Shattered Castles 1 : Castles on the Sand (5 page)

But she pushes the door open and stands, a silhouette in the doorway. “Michael? What is it?”

“I was wondering if you'd like to meet with John. I could arrange it. You've missed two Mother's Days when he could have called you.”

Because her face is in such deep shadow, I can't read her expression. Her stance is rigid, almost wooden. “Thank you, but no.” There's no life in her voice. It's as if her mind is elsewhere and it's clear that she's deep into one of her bigger projects. If the past is anything to go by, she'll be like this for days as she figures out every detail of a new paint technique or the stitching of a new wall hanging.

“Is this anything I can help with?” he asks.

Mom presses the back of her hand to her forehead, and I sense her mind coming back to us, leaving behind its creative calculations for a moment. “Listen, my ex-husband knows I wanted to be an artist. His son has already seen where I live. I'd like to keep any ridicule by him and his father to a minimum. It'd be just like James to call me up and laugh about how poor I am and what I gave up to have this life.”

“James is your ex-husband?”

“Yes.”

“And you have no contact with him? At all?”

“I don't. No.”

“Not even for child support for Madison?”

Mom shakes her head. “Madison is a Lukas, not a Britton.”

“Ah, right. Of course. Well, the mission president and I have already agreed that Elder Britton is not to visit Pelican Bluffs for the rest of his mission, but I should also point out, he won't be a missionary much longer, and once he's finished, we haven't got the authority to tell him not to contact you. I can tell him you would prefer he not contact you, if you like?”

“Please. Yes.”

“What reason would you like me to give?”

But Mom is gone again, back in that place she goes to when she makes her art. “I'm sure you can think of something.”

“Is it that you remain on the outs with is father?”

“I need to get some work done. I'm sorry.” This is the Mom I know well, the one who cannot stand to be interrupted. Next comes visceral anger, if we keep distracting her.

“Okay,” I cut in. “Mom, I'll see you tomorrow, I guess.”

Mr. Montrose takes the hint and I show him out the front door.

T
hat night, I begin to wonder if I should try to get Jean-Pierre's phone number from Kailie, but I don't have the guts to tell her why I'd want it. She's a merciless tease about this kind of thing. I also wouldn't have the courage to use it, and I can't think of any way to get him my number, offhand. I remind myself that I'll see him at school the day after tomorrow and try to be content with that.

O
n Monday, Kailie meets me at the corner of my street, as she always does so we can walk to school together. We greet with a hug, then she pulls her iPod headphones out of her ears and winds the cord around the case.

The morning is bitter cold and I nuzzle down into the collar of my coat, grateful for the warmth of my breath against my cheeks. My hat makes my ears itchy and my gloves feel like they do nothing against the icy air. We walk down the side of the street with houses, but on the far side there is just forest, looking darker and more mysterious in the dim, morning light.

“So... I still don't have a phone,” Kailie says.

“Yeah, I texted you some stuff, but the basic thing is, Mom didn't purposely hide anything from me. And Carson gave me a
Book of Mormon.”

As if on cue, the MAV shoots past. Carson makes a complete stop, turn signal flashing, before he turns into the school parking lot. Never mind that the road dead ends in a guardrail and there's nowhere else to go. He does the same stop and signal for every turn around the parking lot, including the one into a parking space.

While I watch this, Kailie pauses at the corner of one of the side streets and turns to look at a house, three lots in. It's the same floorplan as mine, with a stucco exterior that's cracking at the corners and has a big gray splotch by the front door, where someone did some kind of repair work, but didn't bother to restore the finish to match the rest of the house. Her gaze is wistful. This is where her sister, Kirsten, lives now.

“You talk to her?” I ask.

“No. My parents would lock me in my room and throw away the key if I did. Just saying her name gets me a lecture.”

“Seriously?”

“You know how they are. They want to control my whole life. At least Kirsten got out.”

I look at my friend in her warm coat, designer jeans, and genuine leather boots. I'm certain Kirsten doesn't have anything like that to wear. “Look,” I say, “she rebelled. You really think she'd tell on you if you went to talk to her? You admit she doesn't talk to your parents.”

She turns away. “My parents would find out. They always do, you know. They've got eyes everywhere.”

We walk on towards campus and there, at the end of the road, leaning against the guardrail with all of the other screwups is Alex. Despite the crowd around him, he looks as if he's all alone. Isolated. Aloof. For once he isn't smoking, but he plays with his lighter, snapping it open and shut, pausing now and then to watch the flame burn. Typical. I always wonder when Pelican Bluffs High School will catch up with the times and not let people bring lighters to school. I'd gladly walk through a metal detector and surrender my nail files if it meant Alex had to leave that stupid lighter at home.

One moment he's staring at the fire, the next he's returning my gaze. He lifts an eyebrow, as if to challenge me to keep staring.

I obligingly look away and follow Kailie across the parking lot, but I have the uneasy sense that he's still staring at me.

I
don't see Jean-Pierre until lunch, and he looks past me as if we don't even know each other. It couldn't hurt worse if he walked up and slapped me across the face. He and the football jocks have their own table and they sit and talk and give each other fist bumps as the rest of the school flows around them, watching their antics with a swish of heads turning. We don't have a great athletics program at Pelican Bluffs High, but we do have an amazing football team. It helps that Justin Kreig's dad used to play for the NFL. Jean-Pierre doesn't do any athletics, but I guess the other orchestra and chess club people aren't cool enough for him.

His gaze wanders my direction and I freeze, wondering if I'll get a wink or a smile. But his gaze sweeps right over me. I'm just another face in the crowd. At least I didn't ask Kailie if she knew his phone number. She'd be mocking me right now if she knew. The problem is, I can't just pretend not to notice him, his dark, expressive eyes and infectious laugh. I've liked him for ages, but after kissing him, my attraction's stepped up several notches. I had let myself believe that I might get to kiss him regularly. That's how this usually works, isn't it?

I turn away and try to distract myself with other thoughts. Our cafeteria is a beautiful room. One whole wall is glass, but it's done in little tiny panes, like stained glass without the color. The ceiling is high and punctuated at regular intervals with skylights. The place always smells like grease, regardless of what they're serving. Even when it's pasta, somehow it ends up smelling like grease.

Kailie brings her tray of food over and slides it onto the table. “This food is beyond gross. I know, I know, I should just pack a lunch. Augh.”

I offer her half my sandwich, which she takes and gives me her tater tots in return. They’re already getting cold and disgusting, but I munch on them anyway.

Jean-Pierre's laughter cuts across the rest of the cafeteria chatter and I look at my friend.

“You okay?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“Well, don't look now, but Carson is staring at you.”

I look, of course. It's a reflex, but I swing my gaze past him so that I don't seem to be looking at him specifically. Just taking in more of that beautiful window, I think. Who am I fooling? Kailie is right, though, he's staring right at me, not even trying to hide it.

“He found out you're Mormon, now he wants to add you to the harem,” says my friend.

“I am not Mormon.”

“But you're okay with the harem part?”

Here's how things work with our small horde of Mormons at the school. Carson is the only male. There are three girls who aren't related to him: LaDell, Wendy, and Rachel, and he has them on some kind of rotation. They take turns going with him to school dances, and the two girls without him as a date and his little sister, Chelsey, either go stag or don't go at all. It's beyond weird, and Kailie loves to joke about it.

“He's coming over.” Kailie shoots a withering look over my shoulder, and I know if that doesn't stop him dead in his tracks, nothing will. My best friend's looks are lethal.

Like a shadow in my peripheral vision, Carson steps over the bench and sits at our table. “Hey,” he says.

I turn and smile at him. “Hey.”

“So, did anything else happen with your brother?”

“No, not really. I haven't even gotten an email from him.” His email address is buried somewhere in my pockets full of paper scraps, receipts, and used tissues. It'd take a while for me to find it.

“But he's about to be released?”

“Released?” says Kailie. “What, is a mission like prison?”

“It's just the term we use. Whenever you do any specific job for the Church we refer to that as a calling, and when you finish a calling, that's when you're released.”

“Mmm.” Her eyes glazed over after the third word.

Carson still gives her a speculative glance, though, before leaning in and saying to me, “Listen, I'm sorry if I crossed a line, giving you scriptures and stuff.”

“It's all right.”

“I'm really bad at knowing what to say when people ask about my religion, and I guess you didn't really even ask.”

I look up at him.

Those stormy gray eyes are intent. Focused on me.

“It's fine, really.”

“I am not supposed to be this close to you,” says Kailie. “My daddy told me not to talk to weirdo religious people.”

“You're religious people,” Carson retorts.

“Yeah, but I'm not a weirdo.”

“Speak for yourself. What'd you use to put on eye shadow today? A spatula?”

“Is it too over the top and daring for you?” She flutters here eyelashes and her eyelids are a pretty strong shade of purple, I have to admit. She makes it look fabulous.

“Well gee,” says Carson in a monotone. “I find myself overcome with your stunning allure when you do that.”

She blows him a kiss.

He gives me a knowing, tolerant look and gets up to go.

T
hat afternoon, as I pack my things at my locker, Jean-Pierre strides by without even a glance in my direction. I try not to stare after him. Let it go, I think. What's past is past.

Kailie dashes by with a, “I have to get home in ten minutes or else,” hollered over her shoulder. I wave as if everything's fine with me.

At least, I think, this day is pretty much over.

T
hat night, a tap at my window nudges me awake. I roll over and wait for it to come again. It might have just been a dream.

Tap-tap-tap.

I haul myself up to flip the latch, and then lay down again. “Kail,” I say, once the window swings open, “It's Monday night.”

“It's not Kailie.”

My eyes snap open. “Jean-Pierre?”

“Yeah. Can I come in?”

“Sure.” I roll out of bed and hightail it to the bathroom. “I'll be right back.”

When I return from brushing my teeth and hair, I find him sitting on my bed. He looks up when I sit down next to him, and for a minute I don't know what to say.

“So...” he begins. “You mad at me?”

“No.”

“You seemed kinda mad today at lunch.”

“I didn't think you even saw me.”

“That what made you mad?”

“It hurt my feelings.”

He presses his fingertips together and fidgets a moment. “I know, we didn't really get to talk the other night. I like you, okay? But I'm not into the whole being a couple thing. The last time I had a girlfriend, it was constant drama. Even having a conversation like this, now, I hate this part. I wish we could just skip it.”

“Skip to what?”

He puts his arms around me and pulls me close. His skin is warm, through the thin cotton of his t-shirt. He nuzzles my nose and coaxes me in for a kiss. Warmth spreads inside me as we lock lips, but so does confusion. His palms slide over my shirt and he leans against me until we both lie down on my bed. The momentary panic I feel subsides quickly. He doesn't try to take off any of my clothes or anything, just kisses me and holds me close.

When we break off, he says, “This all right?”

I do my best to think straight. He just said he hates discussing relationship stuff, so does this mean I shouldn't admit I'm totally confused? “Um...”

He props himself up on one elbow, mind already wandering elsewhere. “This has been the worst week, and it's only just started. I've got a chess tournament this weekend but I've also got an AP English paper due. I'm stressed. Beyond stressed.”