Shadows 02 Girl in the Shadows (16 page)

"She won't forget. She promised."
All I could do was smile and nod. I kissed her
on the forehead and told her to sleep tight. She nodded
and hugged Mr. Panda to her.
When I stepped out into the hallway. I could
hear Rhona's and Skeeter's laughter below. They had
put on some music, not caring how loud it was and if
it would disturb me or Mrs. Westington. I thought I
heard the sound of something being knocked over,
too. Their laughter stopped and then I heard Rhona
moan. Skeeter laughed and Rhona cried out
passionately. They're probably making love right on
the living room floor. I thought, For a moment I was
tempted to go look. I went into my room instead and
closed the door.
I stood there in the darkness. trembling. How
horrid all this had become. How sorry I felt for Mrs.
Westington. I was sure she would be having a
troubled sleep tonight.
"Uncle Palaver," I whispered, "you taught me how to make coins and cards disappear. You even showed me how you could make me disappear after I crawled into your magic box on the stage. But you forgot to show me how to make a horrid person
disappear."
That's a bit of magic I'll have to learn on my
own. I thought, and went to bed dreaming that
somehow, maybe through Destiny, I would find the
way.

Rhona and Skeeter didn't come down for breakfast. They made lots of noise going up the stairway very late at night, completely inconsiderate of Mrs. Westinton and me, especially me. I heard Skeeter growl at my door, in fact, because he woke me and then I heard them both laughing. If Mrs. Westington heard anything, she didn't mention it. In the morning Echo kept looking for her mother to came down and even asked me if I thought she should go up to see if she was awake.

"They went to bed very late." I told her. "Let them sleep." Let them sleep forever. I thought. Maybe that was mean. but I couldn't help it.

Just as I sat down to have breakfast with Echo and Mrs. Westington, the phone rang. She told me it was Tyler Monahan calling for inc. Echo didn't know it was Tyler and I wasn't about to tell her.

"How are things today?" Tyler asked. I told him what had happened the night before with Echo and how upset Mrs. Westington had been and still was.

"I guess this wouldn't be a good time to bring up my leaving." he said.
"No. it wouldn't. Tyler."
"Can you meet me tonight in your motor home

Excitement trickled through me like a low voltage shock. I knew why he wanted to meet, of course, and it wasn't to improve my academic skills for the equivalency exam.

"I suppose,:" I said.
"And could we turn that doll around?" I laughed. "You're the one who keeps saying it's

just a doll. Tyler."
"That's not just a doll," he said. "Okay. I'll put
her in the bedroom."
"No, maybe leave her out of the bedroom.
That's the one place I don't want her to be," he said. I
could feel myself blush. "One other thing. I think it
might be better if I parked on the road and walked to
the motor home. No need to let anyone else there
know I'm around."
"Okay," I said. although I wasn't comfortable
with us sneaking about the property. Was he trying to
keep all this secret from the people here or from his
mother?
"I'll be there about nine-thirty, waiting for you,"
he said.
Mrs. Westington looked curious about the
phone call, but she didn't ask me anything after I hung
up and I didn't volunteer anything. It's better to say
nothing rather than lie. I thought, and returned to the
breakfast table to join Echo. Trevor hadn't shown up
for dinner the night before and had not come to
breakfast either. I imagined he just didn't want to see
much of Rhona. As it turned out, he wouldn't have
risked it this particular morning. She and Skeeter
didn't come downstairs until nearly noon.
When they finally appeared, they were both
dressed to go out, Rhona wearing one of her old
dresses and a light blue leather jacket I had wished
would fit me. and Skeeter in a relatively clean-looking
pair of jeans, a blue shirt, and a jean jacket with all
sorts of emblems with silly things written on them
like Down with Milk. Mrs. Westington was in the
kitchen. Echo and
I
were in the living room reading
and working on some of her English grammar
problems in preparation for her tutoring session the
next day..
"Don't bother making any breakfast for us.
Ma," Rhona called to Mrs. Westington from the
hallway. "Skeeter and I are going to eat at the Mars Hotel in Healdsburg and then look at some properties we found out about last night. We'll see you later.
Maybe Echo wants to go," she added.
"That girl needs to do her homework for
tomorrow's lessons,"
Mrs. Westington replied quickly.
"Oh. Well, we don't want to interrupt that now,
do we. Skeeter?"
"Absolutely not, Maybe we'll take her to a
movie or something tonight."
"A movie? How do you expect her to enjoy a
movie if she can't hear a word?"
"People used to go to silent movies. Ma,"
Rhona said. "You probably did," she added, and they
both laughed.
"Silent movies were made differently." I
offered from the doorway of the living room. "They
had written words and the actors performed
differently."
"Who said that?" she cried, pretending it was a
voice from out of the blue. She turned and looked at
inc. "Oh, you're still here?" She turned her back on me
and then marched to the front door. "C'mon. Skeeter,
we have work to do," she called back to him. He smiled licentiously at me and moved his tongue over his lower lip. Then he laughed and joined her at the door. They both laughed at something he whispered and then they walked out. I looked back at Echo. She hadn't realized they had come down and I
wasn't about to tell her.
A short while after they had left. Trevor came
in to see how things were and Mrs. Westington gave
him an earful about the night before. He listened,
shook his head sympathetically, and urged her not to
let herself get too upset. She told him all about their
request for money and why.
"I got a very bad feeling about those two," he
told me when Mrs. Westington went upstairs. "I don't
think they're here for the real estate business prospects
they claim. Before they left yesterday, two men drove
up and spoke with that Skeeter fellow, and both
looked like they had been dragged out of a swamp.
My guess is they need money, but not to buy old
houses to fix up. They have serious debts with bad
people."
"What are we going to do?" I asked him. "Nothing right now. All I got to go on is a
feeling, but you watch and wait long enough and the
rat comes out."
"To me it already has." I said.
He nodded and went out to the winery.
Meanwhile. Echo, impatient now, went looking for
her mother and discovered she was gone. A look of
panic came over her when she found out they had left.
Her hands were flying about like small birds trying to
draw diagrams in the air. 'Where were they? When did
they leave? When were they coming back?"
"They have business here and had an
appointment," I told her.
Maybe I was passing on a lie as Trevor thought,
but I didn't want her worrying. I saw she couldn't
concentrate on our work. She was constantly thinking
about her mother, looking alit the window for her and
Skeeter's return, so I asked Mrs. Westington if it
would be all right to take Echo for a ride. "We'll
return to the mall," I told her. "I need some other
things and Echo enjoyed it so."
She thought a moment and nodded. "It would
be good to keep her mind off you know who," she
said, reading my mind. "And I know you're
responsible and trustworthy enough to look after her." When I told Echo, she was bright and happy
again. This would actually be the first trip she had
ever taken without her grandmother and Trevor
Washington. I unhooked my car from Uncle Palaver's motor home and brought it around to the front of the
house.
"Where you headed?" Trevor asked. I told him
and explained why.
"Can't blame the girl. I guess," he said. "After
you lose someone you love or someone who loves
you, you'd forgive them all their sins and
imperfections if you could have them back. You'd
even make a deal with the devil."
"That's who Echo would have to speak to about
her mother," I told him, and he laughed.
"Have a good time," he said, and returned to his
favorite work. I realized it was work that kept him in
close contact with the best memories of his life. It was
truly a labor of love, and despite all the complaining
Mrs. Westington voiced about it, she was happy for
him, maybe even envious. I wished I could find a way
to reconnect with my good memories, too, reconnect
without all the baggage of sadness that accompanied
them.
I honked the horn and Mrs. Westington brought
Echo out. She had helped her choose one of her new
skirt and blouse outfits and she did look pretty. It was
a partly sunny day with high brisk winds smearing the
clouds over the blue sky so that they thinned out and spread like tattered white cloth toward the southwest. Sunlight brought a brightness to her face the way it
would open a flower.
Echo got into the car. She was very excited
now, the short trip truly a major adventure in her eyes
because it was just the two of us. She watched me
drive and then told me Tyler had promised that soon
he would teach her how to drive so she could be ready
for her driving test when she was of age. She showed
me some of the signing related to driving that he had
already taught her, such as the signs for right and left
turn, speeding up and slowing down.
^-
Wasn't it wrong
to make such promises to her knowing he was
inevitably going to leave much sooner than she ever
imagined he would? I made a mental note to ask him
about that later.
By the time we arrived at the mall, school had
ended for the day and many of the students were
already gathering at their favorite mall stores, pizza
hangouts, and the arcade. I took Echo directly to the
shoe store first to buy myself a new pair of running
shoes. I remembered all the things Brenda had told me
about good running shoes and sought them out,
Afterward. I bought Echo a bread pretzel and a soda
and just had a diet soda myself. She was intrigued by the other girls her age and couldn't take her eyes off them while they flirted with boys and giggled. The worst wallflower wasn't as outside of teenage society as poor Echo was. I thought. I should know. I had
been one.
Once again, she was fascinated by the kids in
the music store listening to music and riffling through
CDs. To my surprise she wanted to go in. I had no
idea what we would do there. but I agreed. She went
to the racks and, watching how the others were doing
it, began to sift through them, picking one out and
reading about the artist or the band as if she was really
thinking of buying it. I stood by smiling to myself
until, imitating the others, she put a CD on a player
and then put a pair of earphones on herself, too. How
sad. I thought. If my heart were made of glass, it
would have shattered in my chest.
When I tried to sign to her, she turned her back
on me quickly so the others couldn't see and discover
she was deaf. She nearly pulled it off, too, but she
caught the eye of a boy about a year or so older than
she was and he sauntered over to her. He smiled at her
and began to talk about the music she was playing. I
could see her desperately trying to read his lips, but
her fear of speaking poorly and his slightly turned head made it impossible for her to go on with her fantasy much longer. I saw the confusion in his face and so did she. She turned to me quickly in
desperation and I had no idea what to do or say. Instead. I moved in quickly and took the
earphones off. stepping between her and the boy. "What are you listening to?" I asked her, and
put on the earphones.
I
grimaced. "You think this is
good?" I asked the boy.
He glanced at Echo and then at me, his face
filling with annoyance.
"I wasn't talking to you." he said.
"I
was talking
to her." He then sidestepped to ignore me and asked
Echo who she was and where she went to school. He
wanted to know why he hadn't seen her before. Was
she a new student?
I tried to prompt her, but she was too nervous to
pick up the signals and he immediately caught her
looking at me instead of at him.
"What the hell's going on?" he asked, his
suspicions building.
"Nothing. Bug off," I said. I signed to Echo that
we should leave quickly.
He caught my hand movements and his eyes
widened.
"What are you doing?" He looked at her and
then at me. She can't hear?"
"That's right, smart ass." I said.
"Then why was she... what are you, both nuts?"
He shook his head and backed away as if we could
infect him with some strange new disease.
I hurriedly put away the CD and seized Echo's
arm to turn her toward the door. The boy was already
describing us to his friends, who all looked our way. I
heard their laughter. Echo looked back and saw their
faces of ridicule. Her face quickly fell into an
expression of total embarrassment. For her it was truly
as if she had been caught naked. I tried to walk us
down the mall corridor faster, but it was too late. The
small group of teenagers decided we were to be their
entertainment for the afternoon. We were too unusual
to be ignored and a great alternative to their ordinary
mall activities. They charged out of the music store
behind us, a small clump of kids, laughing and
hooting, which only attracted more attention and more
of their friends.
No matter where we went, they tagged along,
anxious to catch me signing to Echo, who by this time
was so frightened and confused, she was trembling. I
searched desperately for the nearest exit and directed her to it, hoping that when they saw we were leaving, they would get bored and return to their own interests. But they were probably bored with themselves. I
thought, for they weren't discouraged. By now there were nearly twenty or so of them following us and the scene was attracting everyone's attention, store clerks, adult customers, and security guards. Like nails to a
magnet, other teenagers joined the moving mob. Because we left the mall from a different exit. I
was momentarily confused about where I had parked.
I started in one direction and then another. Echo now
clinging to my arm with a sickening desperation. We
couldn't shake off the hooting and jeering kids. One of
the younger, bolder girls behind us ran to catch up and
stepped in front of us.
"Why was she listening to music if she's deaf?"
she asked with a wide grin on her face. She practically
screamed the question so the others would hear. I tried
to ignore her, but she followed alongside and repeated
the question, punctuating it with a louder "Huh?
Well? Huh?"
Finally. I stopped and turned on her. The others
drew closer. "You're a very cruel person, you know
that," I said.
"Cruel? You're weird. Why did you bring her to
a music store?"
"Because she's never been to one!" I screamed
at her. She took a step back. "She's your age and she's
never heard music. She didn't even see a music store
until recently and she wishes with all her heart she
could be like you and be like them." I said. G
esturing
at the group behind us. "She was pretending, all right?
She was just pretending that she didn't have any
disabilities at all."
"I still think that's stupid," the girl replied,
angry now that I had made her retreat,
"That's because you're stupid. Its a shoe that fits
and fits well," I said. "Now just leave us alone. Go
back to your own deafness."
"Huh? My own deafness? What's that supposed
to mean?"
"Figure it out," I said, and moved Echo
forward,
"You're weird! Nuts! Freaks!" the girl shouted
after us. A chorus of "Freaks" followed.
For the first time.
I
thought Echo was better off
being deaf.
I couldn't wait to get us back into my car and
drive off. I had a fear they would get into cars and
follow us. but I didn't see any automobiles rushing out after us. so I finally relaxed. Echo looked as if she had retreated into a very private, dark place. She was curled up in her seat, her head down. I had no idea where I should take her now. I simply continued driving until we reached Healdsburg. I drove into the town and, seeing an arts and crafts fair in the square, pulled into a parking spot and asked Echo if she would like to walk about the booths and see the things people were selling. She looked very timid and still frightened, but I urged her to go, hoping to show her good things and wipe away the bad experience we just had. Hesitantly, she got out of the car with me and we began walking through the square looking at the pottery, the paintings, and the handcrafted jewelry. I