An Act of Love (31 page)

“Owen, it’s not—”

“Let me finish. Just let me finish. You’re angry that I told Celeste, but let me tell you, I’m glad I told her. I wish I’d told her earlier. Do you know what she said? Immediately? At once? She said, ‘Bruce didn’t rape Emily.’ Just like that. Without a doubt. Without a second’s hesitation. She believes in Bruce. Totally. Absolutely. Now who the hell do you think I want to confide in?
You? You’re his enemy
. You and Emily are savaging his life, forcing him to live like a hunted animal! You’re trying to ruin his life! If so much as a hint of this rape accusation gets out, he’ll be stuck with that for the rest of his life. His friends will drop him. Colleges won’t accept him. Girls won’t date
him. He’ll be a pariah. And I won’t let that happen. I won’t let you and Emily break him.”

With slams of his fist on the table, Owen emphasized his final words.

When he’d finished, it was very quiet in the room.

Linda said, “I’m leaving.” She rose and walked out of the kitchen.

After a few moments, Owen followed. She was in her bedroom, packing a bag. Nightgown. Robe. Underwear. He watched her. She didn’t speak. She pushed past him and went into the bathroom to collect her toiletries. Then she went into her study and began to gather her papers. She unplugged her computer and disconnected its various cables and cords.

“Linda.”

“Could you carry the computer down for me? Put it in the trunk?”

“Don’t do this.”

She went back to the bedroom, lifted another suitcase from the top of the closet, and began to fill it with sweaters, jeans, socks.

“Linda, it’s late.”

“I’ll stay at the Academy Inn tonight. Tomorrow I’ll look for an apartment in Basingstoke. So I can be near Emily.”

“Linda—”

Suddenly she stopped, and turned, and stared at him directly, her face taut with emotion. “Yes?”

What could he say to change things? To make things better?

“I’ll get the computer.” He turned and left the room.

Chapter Twenty-four

On December eighteenth
Emily waited by the psych ward doors with a pounding heart. Jorge had called every night for the past week and then he said he wanted to visit her before he left for Christmas break. She’d said: Sure, that would be nice. It had been fairly easy to say that on the telephone, where they couldn’t see each other, where he was just an idea, a voice she could easily disconnect. She hadn’t realized she would be so nervous when the day finally arrived.

“I want to meet him,” Arnold had announced when she told the group Jorge was coming.

“Me, too,” Cynthia said.

“Pleeeeeeeeze,” Keith wheedled. “I’ll give you all my desserts for a week.”

“Okay, but you have to promise to be good.”

“Are we ever any other way?” Keith asked, pretending to be insulted.

“I mean it. And you have to leave us alone to talk.”

“I don’t like Jorge,” Bill declared.

It was as if a chair had spoken. Everyone stared at him.

“You don’t know Jorge, Bill,” Arnold pointed out.

“I don’t like him. I don’t like Jorge.”

“Look,” Keith said, “Jorge isn’t Emily’s
boyfriend
. He’s just some guy at school. Some foreign guy she was nice to—”

“Hey, that’s not true,” Emily interrupted. “I mean, he is foreign, but he’s not just some
foreign guy—
”

Keith tilted his head warningly at Emily. “But he’s not your boyfriend, is he, Emily?”

“I don’t have a boyfriend.” She saw Bill relax. So it was true, what they were always teasing her about; Bill had a crush on her. She didn’t know why; she never flirted with him.

She had convinced the group to give her time alone with Jorge, at least thirty minutes, but now as the actual meeting approached she wished she’d arranged it the other
way around, so that they would be there to help her over the first few awkward moments when they saw each other after three weeks.

Would he still like her? She studied her reflection in the night-darkened window. She’d actually lost a little weight recently, without really meaning to, probably because they let her out for walks on the hospital grounds twice a day. Usually she went jogging with Keith, then came in to do exercises in the fitness room. Her mother had brought in more of her clothes. She wore a periwinkle sweater and jeans and when she’d shampooed her hair, she’d just let it fall into its normal loose curls instead of moussing it into spikes.

Suddenly, there he was. He pushed through the ward doors, his long, finely boned face tight with a look of wariness, a kind of brittle guardedness that all first-time visitors wore.

“Jorge. Hi.”

“Emily.” He had a sheaf of flowers in his hands. Not roses, but spring flowers, tulips, irises, anemones.

He handed them to her; awkwardly, formally, she accepted them.

“Thank you.” The flowers gave her a reason to move. “I’ll put them in water. Come on. There’s a little kitchen down this way.”

They had to pass by the living room, where her gang was gathered. Bill and Cynthia and Arnold were watching television, but Keith had leaned himself up against the doorjamb, like a casual observer at a street café, and as Emily and Jorge went by, Keith said in an exaggeratedly macho voice, “How ya doin’?”

“Hello,” Jorge replied.

Emily looked back over her shoulder. Keith wiggled his eyebrows, Groucho Marx–style, at Emily.

Emily found the vase—heavy clear plastic, non-breakable—filled it with water, and settled the beautiful flowers. According to ward rules, she could have a guy in her bedroom, if the door were kept open to the hall, but there was only one chair in her bedroom, so one of them would have to sit on the bed, and she couldn’t deal with the pure
implications
of that. That left the living room or the dining room and she’d decided to take him to one of the tables at the far end of the dining room. Now she led him to the table and set the flowers between them.

“Oh,” she said as soon as they sat down, “I forgot to ask if you’d like something to drink.”

“That’s all right. No, thanks. I can’t stay very long. I need to finish packing.”

“When do you leave for Argentina?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Are you looking forward to seeing your family?”

He smiled. “Some of them. I’m eager to see my friends. Tell me, how are you?”

“I’m fine. Really fine. I’m getting out of here on Friday.”

“For the holidays?”

“No, for good. I still have to meet my shrink twice a week, but I don’t have to live here anymore.”

“So you’ll be back at Hedden for next semester!”

She was flattered by how eagerly he said it. “No, actually, I won’t. It’s kind of complicated.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, um, my mother and her husband are separating.”

“Divorce?”

“Maybe. Just separating for now.”

It was all twisted, all backward. This was the story Owen had insisted she tell. Insisted Linda tell. This was the country where the accused were innocent until proven guilty, and as far as Owen was concerned, Bruce would never be proven guilty. He didn’t want his son to suffer a bad reputation because of Emily’s accusations. Finally Linda had agreed. Emily had not been present at all their discussions, but she knew this was as hard for her mother to accept as it was for herself.

“And because they’re separating, Mom has to get a place to live, since Owen owns the farm—it’s his family’s farm. And she can’t afford the Hedden tuition and rent as well.”

“So where will you live?”

“Mom’s taken an apartment here in Basingstoke. I’ll go to Basingstoke High. It’s a good school. That way I can see my shrink, and also my Hedden friends. If they still want to see me.”

“I will.” Jorge’s sleek black hair had been trimmed, and it hung in glossy sheaves to his shoulders. He was so handsome Emily couldn’t believe it when he said, “I hope we are friends for a long time. You know you were the first person who was really nice to me at Hedden. You were … genuine.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“But Jorge … you’re so handsome!”

He shrugged. “What can I say? I’m older than everyone and yet my English is not good, my skin is dark, I’m from South America. People thought I’m either a drug pusher, because everyone from South America is, you know, or a dumb spic.”

“Oh, nonsense. I never knew anyone who called you that. All my friends—”

“It didn’t help me much with the guys that the girls liked me.” He made a brushing gesture with his hand. “Hey, I don’t mean to sound pathetic. I have friends. I like it at Hedden. But you were always so easy to talk to. You have a sense of humor I like.”

Something was happening between them, something that had been there from the start, a magic connection, a kind of bridge of sparks. It made her lips tingle, but not in the bad way, like when she was going to faint, but in a good way. In a way that made her feel alive, and something else.
Unique
.

“I’m not crazy, you know,” Emily blurted out.

“I never thought you were.”

“Yeah, well, being
here
 … I’m here because of a real event. Something happened to me. Like an accident. Like a car ran into me, only it wasn’t that. I’m fine, really, now that I’m mending.”

“What happened?”

“I’d like to tell you. But I can’t. Not yet. Maybe someday.”

They looked at each other in a silence that was not in any sense uncomfortable. All at once it was as if what Emily had been born to do in life was to look at Jorge, and to let him look at her.

“Are you sad about the divorce?”

Emily considered. “I’m sorry for my mother.”

“Won’t you miss Bruce?”

She longed to be honest, but said, “Well, you know, he’ll be going away to college next year … we wouldn’t be seeing much of each other anyway.”

“He’s a good guy.”

She wanted off that subject. “I’ll miss Hedden more than the farm. I’ll miss my friends.”

“You have funny friends. Did I say that right? I mean you have friends who have a good sense of humor.”

“Believe me, honey, I know,” Emily said, lapsing into the brash “Lawn Guyland” accent she and her friends affected from time to time. “They were here last night. Zodiac and Cordelia and Ming Chu and some others. We did a kind of Christmas Trolls thing.” She flickered her blue fingertips at him. “They gave me this wild polish.”

“Maybe I could write you over vacation.”

“I’d like that.”

“Do you have your new address?”

“Um, yeah, somewhere. In my room. It’s kind of embarrassing, the name of the place. The condo itself is okay, sort of small, but okay, but the whole place is named Monet Estates.” She saw he didn’t get it. “Like the painter, you know?”

“Ah.”

It struck her that perhaps Jorge really didn’t know who Monet was, and for some reason that made her feel enormously fond of him, as if beneath his handsomeness was a human being who was not as sophisticated and worldly as he looked.

“Each unit is named, like, Water Lilies, or Water Garden. All the Water Lilies have two bedrooms. That’s what we have. The place is furnished in lots of wicker and white furniture. It’s sort of tacky, but it’s temporary, Mom says.”

“Can you get E-mail?”

“I wish I could. I don’t have a computer. And I don’t see one in my future. I mean we don’t have the money for it right now.”

“Then we’ll rely on the government mail service.”

“Sounds good to me. How long does it take for a letter to get to Buenos Aires?”

“A week. Maybe a little more.”

“I’ll get the address. Want to see my room?”

“Sure.”

He followed her down the corridor and into her small bedroom. Both beds were made; she still didn’t have a roommate, but when she made her bed every morning, she remade the other bed, too. She found the new address in a pile of papers on her desk, wrote it carefully down on a piece of paper, and handed it to Jorge.

Their hands touched. Then he was holding her hand and looking at her.

“Jorge,” she said, her voice scratchy, “I’m sorry about the time in the woods.”

“That’s all right.”

“I didn’t mean to act like such a psycho. It’s just that …” How could she tell him?

He tried to help her. “You are very fragile?”

“No.”
She shook her head. “No, I am not fragile. Well, maybe I thought I was for a little while, but I’ve learned that I’m not. I’m very strong.” She saw that he looked puzzled. “I’m only fifteen,” she concluded weakly.

“I’m nineteen.”

She smiled. “Very old.”

“Oh, ancient.”

“Compared to me, you are.” She thought that if he would only stay and hold her hand, she would be happy. But those invisible bridges spun out between them were like tiny ropes, tightening around her body, tugging her toward him, tugging him toward her, she could tell by his expression. “I guess I am sort of a geek,” she concluded.

“You are lovely.”

Then he reached out a hand to touch her face, and automatically, without a moment’s thought, she flinched. She felt her face go scarlet.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to …”

But he had backed off. Leaning against the wall, arms crossed, he said, “I hope you’ll write me.”

“And you write me.”

“I will.” She heard a commotion in the hallway. “Oh, get ready, here they come. My new friends.” Seeing a look of consternation pass over his face, quickly she added, “They’re harmless.”

Then they were all at the door, Keith, Cynthia, Arnold, and sullen, fat Bill. Emily introduced them and Jorge shook everyone’s hand, except Bill’s, who refused to hold out his hand.

“Well, uh, good-bye again,” Jorge said to Emily, a bit discomfited by the group crowding around him.

“We’ll see you out!” Keith announced.

“No, you won’t,” Emily calmly asserted. “I’ll walk you to the door, Jorge.”

Reaching out, she took his arm and led him from the room. Beneath her palm lay the slender length of Jorge’s arm, muscles lying beneath wool and cotton. She was aware
of his body’s movements paralleling hers as they walked. It was as if her senses overloaded; she couldn’t talk, she could only appreciate Jorge’s presence, like a spoon of honey on her tongue, a sunrise: a promise.