Beyond the Storm (9780758276995) (19 page)

Vanessa let out a laugh, then quickly apologized. “Sorry, I forgot about that.”

“Where's the wine?”

“Now you sound like me.”

“That's why we get along,” he said. “I think it's still in the kitchen, I'll be right back.”

Adam left her to her own thoughts. In the craziness of the day, all the events that had occurred between the two of them—first thrust together by the chance accident and then by some untenable passion—she hadn't actually thought about the true nature of their relationship. Where had it even begun? On the grassy hill beside the school's water tower when he asked her to the prom . . . or, more accurately, where she asked him? Or even before that, when neither of them knew who they were or what the universe held for them? They did have a surprising amount in common, including that overwhelming desire to get out from under where you grew up, redefine yourself as you saw fit. No one to judge you, your decisions. Not once today had they lost patience with each other, lost their temper. Well, more so Vanessa than Adam, but never at the other's expense. But there was more than that pulling her toward him. No doubt she found him attractive, that wasn't up for debate. She wondered what would come with tomorrow, under the new light of a fresh morning.

Answers to such questions would have to wait, the night still held more secrets.

Clearly those secrets were close to revealing themselves.

Adam returned with the wine, two new glasses.

“Don't break this one, we're out of jelly glasses.”

“At least the glass was empty when I dropped it.”

“The rare occasion when the glass being empty was a positive,” he said, raising his glass with yet another toast.

“Now what?”

“We would have had to endure even more toasts at the reunion. So just run with it.”

“Okay, toastmaster. Toast away.”

He thought before speaking. “Actually, let's cheer to us.”

“Us?”

“Yes. For what we've been through, and what we've become.”

“Stronger?”

“Wiser.”

“Drunker,” she said, and laughed with the sound of someone grown suddenly content. In this life, this crazy world, you took what you got, you made memories out of moments, and you locked them in your mind so no one could steal them from you. She sipped, looked up at Adam to guess what he was thinking and found him staring out into the blackness. What hung back out of their reach was sealed up and unforeseen, like those letters upstairs, but that didn't mean it failed to exist. Memories she chose not to remember, they had a way of sneaking out.

“So . . . math club?”

“It wasn't an official club . . .” He stopped, smiled at how ridiculous he sounded, trying to defend a decision he'd made more than twenty years ago. “Look, let's not dwell on Danton Hill High. Those kids were my friends when I needed them, and then I moved on because I couldn't see myself drinking grape soda the rest of my school days. So I drifted away, but not anywhere where I found solid land. Just islands, many of them my own. I wasn't athletic, my singing was bad enough for the shower to turn off automatically, and I didn't smoke or do drugs, so . . . you know, no hanging out behind the school with those kids.”

“Sounds lonely.”

“I survived.”

A comfortable silence enveloped them even as the cool air swirled around them. Vanessa sensed there was something more he wanted to say, he was just taking his time getting there. Rather than rush the moment, she would offer him the same consideration he had shown her, so she could wait till the right time. So she remained sitting, drinking, waiting, thinking.

He spoke at last. “Sophomore year, I still looked like I could pass for a sixth grader. You know, get in for less at the movies? Which everyone thought was a cool thing—well, the math guys, anyway. They would calculate how much money I'd saved with such a scam. But that's not the story . . . it's . . . yeah, sophomore year . . . I was so naïve, dumb even.”

He took another sip, checked out the bottle's contents. Enough for one last round.

“It was February,” he said. “Actually, the fourteenth.”

“Valentine's Day,” Vanessa said, realizing just where this stroll down memory lane was taking them. Because in a flash she remembered that day too, the square red envelope, the red and white card littered with golden sparkles that fell all over her dress when she opened it. She knew before she read the cramped signature line that the card had been from Adam; the way he'd looked at her queerly all day long, as though waiting for a chance to talk to her when friends didn't surround her, classmates . . . Danny, he'd been waiting to give her this.

And lost his courage.

“Do you know that I gave you a Valentine's card?”

“Actually, you didn't give it to me. You
left
it for me, sliding it right through the upper slots of my school locker. I found it after football practice—I always stayed after school to watch Danny. He said he tossed better when I was cheering him on.”

“I put it there at the end of the day. I almost didn't.”

“I'm glad you did.”

“You are?”

“Remember in grade school every Valentine's Day our teachers would have us cut and paste cards? Glue everywhere and inevitably one of the kids would cut himself with those cheap scissors and go bleeding his way down to the school nurse, but in the end we all got those little makeshift cards made and passed them around to classmates and family and even some teachers. It was a pretty corny tradition. But still, as forced upon us as they were, there was inherent sweetness to getting loads of valentines.” She paused, pouring a bit more wine into her glass. “That sophomore year, the only Valentine's Day card I received was the one from you.”

“But Danny . . .”

She waved off his comment before he could say anything more. “But Danny nothing. I remember that night clearly because he went out with his buddies. Someone had a fake ID and so they drank a case of cheap beer and probably puked their guts out later. Not that they didn't deserve it. Happy Valentine's Day, Vanessa!”

“What did you do?”

“I sat at home and ate a pint of rocky road and held your card.”

“It was corny.”

“Yup. It was sweet too. I remember what you wrote inside it.”

“You couldn't possibly . . . ?”

“You start, I'll finish.”

“‘From the land to the sea . . .” Adam began.

“‘You are all I see,'” Vanessa completed. “I knew it was from you.”

“How could you know? How did I sign it?”

“You signed it . . .” She paused. She sought an answer in her emerging memories. Could she picture the card, the awkward, juvenile lettering? A surprised expression crossed her face and she looked up. “There was no name, no signature. Just . . .”

“Just what?”

“Initials.”

Adam nodded. “What initials?”

“A.B.”

“See, could have been anybody.”

She tossed him a look of genial annoyance. “Not likely. I knew then, and I know now, it was the initials of one Adam Blackburn.”

He went along with the idea, for now. “Okay, fine. So I was hiding behind an alias. You figured it out. A.B. was Adam Blackburn. Guilty as charged. I was a dork.”

“Yes, you were,” she said.

“Gee, thanks.”

“Danny saw it.”

“What?”

She'd gone there, might as well continue. “The Valentine's card. He came over to my house a couple days later and your card was still on my dresser, right beside my earring tree and jewelry box.”

“What did he do?”

“Oh, he tore it to shreds, tossed it into the air like it was confetti.”

“I'm sorry.”

She looked away, almost shamed. “You can't go back. You can't change who you were. Not you, not me, definitely not Danny.”

“He was, is, and probably always will be a jerk.”

Setting her glass down, Vanessa stood up, her feet taking her a distance from Adam, her arms encircling the columns of the porch for support, for something to lean on. She, like Adam before her, stared out in the darkness, and even though her eyes couldn't be certain what she had found beyond those blackened borders, she knew what images her mind saw. She saw Danton Hill, eleven years ago, the last time she'd ever set foot on its soil. The week before her interview with Mrs. Stillwell-Abramson, just a few days before she would coincidentally run into Adam at the Standard and screw him in the men's room because she just wanted to forget. She had returned home that time—thankfully with Reva at her side—for a funeral.

“Adam,” Vanessa said, “Danny Stoker's dead.”

“Oh, uh, wow. I'm sorry. I didn't know.”

“That's why I came back to the States, that time when we met up in New York.”

“You'd gone home?”

“All the way to Danton Hill.”

“So, a little part of you, maybe you still loved Danny? Loved the memories of your fun times in high school, not how it ended or what happened after that . . .”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. Pain stabbed at her heart. “I didn't love Danny Stoker, and I doubt I ever did. You know why I went back?”

Adam was still seated on the porch. She could feel his eyes bearing down on her, but she couldn't look back at him, she couldn't reveal the awful emotions boiling inside her heart. “No. But I think you want to tell me.”

“I just wanted to see it for myself. I wanted to see him lying in that casket.”

Her focus was elsewhere, so the sudden warmth of his arms surprised her. She welcomed his touch, invited him closer. He held her, and she held him, and she allowed a tear to fall from her eyes and slide down unchecked upon her cheek. She did nothing to wipe it away, it would have meant breaking free from his embrace and that was the last thing she wanted. Right now, this time and this moment, amidst clouds and blackness, equal parts mystery and darkness, she needed to feel something other than pain.

Just then Adam broke the embrace, but still never let go of her hand.

“Vanessa Massey,” he said, taking a step back. “May I have this dance?”

“Excuse me?”

“I want to dance with you.”

“Adam, there's no music.”

“Hey, our cars got to dance, the music of crashing metal.”

“That's not even funny.”

“So stop questioning reality, it's not real, not now,” he said. “Only the two of us exist in this moment, and we can make any noise we want and no one will hear us. Music surrounds us if we want it, it's in our hearts and our minds. We can feel the beat between our hearts, the heat between our bodies, the rhythm of our emotions whenever we want. Feel it now, Vanessa, feel the music with me.”

She thought he was crazy but maybe crazy was good, maybe right now crazy was perfect. She accepted his lead, taking hold of his strong hand. He led her around the width of the porch, one step, then two, then three and then four in classic ballroom fashion, and she was the lucky girl in the swirling gown and he was the handsome boy who smelled of fresh cedar, and with the waltz playing somewhere way back in their past but somehow seeping through an encroaching glint of moonlit darkness and into this dreamy moment, she suddenly laughed and shouted and waited with giddy anticipation before he twirled her around, not once and not twice but a third time, until she dizzyingly collapsed into his arms.

“Oh Adam, I wish somehow this night could last forever.”

Sealing her wish with a kiss upon her lips, he finally broke and said, “Forever yours.”

I
t was the day before Danton Hill High School's “Forever Yours” senior prom, and a nervous, sweaty Adam Blackburn knew the approaching night would end in unmitigated disaster, just one more lousy high school memory that he would hopefully banish from his mind once he skipped town for college and the fortunes that awaited him beyond these borders. If that was the case, why then was he actually going through with this foolish venture? What possible reason existed for him to be escorting the beautiful, alluring, but ultimately infuriating Vanessa Massey?

Good question, one he'd silently been asking himself countless times since the afternoon he and Vanessa had agreed to attend the dance together, like a deal made with the devil. No one in school was supposed to know about the unlikely coupling of Adam Blackburn and Vanessa Massey, save for her insider gang who had pressured Adam initially to come forth with the invite. Sure, they all knew, but they had also been sworn to secrecy on threat of being disowned by their cool friends. Adam had just a few true friends himself, and he hadn't spoken a word to them. He had made a promise to Vanessa that he wouldn't talk about their non-date, and she promised too, they had even shaken hands over it, their first touch of intimacy of any nature.

So then it was a total and not too pleasant surprise that Adam found himself cornered in the empty corridor outside the lunchroom by four guys led by a pissed-off Danny Stoker on that Thursday afternoon before the fateful dance. He was positioned ironically beneath one of the prom banners that hung throughout the school when they approached him. Danny took the lead, of course; as the captain and quarterback of the Danton Hill Great Lakers football team there was an automatic deference to his leadership—what he said went, and who he picked on . . . well, his gang was right there beside him.

Toby, Kyle, Frank . . . and Danny, lead singer and backup, ready to doo-wop on Adam.

Danny, all six-two of him, strong, agile, with thick dark hair and more than a hint of razor scruff on his nearly eighteen-year-old face, leaned in close, intimidation on the menu; Adam could smell the cigarette smoke on his breath. The threat, and what else could it be—certainly not a friendly exchange between pals, not with this body language, not with their respective status in school—was simple, intimidating, and straight to the point. “Cancel your plans Friday night, you ain't going anywhere near the gym.”

Adam never felt smaller than in this guy's presence, like the sun had been blocked and he was living in its shadow. An image flashed in his mind, of him and Vanessa dancing across that gymnasium floor and how ridiculous it would look when the picture everyone had expected to see was one of Danny and Vanessa, the ideal high school couple enjoying their final moment of glory. King and queen, ready to be crowned, suddenly upset by a stunning coup.

Or in Danny's language, an interception.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Adam found himself saying.

Danny Stoker looked surprised; no one ever questioned him.

“Punk, what did you just say?”

“What makes you think I'm going to that stupid dance?”

“You think I'm dumb?” he asked.

Adam couldn't help himself, he gave the smart-mouth response. “Changing topics?”

Danny Stoker's face scrunched up, confused and annoyed, probably because the latter informed the former. He raised his large hand, usually perfect for throwing the ideal spiral with the football, and thrust it under Adam's tight throat. He pushed upward. Adam felt his feet rise slightly off the ground.

“Listen to me good, punk. This conversation is over. You've been told what you have to do.”

“You mean, what I don't have to do,” Adam said, wondering where this shot of bravery was coming from.

That same angry scowl came across his new enemy's face, now red from embarrassment. “Show up here tomorrow night and you'll live to regret it.”

“What if I do show up, and what if I'm not alone?”

“Oh, then you'll have no more regrets. Because you'll be dead.”

Released from his hold, shoved against a line of thin metal lockers, Adam's feet gave out and he slid to the floor in pain he tried not to show. The four guys headed off down the hall, laughing and high-fiving, walking tall like the king and princes of school that they were. Jerks.

Cut to the next night, and Adam was alone in his bedroom, staring at the taunting tuxedo that hung from that little hook on the back of his door. He was scheduled to pick up Vanessa in twenty minutes, and she lived fifteen minutes away on the other side of town. Which any math geek could tell meant he had just five minutes to don the tux, and that included tying the bow tie, no clip-on here. Of course he'd been standing, pondering, debating for the past half hour, still unconvinced he was actually going through with the “date.” Danny Stoker's threatening words reverberated in his ears. But could he really end his high school days on such a low note of cowardice, of leaving the pretty girl who had invited him, even if it had been last minute and really didn't mean anything outside of her revenge on the boy who'd broken her heart? Could he go out a loser and let her go out shamed? These were big issues for someone of his tender age, and he had no one to discuss them with. No friend who would understand, neither of his parents suspected anything was wrong. He knew what he had to do: face the music, whether Danny's or the orchestra's. It was fight or dance, but no matter what happened, in the end he couldn't leave Vanessa in her dress, standing on the porch waiting in vain for Mr. Temporary Charming.

“So, it's been a good run . . . some people think death is the better alternative,” he said to the mirror. The person who stared back swallowed a lump in his throat.

And with such a creed spoken, Adam Blackburn donned his funeral suit.

 

Four years of being one of the most popular girls in high school, all of her efforts culminated in this one grand moment: the senior prom. So why then did she feel like she was starting fresh, starting over, and her social status had gone from one hundred to zero faster than she'd said no to Danny's insistent advances? She wondered what the big deal was over sleeping with him. Get it over with, she'd have to eventually, so why not with the boy she'd endured the last four years with? Because it just didn't feel right. He was handsome, he was popular, she loved the way his kisses tickled her neck . . . but . . . well, the longer she knew him the more she was convinced what a self-centered jerk he was.

Now, as a result of her actions, her . . . pride, she was attending the “Forever Yours” Senior Prom with sweet, reliable, fresh-faced Adam Blackburn. Except tonight he wasn't exactly living up to that reliable reputation. He was already fifteen minutes late and she was growing antsy. God, what the hell had she been thinking? Did he even know how to drive? Maybe his bicycle had gotten a flat.

A moment later she saw the sweeping glow of headlights appear and heard tires crunch over the driveway gravel.

Vanessa, who had been watching and waiting from her bedroom window, like a prisoner, bolted out of her room, running down the stairs despite her heels and the flowing violet gown that billowed out from under her. She reached the front door seconds before her mother did, opened the front door, and stepped out onto the dimly lit porch.

“Vanessa, dear, isn't Danny coming in for pictures?”

“Oh. Mom . . . uh, no, he had a sports injury the other day, his nose is swollen,” she said, conjuring that scene from a corny
Brady Bunch
episode she'd caught on Nick at Nite, turning Marcia's bloated nose to her advantage. “He insisted no formal pictures. We'll take some at the dance, when the lighting isn't so revealing . . .”

“Okay, dear, you know best,” her mother said to the fleeing figure.

Such was one advantage of Vanessa's easily won independence.

So that's how Vanessa deflected the question of who was taking her to the senior prom, and good thing Adam was so willing to go along with every covert suggestion she came up with. Don't honk, don't come to the door, wait in the car, drive away quickly. That's what happened when she hopped into the front seat, not even giving him a chance to chivalrously open the door. “Drive,” was all she said as acknowledgment to her date, and like he'd done since the moment they agreed to this foolish venture, he did as asked. For the next several minutes, as they drove through the village of Danton Hill, Vanessa fixed her makeup with the aid of the mirror above the passenger seat, and more than once did she stop and look deeper into her red-shaded eyes and wonder why going to this dance even mattered. Wasn't there a big world out there, one that didn't care about the petty concerns of a high school cheerleader who'd lost all reason to wave her pom-poms?

It wasn't until they arrived on the school grounds and he parked that she even looked at Adam, really looked at him. He had opened the door for her this time, his hand outstretched.

“Oh, Adam . . . thank you.”

“My mother insisted I act the perfect gentleman.”

“You told your mother you were going to the prom?”

“Well, the tux kind of gave me away. And I had to ask my dad for the car, which I never do. They had questions, but don't worry, they don't know I'm with you . . . that you're with me. I told them I didn't have a date, it was just a bunch of friends going . . . is that all right?”

“It's fine . . . and I appreciate your flexibility, Adam.” Why was she being so hesitant with him? Why was she so on edge? This was supposed to be fun, one last party with her friends before graduation, before the school sent you out into the world with all those hard-fought lessons, where success and failure were yours depending upon the decisions you made. Grown-up decisions. No more tests, this was real.

That's when she noticed how nice Adam looked, how . . . yes, grown-up. His thick brown hair was slicked back, his cheeks red and freshly shaved, not that he looked like he needed to scrape away the peach fuzz all that often; but still, she appreciated his effort. What she noticed most was the violet-colored bow tie and the red kerchief in the jacket pocket, a perfect match and complement to the colors of her own dress. In her hair she wore a scarlet flower, pinned to the side. With one simple burst of festive color, they looked like they went together, like they had planned this weeks in advance. A perfectly matched pair. But when he presented her with a corsage so bright, so vibrantly purple and alive, right there in the parking lot while others of their classmates headed into the gym, she realized that Adam had put more effort into the night than she had anticipated. As he slid the flower, adorned with a red ribbon, onto her wrist, she felt a passing weakness, like she could faint. She couldn't look into his eyes. She looked anywhere else, at the water tower where they'd agreed to this night, at the football field in the distance where she'd cheered on a dominant Danny and the team, but mostly at the large dome of the looming gym, wondering just what was going to happen inside it.

“Vanessa?”

She didn't even hear her own name, not at first. There might have been an echo and only the reverberation by the wind off the lake brought her back to the moment. She finally let her eyes settle on Adam's earnest face. He looked lost, like he didn't even know how he'd gotten to this point. A wave of remorse swept over her as she realized she was using him to fulfill some dumb girlish fantasy and that he knew it too, and that tonight was as much a memory that would stick with him as it would her. But other matters took precedence. Because no matter whom you went with, not attending the prom represented the ultimate social failure for any high schooler.

“Adam?”

“Yeah?”

“We don't have to go through with this, you know?”

His face remained impassive. He was hard to read. “This is your night. I'm your escort. We do what you want.”

Her eyes softened. And her heart melted, just a tiny bit.

“You're so much more a gentleman than . . .”

But he stopped her from saying it, a simple gesture of his finger upon her lips.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

“Don't be. It's natural that you think about . . .”

“No names,” she said.

“No names,” he agreed.

That's when she took hold of his hand, slipped her fingers within his. She ignored the fact that his hand was moist and sweaty. She couldn't blame him his apprehension. Her heart was beating a mile a minute.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Are you?”

She swallowed all those butterflies doing flips in her stomach and thought instead about the day she'd been named head cheerleader. She decided nothing could ruin this night, no one. Confidence swelled inside her. “Adam Blackburn?”

“Yes, Vanessa Massey?”

From somewhere deep inside her, she found strength from a previously untapped source. “May I have this first dance?”