about Ryder and Summer Garfield. You wanted to watch that new Blu-ray movie we have, I thought.”

  “Whatever,” she said, disappointed. “I guess I need some help in math anyway.”

  Jordan stopped by before she left. She hadn’t told me where she was going to dinner or with whom, but I didn’t think much of that. There were many other times when she left for something and didn’t speak of it until the next day or even days later. However, although she looked very nice and as well put together as ever, I had been here long enough and with her long enough to know that wherever she was going and whomever she was seeing were not just to pass the time or fill the gap Mr. March left by being away. I thought she looked worried, in fact, and wished I had no one with me so I could have asked her about it.

  I had gotten so I knew her moods almost as well as her natural children would. When someone is your own flesh and blood, you have that special sense, that connection that gives you a real sixth sense about each other. Jordan had tried so hard to make me feel more like her real daughter. I knew she lived for the day when I would call her Mother, but I couldn’t get myself to do that yet and probably never would. In the beginning, it was difficult even to refer to her as Jordan and not Mrs. March.

  Despite that, a part of me wanted to feel closer to her. At times, I thought I needed her almost as much as she needed me to help fill the great hole in her heart that Alena’s death had caused. I was always reluctant to show her any affection. It was easy to sound appreciative and grateful, but to throw my arms around her, to kiss her lovingly, to reach for her hand when we walked in the street or in shopping centers, or even to smile warmly and bathe in the sunshine of her affection was still, after three years, very difficult, if not impossible, to do. Besides the danger of riling up Kiera’s jealousy, I felt as though every soft word, every mechanical kiss on the cheek, every embrace was a small betrayal of my mother.

  Would or could I ever get past all that and really feel as if I was part of the March family?

  I wished I had Mrs. Caro’s clairvoyance, her prescience and wisdom, so that one morning I could throw open a window, look out at this beautiful world I was in, and see where it would all take me. I knew if I asked her, she would avoid answering, even though she knew. She would say something like, “You need to make your own discoveries.”

  But I was here because I had not been able to foresee what would happen if I didn’t stop my mother from crossing a street. What could I prevent
or do about my own future?

  “Stop thinking so much,” Jessica told me before we went down to dinner. I had finished my work and helping her with her math and was just staring at nothing. “You make me nervous.” I started to protest, but then she added, “Unless you’re thinking about Ryder Garfield.”

  I smiled.

  Maybe she was right.

  Maybe I should be doing nothing else but that.

  “I lied about his eyes,” I said. “They were definitely not tinted contacts.”

  She widened her smile.

  “And I could think of nothing else but filling them only with me.”

  It was like magic. Our laughter was like music. It was going to be a fun night after all.

  All dark thoughts fell helplessly away. We couldn’t get enough of each other’s intimate dreams and wishes.

  And all because of Ryder Garfield.

  But I also sensed a note of caution in the air. This might not make every day Christmas.

  Be careful, I told my heart. You have seen enough disappointment and tragedy to fill the life of someone four times your age.

  But I knew that hearts are never cautious. It’s not their job to be cautious.

  3

  Gossip

  Unfortunately, as she often did, Kiera called me after midnight. I was more upset than usual because she broke into a dream I was having about Ryder Garfield. In it, he revealed that he knew everything about my past. He was whispering to me in class without looking in my direction.

  “My father is talking about having a movie made about you and your mother. You have to tell me everything in great detail,” he said. “We’ll have to spend lots of time talking . . . alone.”

  Then, as he turned to me in my dream, the phone rang, and I was snatched out of my deep sleep. I hated the sound of the phone at that moment and glared at it, but I didn’t want it to keep ringing. It might wake Jordan.

  She hadn’t returned home until after Jessica’s mother came to pick her up. Her mother was disappointed that Jordan wasn’t there and was a little annoyed with me when she asked where she had gone and I had to tell her I really didn’t know.

  “Well, isn’t Donald away? Did he come back earlier than expected?”

  “No, he’s still away,” I said.

  “Well, I wish she would have called me. I wasn’t doing anything special tonight,” she muttered.

  Jessica’s mother was a dark-haired woman at least fifteen or so pounds overweight for her five-foot-five frame. I had been to Jessica’s house often enough to know that her mother was someone who was interested in everyone else’s life more than she was interested in her own. Even Jessica admitted that her mother could write the Pacifica parents’ gossip column.

  “Tell me about this new student,” Kiera said the moment I said hello. “Is he as good-looking as his father?”

  “Kiera, it’s nearly twelve-thirty! I’m half awake, if that. Do you have to call so late all the time?”

  “You sleep too much anyway. Well? Tell me.”

  “Yes, he’s just as good-looking, if not better-looking.”

  “Better? Maybe I graduated too soon.”

  “Why? I thought you were falling in love.”

  “Did you read my last e-mail?”

  Despite how sleepy I was, I still managed to blush recalling the details of the lovemaking she had correctly described as gymnastic.

  “Yes, I read it.”

  “Well?”

  “What do you want me to say? I’m happy for you.”

  “You sound very jealous. Are you?”

  “I’m too tired to be anything, Kiera.”

  “Um. I loved what you did to that Shayne Peters. His older brother wasn’t much different. He used to follow me around like a puppy. I finally had to tell him not to bother even speaking to me if he didn’t get a face transplant. How’s my mother?”

  “She’s upset that you don’t call her more.”

  “Did you tell her anything more about Richard?”

  “Just that you said he was a proper Englishman.”

  “And what did she say?”

  I didn’t want to tell her exactly what she had said. “She said she wished you’d call her to tell her more about him and you. Your father was asking.”

  “He was? He hasn’t called to see how I am for weeks,” she said, trying to sound angry but unable not to sound more disappointed and hurt.

  “He seems very busy.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He’s traveling more and longer.”

  She was quiet for a moment and then said, “There are phones everywhere, and he has one of the world’s best cell phones, doesn’t he?”

  I didn’t know what to say. “Maybe you should call him.”

  “To do what? Remind him he should be calling me? He’s the father; I’m the daughter. Forget about it. Let’s talk about really important things. How’s your car?”

  “Still smells brand-new.”

  “We have a four-day weekend coming up, but I’m not sure I’m coming home. Richard has nowhere to go, and I don’t want to leave him alone.”

  “Bring him here.”

  “Not yet,” she said. “I’m afraid that once he meets my parents, he’ll make for the high road, as they say in England. Gotta go. I was supposed to write a summary of an essay for tomorrow’s English class. It’s so annoying to have to do any work,” she added with a laugh. “Watch for my next sexual episode.”

  I let her hang up first, and then I did and fell back onto my pillow. What was it she saw about her parents now that made her afraid of introducing a new boyfriend to them? Or was it simply that she was afraid he’d be so overwhelmed by her home and wealth that he would be intimidated and leave her? She had told me he was the son of a knighted, successful architect. Surely that couldn’t be it, and Kiera was never one to understate herself and her family’s wealth. No, I didn’t expect that there would be any surprises. Maybe she feared that her parents would not approve of Richard, and not vice versa. Of course, their approval of her friends or boyfriends never seemed to matter very much to her anyway. That made me even more curious about him.

  I closed my eyes, but my thoughts wouldn’t stop dancing. Go back to dreaming about Ryder, I told myself, or you’ll never get to sleep. I was able to do just that, and my dreams and sleep became so deep that once again, Mrs. Duval had to waken me.

  “I swear,” she said, raising the curtains to let the sunshine slap me in the face. “I’m going to have to come in here at night and turn on your alarm clock myself.”

  My eyes were squeezed so tightly shut to avoid the light that I thought the skin would rip on my forehead. I groaned, took a breath, and sat up to face the day. She stood there looking at me with her hands on her hips again. This time, she really did look upset.

  “Once is an accident. Twice is a mistake,” she said. “Especially if it’s in a row.”

  “I’m sorry. I got too involved in . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Homework, and I forgot the clock.”

  She tucked the corners of her lips deep into her face and shook her head. Why couldn’t I lie as well as Kiera, or was it just that I couldn’t lie well to someone like Mrs. Duval?

  “Mrs. Caro thinks you should have oatmeal today. She’s at the stove,” she added, and started out.

  “Is Mrs. March up yet?”

  She paused in the doorway. Although she tried to hide it, I saw worry in her face.

  “No, and maybe you should not disturb her,” she added, and left.

  I rose like Lazarus from the grave, stunned and surprised that I could move, and headed for the shower. Under my breath, I mumbled curses at Kiera for waking me after midnight. That conversation seemed to be more like a dream anyway. Later, at breakfast, even though just the thought of swallowing anything was exhausting, I forced myself to eat most of the oatmeal and the piece of wheat toast with her homemade jam that Mrs. Caro insisted I have. She had my daily vitamin
s set out as well. I didn’t have one foster mother, I thought—I had three now. It was as if all of my bad habits were under surveillance from the moment I awoke to the moment I fell asleep in this house.

  By the time I was ready to leave for school, Jordan had still not come down. The only times this happened were when she was sick with a cold or the flu. Generally, though, her health was very good, as was Mr. March’s. Mrs. Duval stepped into her shoes and took on the duty of seeing me off, warnings and all.

  “You drive carefully,” she said, “and no speeding,” she added, just the way Jordan would.

  “Is Mrs. March all right, Mrs. Duval?”

  “She’ll be just fine,” she said, which was her way of telling me she didn’t think so.

  Whom had Jordan seen last night? What was troubling her? I wondered as I got into my car. Was it just her husband’s intensity about his business now? It was true that there was no blood relationship to tie us together, and my status was still that of a foster child, but time, the hard experiences I had had with Kiera and her friends, the Marches’ generosity, all of it, had drawn me closer and closer to the family I had every right to despise. I couldn’t help myself. I cared about them all now at least as much as most of the girls at school cared about their families. I tried to put it all aside as I drove.

  It was only about a fifteen-minute drive. On rainy days, it might take five or ten minutes more. Nevertheless, I was usually one of the first to pull into the parking lot, even when I rose later than Mrs. Duval and Mrs. Caro would like. They had their act together in such a way that they were able to move me through the morning and out the door at just about the same time.

  I was surprised to see Ryder and his sister arrive only moments after I had. He had looked so unhappy during the time he was here yesterday, and after finishing the day with an argument with his sister in the parking lot, he had seemed to me to be a good candidate for late arrival or perhaps no arrival at all. I had thought there was a real possibility that he had gone home and complained about Pacifica so much that his parents had given in and had let him transfer back to his old school or some other school. Wouldn’t the girls be disappointed? Wouldn’t I?

  It wouldn’t be impossible for Ryder to withdraw. Parents of the students at this school struck me as the sort of people who bought their way into happiness, no matter what. If they were annoyed with their cars, no matter how small the annoyance, they traded them in instantly. If they didn’t like the decor in their homes, they brought in a decorator and paid top dollar to make changes quickly. If it was too cold for a week, they hopped on a plane and went to Hawaii. Inconveniences were stamped out like roaches. How many times had I heard the girls in my class moan and groan about the electricity being off for a few hours because of a storm or the batteries daring to die in their iPods and cell phones? Tragedy had a new definition here. It was defined by as little as a broken fingernail.