Amber House: Neverwas (17 page)

Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Claire Hathaway was

watching my conversation with the Reichsleiter. She tipped her

head to one side quizzically when our eyes met. I turned back to

Herr Jaeger. “No. I haven’t experienced that,” I told him. “But

I’ll be sure to let you know when I start flying or moving objects

with my mind.”

He laughed heartily, as if I had just delivered the most amus-

ing joke. “Very good, Miss Parsons, very good. I have enjoyed

talking with you.” He ended with a promise: “We will talk

again.” Then he excused himself. I was happy to see him go.

Claire came and stood at the landing rail, admiring the tree.

Tall and slender, dressed in a cream cowl-necked sweaterdress,

she looked beautiful against the backdrop of evergreen lit with

tiny white lights, like an angel ornament that had escaped from

one of its branches. I wondered if I was expected to join her at

the rail, or if I’d be intruding. She looked over her shoulder

at me and smiled. “I always loved your grandmother’s solstice

parties, and your mother has certainly upheld the tradition beau-

tifully. I think it’s so fitting,” she added, facing me, “that our two families could finally unite in one cause, don’t you?”

“Mm-hm,” I offered, while I repeated in my head:
Finally?

Fitting?

She made a move to go, but then turned back, offhandedly.

“By the way, dear, what did the German attaché have to say?

Anything the senator should know about?”

I understood then that this was why Claire had come to talk

to me — for the answer to this question. And I didn’t know

why, but I didn’t have any inclination to give her what she

wanted. I made my face blank. “No,” I said, shaking my head.

o81

“He was just clarifying who I was. Since I’d been standing with

you guys on the stairs.”

“Ah,” Claire said, regarding me a moment more. “I guess we

should have introduced you formally so he didn’t have to come

prowling.”

Prowling was what he’d been doing, all right
, I thought. “I’m glad you didn’t. This way I didn’t have to smile and be polite.”

From the living room, we heard the pounding of some attention-

getting chords on the baby grand. Someone had apparently

decided that Christmas carols would be just the thing.

“Shall we join them?” Claire said.

“Not me,” I answered, feigning regret. “Tone-deaf. Not

allowed to sing.” Which wasn’t exactly accurate, but Sammy,

TV, and desserts were all still waiting for me.

She looked slightly confused, as if an inability to sing was too

odd to be true, but then rallied with a smile. “So nice talking

with you, dear.” She gave my hair a small stroke and glided away

gracefully.

Most everyone had migrated to the living room, so I decided

to cut through the now-empty hall. Which was a mistake. My

mother spotted me from the dining room, where she was help-

ing Rose clear the used china and silver. She called me in. I

grabbed a stack of dishes and followed her into the kitchen.

“I was wondering,” I said, my voice a little overbright, “why you

let that Nazi into the house.”

“The Wexlers brought him as their guest,” she said, busy

unloading her hands into the sink’s hot, soapy water. “He’s a

political representative of the GSR, a foreign emissary. For

Robert’s sake, I didn’t think throwing him out would be the

right thing to do. Or, for that matter,” she added, “for your sake,

or Sammy’s.”

“For our sake?”

82 O

She turned to look at me. “We stand out more here, Sarah. I

don’t want to make you two targets for any — animosity.”

I reflected on the levels of meaning in that statement, all of

them awful. In Astoria, it was fine for our entire family to be

publicly anti-Nazi, but here in the ACS, our political views had

to be — muffled? Sanitized? So that Sam and I would be safe?

In the background, a somewhat tuneless group effort at “Silent

Night” came to an end and I heard the opening chords of a new

song. Then someone began to sing in a pure and unwavering

tenor: “
O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum, Wie treu sind deine Blätter!
”

Disbelieving, I crossed the hall to squeeze in behind the

crowd surrounding the piano. The Reichsleiter was standing

beside the pianist, working his way through the German version

of “O Christmas Tree.” The audience was rapt; the man had

one of those achingly sweet voices. When he finished, his listen-

ers burst into applause. The Nazi smilingly shook off their praise

as he melted back into the crowd, which was substantially less

hostile to him than they had been earlier.

He spotted me watching him and nodded. I turned and fled,

back toward the empty gallery at the rear of the house. Richard

caught up with me just as I was rounding the corner out of sight.

“Parsons.”

I stopped, looked back, trying to soften the angry lines in my

face into a smile. He looked a little uncertain, a little shy. It

was — charming. I found that smile.

“I just came to say good night. Dad has a five o’clock call

tomorrow morning for a TV interview. My parents are probably

already in the car.”

“Thank God,” I said.

“Wow,” he said, chuckling ruefully. “Give me a break here,

Parsons. I’m bleeding.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “I only meant — if you guys are leaving,

everyone else will go home too.” I thought of the Reichsleiter,

o83

but opted not to mention him. After all, it wasn’t Richard’s fault

the Nazi was here. “I’m just exhausted.”

“Ah,” he said. “I’m glad it’s not me.”

“It’s not you, Hathaway.”

“In that case,” he said, stepping closer, “allow me to point

out —” His finger tipped up at something above my head.

I looked. We were standing in an archway that had been deco-

rated with a clump of ribboned mistletoe.

He leaned in for a kiss. And I smilingly turned my cheek

toward him, tapping the spot with one finger.

He hesitated, then his lips softly brushed my cheek.

“Night, Parsons.”

N

I recognized afterward that most boys would have felt dismissed

by that maneuver, but I didn’t figure Richard’s ego would suffer

too much. I was certain he knew how insanely attractive he was.

He probably thought I was just being coy. Which wasn’t it at all,

actually.

I didn’t know why, but somewhere along the line, I’d made

such a big deal out of having my first kiss that I’d never actually

had it. In middle school, the boy/girl thing had all been so messy

and juvenile, it was easy to avoid. But once I started high school,

I’d agreed to a couple dates with nice-enough guys — only to

retreat at the last minute, when they were moving in for the kiss.

In my mind, I’d been waiting so long, it needed to be something

special. Not something grabbed in the front seat of a car with the

stick shift jabbing into my ribs. And not some joke kiss delivered

because of a piece of parasitic plant life, with my parents maybe

watching around the corner.

Frankly, I wasn’t sure if I wanted whoever it was to be Richard

Hathaway. I mean, the guy was gorgeous, and pretty nice besides,

84 O

but there was just . . .
some
thing about him that made me uncomfortable. I had no idea what it was.

My prediction about the party’s speedy demise proved accu-

rate; after the Hathaways departed, people started leaving by

the carload, including the Wexlers and their guest. I was called

back to help find coats and man the door. When I finally was able

to join Sam in the sunroom, he was asleep on the couch in front

of the static-filled eye of the TV. Leaning against Maggie, who

had fulfilled the promise I’d broken.

She smiled at me. “I’ll carry him up and get him tucked in.”

Huge
pang of jealousy.

I followed along behind them to the front hall. The guests

were all gone. The black-garbed waiters hired for the party were

busy corralling the remaining party mess on trays. My parents

were sprawled on the couch in the living room, looking hugely

relieved and totally exhausted.

“I hate parties,” Dad said.

“I hate high heels, forced smiling, and keeping an eye on Mrs.

O’Brien to make sure she doesn’t pocket one of the knick-

knacks,” Mom answered.

“Really?” I said. “That part about Mrs. O’Brien?”

“Oh, yeah,” Mom said. “Your gramma was forever making

surprise visits on her after parties so she could steal things back

again.” We all smiled. Mom shoved to her feet, groaning slightly.

“I am going to change out of this dress and into something old

and soft.”

“Me too,” Dad said, rising to follow her.

“Good night,” I said.

“Sweet dreams, honey,” Dad said, kissing my forehead. “You

looked beautiful tonight, by the way. I noticed Robert’s son was

following you all over.”

I rolled my eyes. “I was the only other person at the party who

was his age.”

o85

N

Since I’d spent most of the party on the staircase, I took a couple

minutes to peek into all the rooms and take a look at the dis-

plays: entomology, poetry, centuries of needlework, centuries

of prominence in the community.
Seems like a pretty good family to
come from
, I thought, wishing again I had some particular talent to contribute.

A display of ribbons and trophies filled a table near the front,

beside a photo of my grandmother. She’d been a champion horse

rider and breeder. My mom told me once that Gramma had

always wished she could have ridden in the world Olympics, but

of course they ended those games after the Second European War.

Two long, fabric-covered bulletin-board-type things stood

in front of shelves in the library, hung with my great-great-

grandmother Maeve McCallister’s daguerrotypes. Maeve was

actually the starting inspiration for the museum exhibit — her

photos documented the lives of the women, children, and blacks

who lived in this area, both the slaves and the freemen.

Frozen-faced people stared out at me, caught unnaturally in

the long exposure time of my distant grandmother’s camera.

The last photo in the small grouping was a picture of Maeve and

a little girl.
Maeve McCallister and an unidentified child
, the card read. I bent to look at the photo closely. And stopped dead,

staring.

The little girl in the white dress held in my great-great-grand-

mother’s arms was someone I’d seen before. Someone I knew.

The same sweet face, the same halo of soft curls.

She was Amber, my childhood imaginary friend.

I gathered frantic thoughts: I must have seen this picture when

I was little. Seen Maeve’s little companion and adopted her as

my pretend friend. That was the rational explanation. It was the

only
explanation.

86 O

Time for me to go to bed
, I thought.
And pull the covers up over
my head.

Maggie was just leaving Sam’s room when I went up.

“Something happened,” she said, more a statement than a

question.

“No,” I answered. “I’m just — tired.”

Maggie looked as if she wanted to say something further, but

she let it go. She tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “You

remind me so much of your mom when she was your age.”

I brushed my teeth, changed into my pajamas — but I could

not make myself turn out the light. I sat for a while bunched up

against the headboard of the bed, staring at the closed door to

my room until I realized I was waiting for it to open. Then I got

up, grabbed the green paisley blanket that was folded over the

chair by the desk, and snuck into Sammy’s room.

The light in the Nautical Room was out, of course, but the

little star nightlight Sam kept on, coupled with the soft sounds of

his snoring, were enough to make things bearable. I sat with my

knees pulled to my chest in the chair next to Sam’s bed and com-

pulsively tucked the blanket all around me. I waited for what

seemed like an eternity, unable to drift into sleep. Sometime

after eleven, I guessed, I heard my parents and Maggie saying

their good-nights. For a while, I heard faint sounds of doors,

whispers of voices. Then all fell quiet. Even the sound of Sam’s

breathing ceased.

When I was younger, I’d refused to sleep without a light. It

wasn’t that I was scared, so much as I was too aware of what the

darkness did to my perception of things, how it affected my

senses. My hearing became too keen, my sense of touch too pro-

nounced — if I thought about it, I would suddenly itch in a

thousand places and hear the thuds of my own heart thumping in

my chest.

o87

Sitting curled up in that room that night was like when I was

little. But it wasn’t my ears or my skin that was suddenly

attuned — it was some other part of me, some part that had no

name. Some part that waited silently, there in the dark.

N

She walked barefoot and silent as a ghost down a hallway blue-gray with
predawn light. It was cold enough to turn her breath to clouds; no one
had wakened yet to stir banked coals to new flames. She pulled the paisley blanket a little tighter around her and up over the top of her red curls.