SOMETHING WAITS (14 page)

He looked at his calendar watch. Chuckled. Idiot! It’s summer! The kids will be back next fall! Everything’s okay!

He crossed quickly to the playground and found the monkey bars exactly where he’d left them, rising from the dark asphalt like an old friend, waiting for him. He reached out and touched the cool metal of one of the nearest rung, polished smooth by thousands of grasping young hands, his own included. He took off his jacket and hung it over the rung, rolled up the sleeves of his Arrow shirt and began to climb.

King of the mountain,
a voice cried triumphantly within, and he couldn’t suppress a victorious smile
. I’m back! I did it! I’m back and nothing can ever make me leave again! This is my home, my real home! This is where I belong, who I am!

At the top of the bars he sat elated, gripping the rung beneath him, letting his legs dangle over the side, eyes closed in contentment, lungs reveling in the rich, familiar smell of the meadow. He gazed outward across the rolling hills of yellow dandelions to the edge of the dark tangle of hollow beyond. It still stood there grimly, ringing the entire expanse of meadow, taunting him with its dark secrets.

He loved it now, he realized. He loved the hollow as he loved the meadow, the school. Maybe he’d always loved it, even in his fear of it, even though it had almost taken Mary Ellen from him. He loved its mystery and its shadows and its silent implacability. That last afternoon in Louisiana years ago, when he’d come alone to the school to sit like this on the monkey bars and say goodbye, it was the hollow he’d been saying goodbye to. It was the hollow he knew he’d miss the most. He never realized it until now. And the marvel of it was that after all these years, sitting here a grown man, he still feared it. The thought of entering those dark woodland chambers still sent a chill through him. And that was as it should be, he thought. That was the way he wanted it.

He jerked his head suddenly. Something was moving out on the meadow.

He squinted into the warm glare and felt his breath catch. A little girl in a bright summer dress was wandering in the golden fields gathering a bouquet of dandelions.

John Richardson felt his heart swell tremulously beneath his ribs. No. Not just any little girl. Even from here, the yellow hair and delicate walk were unmistakable. Only one little girl in the world looked like that…

He climbed down the monkey bars in a kind of dream, the years melting away rung by magical rung. His shoes scraped the asphalt with practiced familiarity, reached the soft, yielding grass of the meadow of their own accord. He moved toward the little girl in a kind of trance…moved toward her on the legs of a twelve-year-old boy…

It’s her! She’s still here!

I’m losing my mind
he though absently, dreamily, not really caring at all…
how could this be?

The little girl looked up as he approached, hurling twenty years of memories at him from wide, iridescent blue eyes. He stopped before her and looked down. Impossible. But there she was. “Mary Ellen…”

She smiled and blinked up at him in the warm sun, shading her brow with a pink hand. “How did you know my name?” she asked in that innocent voice he’d never forgotten.

He dropped to his knees before her, head swirling. “Don’t you remember me? It’s John. John Richardson. We played together, don’t you know?” He looked down at himself. “Only…I’m all grown up now…”

The girl frowned sweetly, trying to remember, cocking her little head like a robin.

“Mary Ellen!”

The little girl turned at the sound of her name. John followed her gaze to the figure of the woman coming over the hill behind them. He stood up.

“Mother, this is Mr. Richardson. He knows my name!”

The woman nodded politely. “How do you do?” She smiled confusion. “Do you really know my daughter?”

Her face is the same, John thought: sweet, pretty, trustful. The blue eyes bright and friendly, with just that small gleam of naughty adventure. But something else was there now too. Or was it something missing?

“You’re Mary Ellen,” he said to the woman.

She nodded, still puzzled, slightly cautious now. “Do we know each other?”

“We did.”

She shook her head, took her daughter’s hand. “I don’t—“ Then her face lit. “John! Little John Richardson! Of course! It
can’t
be!”

He smiled wanly. He felt vaguely tired all of a sudden, as if he’d come to the end of a very long journey.

“After all these years!” she exclaimed. “What on earth are you doing here?”

He shrugged a weak smile. “I was looking for you, actually.”

Her brows knit for just an instant, then she laughed. “Oh, John! This is wonderful! Are you married? Did you bring your wife?”

“No. She’s…home.” He’d almost said, “dead.”

“Oh, what a shame. I’d love to have met her. Are you staying long?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well,
come
!” She took his hand. “We have a picnic blanket close by! And food! We can sit and talk, catch up!”

She led him over the crest of the hill to a large tree, lawn blanket and wicker basket of fried chicken an island in the sea of yellow. She pointed for him to sit while she opened a thermos of coffee. “I bring Mary Ellen here every so often for a little picnic between girls. Would like a drumstick or breast?”

“No thanks.” It’s the innocence, he thought. That’s what’s missing from her face. But of course it would be.

She handed him a cup of coffee and turned to her daughter. “Honey, you go play now. Mr. Richardson and I want to talk.”

John watched the girl move off among the dandelions, stooping, picking. “She’s you all over again,” he said.

“Yes, there’s not much of her daddy in her.”

“Daddy working today?”

“Daddy’s dead. Iraq.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

She smiled, then shrugged pragmatically. “He was always over there. Mary Ellen never knew him. Neither did I really, for that matter.”

He didn’t know what to say.

“Anyway,” she continued, “you never did tell me what brought you here.”

“Yes. I did.”

“To find
me
?” She laughed the old laugh. “You’re still sweet little John Richardson, aren’t you?”

“That’s the trouble, I really am. I never learned to grow up very gracefully.”

She sighed, looked out at the meadow. “Well, neither do most of us.”

“Yes, but it’s worse with me. I hate everything about my life today. It’s as though I stopped living the day my parents moved from Louisiana. Would you believe me if I told you I’m happier right now sitting here with you than I have been since I was twelve? Seeing you, seeing the old school. It’s the only real peace I’ve known in years.”

“John, what a lovely thing to say.”

He looked into her little girl eyes and heart: two children talking.
Pretty isn’t so much. Lots of girls are pretty. If you really liked me you’d think I was beautiful.

“I do.”

“Do what?” asked the woman sipping coffee.

John blinked. “I do think you’re beautiful, Mary Ellen…”

She studied him without speaking. The breeze died suddenly. “Sweet John…” she murmured, and leaned closer.

I love you, Mary Ellen
, a child cried within him.

“You want to kiss me, John,” the woman said softly. “I know you do. And it’s all right, John. I want you to…”

Her mouth was warm. He felt her tongue immediately.

He closed his eyes and saw two children standing behind the school under long evening shadows, young faces pressed together, hearts racing, knees quaking.

The woman dug nails into his arm, pulling him down onto the picnic blanket, the perfume of the dandelions.

You promised, the little girl said. You promised you’d show me if I let you kiss me. The boy, back pressed uncomfortably to the rough brick wall of the school, craned anxiously in both directions for trespassers.

The woman bit his cheek, breathed heavily in his ear, ran a shaking hand up his leg, searching, touching…

I’m scared somebody will see, the boy said. The little girl giggled. I’ll do it. She tugged at the zipper of his jeans. The sound of it opening was so raggedly loud it made him jump. He caught her hand. Somebody will see us! he protested. She frowned. You better let me do it if you ever want to kiss me again!

The woman found his belt, fumbled at it, pulled at his trousers, slid them down.

The girl stood wide-eyed behind the school. Gazing hypnotized down at the boy.
Oh
…she said.

The woman caressed him eagerly. “John…John, please…” “Your daughter,” he began. “It’s all right,” she said. “She won’t come back till I call her. John, please!”

Please, the boy said, back rigid against the wall. Please. Wanting her to stop, wanting her to never stop. The girl’s eyes sparkled in the setting sun, watching fascinated at the change coming over him. John, she whispered, clutching him in her warm little hand, John kiss me again…
now
!

* * *

He lay on the blanket beside her, staring up at the volley of slowly rolling clouds. She was straightening her skirt with sharp, deliberate pats, her breath still labored. “Well!” she confessed.

He hardly heard her. I’ve come full circle, he thought. I’ve stumbled and groped through twenty years of misery and failure to find my way back here, to this meadow, this girl.

It all seemed so simple now. He’s divorce Jean, of course, move back here to Louisiana and live with Mary Ellen and the child. And he could change jobs! Teach! Teach elementary school, maybe right here, right inside the old red brick building! He’d always secretly wanted that—Jean, of course, reminding him he was better than that, the
pay
better in higher corporate employment.

He smiled, closing his eyes to the warm sun. The nightmare was over. He’d awakened for the last time.

He turned to her, watched her lovely profile, the spill of still golden hair. “I love you, Mary Ellen,” he said.

She smiled. Kissed the air at him. “You’re sweet. Sweet little John.”

“Let’s get married! This week! I mean it!”

She laughed her wonderful laugh. “Sure!”

“I’ll contact my lawyer and have him start work on the divorce. He’s a smart guy! We’ll never even have to see her again!”

She turned to him, bent, gave his forehead a loving peck.

“Is this week too soon? Am I rushing you, sweetheart?”

She sat back, grinning, blue eyes sparkling. Then the grin faded slowly. “You’re serious.”

“Of course!” He grabbed her hand, started to pull her up. “C’mon!”

“John…”

“We’ll drive into town, get a blood test--”

“John, I am married.”

“You…”

He stared at her at moment, waiting for the joke. Waiting for his mind to catch up. “But, you said—“

“I remarried two years ago. I’m Mrs. Kenneth Watkins now.”

He became aware his mouth was hanging open, closed it. “Watkins?”

“Yes. John, I’m sorry, I thought you understood.” She brightened. “Say! You remember Kenny, don’t you? From school?”

“Kenny Watkins.”

“I don’t know what Mary Ellen and I would have done without Ken. She needed a father, and I…well…”

“NO!” He sat up quickly, spilling coffee, a man stricken. “NO!”

She gaped up at him. “John…” reached out for him...

“Don’t touch me!” He sprang to his feet, skittered away from her as if dancing.

“John! Your face…”

“Faithless!” he screamed at her. “Faithless!”

The woman drew back in horror.

He stood there before her, shaking violently now, face twisted in agony. Then he spun and ran. He ran across the hills of gold away from the woman on the picnic blanket, tears filling his eyes until the world became a yellow blur and he hardly saw where he was running. He ran until his legs ached and his breath came in sobs and still he ran…he would never stop, didn’t need to, he was the best runner in school, even without his sneakers on.

At first he didn’t know where he was going, what he was going to do; all he could think of was getting away, getting away--running until his soles wore thin and he reached the end of the world. Then it came to him. There was only one place left to go. Only one place in the whole world he could still run to.

He stopped, panting, and regarded the hollow, gazed expectantly into its warm, black depths. The hollow. His old friend. His only friend.

He plunged fearlessly in.

Into another world.

He ran among the brambles and creepers under the canopy of shadowing trees and felt a stirring deep within him, a long dormant awareness rising darkly from the moss tangled loam into his flying feet, his legs, his body. And with it, growing more and more acute, the feeling that at last he really belonged, that here in the friendly darkness, he’d found home.