Waiting for Dusk (17 page)

“You haven’t eaten yet,” Katie told her.

“Neither have you! I can’t believe this is
real. I’m trying to grasp it all but can’t. I’m still going with a
realistic dream otherwise you’re caught up in two different worlds.
How do you pick which one you want to be in? I don’t want to lose
my best friend.”

Katie never thought about it that way. She
didn’t think about choosing the world she wanted to live in. If she
had to choose right now, she knew which one she’d pick. There would
be no debate about it. She would live in Drew’s world forever.

When Katie got home from school, she called
Carl. “Hey, big bro. I’m home from school. Let’s go to the walking
trail and talk.”

“Meet you out front. You have to see the car
I rented this time.” Carl sounded excited. Every time he came home
he liked to rent a convertible or a sports car or a combination of
both. She hung up and ran out the front door. Carl was pulling a
silver sports car out of the garage.

“Wow, Carl! That’s some car!” Katie wasn’t a
car fanatic but she knew he would fill her in.

“It’s a beauty,” Carl told her as she hopped
in. “Do you mind if we go for a drive first? I just want to test
this out on the freeway.”

“Sure, go for it. I don’t have homework or
anything important like that,” Katie teased.

“So where do you want me to start?” Carl
asked her once they were on the highway.

“Anywhere, tell me what you know.” Katie just
wanted him to get started.

“I will tell you what I know about you and my
family. That’s all I will tell. If your parents want you to know
any more, they will have to tell you their own history.
Agreed?”

Katie nodded vigorously. She just wanted Carl
to get on with the story.

“It was July, if I’m right, when all this
started for you. My mom just got back from visiting me in
California. She went over to see you and your mom. She could tell
by the look on your face that something was wrong. After you went
up to your bedroom, my mom and yours talked. Mine thought it would
be a fun diversion to have you read the book, thinking it would be
this great summer adventure. She never expected you to fall in
love.”

Katie was quiet for a moment and then said,
“She knows I fell in love with Drew?”

“Yes, and now she regrets giving you the
book. She pictured you riding horses, having fun with the girls and
getting to be at the Grand Canyon. Plus she’d be there to chaperone
you. That’s the truth. Your mom, who never took all of this too
seriously, went along with the idea and gave the final approval.
She was also the one who decided that once school started, the book
would disappear. She never dreamt you would like that world so
much. She just thought you’d have fun, too. Your mom got a little
nervous when you started asking a lot of questions about your
family, your Aunt Lucinda in particular. She believes the past
should stay the past. With our families that’s not the case.” Carl
turned and winked at Katie.

“When your mom comes to visit you in
California, does she bring the book?”

“Yep. She only goes back to visit when she
knows someone is aware that she’s gone. She always lets your mother
know. When she misses my dad and can’t stand it anymore, she goes.
This summer she went back a lot because of you. She wanted to keep
an eye on you.”

Katie was still puzzled. “She was so much
younger. How do you explain that?”

“There are some things we can’t explain. I
think it’s because whatever age my dad was during that time, she
compliments that. Although, as she likes to remind me, she was
seven years younger than him. I believe he was thirty or thirty-one
at that time, so she would be a young girl of twenty-four. Another
theory is you stay the age you were when you first visited the
Canyon.”

“So if your mom misses him so much, why
doesn’t she stay there or just bring him back here?”

“You have to remember, my dad passed away in
the 1990’s. She can’t bring him back here, although she did try. My
mom’s a spitfire! She was determined to figure out a way to get him
back here but nothing worked. It took her awhile to accept that dad
has passed on and that his spirit lives at the boardinghouse. Plus
when she’s there, he doesn’t remember the future. Dad is just
working on his plans to build a riding stable where he can give
people lessons. He works at the boardinghouse to make money to put
toward it and is just in the moment. He doesn’t remember me or even
know I exist although he talks about one day they’ll have a Carl
Jr.” Carl paused for a moment. He wiped the corner of his eye. “I
wish I could see him, too,” he whispered.

“Then why doesn’t she just stay?” Katie
reminded him of her other question.

“She knows if she stays that she will have to
live through his illness and death again. She will know exactly
when he will die and how. She can’t take that and I don’t want her
to. Something else holds her back from doing that...me.”

“I just realized something...your dad...he’s
from the past.”

“Yeah.”

Katie wanted to hear more. “Why don’t you
just go back with your mom some time to visit?”

“I’ll save that for tomorrow. Let’s get back
to you. My mom saw how much the wedding meant to you and decided to
lie to your parents. They don’t know you were gone the whole
weekend.”

“I was gone, literally gone. Not in the
bed...gone,” Katie kept repeating.

“Yep, gone. For some reason when you go for
one day there is no interruption in the time continuum. You place
the book on your nightstand, fall asleep and...Bam! You wake up to
the next day here none the wiser. You still leave, or as you just
said ‘are not in the bed’. You’re gone for the night and are really
time traveling. You just didn’t know it. When you place the book in
the bed you can stay as long as you like and not come back, if you
keep the book away from you and with personal effects just like my
mother instructed you to do. You are then in a different time zone,
as I like to say. There’s no explaining it.”

“So that is why it was already Monday when I
got back.”

“Exactly. I was trying to explain to my mom
that if she let you go for all that time, she would have to tell
you why it was Monday and not Saturday when you woke up. She
thought she had it all under control.”

“Until you spilled the beans.” It was all
starting to make sense to Katie. That was why Carl was so upset
when she couldn’t find her necklace. “You are the best brother
anyone could have. Did you know that?”

Katie turned the radio on in the car and
played with the stations. An old song came on that she liked when
she was younger. Carl and Katie sang at the top of their lungs as
they traveled down the highway. Katie felt freer than she had in a
long while. The clouds and confusion were clearing from her
head.

Carl got off an exit, drove around and got
back on the freeway. As he was driving down the entrance ramp to
head back home he told Katie they would continue their talk the
next day. She nodded in agreement. She did need to process all of
it anyway. When they pulled in the Johnson driveway, Katie got out
and ran across to her house.

“I promise we’ll walk tomorrow!” Carl called
out as he pulled the car into the garage.

Katie gave him a thumb’s up, and called out
to him, “Next time get a convertible!” She entered the house to
find her parents talking to Tyson.

“Hi everyone!”

“Katie, Tyson came over to borrow something.
Notes? Book?” Jackson shrugged his shoulders. “Where have you been
by the way?”

“Carl wanted to take me for a drive in his
rented sports car. Thing is really fast!” Katie ran up the stairs.
“Come on, Ty!”

She was so used to having Ty in the house,
and in her bedroom, she hadn’t thought about what it would be like
now that he thought of her as his girlfriend. Ty stopped in the
doorway.

“Ty! Come in!” Katie was a little annoyed at
how he was acting.

Ty sat on the floor while Katie found her
schoolbag and rummaged through it. “What exactly do you need?” She
wasn’t sure if she brought the right thing home.

“Actually, I really don’t need anything. I
just wanted to see you. I told your parents that so I had an excuse
to stay until you got home. I heard you have a dress for
Homecoming. What color? So I know what kind of flowers to get.”

“Wow, Tyson. You are on top of things. Most
guys wouldn’t even know or care about stuff like that.” Katie
teased.

“Well, my mom sort of told me to find out or
ask you what you like.”

“How about white roses with a sapphire blue
ribbon?” Katie wanted to settle that quickly plus it would remind
her of Lucinda’s wedding.

“Sure, whatever you want.” He got up and sat
next to her on the bed.

“How was your date on Friday?” Katie decided
to distract him.

“Date?”

“You know, you took Erin to the movies.”

“Oh, that. Fine.”

Katie wanted a little more information than
that. “Tyson Gray!”

“The movie was good. I want to take you to
see it now. Erin is a fun girl. She can’t wait for basketball
season. She’s positive that I will make the varsity team.”

“As positive as she was that I’d make the
cheer team,” Katie said under her breath.

“What did you say?” Ty threw her back on the
bed.

The next thing she knew he was almost on top
of her, trying to kiss her. Her heart raced but for all the wrong
reasons. She felt like she was betraying Drew and did not want to
hurt Ty again. She decided she would just let him kiss her and get
it over with. While he was kissing her all she could think about
was that he smelled like a sixteen-year-old boy who, maybe, just
got out of bed and hurried to school. Not that it was bad or
offensive or anything like that. Katie started to laugh about
having a mock debate in her head over the hygiene habits of
sixteen-year-old boys.

Ty leaned back. “What’s so funny?”

“You! Are you trying to take advantage of me
in my bedroom?” She tried keeping it light. “If you were ten, you’d
be saying ‘ew, gross’.”

“I’m not ten anymore,” he said grabbing her
once again.

As he kissed her again the comparisons
continued. That time Katie compared him to Drew. Shouldn’t she be
concentrating on Ty and thinking only of him? When Drew kissed her
she never wanted it to stop.

Ty could stop any time he wanted and she
wouldn’t be bothered that he did. When Drew just touched her she
felt chills or tingles through her body, and with Ty there wasn’t
much of anything. Ty was meant to be a friend. She didn’t have
feelings for him. Katie knew it had to stop, especially when she
felt his hand go up under the back of her top and come around to
the side.

“Ty!” Katie quickly sat up.

“Oh. I know your door is open. Sorry.” He
wasn’t getting the message, and she was giving the wrong one. She
did like kissing him. She did like being around him. She didn’t
like him taking Erin to the movies. It was getting too confusing
again.

Katie’s mom called up the stairs, “Dinner’s
ready! I hope Ty got his homework done.”

Yeah, right, he did his homework. They stood
up and Ty pulled her close to him. He was taller than Drew. She had
to get up on her tiptoes to barely reach his mouth.

Drew was just right, tall but not too tall.
Before she knew what was happening Ty bent down and kissed her
again. It wasn’t bad. She liked it. It wasn’t fairytale romantic,
though. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be—two high school kids
making out in a bedroom.

Katie pulled away. “I’ve got to get down
there.”

“Sure, I understand. I missed you. We
could’ve hung out all weekend. Maybe this weekend?”

“Um, let’s wait and see. May have a big
project coming up.” Katie used that excuse once too often this
week. She ran down the stairs with Ty right behind her, walked him
to the front door and let him out. She then leaned against the door
and breathed a sigh of relief.

Chapter Twenty-One

Katie sent Carl a
text message to meet her at the walking trail right after school.
She didn’t want to get on the bus or even get close to the bus stop
because she knew Ty would be waiting for her. Lindsey drove to
school most days and was supposed to drive directly there and back
home, no detours. Katie pleaded with her to be dropped at the park
knowing it would add extra driving time.

“I’ll just tell my mom I was stuck in
traffic.” Lindsey put her arm around Katie. “And you can fill me in
on the latest! Your life is much more exciting than mine.”

Katie wanted to make her friend feel better.
“Your life is fine. Hasn’t Brian been calling you and meeting you
between classes? Things are looking up for you.”

“Yeah, but remember he’s just a friend!
Brian’s quite the talker, Kates. Seems like Ty tells him a lot.
It’s like he’s in love with you or something.”

“No, no, that can’t be. He’s complicating my
life!” Katie screamed.

“Calm down, girl! I’ll see what I can find
out.” Lindsey pulled into the parking lot.

“Thanks for the ride. I don’t know what I’d
do without you. You’re the best.” Katie jumped out of the car.

Carl was already there, leaning on his sports
car. Katie waved and ran toward him.

“Ready for that walk?” She couldn’t wait to
get started.

They set off down the trail as Carl began to
tell his parents’ story.

“First I want to tell you how my dad found
the set of books. That’s really how this all began.” He took a deep
breath. “This may be long so bear with me.”

Katie remained quiet not wanting to distract
his thoughts and wished he’d just get started.

“When dad was hired to run the boardinghouse,
he had to fix it up first. It was an old, rundown place. No one had
lived there for years. It was a good solid structure and my dad was
a talented carpenter. He could fix or make anything, as you know.
He worked on the house for months living out there alone.