Kathleen's Story (8 page)

T
HE SECOND
K
ATHLEEN
cornered Raina alone, she told her what she’d done. “I don’t know what I was thinking. But there Stephanie stood, looking all smug and dictatorial, and it was obvious that Carson didn’t want to go with her. Can we take him out to Davis Island? I’ll pay for the gas.”

Raina looked amused. “What am I going to do with you, girlfriend? Why don’t you make up your mind about this guy? Do you want him or not?”

“It’s not that easy. Not for me.”

Raina looked sympathetic. “I don’t blame you about wanting to best Stephanie, but
you
can drive him home.”

“Me! Can’t we all go together?”

“I want to get home because Hunter said he’d call. Holly said she was expected at a family cookout. Where is she, anyway?” Raina looked down the hallway. All the children had been tucked into their rooms and only a lone nurse could be seen in the corridor.

“She wanted to stay with Ben until he fell asleep.”

“Poor little guy. Well, he’s got a friend in our Holly, doesn’t he?” Raina turned to face Kathleen. “Now, as I was saying, you can drop me and Holly at our houses, then drive Carson home in my car.”

“You wouldn’t mind?”

“Why should I mind? I’m alone and wishing I wasn’t. Go have a good time.”

“But your car—”

“Return it tomorrow.”

It was a nonvolunteer day at the hospital. Kathleen said, “Thanks. A lot.”

Raina caught Kathleen’s arm. “Listen, don’t let that nasty girl interfere with what you want. If you want this guy, make the most of this opportunity.”

“I appreciate your advice, but then it might not be about what
I
want but about what
he
wants. You know?” Kathleen sighed. “I wish I had more experience with guys. Just remember, while the boys were following you around like trained puppies, I was wallpaper.”

“Take it from me, popularity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

Kathleen had never been popular, so she couldn’t argue. Besides, Raina was right—she should make the most of being alone with Carson tonight.

*  *  *

By the time Holly joined them and they’d shared the plan for the evening, Kathleen was certain that Carson had grown tired of waiting for her and had called a friend to come get him. However, when the three of them reached the main lobby, Kathleen saw him slouched on a sofa, staring at a ball game on the lobby’s big-screen TV.

He popped up and joined Kathleen and her friends. “Glad you’re here. The game stinks because the Marlins are losing.”

By the time Raina handed the car keys over to Kathleen, dusk had given way to twilight. By the time they reached Carson’s house, it would be completely dark.

Alone together in the car, Kathleen found herself at a loss for words. It had been easier with Holly and Raina to carry the conversation. “Um—you’ll have to direct me to your house once we get on the island,” she said.

“No problem.” He turned on the radio and found a station he liked. When they rolled over the bridge to the island, he gave her directions. She recognized the grand home from the night of the party, except that now only a few lights shone through the lower-story windows. She stopped in the driveway, and he reached over and switched off the ignition before she could do it.

“I want you to come inside with me,” he said.

“I want to show you something.”

She thought about having to meet his parents and felt her stomach tie in knots.

As if reading her mind, he said, “Don’t worry, my folks are at a party.”

Her hands went cold and clammy. “No one’s home?”

“Are you afraid of me, Kathleen?”

Irritated, she snapped, “No way.”

“Then come on.” He led her along a walkway lined with accent lights and up the brick steps and unlocked the front door.

From the moment she stepped inside, Kathleen felt like a fish out of water. The night of the party, she’d not gone into the house, so she’d had no idea how truly magnificent his home was until this moment. The foyer was enormous, with limestone flooring and hand-painted Spanish tile. When Carson flipped on a wall switch, a wrought-iron chandelier gleamed with lights high above. In front of her, Kathleen saw a wide staircase with carpeted steps and ornate black iron handrails. “Nice place,” she said, trying not to gawk.

“My mom had it built to look like a Spanish hacienda. Follow me.” He held out his hand.

She went with him up the double staircase. Her heart hammered. “Where are we going?”

“I told you I want to show you something.”

“What?” She pulled back at the top of the landing, suddenly wary.

“You’ll like this. Trust me.”

She didn’t trust him or herself, but she went anyway. The upper floor was softly carpeted, lit by iron sconces along the walls. He stopped in front of a set of double doors and flipped a handle, and the door swung open to reveal a room lit only by one small desk lamp. “Where are we?”

“The library.”

“Are you going to read me a book?”

“We’re going to walk through to another set of doors and then go out onto the second-story balcony,” he explained patiently.

They crossed the carpeted library and stepped onto a tiled balcony with a cozy arrangement of rattan furniture and miniature palms. The balcony overlooked the backyard, where the pool glistened. Still holding her hand, Carson picked up a remote from a side table and dimmed the pool lights with the push of a button. “My dad’s a gizmo freak. Believe me, we have ’em all.” He led her to a setee, where they sat, shoulders touching, his hand entwined in hers.

She longed to ask,
“Now what?”

“Watch,” he whispered in her ear, making gooseflesh prickle along her neck and arms. He pointed skyward.

Suddenly, the sky filled with fireworks. She was so startled that she jumped.

“It’s July Fourth, remember,” he said. “This is the best place in the world to watch the fireworks
that I know of. Practically a command performance.”

Fireworks?
He’d brought her here to watch
fireworks
? Kathleen’s temper went off like the explosions in the sky. “You could have said something! You could have asked me. You didn’t have to act so freaking mysterious!” She stalked to the railing. He came to her side.

“I wanted to surprise you. I wanted you to watch the fireworks with me.”

“So why didn’t you just
ask
?”

“You were quiet as a stone in the car. I got the feeling that all you wanted to do was dump me and run off. Like I was a chore you promised to do.”

His assessment wasn’t far off the mark, which bothered her, but what he didn’t know was that fear, not inconvenience, had motivated her. “That’s not true—”

He took her shoulders and turned her to face him. “I’ve never met a girl like you. It’s like you’re afraid of having a good time. Like you’ll be punished if you start having too much fun.”

His evaluation shocked her. “I know how to have fun! I had a good time on our date, but when you didn’t call—” She stopped herself, furious that she’d blurted out her frustration. She hadn’t wanted him to think she’d sat by the phone waiting for it to ring.

“And I didn’t want to crowd you. You seem
scared of me. Are you? I don’t want you to be scared of me.”

She was and she wasn’t. She was mostly scared of her caring too much and of his not caring enough. “I keep wondering why you mess with me,” she told him, her anger gone. “You know plenty of girls. Pretty girls,” she added.
Like Stephanie
, she didn’t say.

“You make me sound shallow, as if pretty is a measuring stick for determining what I want. That’s not fair. And that’s not me.” His eyes had narrowed and there was an edge to his voice.

When he put it that way, it did sound shallow, but just as she’d told Raina earlier, that was what she assumed all boys wanted—pretty girls to drape themselves over in the halls and in the school parking lots and in the malls and every place in between. Pretty girls were a guy’s ticket to cooldom.

“So what
do
you want?” Her heart was beating so fast, she could hear it in her ears.

“Look,” he said, pointing skyward. Beautiful starbursts of color broke over the trees and fell like handfuls of glitter. “I want to feel like that inside myself whenever
my
girl comes walking toward me. And I want her to feel the same way about me.”

Who didn’t want to feel that way? Who didn’t want one special somebody to care about? Her emotions tangled with her logic and
somehow both got caught in Carson’s eyes. Her fragile feelings, so long held in check, splintered like the explosions in the sky, showering her mind with sparkles of possibility. “And if that should happen…you know…that explosion thing…between us…?” Her voice quivered.

“Then I guess we’ll just have to ride the wave and see where we fall to earth.”

A part of her brain wanted to say,
“But falls hurt. People break.”
She saw his face, his lips, as if through a mist. He lifted her chin and his mouth was on hers, warm and soft, and as if by magic, the fireworks left the sky and entered her body and soul.

In the space of the next hour, Kathleen went from being a girl who had hardly ever been kissed to one who’d been kissed thoroughly. Carson kissed her until the fireworks ended, until the sky had gone dark and the humid tropical air left them both damp and sticky. He took her inside to the coolness of the library, to the sofa, and there he pressed her body to his and kissed her face, her throat, her neck and bare shoulders, until she was drenched with desire for him.

From far away, she heard a clock gong. “I need to go,” she told him. What if his parents returned and found her with him?

“I know,” he said, his voice husky.

Every inch of her seemed on fire when he put
her in the car. He leaned through the window and kissed her one last time. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

She backed out of the driveway and made it to the stop sign at the corner before she saw her cell phone glowing on the console where she’d left it. Her eyes widened and her body, which had been so hot and liquid moments before, went cold and rigid. “Oh no,” she whispered.

She shoved the gearshift to Park and grabbed the phone. There were numerous voice messages from her mother and two text messages, both from Raina. One read YUR MOTR IS CRZY TO FND U. CALL ME!!!! The other read 911! I LIED TO HR. Kathleen glanced at the dash clock and saw that it was almost one, well after her curfew. With fingers shaking, she dialed Raina, praying that her friend was still awake and waiting for the emergency call.

Raina answered on the first chirp of her phone. “Where are you? Are you all right?”

“I lost track of time,” Kathleen said. “What did you say to Mom?”

“The first time she called, I told her you were here but in the bathroom with cramps. That’s when I left the first text message. She called thirty minutes later, and I told her you’d run out for a heating pad because we didn’t have one. Oh, yes, and some ice cream too.”

Kathleen groaned. “What am I going to tell her? I never lie to her!”

“Sorry … I just didn’t know what else to say.”

“It’s not your fault. I’m going home. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Wait! Did you have a good time with Carson?”

“Oh, yes.” The warmth of Kathleen’s earlier feelings washed over her. “Got to go.” She ended the call and gunned the engine.

Every light in her home was blazing when Kathleen arrived. She found Mary Ellen sobbing on the sofa, the phone in her lap. “Where have you been? I was getting ready to call the police!” Her mother’s eyelid twitched uncontrollably and her speech was slurred, both signs of extreme stress.

Guilt slammed into Kathleen. Her mother looked small and helpless, tangled in an old quilt, a box of tissue on the floor and used tissues heaped on the coffee table. Her right hand lay curled tightly against her side. She couldn’t have made it to her wheelchair by herself in the state she was in. What if she’d tried and fallen?

“I’m sorry. I—I just lost track of time.” Kathleen sat on the edge of the table and tried to take hold of her mother’s good hand, but Mary Ellen pulled away.

“I called Raina and she said you’d gone to the store. Didn’t she tell you I called? What’s the matter with you? Don’t you know how worried
I’ve been? And you out driving! I thought you’d had a wreck. Like your dad and me. Why couldn’t Raina have driven her own car to the store
?
Why didn’t you call me?”

The questions came so fast and furious that Kathleen couldn’t begin to answer any. She tried to soothe Mary Ellen, but she was distraught, un-consolable. Kathleen eventually went to the medicine cabinet and found her mother’s bottle of tranquilizers. “Take this and we’ll talk tomorrow,” she said. “I’m sorry, Mom. Really, really sorry.”

It was two-thirty before Kathleen crawled into her bed, her mother finally calmed enough to fall asleep. Kathleen lay trembling in the dark, hot tears brimming in her eyes. She’d acted selfishly tonight and had allowed Carson’s kisses to lull her into thinking she had a chance at a normal life. It was a mistake. Mary Ellen needed her, depended on her. She was her mother’s keeper and sole caregiver. She couldn’t ever,
ever
forget that!