Eden (2 page)

2

I was rudely awoken early the next morning by the ringing of my cell phone. Reluctantly, I reached over and plucked it from my nightstand where I had left it charging the night before.

“Hello?” I said, groggily.

“Where are you?” It was Matt. “Drake got home and we all planned to meet at Kyle’s this morning. Did you forget?”

Meeting Eden, the night before, had completely wiped all thoughts of my friends from my mind. Of course, I couldn’t say anything to Matt; that would reveal the existence of the beautiful girl next door and I wanted to keep that little secret to myself for as long as possible.

“Yeah, sorry,” I apologized, “I overslept. Let me grab a shower and I’ll be right over.”

“No problem,” Matt assured, “Bring some cash, we are all heading over the Benny’s for breakfast.”

“Sounds good,” I said, my stomach rumbling at the thought of a mouth watering Grand Slammer, “Wait for me; I’ll be at Kyle’s in a few minutes.”

After hanging up, I leaped out of bed and ducked into the bathroom, shedding my clothes along the way. My mom left me a daily allowance for things like lunch and snacks at the nearby mall. I hadn’t gone for a few days, so I had a tiny stash of cash to fund our morning pilgrimage to Benny’s.

It was approximately nine in the morning when I locked up the house and dashed in the direction of Kyle’s, a few blocks to the south from mine. I stumbled and almost fell, when I noticed Eden sweeping the front walkway. She noticed me and, looking up, flashed another one of those heartbreaking smiles at me. I trotted over to her.

“Good morning,” I greeted.

“Good morning,” she said back, “where are you off to in such a hurry?”

Her question was innocent enough, but something in her voice sounded a little lonely and envious.

“I’m just going to meet some friends,” I told her, “One of them spends the whole summer with his dad, and he just got home last night.”

“Oh,” she said, “well, have fun.” She smiled sweetly at me.

It was the perfect time to make plans with her. If I wasn’t so gutless, I would say something smooth. I stood before her in silence for a few moments. She looked up at me expectantly or maybe as if to say ‘I need to finish sweeping, thank you very much,’ but in addition to making me feel weak in the knees, her eyes seemed to give me unexpected courage.

“I’ll be back later this afternoon,” I finally said, “maybe we could do something then.”

Her warm smile in response almost made me want to cancel my plans with my friends right now and spend the whole day with her, but before I could say anything she said, “That would be great. I’ll be busy all afternoon straightening up and cleaning, but I should be done by evening. I would love to do something afterwards.”

My heart jumped when she said ‘love.’ I wished for this day to quickly pass, so that I can be with her once more. While all these romantic thoughts clouded my mind, all that seemed to come out, in answer, was a grunt of acknowledgement and a nod of my head in agreement.

I waved back to her as I reached the street; she waved back in return and then went back to sweeping the front walk. I raced down the street in the direction of Kyle’s house.

A few minutes later I reached my friend’s house. Breathing heavily from my run, I knocked on the door. The door was quickly pulled open and standing before me was a tall, lanky boy with an unruly helmet of reddish hair; Kyle Lafferty.

“What took you so long?” Kyle accused, stepping aside to let me in.

“You think it’s easy to look this good?” I retaliated, scanning the room, I quickly found Drake lounging on the sofa. “Drake, what’s up? How was Florida?”

“Hot as a bitch,” Drake said, barely looking in my direction. He was dressed in a jacket even though the weather today was fairly warm. I guess it really was hot as a bitch in Florida.

“Can we go now? I’m starving,” came a voice from over my left shoulder. It was Matt. He often got testy when he got hungry.

“We better go now,” Kyle agreed, “It’s almost ten and I refuse to do brunch with a bunch of guys.”

We left the house and headed down the road, towards the local Benny’s. It was a nice morning; clear and warm. Although, Drake might argue that fact as he zipped up his jacket.

As we entered Benny’s many of the employees looked up and waved hello. We came here often over the summer and, also, during the school year. It was closer than the public library and a great place to study. As we were seated, our favorite waitress, Angeline, came over to take our order.

Being teenagers, Angeline was our favorite waitress simply because she was hot. She had long blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes that twinkled when she smiled. She was in her mid to late twenties and on her that tight waitress uniform looked like a fetish’s dream come true. Needless to say, all of us had spent many nights of our teenage lives fantasizing about her. She was, also, really nice.

“So what can I get you boys?” Angeline asked in her flirty tone. She loved to flirt with us, and we loved it when she flirted; it was a win-win situation all around.

After taking our drink orders and promising to return soon, we watched as she sauntered back into the kitchen. After she exited the dining area, we regained our senses.

“So, what did you guys do this summer?” Drake asked, breaking the silence.

“Not much,” I confessed, “the usual – go to the mall, watch TV; nothing big.”

“Did you see the new Will Smith movie?” Kyle asked Drake. Kyle was not only a big tech-freak and video game junkie, he was, also, up on all the movies. Many of which, he watched off the internet.

“You mean the one where he is on another planet in the future?” Drake confirmed, “Yeah, I saw it with my dad. It would have been much better seeing it with you guys.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said, “You can only enjoy a movie so much watching it on Kyle’s computer. Seeing it on the big screen is always better.”

Our conversation was interrupted as Angeline returned with our sodas. None of us minded the interruption as Angeline leaned over, giving us a good look at her plunging neckline, placing each glass in front of us.

“Are you boys ready to order?” she asked pulling her order pad from her apron.

“Yes ma’am,” Matt said, looking star struck as Angeline placed the end of her pencil between her lips.

We all tried our best to concentrate on the situation at hand and order our food. Matt seemed to have the toughest time remembering what he wanted and had to open the menu again to find it.

I realized that, subconsciously, I was comparing Angeline to Eden and was finding Angeline to be lacking, despite all of her fantasy-inducting attributes. I had never done anything like this before. Previously, I had appreciated each woman separately, like fine wines, finding no reason to ever pit their beauty against each other; now for the first time, I felt like I shouldn’t be ogling Angeline. I felt guilty, like I was doing something wrong. It is not like Eden was my girlfriend, she’s not even really a friend; she is just a neighbor that I think is cute. Cute, that’s the understatement of the year. What was wrong with me?

“Tom, did you just see that?” Kyle asked me, breaking me out of my internal struggle and back to reality.

“See what?” I asked back.

“Dude, Angel dropped her pencil,” Matt exclaimed with a look of awe on this face.

I looked back at him as if to say ‘so what?’

“She didn’t bend at the knees,” he stressed, as if that was the answer to the secret of life and the other two repeated, in the same tone of awe, what Matt had just revealed to me, like chanting a holy mantra.

The funny thing is that before yesterday, I would have been joining them in their Gregorian-like chant. I felt troubled at the fact that missing Angeline’s display didn’t bother me. I knew that I shouldn’t get my hopes up about Eden. She was so beautiful that she could easily get a better guy than me; and I felt dismayed that I no longer had any interest in looking at other girls like I used to. If Eden rejected me, would I go back to my old ways, or would I never again find interest in the admiration of the female form?

That thought scared me.

Was I in love? Is that what was wrong with me? I wasn’t sure because I had never been in love before, but I found it a little scary to think that I could, so easily, have feelings like this for a girl that I hardly knew.

I was so preoccupied with my soul-searching, that I barely noticed it when Angeline placed the Grand Slammer in front of me, but the aroma of crispy bacon, grilled sausage, scrambled eggs and toasty hash browns quickly brought me back from my grim contemplations.

“Are you alright?” Drake asked me.

Even though, as a whole, teenage boys are pretty oblivious to the feelings of others, my friends could detect that my mind was elsewhere.

“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just that yesterday I..,” I stopped myself.

I had almost blurted out about Eden moving in next door. Until I could make heads or tails about my feelings for her, and more importantly, her feelings for me, I didn’t want any of them to know about her.

“…didn’t get much sleep,” I quickly finished.

“Poor baby,” Matt consoled, “like we care.”

That’s the great thing about guys. Unlike girls, they don’t probe and prod, trying to get you to reveal your inner-most feelings. They accept your explanations at face value and move on.

“So, do you want to go to the mall after we’re done?” Drake asked, changing the subject.

“Yeah,” Kyle broke in between mouthfuls of his Spanish omelet, “I want to stop at F.Y.I. and pick up the new Miley Cypress CD.”

The silence in response was deafening. We all stopped eating and looked over at Kyle in disbelief.

“Dude,” Matt informed him, “That is gay on so many levels.”

“Why? She’s hot,” Kyle stated, as if that explained why he would purchase her CD.

“But…she’s on a children’s channel,” Matt stuttered, trying to reason with him, “It’s just not right.” He concluded.

We all nodded our heads in agreement. There was nothing hot about Miley Cypress and nothing redeeming in her music.

“I’m still getting it,” Kyle insisted.

“Well, I’m not going to be seen in the same store with someone purchasing a Hannah Banana CD,” Drake stated.

“It’s not a Hannah Banana CD,” Kyle pointed out, “It’s Miley Cypress.”

“Dude, Miley Cypress is Hannah Banana,” Matt informed him, “it’s the same thing.”

“Whatever,” Kyle said shaking his head.

“Why are you even buying a CD anyway?” I asked, “Don’t you just download all your music and burn it to CDs?”

“I usually do,” Kyle agreed, “but sometimes I like to have the physical CDs of artists that I really like.”

“I’m sure Miley appreciates it,” I consoled him.

“Maybe she’ll visit your house and show her appreciation,” Matt joked, putting on a high-pitched voice in a feeble imitation of Miley Cypress, “Oh, Kyle-baby, I am so happy that you bought my CD instead of downloading it. Let me give you some smootchies to show my gratitude.”

Matt stood up, and leaning across the table puckering his lips, as if trying to plant smootchies on Kyle’s cheek.

“Get away from me, you freak,” Kyle squealed, flailing his arms in an attempt to get Matt to back off.

“Yo, Matt, you looked just a little too comfortable trying to give smootchies to Kyle,” Drake pointed out, “Anything you want to share?”

“How about sharing my fist with your face?” Matt suggested.

“Wait a second,” I said a thought just according to me.

“What?” Kyle asked taking the bait.

“Did you just say that you really liked Miley Cypress?” I pointed out in an amazed tone.

“Shut up,” Kyle moaned lowering his head in defeat.

We all had a good laugh and finished up our meals, just in time for Angeline to make a re-appearance.

“So are you boys all finished?” she asked as she approached our table.

Matt made a last attempt to clear all traces of food from his plate. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if he had picked up his plate and licked it clean.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said at last.

“Ok,” she said, ripping a check from her note pad and leaving it on the table, “You know the drill, pay on the way out and leave my great, big tip right here.” As if to stress the last part she gave us a seductive wink.

If I had a hundred dollar bill in my pocket, I would have left it on the table for her after witnessing that slow, sensuous wink. I didn’t have a hundred dollars on me at the moment and, sadly, a combined total of three dollars was all we could spare for all of her efforts.

3

Leaving Benny’s, we raced across the highway to Harbor Square Mall. Actually, to call it a mall was almost an insult to real malls everywhere. It didn’t have multi-levels and a huge food court like most malls did. It did have a few good stores, but on a whole, the mall was only a cheap substitute for larger malls like Woodbridge Center and Menlo Park. I couldn’t complain, though, at least it was within walking distance.

Walking through the parking lot towards the main entrance, I said, “Kyle, we’ll wait for you in the bookstore while you go and buy…,” I couldn’t quite bring myself to say it, “that CD.”

“Don’t hate just because you kids just can’t appreciate good music,” Kyle said, breaking away from our group.

“We’ll be checking out the magazines,” Matt called after him as we approached the outside entrance to the bookstore.

It was around eleven in the morning when we entered the bookstore and the café was practically empty. We each grabbed a few magazines and sat at one of the tables to flip through them. Flipping through the latest issue of Maxim, I looked up just in time to witness Eden entering the store. She glanced around and then, as if spotting the section she was looking for, headed off.

“Hey, guys, I’m going to go and check out the books,” I said, hopping off my stool, “I’ll be right back.”

“Sure, if you are into that whole reading thing,” Drake said in a bored voice, not even looking up from his magazine, “I’ll stick to pictures.”

I, quickly, headed in the direction I had seen Eden and found her buried in the classic literature section, looking through some old novels by Charles Dickens.

“Hi,” I said shyly.

“Hi, Thomas,” Eden greeted, looking up from the books.

“You like Dickens?” I asked, only because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“He was a very talented writer,” Eden told me, “He often used to work on many books at the same time, writing around the clock. I swear Charles only stopped when he was about to collapse. That man was impossible.”

She smiled, wistfully, to herself as if calling up a distant pleasant memory; but that was unthinkable, Charles Dickens died well over a century ago.

“You talk like he was an old friend,” I laughed.

“If he was, he’d be a really old friend,” Eden agreed, drawing out the word ‘really.’

“Well, now you know about my guilty pleasures, what brings you to the bookstore?” Eden asked with a sly grin. How could she look even more beautiful than ever?

“I was just meeting up with some friends,” I could have kicked myself for saying that. I didn’t want her to meet the others yet. I quickly changed the subject, “So, are we still seeing each other tonight?” Here comes kick number two. Why did I have to phrase it like that? I’m making it sound like we set a date, if I come on too strong now, I could blow the whole thing.

Miraculously, either Eden didn’t catch the way I said it, or maybe she didn’t care.

“Sure we are,” she replied, gracing me with another of her heart-stopping smiles, “My parents aren’t home yet, though. Would it be alright if I came to your house tonight?”

“No problem at all,” I quickly agreed.

“That’s good,” she said, “I’m really looking forward to spending time with you tonight, Thomas.”

I was stunned. Did she just say what I thought she said? I couldn’t believe it. She was looking forward to spending time with me? My jaw must have dropped because Eden began looking at me with some concern.

“W-what time did you want to come over?” I finally managed, trying to sound casual and failing miserably.

“How about six?” she said with a giggle. If angels could laugh, this is what they must sound like.

“That sounds great,” I told her, getting up and heading back to my friends, “I’ll see you then.”

I wanted to get back to the others before any of them came looking for me. I wanted things to be more solid between the two of us before I introduced her.

I’ve only known her for one day and I was already terrified of losing her.

When I got back to our table, Kyle was already there with a bag from F.Y.I.

“Did you really buy it?” I asked in amazement. I had half expected him to come to his senses before dropping close to fifteen dollars on his newest obsession.

“I sure did,” he said proudly, holding his bag up high as if displaying a trophy.

“Dude,” Matt announced, “if you ever play that CD while I am over your house, I swear I will smash it.”

“It’s not so bad,” Kyle soothed, “You just need to get in touch with your feminine side.”

“How about I get in touch with your feminine side instead?” Matt suggested, launching a punch in Kyle’s direction.

Luckily, for Kyle, he was able to get out of the way just in time and we all had a good laugh.

As we left the café, I looked back over my shoulder, towards where I had left Eden. For a split second I thought I caught a glimpse of her staring over at me, but just before our eyes met, she vanished.

It was like she had never been there.

Entering the mall proper, I decided that I wanted to stop at the candle store. I had never been a big fan of burning candles, but I hear that girls found them romantic. I wanted to set the right mood tonight for Eden. Plus, I always enjoyed the pleasant fragrances that wafted out from the shop. I informed my friends of my intention and they looked at me in shock.

“First Kyle and now you,” Drake said in horror, “Is there a gay epidemic going around?”

“Quick I’ve got to get my inoculations,” Matt screamed in response.

“Wow,” Drake said, reverting back to normal, “inoculation, that’s a big word, I’m impressed.”

“Thanks,” Matt said proudly, “I heard it on ER the other night. I’ve been waiting for the perfect opportunity to spring it on you guys.”

“Consider it sprung,” I congratulated him, “Are you guys coming with me?”

“Hell no,” Drake said, “Matt and I will be in the Bath and Beauty Shop.”

“What the hell?” Matt exclaimed, stepping back in confusion.

“I’m only kidding, tough guy,” Drake informed him, “We’ll be in Game Shop.”

Alone, I headed into the candle store. As soon as I stepped over the threshold, my nose was assaulted by a myriad of different scents. There were literally hundreds of different colored candles surrounding me, each with its’ own unique smell.

As I stood there, unsure of where to start, I was approached by a sales person. She was a middle-aged woman, maybe in her fifties. I guessed that she could see the distress written on my face.

“Can I help you, young man?” she asked.

“Um…yeah,” I began, unsure as to what I should say, “I’m looking for a candle…for my sister.” I added quickly.

“Well,” she said, with a thoughtful look on her face, “what scents does your sister like?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted glumly.

“That’s ok,” she consoled, “Do you know her favorite color?”

“No,” I said, this wasn’t going so well.

“What can you tell me about her?” she tried again.

“I think she’s Asian,” I offered. Am I retarded?

“You think that your sister is Asian?” she repeated, almost laughing.

“Well, you see,” I tried to cover up my, obviously, convoluted story, “she’s really my half-sister and I thought that she might like a candle because I want to make her feel more at home.”

“Isn’t that sweet of you?” she gushed. I felt horrible at telling all these lies, but I couldn’t think of a way out now.

“Well, I think she might like this one,” she said, leading me over to a display of light green jar candles. “It just came in, it’s called Bamboo Forest. It has a kind of green tea/earthy scent to it, if she is Asian, she might like it.” She opened the lid off the jar and handed it to me, “Take a smell and tell me what you think.”

I inhaled the woody aroma from the jar lid. It was a very pleasant scent, almost like being in a forest just after a rain storm. There was a strange twist to the smell that I didn’t recognize, that must be the green tea. Overall, I liked the scent.

“I’ll take it,” I told her, “Hopefully she will like it.” At this point I just wanted to get out of the store before I dug a deeper hole for myself.

After leaving the store, I headed over to Game Shop to meet back up with my friends. Thanks to Kyle, we often didn’t have to purchase games, since he bought all the newest ones himself, but we still went there often to talk with the employees.

When I entered the store, Kyle was already engaged in conversation with Brian, the manager. He looked up, noticing me, and waved.

“Hi, Brian,” I said waving back.

Brian was your stereo-typical video game junkie. He was around thirty, over-weight and looked like he didn’t shower very often. I’ve, also, heard rumors that he still lived in his parent’s basement, but as of now, nothing had been confirmed.

“What are they talking about so seriously?” I asked Matt, looking at the animated conversation taking place.

“Miley Cypress,” he replied, nonchalantly, examining the back of a video game package.

“Good Lord,” I mumbled, shaking my head.

After much heated debating, Brian finally conceded that, maybe, Kyle was as big of a Miley Cypress fan as he was, but before a definite conclusion could be reached, Kyle decided that it was time to leave.

“What are you doing tonight, Tom?” Drake asked as we approached the highway, on our way back home.

“Um…,” I began stalling for time, “I’m going out to dinner with my parents.” Just to drive the point home, I added, “So I won’t be around at all tonight.”

“What about you guys?” Drake asked, turning to Matt and Kyle.

“I was planning on playing video games at Kyle’s tonight,” Matt told us.

“When were you planning on informing me about these plans?” Kyle asked.

“Like you have anything better to do,” Matt challenged.

There were a few minutes of silence, as if Kyle was flipping through some mental date book. Finally he relented, “See you guys tonight, then.”

The situation had been decided and I had a total green light tonight with Eden.