chapter 9

Caulder would never be quite sure what it was he'd said right. But then, if it hadn't been for Mr. Tibbs, Caulder might never have had a chance to say anything. As it turns out, Mr. Tibbs has no problem with letting kids run around his house unescorted— as long as the wife is out on business—so Caulder had surprised Smitty in his upstairs inner sanctum, and said whatever it was that he said. “Now we'll just have to see what happens,” Caulder told me afterward. And then promptly forgot about the whole thing in a fit of lovesick nerves, enduring the hours until Hally's party.

I was thinking about Hally's party too. About how I wouldn't know anybody there. About how I'd been spending all my time and energy on Caulder's world without building anything of my own. Not that I was sorry about being with Caulder. It's just I missed having friends—our parties back home, tame as they might have seemed to some people, had been pure adventure: you never knew who you'd meet there or what might happen. Maybe something wonderful.

They only give you a little time to live, Paul used to say to me. I don't know about you, but if I'm going to be going somewhere, I want to be driving the bus.

I sat out on my lawn that afternoon, looking up at my trees, thinking the whole thing over. The trees had finally gone completely yellow. Their trunks were still damp and dark with last night's chilly rain, black against those clear yellow leaves. I looked up at them, feeling like I was seeing reality, distorted through ultraviolet eyes. It all depends on the spectrum, I thought. On what you're used to—what you expect. I hadn't expected anything good for a long time. And I had to admit, these trees were a kind of beauty I'd never have been able to imagine on my own.

“They're almost done,” James said. He jumped the fence into Caulder's yard, a cheese sandwich in one hand, sweater over his arm.

“Who?” I asked him, squinting into the late afternoon light.

“The folks. Dad told me, this morning. Have fun tonight. We're not going to be late.” He gave me a wave and disappeared up Caulder's front steps.

Almost done.

Now there was an idea—parents and children in the same house again. People to talk to. Normal life.

Suddenly I was tired of sitting there. I was tired of just sitting around, waiting for my life to happen to me. I had a party to go to. I didn't even know who I was anymore—I hadn't even seriously looked in a mirror for months.

So I went inside and I looked, and I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to bring the image back up to standard. When Caulder finally showed at my door, he had on a new sweater, deep green, with a plaid shirt under it, and his hair was all perfect; he was radiating joy and nerves. But in the midst of all that, he looked at me and dropped his jaw. “Geez, Ginny,” he said. “I never saw you wear that before.”

“It's just a dress, Caulder,” I told him. I cinched up the belt another notch and did a little turn to make the skirt ripple. “See? Nothing exciting.”

“But you look like you did it on purpose. I mean, you look—I mean, your hair—”

I smiled at him. “Same to you, Caulder,” I said. And then I turned him around, gave him a push and followed him out to the car.

He held the door for me, still staring. “I want you to watch who you talk to tonight,” he instructed me. “I mean, you never know who's going to show up there—” Now I was grinning. This was doing me a lot of good. “What about Smitty?” I asked him, though tonight, for the first time in weeks, it was not my consuming concern.

“Don't know,” he said, belting himself in. “I told him we'd stop. I guess we'll have to see.”

Smitty wasn't waiting on the walk. “Oh well,” Caulder said, and tapped the horn a couple of times, just for the heck of it. The door opened, and Smitty came out. Caulder looked at me, giving me a silent well-what-do-you-know? I got out of the car, pulled the front seat over for Smitty the way I always did, and he slipped into the back. But he was not as he always had been—his face was the same beautiful blank, but he had lost balance somehow. The air was crackling with it all the way up into the hills; I could feel the kinetics in the hair at the back of my neck. Caulder didn't seem to notice a thing.

It was a longish drive up to Hally's. The house was perched up on the shoulder of the hills, surrounded by trees, tucked back away from the street. As you started down the long driveway, you could see how huge the place actually was. For the second time that night, Caulder's mouth was hanging open, and he was looking distinctly uncomfortable. The party was downstairs in the back, where the bottom floor opened onto a patio and a bunch of little decks. The door stood open, light pouring out of it onto the patio, and the windows glowed like Christmas. We could feel the music when we got out of the car.

“Oh my grace,” Caulder said soberly, taking a look around. “It didn't look that big from the front.” There was a deep yard behind the house. Toward the back, the lawn rolled gently down the hill; the tiny lights of the town blazed up beyond and just below through a lacing of trees, cold and twinkling. Hally'd told me her father kept horses in the meadow down below the yard.

Caulder took a deep breath and blew it all out in a single stream. “Well,” he sighed, tugging at my hair, “come on.”

We crossed the deck, Smitty trailing along behind us, and passed through the open door into the warmth of Hally's house. I still wasn't ready for the size of that room. We stood uncertainly in the doorway, staring at a massive fireplace that took up one entire wall, the kind of thing you'd have hung with iron pots when they used to roast an entire ox for lunch. All the furniture had been pushed back against the walls, and the middle of the room stood empty, ready for dancing. There were chairs and love seats tucked judiciously into shadowy corners, and a whole banquet table full of obviously catered refreshments.

“Hello-hello-hello! “ Hally said, sweeping us up. She pulled us into the room and introduced us to her brother, who was hovering over the stereo system. Then she dumped us at the refreshment table with an admonition to make ourselves at home and eat a lot.

Caulder drooped. I wanted to explain that he should be patient and let Hally get things going, but the music was too loud for talking. So I just grinned at him and started filling my plate. The table was like a gastronomic Disneyland—silver trays draped with doilies and mounded with little sandwiches, tarts, bits of fruit, and fancy things that bore only a faint resemblance to food as we know it—tiny pastel rolls, stacked triangles, and layered shapes, stabbed through with surreal, plastic-fletched toothpicks.

There must have been a hundred people invited to that party. They came in twos and threes and they kept coming—the boys gravitating toward the table or the stereo, the girls very pointedly and cheerfully not noticing them. All of a sudden, for the first time in months, I felt completely comfortable in my skin. When I caught a wink from across the room—a kid I recognized from my chemistry class—I laughed out loud.

From that moment on, I left Caulder and Smitty on their own; tonight was not my night for babysitting. Hally finally rescued Caulder, who instantly perked right up. Smitty was sitting in a chair across the room from me, tipped back against the chair rail, drinking punch out of a little crystal cup. He was almost faceless in the half-light.

A couple of girls from our English class came over and talked to me. Every so often, I'd catch somebody from the stereo clutch giving me the eye. The music was great; I was getting a tremendous rush out of it. And there was absolutely nothing weird going on, nothing to fear in the shadows, no limits on what magic might happen. Caulder was still casting the occasional worried look my way; whenever I caught him at it, I gave him a little wave. He shouldn't have worried; that night, there wasn't a boy in that room I couldn't have handled.

Except one. It happened when I drifted across to the refreshment table, weaving between the dancers, and shifted my focus from the party to the food. I was just ferreting out a few of the little pink and green rolls when somebody close behind me said “hi,” quietly in my ear. I turned around—it was a reflex—and nearly dropped the plate. Pete Zabriski was standing there. Smiling uncertainly at me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked like an idiot. My eyes must have been huge, and I was hoping my mouth hadn't dropped open. Suddenly I was not at all inclined to eat.

“I tagged along with my brother,” he said.

“You did?”

“I wanted a chance to talk to you,” he said.

“You did? “

“Yeah,” he said, laughing. “Why are you so amazed?” He took the plate out of my hands. “Come on,” he said, heading for the chairs. I followed, happened to catch Hally's eye and looked daggers at her. She sent back a look of pure disclaimer.

“Sit down?” Pete offered, standing by a private and plush little love seat. I sat, suddenly all hands, hips, and teeth. I was beginning to feel a little seasick, actually. I could tell what was coming now. He was going to start to say something, and then I'd interrupt him, and then I'd be talking, saying absolutely vapid things, and not be able to stop, and then I'd start giggling like an idiot—your textbook social nightmare.

“I think maybe you've been avoiding me,” he said. He really did have wonderful eyes. They were all crinkled up just now, because he was teasing me, because he liked me, I suddenly realized. “You didn't have to do that.”

“I didn't.”

“Huh-uh. Unless it was because you don't like me or something.”

“Ummmm—” shrug. Stupid, shocked little laugh. Freeze up. Oh, wonderful. “How long have you played French horn?” Desperate.

He laughed. He had such a nice laugh.

“I'm not as stupid as I sound,” I said, coloring up but trying to get my balance back. “I just didn't expect to see you here.” And with a rush of honesty—"I never would have expected you to talk to me.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because I humiliated you,” I said.

He laughed again, and then he kind of blushed. “Actually,” he said. “I thought it was kind of flattering.” Oh, he was too cute.

“So, I'm serious about the music,” I said. “Is it a passion with you? Or more like a discipline? When I see somebody stick with an instrument, I always wonder about that. With my brother, it's definitely passion—” Suddenly we were talking. Suddenly I was sitting next to a living, breathing person—who kept looking at me. And people were looking at us, and I liked the way it felt. I loved the way it felt. But just about then, something started tugging at me, something in the back of my mind that kept casting fretful shadows.

Pete asked me to dance. This, I had been waiting for; I love dancing—my whole family loves dancing. Pete, it turned out, didn't dance very well, which was a little disappointing.

In the fade of that song, in the flickering shadows beside the hearth, Pete took my hand. It was then that my nagging shadow suddenly developed a face.

I glanced around. Smitty wasn't in the chair anymore. I scanned the rest of the room.

“What is it?” Pete asked me.

“I just—” I squinted, peering into the corners. “I can't see Smitty anywhere.”

“Oh,” he said. “That's right. Somebody told me you and Caulder came in with The Alien.”

“His name is Smitty Tibbs,” I said.

“Yeah,” Pete said. “No offense. It's just—he's kind of a spooky guy.”

“Well, you're right about that,” I said. I'd pulled my hand out of Pete's, not even realizing it. “Excuse me a second,” I said. And then, trying to explain to us both, “I'm kind of responsible for him.”

“Should I help?” he asked.

“No. It's okay. I'll be back in a second, okay?” I had presence enough to smile at Pete before I left him. He didn't look exactly pleased—which, to my surprise, I found a little annoying.

I looked everywhere. I even checked the bathroom—well, I mean I went down the hall, and I saw the bathroom door was open, so I figured he wasn't in there. My nerves were beginning to kick in.

Finally, I left the house and went out onto the deck. I hadn't realized how loud the music and the energy in the room had been until the door closed behind me and cut them off. A chill breeze had come up, rattling through the leaves over my head. I stood against the rail, shivering, and then I closed my eyes, resting myself in the sudden solitude. Then I slipped silently down onto the driveway. I walked up to the street, a dark fear growing inside me; what if we'd lost him again? What if, this time, something terrible happened to him? I couldn't see him anywhere on the street, so I turned around and followed the drive back into the dark yard, wondering if I ought to go in and get Caulder. It had been a mistake, bringing him. I couldn't figure out why we'd done it.

I was freezing. I couldn't imagine anybody voluntarily coming out here for anything, not even for romantic privacy.

Then I saw him. He was sitting out at the end of the yard, a solitary and dark shape against the distant, frosty lights of the town. I stopped, feeling the heavy beat of my nerves. And suddenly I was washed with a great, warming anger. I walked across the lawn to where he sat, my movement silent below the million tiny thunders of colliding leaves. I could still hear laughter from inside the house, still feel the bass and the beat of the music, muffled and distant—something like the darkness in the backseat of the car. Smitty out here. Almost close enough to the living to be part of it.

He was sitting on the grass at the far, rolling edge of the yard, and he was staring out into the night. He didn't move at all when I sat down beside him.

I wondered how long he'd been out here like this—no coat, no gloves—and I wanted to shake him. If this boy could write about Machiavelli, he could sure as heck exercise a little common sense. Obviously he wasn't helpless, he wasn't stupid; he was acting like an idiot, when it was clear he wasn't one. And I was beginning to feel like I had been playing right into whatever the game was. No more. I had had enough.

“There's a party in there,” I said to him, working to keep my voice quiet. “There are people, talking to each other, touching each other—laughing. Did you see me dancing? Or did you leave before that happened? I love that, Smitty. I love the dancing and the people talking. I love it. I belong there. But you couldn't let me stay, could you? You had to come out here and sit in the wind like an idiot, like there isn't a brain in your head, and why? What are you doing out here? Running away? Feeling sorry for yourself?”

He sighed and started to get up. My anger surged, and I turned and grabbed a fist full of the front of his sweater, pulling him off balance.

“Grown up people don't just get up and leave every time things get a little tight,” I snapped. “I'm sick of this, Tibbs. I don't know what your problem really is, but don't you think it's about time you grew up? Don't you think it's about time you stopped using people? It wouldn't hurt you to take a little bit of responsibility for your own life. You can't run away forever—you're not insane. Someday you're going to have to respond to somebody.”

His face had gone hard, his breathing quick and shallow. He blinked, and he turned his face away from me. I put my hand under his chin and pulled his face back to me.

“Look at me,” I said fiercely.

And he did.

He looked me straight in the face, his eyes full of shock or fear or anger—something. They were alive inside. He was alive inside.

I saw it, and I did something that took me totally by surprise.

I kissed him on the mouth. And I kissed him hard. It had been a long time for me, and a lot of passions I couldn't have named went into what I did—a kiss pressed hard against lips that might have been dead. It was too weird.

And then it got weirder.

Because the life inside of him suddenly suffused us both. Suddenly I was no longer alone in the kiss, not the only one speaking strange passions. I could feel his hands move across my back, and then his arms went around me—for a moment, as though they were gathering up every bit of me.

But I couldn't maintain it. When I felt the need inside of him, deep and dark and powerful—as if he were pulling out of me more than I had, trying to fill up the awful void he had been—I wanted to back away. But I couldn't do it; and that scared me the way nothing in my life had scared me. I could not break off.

He was the one who stopped it. He put me away from him, eyes closed. Both of us were breathing hard. There was anguish in his face.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered.

He opened his eyes and looked at me. I couldn't move. I couldn't say anything more.

“Ginny,” he said. He said it. He spoke.

“Go.” No more than a hoarse whisper, but the words were distinct.

“Go now.”

But I still couldn't move.

And then, as from his very soul, “Please.”

I went.