The Summer of No Regrets (17 page)

Outside it was hot again. Jeremy, telepathic-discoverer-of-cougars, was throwing a Nerf football around with a group of other little boys. “Hey!” he caled. “It’s Felix!” We were quickly surrounded by five of them. “Felix, Prince and Wanderer,” Jeremy said soberly, quoting the movie poster.

Luke ruffled Jeremy’s hair with a strong, tanned hand. “Well met, fair sir,” he said.

My heart gave a jolt.

“That’s not how Felix talks,” said one of the other boys. “He says, ‘Well met, feh suh.” He swept his arm out in a grand bow.

Luke chuckled. “Not bad,” he said.

“Where are the scrols?” Jeremy persisted.

“In the back of my closet. In a shoe box.” Luke winked.

“Gotta go, guys.”

The boys tried to folow, but the front door opened and two of the moms came out, caling them in.

He tried to take my hand, but I puled it out of his reach and started down the path and across the bridge ahead of him. He jogged up beside me, but I kept going until we got to Felix and Kalimar’s tree.

He stopped when he got there. He crouched and looked into the den, puled out the carving, and turned it over in his hands.

He stood slowly. “Brigitta,” he began.

I swalowed a lump in my throat and faced him. “Why do you go along with them like that?” I said.

“Go along with who?” He wound the laces absently around the carving.

“Kids with Nerf bals and girls in shopping mals? Is this just an ego trip for you—‘looking like a movie star’?” Luke surveyed the blackberry bushes. He sighed. “Do you know how many times a day I would have to say, ‘No, I am not Trent Yves,’ if I didn’t do that? And I’m not going to disappoint little kids.”

“So you just lie to them? Or was that realy you taking your clothes off on
Letterman
?”

Luke raised an eyebrow. “You’re not making this any easier.” His blue eyes were doing their magic on me. He put one hand on the tree trunk above me so that our faces were only a foot apart.

A butterfly of joy began to flit around in my chest. I swept it aside by thinking of the silver Lexus. Gwen?

He took a step closer so that his leg was brushing mine.

“Brigitta, I screwed up. I know I promised to meet you yesterday, but something came up.”

I folded my arms so that I could contain my heart before it did a swan dive. “Was it something or someone?”

“What?”

His bicep coming out from his sleeve looked like Michelangelo had sculpted it just for me. But I knew it was realy some Holywood trainer. “You seemed to have someone over yesterday.”

Luke scrutinized the carving. “Yeah, I did.”

“Did she speak French?”

He raised his head. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about whatever black hole it is you drop into every few days.” The tree was scratching my back. “Does she have a name?”

“Brigitta, it’s not like that.”

“Okay. What is it like?”

“It’s not nearly as exciting as you think.”

“Why should I find it exciting?”

He leaned over and tossed the toy lightly into the cougar den.

He leaned over and tossed the toy lightly into the cougar den.

Then he put his hands above me on either side so that I was trapped between him and the tree.

“Look,” he said, “my parents have a software business together—previously a successful one—and I help them run it.” He smeled so good. Focus, Brigitta. “Software? This is about software?” My eyes traced the holow of his neck, his Adam’s apple, up to his chin, his lips. His lips. I looked away. “You said your dad was in telecommunications.”

“Okay, I lied then. It’s software.”

My eyes went back to his lips, and my fickle little joy butterfly opened and closed its wings. Luke was so beautiful. Even when he was acting.

“I have to travel,” he went on. “A lot.”

“Right.” I tucked my hands tighter into my arms so they wouldn’t pop out and grab him.

“I know that seems weird to you, but Mum and Papa are barely speaking. They count on me for some of their client presentations.”

“Uh-huh.” I kept my tone sarcastic.

Luke dropped one hand onto my shoulder. “Realy, Brigitta.” His blue eyes searched mine. I ducked under his arm and moved away.

Luke leaned back and put one foot against the tree, hanging his thumbs on the pockets of his jeans. “I’m not making this up.”

“What? Do you, like, wear a suit and tie when you do this?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. It makes me look at least nineteen.” I pictured him in a suit. A dark one with a burgundy tie and a crisp white shirt. I saw that I had moved closer without realizing it. If only he was teling the truth! “Okay, Mr. Software.” I picked a salal leaf and folded it in half and then in half again.

“What’s the name of this company?”

“Is this so hard for you to believe?” He reached out and brushed a bit of spiderweb out of my hair.

“Yes.” I could feel the heat of his skin. If he kissed me, I’d

“Yes.” I could feel the heat of his skin. If he kissed me, I’d lose my resolve. I thought of him—oh, did it have to be him?—

kissing Gwen Melier in his Mini. I took a step back. “It’s caled…?”

He was waiting too long.

“Schrödinger’s Cat,” he said finaly.

“What?”

“Schrödinger’s Cat. Schrödinger was an Austrian physicist.

He won the Nobel Prize in 1933. Schrödinger’s cat is a thought experiment he came up with to ilustrate a point of quantum mechanics.”

“Uh-huh. And Schopenhauer was a German philosopher who proposed that the ‘will to be’ is reality. I’m glad we both read Wikipedia. Did you just search on my name and then go to the next entry?”

He shook his head. His shirt was realy too tight. It was distracting.

“What does Schrödinger’s cat have to do with software?”

“Brigitta…”

I looked him in the face. The strong jawline, the blue, blue eyes. “Who are you?” I said.

His eyes widened. “I’m Luke. I’m me. Brigitta, what are you talking about?”

“Are you Trent Yves?” I’d said it. It knocked the breath out of me.

He was silent a moment, gazing at me. Then he shook his head. “Brigitta, you don’t realy think that.” I didn’t answer.

We stood, staring at each other, ankle deep in ferns. Finaly he reached out and traced my jaw with his fingertips.

I almost weakened then. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and listen to his heartbeat again, but I made myself stay still.

He stepped back. “You know where to find me,” he said. He turned away and disappeared down the trail.

turned away and disappeared down the trail.

I didn’t watch him go. I crushed the salal leaf into green pulp.

If I let myself love Luke, I was in love with a character—a role played by an actor. And I couldn’t love a lie anymore.

I wanted to sit in the tree house for a while, but I forced myself to go back to The Center. Natalie was on the bench out front, her purple hair care and makeup boxes on either side of her.

“Oh, hi, Brigitta.” She fiddled with her makeup kit.

“Are you leaving already?”

“I have to get back. Promised Bekah I’d stop in town and get her a movie.” She rearranged a couple of nail polishes in their compartments. “So?” she said. She looked up and waited. A breeze blew her hair in her eyes, and she pushed it away.

“Nothing much to tel.” I picked up a couple of cups the Indigo kids had left on the railing. “Just neighbor stuff.”

“Neighbor stuff? Like he borrowed your lawn mower? He’s wondering if you want some of the apples off his tree? Neighbor stuff?”

I picked up a Frisbee and stuck it under my arm. I wanted to go hide somewhere and cry.

“That was him up in the tree house with you that night, wasn’t it? It wasn’t Devon at al.”

“Natalie—”

“I just don’t get it, Brigitta. I thought we were best friends.” She put a stray brush back into its proper compartment.

I added a plate to the colection in my arms, letting the I added a plate to the colection in my arms, letting the comment stand in the air.

Natalie went on. “When I saw him, I was just—wow! I mean, that was a lot closer up than with Kirsten Dunst. That was as close as I have ever been!” She closed the lid to the makeup box. “But you’ve been…Brigitta, you’ve been with Trent all this time, haven’t you? And you never told me.” She didn’t smile like she usualy does.

I shifted all the stuff I was holding. “He’s…he’s Luke, Natalie.

My neighbor. I got to know him a little is al. You were with your aunt in New York.”

“Luke? You don’t realy expect me to believe that, Brigitta.

Not after I’ve had a look at his eyes. Maybe it was a fantasy before, but now that I’ve seen him again, it’s so obvious.”

“He just looks like him. People sometimes look like other people.”

Natalie played with a purple handle. “He told you to keep it a secret, didn’t he?”

I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t tell her that Luke hadn’t asked me to keep any secrets—because he didn’t even trust me with his name. For a moment I wanted to tell her everything—how we’d hidden in the lighthouse, how he’d fed cougars in the middle of the night, how it felt when he held me, how he was looking for Eden.

Natalie leaned forward. “Does he have a bad temper, like they say? Does he boss his staff around? Does he have photos of himself everywhere?”

I clutched the Frisbee and plate to my chest. “Luke is nothing,
nothing
like Trent.” I was surprised at the vehemence with which I said this.

Malory stepped out onto the porch. She had her phone in her hand. “Brigitta, I just talked to Webster. He says the cougars are doing worse.”

It felt like a punch. “Webster? What does Webster have to do with it?”

with it?”

“He’s been talking with his friend, Dr. Jackson. He’s keeping us posted, Brigitta. He wants to help.” Her brightness was completely fake.

“You believe that.”

“Yes, I believe it!” she snapped, all cheeriness gone.

Natalie set her makeup box next to her on the bench.

“Cougars?” she said.

“Cougar cubs.” Malory turned to her. “You know, the ones Brigitta found on our property. After—” She broke off, apparently unable to say, “After their mother was shot.”

“Here,” she said, taking the cups, plate, and Frisbee out of my arms. “I’ll take those in.”

Natalie got up and started walking all her gear to her car. I picked up her hair care box. “You don’t have to go, Natalie. I thought you wanted to shoot pictures.”

“The light’s not good now,” she said, even though we were standing in full sun. She reached into the backseat and puled out her digital camera. “Here, Gita,” she said. “Maybe you can get a couple of Trent pics for me? I’ll call you later.” She smiled a half smile and climbed into the car.

•••

I caled Cedar Haven five or six times and always got the same answer from Dr. Jackson: I was too dangerous to come see them. Only she didn’t say it that way. She said, “A hands-off protocol is the best policy for them at the moment.” She said they were “improving” and that I could see them “soon.” She wouldn’t tell me anything about their future, just that “the options were being explored.”

And Luke? Wel, that wasn’t even his name, was it?

Part of me wanted him to come by again, to try and talk me back into his life. There were girls who would have kiled to be in my position. But I wasn’t those girls. And the whole thing just felt humiliating.

At least I had the bedroom to myself, which was where I wanted to be. I didn’t want to be in the tree house. I thought about blogging, but what would I blog? That I realy had spent two nights with Trent Yves and had falen in love with him and that now I had dumped him because he was Trent Yves and not the boy I loved?

I wanted to tell him about Felix and Kalimar so that he would change his mind about catnapping them. We would drive into the wilderness, where we would find a stump to live in. We would teach our babies to hunt and hide, and they would be fine, just fine.

But I couldn’t live in a stump with Trent Yves. Trent Yves would have better things to do than disappear into the wilderness with me. And what would he do there, anyway? Look at his reflection in a pond all day?

I picked up the phone to call Natalie. She hadn’t caled or come over since Sunday. What would I tell her when anything I could say was just a reminder of the secrets I’d kept from her? I was about to put the phone down when it rang in my hand.

“Natalie?”

“Brigitta! Get online.”

“Why?”

“Just do it. Go to www.trentwatch.com. And look!” I did what she said. The entry was almost all photos. Trent and Gwen photos. Trent in his pool at his Malibu ranch. Gwen flouncing up his driveway with Chinese takeout. The two of them flouncing up his driveway with Chinese takeout. The two of them kissing on his balcony in matching terry cloth robes. I felt like taking a hammer to the computer.

“Okay. I see it,” I said. “Why do I want to see it?”

“Because…” she trailed off. “Okay, I feel realy stupid now, but, Brigitta, look at the date on that entry. Read what it says under the pictures.”

Sunday. “Trent and Gwen share an early-morning lip-lock at his ranch house Sunday.”

“Do you see it, Brigitta? Sunday was when Luke Geoffrey came over to your house and I—oh, I made such an ass of myself! But he can’t be two places at once, can he?” I scroled down the page. Other dates and other pictures.

Trent at the LA Equestrian Center, Trent at The Grove at Farmers Market, Trent and Gwen whizzing down Santa Monica Boulevard in the Trentmobile. That one was taken last Wednesday, when Luke had been with me in Westport. “No,” I said, feeling light-headed. “He can’t be two places at once.”

“Wel, so,” she fumbled around. “I admit it, Brigitta. I was jealous. I mean, I knew I was being sily after only seeing Luke at the arcade, but then when I saw him again I thought I
wasn’t
being sily. He just had, you know, the eyes, everything. I thought, ‘How could it
not
be him?’ I thought this time I was right. And I realy did see Kirsten Dunst at MoMA. For sure.

Because I Googled it, and she realy
was
there that day.”

“I believe you, Natalie.”

“Anyway, I feel realy stupid.”

Even with my own head spinning, I had a rush of sympathy for her. “Don’t feel stupid, Natty. He does look like Trent. I can see why you were fooled.” I couldn’t tell her I’d been fooled myself.

My mouth wouldn’t say it. “We should go shopping,” I said instead. “Or to a movie. Are you doing anything tomorrow?”

“Yes! I’m shopping with you! Redmond Town Center? How about nine thirty? We could catch the new Whitley Sandstone movie, too!”

movie, too!”

After we hung up I sat, looking at the books on the shelf—

John Donne’s poetry, the Jewish festivals book,
Hinduism
for
Dummies
—they were supposed to unlock the Great Cosmic Mystery. I couldn’t even unlock the small earthly ones.

Why had Trent seemed so much like Luke in his
Letterman
appearance? Except for the swaggering, the British accent, and the completely obnoxious attitude. I hauled all the
Celeb’

magazines out from under my bed and looked up everything Trent Yves. He both looked like Luke and did not look like Luke. But Natalie was right. Luke couldn’t be two places at once.