Cloudburst (34 page)

“Anyway,” he continued, “Jordan, especially, liked to believe, probably still likes to believe, that if Alena had made it to your age, she would have been just like you. I don't know how many times she's looked out the window at you doing something outside or commented about something you said or did at school and then said, ‘just like Alena would.' ”

“What was happening to Ryder Garfield and me just wasn't fair,” I said. “If Alena was the way you and Jordan say she was, she would have felt the same way.”

He lost his smile. “Alena was an angel. It wasn't in her to be able to betray anyone, much less anyone she loved.”

“Then she wouldn't have betrayed Ryder Garfield,” I insisted.

“Oh, please. How many times do you think you'll fall in love before you find someone you'll marry?”

“I don't know. How many times did you?”

He put his glass down hard on the side table. “I suggest you go up to your room and go to bed. Neither of us is in the right mood to discuss this intelligently or even calmly. Go on!” he ordered.

I flinched, and then I stood, picked up my travel bag, glanced at him, and hurried out of the room to the stairs. The hard, cold look on his face put speed in my steps. I practically ran up to my room. My heart was pounding so hard I thought I might faint. I stood there after I closed the door and hugged myself. I was actually too frightened to cry. My tears froze behind my eyes.

Still shaking, I put my things away, undressed, and got into bed. I thought I heard his footsteps in the hallway. It seemed that he stopped at my door. I held my breath, anticipating him entering, but he didn't. It grew deadly quiet again. The moon pushed away the clouds in front of it and sent beams of silvery light through the windows, lighting up Alena's wall of giraffes. For a moment, they looked as if they were all moving in a gallop, as if they had been frightened by a tiger or something. My imagination was running rampant.

I closed my eyes but immediately recalled Ryder's look of absolute pain as the police dragged him away. It was a haunting look. All I could think was that he somehow blamed me. Like me, he was surely wondering how they had come to the right motel and the right door so quickly. Did he think I had bragged to my girlfriends, telling them how we would have this rendezvous? Did he think it was all my fault? What was in his eyes?

I hoped and prayed that in the morning, I would somehow be able to speak to him and that somehow we would find our way back to each other. I thought that falling asleep would be practically impossible now, but I had underestimated how much the driving and the emotional strain
had battered me. I fell into such a deep sleep, in fact, that it seemed I had sunk into the bed. Even the morning sunlight streaming out of a cloudless sky and ripping away the darkness didn't wake me. If Mrs. Duval had come to see how I was, she surely had left quietly, hoping not to disturb me.

I would always remember hearing a shrill, piercing scream, even though no one in the March household had screamed. It woke me with the surprise of an electric shock. I shuddered for a moment like someone going into a convulsion, and then I sat up quickly and cried, “What?”

Silence greeted me. There was no one else in my suite. I glanced at the clock. I had slept until almost nine-fifteen. Feeling achy and groaning like a ninety-year-old woman, I struggled to get out of bed and into the bathroom. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw the face of someone who had not slept or, if she had, had tossed and turned through an avalanche of debilitating nightmares. Cold water did little to revive me. I had barely enough energy to run a brush through my hair twice. Then I went to throw something on and go face the music. There was no sense locking myself in my room to avoid it. What was done was done. I was prepared to accept whatever fate had in store for me.

Or at least, I thought I was. How would I ever know?

The silence in the house surprised me. No one was moving about on our floor. Where was Mrs. Duval, the other maids? Why hadn't Mrs. Caro sent for me? Surely, everyone knew I was home by now. I turned down the stairway slowly and paused. The silence below was just as deep. There was no one in sight. I was like the ghost of
myself descending, not feeling my feet on the steps or my hand on the railing. Maybe I had died last night, and my body was still in my bed.

At the bottom of the stairway, I hesitated again to listen. I thought I heard someone sniffle and then the distinct sound of a cup and saucer. It was just Jordan at breakfast, I thought. She always woke late whenever she took something to help her sleep. I moved quickly to the dining room and stopped in the doorway. Jordan was there and so was Donald, but they were both looking down at their coffee. There was food on the table, but it all looked untouched—toast on plates, eggs looking more like displays in a restaurant storefront, and a full bowl of fruit.

Jordan looked up first. Her face appeared to shudder, as if the mere action of raising her head threw all of her features into a little earthquake. She brought her handkerchief to her mouth, and then Donald turned slowly and looked at me.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“You had better sit down,” Donald said.

I looked from his face to Jordan's. She still had the handkerchief pressed against her mouth. Now she looked unable to move, even to blink. I walked to my seat and sat.

“What?” I asked.

“If I've learned anything in this life so far, it's that you really don't know anyone.”

Oh, well,
I thought,
here comes another one of his long lectures.
I relaxed. I was mentally prepared for it, ready simply to sit and listen and try to look remorseful and attentive, as difficult as I expected it to be.

“No one knows what really goes on behind closed doors, within the walls of homes. How many times have we seen and heard neighbors claiming they would never have believed that their neighbor was a serial killer or something? Oh, I know this is the age of revelations, people spilling their most intimate secrets on talk shows. No one seems to have any self-respect anymore. Discretion is lost. At the drop of a hat, this one or that one admits he or she is a drug addict or was abused. You know what I mean?” he said, and looked at Jordan.

Her eyes moved to him but quickly came back to me, and that handkerchief still was over her mouth.

“Now, that's not to say we can't pick up some vibes ourselves, and obviously, the more experienced we are, the older we are, the better chance we have to do that, especially when we have gone through some hard experiences ourselves.”

Jordan made a strange sound that seemed to catch in her throat like a scream she was holding down. My heartbeat quickened, and a slow but unrelenting warmth began to radiate out from under my breasts, climbing to the base of my throat. I looked at Donald.

“I'm definitely not one who likes to run about saying ‘I told you so.' There's no satisfaction in being right when being right brings misery and sadness. In fact, if I had my druthers, as they say, I'd rather not have the wisdom and perception to foresee tragedy. Someone who has that suffers with it before, during, and after it happens.”

“What are you talking about?” I finally asked.

“As I began to say, no one would expect a girl of your
age to know someone as well as, say, someone my age or Jordan's age might know someone. When you're young and innocent, there's no obstacle too difficult for you to overcome, no mountain too high to climb. No danger is forbidding enough. You're like these—what do they call them—young immortals who don't think they need health care or something. It's understandable. We've all been through that.”

“I don't understand what you're trying to say, Donald. I'm sorry.”

“Jordan received a phone call first thing this morning. That's the way it is with the women in her clutch lunch gang,” he said, giving her a disapproving look. “Can't wait to get out bad news.”

Now Jordan released a moan. It seemed to come from the very bottom of her soul and travel up her spine. I felt my heart stop.

“What?” I practically screamed.

“This troubled boy has apparently taken his own life,” Donald said.

I heard the words, but they wouldn't navigate to that place in my brain where meaning dwelt. They seemed to go into my ears and then bounce off my skull and fall out again.

“What?” I thought I asked. I wasn't sure I was forming words, either.

“After he was brought home, he shut himself in his room. No one checked on him, we understand. Both his parents were at an affair. He had some sharp little tools he used for making his model planes and boats, apparently,
and he bled to death. I'm afraid they won't be able to keep this out of the papers,” he added. “It will be all over the news. You know how everything that happens to celebrities is Page One.”

“The floor,” I said.

“What?”

It felt as if it were sliding quickly to my right, and then the wall on the right started to slide into the ceiling, and the ceiling slid down into the wall on the left, and this kept going faster and faster until I was carried along and spun so fast I lost consciousness.

Later, Jordan told me that Donald had caught me and carried me up the stairs to my room and bed. I went in and out of consciousness for a while. A good friend of theirs, Dr. Battie, actually made a house call. He gave me a sedative, and I slept through most of the day.

Every time I did open my eyes, Jordan was sitting there offering words of comfort. I simply stared at her, telling myself that if I could force myself back to sleep, I could eventually bring the nightmare to an end. I'd wake up again. It would be morning. I'd shower, get dressed, and go down to breakfast to listen to Donald's lecture about how I had disappointed them. He would then talk about the future, admitting that perhaps they were a little too hard on me and that after things had settled down some, they'd permit me to invite Ryder to the house again, maybe to dinner, and we'd be more civilized about it all. Jordan would agree. I'd return to school, and we'd start where we had left off. Even Ryder's sister would behave. All I had to do was fall asleep and push the nightmare out.

But when I woke again, Jordan was still there. She was sorting through some clothes, separating garments. I watched her for a while because she didn't know I was awake.

“What are you doing?” I finally asked her.

“Oh, you're awake. Good. I've decided I have to give away some of these things that once belonged to Alena. They're too good to waste, and there are many young girls who could benefit. What good are they doing anyone hanging in this closet? Alena would be the first to agree.”

I looked at the window and saw it was nearly twilight. “Didn't I get up this morning?”

“What's that? Oh. Yes, you were up.”

She put one of the dresses down and came over to sit on my bed. She smiled and took my hand.

“You've had a terrible shock.”

I shook my head. “No, that was just a nightmare.”

“How I wish it were,” she said.

I felt my lips trembling. “It was,” I insisted.

She patted my hand gently. “You'll get stronger, Sasha. I used to sit with Alena in the early days of her illness and tell her that, and she would agree. It was because she had that attitude that she lasted as long as she did.”

“Alena died,” I said.

“Yes, she did, but she made sure she gave me as much as she could before going.”

“Ryder's not dead.” I shook my head, hoping to see her shake hers as well, but she didn't.

“I don't care who they are,” she said. “They're suffering. If anyone knows how deeply that suffering is, it's Donald and I.”

“No,” I said.

“Now, we don't want you to blame yourself for this in any way. Donald is very insistent about that. He wants me to set up therapy for you to make sure that doesn't happen. He says the seeds for this were planted long before you met Ryder Garfield. There's a lot of history you don't know about, I don't know about, and no one on the outside knows about. This incident recently just set off a tragedy that was bound to happen. If it hadn't been you there at the time, it would have been some other girl. Donald's right.”

I turned my back on her.

She put her hand on my shoulder. “I want you to know I'm here for you, Sasha. You can cry on my shoulder, talk to me, ask for anything you want or need, and I'll get it for you.”

I didn't say anything. I closed my eyes so hard that my forehead ached.

“Mrs. Duval will bring you something soft to eat, some eggs, maybe, or hot cereal, okay?”

If I don't talk,
I told myself,
this will all go away. It will be just a dream.

“You need something in you. I don't want to have to send you to the hospital or something. Please eat something,” she said, and stood up. “You poor dear.”

I thought she had left, but when I turned around, she was still standing there looking at me.

“When I see you like this, I see Alena again. It breaks my heart.”

“Alena didn't lose someone she loved,” I said. Maybe that was a terribly cruel thing to say to her, but I was
suffering too much to care. Anyway, she didn't look angry about it. She smiled, in fact.

“Of course she did,” Jordan said. “She lost us. But you still have us. You still have me. Make sure you eat something,” she said in the tone of a warning, and then she left.

I lay there for a moment, and then I heard a
ping
on my computer and sat up slowly. I didn't remember turning it on, but I had probably forgotten to turn it off when I had left to meet Kiera. I was sure all of my school friends were writing to me. It amazed me that my phone hadn't been ringing continually, but when I looked at it, I saw that it had been unplugged.
That's good,
I thought. I didn't want to speak to any of them, ever.