The End of Forever (19 page)

Erin felt struck by déjà vu as an image of a similar pratfall flashed through her mind. She struggled to bring the memory into focus, but it eluded her like mist, and the screaming and laughing around her pushed the memory even further out of reach.

Soon everyone scattered, still laughing and talking, to clean off the messy slime. Erin, haunted by David’s pratfall, heard him organizing a trip to McDonald’s. “Hey, Erin, can you come with us?”

A hard knot of tension was forming at the base of her neck. “I—I can’t.”

He walked over to her. “Are you mad?” he asked.

“No. I just can’t come tonight.”

“Maybe next time?” Erin started to feel desperate to get away. Shara walked past, and David caught her arm. “Can you persuade Erin to come with us?”

Shara questioned Erin with her eyes. The knot was growing, and Erin felt the tightness inching up her skull. She had to get out of there fast and drive home while she still could. She kneaded the back of her neck, hoping Shara would get the message. “I really can’t,” she said.

Shara understood. She tucked her arm through David’s and said, “Oh no you don’t, wise guy. You’re not going to stand here flirting with Erin while the rest of us clean up this mess. Come on.”

Erin quickly gathered her things and left. Somehow she made it home, where she took her headache medication and crawled into bed. Nausea made her gag, and she writhed on the cool sheets praying for the pain to go away. But every time she closed her eyes, the image of David’s pratfall replayed in her mind.

She didn’t know why. She couldn’t explain it. Yet she was completely and absolutely convinced that somehow David Devlin was mixed up in the headache’s arrival.

“You want me to pull David from the cast, and you won’t even tell me why? Erin, that makes no sense.”

Erin tugged at the leg of her leotard and avoided eye contact with Ms. Thornton. “I don’t mean to cause problems. It’s just that I—uh—I don’t get along with him too well.”

“Artistic differences? Come on now—he’s an excellent actor, and you’re much too professional to be pitching a temper tantrum.”

Erin couldn’t stand for Ms. Thornton to think badly of her. In spite of her being a teacher, their relationship was more like a friendship; yet she couldn’t run the risk of being around David and having another headache either. What if one came on during the actual performance?

Ms. Thornton’s eyes narrowed. “He didn’t try something with you, did he? I mean, it’s obvious he’s smitten, but is he harassing you?”

“Oh no. Please, that’s not it at all.”

Ms. Thornton reached out and took Erin’s arm. “What is it then? Tell me. I want to help.”

Erin caught the reflections of the dancers’
bodies dressed in contrasting leotards and tights in the wall of mirrors, and she wished the floor would open up and swallow her. How could she tell Ms. Thornton the truth? Maybe she’d decide to replace
her
instead of David. “It—it’s nothing. He sort of gets on my nerves, that’s all.”

“Hardly a reason to drop him from the play,” Ms. Thornton said. “You know, Erin, you’re the best student I’ve ever had, and you have a wonderful sense of professionalism. You have a future in this business, and you’ll often have to work with people you aren’t nuts about. You may as well learn how to do it now.”

Erin felt silly and foolish. “Forget I said anything.”

“Its forgotten,” Ms. Thornton said, smiling. “In fact, Mr. Ault is working with David privately to bone up his dance numbers. He has a decent voice, so we’ll let him record his song numbers on cassette for playback in the actual performances. In fact”— the teacher paused and measured Erin in the mirror—“I’ve been considering asking you to work extra with him too. In light of our discussion, will that be a problem?”

Erin’s heart sank. “Of course not. I’m a professional, remember?”

Ms. Thornton grew serious. “Look, honey, I know it’s been a tough year for you, but you seem to be doing well. Are you?”

“Urn—all right. Some days are better than others.” No use pretending to Ms. Thornton that
her life was a bed of roses, but no sense in dumping the whole truth on her either.

“I want you to think again about taking that Wolftrap scholarship this summer. The offers still open.”

Erin was half-afraid it would be. She wanted it, but if the headaches didn’t go away, if Dr. Richardson couldn’t help her discover the cause … She faked a bright smile. “Lets see how I do with this play. I mean, if David and I don’t kill each other before it’s over.”

Ms. Thornton smiled. “You’ll figure out a way to get along with him. He
is
kind of cute,” she added. “And he’s certainly attracted to you.”

Erin rolled her eyes. “That’s the last thing I need.”

“Or the first,” Ms. Thornton said, then began doing leg lifts on the bar while Erin stared blankly in the mirror.

Erin found her mother in the garage sorting laundry. “Um—have you see any metal chain out here?” she asked.

“All I’m seeing is a week’s worth of dirty clothes,” her mother complained. “What do you need a chain for?”

“It’s for the rumble scene in the play—the big gang fight.”

“This place is such a mess, you’ll be lucky to find anything.”

Erin glanced around at the piles of junk, heavy
with dust and grime. “Looks like we need another family workday. We haven’t had one of those in”— she wrinkled her brow—“way over a year.”

“No one has time anymore to do anything around here.”

“I could make the time,” Erin said quickly, seeing it as an opportunity for them to do something together as a family So what if it was grungy, dirty work? At least it would bring them together for a day.

“I’m swamped at the boutique, and I know your father won’t take his nose out of his books long enough to do anything as mundane as garage cleanup.”

Erin hadn’t counted on her mother’s animosity toward her father. She was suddenly sick and tired of all their hassling. “What’s the matter with you two? Do you always have to be at war with each other?”

Mrs. Bennett shoved a load of laundry into the machine. “You couldn’t possibly understand—”

“Is it me? Is it something I’ve done to make you both angry?”

“Oh, of course not, darling. You’re all we have.” The tears brimming in her mother’s eyes shocked Erin. She hadn’t meant to make her cry. “Why if it weren’t for you—” Her mother’s sentence trailed, and Erin felt panicked. If it weren’t for her what? Would her parents break up? Mrs. Bennett grabbed her, hugging her fiercely. “Don’t you see? You’re all that’s left. I—I can’t stand the thought of losing you.”

“You won’t, Mom,” Erin mumbled, confused and a little scared by her mothers wide emotional swing from anger at her husband to clingy tearfulness over her daughter. And what did she mean about “losing” her? She was moving away to college next year. They’d discussed it many times. If only Amy were still with them, then perhaps it would be easier to leave. Amy was
supposed
to have been at home another year.

Awkwardly Erin broke free and skirted her father’s overloaded workbench. “I—uh—I have to find that chain.”

She searched hurriedly, eager to get away. Suddenly she saw it on a stack of boxes next to an old trunk against the cement block wall. The black lettering had faded, but each container was marked “Amy” in her father’s neat writing.

“What’s wrong?” her mother asked from across the garage. “Did you find it?”

“Yes,” she said, unable to take her eyes off the boxes and trunk. She remembered the day her parents had cleaned out Amy’s room and packed away the total accumulation of her sixteen years on planet Earth.

“You should go through this stuff,” her mother had said through her tears. “There’ll be things you’ll want to keep.”

“Not now,” Erin had told her. “Maybe someday.”

Her father had taped each box shut, and her mother had wept, “My baby, my poor baby.”

“That won’t help, Marian,” her father had admonished.
“We have to get on with life, and crying about Amy won’t bring her back.”

Erin blinked, and the vivid pictures from the past faded to the dingy darkness of the garage. She grabbed the chain, dragged it toward the washer and dryer, and stuffed it into a paper sack. “Ugh, it’s all rusty. You’d better wash up in the laundry sink,” her mother said.

Erin stared at the rust that had stained her hands brown. She quickly washed them, watching in macabre fascination as soap and water cleaned away the red brown stain that reminded her of dried blood.

David was late for their special rehearsal with Mr. Ault, and Erin grew angrier by the second. She adjusted her leg warmers and did several arabesques in the center of the stage before asking, “Where is he? We’ve been waiting twenty minutes, and I told my mom I’d work at her store this afternoon.”

Mr. Ault shrugged. “David’s never been punctual. I’ll have to remind him again that we must start on time.”

They heard the outside stage door bang, and seconds later David bounded across the stage and skidded to a halt, saying, “Sorry,” and flashing a boyish grin.

“Well, it’s about time,” Erin mumbled.

“It was my sister’s birthday, and I had to do my bit.”

“You have a sister?”

“Yeah. Jody. She turned eight today.”

“Lets get started,” Mr. Ault said, cuing up the cassette for the musical number during which Tony and Maria meet at the neighborhood dance amid the rivaling gangs. “This is slow. The rest of the cast is frozen in motion, the lights dim, the spot comes up and pulls Tony and Maria to the center of the stage. They look with wonder at each other and then …” He put Erin’s hand in David’s and made them face one another.

David’s fingers felt warm. Since he wasn’t tall, she only had to raise her chin slightly to look him in the eye. “I’ll try not to damage your feet,” he told her.

“I only dance on the bottoms,” she said, hoping a little humor would relax her.

David turned on his famous megawatt smile. She noticed a white substance smeared along his jawline and squinted at it. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“There’s some kind of white stuff on your neck.”

He dropped her hand and wiped his face. “Greasepaint. I thought I got it all off.”

She wondered why he’d been wearing white greasepaint but didn’t want to ask.
No use getting too friendly,
she thought. They danced for a few minutes to Mr. Ault’s instructions. David was amazingly light on his feet and a quick learner.

He pulled her closer, and she rested her cheek on his shoulder all the while keeping nace to the
music. He was muscular and solid and smelled like sunshine.

“Thats good,” Mr. Ault said. “Remember, you two are beginning to fall in love here.… No, Erin, don’t stiffen. Relax. That’s better. Now, ‘Tony,’ spin her slowly, push her outward … pull her back … yes, very good. Now stop dancing and act like you’re about to kiss her.”

David’s face dipped lower. Erin’s heart began to hammer. When his mouth was inches from hers, Mr. Ault said, “Hold it. Perfect. Now, at this point Tony and Maria will freeze, the spotlight will widen, the lights will come up, and the others will dance around them.”

Erin scarcely heard him, because David’s mouth was coming closer. By reflex her eyes closed and her chin tilted, and David’s lips brushed over hers. The contact jolted Erin out of her trance. Her eyelids opened wide; she brought up her palms and shoved hard against David’s chest. “Don’t do that!” she cried.

“What’s the problem?” Mr. Ault groaned. “It was going so well.”

David staggered backwards, throwing up his hands in innocence. “My mouth slipped,” he explained.

“You’re not supposed to kiss her here, hot lips,” Mr. Ault said. “Not until act three.”

“He’s such a pain!”

“Come on, Erin,” the teacher admonished. “Let’s try to be professional. David, back off.”

Erin squeezed her eyes shut, afraid she was
going to cry. Why
was
she overreacting? She felt a throbbing and a tightening in her temples. How was she ever going to make it till the play opened in six weeks? “This is just supposed to be for blocking out the dance moves,” she said. “He—he caught me off guard, that’s all.”

“Can we try it again?” Mr. Ault asked. “And this time, David, keep your lips from ‘slipping.’ ”

David saluted and took Erin in his arms again. “Loosen up,” he said. “It was just a kiss.”

Erin glared at him. They made it through the number several more times, and when Mr. Ault was finally pleased and had dismissed them, Erin hurried to get her things, because the pressure in her skull was building. At the stage door David stopped her before she could get outside. His expression was serious and contemplative. “Why don’t you like me?” he asked.

Erin tried to shrug him off. “You surprised me, that’s all.”

“I don’t think so. You haven’t liked me since day one.”

“I—it isn’t personal.”

“How else can it be? You don’t even know me. We’ve never even met before.”

Something about him nagged at the back of her mind. “I’m sorry. Really.” She seemed to be saying that phrase a lot lately.

David tipped his head to one side, and his eyes gleamed with mischief. “Would you like me more if I gave you a present?”