His Eyes (4 page)

I brushed my hair behind my ears and began, “I haven’t missed a Charlie dinner in ten years. What would one—”

Ahna cut me off, “Seriously, Amy, your mom would
freak
! You’re the same age Charlie was when he left.

Think about it.”

“I
know
!” I groaned and stared up at the asbestos ceiling tiles.

“Is there any way you can eat and still make it to the rehearsal?” she offered.

I sighed. “I’m supposed to be at the Edmunds’ at six thirty and we usually eat at six.” Ahna laughed and looked at my almost-full plate of salad. She shouted over the ringing dismissal bell,

“Better work on your gorging skills!”

“Dear Charlie, I’m sure you haven’t even gotten my last letter yet, but I just want to let you know that you’re ruining my life. Again. No, seriously. You know how I got that great paying job? Well, I need to go to it but I can’t because of
your
dinner. You know, the ones I’ve told you about...the ones Mom makes for you. The best solution I’ve come up with is to try to rush the meal. I mean, what family is so dysfunctional that it can’t eat, say, a half-hour early? Don’t answer that. So, if you’ve decided it’s time to be nice to your little sister, show up. Tonight. Love, Amy.”

My car squealed as I pulled into the tiny driveway of our house. I’d almost deluded myself into believing that Mom would be hard at work in the kitchen. I threw open the front door and, tossing my messenger bag in the general direction of my room, began to search for her. Well, she definitely wasn’t in the kitchen. I shouted her name to which there was predictably no response. She tended to lose track of time, especially when I needed her to do something.

I headed to our backyard—which was no typical backyard. My mom, in her non-working state, had time to build her own personal Eden. Literally. The yard wasn’t large, but it had
every
kind of plant. I wound my way through the maze of green, careful to step on as few petals as possible. Finally, I found my mom crouched behind a rosebush. She was humming, smoothing the soil with her hands, and had absolutely no idea I was behind her.

There was no way
not
to scare her when she was in her own little world, so I simply yelled, “Mom!” She jumped. Using a dirt-covered hand as a shield against the sun, she looked up at me with jade eyes and smiled. “Hi, honey. Welcome home. I was planting some new tulip bulbs near the bushes. I didn’t think we had enough of them bloom this year, did you?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Hey, I was thinking of making spaghetti and tomato sauce for dinner. What do you think?”

“Sure. That’s sweet, wanting to make dinner for your brother.” My stomach tightened; I hated when she talked like that. She gestured with her hand. “Why don’t you look over there? There may be some early tomatoes you can use for the sauce.”

Tomato sauce from scratch? No way. “You know, Mom, I think Dad bought a jar of Prego—” Mom looked at me as if I’d stomped on a butterfly. “
Amy Rose
! All those preservatives—”

“It will be okay, Mom,” I pleaded. “Just for one meal! I’ll use the organic spaghetti....” She frowned and pushed her graying hair from her face. “I guess, but if Charlie comes and doesn’t like it—”

“Then I’ll make something else. I swear!” I quickly kissed her sun-warmed forehead and bounded toward the house. “Thanks!”

I hurriedly threw a pot of water on the stove to begin boiling and dumped the sauce into a pan. The meal was so easy to prepare, I figured that it could be ready by 5:30 p.m., when Dad usually came home. I even diced a few cloves of garlic and threw them into the sauce, hoping to appease my mom. Just when I thought I would be okay, Mom bounced into the kitchen. “Look! I found some ripe strawberries! We can make a pie!”

Honestly.

* * *

By the time Dad walked through the door, the kitchen was a mess of flour and red strawberry juice. I admit, the house was beginning to smell delicious—but I need to leave soon! I heard Dad drop his briefcase on the linoleum. He came into the kitchen, his blue eyes smiling at my figure, which was drooped over one of the kitchen chairs. He pulled off his tie and breathed deeply. “What are my girls up to?”

He wrapped his arms around my mom’s waist and kissed the brown sugar off of her cheek. She laughed, “We’re making spaghetti and strawberry pie. You know it’s Charlie’s favorite.” A pained look swept over my dad’s features, but he returned her smile. “Wonderful!” To see my parents standing there, they would have seemed like an odd couple; him in a black business suit and her in a white kurta with palazzo pants. The mystery, however, ended there. He had graduated with a degree in English, with the intention of becoming the next Robert Frost, but things hadn’t gone as planned. Bills and Charlie came along, so Dad went to law school. He once told me that he did what he had to do, but he still works
pro bono
whenever he can. My dad’s the best, not to be prejudiced or anything.

“Mom, when do you think the pie will be ready?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she leaned back against my dad, “maybe six fifteen.” Right when I should’ve been leaving.
Perfect
.

I headed to my bedroom in search of a “semi casual” outfit befitting the Clarencites. My bedroom was, if nothing else, my haven. The walls were painted a calm lavender, featuring my mom’s most recent doodlings of clouds. From the ceiling hung blown glass orbs. The rest of the space in the small room was taken up by my comfy full-sized bed.

After ten minutes of digging through my closet, I returned to the kitchen. I wore a peasant skirt and a blouse—semi casual, right? I was thrilled to see that Mom was serving the spaghetti. I snatched a plate from her hand, sat down, and immediately began shoveling food into my mouth.

Dad laughed. “You have a hot date or something?”

I felt my face grow warm as I spoke around the spaghetti, “Nuhm, eh hef tuh,” I swallowed, “baby-sit.”

“How is Tristan?” Mom pulled a heretofore unseen, giant salad from the refrigerator.

I literally choked at the thought of trying to make it through three courses. After a short coughing fit, I managed, “He’s great; everything’s great.”

Dad frowned skeptically at me while they took their seats at the table. “Why’d you change into a skirt?”

“Oh, uh,” I swallowed, “I wanted to look nice?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Wait...
is
the boy you’re watching actually your age?”

“Um,” I quickly reached for the salad tongs and scooped a pile of greens onto my plate, “yeah. Didn’t Mom tell you?”

Dad gave my mom an exasperated look and grumbled, “I thought she was kidding.”

“I think he’s more of a boyfriend,” she said with a wink.

I rolled my eyes and quickly scraped my salad to the side, so I could squeeze a slice of steaming strawberry pie onto my plate. “We’re not really even friends. I-I just....” I gestured with my fork in the air, struggling for a definition of my strange job. “I try to get him to do things—to leave his house. And his mom pays me.”

Dad frowned, trying to understand what I meant. “So, he’s a loner?”

“No. Well....” I paused and shoved a piece of pie into my mouth; I immediately regretted the decision when the burning jelly stuck to my gums. Wincing, I gulped water and tried again: “He’s kind of a loner now, but he didn’t used to be. I don’t think.”

“And you’re not getting paid to date him?” Dad asked firmly.

“No!” I laughed and jumped when my cell phone began to vibrate in my pocket. I didn’t have to check the LCD screen to know that Mrs. Edmund was calling to see why I was late. Setting down my fork, I said,

“Listen, I really have to go; I’m already late.”

“Listen, I really have to go; I’m already late.”

“Amy Rose!” Mom gasped. “We haven’t all had dessert yet! What if Charlie comes?”

“You can tell him he can have the rest of mine?” I offered sheepishly. My phone vibrated again as I backed away from the table. I looked to Dad for support. “Okay?” Dad sighed and rubbed his forehead, torn between the hurt look on his wife’s face and the logic that the odds of Charlie showing up for the last ten minutes of dinner were virtually zero. He gave me the subtlest nod, which Mom didn’t notice through her tears. I nodded back, nonverbally conveying my thanks, and slipped out of the house.

* * *

I cranked up my feeble speakers to their max. I’d found a cassette tape of Queen on the floor of my room

—honestly, sometimes things just appeared there.

Not surprisingly, the gate was open and waiting for me when I arrived. I swallowed, jumping out of my car without checking the clock. I ascended the steps and saw, when the door opened, that Marly was standing in the doorway. She was already in her Care Bear pajamas with a frayed yellow security blanket draped over her shoulder. She looked up at me with bright eyes; obviously she could sense that there was excitement worth going to bed late for.

I stepped into the foyer, bent down, and asked, “Where’s your brother?” She blinked and pointed toward the winding staircase.

I turned to see Tristan walking down the stairs with his arm on Chris’s shoulder. He looked, well, really nice.
This
was semi casual at its best. He wore smooth khaki pants and an azure dress shirt, with the top button at the collar undone. He also had on his signature black sunglasses and his hair was ever so slightly mussed. His head was facing my direction and I blushed self-consciously, feeling like he was looking right at me, though that was impossible.

Chris leaned toward his brother’s ear and whispered loudly, “She looks like she thinks you’re cute!”

“Shut up!” I snapped.

Hearing me, Tristan flashed a bright smile and my stomach squirmed strangely in response. He stepped off of the bottom stair and held out his hand, which I caught and pressed to my arm. As he adjusted his grip, Mrs. Edmund appeared from the den. She smiled at us and said, “Well, I hope you two have a good time.”

“Mother, it’s only a rehearsal,” said Tristan.

“Yeah, Mom, it’s not like they’re going on a date,” piped Chris.

For a moment, his mother and I shifted uncomfortably, after being not-so-subtly reminded of why I was there. I took a step toward the door, jerking Tristan along, and said, “Well, this way you don’t have to wait up for him.”

“And you get a paycheck,” Mrs. Edmund added.

She and I shared a terribly awkward laugh, and I slid out the door with Tristan. I sighed once we were seated in my car. “Good to be out of there, huh?”

“Yeah.” Tristan rubbed his chin with his hand while I brought my Camry to life. “So, you know how to get to Clarence?”

“Uh huh.” I pushed my car into Drive. I’d never been inside, but being a Grayfield native, I knew my way around.

“We’re going to be late,” he said matter-of-factly. Then he was silent and I knew, I just
knew
, that he was waiting for me to tell him why.

I tried to be quiet while the silence closed in. I focused on the headlight beams bouncing on the dark road...I listened to the gentle patter of rain as it began to fall on the hood of my car...and, in a torrent of words, I caved. “It was my family! Ten years ago, my brother left home. He was my age. He’s never come words, I caved. “It was my family! Ten years ago, my brother left home. He was my age. He’s never come back and, I know it sounds weird, but my mom has these memorial dinners for him that I
can’t
miss. And I just left, even though we hadn’t eaten dessert.”

“What are you talking about?” Tristan cut in.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Why had I opened my mouth? I’d said too much. I tried to cover for my word vomit. “Nothing.”

Tristan turned toward me. “No, it was something. Something about your brother and dessert...?” He was either actually curious or a very convincing liar. I shook my head, wondering how I could explain. “My family’s crazy.”

“My family—you don’t know the half of it.” He gave a short laugh.

What? Was someone not accepted to Harvard? I replied unconvincingly, “Oh, really?” Blatantly changing the subject, Tristan said, “You should probably know, there was never an official statement.”

I frowned. “Huh?”

“An official statement to the Clarence student body about,” he sighed, “what happened to me.”

“You never told them anything?!”

He said dismissively, “Well, Clarence isn’t a very big school and my mother knows people on the school board....”

“Leaving it up to the rumor mill —that’s always the way to go,” I scoffed.

“Oh they’re pros.”

I found the entrance to Clarence, which was marked by a large, gold-lettered sign. My car creaked when I turned into the parking lot. I was immediately confronted by the realization that I seemed to possess, amongst the other forty-or-so cars, the only vehicle that was worth less than $50,000. I
carefully
slid my Camry in-between a Hummer and a Ferrari.

Tristan and I walked around Clarence on a sidewalk lined with manicured shrubs and not a single weed.

By the parking lot lights, I could see that the cement was surprisingly devoid of cigarette butts or even old wads of gum, unlike my school. We turned the corner, to the front of the school, and I gasped at the sight.

Clarence High was beautiful in gothic style, an impressive building of gray stonework. In the midst of its circular drive, there was a tiny park of two ancient oak trees and a marble statue of a panther, the school’s mascot.

As we approached the heavy entry doors, a black limousine screeched to a halt in the drive. The door to the car was flung open and I could hear a girl yelling, “Could you come back in an hour? I can’t imagine them dragging this out too long.” The blonde climbed out and glanced briefly at us, before focusing on adjusting her skintight skirt. “Aren’t you glad it’s almost over?” She looked up again, longer, and her mouth fell open. “Tristan?!”

He nodded in her direction and I shifted my feet awkwardly.

“Ohmygosh! You’re here!” she gasped and then locked onto me, raising an eyebrow at my homespun skirt. “Who are you?”

“I’m Amy Turner.” I held out my hand and tried to smile.

“Kristy Whitton.” She shook my hand tightly and smiled a perfectly fake smile. “It’s a pleasure.” I could tell by the glint in her eye that she had a million questions that she wanted to ask me, but Tristan said, “We’re already late. We should head in.”

“You’re right.” I dragged him forward.

Kristy pulled open the door and said, “Well, I’m sure we’ll talk later, Amy,” before charging inside.

We entered a long hallway with short, navy blue carpeting. Carpeting—what high school has carpeting?