Simply Being Belle (16 page)

In fact, she had,
and hadn’t been able to fall asleep after awakening from a horrible dream
around two a.m.  She’d decided then and there she’d forgo the chance to spend
time in Stephen King’s brain. 

After pulling the
covers up to her chin and staring at shadows that appeared to morph into
ghostly apparitions, she’d finally flipped on a light and hurried out of her
room to retrieve both dogs and the kitten.  The canines had flanked her while
she tried to sleep, while the kitten had curled into a ball on her pillow.  When
morning came, she realized it might have been a mistake bringing the dogs in,
since they’d probably expect a return trip.

“Well, I’m off to
bed…”  She rose abruptly and left Lacey and Steven at the kitchen table. 

Was it rude to
leave them sitting there?  Probably, but she didn’t care.  She didn’t need
baby-sitters, but she did need sleep.  She realized she hadn’t taken a nap
during the light of day for years.  It was high time she did.  Did napping
qualify as a hobby?  Millicent would be so proud.

Belle slept for
hours, and probably would have continued sleeping had the delectable aroma of
garlic chicken not wafted up the stairs and into her room.  She realized she
was famished and climbed out of bed.  She felt better than she had earlier; lighter
and less fatigued.

She freshened up
quickly and headed downstairs.  She found Steven cooking at the stove, and Lacey
slicing up a cantaloupe.  “Hello, Sleeping Beauty,” she said cheerfully.  “You
were out for quite a while there.”

She nodded and
yawned.  “You know, you guys didn’t need to hang around here all day.”

“We didn’t have
anything better to do,” Lacey said too cheerfully.  “Isn’t that right, Steven?” 
He shrugged and she shot him a meaningful look. “Isn’t that right, Steven?”

“Oh, uh, yes, that’s
right.  We didn’t have anything better to do,” he said drolly.

“You’re
babysitting me, aren’t you?” Belle said as she reached for a slice of
cantaloupe.  She watched Steven with unblinking, narrowed eyes, and he cracked.

He nodded
sheepishly and Lacey shrieked.  “You weren’t supposed to let on!”

“Am I really as
pathetic as you all are making me out to be?” Belle asked, glancing from Lacey
to Steven.

“We’re just
worried about you, that’s all,” he said.  “You’re too, well...”

“What?” she
prompted, watching him curiously.

“I don’t know… 
High strung?” he offered lamely.

She felt somewhat
offended.  “I don’t think I’m high strung.”  She thought for a moment.  “I
guess I equate high-strung with high-maintenance.  I’m definitely not
high-maintenance.”

“No, no, no,”
Lacey said agreeably, “you’re not high-maintenance.  Not at all.  It’s just
that…  Well, you’re right.  High-strung isn’t exactly the word we’re looking
for either.”  She turned to Steven, searching his face.

“Belle…”  He tried
to pick up where Lacey had left off.  “I guess it’s more, you just don’t seem
to ever stop and smell the roses anymore.  You go from work to your volunteer
activities to more work at home and then to bed.  And then you wake up and
start all over again, twenty-four seven.”

“I like to be
busy,” she said, reaching for another slice of cantaloupe.

“There’s ‘like to
be busy’ and there’s ‘compulsive.’  Belle, how many people actually resist
taking a vacation?  Very few, frankly,” Steven pointed out.  “It’s weird.”

She sighed.  “I
guess you’re right.  I admit, I may have a few personality quirks to work
out.”  She thought for a moment.  “I don’t know.  Maybe my work is my identity. 
Do you think?”

“I don’t even
think that’s it,” Steven said.  “You’ve never been one to expect thanks or
reward for your efforts.  Typically, if one’s work is one’s identity, it’s all
about the recognition he or she receives.”

“That’s not true,”
she said. “I know law enforcement officers and firefighters who receive little
thanks for the work they do, but they love the job.  It’s their identity.”

“That’s true,”
Lacey weighed in.  “But Belle, with you, I think it’s more you spend your life
atoning for past sins, when you really don’t have anything to atone for.”

“The tape,” she
said succinctly, wiping cantaloupe juice off of her chin.  “Or rather, the ‘me’
in that tape.”

“If it were me in
that tape,” Lacey said, “I’d have acknowledged I was a pill, but then I’d have laughed
about my sixteen-year-old self thereafter.”

“You are a pill,”
Belle said.  “And it wasn’t funny.”

“Okay, let me
try,” Steven said tiredly.  “Okay, Belle, suppose as a teenager, I had gotten
into trouble.  Nothing too serious, but serious enough for me to end up doing
six months at a facility for juvenile offenders.  But suppose, when I got out,
I turned my life around, graduated high school, went off to college, and never,
ever got so much as a parking ticket again.”

She shrugged.  “Big
deal.  You turned your life around.  I would never hold against you something
you did as a…”  She paused.  “I don’t know why exactly, but my situation feels
different from the one you describe.  And certainly, at Legal Aid I’ve handled
juvenile cases, and I’ve never held any kind of animosity toward any juvenile
offender.   In fact, I desperately hope they’ll turn things around.”

“So why can’t you
cut yourself some slack?” Steven asked.

She sighed
heavily.  “I don’t know.  I really don’t.  I guess because when I see that
tape, I look like a—a mindless, spoiled brat.  I snapped my fingers, my parents
came running.  You know, I think the thing that’s most hard for me to accept is
that I relished the power I had then, the power to get what I wanted when I
wanted it.  How does a person become …
that
?”  She shuddered.

“How does a person
stop being—
that
?” Steven said.  “Well, you did, Belle.  You’re not her
anymore.” 

She shook her
head.  “I don’t know.  To be honest, I’m really not sure how much the tape, and
my contempt for my sixteen-year-old self, has to do with twenty-nine-year-old
me.”

“I think it has
everything to do with who you are today, because you make a point of letting it,”
Lacey countered with frustration.

“But how do I stop
remembering…?” Belle moaned.

“You just do,” she
said.  “Push it out of your mind.  Don’t give it another thought.  It’s a waste
of time and energy at this stage in your life to blame yourself for something
that happened years ago, and that frankly, isn’t nearly as horrible as you’ve
blown it up to be in your own mind.  You can’t change the past.”

The threesome
remained silent for a moment, lost to their respective thoughts.  Lacey was
first to break the silence.  “You know what, Belle?”

“What?”

“I think you need
to relearn how to have fun.  I think you really need to spend the remainder of
your vacation focusing on getting both rested, and reprogrammed.  We can help.”

“Reprogrammed?  That
sounds rather sinister,” she said with a shudder.  “Are you planning an
intervention?”

“I think this
qualifies as an impromptu intervention,” Steven pointed out.

“Belle, you’ve
become so set in your ways.  You’ve forgotten what it’s like to cut loose and
be silly,” Lacey observed.

“We need to try to
show her how to achieve balance in her life,” Steven pointed out, turning his
attention to Lacey.  “She can be so over-the-top.”

“Oh, too true,”
she said.  “I mean, we’re liable to show Belle how to have a great time and
she’ll take it to the extreme, because that’s what she does.”

Steven laughed. 
“Yeah, she’ll probably take up bungee jumping, sky diving, and deep sea
diving—and all in the same day.”

“Uh, over here!”
Belle called.  “You’re talking about me as if I’m not in the room.”

“Sorry,” they said
in unison.

Steven chuckled
then, catching Lacey’s gaze.

“What?” she asked.

“It’s a good thing
Belle is easy on the eyes.  Imagine if she were unattractive and had her
personality quirks.”

Lacey grimaced. 
“Oh, I
know
!”

Belle glared at
her friends.  She was too stupefied to speak.  With friends like these, who
needed enemies?

***     

Belle yawned her
way through dinner with her friends.  After having slept several hours earlier,
she was surprised she was still so tired. 

When they were
done eating, she set about tidying up the kitchen.  Since her friends had
cooked dinner, she felt it was only fair that she do the cleanup.  Besides, she
had been eager to shoo them out the front door.  She wasn’t particularly eager
to face another dissection of her personality traits.  She was just putting the
last dish into the dishwasher when the phone rang.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Belle. 
It’s Dare.”

“Oh, hi.”  She
closed the dishwasher and moved to take a seat at the kitchen table. 

As she sat, she
spotted Tri at the back door, pawing at it to get her attention.  “Hi.  Hi,
baby,” she called softly.

“Did you just call
me baby?” Dare asked curiously.

“I was talking to
Tri.  He’s watching me through the screen door.”

“Oh.”  He sounded
oddly disappointed.  “Uh, hey, I just wanted to confirm we’re on for tomorrow. 
I’m looking forward to a day at the beach.”

“Are you sure you
should go, being as your girlfriend is visiting?”

“My
what
?”

Oh, geez.  Had she
said girlfriend?  Maybe she was being a bit presumptuous.  “I mean, since you
have a guest…”

“Hold on, Belle,” he
said stiffly, and she heard a curious shuffling sound, and then muted voices. 
She thought she heard a woman’s laughter.

When Dare got back
on the line, he sounded slightly out of breath.  “Belle,” he said, “I don’t
have a girlfriend.”  The latter words were said in an increasingly loud voice,
as if he were saying it for someone else to hear, too.

“Oh.  But, I mean,
you do have a guest.  We can always go to the beach another time.”

He sighed
heavily.  “No, I think it’s best if I strike while the iron is hot.”

Her brows furrowed
into a frown.  “What do you mean?”

He chuckled.  “Poor
choice of words.  The truth is, I’m thinking it’s a minor miracle I persuaded
you to go to the beach in the first place, so I’m holding you to it.”

“Oh, okay.  Why?”

“Because I’d like
to spend a day getting to know you better.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

She gave a
suspicious snort.  “Or because … Millicent has enlisted you to baby-sit me? 
Per chance, could that be your reason?”

“Why would she do
that?”  He laughed with surprise.  “Like I said, Belle, I’d like to get to know
you better.”

“Well, I find that
a little hard to swallow since Lacey and Steven just spent the day with me
because Millicent apparently fears I’ve gone off the deep end, and shouldn’t be
left to my own devices. 
Could
Millicent’s fears be the reason you’re
forfeiting a Sunday to spend time with me?”

“I want to spend
time with you because I like you,” he said, his voice adamant.

 She gave a
dubious chuckle.  “I find that even harder to believe since Lacey and Steven
just spent several hours pointing out my myriad personality flaws.”

“
What
?  I
don’t think you have any personality flaws—or no more than the average person. 
Probably far less than most, actually.  I haven’t known you very long, but I
think you’re just fine.”   

He sounded so
sincere, Belle found herself almost believing him.  “Thank you,” she said,
noting she felt incrementally better.  “When you get to know me better, you may
modify your opinion,” she joked, but then sobered.  “I don’t know.  I must be
pretty awful, based upon the conversations I’ve had with my friends lately.”

Dare scoffed.  “Frankly,
Belle, I think you’re one of the most genuine people I’ve met in a long time. 
You care about people, and that means something.  Hey, about the beach, I asked
you because I wanted to.  It’s like I told you, I want to get to know you
better.”

“Hmmmm.”

“Maybe I’m a
glutton for punishment,” he teased.  “Hey, are you being contrary so I’ll let
you off the hook?  If so, it isn’t going to work.”

“I don’t mean to
be unpleasant.  It’s just…”

“What?”

“I don’t know.  I
guess I’m feeling sorry for myself.”

“Why?”

She wasn’t sure
why, but suspected having her two best friends suggest she was somehow off
kilter made her feel off kilter.  Maybe there
was
something wrong with
her.  She had thought her work ethic was something to be proud of, but the
people important to her seemed to disagree.  She thought her volunteer work
made a difference for others, but her friends suggested she was perhaps doing
it for all the wrong reasons.  Suddenly, her head throbbed mercilessly.

“Dare, I’m going
to let you go.  My head is suddenly killing me.”

“I’m sorry. 
Anything I can do?”

“No, but thanks. 
I appreciate your kind words.  I’ve been doubting myself a lot lately, so your
encouragement helps.”      

Twenty minutes
later, after having taken two ibuprofen tablets for her headache, Belle had
just started upstairs to her bedroom when she heard her doorbell ring.  Her
brows furrowed into a frown.  Who could it be?  It was well after eight ‘o
clock.

She padded to her
front door and peeked through the peep hole.  Dare stood on her tiny porch,
wearing a concerned expression on his face and holding something in his hand. 
When she pulled open the door, she spied the half gallon of raspberry
cheesecake ice cream.  He held it out to her.

“Hello,” he
greeted with a broad smile.  “Thought you could use a pick-me-up.”