Watch for Me by Moonlight (6 page)

Merry said, “I wish I had slowed down to say hi to that guy.”

“Why?” Mally demanded. “Just being cute doesn’t make you a good person.”

“I still would have liked to meet him and talk to him. There’s something about him.”

Drew said, “I’m so going to stop on a dark street so you can talk to some random hitchhiking killer. I can feel your dad’s hands tightening around my windpipe.”

The huge glass wall that formed the foyer had been decorated with mermaids and whales and starfish for an under-the-sea theme. Inside, hanging from the middle of the gym, where there normally would be a glass disco ball, was a red paper Chinese dragon at least ten feet long with streams of green and blue tulle radiating out from it likes waves. Twinkle lights swayed among the faux waves.

“How is
that
symbolic of sea life?” Mallory asked her twin, as Neely lined up with Pearson Ainsworth, who was assigned to escort her as one of the Winter Princesses on Angela’s court.

Merry, who had gone so far as decorating the gym to snag a last-minute date, said, “You never know what’s down there. It was cheap and it looks good.”

Everyone began to applaud as the girls were presented.

“It’s so unreal that I’m not even on the Rose Court,” said Meredith. “Next year I’ll be over the hill.”

“Yep, I can already see fine lines,” Drew said. “Silken Smooth can reduce the appearance of fine lines in just six weeks of continuous use, although side effects can include nausea, dizziness, seizures, muscle weakness, and a kind of liver tremor resulting in death.”

“Shut up,” Meredith told him.

Angela’s parents were crying, and her little sisters were jumping up and down. A photographer from the
Ridgeline Reporter
snapped pictures as Angela beamed and twirled around with her real-life boyfriend, Danny Sutton.

The first song began to play, and Mallory was grateful, despite all her push-down-and-step practice, that Drew was tall enough to basically move her around like a life-sized chess piece. Gradually, Neely slipped into Pearson’s arms with what looked like something other than an obligation. Kim and Allie and the others were gossiping happily at one of the net-draped tables.

The disc jockey played three slow songs in a row and, thankfully for the girls and guys who were there single, finally spun some old ’90s music.

Mallory glanced around the gym. She had learned to put faith in her funny feelings.

Merry’s posse was all present and accounted for, but where was Merry?

“Do you see my sister?” Mallory asked Drew.

“She has to be in the bathroom. We’ve been here a full half hour. I’m surprised she lasted this long.”

“But she would never go to the bathroom without her gang of peeps,” Mallory said. “They can’t respirate alone.”

“That’s true enough. But look, Mallory, you’re not your sister’s keeper, and this is a dance, not the treacherous mountain path with a killer on the loose.” Drew made claw motions with both hands and then slipped them back around Mally’s waist. “She’s a big girl. You’re acting like your mother.”

He figured that would shut her up.

He was right.

SNOWFLAKES AND MOONLIGHT

T
hrough the glass wall of the atrium outside the gym—where Merry wandered alone, suddenly desperately thirsty for water—she could see the full moon embraced by clouds.

The sign on the concession stand said “Back in Five,” which she knew meant back in fifteen or worse. Carefully holding back the tendrils that cascaded from her intentionally messy updo and opening her mouth wide to avoid ruining her elaborately lacquered mouth, she leaned over the water fountain just next to the door.

When Merry looked up, his face was a few inches from hers, watching her from outside.

Although normally Merry would have jumped a foot and run back into the gym screeching, for the sake of drama if nothing else, instead, she gave the boy a shy wave. His blond hair looked soft and clean in the moonlight, and his eyes shined with something forlorn but kind.

There’s no reason to be afraid,
Merry thought.

As if her legs had minds of their own, she moved toward the door to the foyer, which had been locked from the inside.

Then she stopped.

Her friend Kim’s older brother had been as handsome as a model but was a hollow-hearted monster who might have killed dozens of girls if the twins hadn’t risked their own lives to stop him. This boy was even more beautiful.

What if he pulled her out into the night and left her torn up and trampled in a ditch?

Meredith knew he wouldn’t. She opened the door.

Instead of stepping toward her, the boy took a step back, away from the brightest lights.

“Hi,” Merry said. “I saw you walking on the road.”

“My old school,” he said. “I just felt like seeing it.”

“And the other day at the mall.”

“I saw you, too. What’s your name? I mean, if that’s okay.”

“It’s okay. I’m Merry Brynn.”

“Is your dad Kevin?”

“Tim,” she said. “Kevin’s my uncle. Why?”

“Just ... I know lots of Brynns. My mom was a teacher here. She taught English.”

Merry said, “So, you should come in. A lot of people who went here come to the dances. Did you transfer? Did you play football or anything? ”

“No, I was too small for that. I ran cross country.”

“My sister’s boyfriend does that. Do you run cross-country in college? I mean, if you’re in college.”

“I’m not in college now,” the boy said.

“Well, anyway, my
parents
used to go to school dances here until we got into ninth grade and forced them to stop. My mom didn’t even go here, but my father has a morbid attachment to his youth. I’m sure you can come in.”

“I’m not dressed for something like that. Just jeans and my old jacket. I just wanted to look.”

“Are you from here?”

“Yep,” said the boy.

“Where do you live?”

“Oh ... outside town. On Pumpkin Hollow.”

“My Uncle Kevin and my Aunt Kate live there! In the big Victorian house that’s painted all different colors of green? Have you seen that house?” If this boy were from here, even if he were visiting family, he would have had to know about the fire at Uncle Kevin’s and Aunt Kate’s. Two years later, the gossip about who started the fire that nearly killed Mally and Merry was still something people brought up, especially on dark winter nights. No one had ever found out who threw fireworks up on the roof and ignited the blaze. Merry and Mally were sure it had been David Jellico.

“It was the house that set on fire, a couple of years ago?” Merry said.

“I’ve been away awhile,” the boy said. It must have been a long while.

“Do you know the Aldridges?” They were a couple in their fifties who’d moved from Minnesota and had a small farm for awhile with their disabled son, a guy in his twenties who acted like a ten-year-old and was one of the nicest people in Ridgeline. They moved to Ridgeline to get their son away from the stares and pressures of the city.

“I don’t know them,” the boy said. “Not really.”

“How about Mr. and Mrs. Highland? They’re really old. They live way out just across from the ...”

The boy’s face brightened. “I know them. Do you?”

The only encounter Merry had ever had with Mrs. Highland was being screamed at from the porch for riding her bike over the edge of the Highlands’ lawn. Merry was swerving to get out of the way of a car that nearly sideswiped her. At the time, Meredith thought, would Mrs. Highland have rather seen Merry get creamed in the road like a deer in hunting season? She decided Mrs. Highland would indeed have preferred that to wrecking one corner of her lawn. Like her grandparents, the Highlands treated their lawn, garden, and orchards like babies—or so Meredith recalled. Mrs. Highland yelled, “Don’t you have any respect for other people’s property?”

Later, Aunt Kate told her that Mrs. Highland wasn’t really mean, just troubled, and that Merry shouldn’t take it personally. Merry hardly remembered it now. It had been five years ago or more.

“I only know them a little,” Meredith said.

“They don’t go out a lot,” said the boy. “They’re nice though. My mom ... is the one who used to teach English—remember I said that?”

What did that have to do with the Highlands?
Merry thought. Was he saying he was related to them in some way? Talking to this boy seemed to raise more questions than it answered. Her dad had to know his family. Tim knew everyone and seemed to have tentacles with eyes that reached out and told him every move his daughters made. Just then, the DJ began to play one of the songs Merry’s parents embarrassingly danced to in the living room—“Moon River,” from one of Campbell’s favorite old crazy black-and-white movies. The DJ said it was because there was a beautiful moon out that night over the newly fallen snow. The speakers piped the music out onto the lawn, where the flattened snow was decked out with soda cans and candy wrappers and the occasional fast-food container sat up like a little white coffin.

“I guess I should go back in,” Meredith said. “It is a beautiful night though, like the DJ said. It seems warmer than when we got here. And the moon makes it as bright as daylight.”

“Come outside for a moment,” the boy said. “I’m Ben.”

He put out his hand, and Meredith almost touched it, acutely aware of the electrical bolt that shot up her arms and spread like a small sun throughout her whole midsection. Now, she should have shut the door between them. Now, she should have been afraid.
Something
was weird.

What kind of boy would ask a girl, alone, to come outside into the darkness and the cold?

“Trust your guts,” Campbell had often said to the girls. “They’ll never lie to you.”

Meredith’s “guts” were saying this boy was only shy, not evil. But how wrong had she been before about David Jellico?

The boy called Ben said suddenly, “I know you’re thinking I’m probably some kind of creep and I want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you. And look behind you. There are like six people buying water and Coke and stuff. I’m not going to pull you out to my car. I haven’t even got a car. I won’t even touch you. It’s just been a really long time since I stood next to a beautiful girl.”

As much because she was embarrassed as because she was enthralled—and she was enthralled, her breath coming in little gasps as she tried to control it—Meredith stepped outside.

“I remember this song,” said Ben. “Do you want to dance?”

“Of course,” Meredith said and almost added,
I love you. I’ve always loved you.
How could she think something so crazy? But Romeo and Juliet had. Whoever loved that loved not at first sight? Their whole deal lasted, like, three days, and Shakespeare wrote a play about it that had lasted five hundred years and inspired a bunch of movies and
West Side Story,
too.

Ben was a stranger, but Merry felt as though she had known him all her life. He didn’t quite touch her, even when they danced. She couldn’t feel the pressure of his hand against her back, as they moved together in gentle patterns and hesitations. He didn’t dance like other boys. Most guys just shifted from foot to foot and tried to get their hands around the front of the girl from the back or squeeze her until they could feel her whole body without having to ask. Ben didn’t even clutch Merry against him. Merry wanted him to. The door closed and locked behind her. She didn’t care. His chest looked taut and muscled under a clean white T-shirt, and his skin, when he leaned down, smelled like pine needles and soap and something else—nutmeg maybe or another spice. Kiss me, Meredith thought. Kiss me before
I
have to turn back into
a pumpkin.

“My mom taught me to dance,” Ben said. “Back when I was about your age. How old are you?”

“Fifteen,” Meredith said and then shook her head. “I turned fifteen on New Year’s Eve. How about you?”

“I’ll be eighteen in May.”

So he wasn’t too old. Two little years.

“Meredith!” came a shout. “What are you doing?” Drew and Mallory stood in the doorway. Drew held the door as Meredith rushed toward her sister. “You’re spinning around out here like ... like you’re bewitched.”

Merry spun around again to make them mad.

Ben had, of course, taken off. Mallory would scare wild beasts.

“It’s thirty degrees out here. Your hands are white,” Mally called.

“I don’t feel cold.”

“Are you crazy?” Mallory asked.

Meredith said, “Absolutely.” She took one last spin in Neely’s gently draped dress as a drift of lazy, lacy flakes of snow began to fall.

DREAM SPACE

I
t was snowing in earnest by the time Meredith and Neely got into Neely’s house, driven home by Stuart, the driver who took Neely’s dad into his New York office Monday through Saturday.

Freezing, they hurried up into Neely’s room and shut the door behind them, quickly running over to warm themselves by the small peach-tinted marble fireplace, with gas logs that looked real and felt better than real logs. There was a fireplace big enough to roast an ox in Neely’s parents’ bedroom. In fact, there was a fireplace in every room except the downstairs bath and the workout room.

Soon Stuart’s wife, Ludamila, the housekeeper and maid, knocked at Neely’s bedroom door. She took both girls’ dresses to be cleaned and left a pitcher of hot chocolate and a tray of cookies and miniature meringues with kiwi fruit in the middle. Meredith thought her mother would be as likely to serve this to the Brynn kids as deep-fried rattlesnake with ketchup. But the girls got into their flannel ’jama bottoms and sweatshirts and settled in happily.

“Do you need anything else, Neely?” Ludamila asked. She was sort of like an aunt to Neely because her own parents—a busy lawyer and a fashion designer—might be around at any given time or might not and Neely never knew which.
Gas fireplaces were great,
Merry thought,
but they didn’t make up for parents you could lean on.
Then again, her parents had sort of moved over lately and let the kids semi-raise themselves. Meredith was fairly sure that Campbell was so exhausted and Tim so distracted that the girls could have sold pot out the kitchen window without their noticing.

“No Luda,” Neely said now. “Thanks a million. Merry and I can chow down. No boys around.”

Ludamila laughed. “Okay. Okay. Okay, nothing ever change, Okay. Okay. Okay,” she said in her heavy Eastern European accent.

As soon as Ludamila left, Neely jumped up and stared out the window at the moon.

“How can we be sitting here? It’s like ... 10:30. What are we going to do for fun? Do you want to sneak out? Why didn’t somebody have a party? Why didn’t I?”

Meredith said, “Well, tonight it’s best that you didn’t.”

Neely whirled around.

“Neels, I have to tell you something. I’m glad Kim had to go home this time after all instead of staying over. I don’t want the whole world to know what I’m going to tell you,” said Meredith.

Neely’s eyes sparkled so maliciously it was almost endearing.

“Are you pregnant?” Neely asked.

“Huh?” Merry said with a gasp.

“Did you ... do it?”

“What? It’s nothing like that, Neely!”

“Well, whatever it is, you can count on me,” Neely said. She moved her library books and took out her little liquor stash, pouring herself and Meredith small helpings of Bailey’s Irish Crème in toothbrush cups. Merry smiled. It was totally unbelievable that Neely’s parents knew she had liquor in the house and let her keep it because they supposedly felt that Neely needed to test her limits. Tim and Campbell would have had her or Mallory testing the limits of the size of their room for the same offense. Meredith had been delighted that she could count on Neely to spread the news about meeting the new boy with the speed of a forest fire in August.

Now, strangely, she wanted to keep everything about him to herself.

“You started to tell me something,” Neely began.

“Well, yeah.”

“So tell.”

Weirdly, Merry felt that even saying some of what she felt would somehow disgrace what she felt about Ben. “He’s just a cute guy. That’s all.”

“That wasn’t what you said at practice. You said this was the guy. The guy you completely had the biggest crush on in your life on Earth.”

“That was before,” Merry said, getting up and taking her sponge bag into the bathroom. She began to wash off her makeup with Noxzema. There were about forty things better and newer than Noxzema for washing your face. But Campbell had used Noxzema on her face, and Meredith had to admit that for someone that old, her mother didn’t have as many wrinkles as her friends did. And Campbell was outside all the time, too—at least she used to be—running and biking and stuff.

Before medical school and Owen hit like twin tornadoes.

Merry sent up a silent apology to her favorite saint, the one who shared her confirmation name, Brigid, for comparing Owen to a tornado.

“Do you care if I shower for a minute?”

“No, but ... as soon as you come out, I want the truth,” Neely said, flipping on her flat screen.

In the shower, Meredith took her time, and not only because the six jets in Neely’s shower made getting cleaned up like some kind of spa experience. She thought about what love meant and if she even knew that. Love, her mother said, was hoping the other person always got the best strawberries. She barely knew this boy. She had talked to him exactly once. But she knew and could not tell Neely or anyone, that what she felt was love in the worst degree. Yes, of course, she wanted Ben to be happy, but she wanted him to be happy with her, with Merry. If he found someone else, she could imagine herself forgetting to eat until she shriveled up like a seedpod in fall. A spot just below her ribcage still tingled where his hand had almost touched her waist, a glow that spread throughout her whole body and made her heart hammer. When she tried to think of anything else, Ben’s face swam back before her eyes. They were eyes into which Merry could fall and drown. His gentle, slightly sad voice threaded through her ears, telling her not to be afraid.

Afraid?

Merry knew she would follow Ben into the darkest cave and be utterly confident, so long as he was beside her.

Was
this
love?

Desire?

Insanity?

As she began to wash her hair, Merry shut her eyes and actually swayed. She was dizzy. This is stupid, she thought. Maybe it was love. Maybe it was the flu. She had to use the shampoo twice. Sasha had done a brilliant job on Merry’s hair, but unless she got all the gunk out, it would stay in those tendrils and whirls permanently. Sasha had used nearly a full can of firm hold spray to get Meredith’s thick, mane-straight bobbed hair to look like a little curl castle. When Merry stepped out, she swathed herself in peach towels the size of kitchen rugs (everything was peach and black in Neely’s room) and then slipped into her flannel sleep pants and one of the fluffy robes the Chaplins kept for Neely’s guests. Maybe, she hoped, Neely would have changed her mind by this point and gone on to something else. Maybe she was engrossed in some horror movie on TV.

Fat chance.

As soon as Merry came back into the bedroom, Neely said, “So, how long have you been seeing him? When we were at practice, you hadn’t even talked to him. That was fast work.”

“Well, now that I have, it’s different.”

“Merry! You look weird. As in semi-conscious. I’m your best friend in the world except for Allie and Kimmie and Erika. You’re sitting there like you’ve got a secret. We don’t have secrets.”

“It feels so new and different. It’s just not something I want to gossip and laugh about. I saw him tonight at the dance and we talked.”

Neely said, “Why didn’t you bring him to meet us?”

“We talked outside the gym. And for maybe about two minutes.”

“Sounds like a stable relationship,” Neely said. It was weirdly something exactly like what Mallory would have said.

“You would understand if you had been there,” Merry insisted. “Remember when I said I saw the guy on the road? The blond guy with the leather jacket?” Neely nodded, stuffing her mouth with the gourmet cookies, as if hypnotized by food and Merry’s strange reluctance. “That was Ben. That was him. I met that same guy tonight hanging around in the dark outside the gym. He took off, probably because Drew and my sister came out yelling so loudly, he probably thought she was mentally ill. Mally has such a big mouth, and she says I’m the one who never shuts up. But he said his name was Ben and he’s eighteen and he lives out on Pumpkin Hollow.”

“By your aunt. Where the fire was,” Neely ate two of the meringues at once and said, “It’s a little creepy. Him doing that. Walking down the road in the dark and hanging around outside a dance.”

“He doesn’t have a car. He used to go to Ridgeline. I don’t know why I never saw him. It’s not that big a school. But maybe he was there when I was still in junior high. Well, sure he was. It’s like another world. Basically, as far as people in high school, I only knew Drew back then. And Mally’s friend Eden.”

“Is he in college?” Neely asked. “Because if he is and he’s just home for a break or something, that’s why I couldn’t find out the straight stuff on him. I can’t be expected to cover all of New York state as well as college communities.”

“He said no,” Merry said. “He’s not in college.” For some reason, she was embarrassed by this. As if to compensate, she went on, “He said his mom was an English teacher at Ridgeline a long time ago. I think what he
really
said was that his mom used to be an English teacher at the high school and that her mom, his grandma, was old Mrs. Highland, and that she used to be an English teacher too.” Meredith paused for a moment. “Actually, I have no idea if he said that. There was something about him knowing the Highlands... I couldn’t stop staring at him. I was like an idiot. He looked like James Dean.”

“Who ... is James Dean?” Neely asked. “Not to be stupid.”

“It’s not stupid. No one our age knows who he is. He’s like Elvis ... only not. He’s this old-time actor. He’s dead. But he died while he was young and beautiful. He was probably only about twenty. You never heard about him because your parents are too nice to force you to go see movies from the Pleistocene period at the Belles Artes Theatre.” Neely made a face. “But James Dean, I didn’t mind. We saw this movie called
Rebel Without a Cause.
And the guy he played ... was like a real person. His parents were always on his back and fighting.”

“I couldn’t bear that,” said Neely. “Bad enough they’re never around.”

“Anyhow,” Merry went on, “he was really a good actor, and he would still be cute now if he were alive. I mean, he wouldn’t be cute now. He’d be old, like ninety. But if he were to be in movies now, people would still consider him amazing. He even made smoking look good. I think he died in a motorcycle wreck. Like, long ago. Before my parents were born.”

“We could Google it,” Neely suggested.

“No, that would just show you what Ben looks like
to me,”
Merry told her. “Sort of.” She let herself remember the sight of Ben’s slight ripple of muscle under his plain, sparkling clean white T-shirt. Though he wasn’t a big guy, or a pretty boy, he had this gentle loneliness in his smile that went straight to Merry’s soul—or where she thought her soul must be, somewhere in the region of her stomach. And his eyes weren’t sly or ready to laugh with the next joke directed at girls—their hair, their cell phones, their gossip. They seemed to hold Merry gently, a gaze only for her, a promise that Ben would always protect her. “He ... he has really long hair. But it’s soft and pretty. Not greasy or knotted up.”

“Guys,” Neely said, “so do not know how to manage long hair.”

“Very true,” said Meredith through a mouthful of cookies. “He does. He’s different in other ways too.”

“So he lives with his grandparents?” Neely said.

“Either that or ... maybe his parents live in one of the new houses on that street.”

“Are you really dating?” Neely asked.

“Uh, no,” Meredith answered.

“So no harm, no foul if you ask your dad about him; he knows everybody.”

“I guess. I just don’t want my parents glomming all over this like they did when Mallory had a crush on Eden’s brother. Cooper? Remember? I mean, my mother got in his face at our birthday party! I just want to figure out if I really do like him first.”

“Makes sense. Why face the hassle?”

Meredith said, “See, Neels, I got the impression he couldn’t really afford to go to college yet. Maybe he’s working for a year.”

“Well, it shouldn’t be hard to find him. Aren’t there only, like, five houses out there? We could take a walk.”

The very thought was horrifying to Meredith. She didn’t want the round of gossip to start:
He said this and she was like whatever and I was like no way....
Ben was better than that. Startled, she realized that she might talk about him to, of all people, her sister. Or maybe someone older, like Sasha. But not to her friends. They were too silly. Hurriedly, she said, “Oh no. It wouldn’t be that easy. That’s the thing. Not anymore. There were only a few houses when we were in the fire. But there are way more houses out there now on Pumpkin Hollow than there were
then,
at the time of the fire. Last year, Mr. Aldridge started selling lots from the land where he used to have the part of his farm where he grew sod. And at least three houses went up like ... like lettuce. There are some retired people in this pretty two-house thing and a couple of families with little kids and bigger kids too. There could be families with older kids at home. People I don’t even know. Don’t worry about it, Neels. When the time comes, he’ll be there.”

“That’s bizarre,” Neely said.

Merry couldn’t explain. She just shrugged.

But through the night, from wherever he was now, she could literally feel Ben thinking of her. It wasn’t as though Ben had actually held her against him, but she seemed to remember the heat and tenderness of his touch in her mind and in her body. It wasn’t like the touch of the guys in school, who tried to glom all over your body even if they didn’t know you—the kind that made you want to shower with bleach. She felt odd, almost as though Ben had blessed her. She could say that, so she said, “He was ... so kind to me. Like a prince.”

“I think you’re like ... on drugs,” Neely said. “Hey! Want to go out and drive around? I only have my permit but we still can. I’m a very good driver.”

“If we get caught, I’ll be grounded for a month, and you’ll be the same as you are right now,” Meredith said, and both the girls flopped back on Neely’s massive bed, laughing. Neely never got grounded. Her parents viewed whatever she did that was wrong as Neely’s way of expressing her frustration with young adulthood. It was such a joke that Neely said it took all the fun out of rebellion.