Eleanor (15 page)

“I hope not,” she said.

“You're beautiful,” he said, moving closer, his arm becoming a part of her, a warm comforting part.

“I don't think so,” she said.

“Then you're wrong, Eleanor Anders,” he said. “And it's not very often I get to tell you that.”

“Isn't it all superficial? I look this way because, well, because my mother helped me pick out a dress I would never have considered, and made it fit me. She used makeup and paint and pencils on my face. She did my nails. I'm fake. What you see, David,” she said earnestly, “is not who I am. It's not even what I look like. Not in real life.”

“I didn't invite you to prom when you looked like this. I didn't look like I do now when I caught my shirt on fire in front of your house. Yeah, we're dressed up. Yeah, we're playing a game. We're in character, but it's fun. Neither one of us is the person we were this morning, but that doesn't mean what we are isn't us. This is a different side of us. A fun side. You're having fun aren't you?”

“More than I should,” she said catching Barbara's glance at her and David. “But I don't know about all the attention.”

“I'm sorry if it makes you feel uncomfortable,” he said. “Truth is, I guess I am being selfish. I wanted the world, or at least the town, to know that they have a very special girl living amongst them and I was the lucky guy who got to take her out.”

“You don't know the half of it,” she said.

“What do you mean?” he said. “Are you talking about how everyone's talking about the fireworks?”

She wasn't but she nodded anyway.

“Eleanor, if you saw you the way I do,” he said, shaking his head when words failed him. “There's something about you,” he said. “Something wonderful, mysterious, and intoxicating. You shine tonight. For me, you shine every day.”

Eleanor felt the mood change, and David took his hand away.

“I've had some tough times,” he said. “I truly thought moving back to Jamesford would be the final nail in my coffin, but it hasn't been. Even with my mom ignoring me, my dad away, and Wens, well, being Wens, I can't remember being happier than I am now.” He looked at her, and Eleanor let him. His gaze bore into her face, falling into her eyes and reading the depths there. It was the way she'd looked into Dwight's eyes, seeking truth behind the appearance.

“Listen to me,” he said, exasperated. “I'm making it worse, aren't I?”

Eleanor didn't know what to say, didn't know what she felt. She felt so old sometimes, felt like she'd seen it all, lived it all, but this sensation baffled her. Her mother had said her hormones would kick in. “Fifteen-year-old girls burn like black powder,” she'd said. But Eleanor had dismissed that. She wasn't a fifteen-year-old girl. She was over sixty, at least five years older than Tabitha. She was only a girl for now.

David leaned forward as if to whisper in her ear, and instead of telling her a secret, he shared one, when he lightly kissed her ear.

She felt chills from her toes to her scalp. Gooseflesh covered her body. Her fingers tingled. Her lips warmed.

“I can be anything you want me to be,” she said.

“You are everything I want you to be,” he said.

Aubrey and Eric arrived and fell into chairs. They were tired.

“Where'd you learn to kick like that?” asked David, drawing their attention.

“My mom loves square dancing,” he said. “She competes. I'm her partner when Dad has to work.”

David held Eleanor's hand beneath the table.

“You meet Henry?” asked Aubrey.

“Yes, he was just here,” said Eleanor. She looked for him. He and Midge sat in a row of chairs against a wall across the room. Midge was talking, and Henry nodded as she spoke into his ear, but his eyes were fixed on Eleanor.

“Let's dance more,” said Eleanor.

“Okay,” said David. “I'll arrange for a song that doesn't require a guidebook.”

Eleanor followed David to the bandstand, and the musicians obliged him with another slow number. The change of mood fit the late hour and the dimmed lights. The floor filled up. David had made them promise several slow dances and the guitarist had agreed with a wink.

With her arms around his neck and his around her waist, they swayed and moved in the thickening crowd. They bumped into neighbors, and neighbors bumped into them. They exchanged mumbled apologies without opening their eyes.

Eleanor's were closed, and she lost herself in the public anonymity of a crowded dance floor. She allowed her senses to take in all she could without judgment—feeling, smelling, being in the moment. She wanted to remember it.

Suddenly something crashed into them. They were nearly knocked down. They stumbled and saw Russell and Barbara standing beside them.

“Sorry there,” Russell said, smirking. “Just trying for a little space.”

David glared at him. Eleanor watched, afraid he was going to punch Russell then and there. He didn't. He said only, “No problem.” He reached out to Eleanor and led her away.

But before they were out of sight of them, Eleanor caught David's glance fall onto Barbara Pennon's dress and chest. She tried to tell herself that it was nothing, that boys always noticed that. It was instinct. She could understand that. She'd even glanced at them herself. You had to; her dress was cut so low and her bra so tight that it was a wonder they didn't spring out like a Jack-in-the-box.

David held Eleanor again as a third slow dance started, this one the slowest yet. Eleanor concentrated on David's touch, the tender way he pulled her just a little bit closer when they fell into step with one another. She was glad David held her; otherwise she might have melted on the spot. She felt drunk or drugged, the way she imagined Tabitha felt after getting a shot of morphine before a long scan.

Barbara crossed her mind again. Barbara was pretty in a model kind of way; narrow hips, big chest, perky, well-maintained face, blonde hair, and the finest clothes her fashion magazines could suggest. Eleanor knew those things were nothing. She could be all those things if she wanted to. If David wanted her to.

The change came upon her unconsciously. A deep primitive part of her mind commanded blood and muscle along a design laid out from her imaginings and memory. A simple modification; a variation on a theme. It wasn't much. But it was enough. It was change, and it hurt. Not as much as it could have, not as much as Dwight or Celeste, but enough to make her grit her teeth, tense, and moan.

Before she was wholly aware of what was happening to her own body, David released her.

“Are you alright?” he said. “Are you okay?” He took a step back to look at her; they'd practically been standing in the same shoes after all.

Eleanor blinked as if coming out of a dream and shuddered. David, frightened, looked at her. He searched her face and then his eyes fell to the front of her dress. Suddenly, possibly because the dress had become so tight she could no longer breath in it, she realized what was happening.

She looked down at herself and tried to stop it, but the die was cast, the change begun. Her body fought her attempts to stifle it with pain that made her regret ever trying.

Neighboring dancers stopped, looked at Eleanor, and fell silent.

Before her eyes, before the others' eyes, before David's eyes, her dress pulled and stretched, grew loose at her waist and threatened to tear at her shoulders until little Eleanor Anders stood stupid and afraid with curves the size and shape of Barbara Pennon's.

CHAPTER TWENTY

E
leanor bolted from the hall like a scared rabbit. She roughly pushed through the throngs of dancers and chaperones until she was at the door. She pulled it open and burst through it at a sprint. Behind her she heard David call her name, but she didn't look back. She ran into the night, into the cold December Wyoming night, with all the energy she had, and headed north. Her home was north.

When her shoes broke in the parking lot, she abandoned them without a thought, and ran on in her torn stockings. She did not feel the broken glass under her feet, did not feel their gashes and stabs, slashes and cuts, her feet ruined beneath her. She did not feel anything but panic even after she was out beyond the parking lot. When her dress caught her knee, she kicked through it, ripping the fabric, wrecking it forever. Her sense of direction pointed her through yards and across fields, around farmhouses, and away from roads. She never stopped. She ran as hard as she could, scaling fences, flopping over barbed wire, hardly noticing it tear at her flesh, her horrible betraying flesh.

Her breath was copper fire in her lungs as she rounded the block leading to her porch. Her tears froze to ice on her face and clung to her eyelashes. They turned her porch light into a kaleidoscopic beacon.

She ran to the door and pushed it open. Only after she'd turned and locked it, did she collapse in front of the dying fire. Tabitha, startled awake, pulled herself up and rushed to her.

“What's wrong, girl?” she demanded. “Oh, my God. Look at you. What happened? All these cuts. Oh, God. Your feet. Oh no. What happened? Eleanor? I'm calling a doctor.”

“No!” Eleanor screamed. “No, no, no.” She sobbed.

“What happened, Eleanor?” she said.

Eleanor couldn't answer if she wanted to. She wanted just to die, alone and unseen as all wise animals did. Where was a quiet clearing, a fallen log she could hide beneath and perish?

She turned over, gasping, hyperventilating, sobbing with each breath.

She blinked away her frozen tears, melted them with new ones, and regarded her anxious mother. One glance at Tabitha's alarmed face was all she could do. She rolled over and climbed to her feet, but slipped on the blood which ran freely from her soles. Tabitha tried to touch her, help her, calm her, but she shrugged it off. She regained her feet and ran to the ladder leading to her loft.

“Your feet,” her mother cried. “Your arms. Your chest. What happened?” Her voice strained, but she didn't cry, didn't panic.

A car skidded to a stop outside their house. Eleanor, torn and cold, dove for her bed and coiled under her blankets in a ball. She stopped crying and held quiet.

“Mrs. Anders,” came David's voice from the porch. “Mrs. Anders.” He rapped on the door. Tabitha switched on a light.

“Mrs. Anders, is Eleanor here?” said David in the doorway.

“Yes, she's home,” she said evenly. Eleanor could hear the strain in her voice but hoped David couldn't.

“David said there was some kind of incident at the dance, and Eleanor ran away,” said Karen.

“She's home now,” Tabitha said.

“Is she okay?” said David. “Is this her blood?”

“Yes, she cut her foot coming home,” Tabitha said.

“She's barefoot?” said Karen.

“Yes,” said Tabitha. “She must have lost her shoes. She's pretty upset.”

“Have you called a doctor?” demanded David.

“We'll see to it,” said Tabitha. “She's still upset. I haven't been able to get a word out of her. Maybe you can tell me what happened.”

“Can we come in?” asked Karen.

“No,” said Tabitha, and Eleanor loved her for it. “Not right now.”

“There was a . . . She, uh . . .” stammered David. “I don't know exactly what happened.”

“You didn't do anything to her, did you? Make any advances?” asked Tabitha.

“Mrs. Anders, my son is a perfect gentleman. I do not like what you're implying. Eleanor and David were dancing, and she turned and ran.”

“Did you do anything or see anything that might have frightened her?” said Tabitha to David.

“No, I don't think so,” said David.

“Well then it was probably all just a misunderstanding,” said Tabitha. “I'll put Eleanor to bed, and we'll straighten this out in the morning. It's cold. You all go to bed.”

“Mrs. Anders, I don't want you even thinking that David—”

“Just a misunderstanding,” Tabitha cut in.

Eleanor heard Karen huff. David was gasping, almost as if he had run the five miles from the hall himself.

“All this blood,” he said feebly. “Are you sure she's okay?”

“She'll be fine. She has a strong constitution. We'll tend to it.”

There was an awkward silence. Eleanor crawled out from under her blanket and peeked through the window over her bed to the street. She could see Karen's van parked in front, the engine running, the lights still on. Inside she could see Brian and Jennifer's stunned faces staring out of fogged windows at her front porch. Their prom was ruined, along with David's, and how many others? Eleanor buried her face in a pillow and hoped to suffocate herself.

“Here's her shawl,” David said. “She left it.”

“Thank you, David. I'll give it to her,” said Tabitha. “Good night. I'll call you in the morning.”

She closed the door, and after a while, a long while Eleanor thought, she heard the car doors slam shut and the van pull away.

She cried until there wasn't a tear left to be shed. When they were spent, and she lay gasping and moaning, wishing for death and hating herself for being human, she heard her mother below.

“I'm coming up now, cupcake,” Tabitha said at the base of the ladder. She hadn't been in the loft in years. The climb offered the danger of a slip, but on she came. Eleanor stared at the ceiling, only half aware when her mother sat down on her bed beside her.

“You're a complete mess,” she said. “But you're alive. That's all that's important to me right now.”

Eleanor was vaguely aware of her mother cutting off the tatters of her prom dress with a pair of scissors. She rolled over and hid her face in a pillow. From far away she felt echoes of pain from a thousand scrapes on her arms and legs. She felt her mother shift her skin, examining deep cuts from wires and trees. When her mother bent over her feet, a sudden intake of breath brought her back.

“Are they bad, Momma?” she said weakly, barely able to hear herself.

“You won't be dancing again for a while,” she said. “But we've had worse, haven't we, cupcake? Nothing life threatening. Not for you anyway. The bleeding's nearly stopped already, but they aren't pretty.”

“How bad?” said Eleanor. “They don't hurt much.”

Tabitha took another deep breath and wiped a tear from her face. “I should lie to you, I know, but I won't. You're down to the bone, Cupcake. Lots of glass, dirt and gravel. Worst I've ever seen.” Her voice broke. “I'm surprised you made it home. You'll be alright, though. It'd cripple a normal girl, but you'll be okay.”

The words made Eleanor hiccup and cough. She wanted water, wanted to refill her eyes so she could drown herself in tears.

“Oh no, cupcake,” Tabitha said. “I didn't mean it like that. Don't take it that way. I'm counting my blessings.”

Eleanor filled the silent loft with labored panting. She wanted to stop breathing, but she was a slave to instinct and instinct told her, had always told her, to survive. Tabitha caressed her daughter's head, careful to avoid a deep cut over her eye. She kissed her forehead and got up.

“We've got to get you cleaned up,” she said. “I need you to come downstairs.”

Eleanor didn't stir.

“Eleanor,” Tabitha said firmly. “I need you to come downstairs. I can't haul up water and bandages. I'm not that strong. You can come downstairs and lay on the couch. I won't let anyone in, I promise. I'll seal the house like Fort Knox. You're safe here. Just come down now.”

She turned over and looked at Tabitha. Her mother's face was tear streaked and red, but also beamed reassuring confidence that lifted Eleanor's feelings like a balloon. Her mother had been a marine nurse and an officer. Her authority was compelling.

Eleanor tried to speak, but gave up. Instead, she nodded and flopped out onto the floor. Wearing a half-rag of a dress, Eleanor crawled to the ladder. The dull ache in her feet was profound and constant, a terrifying bass note throbbing up her legs that bespoke of severe damage. Dawn glowed behind the curtains.

She climbed down the ladder slowly on her knees. The movement broke open a scab and she heard a light patter of blood drip from her heel to the floor below like a steady, terrible rain.

Her mother directed her to the tub and fetched a first aid kit. Eleanor removed the last scraps of her beautiful dress and dropped them in a heap.

“Drink this milk,” Tabitha said, offering her a big glass. The carton was on the floor beside her, an unopened one beside it. “Get your strength up so you can do your thing. I can only do so much and you don't want a doctor.”

Eleanor drank the milk as Tabitha washed her. She used a silver forceps and hair tweezers to pull glass and pebbles from her feet for forty minutes. She ran a little warm water and used a sponge and pile of wash cloths to clean away the debris. The water ran muddy pink. The cold finally caught up to Eleanor, and she shivered.

Suddenly Tabitha noticed. Eleanor's wounds had distracted her, and even though she was naked, she'd not noticed the change.

“Oh, dear,” she said looking at Eleanor's chest. “When did this happen?”

Eleanor covered herself with her arms and began to sob.

“At the dance,” she cried. “I didn't mean for it to happen. I caught David looking at Barbara Pennon, and I was dizzy and didn't know.”

“It's okay, cupcake,” her mother cooed.

“Everyone saw,” she sobbed.

“It's okay. It's okay,” she said, but not as surely as before.

Eleanor cried in the bathtub, shivering, hurt, ashamed, and undone, she cried and cried. Tabitha cleaned and mended her, and let her cry. She cried for herself and her stupid pride. She cried for Tabitha, for the troubles she heaped on her. She cried for her friends whose dance she had ruined. She cried for David who had cared for her—a monster.

Finally, Tabitha said firmly, “Now you stop that. You stop that right now. What's done is done. We'll get through this. We always have. You're my cupcake and I won't let anything happen to you. If we have to move, we move. Don't you worry. Ain't nothing broken that can't be fixed. Now finish this carton of milk before we go to the living room and get you under a blanket.”

Eleanor caught her breath and did as ordered. She allowed herself to go limp emotionally and gave herself over totally to her mother's will. She had none of her own left.

Her mother helped her get onto the sofa and wrapped a warm blanket around her. She threw a new log in the fire and stoked it until it blazed. Outside the sun was up, but it diffused through clouds. It might snow. Eleanor hoped it would. It would cover the bloody footprints leading to her door.

“I'm afraid we haven't restocked the kit since Halloween,” Tabitha said. “But I can make do. Not half as bad as that. Not half as bad.”