Eternal Spring A Young Adult Short Story Collection (18 page)

I dismiss the call then send a quick text to my brother,
letting him know I'm okay and not to expect me home. Then I toss the phone on
Reyna's desk. I plan on leaving it there. I don't want any distractions.
"No. Today. It has to be today," I say to answer Rey's question.
"You got five minutes to get ready. We're losing daylight."

"Losing daylight?" she asks. "Where exactly
are you taking me?'

"Don't worry about that. Oh, and bring a sleeping
bag," I add before leaving the room.

"Sleeping bag? Sleeping bag?" I hear her call out
after me.

Reyna won't stop asking questions during the entire car ride
to the marina. I just smile and let her keep guessing. It’s fun to hear all of
her conjectures. She guesses everything from Detroit to Disney World. Though I
have no idea what possesses her to think I would take her to Detroit.

"The marina?" she asks as I park. "Scott, did
you buy me a boat?" She smiles. Though many of our classmates do own their
own boats, she knows I can't afford one. Not until I get that big MLB contract,
anyway.

"We're using Harrison's," I say, referring to our
classmate, Harrison McKinley III. He's a senior on the football team who owes
me a favor.

"Where are we going?"

"Stop asking questions and grab your stuff."

I practically run to the dock and toss in my gear. Reyna is
a step behind giggling with excitement.

I'm not an expert at sailing by any means, but Harrison
taught me enough so that we make good time to the little island I've picked out
where we’ll spend the night. One that has the perfect balance of marshland and
view of the sky.

Charleston has lots of little privately owned islands along
the coast. It took me two weeks to find the perfect one for us and then another
three weeks to convince the owner to let me use it.

Reyna is quiet and reflective the entire
boat
ride
over. It's like the sea air awakens a familiar part of her. She is
staring off into the sky. I know she’s thinking of Puerto Rico.

I dock the boat on the island, toss out our stuff then reach
for her hand. She pauses as she looks at the shore. She spies the blanket, the
radio and the cooler. Then she sees the picture of her mother that I placed in
a frame of the Puerto Rican flag.

"Oh, Scottie," she says as she starts to put
things together.

"I hope this is okay," I say as I help her out of
the boat. "I know this is a hard time for you and I know you’d rather be
on your home island, remembering your mother. But I thought, just for this
year, you could share this island with me, your best friend, and I could think
of your mother with you."

She’s quiet and I think for a moment that I've made a
mistake. I was too presumptuous. What made me think she’d want to spend this
day with me? What made me think she’d want to wallow in the sadness of her
mother's death? This was a stupid idea.

"You're so much more than a friend to me, Scottie,"
she says, burying her face into my chest. I wrap my arms around her and kiss
the top of her head.

I'm not much of a cook, but Reyna seems to enjoy the
sandwiches I made. We wash it down with virgin pina coladas, which didn't stay
as cold as I’d hoped. Reyna doesn't seem to mind.

As the sun sets, I wrap my arm around her and say, "So,
is La Cienega smiling?"

She looks at me and says, "We both are."

Real Perfection

Reyna and I stay up most of the night talking. She tells me stories
about her mother and about Puerto Rico. Though I’d heard them all before, I
don't mind hearing them again.

We take our time gathering our things the next morning. It
was a perfect night and neither one of us wants it to end. Reyna is the only
girl I can spend the night with on a completely pure and platonic level. Our
relationship transcends anything physical.

Reyna is an excellent student and I think she will be upset
with me for making her late for school the next morning, but she isn't.
Instead, she suggests we go some where for coffee and continue our
conversation. How is it I never get tired of talking to her?

Around noon, I drop her off at home and then drive the few
blocks over to my own house.

My little brother Stu is sitting on the curb. This worries
me. He should be in school.

"What's wrong?" I say, hopping out of my car.

"What's wrong?" he says incredulously.
"What's wrong? I should be asking you that. Where have you been,
Scott?" He stands and starts looking me up and down, as if searching for
an injury.

"I'm fine," I say, grabbing my stuff out of my
car.

"Well, not for long. You better hope you have a broken
achilles
or an enflamed tendon or whatever it is you
athletes get. That is the only way
Sam’s going
to
forgive you for what you did."

"Is she really mad?" I ask, even though I know the
answer.

"Scottie, I love you, so don't take this the wrong way.
But that is the dumbest thing you've ever said in your life. Of course she's
mad. You walked out during the eighth inning of what was supposed to be your
first perfect game. A perfect game.
Perfect!
What were you thinking? I thought this
was what you wanted."

I shake my head. "Nah, I thought that was what I
wanted. But I think I found what true perfection is."

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Continue the story of Scott and Reyna in
Nothing Else
Matters
.

***

Leslie DuBois lives in Charleston, SC with her husband and
two daughters. She is the author of several books for adults an young adults
including
Ain't
No Sunshine, Guardian of Eden, The Queen Bee of Bridgeton, The Devil of
DiRisio, Nobody Girl, Nothing Else Matters,
and
Shadows of St. Louis
. She also writes
her award-winning
Priscilla the Great
series as Sybil Nelson. Visit her at
www.lesliedubois.com
.

Back to Table of Contents

Picture Not Perfect

By

Lois
Lavrisa

Being a seventeen-year-old guy without a car sucks big time.
The possibility of not being able to afford to go senior prom with your girlfriend
blows too. However, working at an ice cream shop and having to wear a dorky
paper cap is by far the worst.

“Can you work late and close up by yourself?” Mike, my
manager, asked me.

“Yeah.” Wiping down the black marble countertop, I glanced
up at the clock. It was 9:00 p.m., an hour left before we closed.

“Have you asked Gabrielle to prom yet?” Mike asked. He took
off his paper cap and ran a hand through his thick brown hair.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I kind of want to make sure I have the cash first. This
week’s paycheck should be enough, I hope.” I grabbed a bottle of blue glass
cleaner and made my way to the front window to scrub off the sticky
fingerprints.

“It’d really suck if she said yes and you couldn’t afford to
go,” Mike said.

“Yeah, sure would,” I replied. “Then again, it would suck if
she said no.”

“No kidding.” I watched a blue drop of cleaner slide down
the glass, the smell of ammonia mixed with the sweet smell of waffle cones.

“Isn’t prom, like, this weekend?”

“Saturday night.” Today was Thursday.

“Glad you gave yourself plenty of time,” Mike crumpled his
paper hat and threw it at me.

I caught it, then lined up my shot and tossed it in the
trash. “Two points.”

“Good shot. I’m heading out. Thanks for taking over.” Mike
untied the white apron from his waist and tossed it over his shoulder. As he
exited, the bells on the door jingled.

A woman with a huge multi colored purse slung over her
shoulder walked in as Mike left.

“Good evening and welcome to Leonardo’s. Savannah’s most
famous ice cream parlor, established in 1919. The city’s best ice cream and
sandwiches. My name is Tim,” I greeted her with our standard spiel.

“Your hat says Tim ICG, what does ICG mean?”

“Ice Cream Guy,” I replied.

“Creative.” She smiled.

“I try to come up with something different every time,” I
said. Each shift we got a new paper hat. We took a crayon and wrote our name on
it. Some employees drew pictures on their hats as well. “What can I get for
you?”

She looked through the glass display case. “There are so
many choices here.”

“Forty three flavors, all made fresh right here,” I said,
motioning toward the back room. “In our kitchen.”

“You sure have a lot of Hollywood memorabilia,” she said as
she pointed at the wall.

“The owner is a movie producer and this is stuff he’s collected
over the years. Plus, there are a lot of original pictures and things from the
three original owners.”

While she walked over to a wall adjacent to the ice cream
display case, I noticed she stood about five and a half feet tall, half a foot
shorter than me. Her short red hair poked out from under a straw hat. Her pale
skin had a few slight wrinkles. I guessed her around my mom’s age, maybe late
thirties.

“Are you from around here?” I asked.

“No, I’m from Pennsylvania,” she said. Her back was to me as
she stood in front of a shadowbox on the wall. Lining the entire wall were
pictures and posters. So many that only very small areas of the red wall was
visible. I knew each item on the wall by heart, having cleaned the glass on
every piece many times.

“Is this your first time in Savannah?” I asked, trying to
make small talk. Rule number twenty in Leonardo’s employee manual is to show
customers southern hospitality. That meant small talk.

“No, I visited here as a child. I had family who lived in
the Victorian district.”

“Are they still here?”

“No.” She turned to face me.

“How long are you staying?”

“Just until Saturday.” She reached in her bag and pulled out
Leonardo’s brochure and laid it on the counter. “The concierge gave this to me.
He said it gives patrons ten percent off.”

The front of the brochure had pictures of the interior of
Leonardo’s and a history of the store. The backside had a stamp from the
Marshall House.

“Just let me know when you’re ready, and I’ll be glad to
take your order,” I said.

“Can you give me a few more minutes?” she said as she looked
at the wall of pictures.

I figured she was finished with small talk. The back door
buzzer sounded. I ignored it. Then my phone buzzed. I looked at the caller id.
It was my brother.

 
I texted him:
What?

He texted back: Open back door.

I texted back: No can do. I’m working.

The buzzer went off again.

Then he texted: emergency

Rats. “Would you excuse me a sec?” I said to the lady
customer.

“Hmm. Sure,” she said, sounding distracted a she studied the
pictures.

I locked the register, and put the tip jar under the counter
then I jogged through the kitchen to the back door. Looking through the
peephole, I saw my twin brother, Theodore. He was my mirror image; slim build,
six feet tall, curly black hair, olive toned skin and chocolate brown eyes.

After unlatching the locks, I opened the door. His bike
leaned against the brick wall adjacent to the door.

“Listen, I could get in big trouble. What’s the emergency?”
I asked.

“I need twenty bucks, I’m kind of short this month and I
really want to take Vicky to the movie. You know the vampire one.”

“That is not an emergency.”

“To me it is.”

“Anyway the movie is horrible. I’ll give you money not to
go.”

“Yeah, I can’t stand it either. But she sure gets cozy with
me after seeing that lead actor.” Theodore winked.

My wallet had exactly twenty dollars in it, and it was going
toward my prom fund.

“It starts in thirty minutes, and I promised her. But I’m
tapped out with all the prom stuff I had to pay for,” Theodore said.

“I’m broke and I need the money for prom.”

“C’mon, please, you’ll get it back tomorrow. Promise.” He
motioned across his heart.

“You better.” I raised an eyebrow.

He was always tugging at my heartstrings, and I usually gave
in. I pulled out my wallet and handed him my twenty. Perhaps my being born a
minute of ahead of him gave me a big brother protective complex. On the other
hand, maybe I was just a sucker.

I put my now empty wallet back into my pocket. Just then, my
stomach growled. Thankfully, my one free meal per shift of a sandwich and chips
was waiting for me in the fridge.

“Thanks, bro,” Theodore said. Then he hopped on his bike.

“Don’t forget, pay it back,” I said to him as he rode off.
With that twenty and my next check I’d be able to afford prom.

Within seconds, I heard purring. I looked down and saw Leo,
the grey striped stray cat the employees had sort of adopted. Leo liked to be
petted behind his ears. “Hey buddy, you having a good night?”

He tilted his head and then licked my hand.

I went into a storage closet and got a scoop of dry cat food
from the bag we set aside for Leo. I emptied the scoop into the bowl we kept
outside the back door. Leo rubbed against my leg, let out a soft meow then went
to town on the food. I shut and locked the back door then washed my hands.

Nearing the register, I looked around and noticed that the
lady, who had been in here earlier, had left.

The front door bells jangled again.

“Hi, Timmy, I love the hat,” Gabrielle said as she strolled
in. “What does Tim ICG mean?”

Stupid paper hat. “It’s the initials for Ice Cream Guy. I
thought that would get people talking to me, like you just did.”