Eternal Spring A Young Adult Short Story Collection (24 page)

"I don't need anything done about me," Nathan
protested. "Things are just fine."

"No—" I began and he interrupted by grasping
my arm and pulling me to him for a quick kiss. I twisted in his grip, turning
tear filled eyes to Aunt Vandi. "See what I mean?"

"Come on," Nathan said. "You like me. I know
you do."

"Of course I like you," I replied. "You're my
best friend."

"It's more than that." He gave me a little shake
before placing a hand against my cheek.

My eyes rose to his and our gazes locked.

"You responded to my kisses," he said. "You
enjoyed dancing with me. You
like me
like me. You don't just like me."

"Yes," I admitted. Tugging out of his hold, I felt
my face twist in misery. "But you don't
like me
like me. You just like me. It's
the brownie that
likes
me
likes me."

"How can a brownie
like you
like you?" he joked. "A
brownie is inanimate...except for those singing ones in the TV commercial."

"You know what I mean," I screamed in frustration.
"The brownie made you
like me
like me when you don't really—"

"Before we's lost in 'like mes'," Aunt Vandi
inserted. "I tell you nothin in dat potion I gave you 'cept cinnamon, mint
and a few red pepper flakes."

We all fell silent at her words. A few shocked seconds
passed before I fully realized the importance of what she'd said.

"Then Nathan wasn't drugged," I mumbled.

"Yeah," he said. "I already told you that
eating that brownie only gave me the excuse I needed to act on feelings I've
had since freshman year."

A happy bud of giddiness took root inside me. "So
really, there was no magic at all involved."

"I won give powerful magic to the irresponsible hands
of chil'en," Aunt Vandi said.

I couldn't really protest the irresponsible part. We
had
accidentally poisoned Nathan. Or we would have if the brownie had been truly
tainted.

Aunt Vandi gave an enigmatic arch of her eyebrow and one
side of her lips curved up. "But aint it nice you got zactly what you wished
fo
?"

I thought about it, and she was right. She'd said the love
potion would get Ronny to take me to the dance and that I'd get love. Even
though she hadn't given me an actual love potion, I couldn't help thinking the
root doctor had done something magical. But anything she'd done had only nudged
Nathan into admitting feelings he already had and had kind of made me do the
same.

"You're right." I said. "I didn't get what I
thought I wanted but I got what I
really
wanted. Thank you."

Aunt Vandi inclined her head. "You mose welcome,
chile."

Nathan took my hand and dropped a kiss on my smiling lips.

"Come on, Istanbul. Let's go back and finish our date.
There's a refreshment table to explore. Maybe they have my new favorite food:
brownies."

"I think they're my new favorite too." Squeezing
his hand, I went up on tiptoes and kissed him back.

***

P.R. Mason is the award-winning author of young adult
paranormal romance and urban fantasy, including
Entanglements
,
Fated Hearts
, and
The Banshee and the Linebacker
. Pat
escaped from the Midwest winters of her youth by moving, in 2001, to the
strange and wonderful city of Savannah, Georgia. She now lives there, happily
spending her days as the subject of her cat overlord's mind control
experimentation. You can learn more about Pat and her work at her website,
www.prmason.net
.

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1:30, Tour Eiffel

By

Jennifer
McAndrews

My name is Rachel Healy and I am not special. I have light
brown hair that’s not quite blonde, an okay figure that’s not quite full, and a
propensity for breaking out before any remotely formal event. I am not going to
save the world, defeat the Big Bad, or lead a revolution. I will be lucky to
pass my physics final. Just so you know
who
you’re
dealing with.

This is my first trip to Paris. Almost forty kids from the
junior class at MacArthur High School arrived yesterday afternoon to spend
spring break in the City of Lights, including
me and my best
friend, Stacy
.

To be precise, Stacy and I were best friends, and we’re
trying to be again. We had what people on television would call a “falling out”
over the identity of the person who let slip the news Stacy lost her virginity
to her boyfriend Mark. For a long while she believed that person was
me
. I finally convinced her otherwise, but it’s been a
struggle getting back to the way things were with us.

Right now, she’s gazing at diamonds in the gem collection of
the natural history museum in Paris, one of the educational stops on the trip.
While Stacy fantasizes about a planet-sized engagement ring, I wander into a
small side room drenched in darkness save for the small gem cases lining the
wall.

Here, fluorescent lights bathe a selection of gems, showing
off the secrets and potentialities within them, the spectrum of colors a stone
will exhibit when subjected to unusual conditions.

“Now this is cool.”

I don’t have to turn toward the voice to identify the guy it
came from, but I do anyway. Stacy’s boyfriend Mark has joined me in the small
space.

“Don’t you want to look at diamond rings and tiaras with
your future prom queen?” I ask, making no attempt at keeping the distaste from
my voice. We have our differences, Mark and I. We make an effort to be civil
whenever we’re all together, but when it’s just the two of us, there’s no point
in pretending.

Mark scowls and gives an exaggerated shudder. “I’m not ready
for that kind of permanence.”

“No, huh?” I say it to fill the space between us, to buy time
to process this information. Mark and Stacy have been together since sophomore
summer. He promised her he loved her, told her they were destined for forever.
“Stacy know about this?”

“Come on,” Mark says, “I’m young. There’s a lot of life left
ahead of me, you know?”

“What, you think Stacy’s going to lock you in a basement as
soon as you graduate?”

“All right, I’ll put it another way,” he says, leaning
closer, looking
all serious
. “There’s some stuff I
want to explore.”

I loosen my lips to ask ‘like what?’ Before the words can
form, Mark’s hand cups the back of my head, holds me in place so he can crush
his mouth against mine. He wraps his free arm around my waist and hauls me
against him.

The sweaty boy smell of him fills my nostrils. His hand on
my head holds me immobile while his tongue invades my mouth. My responding
protest sounds like a whimper.

I struggle and squirm to get my hands up against his chest
then shove him hard. My slight strength against his athlete’s body is
insufficient to completely dislodge him, but he breaks the ‘kiss’ and steps
back all the same.

“I was right about you,” he says. “So desperate for
attention you’d throw yourself at your best friend’s boyfriend.”

Shock, humiliation, and disbelief all rush my mind at once,
clogging my throat and silencing my defense.

“I’ll tell you what,” he says. “I’ll let this be our little
secret. You don’t want to get on Stacy’s bad side.”

He winks, turns, and strolls away, leaving me alone and
hugging myself in the darkness.

We eat an early dinner at a restaurant that falls somewhere
between casual café and elegant eatery. The wooden tables are bare and the
floor is linoleum, but the walls are painted a warm sunflower yellow and hung
with old paintings in gilt frames.

Stacy insists on eating with Mark and his buddies from the
basketball team who made the trip. I pretend regret when I tell her I promised
to sit with some of the kids I know from show choir, but slink off feeling more
relief than regret and not a small amount of self-disgust. Avoiding Stacy makes
me a coward, maybe. Probably. But I have no idea what to tell her, or how to
pretend nothing has changed if I don’t.

The show choir crew has staked out the bench and chairs
stretching along the back wall of the restaurant. My appearance at the end of
table is met with a half-dozen stunned expressions but everyone quickly
recovers.

“Move over.” Bowie, a smooth-toned tenor elbows the kid next
to him. They slide left and Bowie pats the seat beside him, eyes on me. “Have a
seat.”

I mumble my thanks, fearing the burn in my cheeks tells more
than my words.

“We were just talking about everyone ordering something
different,” Bowie says, sliding a single sheet
prix fixe
menu toward me, “and making
one big sharing meal.”

“Think you can handle sharing?” Noreen, a second soprano,
sits across from me, her dark eyebrows arched in challenge.

“Yeah, pretty sure I can remember stuff we learned in
kindergarten,” I counter.

“Ladies, ladies. This is truly arousing, but can we all have
something to eat before you entertain us with a girl fight?” Bowie raps his
knuckles on the tabletop and the remainder of the group laughs a little. They
resume what conversation I interrupted, closing Noreen, Bowie and I off in our
own little bubble.

Noreen straightens her shoulders and shakes her shaggy,
multi-colored hair out of her eyes and looks at Bowie, humor in her gaze and
the lift of her lips. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? A girl fight?”

“That’s what Paris is for, isn’t it? Wish fulfillment?” He
knocks the side of his knee against mine. “Isn’t it, Rachel?”

I turn to him. “I guess that depends upon the wish,” I say.
Though I mean the statement to be lighthearted, even joking, my voice conveys
neither emotion. Instead, I sound like my hamster drowned.

Bowie’s brow rumples, his gaze locks on mine. The warm clear
brown of his eyes shines with unspecified sympathy.

I nearly shake my head to toss away the absurdity of the
idea he cares, but I’m caught by him, caught by this guy I’ve shared no more
than a nodding acquaintance with since freshman year. He’s looking at me like
he knows me—not like he’s drawn a conclusion about me based on
who
I hang with or how I dress, but like he truly knows me.

I tear my gaze away from Bowie, glance down at the dings and
scratches in the table, out across the room to where Stacy sits with Mark. The
strain of guilt and anxiety blend into a single nauseating wave in my stomach.

“So. Free time tomorrow morning. Where’s everyone planning
to go?” Bowie’s tone is boisterous. He’s either truly interested or
intentionally changing the subject. The answers around the table cover the
Opera House, Notre Dame, and the Arc de Triomphe. No one mentions returning
voluntarily to a museum.

“What about you, Rachel?” Noreen asks, the slightest bite in
her voice. “Got plans with your
friends
?”

The sting in her words catches me square in the gut. Even
though I mix my voice with theirs twice a week and in the occasional
performance, I am not one of them. And I have no desire to be a part of the
crowd on the other side of the restaurant laughing at Mark’s antics.

For just a moment I feel like I’m falling…

I let Noreen’s question and its implication about
who
my friends are hang unanswered in the air. A waiter
approaches with a basket of bread and an order pad. From that point on I lose
myself in the flood, barely participate in the world around me, waiting for the
bad dream to end.

The school instructors and trip organizers are intent on
acclimating us to the time zone through the simple means of sleep deprivation.
I want nothing more than to return to the hotel, crawl into bed, and pull the
covers over my head. Instead, I board the Metro like we’re told and sit beside
Stacy while Mark and his buddies stand over us holding handrails.

“Please tell me you haven’t promised to spend any more time
with the choir people,” she says. The train lurches into motion, knocking Stacy
and I against one another before settling us into a synchronized swaying
rhythm.

“You say that like there’s something wrong with those guys.
Choir doesn’t cause plague.” My line of sight has me trying not to look
directly at the waistband of Mark’s jeans and the checkered boxer shorts
peeking out over the top. I focus on his hideously overpriced sneakers instead.

“Of course there’s nothing
wrong
with them. It’s just we planned to
spend this trip together. I don’t like you ditching me.” There’s a little break
in her voice. I glance at her but she’s fixating on her manicure, keeping her
eyes hooded.

I sigh. “I didn’t ditch you. It was one stupid meal.” Just a
meal. Nothing at all as personal as lurking in the darkness, letting her
boyfriend kiss me.

“Stick with us tonight, ok? You have to, it’s safety in
numbers.” Her blue eyes dance with mischief. “Besides, we’re going to a
champagne bar the waiter told us about.”

“Are you serious?” I scan the train car for our group
chaperones, the parents of some French-club kid. They’re engrossed in their own
conversation, unconcerned that a group of under-aged teens in their charge are
planning an evening of alcohol consumption.

A hint of excitement buzzes in my veins. A champagne bar. In
Paris. How awesomely cool is that?

Once the train pulls in to Abbesses station, we all troop
onto the platform and loiter beside the sparkling tiles, the molded plastic seating.
In contrast to what I’m accustomed to seeing back home, the station walls curve
and rise to the ceiling, an overhead arch seemingly formed to the shape of the
train. It seems only right that in this place there is not a single sign in
English - or Spanish - as there is at home.