Shadows 02 Girl in the Shadows (21 page)

"Well, look who's here, everyone, the Lonely Ranger and her trusty companion. Trevor. Trevor's been here since the first gape was discovered," Rhona said. The fat balding man laughed, but the others just held their smiles.
Skeeter kept his eyes fixed on Trevor as if he was anxious to see exactly what he would do.
"These happen to be some of my old friends,'" Rhona added. "Maybe you remember Billy Roche and Gretta Lockheart, Trevor. They were often here.'"
"I remember them." he said. nodding. "You're making some mess for Mrs. Westinton," he said.
"Oh, she won't care and besides, she's not coming home tomorrow, is she? We have extra domestic help. Everyone, that girl standing there gaping at me is my daughter. Echo. Echo is deaf, so just smile at her. please.
"Besides, Trevor," she continued. "April Fool will clean up after us, won't you. April Fool? That's how she earns her room and board, cleaning up. Oh," she said, nodding at something on the other side of the coffee table, "I'm sorry, but that cup with your face on it just fell apart. You watch out when you pick up the pieces. I don't want you to cut your fingers or anything.'"
She laughed, but everyone else just looked at us, waiting for the response. Skeeter took another swig of his whiskey.
"Mrs. Westington asked me to look after things while she's away." Trevor said slowly. He took a step forward, "She don't like there being strangers in her home while she's away and she don't want no parties and messes either. You tell these people to go and take their drugs and crap with them," he said.
Rhona started to sit up, but failed. Skeeter laughed and then pushed her.
"Don't tell me what to do in my own house,' she said.
"This ain't your house. It's Mrs. Westington's house. Now you people leave quickly or I call the police, and I got no reason not to tell them what's on that table there," he said. nodding at the cocaine.
"Shit. Rhona," Billy Roche said, sitting up quickly. "You said we'd have no trouble crashing here tonight"
"Don't listen to him." Rhona said.
"Yeah, right. I'm about to explain myself to the Highway Patrol." Roche stood up.
The woman at the table started to brush the cocaine into a sheet of paper.
"What are you doing? Don't let him frighten you!" Rhona cried.
Trevor stepped up to the heavy man in Mrs. Westington's chair and glared down at him. "'That's Mrs. Westington's chair you're in, boy, and she don't like no one else sitting in it, much less putting his dirty feet on her table.
^-
The heavy, balding man pulled himself up quickly. "Hey, I'm getting the hell outta here. I'm on probation." he said, quickly slipping on his shoes.
"Tommy!" Rhona shouted. "Don't let him tell you what to do. He's an employee."
"You comin'. Martha?" he asked the woman at the table instead of responding to Rhona. The woman got up quickly, carefully folding the paper with the cocaine in it and putting it into her purse.
The others moved toward the living room doorway. One man wobbled a bit, but put one leg in front of the other.
"You're all just a bunch of wimps!" Rhona shouted after them.
I stood back. holding Echo's hand. Rhona looked at Trevor and then groaned and fell back against Skeeter. He took another swig on his bottle.
We heard them all leave.
"You're going to be sorry you did that," Rhona threatened. "I've already met with my attorney. Things are going to change very quickly here. Start thinking about leaving."
"I better not hear you made any more trouble tonight," Trevor replied.
Skeeter looked at him, but couldn't stare him down and shifted his eves quickly.
I told Echo we should go up to bed. She nodded, looked at the mess and at her mother, and then moved quickly to the stairway. I knew she was very frightened and I decided to invite her to sleep with me.
"I hate leaving you two in here with them," Trevor said. "We'll be all right, Trevor," I told him.
"You come get me if you're not,," he said. He glared at Skeeter and Rhona and then he left the house.
"Good riddance!" Rhona yelled after him.
As we went up the stairs. I heard her mumbling and crying to Skeeter.
"Relax," he said, loud enough for me to hear. "Time's on our side."
When we got to the top of the stairway, I heard the phone ringing and hurried into Mrs. Westington's bedroom to pick up the receiver. Echo followed me. It was Tyler.
"I'm just calling to see what happened with her," he said when I said hello.
I told him about Mrs. Westington and then about Rhona and the mess they had made with the friends they had over.
"That's a bad situation there," Tyler said. "My advice to you is to get out."
"Get out? But how can I do that? I can't leave them like this. with Mrs. Westineton in the hospital. We'll talk about it tomorrow. okay?"
"I'm not coming back tomorrow or the day after or the day after that," he said. "I promised my mother. I'm finished up there. April."
"But I thought you were going to wait until we had Echo established at least. I thought--
""
"Rhona stopped in our store today."
"What?"
"Rhona stopped in our store today. She told my mother what she saw you and I doing. My mother thinks that's the only reason I wanted to go there."
"Oh. my God. Rhona's such a lowlife."
"Yeah, well, she did it. She only wants to make trouble and get rid of you. My mother was very upset. so I told her it wasn't true."
"I know. Put it out of mind. Like it never happened."
"I'm sorry, but she was too upset. I told her Rhona was lying. I convinced her when I told her that you..."
"What?" I demanded when he hesitated.
"Don't like to be with boys.
I
had to do it," he added quickly. "I told her what happened to you with your sister's girlfriend and I said you liked it."
"You said what?"
"I had to do it," he repeated.
He had to do it? I couldn't speak.
"You don't need me to help you anymore anyway. Just contact any school about the
equivalency exam and get yourself scheduled, if you want. You should pass."
"How could you do that, say that? What I told you about Celia was something I hadn't told anyone. Not even Mrs. Westington knew those sort of details about my feelings."
"I'm sorry. It was a way to get my mother to believe me. It doesn't matter anyway what she believes about you."
"But how can you just stop coming here?"
"I'm sorry," he said. I began to hate the sound of the word.
"But what am I going to tell Echo? Tyler, you can't just not come."
"Just tell her I have to help my mother."
"Why can't you tell her?"
"I can't." he cried. "Just do it!" he said, and hung up.
I held the receiver in my hand and against my ear as if his words were still reverberating. I knew Echo was standing right behind me and I didn't want her to see the tears streaking down my cheeks. I sucked in my breath and with my back to her. I wiped my tears away. Then I hung up the phone and slowly turned to her. smiling.
She was worried it had been the hospital and something about her grandmother.
"No, no," I assured her. "It was... Tyler."
"Ty? What did he want?" she signed.
I thought a moment and then, keeping my smile. I told her he called to see how her grandmother was, but also to say he was having problems at his business and he wouldn't be coming around for a while.
"When will he come?" she wanted to know,
"Soon," I said. "I'll work with you until he does," I said.
She stared at me. "You're lying," she signed. "You're lying!" She turned and ran out.
"Echo!" I cried.
I heard Rhona's laughter on the stairway.
"April Fool, don't you know she's deaf?" she screamed, and laughed even harder.
I followed Echo into her room to reassure her. She sat on her bed, staring down at the floor, refusing to look at my signing or my lips. Her whole world was in free fall, a mad state of turmoil with Mrs. Westington in the hospital, her mother behaving badly, and now Tyler Monahan refusing to return. I was all she had and I wasn't much. I thought.
Rhona paused at the doorway as she and Skeeter made their way to the guest room.
"Look at them. How pathetic. I want you out of my room tomorrow. April Fool, You move into the guest room until you leave, which won't be much longer, understand? I don't know why I stood for you being in there in the first place."
I didn't answer. I sat quietly, waiting for her to pass.
"C'mon," Skeeter told her. "I'm tired of all this crap. We got a lot to do tomorrow."
"Yeah, we got a lot to do and everything we do moves you closer to being thrown out," she told me. She lingered there. Echo looked up at her. "Don't think you can turn her against me either. She's my daughter no matter what."
"Rhona!"
"All right, damn it, hold your water." She turned back to me. "You'll be sorry. You'll all be sorry," she said, and walked on.
Echo looked at me for some explanation.
How do you sign she's drunk? I wondered, and just improvised with gestures showing drinking and wobbling and spinning my eyes. It brought a smile to her face.
"C'mon," I told her. "You can sleep with me tonight. Bring Mr, Panda."
She liked that idea and followed me out. We both got ready for bed. I closed the bedroom door, but there was no way to lock it. For a moment I considered putting the vanity table chair up against it, but decided that was too much and I didn't want to frighten Echo any more than necessary.
Before she got into bed with me, she ran back to her room. I thought she was going for her pajamas, but instead, she returned with the dream catcher.
"Good idea,'" I told her. If there was any night we needed it. I thought, it was tonight.
She got undressed and into bed and I did the same. I saw her signing her prayer, which included her grandmother and then something about her mother. Then she turned over and went to sleep. I lay there staring into the darkness slightly brightened by the starlight coming through the windows. I heard Rhona's laugh and then her curses and eventually, what sounded like her sobbing.
Skeeter doesn't have it as good as he thinks being with her. I thought. She'll bring him bigger and bigger problems. The question was how big would the problems be that she would
bring to us.
A few hours later. I had the first indication when I realized the bedroom door had been opened and Rhona was standing at the foot of my bed. She was naked and had a glass of water in her hand. Her disheveled hair flew wildly about her face masked in the darkness. There was just a small glitter of light caught in her eyes. She looked ghoulish, ghostly, the shadow of Death itself in some female form.
"What the hell is going on here?' she demanded. Echo didn't see her there and was in a deep sleep.
"What do you want?"
"Why isn't she in her own bed?"
"She's frightened with her grandmother in the hospital and you getting drunk and having drunken drug addict friends here messing up the house, which she has seen only respected and kept neat and clean."
"Is that the truth?"
"Look in the mirror," I replied. I was
frightened, too, perhaps as frightened as Echo was, but Brenda always taught me never to show fear. Fear slows you down, weakens you, she said. The opponent gets stronger. Swallow it back, cover it up, hate it.
"You'd better be out of this room tomorrow or else," she threatened. "And don't go running to my mother for help. either. You make her sicker with your lies and stories, and I'll have you arrested. She might really have a stroke then." she added. "'You'll be responsible."
She stepped closer and more into the
illumination. I could see her cold, calculating smile, her teeth like a mouth of ice. She was right, of course. I wouldn't tell Mrs. Westington about any of this or she would insist on coming right home. For now. I was trapped. We were trapped. I said nothing. She took a drink of her water, turned and walked out, leaving the bedroom door opened.
I waited until I heard her go into the guest room and then I rose to close my door.
I
didn't feel safe with it open. but I knew it didn't provide much security even when it was closed. Rhona could return. She could bring Skeeter with her. Things could get very nasty and Echo wouldn't understand. If only we had enrolled her in her school before Rhona had returned. I thought. I would have been gone by then as well and none of this ugliness would have mattered to me. I would flee my disappointment with Tyler as well, leave it behind like some piece of rotten fruit, just another bad experience to forget. I had an arm's length list of them. What difference did one more make?
Thinking like a runaway as usual, aren't you. April? Thinking like a coward? I asked myself. When are you going to stand pat
and battle the demons, face the challengees? Or are you always going to be in flight, hiding in shadows, hovering in some dark corner, shivering like some terrified bunny whenever there is any sort of conflict or disappointment in your life?
I didn't have an answer for myself.
I didn't close my eyes much before morning either. I listened and stared at the door, challenged by the urge to get up and run out of it, down the stairs, and away at the moment I heard Skeeter or Rhona in the hallway.
Echo moaned in her sleep, but it wasn't a moan of fear. It was more like a baby's moan. She had Mr. Panda clutched in her arms and she looked years younger than she really was. I touched my teddy bear, a father's gift that now gave comfort to us both. My trembling stopped. My heartbeat slowed and my body softened and relaxed just like hers had. We were like two children who had wrapped the promise of protection around ourselves and found the security to open ourselves to sleep.
Trevor was there first thing in the morning to be sure we were all right. Echo had a hard time waking up. I rose, dressed, and went down to make us some breakfast before she had even opened her eyes. There were no sounds coming from the guest bedroom. I was sure Skeeter and Rhona were in their morning comas as usual and I was glad for that. Trevor took one look at Echo's sleepy face when she came down and asked about the evening.
"She was just overwhelmed by everthing," I told him. "Nothing more happened. I had her sleep with me."
Just then Mrs. Westington's cleaning lady. Lourdes. arrived. She walked in as usual, but stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the mess in the living room.
"Let me speak to her." Trevor said, and went over to her. He spoke some Spanish and told her Mrs. Westington was in the hospital, her daughter was here with her boyfriend, and they had some messy friends over the night before. She went right to work and he returned to speak with me.
"I was thinking that for now it be best we don't tell Mrs. Westington about any of this," Trevor said. I nodded. "We'll deal with it."
"I'm taking Echo over to the hospital right after breakfast. We'll stay there as long as we can so that we'll be there whenever Rhona shows up." I explained. I had been thinking about it. "That way. I might be able to make sure she doesn't irritate her too much."
"Fat chance," Trevor said. "She just has to appear and it's an irritation, but it's a good idea. I have some things to look after here and then I'll pop over. Too"
Feeling more optimistic because we had a strategy. I was able to get Echo into a better mood. too. Trevor returned to the winery