Silent Echo (5 page)

She was about to sign something to lighten the mood when Felix said abruptly, “Have a great summer, Portia.” He then turned on his heel, leaving her alone to sort out the sudden volcano of emotions that had erupted between them.

They had video chatted and texted steadily while he was in Canada, but they always skirted the topic of their encounter at the café. A part of Portia wished that they both had the courage to just clear the air about what had happened that night, but the other part of her was flooded with relief at avoiding the confrontation.

Now, two months later, Felix wanted to revisit the scene of the crime. She wondered at his nonchalance. Maybe she had imagined the whole thing.

Exhausted from the day, she just wasn’t ready to commit to the date with Felix, platonic though the offer might have been.

“Why don’t we play it by ear?” she typed back.

“That’s a crazy thing to say to a deaf guy,” he wrote in response. She could see him smiling in the image coming across the webcam.

“Well, in case you didn’t notice,” she shot back without missing a beat, “I didn’t actually
say
anything.”

“Touché,” he conceded.

Her emotions running high, she ended the conversation, opening up iTunes to begin her Delacroix downloads. As she headed back downstairs for dinner, she couldn’t help noticing the return of a disruptive tickle in her throat.

The spindled terrace of the Griffins’ Queen Anne Victorian had been a late architectural addition, which the family used to its fullest. Overlooking the vegetable garden, the air was perfumed with the smell of fresh basil and rosemary, Helena’s current herbal obsessions. Inhaling the fragrance, Portia did a quick check of her bird feeders and then sat down to dinner with her parents.

She offered up selective information about her day, sharing Mr. Rathi’s insights into “Every Note Played.” Back from his trip, her father, just as musically obsessed as his voiceless daughter, was intimately familiar with the song that she had heard for the first time that day. After a few of glasses of Chardonnay, Joshua and Helena began a Delacroix sing-off, delighting in each other’s voices and laughing at their own screechy efforts. Portia shook her head in mock disgust but couldn’t help smiling. Her parents’ affection for each other was infectious. Even if they were acting like total dorks.

Portia made a quick exit and bolted for her room. She thought about taking a hot bath but opted for a quick shower instead, unable to shed the same fatigue that had blitzed her in Ms. Leucosia’s office. Throwing on an old ribbed tank and boxers, she began surveying her room for the perfect spot to showcase Felix’s gift.

A few years ago, when she had gotten hold of the first
Harry Potter
book, Portia had caught the reading bug. And caught it good. She tore through the series and after that was seldom found without a book in hand or somewhere on her person.

And now her overstuffed shelves did not have an inch to spare. Too tired to face the task of reorganizing, she cleared off a spot on her nightstand instead. Happy knowing that Felix’s gift was within arm’s reach, she climbed under the covers. She was about to start perusing the lovely illustrations again and reread Max’s song once more, but sleep proved too delicious to resist. Her eyes were already closed when she reached up to shut off her reading light.

Portia’s sleep that night was fitful at best, her vivid dreams a disjointed myriad of images. The white birds were back, only now they were flying around the dance floor at Café on the Ridge, circling a dancing Felix and Portia. One of them landed on Portia’s back, right in between her shoulder blades. The bird dug its claws into her skin, sending a searing pain throughout her body. She opened her mouth to scream but couldn’t make a sound. Felix was spinning around to the music and when he faced Portia again, she realized it wasn’t Felix at all. It was Max Hunter.

The music was pounding as Max tried wrestling the bird off of Portia’s shoulders, but his efforts were obstructed by the rest of the flock, which descended between them like a stone wall. The piercing pain in her shoulders was agonizing as Portia tried desperately to call out for help.

Somewhere on the periphery, she glimpsed Ms. Leucosia weaving her way through the crowd, a glass jelly jar in her raised hand. Luke and Lance O’Reilly clumsily knocked into the nurse, causing her to drop the jar. When she leaned over to retrieve it, streams of blood started flowing through her shirt, thick droplets falling to the floor, forming a sanguine Rorschach image.

Portia opened her mouth as widely as she could and focused all of her energy into her throat. But still, she could not bring forth a single sound. The pain of the claws digging into her back had grown unbearable.

Suddenly Charlotte Trotter appeared. Her eyes were wet with tears, and she reached her arms out to her sides. The birds perched themselves on Charlotte’s outstretched arms, digging their claws into her frail limbs, pecking at her extremities.

Tears spilled down Charlotte’s cheeks as she told Portia not to worry about the pain.

She would cry aloud for the both of them…

♪

The next morning when she got on the bus, Portia was cursing Helena’s new policy of no caffeine in the house. She’d had a terrible night’s sleep, but despite her weariness, her heart began to race at the thought of seeing Max again. Wishing she had applied some concealer over the black rings underneath her eyes, she hopped off the bus, registering a quick mental note that Charlotte was absent. Charlotte was never absent.

When she arrived at her locker, she was greeted by what had to be a practical joke.

“What are your thoughts on ‘Headed for Earth’?” Max had scribbled down his cell phone number and signed the note simply, “M.” Luckily she had made good on her decision to use up all of her iTunes credit and had downloaded Derek Delacroix’s earlier works, too. “Headed for Earth” had struck her as especially heart-wrenching. Apparently Max thought so, too.

And actually wanted to discuss it.

With her.

She heard Felix approaching from behind with Luke and Lance and quickly erased the message with her cuff, having already committed the phone number to memory.

“What up, girlfriend?” Lance greeted her.

“Not a good color on you,” Luke dug at his twin. “We’re Irish, you idiot. Our ancestors were probably Catholic priests. ‘What up, girlfriend?’ was definitely not part of their lingo.”

Lance grinned at his brother.

Portia begged off quickly, barely saying hello to any of them, signing something about “girl business” and heading for the nearest bathroom. She wasn’t sure why she had erased her message so quickly, she just knew that she didn’t want to share Max yet.

She had her phone out in a flash, her thoughts racing as she tried to think of a clever response to his note.

“
My heart the equator,

I dare you to explore,

Dive into the crater,

I promise, there’s more
…”

She regretted it as soon as she hit “send.” Even if he got the reference, what kind of person would she be coming off as? Already asking him to dive into the crater of her heart? Still, this imagery had struck her so hard that it seemed instinctual to come back at him with it. So often had her silence made her feel that her own heart, though at the center of her world, was so distant to others.

She steadied her breath while an ellipsis on her iPhone indicated that he was texting her back.

“Ah—so you are a lyrical master, as I suspected. I’ve always loved those lines. Wanna have a lyrical showdown over lunch?” he wrote back. “I think I might be able to go head-to-head with you.”

Portia would have loved to have lunch with Max, but the last thing she felt like doing was bringing him over to their table for Jacqueline’s scrutiny and Luke and Lance’s crass comments. Not to mention what Felix might make of it.

On the other hand, she didn’t want to pass up an opportunity.

As if sensing her hesitation, he wrote, “Why don’t we skip the ‘lunching’ altogether? I’ll be in the music room at 11:45 a.m. Hope to see you then.”

She was intrigued by the designated locale and texted him a quick “Kk.”

Kk? What am I, twelve?

Prompted to class by the sound of the bell, Portia sat next to Felix in Chemistry and contemplated telling him about her sort-of-a-date.

Instead she passed him a note.

“Some freshman asked me if I would come help the new Lit Journal committee—soooo annoying! It will prob take up my whole lunch!”

Felix looked up at her and she detected a hint of skepticism in his eyes, but she was so excited about her covert meeting with Max that she decided to let it slide.

“Bummer,” he wrote back.

♪

The music room was Portia’s favorite spot at RPA. The school had received an anonymous endowment that outfitted the studio with every manner of instrument. A beautiful Steinway Grand sat in the center, surrounded by a string section of elegantly carved cellos, violins, and violas. Guitars, both acoustic and electrical, lined the walls of the room and horns, ranging from the saxophone to the clarinet, crowded the drum sets in the corners.

Entry to this musical Camelot required a code, just in case someone decided to make off with a brand new Gibson or an inlaid Bergonzi. Luckily Felix had charmed his dad into giving him the code, and he and Portia sometimes took refuge among the instruments, which Felix always ogled with great curiosity. She felt a twinge of betrayal when she walked into the room without him. More importantly, though, she wondered how Max Hunter had managed to gain access to the studio.

“Mr. Woods gave me the code so I can come in and practice,” he said when she entered the room. “It’s not a bad setup considering what I left behind…”

She looked at him questioningly.

“Yeah, I guess I didn’t have a chance to tell you yesterday that I transferred here from Performing Arts in New York.”

He had been sitting in the far left corner, an acoustic guitar on his lap, absently strumming a couple of melancholy chords. He stood up, though, as soon as she walked in, a mark of chivalry in his favor. Portia made her way around the maze of instruments. Sitting down beside him, she looked up at him, her eyes asking him the questions that her mouth couldn’t.

“I live here with my aunt and uncle—my mom’s sister. My dad just couldn’t take care of me anymore—couldn’t take care of himself, either. Too many memories for him in The Big Apple, I guess…” his voice trailed off. He sat down again and adjusted the strings on the guitar.

Portia was afraid that her silence might be off-putting, but Max didn’t seem to mind. He used the quiet moment as an opportunity to study her face more closely.

“You’re very pretty.”

Somehow, it didn’t sound like a line, just a simple observation. Nonetheless, Portia avoided his gaze, embarrassed by the compliment.

Max cleared his throat and changed the subject. “You know, my dad is actually tight with the guy who endowed this place, but he still won’t tell me who it is. All I know is that it’s some retired musician that he’s done some legal work for in the past. He’s in, or
was
in I guess, entertainment law.”

Portia didn’t know where to go first. Performing Arts? New York? Too many memories? You’re very pretty?

She decided to tackle the personal stuff head on.

Behind her, a whiteboard hung around the perimeter of the room. “What kind of memories?” she scrawled out.

He stopped strumming and his face turned stony. She was fascinated to find that even veiled in ice, his looks were mesmerizing.

“My mom disappeared in New York. Vanished into thin air.” He attempted a light smile, but the pain in his eyes couldn’t be camouflaged. “My dad’s from London and had met her when he was doing a law internship in the States. He’s a romantic, to put it mildly. I think I inherited that gene from him,” he flashed her a flirtatious smile, though his eyes remained somber. “They met through business and apparently for both of them, it was love at first sight. London was a tough sell for her, though—she hated the rain. But he wore her down—flowers, poems, you know. The whole bit. They were married within a year, moved back to London, and I was born about a year after that.”

This was one of those moments when Portia’s handicap was especially frustrating. A moment that called for a subtle verbal encouragement to continue on with the story. She would have felt like an idiot writing “go on” on the whiteboard and chose, instead, to place her hand encouragingly on Max’s forearm.

He stopped strumming and looked at her full on. “Is it your eyes? I bet those eyes could get anyone talking, right? I mean, I have never once told this stuff to anyone. It feels good.” He glanced down at her hand resting on his arm.

Portia allowed her hand to linger. She could feel the veins in his arm tensing at her touch—it was exhilarating, too exhilarating. She stood up and began a slow pace, fingering some of the instruments.

“Yeah, so anyway, the rain drove my mom crazy but otherwise we were all really happy, you know? She traveled back and forth to do some consulting here and there. One day she went to New York on business, and we never saw or heard from her again. No phone call, no letter, no mysterious change in her behavior before she left. Nothing. The investigation went on for years, but they never turned anything up. Not even any leads. She was supposed to show up at Bonnie’s house—that’s my aunt—for dinner one night and just never did.”

He ran his fingers through his hair, closing his eyes against the memory. Portia had once again inched closer to him and stood still as a statue, not knowing where to go with this information.

“It was so sunny in London for weeks after her disappearance. I thought for sure the sunshine would bring her back. But it didn’t. After a while I just wanted it to rain again, for things to go back to normal. But there was no more normal. We stayed in London for a few more years. My dad flew back and forth constantly to check in on the investigation. Thank God for nannies, you know? Eventually he just moved us to New York. I think he thought that he’d be able to do what the police couldn’t. You know, it’s hard when there’s no body to bury. Lack of closure and all that…”

“So you think she…died?” Portia wrote out. Her shaky scrawl on the whiteboard spoke of her hesitancy to ask the question.

“That’s what the police think. Do you know how many people just disappear every year? People think that life is really like
Law & Order
or
CSI
. But it’s not. Her case is still open, but I think she’s pretty much presumed to be dead.” He shook his head from side to side, a feeble attempt at blurring the thought.

“Anyway, one day I came home and my dad was asleep on the couch. I couldn’t wake him up, and then I saw an empty bottle of Xanax on the floor. I called 911, and somehow they got to us in time. A few days later, we checked him into Havenhurst and voilà! Here I am.” He attempted another weak smile.

Portia sat down next to him. There were no right words to offer him after hearing his story and, for once, she didn’t feel so self-conscious about her lack of voice. She looked up into his face and took Max’s dimpled cheeks into her hands. He closed his eyes and she gently brushed her thumbs over his cheeks, trailing the angles of his jawline. She could feel the tension ease from his body at her touch. He placed his hands over hers, lowering his face further into the comfort of her grip.