Love Edy (30 page)

“What?” she whispered.

“Edy, please.” When he reached for her, she
yanked clean of him.

“You need clothes,” Edy hissed. “Take them
and leave it at that.”

She started for the stairs. This time when
he touched her arm, she stopped. Exhaled. Took time to catch her
breath.

“Edy, please.”

Please was right. She’d come there for a
purpose. So, she lined the bags neatly on the porch railing,
careful to keep her overburdened contents from spilling.

“Talk to me,” Wyatt said. “If you’d only
give me the time of day. There are so many things I need to tell
you.”

Edy stood and scanned Hassan’s house and
hers for witnesses. Once she’d confirmed that no eyes gaped, she
fled, ignoring Wyatt’s cries to come back him.

Twenty-One

The next night, the Phelps family had a
meeting, all three in attendance plus the campaign staffer
feverishly scribbling in the corner. “Meeting” was hardly the
appropriate word, however; as mostly Edy’s mother talked and mostly
they listened.

Her campaign was now underway.

They could expect changes around the
house.

She’d be available less.

She would expect more from them.

Their family, as a whole, would be held to a
higher standard. Therefore, the very highest level of decorum was
expected.

She stared straight at Edy for that one.

There would be travel. A tremendous amount
of travel, meaning that she would be away from home more often than
not. Sometimes, she would require their presence, but she would
make every effort to ensure this happened as infrequently as
possible.

The press conference to announce her bid for
Senate would be held in two and a half weeks, on a Saturday.

“My birthday?” Edy said.

It was that time of year again.

Her father, who had been staring off into
the distance, sat up straighter.

“Rebecca, you can’t expect . . .”

The staffer stopped scribbling. And Hassan
burst in.

“Hey, you guys! Guess who got free passes
to—”

He froze, eyes darting from Edy to her
mother to her father. Finally, it rested on the staffer.

“Who are you?” he said.

Edy burst out laughing.

It was absurd, really. The family meeting
with the court stenographer, Edy wounded by the notion of having no
more loathsome birthday parties, and Hassan bursting in like the
main attraction at a bull fight, running and blurting the question
they all should have asked.

“Hassan, please,” her mother said.

Whether “please” meant “please get lost” or
“please settle down,” Edy couldn’t be sure. But Hassan dropped down
next to her all the same.

“Rebecca, we’ve been doing these birthday
parties for Edy since she was a year old,” her father said.

“All the more reason why missing one
shouldn’t be that big a deal,” she said. “Missing two if we’re
talking about you.”

Hassan leaned over and whispered to Edy.
“What’s happening, Cake?”

Quickly, she explained.

“Claudia?” her mother said.

The staffer stood. “Meeting opening followed
by schedule expectations, expectations concerning proper decorum,
brief overview of travel demands, and advisement regarding
candidacy announcement in two and a half weeks.” The staffer looked
up.

“Excellent. On the day in question, we’ll
have breakfast out, in a very visible way, as a happy, smiling
family. Then we’ll travel over to the Old State House, where I’ll
make the announcement, with my doting husband and beautiful
daughter by my side. We’ll follow that with a rally, then a
fundraising dinner.”

Edy lifted a finger. “Is it possible
to—”

“My fundraising dinner is being hosted by a
very
gracious governor and being attended by a number of
city elites. The date was chosen by people with far more
substantial interests to consider than a child’s birthday party,”
her mother said.

“I was only going to ask—”

“Meeting adjourned,” her mother said and
strode out of the room.

The staffer scrambled after her.

“Edy—” her father began.

She didn’t know how to feel. On the one
hand, her mother had solved the dress problem. But on the other,
her father stared back at her with eyes that said he’d been
mortally wounded. She hated that look, hated what it meant: that
the parties had been his way of holding onto an escaping childhood,
that he was unanchored without them, lost in a sea of adolescence.
She didn’t always mind being his little girl. Sometimes it wasn’t
all bad.

“I was getting too old for the parties,” Edy
blurted, unsure of she started talking. “I’ve been wanting to do
something different.”

It was better that way. Better for them both
if she swept the old ways out of sight. After all, there was no
coming back from her mother’s pronouncements.

“Have you?” her father said, voice
small.

“Of course. I’ll be sixteen. Old enough to
date.”

She exchanged a tiny smile with Hassan.

“I see,” her father said and left the
room.

~~~

Edy stood to the right of her mother and
father and to the left of Kyle and his father Cam, her mother’s
right hand man in politics. They crowded together on a roped-off
section of State Street, with their backs to the historic Old State
House. Rain swelled the sleek sheet of November sky as twitches of
lightening illuminated it. A distant storm made a fast approach.
Not that it mattered. With the cameras on her mother, there could
be no moving, no delaying, no deviation from the plan. Even the
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse would have to hold on Line Three
once Edy’s mother got wind of an opportunity to give one of her
“Mean Nothing” speeches. Pressed to the gills with platitudes and
pregnant pauses for applause lines, her speeches had ways of being
both ambitious and empty, promising nothing, all the while implying
everything. Somehow, it seemed appropriate for her.

Under the glare of flashing bulbs and the
frigid slice of winter wind, Edy allowed her thoughts to drift to
dance. Ballet had been neither here nor there for her
lately—neither the passion nor the disappointment that came with
strong emotion. Instead, she found herself memorizing style and
substance, as committed as ever to the punishing exactness of the
classical variation, even as she warped it in her mind, molding it
to the pops and snaps and gyrations of the street stuff she’d never
dare do in public.

She thought about New York, often. About
Bean and his father and rejection and the anger of krump dancing in
the pit. She contrasted it with the grace and sculpting and
exactness of classical ballet, fusing them in her mind like a
Franken-scientist gone mad.

They were clapping. People on stage, in the
audience, everyone around applauded with a vigor that told her
she’d missed something important. Her mind fumbled with the faux
pas before setting her on track again. Edy brought her hands
together just as the noise of the crowd petered away. It occurred
to her that her display might have been captured; daydreaming might
have been captured, not just by local papers, but by national media
as well. How long did she have before her blank stare became fodder
for
The Daily Show
or
Late Night?

But she was a kid. No one cared what kids
did.

Following the close of a fire-filled speech
crammed to the throat with buzzwords, Edy’s mother fielded a dozen
or so questions before exiting in the same way she’d ended their
family meeting. After a moment of confused loitering, Edy followed
her parents and the others, head lowered, determined to blend in as
well as a teenager could amongst the most powerful adults in the
state. It was her birthday, of course, and part of her wondered if
she could at least be afforded the option skipping some of the
grind. Maybe she could catch a movie with Hassan or go bowling with
the twins. Anything had to be better than impersonating a mannequin
for her mother.

They paused at the entrance of the limo,
where a rapid back-and-forth took place; first, between Cam and a
staffer, then Cam and Edy’s mother. Afterward, they piled into the
limo and pulled away from the curb.

“There’ll be consequences for the next
person that stands behind me looking less than enthusiastic,” her
mother announced.

The eyes and ears of Rebecca Phelps were as
plentiful as the grains of dirt on the ground. Favors were the
currency of politics, and even small ones had their value. Telling
on Edy brought a reward.

There would be no movies with Hassan, of
course. No bowling with the twins either. For Edy’s birthday, she
had the distinction of being ushered around alongside her mother
all day, smiling like the world’s most well-behaved child, all the
while imagining herself collapsing on her back like an upended
turtle and burrowing into her shell.

Hassan texted her during the fundraising
dinner at the governor’s private mansion. He wanted to know how she
was and when she expected to leave. She didn’t know how to tell him
that whatever hopes he harbored for an evening together were a
waste. A seven-course menu and politicians who salivated at the
sound of their own voice promised that.

When Edy made it back to her room, it was a
quarter to eleven. Her feet throbbed around the permanent cramp of
pumps while the clock on her nightstand ticked out the final
minutes of her birthday.

“Happy birthday,” she whispered.

No dress hung on the door. No three-tiered
cake waited at the Dyson house. Instead, she was just Edy, as she’d
always wanted it.

So, why did her heart feel so heavy?

Edy pulled out her cell phone and reread the
happy birthday message from Hassan. Three words were the closest
she’d come to hearing his voice that day.

“Happy birthday, Cake.”

She looked up to find Hassan’s head jutting
through the window.

“Hey!” she cried and tossed her phone aside,
the ache of her feet forgotten as she threw her arms around
him.

He laughed, latching onto her with an arm as
he tilted precariously. “Let me in, okay? I promise to hold onto
you all night.”

She stepped back, smile broad with the
deliciousness of the thought.

Hassan swung a leg in and unfolded to full
height, into hard-bodied broadness that pressed at the seams of his
fabric.

His hand found hers to pull her in close,
communicating with eyes that never hid his secrets. The smile from
him was brief, sweet, tiny with the humor of their new world. Them.
Together. That was what his face said before he kissed her, wiping
away the possibility of thought. When Hassan drew away, it was with
a sigh from both. “I have company,” he admitted.

Edy stole a look at the window just as
another leg slipped in. One after another, her room filled under
the silence of stealth as Matt, Mason, and Lawrence piled in.

“Did we really have to do this here?”
Lawrence said.

Mason peeled off a backpack; Matt pulled off
another. As Hassan locked Edy’s door, all three Dyson boys went to
work emptying bags.

Refreshments emerged from one of the
Jansports. Twinkies. Guacamole. Salsa. Tortilla chips and a bag
full of Lil’ Smokies. Another of Rice Krispies treats. Trail mix
and Gatorade. So distracted was she by the hodgepodge assortment
from the first backpack that she missed what emerged from the
second. Hassan and Lawrence tacked up yellow and baby blue
streamers to the walls. Matt blew up balloons.

“Alyssa made these pinwheels,” Mason
explained as he pulled out the last of these treats. “They’re
better than they look.”

To argue as much, he held up a mashed and
half empty bag.

Alyssa. His on again off again “it” girl
that she hated without knowing why. Alyssa, the girl that kept
trying nonetheless, as if being Edy’s friend somehow meant
something.

“I’ve been stupid,” she admitted.

“I know,” Mason said. He gave her a long and
skeptical once over before opening his arms. She went into them.
When Matt stopped to look at them, she pulled him over, too.

“I promise not to be a jerk anymore,” she
said. “If that’s who you lo—”

“Forget about it, okay?” Mason said.
Abruptly, he vacated the embrace. Matt followed suit.

“How about you put it in a Hallmark, Edy?”
Lawrence knotted purple balloons to a string.

Matt pulled out an iPod and speaker dock,
the last of the goodies in his bag.

“You probably shouldn’t—”

She glanced at the door. But Matt pressed a
finger to his lips.

“We’ll keep it low,” he said. “Quiet storm
stuff.”

The twins were known for a lot of things,
but silence wasn’t one of them. Nonetheless, the first song was
sultry and acoustic. A brush of violin. A hint of piano. Rumbling
waterfalls and crashing waves.

Hassan held out his hand.

“First dance?”

Always, she thought. Forever and then one
more time after that.

Edy placed her hand in his and allowed
herself to be drawn into his arms. He smelled of winter leaves and
apple cider, love and nothing else. She pulled him closer, willed
him closer, and found that close enough wasn’t even possible.

Lips brushed her forehead and dipped lower,
grazing the button of her nose before settling on her mouth. Arms
she’d always known encircled her, fierce in their entrapment, as
his lips tasted, drank, swallowed every breath she had.

Somewhere, a throat cleared. Hassan stepped
back, dropped his hands, and sighed.

“I’m pretty sure I had at least half a
minute,” he said.

“You did. But my stomach didn’t,” Matt
said.

Hassan dropped onto the bed with a snort.
Edy joined him. The music shifted brazenly, from gentle innuendo to
braggadocios hip hop warped on acid. Despite its low timbre, the
rowdiness barred none.