The Gingerbread Boy (30 page)

Catherine sighed, her chest rising and falling from gasps.

“Do you feel better now?” Joanne asked sweetly.

“Like a popped balloon.” Catherine moaned.

****

Catherine ignored the stares from students she could tell recognized her as Daniel’s girlfriend. At least she tried to ignore them as the people assembling in the soccer stadium field jostled about.

“They know who you are,” Joanne mumbled, clutching Catherine’s hand. She tugged her through the crowd toward the north end of the stadium where a large stage had been erected. “They’re probably wondering why you’re not backstage with Daniel.”

“That makes five-thousand and one of us.” Catherine said.

Pain still fastened around her like a mantle, moving her arms and legs still took conscious effort, yet she knew, somehow, that if she didn’t force herself to move, the fear would paralyze her. Eventually the only direction she’d be able to move in would be backward, slowly at first, then faster, faster, until she was running like a wild woman back to the safety of her house. There she would lie in a near catatonic state in the scorching waters of her bathtub while Daniel’s concert went on without her. As he’d asked.

Joanne must have sensed her feelings. An abrupt tap on the back startled Catherine back to reality.

“Don’t let it intimidate you!” Joanne warned, stopping to face her. “I can feel you weakening. Remember girl, you’re mad! You have the right to be, and to do something about it.”

“You shouldn’t have to babysit me like this.” Catherine moaned, “You could be with Joey yourself right now. You weren’t the one given the cold shoulder,
I
was.”

“Joey knows what we’re doing and he thinks we’re right.”

“Joey knows I’m coming to the show?”

“If it weren’t for me ranting and raving about what Daniel was doing to you, he wouldn’t even have known Daniel didn’t want you here. Apparently he and Daniel are having their problems, too. It seems Daniel doesn’t confide in him much anymore.”

Catherine took a deep breath. “Really?” The cloudiness in her soul seemed to clear somewhat, but she didn’t like the reason why…

…
It felt good to know she wasn’t the only one being ostracized.

All at once a sloppy raindrop splashed across Catherine’s nose. She and Joanne, as well as most of the crowd gazed upward. Overhead, the sky was just gray, but in the southwest thunderheads with lumpy greenish undersides dragged ominously across the horizon. Another raindrop splashed across Catherine’s eyelash, then another on her forearm. A moan rolled throughout the audience.

“It can’t get rained out!” Catherine said as Joanne began to yank her through the crowd once more. As upset as she was with Daniel, Catherine didn’t want one of the most significant days in his career ruined. The idea of the concert being cancelled raced across her mind as they scurried on, but thankfully, no more raindrops fell, and the crowd began to relax.

Suddenly Joanne stopped so abruptly Catherine bumped into her. They were next to the western corner of the stage when Catherine looked to see what Joanne was staring at. Repulsion stabbed through her.

Behind a roped off section of the stage stood a tall, cool blonde in a slinky red dress and thigh-high black boots. A red dress at an outdoor concert at an outdoor stadium? The woman tossed her hair over her shoulders, undulating her body in panther-like movements as she talked to two burly stagehands setting up the equipment.

Beth. Beth was behind the ropes.

…The ropes where Catherine had once had every right to be.

A bitter enlightment washed across Catherine. Was this why Daniel hadn’t wanted her to come to the concert today? Was it because of Beth all along?

All at once Beth looked in Catherine’s direction. She gazed into Catherine’s eyes a moment, and as the cold, black snake of hate twisted in Catherine’s heart, Beth’s red lips curved into a smile. Then the smile vanished, Beth cocked her chin in the air, and turned to disappear in a forest of amplifiers and sound equipment.

“At least Daniel wasn’t with her.” Joanne whispered next to Catherine.

“Maybe not right at this moment!” Catherine cried. She gritted her teeth, picked up the rope and crawled beneath it.

“Only qualified people are supposed to be behind the ropes…” a stagehand warned.

“Too bad!” Catherine said, storming across the cigarette littered ground. She dodged equipment, skimmed across nests of wires, and pulled out of people’s grasps as she glanced around for a sign of Beth.

A security man grasped her arm, she twisted out of it. “Where is she?” Catherine exclaimed. “Where is that woman?”

Suddenly one man had hold of her left arm, and another grabbed her right.

“Obviously you have no pass, miss. You’re not staying behind stage, you’re not even staying at this show.” Catherine turned to see a skinny man with great mouth of horse-like teeth bellowing at her, “You’re out of here!”

“She’s with me.” A voice said softly behind them.

All three turned to see Daniel leaning against a speaker, one leg casually crossed in front of the other as he chewed on a toothpick, his haunted eyes fixed on the scene before him.

“It’s okay.” He repeated, “She’s with me.”

The security men released Catherine’s arms. They stared at her in disdain a few moments, then walked away.

Catherine stared at Daniel, speechless.

He looked lost, like a little boy who’d been separated from his family in some ghastly, surreal world he couldn’t escape. She wanted to lower her hand to her purse, to grasp for the doll, to fling it at him with all of her might. Yet, her arm was numb. Like someone else’s arm.

“Don’t do this.” Daniel whispered, lowering the hand holding the toothpick. “Please… don’t watch this.”

Catherine tried to choke out that she didn’t understand, that all of this was a big mistake and nothing was making sense to her, yet she said nothing and had to strain to make out his next words.

“I can’t bear to have you see me fail,” he said, then lowered his head and moved away.

****

“Man,” Joanne gushed, “this crowd seems more excited about seeing The Front than they are about seeing Lift. Just listen to them!”

Catherine tightened her arms together in front of her, shrinking into as tiny a ball as possible as the audience shrieked and clapped around her, awaiting The Front’s arrival on stage. A rich, frenetic expectation filled the air as a chant began, at first distant and hard to make out, then progressively louder until the stadium was thundering with voices shouting “Daniel LaMont and the Front… Daniel LaMont and the Front! The Front, The Front!
”

“Daniel has to love this attention, no matter how strange he’s been acting.” Joanne said in Catherine’s ear.

Catherine said nothing. She couldn’t get Daniel’s words out her mind.
Don’t do this…
I can’t bear to have you see me fail.
A shiver chased through her.

What did it mean? She tightened into an even tinier ball, shivering inside. For the first time she wondered whether or not it truly was a mistake to be here.

And it had nothing to do with Beth.

She glanced nervously up at the stage a few rows in front of her. The crowd roared on. Two more minutes until the show. Then a raindrop splattered across her forehead.She jerked straight, startled, and another drop splashed across her nose. “Not now.” She whispered. The stage was partially covered by a heavy awning, but could a band perform if it poured? More splashes fell. The crowds chanting fell into a muted garble. Moans diminished into silence as thousands of eyes cast toward the sky.

Suddenly arms sprung into the air around her, and people bounced on their feet. Flabbergasted, Catherine looked toward the stage.

There was movement, a blur of color. And there was Daniel, walking in an oddly leisurely manner across the platform, waving. Catherine’s eyebrows knitted together in puzzlement. Why wasn’t he running onto stage as usual? She hadn’t even noticed when the other band members had materialized, but now there they all were, and at least looked genuinely pumped with excitement as the crowd roared. Daniel raised the microphone to his lips and, just like that, the music began. Catherine detected a strain to his voice, but it merely added to the emotional impact of the lyrics to one of The Front’s popular fast songs. Catherine realized that only she, Joanne and Joey knew the extent of the bizarre discord between Daniel and his band. Still, she stood, mesmerized, barely feeling the ground vibrating or Joanne’s excited grip around her wrist.

There was Daniel.
Her
Daniel. Her music man up there charming the crowd.

Sure
, a little voice suddenly murmured in her mind.
Sure he’s
your
music man. He didn’t even want you here today, remember? You’re as faceless as the rest of the crowd. It’s time to wake up.

Catherine put her hands to her ears as though to muffle out the voice… Beth’s voice.

He’s becoming famous. He’s going places. His band could fill the Spartan Stadium some day if he doesn’t have you to worry about. You and your lowly, little animal-loving life and screwed-up past. He finally realizes, thanks to me, that you’d hurt him. His career would be ruined.

“No.” Catherine moaned, squinting as tiny flashes of light pinpricked before them.

He doesn’t need you… and he certainly doesn’t want you…

“Cut it out…”

Just leave. Leave while you can. Leave before he hates you!

“Stop it!”

What’s going on?” a voice asked, and then Joanne’s face loomed before Catherine’s half-closed eyes. Catherine wasn’t sure what Joanne was saying, and she didn’t care. It struck her that although most of Beth’s ramblings were cruel lies, one thing clearly was not.

Daniel didn’t need her.

He didn’t need her, and he didn’t want her. She’d probably only drag him down.

How could someone like Daniel have a place for someone like her in his fast-paced life? How could she have been so delusional? Had she been so entranced by his affections that she’d been acting just as stupid and just as gullible as she had with Cave Pig? Could she have been that ignorant again? She lowered her head, and Hazel’s face filled her mind. Whatever would Hazel have thought of her now?

Sound melted away. The cheering faded, the crowd grew still. She felt detached and dislocated as a cloud of numbness expanded in her mind, threatening to shut down the emotional part of her brain. She had no idea how much the numbness had overtaken her. She was completely unaware of even uglier, grayish-green bellies of clouds slogging along a pale yellowish sky overhead, of the vague scent of ozone in the air. A low rumble of thunder growled, seemingly far off, then increased in severity until it was nearly vibrating the ground. And then she heard possibly the only voice that could filter through the mush and make sense out of what had actually become an uneasy silence in the crowd. Daniel’s voice.

“Please remain calm. We’ve been told a funnel cloud has been spotted a few miles south of campus…”

Catherine’s head snapped up as Daniel’s voice continued and the crowd’s murmurings increased with his words, “It may be headed this way. We’re told that the best course for safety is to take shelter in the Red Cedar River just to the west.”

And like that, weather sirens began to wail and Daniel’s voice was smothered by screams. Catherine planted her feet firmly on the ground as people brushed past her, banging against her shoulders, jostling her in circles. More screams rang out, bodies blurred before her eyes. Soon she found herself stumbling toward the stage with Joanne’s help.

“Thank goodness people are running the other way,” Joanne said, “or you could have been flattened, Cath.” As Catherine found more of her footing, Joanne’s voice became strained. “I’ve got to find Joey… got to know if he’s all right. There’s no one on stage anymore… got to know where he is… got to find him…”

And then, somehow, Joey’s ashen face appeared amidst the chaos. Joanne lurched his way, and then Catherine felt someone clutching her own hand. She turned to see Daniel at her side. “Come this way,” he said, “I don’t think it’s going to hit here.”

“How do you know?” Catherine stammered, “How…”

Yet moments later she and Daniel were stumbling under the bleachers away from the panicky crowd, Joanne and Joey following. They huddled over the littered grass as people leaped from the bleachers around them like huge raindrops. After the people cleared, they moved out in the open once more. Then Daniel stopped, and stood stiffly, staring up at the bleachers as though in a trance. Then he took a step up. Catherine faltered, hung back. People were racing in the opposite direction toward the ravine, and Daniel was climbing up the bleachers? She hesitated, glancing from Joey to Joanne. Both had confused eyes, large as saucers. They all watched as Daniel continued to climb, stiffly, awkwardly, even painfully up the stands. He did not look back. The next thing Catherine knew, Joey was taking a step up the bleachers, too. He looked back at the girls, shrugged wildly, and continued on more determinedly. Catherine and Joanne exchanged bewildered glances, and followed. Up and up they went, watching a sea of students below racing over the fields then hopping or sliding along the banks and into the shallow river.

At last they were at the top of the stands. Time seemed at a halt. Everything went dull as a low buzzing of unreality filled Catherine’s ears. Daniel loosely wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they all stared toward the southwest. At last Catherine heard Joanne and Joey gasp and mutter in awe from somewhere behind her, then Joey swore. Catherine looked at Joanne, and as her friend mumbled the words “this is crazy!” reality snapped back to her. The roar of a hundred freight trains filled her ears and she covered them in horror, trying look away, but she could not.

Like the fat index finger of some heathen god, the tornado dug into campus a quarter mile away. A cloud of mayhem swirled at its base, in and out between the trees, and every few moments Catherine could discern one of the whirling objects… a bicycle… a garbage can… a tire. She watched in terror as it ripped through fences and upended vehicles. Flashes of lightning stabbed through the dark vortex as it tore a gash in the side of one large building, shingles ripping through the air like leaves. A scattering of students were still spread out over the soccer field below, standing still, dumbstruck as they watched as well. The sirens still screamed, and splatters of rain began to pelt across their faces, but the tornado was definitely angling away from them. The four seemed safe from disaster on their bizarre bleacher-top observatory.