After Eden (7 page)

“Eden!” he yelled. “You haven’t signed my shirt yet.”

I smiled. “Doesn’t look like there’s any room.”

“There’s always room for you.”

I could feel myself blushing.

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” Connor said.

“At the beach,” I said. “Can’t wait.”

“In a sick sort of way I’m going to miss this,” he said softly.

The tide was high, leaving only a narrow strip of warm, dry sand. Ryan and I had arranged to meet the others on the harbor beach, at our usual sheltered spot under the wall. They were already there, Amy hiding her milky skin in the shade of a beach umbrella, the others stripped down to shorts and T-shirts, basking in the unseasonably warm glow of April sunshine. Connor saw us first. He stared as we walked across the beach toward him.

“Did you take the bus?” he asked, checking his watch.

“I drove us,” said Ryan.

“You’re making quite a habit of driving around with underage drivers,” Connor said, glaring at me.

Ryan looked from Connor to me and back again.

“Did you take the bypass or the coast road?” Connor asked Ryan.

“The coast road,” said Ryan. “What difference does it make?”

Connor smiled thinly. “She hasn’t told you, has she?”

Ryan shrugged one shoulder. “Told me what? How can I answer that question?”

“Shut up, Connor,” I said. “The buses aren’t convenient and Ryan’s a good driver. Anyway, it’s my decision.”

“Don’t argue, children,” said Megan.

Matt stood up. “We’ve been waiting for you two. The tide is high, and you know what that means.”

I groaned.

“We’re gonna jump off the harbor wall! First jump of the year. Coming?”

“You go ahead,” I said. “We’ll come down in a minute.”

Matt clucked like a chicken. “The tide is high, Eden. It doesn’t get any safer than this.”

“It’s not just the water, it’s the height,” I said. “And the rocks.”

“The rocks aren’t dangerous at high tide,” said Matt. “You just have to know exactly where to jump. If you watch where I jump, you’ll be okay.”

“And if I don’t jump where you jump?”

Matt mimed his head exploding. “It’s game over!”

“Exactly. No thanks.”

He threw a shorty wet suit toward Ryan. “I brought my spare if you want to borrow it.”

Ryan pulled off his jacket and threw it on the sand. “I’ll keep Eden company.”

The four of them ran across the sand to the harbor wall. It towered above the water, even at high tide.

Ryan raised his left arm to push the hair out of his face, and the sleeve of his T-shirt rose up, revealing a tattoo on his bicep. It was a large blue sphere and a smaller white sphere cradled in the black branches of a tree.

“What’s your tattoo?” I asked.

He glanced at it. “It’s a symbol. An environmental thing.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Not really.”

“Can I look at it?”

He held his arm out and I touched the tattoo with my fingers. I expected it to feel different from the rest of his skin, but it didn’t.

“It’s beautiful.”

Ryan covered it with his sleeve. “Thanks.”

“You sure you don’t want to go with them?” I said. “I don’t mind sitting on my own.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want to jump off the wall. I want to spend time with you.”

“You do?”

He looked at me with a bemused expression. “Yes. I like you. You’re interesting.”

I didn’t feel remotely interesting, sitting on the beach, too scared to join in with the fun my friends were having.

“But you hardly know anything about me.”

Ryan laughed, just as Megan launched herself off the harbor wall with a scream. I watched as she swam toward the shore. From experience, I knew that they’d all repeat the jump four or five times before they tired of it and swam across the bay to Lucky Cove on the opposite headland.

“Are you going to educate me?” said Ryan.

I looked at him, lost. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.” He was still smiling at me with his big, warm smile, a smile that was amused and friendly and just on the cusp of being flirtatious without quite crossing into it.

“That could take a while,” I said, feeling myself blush.

“I don’t mind.”

I lay back on the sand and closed my eyes, enjoying the gentle caress of the April sunshine on my skin.

“Everything is a big subject,” I said. “How about you get to ask me three questions.”

“Like three wishes in a fairy tale?”

“Mmm. Exactly. And then I get to ask you three.”

“Okay,” he said. “Only three questions. I’ll have to make them count. So let’s start with the perfect date.”

“That’s a good question,” I said, stretching my arms above my head. I’d never considered it before. My perfect date. I’d never been on any kind of date, good or bad. “I’d like to drink cold champagne and eat warm, sweet strawberries
while the sun sets over the sea.” I’d never had champagne before, but I liked the way it sounded.

Ryan laughed. “Very romantic.”

“I hope so. I mean, for it to be the perfect date, it would have to be with someone I love.”

“That leads perfectly to my next question. Have you ever been in love, Eden?”

Both the question and the way he said my name made my heart stall. I was pretty sure my blush must be in full bloom by now, from chest to forehead. I put my hands over my eyes to shield them from the sun and my embarrassment, and then parted my fingers slightly so I could look up at him. He was looking down at me, the sun weaving through his hair and lighting up his face.

“No,” I said, although I was beginning to wonder if the acute mixture of nerves and embarrassment I felt whenever he was near might be one of the symptoms.

He held my gaze, a half-smile on his face. “What are you afraid of?” he asked.

For a moment I thought he was still talking about love, but then I realized that this was question three.

“Heights,” I said. “Deep water. And missed opportunities.”

“Missed opportunities,” he repeated. “I agree. Okay. Your turn.”

I thought for a moment, unsure what I most wanted to know about him.

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” I asked in the end.

Ryan exhaled slowly. “Whoa. Right in with the serious
stuff. How about a gentle warm-up question first to help me relax.”

“I only have three questions.”

“You’ll probably be disappointed by my answer. I haven’t done anything really bad. I guess the worst thing I’ve ever done is pretend to be someone I’m not so I could fit in with a group of people.”

I couldn’t imagine Ryan struggling to fit in. It made him sound vulnerable in a way that didn’t add up.

“Second question?” he asked.

“What do you want to do when you grow up?”

“I don’t know,” he said, shrugging one shoulder. “Probably something with the environment. With animals or plants. Study ecosystems. Protect fragile habitats.”

“Like a job at the Eden Project?”

He smiled. “Something to do with Eden. Yeah. That would be perfect.”

“Last question,” I said. “Who is your hero?”

Ryan chuckled. “Connor.”

I looked up at him through my fingers. He was laughing, of course.

“Connor?” I asked.

“Why not? He’s smart, he’s independent, and he doesn’t care what anyone thinks. And he has you for a best friend.”

“Be serious.”

“Fine. I don’t have heroes. I don’t believe in them.”

“Why not Gandhi or Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King? Surely they’ve done more to earn your admiration than Connor?”

Ryan said nothing. Out of nowhere came the memory of Matt telling me that Ryan had never heard of Hitler. I sat up. “You
have
heard of Gandhi and Mandela?”

“Of course,” he said. He dug his heel into the sand and frowned.

“Who are they then?”

Ryan looked at me and exhaled deeply. “I have heard of them. I recognize their names, but I can’t remember why they’re famous.”

“History lessons in New Hampshire must be so bad. What did they teach you?”

“You’ve had your three questions,” said Ryan.

“Answer it and you can ask me one more.”

“They taught us about the Greeks and Romans, mainly, and the history of discovery and exploration.”

“Like Columbus?”

He nodded. “Can I ask my final question?”

“Fine,” I said, expecting another general question about my loves or hates.

“What did Connor mean earlier?”

“You mean when he began his Mr. Health and Safety routine?”

Ryan nodded.

I hesitated. I hated talking about what happened. People never knew what to say. “Ten years ago, I was in an accident. I was in a car with my parents, and we were driving home from a wedding. My dad was driving. He’d had a lot to drink apparently. We were on the coast road, halfway between Penpol Cove and Perran. He lost control of
the car. It skidded off the road and into the sea.” I pointed to the headland across the bay from the harbor. “That’s where it happened. It’s known as Lucky Cove. Both my parents drowned.”

Ryan said nothing, but I noticed on the drive home later that afternoon that he stayed well below the speed limit for a change.

Ryan knocked on the door at eleven o’clock on the dot, just as the beeps on the radio signaled the hour. I smiled to myself at the military precision of his timekeeping. How had he managed that? I’d been watching for him from my bedroom window, half expecting him to call and cancel. It was my turn to host the Sunday study session, and although I’d invited Ryan every week since we met, this was the first time he’d accepted.

I’d seen his silver car reach the top of Trenoweth Lane before heading around the corner, out of sight. A minute or two later, he’d strolled along the road, his backpack swinging from one shoulder, as though he didn’t have a care in the world. Part of me hoped to catch him doing something self-conscious—like checking his reflection in the side-view mirror of a car—but he had just ambled along the sidewalk, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket.

Miranda got to the door before me, and I guessed she had been planning that all along.

“Hi,” I yelled, running down the stairs two steps at a time.

Ryan looked up at me and smiled. “I wasn’t sure what
we were studying, so I brought everything,” he said, holding up his backpack.

I was stunned for a moment by just how great he looked in his shirt and black jeans, and then I remembered my manners. I jumped to the bottom of the stairs.

“Ryan, this is Miranda, my aunt.”

“How do you do?” Miranda said, shaking his hand enthusiastically. “Come inside and meet Travis, my partner.”

Partner. That was new. Travis had somehow skipped the boyfriend stage, jumping directly from friend to partner, passing Go and collecting two hundred pounds without me noticing. Not that I minded too much. Despite the vegetarian gibes, Travis was okay, and he seemed to make Miranda happy.

Travis was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading the food section of the Sunday newspaper. He stood up and held out a hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Ryan.”

“Likewise,” said Ryan, shaking Travis’s hand.

“Take a seat,” said Miranda.

Inwardly I cringed. Miranda had warned me that she wouldn’t let Ryan and me go up to my room alone. What did she think we were going to get up to with her and Travis downstairs and Connor and Megan on their way over? And if she objected to me being alone in my room with a boy, why did she allow me to spend hours alone with Connor? It was typical of her random, half-thought-through rules that held no logic.

“What part of the US are you from, Ryan?” Travis asked, as he sat down again.

For a second Ryan looked alarmed, as if he’d been asked
a trick question, but then he pulled out a chair and joined him. “New Hampshire.”

“Live free or die,” said Travis with a smile. “I’m from California myself.”

“Eureka,” said Ryan, smiling back.

“Would one of you like to explain what you’re talking about?” I asked.

“No,” said Travis, winking at me. “You like puzzles. You work it out.” He turned his attention back to Ryan. “What part of New Hampshire?”

“Wolfeboro. Do you know the area?”

“Not at all,” Travis said. “But my college roommate came from that area, so I’ve heard a little about that part of the country. What’s the hunting like out there? Mike used to shoot deer. He invited me but I never did make it out.”

“Ryan’s vegetarian,” I said. “He doesn’t hunt.”

Travis smirked. “Well then, this really is a match made in heaven. Shall we put an announcement in the paper?”

Ryan looked at me, one eyebrow raised in a question.

“Just ignore Travis,” I said. “It’s his aim in life to irritate and embarrass me as much as possible.”

“You have an unusual accent, Ryan,” said Travis. “You’re not originally from the East Coast, are you?”

“We move around a lot. Dad’s a writer and he likes quiet places. Every year or so we move. Wolfeboro is home, but I grew up all over the place.”

Miranda was pouring orange juice into a jug. “That sounds exciting.”

Ryan shrugged. “It’s okay.”

“Has he written anything we might have read?” she asked.

“Not unless you enjoy books on paleoclimatology and astrophysics.”

“What’s that?” asked Miranda, reaching for a set of tall glasses.

“It’s the study of long-term climate change.”

“He must be very clever.”

My phone vibrated with a text message. “Connor and Megan have just gotten off the bus,” I said. “They’ll be here in a couple of minutes.”

“Well then, you’d better take this up to your room,” Miranda said, passing me a tray laden with cookies and cakes and juice.

That morning I had tidied, dusted, and vacuumed my room and even picked a bunch of daffodils from the yard to make the room smell nice. Miranda had noticed and she and Travis had teased me all through breakfast.

“
Voilà
,” I said, kicking the door open. “
Chez moi
.” I put the tray down on my desk. Ryan shrugged off his black jacket and hung it on the hook on the back of my door.

He turned a full circle, taking it all in with a smile. “So this is where you dream,” he said, almost to himself.