Bewitching (24 page)

“I do, a little. I made stuff with my dad when I was a kid.” He frowned. “How hard could fixing a tree house be, if it’s important to you?”

I smelled the orange blossoms in the air, and I pulled him closer. “I love you.”

It just popped out. It was bound to, considering I thought it all the time—when we were texting, when he opened the door of his car for me in the student parking lot, when he said he’d actually enjoyed
Wuthering Heights
, unlike every other boy in the tenth grade. But I didn’t want to say it first. The girl wasn’t supposed to. Besides, what if he didn’t say it back?

What if he didn’t say it back?

“I love you too, Emma.”

I exhaled. “Whew!”

He laughed. “Did you think I wouldn’t say it? Of course I love you, Emma.”

Of course
.

He kissed me, and I felt a warm breeze across my arms and shoulders.

“Maybe we can go to Home Depot after we’re done studying,” I said a minute later.

“Sure. It will reward you for your good work habits.”

I love you. I love you. I love you
.

I led him up the steps to the door. Instead of ringing the bell, I used my key to get in, giving myself an extra minute before Mother was there, assessing Warner. Mother and I had become allies in our war with Lisette. Still, I feared her assessments of me and, by extension, Warner. I also worried she’d embarrass me.

When I shook the key out and pushed the door open, Warner breathed a big mock sigh of relief.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“We’ve been together a month, and you haven’t had me over once. I was worried there’d be a dungeon or something.”

“Who says there isn’t? You haven’t seen the whole house yet.”

“Then show me.”

I closed my eyes, steeling myself by remembering Warner’s words. He’d said he loved me. He loved me. I put my hand on Warner’s waist and led him into the dragon’s lair (by which I meant the kitchen).

But it didn’t go badly. Mother didn’t seem disapproving, nor was she embarrassingly gushy, like she’d never expected me to bring a boy home. She only used the word “finally” once, and when I said we were going to my room to study, she didn’t act like we might possibly be filming a porno in there. She just told me to leave the door open. Lots of moms did that.

Later, in Warner’s car on the way to Home Depot, I asked him, “What if there had been something terribly wrong with my house?”

He laughed, then saw I was serious. He took his hand off the wheel and caressed my elbow. “What do you think? I’d love you anyway. I’m just glad you have a happy family.”

I didn’t correct him, though I wondered, could someone love you if you didn’t tell him the whole truth?

“Oh, by the way, Ms. Meinbach asked me if I could cover the school play next Friday for the paper. They’re doing
Into the Woods
. It’s supposed to be good. Wanna go?”

Lisette’s play!
Calm down
. He wouldn’t know it was Lisette’s play. It was just any old newspaper assignment for him.

“Um, sure. I guess so.”

“Well, think about it. It sounds like your kind of thing—a bunch of fairy tales, like a mash-up.”

I knew that. Lisette was playing Cinderella.

“… and she wants me to interview some cast members, like a feature. There’s this sophomore girl, Lisa something, who’s supposed to be super-talented.”

Deep breaths
. He doesn’t know who she is. He loves you.

“She’s playing Cinderella.”

Still, the twangy guitars and “Stand by Your Man” rang in my ears, and I said, “Sure, I’ll go. Sounds fun.”

Warner didn’t even seem to notice that my voice was shaking.

7

In the next week, Warner and I said “I love you” a hundred times. It was like some portal or Pandora’s box had opened and everything was rushing out. We said it mornings as we parted for class, wrote it on notes left in lockers, texted it to each other, mouthed it across classrooms behind teachers’ backs and in crowded hallways. We said it when we made out in Warner’s car, and we whispered it into cell phones last thing before bed at night. Yet, every time I heard it, I felt the same, like fireworks were shooting from my head or like Jack, the Pumpkin King, when he discovered Christmas Town in
The Nightmare Before Christmas
. Someone loved me! I felt reborn, like I finally had something of my own after years of nothing. It was nice but scary too. Warner loved me because he thought I was strong and smart, but my terror of losing him told me I was neither. I was weak and needy. At least, that’s how I felt a lot of the time.

There was still the matter of Warner meeting Lisette. I tried not to think about it, but one day, I met Kendra at Starbucks, the same Starbucks where I’d gone with Lisette and Courtney two years earlier. I told her everything.

“He’s meeting her, Kendra.” I took a bite of crumb cake.

“So?”

“So? He’ll see her perfection, and that will be it for me.”

“Don’t be stupid. Perfection is annoying.” Kendra took a sip of her caramel macchiato. “What even makes you think she’d want him?”

Now there was a comforting thought—she wouldn’t like him. It was true that Lisette had tons of boys around. “She’d steal Warner just to spite me.”

Kendra grimaced at her drink. “Cold.” She rubbed her hands on the cup, as if that would help. “Warner loves you, Emma. I’ve seen it on his freckly little face. It’s the real thing.”

“I guess.”

“It’s true. Lisette may be witchy, but she has no power over him. He adores you.”

I laughed. “Maybe. Why don’t you ask them for a new one?”

Kendra ignored me, still rubbing her coffee cup. “And if I’m wrong and he goes with her…” She removed her hands from the cup and looked at me.

“What?”

Kendra took a sip of the steaming coffee. “… if he does, then we’ll fix it. I always help my friends.”

Every day after school, while Lisette was at rehearsals, Warner and I worked on my tree house. Warner brought hammer, nails, and a saw, and we sanded, cut, banged, and finally painted until we’d restored it to its former glory. But, even as we did it, the thought dogged me. Warner meeting Lisette. I thought of it as I sanded and almost scraped off a bit of my finger. I thought of it as I hammered, and the thought pounded in my brain. Warner would like Lisette better. Anyone would.

I almost didn’t want to go to the play, didn’t want to see it happen. Yet I knew I couldn’t just surrender. I had to try to keep him.

Two days left. I felt like I was about to be executed. But that was stupid. Warner said he loved me. How could I love him back and yet have so little confidence in him?

Friday afternoon we finished our project. The tree house was once again painted dark green to match the trees. It had a solid fence around it. “For privacy,” Warner said. He handed me up the ladder, then stood below, reciting:

“But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Emma is the sun
.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon
,

Who is already sick and pale with grief
,

That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.”

Romeo and Juliet!
We’d read the play in language arts last year. I guess Warner had at his old school too. Warner started to climb the ladder. I giggled. He continued:

“Be not her maid, since she is envious;

Her vestal livery is but sick and green

And none but fools do wear it; cast it off
.

It is my lady, O, it is my love!”

He reached the top of the ladder and faced me. “You’re so beautiful, Emma.”

I laughed. “Beautiful? You think I’m beautiful?”

He gazed into my eyes. “Does that surprise you?”

I nodded like I was agreeing with a child. “You must be blinded by my stunning personality.”

“Nope. You’re beautiful. Can you honestly not see it?”

I wanted to believe it. “What’s so beautiful about me?”

“Why don’t you tell me? Tell me something about you that’s beautiful.”

I tried to laugh it off. I wasn’t beautiful; I was smart, but that was never enough, never what I wanted. I was nice, and no one cared. I was a lot of things, but beautiful? Not me. Yet he looked at me so intensely, and in that look, I saw that he believed it. Maybe I really was beautiful and I hadn’t noticed it. I tried to picture my face and said, “My eyes?”

He nodded. “A beautiful shade of gray. Keep going.”

“I guess my nose isn’t bad.”

Warner risked falling by taking one hand off the railing and touching my nose. “It’s adorable. And your skin, your hair. Can’t you see it? You glow from the inside, Emma.”

Maybe it was because I was in love. I held out my arms to him, then moved aside to let him up. “I’m so happy.” I tried to remember some appropriate line from the play. Finally, I said, “If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully.”

He laughed and kissed me, asking, “What shall I swear by?”

We were interrupted by the sound of Daddy’s car pulling into the driveway. He stepped out. “Hey, you fixed it up. It looks great.”

He extended his hand upward to Warner. “Tom Cooper, Emma’s dad.”

“Sir.” Warner reached down, saying, “Emma loves this so much.”

Daddy smiled at me. “I remember. I built it when you were four or five. Your mother always worried you’d hurt yourself.”

“I know. But it was our special thing.” I turned away so Warner wouldn’t see my eyes, how they filled with tears. Finally, I’d bitten my lip enough times to choke out, “I still love it.”

Daddy nodded. “Me too. Sometimes…” He stopped.

“What?” A breeze fluttered through the leaves of the old oak, and I shivered.

He shook his head and said, “Sometimes, things change so quickly you don’t even know how it happened.” He looked at Warner. “Ramblings of an old man.”

“I understand.” And I did. I understood that he didn’t know how our relationship had gone south, had gotten away from him so quickly.

He waved his hand and said, “It’s great that you fixed it up.” He started for the door.

I wanted to run after him, to chase him and call him Daddy, tell him I was sorry, I loved him. I wanted to be his little girl again. I could have done it. Lisette wasn’t there. Even if she had been, what would she have done, told him I smashed a jack-o’-lantern two years earlier? Now I saw so clearly that it had been stupid of me to give in to her blackmail. I had to fix it.

I didn’t run after him because of Warner, because I didn’t want him to think we were even more messed up than he already knew about. I let him go. Still, I promised myself we’d talk tomorrow.

I glanced at my watch, wishing I could freeze the moment in time, the breeze in my face, the scent of gardenias in the air, and Warner, looking at me, like he thought I was pretty. “Beautiful,” he’d said. I inhaled deeply and stared at him, trying to photograph the moment with my mind so that if it all changed, I’d still own it.

Finally, I told him, “I should get ready. Thank you for this.”

He hugged me. “I enjoyed it.” We separated, and he started down the ladder. “I’ll pick you up in an hour.”

I nodded. “Sure.”

I could have spoken to Daddy then, but Warner was coming back, and I wanted to look pretty, as pretty as I could at least. So, instead of talking to Daddy, I spent that hour showering and choosing an outfit, dressing, and blow-drying my hair, and when Warner came to pick me up he said, again, “You’re so beautiful, Emma.”

I blushed, hoping it was true.

8

Into the Woods
was the type of play I’d have liked, if I hadn’t been freaking out about the real-life drama. It was about a baker and his wife, who can’t have a baby because of a family curse. The curse could be broken … but only if they collected a white cow, a red cape, corn-yellow hair, and a golden slipper from an assortment of fairy tale characters. I loved fairy tales, but I couldn’t pay attention to the play or anything except Lisette, looking stunning even in rags as Cinderella, wishing she could go to the king’s festival, yet thwarted by her horrible steprelatives. I rooted for her as she prayed to her dead mother. I wished I knew that sweet girl everyone loved.