Clouds (6 page)

“I don’t know,” she answered Meredith.

“What’s to analyze?” Meredith asked. “When you love someone, you know. If you don’t, you don’t.”

If Shelly had had the emotional energy, she might have challenged her sister’s simplistic comment. What did Meredith know of love? She had dated more guys than she could list. Shelly even remembered when Meredith had first claimed she was in love. Meri was eleven years old. He was a movie star. Even though their parents forbade the Graham girls to buy Hollywood star magazines, Meredith borrowed copies from her friends at school and paid them for tear-out posters of her “true love.”

No, Meredith knew nothing of what Shelly meant when she spoke of heart-knit-to-heart kind of love. Meri couldn’t possibly understand what Jonathan and Shelly had, or why their relationship had to be all or nothing—and, therefore, had become nothing.

“I know you mean well,” Shelly said. “But this isn’t getting me anywhere. Right now my problems revolve around my job. Where am I going to work? Where am I going to live? What changes do I need to make, and what are my choices? I don’t see how dredging up all these memories of Jonathan and trying to get me to define what I once felt for him are going to help me at all right now.”

“You’re probably right,” Meredith said, pulling back. “It’s just that when you said you felt like you had hit a brick wall, it reminded me of Jonathan and how torn up he was when you
left. Don’t you ever wonder where he is?”

“Sometimes.”

“We could probably track down his parents to find out,” Meredith suggested. “Where did they move to?”

“The Bahamas,” Shelly said.

“It might be worth a try. For curiosity’s sake, if nothing else.”

“What would be the point?” Shelly asked quickly.

They sat silently for a moment. Meredith seemed to be reviewing her options. She chose not to challenge her sister again.

“Well, I should help you start packing,” Shelly said, releasing her tension in a big breath. “We’re not going to solve my problems sitting here when neither of us has the answers. We might as well solve your packing problems. At least you have a place to go and a job waiting for you.”

Shelly didn’t mean for the last line to carry a bite the way it did. She was happy for Meri and immediately caught herself by saying, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to sound like that. I’m glad everything is working out for you.”

The phone rang again. Meri excused herself to answer it, and Shelly busied herself wrapping pictures.

“She’s right here,” Meredith said, holding the phone out to Shelly. “It’s Mom.”

“Oh, good,” Mom said when Shelly picked up the phone. “I wondered where you were. You received a phone call here from the airline. I didn’t know if you needed to call them back right away, but they said something about calling by five.”

“Thanks. I’ll call them. Did they leave a number?” Shelly wrote the number down on the side of a packing box with a wide marking pen she found on the counter. “Thanks, Mom.”

Shelly dialed the number and waited. A recording came on asking her to wait. When a human voice answered, Shelly
explained that she had been asked to call. Everything about the Seattle system was different from LAX’s. When she called in there, she knew the people by first name, and they knew who she was. This stressed voice spoke with her only long enough to ask if she could work a red-eye flight to Philadelphia that night.

Her spirits instantly picked up when she agreed and promised to be there in forty-five minutes.

“Things might be working themselves out,” Shelly said after she hung up. “I have a flight. I need to leave, though. Sorry I couldn’t help more.”

“That’s fine. Byron said he would come if I needed him.”

“Are you and Byron getting serious?” Shelly asked as she looked for her keys.

“Byron and me? Are you kidding? He’s a lug. A sweet lug, but a lug. He went out with Trina from work, but she gave him the cold shoulder. Now he’s crying on my shoulder. That’s what the long conversation was about. I told him I wasn’t interested in dating him, but he said he still wanted to help me move. I think he needs to be needed.”

“Don’t we all,” Shelly muttered, moving around the packing paper on the kitchen counter. “Have you seen my keys?”

“No. Don’t forget your microwave dinner. Do you still want it?”

Shelly opened the microwave and checked under the cardboard lid. The noodles had turned to mush, and the beef had a gray tinge to it. “No, and I don’t recommend that you eat it either.”

“Here are your keys,” Meri said, lifting up the key chain from the top of a packing box by the front door. “What would you do without me?”

Shelly granted her little sister the smile of approval Meredith seemed to be hoping for. “I don’t know. What would I do without you?”

“Call me when you get back,” Meri said as Shelly left the apartment.

Shelly drove through a fast-food taco place before entering the freeway. With each bite of her burrito, she assured herself things were looking up. They had called her to work tonight. Maybe she would actually end up with more hours on reserves.

In the back of her mind, Shelly heard the word
Bahamas
.

“That’s silly,” she muttered aloud. “I would never call the Renfields to ask about Jonathan. Never.”

Chapter Five
 

T
he passengers on the red-eye were placid, and the flight went without a hitch. The plane was nearly full, which was somewhat unusual but a good sign for the airline. Most of the passengers were families on summer vacations.

Dirk, the flight attendant whom Shelly shared the shift with, was overly cheerful and seemed a little too eager to welcome her on his usual flight. Shelly ignored his attempts at flirting and went about her job. She liked being on the longer flight. It was good to feel busy.

Not until about halfway through the return trip did she start to feel tired. She had stayed on the ground at the hotel the required eighteen hours and had managed to catch almost six hours of sleep, but now she was feeling rundown.

While the movie played, Shelly sat in the pull-down seat nearest the porthole in the back door. They were flying above the clouds, somewhere over Idaho, she guessed. She leaned over and contentedly gazed at the endless field of white fluff
that spread out before them. This was the part of flying she loved most—the clouds. Always changing. So peaceful and beautiful. They reminded her of a meadow of freshly fallen snow. Only in a meadow, someone could walk through and leave footprints in the perfect snow. No one could walk through the clouds. No human could mar their perfection.

She remembered the first time she had decided she loved clouds. She had been with Jonathan in the tree house. They must have been close to twelve years old. Her poetic side was just beginning to sprout its wings. She was perched on the strong branch that jutted out of the top of the tree house, and Jonathan was busy with a hammer repairing the boards that had warped during the spring rains. Shelly had been watching the clouds perform their lazy May dance through the bright green leaves. “They’re like a field of cotton stuffing,” she said. “And no one can make them come or go.”

“Are you going to help me or not?” Jonathan said.

Shelly ignored him and lingered on the branch, feeding her newly born poetic self by trying to describe the clouds in as many ways as she could.

That night, Shelly’s older sisters had sat her down and given her a lecture about playing in the woods with Jonathan. They said if Mom and Dad didn’t see the danger in it, they certainly did. At twelve, Shelly was too old to act like a tomboy. She needed to know that being alone with Jonathan was only giving him an invitation to kiss her.

The thought shocked Shelly. Kissing Jonathan would be like kissing her brother. Why would she do that? He wouldn’t think of kissing her, either. She was sure of it.

As it was, nearly four years after the lecture Shelly began to think seriously about kissing a guy. She didn’t know when Jonathan started to think about kissing her. It might have been
when they were twelve. Or when they were seventeen and went for their hand-holding walk around the block. But he didn’t act on it until he was eighteen.

“Shelly?” Dirk reached over and shook her shoulder. “Are you ready?”

“Oh, sorry. I must have dozed off. Sure. Is the beverage cart ready, or do you want me to finish loading it?”

“It’s all set.”

Shelly rose and followed Dirk down the aisle, still trying to adjust her thoughts to catch up to the task at hand. “Something to drink for you?” she asked the passengers in the first row. Shelly began the familiar motions of pouring beverages and delivering them to the passengers with a smile. From then on everything was routine.

The flight landed at eleven-thirty in the morning, right on time. Shelly drove to her parents’ home in light traffic, which was a nice change. She couldn’t wait to take a hot bath and sleep.

Mom had left a note on her bed. “Call the church immediately.” Shelly complied, and when the secretary answered, she said, “Oh, Shelly, your parents have been so worried about you. Are you okay?”

“Yes, why?”

“Your father’s right here.” The secretary put him on the phone.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Where have you been?”

“I got a call to take a red-eye to Philadelphia a couple of days ago. I just got back.”

He was silent for a moment. “Your mother and I didn’t know where you were.”

“I work,” Shelly said cautiously. “This is how my schedule
goes sometimes. Mom knew I received a call from the airline. She called me at Meri’s a couple of days ago.”

“Meri’s been gone, too,” Dad said. “Or not answering her phone. We were concerned, that’s all.”

Shelly felt her life being pinched. It was bad enough to be home, trying to overlap her routine and habits with her parents’, but for her parents to check on her like this was frustrating. For five years she had come and gone as she pleased at all hours of the day. Living at home with Mom and Dad was not going to work.

“I’ll check on Meri,” Shelly said. “Don’t worry. I’m sure she’s fine. She’s been busy packing.”

“As long as you’re okay, that’s all that matters. I’ll let your mother know.”

“Yes, I’m fine. Thanks, Dad.” Shelly hung up and gave Meredith a call at work.

“Mom and Dad were worried about us,” Shelly said when her sister came on the line. “Can you believe that? Are they like this all the time?”

“It goes in spurts,” Meredith said. “Sometimes for a couple of weeks I don’t hear from them. Then, all of a sudden, they decide they have to know exactly where I am and what I’m doing. I knew Mom called yesterday, or was it the day before? Anyway, with packing and finishing up everything at work, I haven’t been returning my calls.”

“When is your last day at work?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Are you excited about your new job?”

“I feel like Cinderella,” Meri said. “This is a huge leap for me. And getting into the lake cottage at the same time—I feel as if I’m dreaming.”

“Meri,” Shelly said cautiously. She hadn’t planned out her words yet, but the thought had hedged its way into her mind
when she first heard Meri was moving into the Tulip Cottage. “How would you feel about a roommate?”

There was a pause.

“You don’t have to answer right away. Just think about it. I would hardly be there; so I don’t think I’d be in your way or anything.”

Shelly wished she hadn’t mentioned the possibility. She felt strange asking her sister for a favor. Meri had always been the one who asked Shelly to bail her out.

“I can’t believe you’re asking me,” Meri said. “I kept wanting to suggest that you move in with me, but I thought you would think I was trying to run your life or something.”

“Why would you think that?”

“You’ve never needed anything from me. It felt strange being the one in the position to give you something. Remember last May when I was going to send you that cookbook I found at The Elliott Bay Book Company? It was called
A World of Favorite Cookie Recipes
, and I was so excited about it because I knew how much you loved to bake.”

Shelly vaguely remembered.

“I called you all jazzed about it,” Meredith said. “And you said you already had it.”

“So?” Shelly couldn’t figure out where this was leading.

“So, you always have everything. When we were growing up, you had all the right clothes. You had all the right ideas. You had all the answers to everything. I’m not trying to be mean, but you don’t need anyone or anything. I decided when I called you and you said you already had the cookie book that that was the last time I was going to try to give you anything. I know you don’t intend to, but, Shelly, you push people away.”

Shelly didn’t know what to say.

“Don’t get mad.”

“I’m not mad,” Shelly said. “I’m trying to figure out what you’re telling me.”

“Maybe I’m saying it too powerfully. I think I’m the one with the hormone rush today. Or maybe it’s all this stress. Anyway, all I’m trying to say is, I want into your life. I’d love to have you live with me at the lake. I’m just asking that you want me to be in your life, too.” Meredith drew in a deep breath, then kept talking before Shelly had a chance to respond. “I felt things were really improving between you and me the other day. Do you realize that was the first time we have ever talked seriously about Jonathan?”