Gabrielle's Bully (Young Adult Romance) Read online

  “Let’s head back,” he said, taking my hand. “Do you remember that poem now?” he added as we walked along.

  I racked my brain, desperately trying to bring back the half forgotten lines. I squinted my eyes and muttered the opening verse to myself, picturing the auditorium at Garfield Elementary School, the dusty floorboards of the stage beneath my feet, the huge decorated tree at my left. I stopped and closed my eyes entirely, feeling Heath stop beside me, imagining the footlights and the faceless audience beyond them, and it came to me. I recited the stanzas as I had when I was twelve, concluding with the famous words, “But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.”

  I opened my eyes to see Heath watching me. I could hardly see his expression on the dimly lit street. He took my face in his hands and bent to kiss me.

  His lips were cold at first, but warm when he opened them. He dropped one arm to my waist and pulled me tight against him, and I could feel the muscular tension in his body even through our winter clothes. He was very strong.

  When he drew back he said softly, his breath smoking in the air between us, “That’s some memory, Sherlock.”

  I answered, still reeling from the kiss, “Not really. I couldn’t tell you what I had for breakfast this morning.”

  He smiled. “That’s not worth remembering.”

  “Tell that to my father,” I responded. “He can’t understand why I can remember all of Ingrid Bergman’s lines in Notorious, but can’t remember to take out the garbage.”

  Heath started to walk again, and I followed. “Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you get older. Taking out the garbage becomes very important.”

  When we reached his car, Heath pointed in the direction of the highway. “I saw a diner up on Route 23 on the way in,” he said. “We can stop if you’re hungry.”

  If I was hungry. If the sun would rise in the morning. I was always hungry. At dinner I had stuffed myself like Scarlett O’Hara before the Twelve Oaks picnic so I wouldn’t overeat with Heath tonight. But it had had little effect. I was ready for a banquet.

  “What time is it?” I asked as we got into the car.

  “Just about ten,” Heath said. “We’ve got time.”

  The hours were flying by at warp speed. Pretty soon Heath would have to take me home. For a second I resented my parents and their curfew, and then I thought of Heath, with no one to care what time he got in. Life in the Dexter domain wasn’t so bad.

  The diner was one of those that look like a railroad car, brightly lit with a neon sign advertising twenty-four-hour service. We were seated in a booth by a hostess, and Heath hung our things on hooks by the aisle. We sat across from one another.

  Heath’s cheeks were flushed and his eyes were sparkling from the cold. He looked bright, alive, and happy. I guess I looked about the same.

  A waitress dressed in a pink uniform with a beehive hairdo in an improbable tangle approached our table. She had a pencil jammed behind her ear and three check pads protruding from her apron pockets. She handed us menus enclosed in plastic and said, “The special tonight is beef stew, roll and butter and cucumber salad for $3.95. There’s a two dollar minimum and a fifty cent service charge. In addition to the desserts listed on the menu we have our own apple pie and rhubarb pie, baked fresh this morning. Take your time.” This was rattled off in a monotone, while she snapped gum and stared at a point on the wall behind Heath’s head. She then marched off, making squeaking rubber noises on the tiled floor with her nurse’s shoes.

  Heath and I looked at one another and then dissolved in helpless laughter. “Didn’t I just see her on television?” Heath asked.

  “I think I’ll stick with a tuna sandwich,” I said to Heath. “She probably made the beef stew.”

  Heath dropped his menu on the table. “I hate to think what might be in the cucumber salad,” he responded. “I’m going to get a burger and some coffee.” He looked around doubtfully. “This place is quite a comedown from the country club. I’ve never been here before, I should have checked.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” I said. “What can they do to a hamburger?”

  “You’d be surprised,” Heath said darkly.

  When the waitress came back she took our order without comment, and Heath breathed a sigh of relief. He leaned back against the leatherette cushion and said, “It’s nice of you to be so understanding. Gee, you’re a swell girl.”

  I frowned. “Don’t be a chump.”

  He sneered at me. “Think you’re a tough guy, huh?” He dropped the act and raised his brows. “I wonder how many times Edward G. Robinson said that during his career?”

  “Who knows? The public didn’t get tired of it, I guess. His movies were all hits, so they probably thought, why not stick with a winner?”

  He reached across the table for my hand. “That’s what I say,” he whispered. “Why not stick with a winner?”

  His eyes were warm, full of feeling. I didn’t answer because I didn’t know what to say.

  He released my fingers and the moment passed. I felt I had botched it, but I was powerless to change my lack of response. It seemed that he had been looking for me to say something that I hadn’t said. Why couldn’t I handle things better, why did I always become paralyzed at the wrong moment? I stared down at the table unhappily.

  “Hey,” Heath said, “I’ve got one for you. What’s the worst horror movie title you ever heard?”

  “What?” I said, a little slow on the uptake.

  “You know, Dracula Has Risen from the Grave or The Blood Spattered Bride. I’ll bet you I can best anything you can come up with.”

  Never let it be said that I failed to rise to such a challenge.

  “Island of the Burning Doomed,” I said. “How’s that?”

  “Pretty good. Shriek of the Mutilated.”

  We went back and forth for a while, and I was losing ground rapidly when he finished me with Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.

  “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!” I protested, knowing that I could never top that. “You’re making that up. There’s no such movie.”

  Heath was all outraged innocence. “I beg your pardon. I saw it in TV Guide.”

  “But you didn’t see the movie.”

  “Oh, I never watch the movies, they’re too dumb,” he answered. “But I love the titles, and I’m telling you, there is an actual movie called Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.”

  We became aware that the waitress was standing next to the table with our plates in her hands, staring at us with a very strange expression on her face. She set the food down gingerly and disappeared without a word.

  Heath’s lips twitched. “I think she heard that about the killer tomatoes,” he said.

  “Who cares? Anybody who works in this joint hasn’t got a thing to say.”

  “I agree,” Heath announced, saluting me with his hamburger. He took a bite, and chewed thoughtfully. “I think Mr. Doucette injected this with some potassium nitrate,” he said. “I recognize the smell.”

  Mr. Doucette was his chemistry teacher, and it gave me the opening I’d been looking for all night. “How do you like his chemistry class?”

  “I wouldn’t like anybody’s chemistry class,” Heath answered gloomily.

  “I noticed that your lab partner is Stacey Trumbull,” I said neutrally.

  He nodded, making a face. “Yes, indeed. Spacey Stacey. She’s not a lab partner, she’s a lab liability.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean she’s a mobile disaster area. She should be surrounded by flashing red lights. Last week she superheated water in a beaker and exploded it, yesterday she put the wrong reagent in the experiment and smoked out the whole lab. I never saw such a screwup in my life. I don’t know how she manages to dress herself in the morning.”

  I giggled with guilty enjoyment. She must really be annoying him, he usually wasn’t so critical.

  “She’s a wonderful diver,” I said, to mak
e up for my delight in his remarks.

  “I’m glad to hear she can do something right,” Heath responded. “Maybe we should start holding class under water, she might improve. She’s always wearing these blouses with big, hanging sleeves that get in the way of everything, and bracelets that dangle in the mixtures and crash into the glassware. Well, one of these days she’s going to set herself on fire or blow herself up, and I hope I’m not around to take the blame for it.”

  I put Stacey at the bottom of my list of potential rivals. He thought she was an airhead.

  “She’s very pretty,” I said grudgingly.

  He shook his head. “She’s very dumb,” he said. “You’re very pretty.”

  I stared at him. His directness still startled me. He said things that other guys only thought. He didn’t talk that much, but what he did say certainly counted.

  “I’m too tall,” I said softly, before I thought about it.

  He smiled. “Nope. Everybody else is too short. Hippolyta has to be tall.”

  I had to smile back at him. “You really think so?”

  “Sure. You’re just the right size for me. With other girls I feel like Gulliver, towering over them, like I should be walking on my knees.”

  “I know the feeling,” I said fervently.

  We finished eating and Heath paid the check. He helped me into my coat, and I noticed two girls in another booth watching us enviously as he handed me my scarf and mittens. I sympathized with them; I had often been in their position, on the outside looking in. It was nice to be the one with the guy for a change.

  It had stopped snowing, and the temperature was dropping again. The thin layer of slush would freeze shortly; I would probably make it home just in time.

  On the way back Heath played the radio and we listened in companionable silence. I had reached the stage with him where I didn’t feel that I had to talk all the time. Once I looked over at him to find him watching me, and he winked. I smiled and looked away, my heart plunging in my chest. I had fallen for him, all right. There was no doubt about it.

  We pulled up in front of my house too soon. Heath turned off the motor and got out on his side, coming around to open the door for me. He took both my hands in his and helped me out of the car, pulling me up on the curb to stand facing him.

  “Well, Gabrielle, it looks like this is it,” he said.

  “I guess so. Heath, I’d ask you to come in for a minute, but my father would only give you the third degree, and anyway it’s late. You’d better be going.”

  “I quite agree that your father and I have seen enough of each other for a while,” Heath said dryly. I smiled to myself. He sounded so adult sometimes, in the way he talked, the words he chose. It was easy to see that he hadn’t been exposed much to the easy informality of a public high school. But that difference that others might find unusual was only one of the things I loved about him. Carbon copies of Jeff and Mike and the other guys were thick on the ground. Heath was unique.

  We walked slowly up the path to the door, trying to prolong it as much as possible. When we reached the porch, I looked up at him, waiting for him to kiss me. Instead he pulled me against his chest in a tight, warm hug, his arms close and secure about me. I closed my eyes and pressed my face into his shoulder, the rough cloth of his coat tickling my skin.

  “Good night, Gaby,” he said, above my head. I felt his lips brush my temple as he turned away, and then he was running down the steps to his car. I let myself in as he was pulling away.

  I found my mother in the kitchen, sitting at the table, reading the mythology book Heath had given me. I could hear Craig and my father in the den. Craig was allowed to stay up as late as he wanted on Saturday night, but he usually gave up and crashed in bed at ten or ten-thirty. This was a late night for him.

  “Ah, back I see,” my mother greeted me. “Want some hot chocolate?”

  That sounded good, so I put the water on to boil for the instant kind. “See if your father wants any,” my mother added.

  My father and Craig were playing chess, which explained Craig’s alertness at this hour. It would be more accurate to say that my father was playing chess and Craig was irritating him; Craig’s grasp of the game wasn’t too good and they usually spent most of their time wrangling over Craig’s mistakes. Nothing had changed. When I entered the room my father was wearing that look of exaggerated patience that meant he was correcting one of Craig’s strategy errors in martyr like fashion, trying to keep his cool while explaining the same thing for the tenth time. I could never understand why Craig kept at it. He didn’t seem to mind the constant rehashing of his moves, which I knew would have driven me up a wall.

  They both declined a drink, and when I returned to the kitchen my mother commented, “This book is very interesting. It isn’t yours, is it?”

  “It’s Heath’s.”

  “Oh, I see.” She extended the book to me. “There’s a page turned down at the corner.”

  I took it from her and opened the book to the folded page. At the bottom was the illustration of Hippolyta that Heath had mentioned. She was pictured wearing a hip length tunic with one shoulder exposed, barefoot, with a bow in her hand and a quiver of arrows slung on her back. The figure was slim, reedy, but graceful, with a gold belt clasped around her narrow waist, and gold bracelets on her wrists and upper arms. Her hair was my color, abundant, falling in loose waves about her face.

  I stared at the picture, absorbed. Did I really look like this to Heath?

  I handed the book back to my mother. “Look at the illustration at the bottom of the page,” I said. “Heath thinks she looks like me, or I look like her, whichever.”

  My mother got up to turn off the whistling kettle, and sat again with the book in her hands. I got the cups and made the chocolate.

  “Why, yes,” she said, “I do see the resemblance.” She took a mug from me and watched me as I sat across from her at the table. “He’s a fanciful boy, isn’t he?”

  “Fanciful?” I asked, not sure of what she meant.

  “Given to flights of imagination, romantic ideas,” she clarified.

  I thought of Heath’s dreamy expression as he talked about the snow story, and the look on his face after I recited Frost’s poem. “Yes, I guess he is.”

  “Lonely, too, I think,” she added.

  I looked my mother in the eye. “Not anymore,” I said meaningfully.

  She sipped her drink thoughtfully, not saying anything for a few moments, and then cautioned, “Be careful, Gaby. Don’t take this boy up like a cause. You can’t be mother and father, sister and brother to him all at once. You can’t wipe out the hurt he’s suffered in the past or shield him from any that’s coming in the future.”

  I looked at her, speechless. It was more apparent every day that nothing much got past my mother.

  She read my expression and laughed wearily. “Oh, you kids amaze me. You think when something happens to you that it’s the first time it has ever happened to anyone in the entire world.”

  “You knew someone like Heath?”

  She nodded slowly, her eyes unseeing, focused on the past. “Yes, a long time ago, before I met your father.”

  I thought that over. The concept of my mother with a life apart from my father’s was always strange to me, though I knew that she had met him at college and had lived almost twenty years before she ever saw him.

  “What happened to him?”

  She blinked and came back to the present. “Oh, he went into the army and was killed in the war.”

  “What war?”

  She drained her cup and set it down with a clink. “Does it matter?” she said with a faint trace of bitterness. “There’s always a war.”

  “Did you love him?”

  “Very much,” she said softly.

  “But you love daddy now,” I said anxiously, not wanting to think of my father as second runner-up for her affections.

  She glanced at me, and smiled. “Of course I love your daddy now. L
ife goes on, things change, and there are many different types of love.” She stood and shook out her skirt, as if to dismiss the past with the motion. “Would you like to see a picture of him?”

  I nodded silently, afraid to say anything to disturb her reminiscent mood. She hardly ever talked about her girlhood, maybe because it was too painful. I couldn’t believe she was telling me this, even now, but I knew it was because she felt I had reached some sort of turning point and was old enough, or mature enough, to hear about it.

  She went to the living room, to the cherry desk in the corner, and returned with a carefully preserved photograph in a wooden frame. It was a portrait study, like a shot taken for a high school yearbook, of a boy about eighteen or nineteen. He had wavy dark hair and a full mouth, and clear, direct eyes.

  I sat with it in my hand, staring at it, thinking that my mother had once loved this boy, as I loved Heath now.

  “What was his name?” I asked.

  “Craig,” my mother said. “His name was Craig.”

  My eyes flashed to her face.

  “It was Daddy’s idea to name your brother after him,” she said. “He was your father’s friend.”

  I handed the picture back to her. There was nothing to say.

  She looked at the photo for a moment, and then returned it to the drawer. When she came back she said, “It’s funny how he’s always that age in my mind, because that’s how I remember him. We’ve all gone on to grow older, but he will always be nineteen.” She brushed her hand across her eyes. “You never forget the first one, Gaby. You never do.”

  I was sure that I never would.

  We put the cups in the sink and went upstairs to bed, leaving Craig and my father to tear up the chessboard in the den.

  Once in my room, I undressed and put on my pajamas, but I couldn’t settle down to sleep. I roamed restlessly about the room, staring out the window at the cloudy night sky, picking things up from my dresser and then putting them back down in the same place. I knew what was bothering me. It was crazy, but I needed to be reassured that Heath was all right, not dead and lost forever like my mother’s Craig.

  No matter how hard I tried to put the notion out of my mind, it would not go away. Finally I put on my terry bathrobe and tiptoed out to the hall.