The Girl With Aquamarine Eyes (7 page)

Harmon smiled. “We’re your new family for now. I know we can
never replace your real family, but at least give us a chance to be friends. I
won’t bribe you, but if you learn to act like a lady, I’ll ask Bice to call and
make arrangements for Dreams to visit. You’ll have to earn it though.”

She didn’t reply. She only stared at him sullenly.

“Bice, please take over from here, I’ve got to get these
lyrics finished up.” Harmon waved the soggy papers through the air in a feeble
attempt to hasten their drying process. The ink was running into black stains,
his words were quickly disappearing before his eyes.

“That’s it?” Bice replied. “You’re going to handle what she
did to Hawk by bringing her friend back here? “

“She apologized.” He rummaged around in his desk drawer,
found his pen and began carefully tracing over the smudged letters.

Bice glared at his distracted employer. He hadn’t come all
the way from Philly to raise a teenager. Obviously, Harmon was pre-occupied. He’d
take the girl upstairs and deal with the musician later. “Come on, Heaven. I’ll
have Bonita help you get cleaned up.”

He stomped out the door.

* * *

Harmon watched the study door close.

He gazed once more at his smudged lyrics and read them
again. No matter how he tried, he didn’t understand a single word he’d written.
His mind was no longer one with the music. It was walking upstairs with the
Heaven.

He sighed, and stared at the phone. This wasn’t what he’d
planned. He suddenly found himself swept back to his childhood. His youth hadn’t
been all that great, yet it hadn’t been all that bad either. It was a typical
adolescence, almost the white picket-fence type. At first.

He had a sister seven years younger. He shuddered, as he
thought of the horrible last day of her young life. They were close and as
years passed, he’d found himself in the role of her protector.

His dad was a roughneck in an oilfield, his mother a
waitress at a greasy truck stop. Their hours from home were long. His dad was
often gone for days at a time. The occasional calls from him became less and
less frequent, until they eventually dwindled into nothing. One day his father
didn’t come home at all. No one was surprised.

His mother picked up the financial slack by working more
hours at the diner. She arrived home well after midnight after working double
shifts. Many nights, she was too tired to change into a nightgown.

He’d find her asleep on the couch in the mornings, still in
her uniform, as he dressed for school. She awoke to the clattering of dishes,
hearing him prepare his sister’s breakfast. She grimaced at the clock, throw on
a clean uniform and rush out the door once again. Another day in a endless year
spent trying to make ends meet.

Until that day. The day life as he knew it came to an abrupt
halt. The day time stood still. It skidded to a sickening stop one day after
school. As the car skidded out of control the same moment the children leapt
down the steps of the school bus, and straight into hell.

The guilt he endured was insurmountable. The wailing of his
mother when she rushed home after she received the call which would forever
change her life. The unending parade of neighbors and of friends. Visits by
local clergy, even though the family never attended church.

The covered dishes in the tiny dining room of every
casserole known to mankind. They’d gone from a happy family of four, and in
less time than he could remember became a family of two.

Rose stepped off the bus the same moment the drunk driver
careened out of control. The screeching car hit the curb, and flipped end over
end straight into the bus in a mass of fiery flames.

He’d waited for her that day, as he did each day after
school to walk her home. His books fell to the concrete as he screamed silently,
frozen to the sidewalk.

Rose would never see her eleventh birthday, nor, would three
other children. The wailing of the sirens, the screaming of onlookers could be
heard for miles. The same wailing he heard to this day, moments before he
dropped into one of his fainting spells. The wailing of the children never left
him.

Afterward, guilt came to call. If only he’d walked to the
bus door instead of waiting on the sidewalk, he could have pulled her from harm’s
way. If only he’d seen the car, and somehow warned the children of their
impending doom before it was too late. If only, if only.

His mother soon faded from a bright, bubbly woman into a
walking zombie. After the funeral she returned to work at the truck stop, but
things were never quite the same.

His sister’s room remained untouched; a living memorial to
her lay in wait behind the closed white door. He’d turned to music as a means
of escape.

Weeks later, at only eighteen, he auditioned for a band and
won the coveted spot of lead singer. Within a year, the band moved to the West
Coast. They played at seedy bars for the next two years, living on the streets
and begging for food. Until one day they were signed to a recording contract.

His life was on full throttle then as he had never imagined.
Groupies in the crowds lusted and fought over him, as his sweat dripped onto
the stage. They toured city after city in the states for the next year, and
then traveled abroad. That is when they’d made it big, and cashed in on their
enormous wealth.

At Bice’s urging, he bought the mansion overlooking the sea.
Like clockwork, he began sending his mother an enormous weekly check. She’d
never have to work again. Never again would she be at the mercy of truck
drivers who couldn’t keep their hands off her ass.

After years of living in a personal hell, she finally began
putting pieces of her life back together once the weekly checks arrived. She
was happy once more, at least as happy as she could be after loosing a
daughter. She quit the diner, and in time ventured back out into the real
world.

Then, he’d found the girl on the beach. He let the
authorities whisk her away, watching helplessly as he had the day he lost his
sister. He was a shadow on the sidelines as they pulled the children from under
the overturned vehicle. As he was the day they’d taken Heaven away.

He pulled open the desk drawer and groped in the back corner
for the box he kept hidden within. A box he hadn’t opened in years.

He carefully pulled it out as if it were made of the finest
glass, and sat it on the desk before him. The black velvet was pilled with age.
Holes had long ago opened on the corners, exposing glints of tarnished metal.

He gently lifted the lid and set it aside. His sister’s
picture lay on top of the small stack of memories, each photo faded with time.

He picked it up gingerly and gazed lovingly at her. It was
her last school picture, taken a few months before she was cruelly ripped away
from him.

As he stared at the photo he felt a gasp escape from
somewhere deep within, nearly choking him. He coughed and sputtered, spewing
even more foam onto his already unsalvageable lyrics.

He grabbed his drink, and gulped back the burning sensation.
He gazed at the photo once more, still struggling to catch his breath as
spittle ran down his chin.

The same long honey-blonde curls, the same aquamarine eyes
stared back at him. The perfect skin, the porcelain perfect china doll face.
The same long thick lashes, the same cheekbones women would die for. He was
looking at Heaven.

The ringing of the phone near him jolted him back to
reality. He glared at it momentarily, and continued to gasp at the yellowed
photo.

His sister Rose looked exactly like the girl upstairs who
called herself Heaven. The girl with no past was staring at him. No, it was his
sister he was looking at.

He gazed at the ceiling in confusion, knowing Heaven was in
her suite above the study. Or was she Rose?

The blasted phone continued to ring. He’d throw it out the
window, as he’d done a motel room chair once or twice in the past. He’d watch
it spin madly out of control and wait for the horrific sound it’d make the
moment it hit the concrete below.

He’d make sure the blasted phone would never ring again. He’d
have them all ripped out from every room in the mansion and pile them in a
heap, light a match to that blasted bridal magazine, drop it into them and
watch in glee as they melted and hissed in the burning flames.

He studied the photo intently, gasping for air as a
smothering blackness began to press into his thoughts. The phone continued to
ring. Finally, he yanked the receiver from it.

“Hello?” He could only hear the faded hiss of air above the
dial tone.

Too late, he realized the phone had tricked him. It was
merely a decoy to distract him from the true meaning of the incessant, blasted
ringing. He slammed the receiver down. Before it was too late, he tore it from
the desk, held it high above his head and threw it across the study.

It spun wildly through the air, reminding him of the chairs
from motel rooms in years past. It hit the opposite wall and exploded.
Naturally, and as luck would have it, the phone was kind enough to take out his
one of a kind Tiffany lamp.

It crashed to the floor and burst into a million colorful
fragments. The sunlight cast rays into the shards as millions of colorful
prisms floated across the walls.

No matter. He’d call Heaven, she’d fix it. But wait, that
was impossible. He’d destroyed the damned phone, he couldn’t call her. He
stared at it in anger, as an all to familiar sweat began its march down his
backside.

The phone rang again.

His eyes bulged from their sockets as he gazed at its broken
remnants. The blasted, incessant ringing continued. He stared at the smashed
plastic, his mouth agape. The son-of-a-bitch was about to piss him off.

It continued to ring.

He yanked open the desk drawer, pulled out his revolver and
shot the phone three times. He smiled as a Cheshire cat might, blew the smoke
from the barrel and carefully laid the weapon back into the drawer.

The son of a bitch rang again.

He attempted to rise, determined to finish off the phone
once and for all. But his knees gave way. He crashed onto the chair, while the
horrid screeching rose octave after octave. He glanced at the study window,
waiting for it to relent to the pitch and shatter into a million pieces
alongside the fallen lamp.

But instead, the pane buckled into wave after wave. They
rippled across it, rising and falling as if the window were breathing. It
slowly turned to a watery liquid, and fell silently in silver droplets of
molten glass to the floor.

His head hit the desk before his eyes were fully closed, the
photo still clutched in his hand.

His elbow hit the nearby drink. It teetered momentarily, and
finally tumbled across his lyrics. Page after page was soaked. They drifted off
the slick desk, landing in a soggy heap on the floor.

He never noticed.

* * *

Bice followed Heaven as she slowly ascended the staircase and
entered her room. Her shoulders hung in resignation, as she settled into the
chair beside her bed.

“I’ll call Bonita up, she’ll draw you a bath.”

“Thanks. It’d be nice to take one by myself though.”

He took a seat on the bed beside her. Her face, as dirty as
it was, looked as soft as the wings of a butterfly. “I’ll have her show you
soon. The faucets in there are tricky.” He waited for a response, but she
seemed to be somewhere else.

Finally she gazed at him, but beyond him at the same time.
Almost through him. As if she were watching a picture show playing out, clip by
clip, on the bedroom door behind him. He fought the sudden urge to turn and
look, but resisted.

He studied her intently. “Are you going to be all right?”

“I’ll be fine.” She blinked her eyes and gazed at him, as if
seeing him for the first time.

He wasn’t convinced. Something much more than whacking Hawk
in the groin seemed to be on her mind. She was in another place. A far, far
away place.

“I’ll have Bonita bring you up some lunch. After you eat, a
nap may be worth considering. You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

“I’ll try to get some rest.” She paused and thought for a
moment. “Would you mind bringing me some more of those books with the beautiful
women in them?”

“Do you mean fashion magazines? Sure, I’ll ask Bonita to
bring you a few of hers. I’ll check on you later.” He gazed at the majestic
window beyond her bed. It was still there, all in one piece. He stole a glance
at her legs for what must be the hundredth time. Perfect, like the window. He
shook his head and quietly left the room.

Heaven leapt from the bed the moment the door closed. “Bice,
wait!” She burst through the door and ran straight into his arms.

“Heaven, what is wrong?” Bice gazed at her. She was
frightfully pale. Her Mediterranean eyes reminded him of the moon falling over
the surf, waiting silently to welcome dusk on the far side of the earth.

“It’s Harmon. Go to him quickly. Find him Bice, find him
now!”

He let her fall from his arms and took a step back in
horror. “What do you mean?” Is this some kind of sick joke?”

She stared beyond him, down the darkened corridor at the
majestic staircase. She gazed at him once more. “Find him. Now!”

He stumbled backward, his gaze never leaving her eyes. The
same eyes Harmon spoke of seeing on the beach that day. The eyes the musician
never forgot. Now, he understood. He was looking into the past, but also into
the future through her eyes.

Somehow, someway, this girl was an extraordinary being.
Harmon must’ve known it all along. He’d plucked her from the beach that day,
only to spend years trying to forget her. But somehow, she called Harmon back
to her through those watery blue eyes. Through the miles, and through time
itself.