Forever Blue (3 page)

    
“Good luck,” I said, waving him off.

    
I watched the green station wagon pull out of their driveway
from my living room window.
In all my years, I never met anyone quite as interesting as this boy. An actor right next door!
Wow! A spark of hope lifted up inside me. This summer, I hope to make some new friends…

***

    
I waited with great anticipation
the next day
for Carter to come out of his house. As eager as I was, I couldn’t shake an unwelcome image of Carter’s mother with that contorted, irate look upon her face. Come to find out, Mom went to introduce herself the day they moved in. It didn’t surprise me that Mary Storm was unresponsive to her neighborly welcome. Mary accepted the green bean casserole
that
Mom generously prepared for them and then more or less shooed her away. 

    
Even with the weather at 100 degrees in the shade that afternoon, Carter made an effort to shoot baskets. Eventually the breezeless heat got to him, and he plopped himself down on the sidewalk. His hair asymmetrically fell in front of his face every time he tossed the ball in the air.

    
I got on my bike and shot down the driveway, knowing it was now or never. “Are you bored?” I asked as I slowly pedaled
past him.

    
He looked intensely uncomfortable. “Sort of.”

    
I parked my bike
and sat on the curb next to him, relieved that the awkwardness between us had evaporated.
“Yeah, I know what you mean. Irvine is a pretty boring city. I oughtta know. I’ve lived here all my life.”

    
He squinted at me through the intense sunlight and said, “This neighborhood is like a ghost town.”

    
“Welcome to my world,” I replied with a smirk.

    
A flicker of reaction crossed his face, but before I could decipher it, he looked down and dribbled the ball lightly between his legs. “I hope school isn’t this boring.”

    
“Which one are you going to?”

    
“Beckman Junior High.”

    
“Really? I go there,” I said. “I’ll be in eighth grade.”

    
“Me too.”

    
My heart kicked up with hope. “Well, at least you’ll know me.”

    
Carter wiped the perspiration off his forehead with his arm. “It’s too hot to be outside,” he announced. “I think I’m going to go play video games or something.”
He peeled himself off the pavement and asked, “So, um—you want to play?”

    
I couldn’t think of anything in the world I’d rather do more.

    
Nothing interested me about the inside of Carter’s house. My gaze roamed over several cardboard boxes stacked in each corner. Across from a rickety oak coffee table, books and videocassettes were stacked sky high on top of a beige sofa.

     
I followed Carter upstairs to his bedroom, which seemed to be very much like any other thirteen-year-old boy’s room. Posters of racecars were plastered on the wall, and an array of sports memorabilia occupied most of his desk space. I took notice of two framed magazine articles hung up on the wall: “Seattle’s Own Gets Small Role in Upcoming Independent Film,” and “Ten-Year-Old Sings Heart Out at Local County Fair.”

    
I traced my finger over the silvery frame and asked, “So how did it go?”

    
Carter’s eyes narrowed in concentration as he busied himself with hooking up the Sega
Genesis. “How did what go?”

    
“Your audition yesterday.”

    
“Oh, it was nothing big. I’ll know if I get a callback,” he answered. He reached the far corner of the room and switched on a twenty-inch TV.     

    
I took a seat on his bed next to him. All my nerves danced. I never sat on a boy’s bed before, or even been in a boy’s room, for that matter. Funny, Carter was completely nonchalant about the whole situation, as if he had girls in his room a hundred times before. The low-ceilinged room suddenly grew still and airless. Embarrassment rushed to my cheeks. We were close, too close. My knee touched the side of his leg, and I felt the startling heat of him.
I was troubled by a wave of strange feelings stirring inside me, and
imperceptibly scooted away, but remained calm. I didn’t want to blow it. A younger boy’s voice interrupted my nervous stupor.

    
“Carter—” Darren entered the room, clad in an oversized Lakers shirt and tan cargo shorts. The boy was quite tall and lanky for an eight-year-old. I was sure in a matter of years he would tower over many of his peers. “Can I play?”

    
“Not now,” Carter said, point blank.

   
Darren clambered onto the bed and squealed, “Pleaaaaaaseee?”

    
“No. Now get out of my room.”

    
“I’m telling Mom!” the younger boy shouted back in displeasure and then
dashed out the door.

    
“He’s so annoying sometimes,” Carter brought to my attention.

    
I merely shrugged. As an only child, I couldn’t exactly sympathize except from what I’d seen in sitcoms on TV. “You should be nice to him. He’s the only brother you’ve got.”

    
He cocked his head and gave me a “get real” look. “You try living with him.”

    
“Carter...I need—”

    
I froze at the sight of Mary Storm staring back at me incredulously. With a wheeze of panic in her voice, she asked, “What’s going on in here?”

    
“We’re just playing Sega, Mom,” Carter responded a bit absentmindedly. He was too focused on passing level five.

    
Mary sized me up and down to the point where I almost felt violated. “And you are?” 

    
“I’m Alexa.” My body shuddered in response. “I live right across the street, and I—”

    
“Right,” she said as though I was lying through my teeth. “Carter, I want this door left open. Do you hear me?”

    
“Yes, Mom,” Carter said obediently—almost robot like.

    
I glanced out the bedroom window
after she disappeared down the hallway.
A tingling nervousness collected somewhere near my center. “It’s uh—it’s getting late. I have to get home. You know, for dinner.”

***

    
The sound of pebbles nicking at my bedroom window awoke me
several weeks later on a particularly hot summer night.
I forced myself out of bed and lethargically eased open my window. Down in the front yard was Carter with a basketball glued to his side.

    
“You forgot, didn’t you?” he whispered.

    
“No,” I whispered back. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

    
I threw
on a shirt and a pair of jeans, and like a thief in the night,
quietly crept downstairs, hoping not to stir my parents from sleep.

    
The moist, heavy air of a late July night descended upon me. I took a quick glance at my surroundings and tried to orient myself to the darkness of the neighborhood. The night was lit only by the dim glow of street lamps. My desolate community was the same day in and day out. No one was ever around to notice a couple of kids taking a midnight stroll. Feeling like we were the only two people in the world had an exciting element about it.

    
Once we got off our street, we made our way past several housing developments and one strip mall.
We reached Irvine Park
after trekking dirt paths and sidewalks.
There were no lights surrounding the commons, just pitch blackness. We’d done this so many times over the course of the last few weeks that we were used to it. My eyes adjusted to the brightness of
 
Carter’s white shirt, which lit up like a fluorescent light. In no time, we
had
settled into our usual game of one-on-one.

    
Carter lightly dribbled the basketball around in a circle. “I think we should make this game a little more interesting,” he said with a smirk.

    
“How so?”

    
“Like, let’s make a bet or something.”

    
“A bet?” I repeated. Carter could be so random at times, but that was one of those unique qualities I appreciated about him.

    
“Yeah, but it has to be something good.” He paused for a moment, clearly in deep thought. “Okay, I got it—”

    
In a haze of worry, I asked, “Do I even have a say in this?”

    
“Of course. But just listen—if I win, you have to watch all the Star Trek movies with me from beginning to end.”

    
I hated those movies with a passion and he knew it. I stood there indecisively, wondering what the hell I was going to do to get him back.

    
Laughter rippled from Carter’s lips. “You’re thinking way too hard.”

    
“Fine. You want to play that game?” I finally responded. “If I win, you have to let your brother hang out with us for a week. And I mean anytime he wants.”

    
The color drained from his face. “Now, that’s brutal. I—”

    
“Nope. Rules are rules.” 

    
“Whatever,” he said with a roll of his eyes.

    
While he continued to brood, I stole the ball right out from under him and made a successful lay-up. At first, I didn’t
think I could make such a shot, but the ball just barely made it through the net.

    
“Am I good or what?”

    
“The bet doesn’t count if you’re gonna cheat,” Carter huffed.

    
My body slowly started depleting of energy
halfway through our game. My throat was dry and parched, in dire need of something cold to drink.  

    
I realized with a faint sense of shock that I had grown accustomed to the slightly pungent, yet sweet smell of Carter’s sweat. The sound of his heavy breathing was like a symphony to my ears.

    
“Ready to give up?” I asked.

    
“You wish.” The sweat glistened on his forehead.

    
“Okay, fine. I was just giving you a chance to walk away quietly. Darren is going to be thrilled.” I stared pointedly at the net and aimed for the basket. This time I missed the shot. Leave it to Carter to swoop in and seize the ball.

    
“Hey, kids!”

    
We froze.
The voice of a disgruntled police officer
in the far distance
echoed through our ears.

    
“You two shouldn’t be out here this time of night,” he called to us from across the park.

I looked at Carter. We were both thinking the same thing. With our nerves pulsing with adrenaline, we ran as if on fire. My leg muscles burned, and my heart beat so fast I was sure it would explode. We took a shortcut through some brush leading back to our neighborhood.
 
I was sure we lost the cop
by the time we got to my house.
Carter and I collapsed on the grass in my back yard. 

    
“Oh my God. You should have seen the look on your face,” Carter said in hysterics.

    
“Shut up,” I retorted, unable to hold in my laughter. “You looked like you just peed in your pants.”

    
“Wow. I can’t believe we almost got caught,” he whispered in heavy breaths.

    
“Yeah, and so much for our bet. Man, what a rush.”

    
The unspoken hung
in the air between us
as we stared up into the lucid dark sky. Carter made a slight movement beside me and slipped his hand into mine. His thumb slowly traced the outline of my palm. This display of spontaneous affection put me in a tizzy. I hazily glanced down at our fingers still entwined
with my heart thumping at the same time.
I never before
had
experienced this type of behavior from the opposite sex. My response was instinctive, almost automatic. I quickly tore my hand away from his. 

    
“I better go,” I said, rising to my feet.

    
“See you tomorrow?” Carter asked.

    
“Sure.” I walked back into the house, trying to disregard those last few awkward moments between us.

***

    
It wasn’t long before I got my first taste of what Carter Storm was really all about. I was flipping through channels looking for something decent to watch on television when it first happened. I settled on a cartoon I’d seen a million times
out of pure boredom.
During the commercial break, my eyes froze on the screen in front of me. A blondish boy sat at a large wooden table with his family, nursing a bowl of cereal. In a tone that was almost dreamy, the boy convinced his dad to try a bite of a new cereal called ‘Wheaty Puffs.’
It took a second or two before my brain finally registered who the boy was. At the realization that it was Carter, I got the distinct impression it was only the beginning of what was to come.
He won a spot in pizza commercial three weeks later,
and beat out 1,000 kids for a small voiceover role in an animated film.

    
Carter opened up little by little about his former life in Seattle throughout our time together. He confessed
that he never had many friends, and it was hard to keep the few he had due to his hectic schedule. But there was one detail I was still uncertain about: his father. Carter said his dad was tying up loose ends in Seattle and was coming to California soon. Whenever I brought up the topic of his dad, he quickly changed the subject. The word around town was that the Storm family
had
moved to Orange County because Carter’s mother was in the process of separating from his father. Allegations of domestic abuse had come up, supposedly the main reason why Mary decided to pack up and move her two sons to another state. Usually a father as innocent as he claims would do everything in his power to get custody of his two boys, but Carter’s father continued to remain AWOL.

***

    
Dad and I sat on the patio
one evening, enjoying the warm weather while Mom cleaned up after dinner. When she wasn’t looking, Dad pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket. He’d been smoking heavily since he was a teenager, sometimes two packs a day. Now time caught up with him, and it was affecting his health. No matter what we tried to do to get Dad to break the habit, he refused to quit so we had a new rule in the house: He was never allowed to smoke in her presence. If Mom caught him, there’d be hell to pay. This was a hard rule for Dad to abide by. He couldn’t go without a cigarette for more than an hour; hence why he snuck behind her back at that moment. As much as I hated watching him deceive Mom and blacken his lungs, he was the adult, and I was the kid.
When his mind was set to something I couldn’t do anything to change it.