Close Your Eyes (3 page)

Megan
w
ould rather die than admit it,
but
she
thought
it
,
too.
He was most annoying, especially when compared to his brother. But the teacher didn’t dare to make her feelings obvious, of course.
It was
Matt
Harper
, after a
ll. His family owned half of the
town
. T
heir stately home and huge, manicured gardens
were
the
town’s
biggest
, and perhaps only,
tourist attraction. Plus
,
they owned the racetracks,
the large stables,
together with
the huge
gardening nursery
,
and the horseback riding school.

As a
five-year-old
,
Meg
an
didn’t know all that
,
at
le
ast not in
the conscious way
she
later would
. What she
knew was that Ryan
and
Matt
’s mo
m was the most beautiful woman she
had ever seen
. H
er tall, willowy frame
and deep blue eyes
brought images of princesses and fairies
to
her mind
.

Elisa
Harper
didn’t really fit into the rather common group of parents
saying good-bye to
their children on
the
first day of school. Standing out like some kind of exotic, colorful bird, she
effortlessly
became the
center
of attention
.
Everyone
stared at
Mrs. Harper
and overlooked
her husband, who came to join
his family
just a few minutes later. Tall, dark
,
and undeniably handsome in his own, elegant way, Roderick
Harper
spoke
quietly
to his son
. H
is stern, slim face
be
trayed
his embarrassment at
the scene
his son was
causing.
Ryan joined
his brother,
and his soothing words
,
not his father’s
,
finally calmed
Matt
, much to relief of the anxiously hovering teacher. He explained something to
Matt
and earned
a teary, toothless grin and a quick hug
as
Matt’s l
ittle hands with bitten nails
wound
around
Ryan’s
perfectly ironed
light
blue shirt.

Looking almost lost within the family upheaval,
Roderick
Harper
patted both of
his sons
on the head. His awkward encouragement for
Matt
went mostly unnoticed, as the little
boy
,
now ready to leave,
stepped back to his mother
.

Meg
an didn’t
particularly
care for
Ryan’s
father
. H
is dark good looks and impeccable manners
were
far less interesting than Elisa’s infectious smile and fantastic clothes
. They seemed like night and day to
her enthralled eyes
.
Of course, she preferred all things bright and sunny…

Ryan looked more like his mother
, Megan decided
.
She
watched him,
his blue eyes earnest and polite,
as he
talk
ed
to the teacher.
T
he teacher said
something that broke
through his serious façade,
and he smiled,
his whole face
lighting
up like
the
sun.

Meg
an knew right there and then that she wanted to be around him
as much as
possible. Like a magnet
,
he pulled her in
.
She fantasized about fun, friendship, and adventure.
She could never explain
it later, even to herself. It sounded silly and naïve, especially when she thought back to that day and relived it in her head
over
twenty years later. But something happened on
that
glorious September day
, something
that set things in motion for the years to come.

After
Matt
finally left, his parents still
comforting him
on the way to the car,
Megan
smoothed out the folds of
the
impossibly expensive French velvet dress her mom
had insisted she wear
and walked over to Ry
an
,
who was
already surrounded by other kids.
She hated that dress almost as much
as she hated her Mary
Jane
s
,
whose black leather cut
into the sensitive skin of her heels. But her mom
had
explained to her
the importance of making
a good first impression. The lavender dress with a wide white collar and embroidered flowers was one of a kind
and made
her special. At
her age,
Meg
an couldn’t have cared le
s
s if the dress
were
made by Karl Lagerfeld himself
. I
t was heavy and itchy
, and she detested
it,
regardless
of its apparently magical qualities. She would look like a princess, her mom cajoled, eagerly brushing her long brown hair and pulling it back with a velvet ribbon
that matched the dress
.
Megan
sulkily told her mother that
she
didn’t care if she di
d
look like a princess.
Her
eyes
tear
ed
up as the brush pulled mercilessly
at
tangles
in
her
hair
. She
preferred
running around and climbing trees in old jeans and
t-shirts
.

Still,
Megan’s
mother had won
the argument
, as she always did.
She
sternly
reminded her
daughter
of
how lucky
she was to be accepted into the school at all
;
the
school’s
long waiting list and impressive list of
students
made
being accepted
a
noteworthy
feat.

When she was older,
Meg
an realized that behind the
school’s
seemingly simple acceptance letter
lay
her parents’
immense
sacrifices
in order
to send her off on the best possible path into the future. A generous donation to the school certainly helped to persuade the principal of
Megan’s
suitable qualities, if nothing else.
Megan knew she shouldn’t have gotten in
.

Enough pupils showed
far more impressive pedigree to put her on the very end of the waiting list.
T
imes were getting tough
, so
the school
began to make student selections
based on donation size, rather than pedigree.
Some of the pride in having
students
whose parents could trace their lineage to the times of William the Conqueror had to relent to the simple
reality
that
the
school needed as much money as possible to survive the turbulent times.
And Megan’s
parents had money
, e
nough to
convince
the principal and the board to overlook the fact
their money
wasn’t the
old, inherited
type
the school was
used to receiving.
Megan’s parents
had
worked for every single penny of it.
Her dad’s
computer
programming business had been growing steadily over the years.

Walking up to Ryan was easy
and natural
.
At
their age
,
everything
was
simple and doable,
since they had not yet learned about
the barriers of socially accepted behavior.