Spellbound (2 page)

“I think I actually helped you fall. Sorry.” I stood up, holding a bunch of her papers and offered her my hand. She slipped a ridiculously soft hand in mine and used it to straighten up as well, smoothing her skirt.

“Nonsense. I wasn’t watching my step. And you were there to rescue me. Such a gentleman.” She sent me a coy smile.

“I think you are giving me way too much credit.”

“But it’s my credit to give.” She dazzled me with another smile.

Then she glanced down at her hand, which was still in mine.

“Thank you for helping me.” She squeezed my hand and then pulled back. “You’re not late today, are you?”

It surprised me she remembered that.

“Nope. Made it on time today. Had plans to crash into you.”

I handed her the papers and notebooks that we had kneeled on the floor and gathered together. “I’m Logan. Logan Daniels.”

She laughed then, and it sounded wonderful.

“I know. I remember you from the office. And I’m no worse for wear Logan Daniels. No damage done.” And she gave me that blinding smile again. “I should get to class now.” She began to walk away, then stopped and glanced back over her shoulder, like she had forgotten something. “I hope I run into you later. I do.”

Then she winked at me and continued walking down the hall.

By the time she reached the end of the hall, the spell had broken. I’m not ashamed to say I watched her walk all the way until she rounded the corner. Only when I finally headed out did I notice the pack of freshman girls still huddled on the bench.

Clearly, they had seen the whole exchange. Great. Now I would be the major topic of conversation with the Squeakers, as Dave and I called the freshman girls. We didn’t give them the time of day. We didn’t even consider them datable. Not that I dated much anyway.

None of the girls at the school interested me. I had this notion from my mom that when it felt right with a girl, I would know it. I wasn’t sure how exactly that would feel, but I knew I wanted it. I’d never cared one way or another for most of the girls I knew, but I was sure about one thing now. Since I had met Serena Starr, I couldn’t wait to see her again.

****

I didn’t have to wait long. The morning passed without any more embarrassing incidents as I drifted in and out of my classes without hearing the teachers. Maybe they didn’t notice my lack of attention or maybe they were experiencing their own fleeting regret at career choice. Either way, they all left me alone. As soon as the lunch bell rang I made a beeline for the quad and scanned it as quick as I could. But I didn’t spot Serena Starr or her sisters. Where did she keep going all the time? I spied Dave and Tamera sitting with a bunch of my friends at our table in the middle of the room so I grabbed a lunch tray and went to join them. As feared, I made up the hot topic.

“Logan, Baby, what up with you and the looker?” This came from Dave, of course. “Keep catching rumors about the ‘encounter’

this morning. When’s the wedding?” He guffawed like he had made some amazing joke until Tamera jabbed him in the ribs, cutting his laughter short.

“Yeah,” said Patty. “Do you think she, like,
likes
you?” Patty gazed up at me with hope in her eyes. Like I said, we had dated before, but I had called things off. She wanted to get all hot and heavy like Dave and Tam and I just wasn’t into that. She was a nice girl and she would have made an okay girlfriend, but on account of my Mom and all, I wanted the fireworks. And I’m pretty sure that’s what had to be happening with the new girl, Serena Starr. But, I fudged it for Patty’s sake.

“Yeah, right. The Neanderthal who crushed her to the floor this morning. How could she resist that?”

“Oh, I’m sure I could find a way.”

I spun to find Serena standing behind me, all light and sunny smiles, and I swear, I never even heard her coming. I could tell by the looks on everyone’s faces at the table that they hadn’t either. I tried to recover from the surprise of her stealthy arrival and still appear cool.

“Hey,” I managed, and scooted over, dragging a spare chair from the table next to me so she could sit down. “Why’nt you sit down and have lunch with us?” I gestured to the empty chair. I hoped I sounded cool but I knew I probably didn’t. How did she keep
appearing
like that?

“Oh, thanks, but I should eat with my sisters.” She twisted around and waved to them seated across the room at a table by themselves. Where the heck had they come from? I swear they weren’t there before. Had that table even been there? Her sisters were both watching us intently. She waved to them and the little red-‐-haired one waved back, but the dark-‐-haired one kind of glared at her. Serena giggled a little and turned her attention back to us.

“Anyway, thanks for the offer. I just overheard you – I mean I was walking by and overheard you and I wanted you.” She looked right at me. “I wanted you to know, Logan, that there were no hard feelings about this morning. I thought it was kind of funny.” She giggled again and it sounded like wind chimes.

“I’m just glad I didn’t hurt you.” I tried to sound serious.

She laughed again. More wind chimes. I loved that sound.

“Oh, you couldn’t hurt me. I mean...” she stammered. “Just that you wouldn’t hurt me on purpose. That’s what I meant.”

Could she be blushing?
I couldn’t believe it. That was my thing. Something I knew I had done this morning, like a madman, in fact, when I almost flattened Serena like a pancake.

“Well, have a nice lunch you guys.” She beamed at my friends who were looking back at her mostly with shock. She pretended not to notice. Dave especially sat there with his mouth almost hanging open until Tamera jabbed him again, hard, in the ribs.

“You too.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“See you later.”

My words were lost in a chorus of goodbyes from my friends and we all watched Serena walk across the lunchroom and rejoin her sisters at their table on the other side. She slid in between both her sisters and the dark-‐-haired one right away began talking to her in sharp, hushed tones. By the way she jerked her head while speaking, she clearly was unhappy with Serena talking to any of us, but it also looked like Serena didn’t care. Oh, she hung her head and nodded in what must have been all the right places, but every now and then she snuck a peek over at us. I hoped she was looking at me.

****

After lunch that day, the clouds gathered and it started to rain again. In class, Ms. Tobie talked about the three branches of government, but the rain pounding the roof succeeded in drowning her out. By the time class ended, I realized I hadn’t learned one useful thing about our administration. The rain didn’t stop all the way through my afternoon classes, and when school let out for the day I had to run to my car in order not to get totally soaked. I popped in a CD and cranked up the volume as I pulled out of the parking lot. I made it almost all of the way out of the lot before I spotted her. Serena stood by herself, in the pouring rain, no sisters in sight. I slammed on the brakes, leaned over, and threw open the passenger door.

“Get in!” I hollered over the pounding rain. “You’re getting drenched!”

She grabbed the open door, but just stood there for a second, looking right through me, as though in a trance. Then she said the strangest thing.

“The dresser. Tell her to check behind the dresser. Tell her there’s a crack in the molding and it fell in there. Her ring fell in there,” she said all this in her same buttery smooth voice but with no life to it, in a monotone, and so low I almost couldn’t pick it up.

“Serena! You need to get in the car! You don’t even have a coat on!” I guess my high-‐-pitched voice finally got to her. She stared at me and scrambled into the front seat, shivering. I reached over her, closed the door and snapped the heater on high. Serena buckled her seatbelt, and then met my gaze. The heat in the car must have snapped her out of her stupor. She stared at me for a few moments before she spoke.

“Did you understand what I talked about? With the ring.”

I didn’t answer at first. I needed a minute to think too. I swung the car out of the parking lot and maneuvered it onto the street. To Serena’s credit she didn’t say anything. She just let me drive and that gave me the time I needed. We’d driven almost three blocks before I answered her.

“Yeah, I do. After my dad died, like three months after, my mom wanted to clean everything. I mean everything. She took all her jewelry off and got out all these cleaning products like Ajax and bleach and Pine Sol and just kept scrubbing and scrubbing everything in the house till it sparkled. My Grandma said she had to cleanse her soul or something like that.” I had never told this to anyone and I couldn’t believe I could be telling Serena now, but somehow I knew she could be trusted with my secrets. I glanced over at her to see if she could tell. Serena stared back at me with the most caring expression on her face. I took a deep breath and continued.

“Anyway, after she exhausted herself from all the cleaning, she went to put her wedding ring back on and couldn’t find it. She looked everywhere. I mean she tore that house apart. It didn’t even seem like she cleaned it anymore, you know? But she couldn’t find the ring. It had vanished into thin air. It killed her. She cried for two hours and she didn’t come out of her bedroom. When she finally did, she came downstairs and told me and my sister, “Now he’s gone.”

I felt Serena’s hand on my arm and the feel of her touch felt like the most perfect thing in the world. I didn’t want her to ever move her hand.

“Will you search for it when you go home Logan?” she asked it like a question but her voice sounded like she already knew the answer.

So I didn’t answer. I asked her a question instead.

“What were you doing standing in the rain?”

She blinked at me. “I don’t know. I guess I might have been waiting for you. Since we live so close I guess I thought you wouldn’t mind giving me a ride home. I didn’t realize it would rain so hard. Anyway,” she continued, “even though I got soaked, I didn’t mind. It was worth waiting for you.”

I watched her, about to ask if insanity ran in her family when I realized that she
was
drenched. Her hair hung in damp ringlets around her face and a sheen of moisture on her skin somehow made her even more beautiful, bringing out a kind of naturalness to her that I hadn’t noticed before. She gazed at me with a smile bordering on a laugh and I figured
I
must resemble a drowned rat. I snuck a quick peek in the rear-‐-view mirror where my worst fears were indeed realized. My hair shot out every which way and my nose blazed bright red from the cold. Oh, yeah, I just screamed handsome devil. For some crazy reason, I started to laugh, then Serena started to laugh and just like that, we were both rolling in hysterics. Parked right there on the side of the road in my car, rain thundering the top of it, we just laughed until we couldn’t laugh anymore. When the rain stopped, I started the car and we drove home to our houses.

****

I dropped Serena off in the driveway to her house.

“Logan. I could have walked across the street. See? The rain has let up. You didn’t have to do this.” She leaned down and began to gather her books. I threw the car into park and scrambled out and around so I could get to her door before her. I yanked open the passenger door a split second before she did and offered her my arm, the way I had seen my dad do for my mom about a million times.

“Let me get that for you, Serena.” Amused, she placed her hand on my arm and let me help her from the car. I couldn’t tell if anyone was watching us from her house but I could feel them watching our every move. Everything in me wanted to walk Serena to her door but I sensed somehow it wasn’t right. Patience, Logan, I told myself. Instead, I leaned into the car and gathered the rest of her books and handed them to her.

“So, um, if you want a ride to school or anything, you know, because we live so close and all, that would be okay. I usually leave about a quarter till. Eight, I mean. Quarter till eight.”
Oh great, real
smooth.
Why don’t I just stutter or something?

But she wasn’t looking at me like I might be a circus freak. In fact, she wasn’t looking at me at all. Her eyes were trained across the street at my house. She had a wistful expression on her face, so I tracked her gaze and found her staring at my mom and my little sister Jade, who were just getting out of my mom’s car. They had shopping bags in their hands and they were both chattering and laughing about something. They moved into the house with their arms around each other. Neither one had seen either Serena or me.

I turned back to Serena but she had crossed the street and begun walking quickly into her house, too.

“Okay, then,” I said. “Bye.” I heard the sound of her heavy front door closing. I wondered what I had done wrong. Maybe it was a case of shyness. I hoped she would be outside waiting for me in the morning.

I went in the house and the sound of my mom and sister’s laughter wafted in from the kitchen. I detoured and headed upstairs.

“Logan! Is that you?” my mom yelled up at me.

“Yeah it’s me. But I stink. I need a shower bad, Mom. I’ll be down in a minute.” I deflected any more questions and took the stairs two at a time. I had to know. At the top of the stairs I stood and listened to my mom and sister. It didn’t sound like they were coming up anytime soon. The sounds of bags being torn open and paper being crushed filled the downstairs. They were dragging out their purchases and laying them all over the living room couch, trying things on, and jabbering about what they bought and didn’t buy. I had time. I twisted the shower on in the bathroom and then I crept into my mom’s room. As quietly as I could, I lifted the end of her dresser up and away from the wall. I lay down on the floor and reached my hand behind the dresser as far as it would go and felt around for the crack in the molding. I wasn’t sure if I wanted it to be there or not.

Just as I thought I might give up, I found it, a jagged piece of wood that felt like peeling paint under my fingertips. I inched my fingers along the top and grasped the edge back about a half-‐-inch.