Beyond the Storm (9780758276995) (18 page)

Eleanor paused, as though waiting for what more was to come.

Vanessa Massey said, “I'm ready to be someone else.”

“W
hat time is it?”

Adam, pupils darkened by night and by forgotten memories, was unaware not only of the time but that Vanessa had ceased talking before posing her question. Unknowingly, they had allowed silence to hover between them without thought toward filling it. They had each told their respective stories of lost love while sitting out on the front porch of the farmhouse, avoiding the romantic pull of the swing and the sexual entanglement it had earlier led them to. This late hour felt like a moment for revelations and truths, not explosive passion that served only to delay such truths. Sitting opposite each other, leaning against the sturdy wooden posts, they had talked and they had listened, and then it was as though their words had dried up with the rain, secrets held over them by thickening clouds. As though the space separating them now represented eleven years passing of when they hadn't seen, talked, thought much, or heard about the other.

Almost like that night in New York had never happened.

“I'm sorry, what did you ask?” Adam asked.

“The time.”

He checked his wrist instinctively, but he wore no watch. It didn't work anyway, broken in the car accident. “I don't know. Eight o'clock? Midnight? Does it matter?”

“I was just wondering what was happening at the reunion.”

“Probably it's just getting started . . . or it's over.”

“Adam, time doesn't mean much right now, does it?”

“Guess not.”

“Still . . .” she said, her voice drifting off.

Adam filled the void building between them. “Lark Henry is probably giving a speech, just like she always used to when she was voted class president; two years running, if I remember. Standing up in front of the gang, maybe hint of gray in her hair, saying how great it is to see everyone and thanks for the great turnout . . . you know, the same words she spoke twenty-plus years ago when she was first elected.”

“What does she do for a living anyway?” Vanessa asked.

“School principal. At Danton Hill High.”

“Scary. But perfect.”

“Leader that she is, she's probably gathered everyone together for a moment of silence in remembrance of our classmates who have died,” Adam said. “She's a good soul.”

Vanessa nodded, withdrawn for a moment, lost in thought, before her eyes lightened up with a sudden roll of her eyes. “Jana and Tiffany are probably thinking of adding me to that list. Because my no-show just means they'll kill me,” she said. Then quickly added, “What about you, Adam, were you close with anyone in particular in high school? Anyone you still keep in touch with or were anxious to see at the reunion?”

Adam shook his head. “Not that I've kept in touch with. When I went away to college, everything changed for me. Like I woke up from some awful dream and for the first time I saw the sun shining. I acquired some much-needed confidence about myself—who I was and what I wanted from life. No longer was I content being that sniveling, weak boy looking for acceptance from anyone who would look toward him. Danton Hill kind of suffocated me. Leaving allowed me to breathe. What about you, what do you remember most about Danton Hill?”

“The town itself? So much, the football field and sneaking out during lunch period to eat our sandwiches on the bleachers, the fact that we had to travel like twenty miles to get to a mall, that playground . . . up on Danton's Hill. Running with friends along rocky Mercer Pier inside Danton State Park. I remember all those times. But God, I suppose the place I remember best is that stupid, old-fashioned soda shop. The Sno-Cone . . . the woman who ran the place was so old we called her . . .”

“Sno-Crone, I remember.”

A bit of reminiscent laughter escaped their mouths. “We used to hang out there all the time, when school let out or after football games on autumn Friday nights. We'd get one of those old-fashioned egg creams or a sundae or sometimes just a soda and fries. I mean, there are other memories too. Not all fun and games. Like my demanding parents and the house we lived in on Sanders Street, the dog we had when I was younger, whom I named Yellow because he was. My room with those horrible posters of movies and bands that everyone liked so I liked, even though I really didn't. My grandmother's death and how quiet the house was after that. No one talked about death, they just . . . accepted it as they did a summer storm. Just one day she was gone and I didn't understand and my questions went unanswered. I was so naïve back then, so innocent . . . not like when I got to high school. When I hit the ninth grade, like you said about college, everything started to change.”

“You changed.”

Vanessa tossed him a strange look. “In a good or bad way?”

“Neither. You were you, or at least trying the newer version on for size.”

“I wasn't very nice to you.”

“Vanessa, even when we were in third grade and I believed you still had cooties, we were never friends.”

“Sorry,” she said.

“No, no, that's okay,” he said. “You know, not everyone can be part of someone's circle, sometimes those circles close for no reason other than you didn't like the color pants I wore that day. It made no sense, but that was school. Fitting in socially was harder than homework.”

“My parents preached independence, but not in any proactive way. I was just an excuse for them to ignore me. As I hit my teen years, I could come and go pretty much as I pleased, and trust me, I did. I started dating Danny Stoker the very first day of high school. He asked me out right there at what became our regular booth at Sno-Cone. We were sitting with friends and someone, I think it was Davey, said high school was all about social status, not grades, and so you better choose your gang wisely or you're in for a miserable four years.”

“I think I chose unwisely,” Adam said.

“Adam, you want to know the awful truth? You don't choose, none of us did, even the so-called popular kids. You get chosen, mostly based on looks and appearance and where you live and how much money your parents make.” She paused to look up at the sky, searching for the twinkle of stars that should be transporting them back to those days, maybe another time of their choosing. All that hung over them were clouds, the moonlight forgotten, just as they appeared to be. “Eighth grade, we were all still finding our way, naïvely playing and plotting without understanding its repercussions. We all knew that after summer passed, the crazy jockeying for popularity would begin again, and this time on a tougher, much bigger playground. Fortunately, my body filled out that summer. So that first morning at my locker when I heard my name and it was Danny and he said, ‘Whoa, where'd those knockers come from?' I knew I'd be fine. Crude and shallow, but you take my point. Danny was the best-looking guy in school and he'd chosen me. Well, initially he had chosen my boobs. For the first few months we dated I don't think he knew the color of my eyes.”

“Green, with tiny specks,” Adam said, staring at her. “Like unearthed emeralds.”

Vanessa deflected the obvious compliment, again pushing her hair away from her face like she had that night at the hotel lounge in Manhattan. “When Danny realized he actually liked me for me, he used to joke that he was getting three for the price of me. Direct quote.”

“Idiot.”

“Yup.”

“So why did you continue to go out with him?”

“Are you really asking that question?”

Adam acknowledged the stupidity of asking. “Right, got it. Good-looking, great hair, quarterback of the football team . . . am I missing something?”

“Really good kisser,” she added, and then looked like she regretted saying that.

“Vanessa, you don't have to worry about offending me. You're allowed to remember the good times you and Danny shared together. It's not the past if you deny something ever existed. Everything happened, experiences don't just disappear because you don't want to remember them.”

“I'm not denying it . . . him, it's just . . . here now, with you, I just don't want Danny Stoker intruding on this . . . uh, unexpected night of ours. It's like the prom we really never had—or were promised. No guarantees, huh? Guess I've learned that. But still, Adam, the prom should have been a time when you could dance at will, laugh like you hadn't a care in the world. When the night ended it's like you'd endured a rite of passage. You got through graduation . . . anything was possible.”

“I still think anything is possible.”

“Even without a job, or prospects for a future?”

“Hey, I'm only thirty-eight. I've still got time to figure it out.”

“Adam, you're just being flippant.”

“Lighten the mood,” he said. “Not everything we talk about tonight has to be soaked with meaning. Sometimes you just have to make a joke at your own expense.”

“You want to know something?”

“Sure, let me hear it.”

“I don't have a job either.”

“But . . . Mrs. Stillwell-Abramson . . . who will dress her and keep her schedule . . . and . . .”

“Her husband is no longer ambassador. New president, new appointments. They moved back to that stuffy Fifth Avenue apartment six months ago.”

“And you?”

“I moved back in with Reva, but this time in a crappy but cool flat in Putney—not quite Central London but good enough.” She laughed. “Like I'm regressing. Maybe that's why I decided to come back for the reunion. Maybe I couldn't believe twenty years had somehow passed and I was still living with a roommate, drinking, smoking again, wasting away the days because I still didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up.”

“So, we're kind of in the same boat.”

“And sinking fast,” she said, looking away as she said the words, wishing she could take them back. Why was the sea . . . or the lake or ocean or whatever body of water was nearby, why did it keep washing into her thoughts, tangling them with its discarded entrails? She'd never quite taken to the water, and she hated to swim. Were these allusions mere illusions? Turning back to him, she said, “Tomorrow may be coming, but that doesn't mean we know what comes next. Heck, don't know what I'm doing a minute from now, much less tomorrow or six months or a decade from now.”

“Then let's take the night a minute at a time. No sense rushing time when it doesn't seem to be moving anyway.”

“Doesn't stop me from worrying about tomorrow when it happens,” she said. “You want to know something, Adam? What this night means? Why we're telling these stories? Because I don't think we're ever truly done with the past. It shapes us, perhaps defines us, and right now it's consuming us. So let's embrace it the way it wants. Come on, I've spilled my guts enough. For now. I think it's your turn again.”

Adam steeled himself, wondering just where this was leading.

“What do you want to know?” he asked.

“Anything,” she said. “Surprise me.”

“You want me to open up my letters and share with you what I wrote?”

 

His words chilled her, this feeling almost like a sharp stab at her abdomen. Was it cold from the night air, or fear at what lay beyond these borders? And if fear, of what? Of the unknown? Why had he used such a metaphor, when earlier the idea of the letters had brought about her fainting spell? But as she studied his expression, there didn't seem to be any hidden meaning behind his bemused look. So Vanessa wrapped her arms around herself, forged ahead, and did as he asked. She delved into his past, his psyche.

“Tell me about your high school.”

They, of course, had gone to the same one. Yet she could tell he knew exactly what she meant. “Why go there?”

“Adam?”

“Yes, Vanessa.”

“Spill.”

“Remind me again why we're doing this?”

“Because we've talked about everything else—life and love, sex and babies, spouses and lovers, things we've lost or things we've never had. Things that might have been, or might have happened in some other time. So here's where we are, the only logical place for us to return to—high school, the prom. This is supposed to be a high school reunion, Adam, right? And we were both planning to attend it and I think we were each looking for the other. Instead the fates, as you believe, have thrown us together for our very own reunion. I shared my story, tell me yours.”

“High school sucked.” He paused. “End of story.”

“I'd like to hear what happened during your pause. Your eyes . . . they darkened.”

“Do you know what it meant to get that job at KFC, to land clients who trusted you, who had faith in you and unflagging confidence that you'd make them rich? Absolutely fucking great. I had left all of my old life behind, and I found a place where I fit in.”

“You fit in before . . . just, you know, in your world. With your own friends, pursuing your own interests. You just weren't comfortable in your own skin yet, it wasn't like you wanted to be someone else. Don't you get it? That's the lesson, Adam, that envying other people's lives just makes you miserable. So don't think that nobody cared . . . that you didn't matter. Thinking that you don't fit in anywhere, that's an awful outlook on life.”

“It was an even worse way to live. Vanessa . . . can we not do this?”

She crossed over from her side of the porch, sat beside him, her hand caressing his arm. The cool night allowed the temperature to flare up. “Tell me.”

“You sure know how to get a guy's attention, then—and now,” he said. “Okay, well, for starters I hung out with the math geeks. We played stupid games. Get this: One kid would toss out random numbers and the others had to add, subtract, multiply, divide, at will, and if you got it wrong everyone forced you to recite the Pythagorean theorem. For fun. Sounds cool, just like a date at Sno-Cone, huh? I didn't even like math, I sucked at algebra. But there I was. You were out socializing with Danny, drinking your malteds and probably sneaking booze under the bleachers while he was trying to unbutton your blouse, and I was drinking flat grape soda at Hank Goldman's house. No wonder we were nicknamed the Zit Club.”