Pecked to Death (6 page)

He chanced a glance at Sadie. She looked at him. Tears glistened on her lashes, real tears, not the crocodile kind she could muster at will. The sight of those tears propelled him back in time seven years to the day he had long since stopped thinking about, the day Sadie’s mom died.

Summer break had only just begun. Luke had just finished his junior year of college. Everyone knew Victoria Cooper was running out of time, but no one expected the end to come so quickly.

Luke hadn’t seen Sadie since they left for college. The intervening years since the end of their friendship had worked a sort of magic over him. Sadie and the many memories they shared together would always hold a special place in his heart, but they had grown apart.

Through the grapevine, he knew that Sadie was dating the quarterback of her Big Ten school’s football team. The guy was rumored to be the number one NFL draft pick for the following season. Sadie had been shown with him on television a few times. Luke had to admit that the camera loved her, and why shouldn’t it? She was beautiful. The more he saw her, the less he was able to reconcile her with the gawky girl of her youth, and that was a good thing. The old Sadie was gone, and a new one had taken her place, one who was a stranger to him.

As for Luke, he had a girlfriend of his own. He had finally blossomed, finally grown, filled out, ridden himself of a bad complexion and crooked teeth. He had learned to talk to girls about things other than rocks. More importantly, he had finally eradicated his first heart-wrenching kiss from memory. The kiss had been more about two kids sharing a pivotal moment than anything else. Now it was a pleasant memory and nothing more.

So when he saw Sadie sitting under their tree in Aunt Abby’s yard, he felt a sort of soft tenderness and nostalgia that he hadn’t felt in years. Her mother had just died; he should go offer his condolences.

He eased out of his house and tiptoed closer. Her head was down, her chest heaving, but she made no sound as she cried. His heart lurched at the sight, for all they had once been to each other, and for anyone who was in so much pain.

“Sadie,” he whispered. Her head snapped up as if he had yelled. She wasn’t wearing makeup, but she was still the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. The thought felt disloyal to his girlfriend, and he pushed it away.

“Luke?” She said it like a question, as if she wasn’t quite sure it was him. With good reason, he realized. She hadn’t seen him in three years, not since he was an awkward high school kid, barely taller than she.

She raised herself up with the assistance of the tree, wiping her eyes. “You got hot,” she blurted.

He chuckled and shifted his feet, allowing her words to ease over him like a balm. What former geek didn’t want to hear a similar proclamation from a popular princess? “Thanks. You, too.”

Sadie smiled. Her glance slid to her house, and the smile quickly died. Luke took a step forward, ready to offer his condolences, when she spoke again.

“Do you ever wish you could go back and do everything in your life a different way?” She tore her gaze off the house and pinned it on him. He saw a gulf of pain reflected in her eyes, and his gut wrenched again.

“Sade,” he said. He held out his arms.

She took two steps forward and collapsed in his embrace, sobbing. He held her until her tears came to an end, smoothing his hand gently over her spine. She clung to him, soaking his shirt. At last her tears were spent. After a few shuddering breaths, she peeled her face away to look at him.

Now it was Luke’s turn to draw in a breath. There was something there on her face, something he couldn’t identify—need, longing, desperation, what? He didn’t know, but whatever it was, he felt himself responding. He teetered on a precipice before remembering his girlfriend. Sadie was beautiful and they had a history together, but he and Angie had a good thing going. If all went well, he intended to marry her someday. Before he could say any of this to Sadie, though, she stood on her toes and kissed him.

Nothing happened.

Sadie laughed a sharp, humorless bark. “That was so stupid. I’m sorry. I guess I thought I could recapture the old magic.” She shook her head, a sad smile on her lips.

“Magic?” he repeated.

She motioned toward the tree. “Our first kiss. It was so…” She trailed off looking embarrassed now.

“Magical,” he supplied.

Her eyes met his. She looked almost shy, certainly not like the bold Sadie he remembered. “Was it? For you, I mean. I’ve dated a lot of guys, but that first kiss with you, Luke, was…” she trailed off again. Sadie at a loss for words was pretty magical, too. “Sorry. I’m talking crazy. I should go.” She started to ease out of his embrace again, and that was when Luke lost his head. He kissed her, and it was how it had been the first time nine years before when they were twelve. Only now they weren’t kids who didn’t know what they were doing; now they each brought a different set of skills to the table.

They weren’t thinking of skills as Luke kissed her, pushed her up against the tree, and kissed her again; they weren’t thinking of anything at all. Instead they were a mindless tangle of melded lips, pressed bodies, fingers in hair, leaves, and tree bark. But still Luke held on to some small part of himself until Sadie got a breath and uttered ten little words that changed everything.

“I missed you every day of the last seven years.”

That was it; Luke was gone. He went into a free fall and landed squarely on the conclusion that he was in love with Sadie and always had been. Even when he hated her he loved her.

Later he would wonder what might have happened if a car alarm hadn’t blared, separating them and adding a dose of reality into the mix. Sadie blinked at him as if emerging from a dream. Luke wondered if he was looking at her the same way.

“I should get back,” she said.

He nodded, too blindsided by the last few minutes to speak.

He watched her walk away and began dreaming of a new future, one that included Sadie instead of Angie. Of course they would get married; their fate had been scripted since birth.

The next day, Sadie’s boyfriend arrived. Luke waited patiently. The funeral wasn’t the place to break up with him. She would do it later; Luke would be standing by to pick up the pieces, like always.

The day after the funeral, it was his mother who broke the news. She had no idea of anything that had ever taken place between him and Sadie, neither their separation nor their reunion. So it was as one imparting gossip about a long-lost neighbor that she burst into his bedroom and made the announcement.

“Luke! Guess what? Sadie eloped. She’s married!”

“Stay here while I get dressed.”

Sadie’s command pulled Luke back to the present. “Why?”

“Because I’m not wearing any clothes,” she said.

He put his hands over his ears. Why did she insist on stuffing images into his brain? “Sadie!”

“You asked,” she said.

“I meant why should I stay here until you get dressed, not why do you need to get dressed. Can we have one conversation in our lives without mass confusion and confessions of your nudity?”

“Wow, hyperbolic much, Luke?”

Luke rubbed his temples in a vain attempt to ward off a headache. Thoughts of the past always had the same effect on him.

“I’m coming with you,” she declared.

“Coming with me where?”

She waved her fingers in front of his face. “To Abby’s house to search for the treasure. It would help if you could keep up.”

“I don’t want you to come.”

“We don’t often get what we want,” she said.

She seemed to be in as bad a mood as he was and he wondered why. What was so hard about being a pampered and petted princess? Nonetheless, he did as her majesty bade and remained sitting on the couch an eternity while she blow-dried her hair, applied makeup, and changed clothes. The interim gave him a chance to clear his head.

Years ago, Luke proved to both of them that he was impervious to her charms, once and for all. Her doomed marriage didn’t last a year before she sought an annulment. One month later, her then ex-husband was drafted by the Chicago Bears for a record sum. Sadie received none of it. Luke had always found that odd, but by then he was too full of seething anger to wonder or care about her reasoning.

From the moment he heard about the annulment, he had been prepared for her call. It came sooner than he expected, exactly one day after she was officially unmarried again. Luke hadn’t even let her speak. He had told her never to call him again and hung up on her. And
she
had the nerve to be angry at
him,
as if he was the one who did something wrong.

Soon after, Abby had left town for a month. Rumors swirled that she went to help Sadie mend her broken heart. Luke knew better. Sadie didn’t have a heart. She hadn’t loved her husband, just like she hadn’t loved him. She loved no one but herself. As long as her interests were being met, she was happy.

Still, he wondered what happened with the husband. Sadie sashayed down the stairs looking like the cover of some magazine. Luke resisted the urge to ask about her ill-fated marriage. If he did, then she would know he had been reliving the past since he read the letter. Somehow that knowledge would give her power over him. That was a place he swore he would never be again—at Sadie Cooper’s mercy.

Sadie led the way to Abby’s house. Luke followed, chagrined. She was barely home a week and already they were falling into old patterns with her bullying her way to the front of everything and taking charge. Luke comforted himself with the thought that he wasn’t the same person as he was then. If there was one thing the end of their friendship had taught him, it was that he was strong—strong enough to stand on his own, strong enough to survive high school alone, strong enough to survive heartaches, and strong enough to let Sadie think she was in control.

They reached Abby’s house. Sadie put her hand on the door and stopped short. “It’s locked,” she said. She turned to look at Luke in accusation.

He smiled.
 
“So it is.”

“Why did you lock the door? Abby never locked her door.”

“I don’t trust the neighbors not to come snooping when I’m not home,” he said. “There’s one in particular who is too nosy for her own good.”

“You think you’re funny,” she said as she stepped aside and waited for him to unlock the door. “It’s nice that someone does.” She bypassed him as soon as the door was open. He put a hand out to hold her back.

“Don’t touch my things,” he said.

“I’ll leave your rock polisher and state quarter collection unscathed,” she promised.

Luke didn’t reply because the two objects in question were on the back porch waiting to be carried inside. Sadie stopped again. Luke ran into the back of her. His hand shot out to catch her as she teetered forward but as soon as she was upright he quickly dropped it again.

“Your clumsiness hurts more now that you’re no longer a shrimp,” Sadie said. She rubbed the back of her head where it had bumped his chest.

She meant it as a slam, but Luke took it as a compliment. After too many years of being the shortest guy in his class, he was proud of his 6’3” frame. He meant to let her search on her own while he finished unpacking, but somehow that never happened. Instead she kept grabbing his attention, either
 
on accident or on purpose.

“Luke, do you think this is a clue?” she would ask. Luke would drop what he was doing and join her to look at whatever she found.

“That’s a cut glass bowl,” he would say.

“Yes, but it looks expensive. Why would someone take Abby’s money and leave this bowl? That seems suspicious.”

After being called to look at eight such bowls, he realized Sadie was purposely trying to bug him and keep him from his work. “Sadie,” he exclaimed as she handed him yet another glass bowl to inspect.

“What? I’m deferring to your expertise on pressed glass of the Victorian era,” she said. “These bowls could be the clue we’ve been searching for.” Her voice was infused with innocence, but Luke could read the rotten look in her eyes.
  

He took the bowl and turned it over in his hand. “Maybe you’re right. When I looked up this bowl on the internet last night, it was worth forty thousand dollars.”

“Forty thousand dollars!” she exclaimed. She jerked the bowl back and looked closer, squinting at the underside. “It says Sears,” she said.

“It does?” He mimicked her falsely innocent tone.

She rolled her eyes and set the bowl aside. “Look with me. This is boring. Please?”

He could say no, but she would whine and badger until he eventually gave in anyway. Besides, he was ready for a break from moving and packing. And he was slightly curious about what sort of treasure Abby might have left. And he had to admit that Sadie’s enthusiasm was sort of catching. She still maintained the ability to make even the mundane fun. She found an old scarf of Abby’s, used it to tie up her hair, and then dived into the hunt with abandon—not caring when she became covered with cobwebs and dust from head to toe.

Was it coincidence or artfulness on her part that the scarf was blue to match her eyes? A few golden curls tumbled free and landed on her face, dangling near eyes that looked twice their size because of the corresponding blue of the scarf. Dirt smudged her nose. Luke resisted the urge to wipe it away. She was crazy beautiful, but he was too smart to be taken in by her.

A little over an hour later, they ended their search empty handed. “I really thought we would find it,” Sadie said. She scrubbed ineffectually at her nose. Luke couldn’t take it anymore. He pulled up the edge of his shirt and used it to swipe the smudge clean. “Thanks,” she mumbled.

He finished, took a step back, and dropped his shirt. An awkward sort of silence fell between them. They were at a temporary truce and therefore a temporary loss to know what to do with all their roiling emotions. Together, they turned and gazed outside to avoid looking at each other. Sadie reached out and clutched at his arm.

“That’s it,” she said.

“What’s it?”

“The tree. Abby wasn’t talking about her end, she was talking about ours. She hid the treasure in the tree.” She kept her grasp on his arm, using it to tow him outside. Sadie circled the tree a few times before using her foot to clear a pile of dried leaves from the base. “Here!” She knelt and began to dig with her hands. After only a few swipes, she hit metal. She glanced up at Luke with a smile of triumph before lifting the box free. “It’s stuck,” she said after a few ineffectual tries at lifting the lid.

He scooted her aside and tried the lock. “It’s stuck,” he said.

“That’s what I said.”

They looked around the yard, coming to the same conclusion together. “The shed,” they announced before trying to outrun each other in their haste to reach it first. Sadie arrived first, but couldn’t remember where the light was. Luke flipped it on and grabbed a screwdriver. Then they realized they had left the box under the tree. They raced back. With a tool, the lock was easy to pop. Lucke banged the top open and they peered inside together.

“It’s a picture of us,” Sadie announced. She reached in and pulled out a picture she didn’t remember ever seeing before. She and Luke must have been about seven because they were both missing their two front teeth. Their arms were around each other’s shoulders, and they wore matching broad smiles.

“I see that,” Luke said.

“What do you suppose that means?”

“I have no idea.”

They looked up together, still close together because they were crouched over the box. Luke’s breath caught. What was wrong with him that she looked better to him covered in dirt than not? His hand snaked up to brush a cobweb from her cheek.

“Luke,” she said, her voice shaky and uncertain.

He asked the question that had been driving him crazy for seven years. “What happened with your husband?”

Sadie’s perfect little rosebud mouth opened. She glanced away, searching for reprieve. When she looked back, she had found her smile, the one he hated. “Now, Luke, there are two things I never talk about. The first is my weight. The second is my marriage.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and gave her a slight shake. “Don’t handle me, Sadie.” Finally, for the first time in their lives, he had the satisfaction of watching her smile dissolve. The expression on her face was real, raw, tortured.

“Hello?”

The heavily accented voice came from the doorway. Sadie turned to see a tall, statuesque beauty standing on the back porch. Luke dropped her shoulders and stood upright.

“Hey!” he said. His overly bright tone was heavy with guilt. The beautiful woman’s eyes rested on Sadie.

“Who ees thees?” she asked. Sadie was reminded of the Swedish Chef from the old Muppet television show; the accent wasn’t quite the same, but it was similar.

“My neighbor, Sadie. Sadie, this is my girlfriend, Vaslilssa.”

Sadie looked from Luke to Vaslilssa and back again. “No wonder you can’t afford your doctorate, Luke. You bought a mail-order Russian bride.”