Pulse of Heroes (32 page)

“What’s the matter?” Elliot asked when he
noticed that Michelle was miles away. Rather than say something
that she might regret, she told him that she was just spacing out
on the water and the way that the sun made the edges of the soft
ripples look as if they were made of gold. Elliot had watched those
same ripples many times himself, and told her that he too loved the
illusion of gold on the water, and had spent countless hours
staring at them. After they finished their meal they stopped by a
small gift shop that was in the same building as the restaurant.
Michelle looked at the many ocean-themed items, including amazingly
detailed models of wooden ships. She wondered what it would be like
to sail far away in such a beautiful ship… with Elliot of
course.

The sun made its course westward and the
entire bay glowed in shades of pink and orange sherbet. They walked
outside and looked at the shoreline down below the wooden deck, and
Michelle told Elliot that she wanted to go down there and find a
shell souvenir. Elliot watched her as she walked back and forth
with her eyes glued to the sand, and wondered what it was about
Michelle that made him want to spend time with her. She was pretty,
but that was a given; there was more to his fascination. Something
in her personality hinted at a deeper strength, and she had a
natural sense of optimism that was contagious even for someone like
him. Michelle proudly marched up to Elliot, showing him her
treasure. It was a small shell, but it was perfect, without any
chips or imperfections.

“It’s small and unblemished, definitely a
beauty. Grade A by far.” Elliot laughed and told her that he was
impressed. If Michelle only knew how many millions of perfect
shells he had seen in his life, she would probably want to keep
them all. And he wasn’t even thinking about the prized purple dye
shells the he and Kahl had traded throughout the known world.

“What are you thinking about?” Michelle
asked.

“Just memories from a long time ago.”
Michelle worried about those memories from long time ago and
wondered how many different girls were attached to them, and how
many of those had fallen in love with him. How could they not? She
knew that Elliot had been married to Xander’s grandmother, but
wondered how many other women he had loved before? That question
haunted her, and yet there was absolutely nothing that she could do
about things that had happened in the past. She felt silly about
her jealousy; she would never reveal it to him.

When they got back to Willow’s Creek Michelle
didn’t know how to ask Elliot when she would see him again, and
measuring the uncomfortable silence that followed once Elliot
killed the engine, it was obvious that he didn’t know what to say
either. He really didn’t. The tension and suspense had nowhere to
escape, hanging above them right under the car roof like a steamy
cloud. They sat in the car like that for what seemed to be a long
time when at last Elliot broke the silence and told Michelle that
he had had a good time.

“Me too,” Michelle answered.

“I’m picking up my friend Devin from the
airport next week… if you want to come along…”

“I’ll have to check my schedule. How will I
let you know?” Elliot smiled to himself knowing full well that
she’d find time for him, but that was the ritual and it had been
repeated for thousands of years. He’d play along, why not?

“I’ll see you between now and then.” He
didn’t say when or how; it was beyond him to give her any more.
Michelle would just have to go by his words and trust him. The game
came natural to him too.

Elliot let Michelle out in front of
Samantha’s house because Michelle didn’t want her parents to see
her get out of an unfamiliar car. She was tired and happy, and
mixed with those emotions was the dread of wondering whether Elliot
would continue to seek her out. She wondered if Elliot had thought
about kissing her before she got out of the car, because she
certainly had. But now she was concerned as to why he didn’t, and
wondered if she had misunderstood their time spent together and he
only wanted to be friends, which would be just awful.

The sun was good for Michelle, and the fresh
air didn’t hurt either. Later that night as she switched off her
night lamp, she remembered that she left the little shell in
Elliot’s car. She panicked a little because what if she never saw
him again? That shell held all the wonderful memories from her
perfect day.

When Elliot parked the car back at the school
he noticed the little shell sitting inside the drink holder. He
stared at it for a while as if it was a major decision whether he
should pick it up or not. But then in a swift move he grabbed it
and dropped it into the front pocket of his jacket. He derided
himself for feeling the way he did about Michelle. He was almost a
5000 year old man for God’s sake, not some pubescent kid. He was a
man who had been married a few times and not only did he watch his
children being born, he had also raised several families, seen them
grow old, and buried his own grandchildren. Was he crazy to even
think about being with a woman again? And what was it about falling
for a woman that made grown men feel like children?

Elliot passed by the school’s office and
Xander called to him from inside. Elliot told Xander where he had
been and with whom because he knew Xander wouldn’t overreact like
the guys did. Xander loved Elliot as if he was the father, and only
wanted what was best for him. But he did worry about him getting
involved with a girl who lived so close, and who still lived with
her parents. It would change the entire dynamic of the household if
she were to become a staple of life there. That night when the guys
had waited to have their ‘talk’ with Elliot was very uncomfortable
for everyone. And Elliot was already flustered with himself. Even
he didn’t understand why he had brought her there and why his words
flowed out like water from a rock when he talked to her. And on top
of it all, he almost lost himself when their lips touched. But
nonetheless he returned home to a bunch of staring eyes, each
waiting to take a turn at him.

Everybody at the school had the freedom to
come and go as they pleased. None of them was obligated to live
there at all, and each of them had the means to do whatever he
wanted outside the school walls and it was nobody’s business. All
the guys had enjoyed their share of rendezvous with the opposite
sex, but they had all agreed that they wouldn’t get seriously
involved with someone while living there; that had been Elliot’s
idea from the start, and now it looked like he would be the first
to do just the opposite.

Elliot assured them that he wouldn’t bring
Michelle into the library again, but that was all. He then
disappeared upstairs to his room. Later on, when Rion told him that
he met his ‘sweet’ Michelle at church, he confided to Elliot that
he understood his attraction to her because he thought that she was
very pretty too. Elliot became uncharacteristically jealous. He
didn’t like the idea of Rion talking to her. Rion wasn’t very
sensitive and he could say something that would upset the whole
situation. Or maybe Rion wanted to compete with him for the girl
just for fun. Elliot was not interested in playing games with
Michelle’s heart. She was young and innocent and she didn’t deserve
anything of that sort. Still, Rion enjoyed teasing Elliot; he had
done so ever since Elliot had married one of his descendants, Leta
Memmia. But it was what Leta did that made Elliot swear that he
would never get emotionally involved with a woman again. So Rion
tried his best to tread lightly around the ‘women’ issue. But it
wasn’t easy for him.

It was none of Xander’s business what Elliot
did in his personal life, but there were other ramifications that
could cause catastrophic outcomes if Elliot got physically involved
with Michelle.

“Elliot,” Xander said, “If you care for this
girl you must think of everything.” Elliot knew exactly what he was
referring to. Being intimate with one of their kind was a
life-altering event. Everyone knows of the power of a first kiss,
or the first time that a madly in love couple shares intimacy. All
one has to do is listen to the millions of love songs out there
from the beginning of time to understand love’s power. But if those
feelings were amazing, being with one of their kind was tenfold.
Women got hypnotized just standing next to them, and if they held a
woman’s hand she became dreamy and wistful. Michelle’s giddy
behavior was the norm for Elliot; every woman he had ever gotten
close to had reacted in that way, and that was the precise reason
he resisted kissing Michelle. He just wasn’t sure yet.

Long ago in his youth, Elliot had basked in
his power and taken full enjoyment in many women, relishing their
sweet devotion to him. But as time went on he learned that these
same women became disillusioned with other men because a human
could never measure up to someone like him. Of course Elliot had
loved and married a number of women, but there were many others
that he didn’t, and he eventually learned of the tragic lives that
they led. Any man might wish for his type of power, but after the
ego is fed and the delight in his manly influence diminishes, he
might find that his humanity is at stake.

Elliot had been around long enough to learn
that humans are not animals, and their needs just like his went
beyond the physical, or even emotional. There was a spiritual
connection that the soul needed. Elliot learned the hard way that
women were not playthings. By taking a woman’s love and sensuality
for granted one might as well curse the next generation of
children, all for a few seconds of quickening of the pulse. Parents
who felt cheated and angry were the ones who raised tyrants and
cruel leaders. The cycle of pain just continued for generations to
come.

Elliot had seen entire cultures destroyed by
their lack of sensitivity to their female population. No society
could prosper without exalting the woman to equal status as her
male counterpart. Elliot still wondered that if all humans lived as
long as he did, would they change their ways? With all that in
mind, Elliot had to consider Michelle and her well-being. Xander
was completely right. It had been almost a hundred years since he
had been with a woman, and before that he had avoided them
altogether for almost 1500 years. If he was to become intimately
involved with Michelle he could well ruin the rest of her life, and
that was the last thing he wanted to do.

Michelle couldn’t wait for the week to be
over. She reshuffled her plans to Sunday and cleared out her entire
Saturday just for Elliot. On Wednesday, Michelle visited Francesca
and found her sunbathing in the backyard and sipping on a cool
lemonade. The elder lady had missed Michelle the week before, and
was very glad that Michelle hadn’t forgotten about her ‘now that
she had stars in her eyes’.

“What do you mean?” Michelle asked laughing,
and Francesca said that she was way too old to have a
seventeen-year-old pass one over on her. She had been spending time
with that man; Francesca was sure of it.

“Is it really that obvious?” Michelle
wondered.

“Obvious?” the old lady laughed, “It’s as
clear as day.” She asked Michelle for her beau’s name and Michelle
told her, although she asked Francesca to keep it a secret for now.
Francesca agreed, and after that Michelle told her of her amazing
day with Elliot, conveniently omitting the parts about him being
immortal. Francesca warned Michelle not to hang her every emotion
on a man. It was good to feel happy after a fun outing, but it was
also important for Michelle to stay happy with or without him.

“Don’t ever let a man’s behavior dictate in
what mood you will spend the rest of the day,” she told her. Back
when Francesca was young that was what all the fuss was about. If a
girl didn’t have a man by her side she was brought up to feel
inadequate, even guilty. Francesca told Michelle that the
partnership of marriage was a great gift to both man and woman, but
that she was glad that women these days knew better than to hang
their entire lives on a man’s whim.

Michelle loved the fact that even at her old
age Francesca was a completely modern woman, but she had to remind
her that she was still only seventeen and that the idea of marriage
had never crossed her mind. And on top of that there was no
official announcement that she and Elliot were an item anyway. In
her own way, Francesca tried to guide Michelle away from physical
intimacy until marriage, pointing to the facts of high divorce
rates and broken families.

“No man, no matter how intelligent or proper
he is, is going to buy the whole peach tree if he gets the nectar
for free. Women make it too easy for a man to jump from one flower
to another, without any thought about the flower he already
picked.” Michelle had heard that type of speech before, although
not quite as eloquently put. She understood the logic behind it,
but it was hard for her to fully appreciate it because she had
never shared all of her with anyone before and didn’t really
understand what that meant exactly. So Francesca told her that she
just needed to imagine the way she had cried over Elliot a few
weeks ago and multiply that by a hundred, only this time the pain
would last long after the tears had dried.

When the morning sun peeked in through
Michelle’s window she was already awake. She was awake before the
alarm went off, a very unusual event, especially for a Saturday.
She had already arranged with Samantha to cover for her, which was
easy since her original plans had been with her anyway. Samantha
gave her a little static over canceling their weekend plans, but
she knew that she had done the same to Michelle several times when
she first started spending time with James. Michelle was surprised
when Elliot drove up to her house in a Ford Explorer rather than
the Thunderbird. He told her it wasn’t brand new, but it only had
39,000 miles on it. “They seem to really like Xander over at the
dealership. He gets the best deals. I have no idea how he does it,”
Elliot joked. Elliot explained to her that it was much less of a
hassle for him to buy things through Xander, and although he paid
cash for it outright he didn’t like to leave any paper trails.