Enthusiasm (21 page)

“He didn’t say anything. He’s as shy as you are. But Parr asked if I meant that guy from the literary magazine. I said yes. How does Parr know Seth? You never told me they’d met.”

The humiliation!

I wanted to kill Ashleigh, but of course it wasn’t really her fault, since she didn’t know how I felt about Parr. I tried to feel glad about that. After all, I had tried as hard as I could to keep it hidden from her. From Parr too. Could he really not know, when I felt so strongly? Surely he would see it in my eyes! Was he treating me with that distant politeness because he knew how I felt and didn’t return my feelings? Or did he have no idea what he meant to me? Maybe he did like me, but he thought I was going out with Seth.

Horrible!

I thought about explaining to Parr next time I saw him, but what would I say? That I didn’t like Seth—that he wasn’t my boyfriend? Any such explanation seemed presumptuous, since it assumed that Parr would care. And anyway, there was still the question of Ashleigh.

Twice during rehearsal breaks I tried to speak, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Meanwhile, the
Insomnia
production advanced at breakneck speed. Mr. Hatchek, the Forefield art teacher, set the entire sophomore (or rather, fourth form) art class to work painting backdrops. The costumes were mostly ordinary streetclothes, an exotic sight at Forefield. It took more fuss than you would think possible to get the cast outfitted in scruffy jeans. I began going over to the Gerards’ to help Yvette rehearse with Yolanda so Yolanda would be up to speed on her part when her grounding was over. Yolanda even risked showing up for rehearsal once a week, leaving her sister behind to cover for her with their parents. The plan was for each of them to take the part in one of the play’s two performances.

Late in January, I woke with a start in the middle of the night. It had snowed heavily the week before. Hip-deep drifts covered the roots of our oak tree, even in its sheltered position between Ashleigh’s house and mine. Some large animal must have blundered into the hidden roots and branches; I could hear it crashing around in distress. Pulling the quilt around my shoulders, I opened the window to look.

Snow was falling heavily, obscuring my view, but I could see that it was no deer down there.

“Ashleigh, is that you?” I called softly.

The figure looked up. “Julia?” it said.

“Who’s that?”

“It’s me—Grandison. I d-didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Grandison! What are you doing down there?”

“I—I got locked out. I hoped—I th-thought if you w-were awake—”

His teeth were chattering so hard, he could barely talk.

“You’re frozen! You’d better come up here. Do you think you can climb up? It’s pretty icy. Should I come down and let you in the door?”

“No, d-don’t, I’ve g-got it.” He swung himself up from branch to branch with surprising grace. Clumps of snow fell around him and sank into the drift below.

I gave him a hand in and shut the window quickly. His gloves, his sleeves were icy wet. My room, though drier, seemed only a shade warmer than the air outside. He stood shivering by the window, dripping snow on the floor.

Grandison Parr in my room!

Parr in my room, and me in my fried-egg pajamas, my night-cap like something out of “The Night Before Christmas,” my hair poking unevenly out of its braid, and my feet in fuzzy pink slippers, a gift from Amy, which I would have thrown away long ago if they weren’t the only thing that could protect me from the demonic chill of the floor. I quickly took off my ridiculous night-cap and turned on the light.

We blinked at each other. His face was red and white.

“You’re soaked—you better get out of those wet things,” I said. I took his coat, hat, and scarf to drip in the storeroom next door. I put his boots up on the drying rack, which was built for apples, and brought him a towel.

“I’m s-s-sorry to b-b-barge in,” began Parr. He could hardly talk through his chattering teeth.

“I know, it’s freezing in here,” I said. I felt his arm; the sleeve of his sweater was wet. “I’ll find you some dry clothes.” I rummaged in my dresser and came up with clean sweatpants, T-shirt, and sweatshirt. For almost the first time, I was glad to be so tall. “There, I think these should fit. Go in there and put them on.”

When he came back from the storeroom, he was still shivering violently. His lips were blue. I handed him my quilt.

“Th-thanks, Julia. I’m s-sorry to burst in on you like this—I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“What are you doing here, anyway?”

“I—I got locked out of c-campus and it’s pretty nasty out there. I didn’t know where to go. You’re an angel—thanks for the dry clothes. I’ll just wait here a little while until it lets up a bit, if you don’t mind, and then I’ll go back.”

“Go back? How will you get in?”

“How?—Oh. There’s a place in the wall where I can sometimes get over. I—My hands were too cold when I tried to climb it before, but I’m warmer now.”

“Are you serious?” I said. “All the way back to Forefield in this snow—in your wet coat? You’ll freeze to death! You’ll never get over the wall if you didn’t before. They have to unlock the gates in the morning, right? You’d b-better stay here until then.”

“Oh, no—now
you’re
shivering,” he said. “Here, take this back.”

He tried to put the quilt around me, but I resisted. “You need it more than I d-do,” I said. I couldn’t tell whether I was trembling from cold or from his nearness.

“It’s big enough for two,” he said, wrapping it around both of us.

Parr’s icy hand grew warmer on my shoulder. He smelled beautiful—like wet hair and tree bark and strength. My cheeks burned. I thought they must be giving off enough heat to warm the room—to warm the whole house.

“Julia, I’d better go,” said Parr after a while. “I can’t stay here all night. You need to sleep. I’ll be fine.”

The insane gallantry! “No—you will
not
be fine. You’ll get frostbite. You’re staying here till morning. You can take my bed, and I’ll sleep downstairs on the couch.”

“If anyone’s sleeping on a couch, it’s me.”

“You can’t—my mother will freak if she sees you.”

“Won’t she wonder why
you’re
sleeping on the couch, then?”

I considered this. If Mom caught me sleeping downstairs, she’d die of guilt for keeping the thermostat so low. She’d insist on turning it up for the rest of the winter, which we couldn’t afford. But with my room so cold, I didn’t have enough blankets for two.

“See? It won’t work. Where did you put my boots?” he said.

“I’m not giving them back. You’re not going anywhere. We can both sleep here, in my bed.”

“Oh, no,” Parr protested. “I couldn’t do that.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be perfectly safe. I’ll keep my hands to myself,” I said.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Silently he helped me remake the bed, tucking the quilt in well. I got in; he turned out the light and got in after me, scrunching himself up as far away as possible—which wasn’t very far. Our shoulders touched.

“Are you comfortable? Have I left you enough room?” he asked.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re still shivering. Are you warm enough?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I know it’s cold in here, but I’m used to it. What about you—are you warm enough?” Not that there was anything I could do if he wasn’t; hold him in my arms, maybe. I shivered and turned toward the wall, leaving his shoulder behind.

“Toasty. Embarrassed, but toasty. Good night, Julia. And thank you.”

“Good night, Grandison.”

For a long time we lay at our separate edges of the bed, back to back, the inch between us burning like lava. I felt the blankets move with his breathing. Was he asleep? He couldn’t be. What was he thinking? I wanted to turn and put my arms around him and breathe in his smell. I wanted to curl myself into a trembling ball and shrink away to nothing, far, far away from him and everything else, never to emerge again. I wanted the night to last forever, the two of us side by side, with no end and no consequences.

A long time later I woke to find myself strangely warm in my cold room, with warm, steady breaths in my ear. After a moment I remembered who was there. Parr had turned over sometime in the night. He had his arm over my waist, his knees bent behind mine, like a pair of spoons. I felt his chest against my back, rising and falling with his sleeping breath. Blissful, I fell asleep again.

I next woke in the gray of dawn. It had stopped snowing. Parr was standing by my bed, dressed, wearing his boots and holding his coat. “Shh—I didn’t mean to wake you again,” he whispered.

“What time is it?”

“Six o’clock. The gate should be open by the time I get back.”

“You found your boots.”

“Yeah, you hid them pretty well, but I found them. Thank you, Julia. You’re the best.” He smiled that white-and-blue smile of his, bright with the turquoise of his eyes, upheld by his vertical dimple.

“Be careful going down the tree.”

“I will.” He gently lifted the end of my braid and kissed it, like a gentleman kissing a lady’s hand. “Good-bye, Rapunzel.”

I woke for the third time an hour later, dreaming I was kissing someone. Was it all a dream, then?

Apparently not. Pinned to my bulletin board, under the sonnet Ashleigh had found on the tree, was a note:

Generous Julia,
Graceful and truly a
Port in a storm:
So calm, so warm.

The handwriting looked familiar. With good reason: it was the same as in the sonnet.

I was right, then. Parr was the mystery poet—Parr had written the sonnet.

But to whom? That was still a mystery. To me? To Ashleigh? If it was to me, I thought with a little laugh, how disappointed he must have been when he got upstairs. “Warm rooms would never lure me from this place,” he had written. Well, that was for sure! No warm rooms in this house! And “Zero degrees down here: July above.” July—ha! More like February.

Like February in my room, yes; but not in my bed—not in his arms.

Some minutes passed while I stared ahead of me, the hair-brush frozen in my hand, contemplating my bed and his arms.

“Julie! Julie, honey, are you up?” called my mother up the stairs, breaking my reverie. “It’s almost eight o’clock.”

“Coming, Mom!”

Whoever the sonnet was addressed to, it cast doubt on Parr’s explanation of what he was doing under my window. Had he really found himself locked out of Forefield and come here for refuge? Possibly. But he had been downstairs at the foot of our tree at least once before, when he left the sonnet. Wasn’t it possible that he had come again last night for the same reason, drawn by the presence of one of us—just as Ashleigh had dragged me to visit
his
house and look up at
his
window over Christmas vacation?

Chapter 19

A song
~
an Unspeakable Scandal
~
my Mother takes a new Job
~
the Talk
~
a theatrical disaster.