Glimpse (10 page)

After a moment he heard the front door close.  Avery looked out his bedroom window and saw his dad sling his overnight bag into the cab of his truck. 
Good.  He wants to leave so bad, he can leave by himself.

Relieved that his dad was gone, he walked down the hall and checked on his mom to see how she was doing.  Zonked out, that’s how she was.  Jesus, had she even heard them fighting?  She must have had way more to drink than he thought.  He tiptoed over to her bedside and put a finger under her nose.  Still breathing.  What was he doing?  His mom was fine, she’d sleep it off like she had many times before. 

The person he should be worrying about was himself.  Zellie.  He needed to see Zellie now and there was only one way he could do that on a school night.

Claire’s phone rang seven times before she answered it.

“You rang?”

Oops, he’d made a mistake.  Whoever he was talking to sounded like they were on a walkie-talkie in an underwater cave.  Definitely not Claire’s scene.  He checked the number he’d dialed on the phone.  It was her number. “Claire?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Avery.” He paused.  “You sound funny.”

“That’s because I’m under my bed,” she said, like that explained everything.

“Oh.” He was eternally confused by her.

“Is there something I can help you with, Mr. Adams?”

“Yes. Are your parents out of the house?”

“Naturally.”

“Good.” He let out the breath he’d been half holding. Everything was going to be okay. “Do you think you can get Zellie to come over? I need to see her.”

“I suppose I could, but why don’t you just wait a few hours and then sneak over to her house? I hear that you’ve been oh-so-romantically showing up at her window in the middle of the night, Romeo,” Claire teased.

“I need to see her now.  I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important,” Avery pleaded.

“Got it,” she said, all trace of teasing gone from her voice, “Give me half an hour.”

“Thanks.  You’re a good friend.” Avery let his breath out the rest of the way.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m extremely familiar with the “F” word. See you in a few.”

The phone rang in the kitchen. Melody and I both jumped up from the dinner table to answer it. She got to it first.

“Hello, Wells residence, Melody speaking.”

I could hear Claire’s voice.  I tried to grab the phone away, but Mel hunched over it holding it to her chest.

“And who may I ask is calling?” she said with faux politeness.

Claire went off, yelling loud enough I could almost make out what she was saying.  Something about Avery?  I pinched the back of Melody’s arm as hard as I could.

“Ow!” She yanked her arm away from me. “I’m sorry, we’ve just sat down to dinner. May I take a message?”

“Melody!” I yelled, exasperated.

“Fine!” She shoved the phone at me. “It’s Claire.” 

“Yes. I know.” I stared her down until she left the room. “Hey. What’s up?”

“Hey.  Listen, Avery just called me.  He needs to see you and wanted me to get you over to my house somehow.”

“Really?”  I lowered my voice.  “You know my parents won’t let me go out on a school night.” I paused. “Are you under your bed again?”

“Yes,” Claire sighed. “Tell them that my dog died and I need some comforting,”

“You don’t have a dog.”

“They don’t know that, do they?”

“No.  I suppose not.  Hold on, let me ask them.” 

I put the phone down and went into the dining room.  Mom and Dad were fussing over the red welt I’d made on Melody’s arm.  Whoops.  I cleared my throat to get their attention and slipped into my best good girl voice. “Um, may I please go over to Claire’s house for a little bit this evening?  Her dog died and she’s really sad about it.”

Mom looked at me weird.  With sadness?  Anger?  I couldn’t tell.  “Are her parents home?”

I ran back to the phone. “They wanna know if your parents are home.”

“Tell them that they went out to pick up some Chinese food and will call them as soon as they get home.”

“Good one.”  I set the phone down, lied to my parents  about Chinese food and then returned quickly.  “Okay.  I’ll be over when we’re finished with dinner.  Dad’s going to drop me off.  He says he’s sorry about your dog.”

“Yes, um, tell him thanks and that Rover will be missed.  Okay, I’ll make sure there are no signs of Avery. Over and out.”

“Thanks, Claire.”

“Whatever girl, just get over here, that boy needs you.” 

While I waited for Dad to finish off his eighteenth helping of scalloped potatoes, I searched for something cute to wear.  Only problem?  Nothing cute to wear.  My like, two semi-flattering tank tops weren’t in my dresser or the laundry basket.  Maybe Mom knew.  She’d gone to lie down right after Claire called and I probably should leave her alone, but it was a cuteness emergency.

I knocked softly on my parents’ bedroom door, peeking around it. “Can I come in?”

“Sure honey, come in.” Mom sat up on the bed and wiped her eyes. Had she been crying?

I stuck my head into the room. “Do you know where my yellow tank top is, the one with the little daisies on the straps?”

“I think it’s in the dryer, Zel, I washed it yesterday.” She rubbed her face.

“Cool, thanks.” I started to shut the door.

“Tell Claire I’m sorry about her dog.  Love you, honey.”

“Love you, too.” I closed the door. Avery needed to see me and Mom was hiding out in her bedroom crying? Not a good sign.

I climbed into the minivan, anxious to get to Claire’s house.  Thank God the drive only took ten minutes.

“Sorry I took so long eating dinner. You know how I love those scalloped potatoes that come in the box.  They must have an addictive drug in them or something,” Dad said, a devilish grin on his face.

“That’s fine,” I turned to look out the window. Whatever, Dad!  Let’s get a move on.  Something was up with Avery and it was killing me not to be there with him. “I just hope Claire isn’t distraught.  She really loved that dog.”

“What was its name again?”  He slowed the minivan down, having chosen to drive through the only school zone in town.

“Uh, Rover.”  Crud.  I was such a sucktastic liar when it came to him.

“Interesting. Y’know, Zellie, you’re a really bad liar.”

I turned to him, my face burning red. I’d been found out.  Oh God, where was he taking me?  Surely not to Claire’s? No. He was taking me to a nunnery!  Wait, we were Lutheran.  What was the equivalent?  Was there an equivalent?  Ugh.  Be cool, just be cool. “What?  What are you talking about?”

Dad chuckled.  “I know Claire doesn’t have a dog, her mother has horrible allergies to all sorts of things.  Give me a little credit. It’s my business to know about my congregation.”

“Then why are you letting me go to Claire’s house?” We were going to her house right?  Please, God, I swear I will dial down the making out, just please let us be really going to Claire’s.

“Well, I’d rather have you hanging out with Avery at her house than sneaking out with him in the middle of the night.”

I sank down in my seat, shocked. “You know about that?”

Dad steered the minivan over to the side of the road and put it in park. I put my hand on the door handle in case I had to make a quick getaway. 

He turned to me.  “A long time ago before I became a pastor, I was a fifteen-year-old boy.  I snuck out of my house to go see Roselyn Finn at least three times a week one summer. My father, at the end of that summer, let me know that he knew what I was doing too.”

I was starting to see his angle. “And I suppose you were grounded until you met Mom?”

He shook his head. “Zellie, since the beginning of time, teenagers have been sneaking out and inventing reasons to spend the night at their friends’ houses.  If we had a second story on the house I have absolutely no doubt that Avery Adams would be climbing up trees or hiding a ladder in the bushes so that he could scale up it and appear at your window.  I have decided not to fight against the inevitability that you will act like a teenager.”

I straightened up a little in my seat. Dad was being really cool.  That must mean…  “Does Mom know?”

“No, she doesn’t know for now.  I thought we could keep this between the two of us and not worry her. Your mom was a bit of a wild child when she was your age. I think she’s afraid that you’re going to pay her back, karmically speaking.  But your mom lost both of her parents at fifteen. She had a lot of anger and sadness to get out of her system. I think you’re more like me, more interested in the romance of sneaking out of the house than the thrill or the defiance of it. Your conscience will prevail.  Now with Melody…”  He gave me a wink.

“Wow, Dad, that’s really cool of you.” I blushed. I was seven kinds of guilty. If he only knew.

“Yes.  I know.”  He put the car in drive and pulled away from the curb, checking his rearview mirror for oncoming traffic.  “That being said, I will be back at eleven to pick you up.  It is a weeknight after all and you have school in the morning. Also, I’m fairly certain that Claire’s parents aren’t home.  Please have them give me a call when they do get back.  See how this is gonna work, Zel?  I give a little, you give a little.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“No problem, sweetheart.”

Dad came to a stop in front of Claire’s house.  “Here we are, Madame.  See you at eleven.”

I leaned over to give him a hug goodbye.  As I wrapped my arms around his neck I got a sickening feeling in my gut. He smelled of pine.

A vision flashed through my head. I saw him wrestling with a woman, her hair covering her face.  She had a gun in her hand.  Dad was trying to shake the gun from the woman’s hand, banging her arm against the side of a black leather couch.  There was screaming, but I couldn’t make out the voices or the woman’s face.  I could see Dad’s hand slip from the woman’s arm.  Then she regained her grip on the gun and aimed it at his face and shot.

“Okay, honey, I get it, you love me.  I’ll see you in a few hours.”

I snapped back into the present. I was almost strangling him in my embrace. I let go of him and looked into his eyes.  He smiled at me.  “I’ll see you soon, Dad.  Thanks for driving me and everything.”  I opened the minivan door and hopped out.  As I walked up Claire’s driveway, he honked the horn at me and waved. I turned and waved back.

Dazed, I rang the doorbell instead of walking into the house like I normally would.

Claire answered the door. “Oh crap, not you too.”

“Me too, what?”  I said as I entered the house.

“Something bad happened to you too, you don’t look so good.”  Claire shut the front door behind us.

“I’m fine, really.  Where’s Avery?”  I started off down the hall towards the kitchen.

“He’s—” Claire started to say.

“Zel, I’m up here,” Avery called from the top of the stairs.

I backtracked and ran up the stairs, Claire following behind me.

At first Avery looked relieved to see me, but then his expression changed to worry.  I went right for him, throwing my arms around his neck and kissing him. 

He squeezed me tightly “Are you okay?”

I pulled away from him and looked over my shoulder at Claire.  “What’s up with you guys? I’m fine.”  There wasn’t anything I could do about anything right now.  I didn’t know what I would do if I could.  We had to get Avery’s problem figured out first anyhow. I studied his face. “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not.”  He took my arms from around his neck and led me into Claire’s room.  He sat down on the floor with his back against the bed, pulling me down next to him.  Claire stood in the doorway.

“Do you want me to leave you guys alone?  I can go watch TV downstairs or something.”

“Yeah,” Avery said, “maybe you’d better.  Thanks again.”

“Okay, you two, holler if you need anything.”  She shut her bedroom door.

Avery turned to me and took my hands in his.  “Things are bad.  My dad served my mom with divorce papers today.”

I squeezed his hand tighter.  “What happened? Why?”

He looked down.  “I should have told you this. I’ve been meaning to, but it’s embarrassing and really, I don’t know…hard to admit?  My mom’s sick and she um, kind of goes crazy when she doesn’t take her medicine.”

I wrapped my arms around him, hugging him to me.  Well that just plain sucked for everyone. “Your poor mom, what’s going on?” 

He laid his head in my lap. I stroked his hair while he told me about it. “Once or twice a year she does this. The last time was really bad. She, um, cut my dad’s head off in every picture that we had of him and locked herself in the bathroom for a whole day. She wouldn’t talk to anyone, she just kept passing me notes under the door that didn’t make any sense at all.”

“Oh, Avery, I’m so sorry.  That’s horrible.” I had to lean away from him a little. The smell of pine was itching its way into my nose.

“Anyway, after the last time, Dad threatened to have her committed and divorce her if she ever stopped taking her medicine again. I guess she did. I mean, I know she did so…” He looked up into my eyes like he was checking to make sure I wasn’t about to run from him and all of his crazy mom baggage. As if. I pulled it together and gave him a comforting smile.

He started again. “Well, there’s more.  When I went to my dad’s office after school today, she was standing outside freaking out.  I took her home and gave her medicine and everything but the divorce papers…my dad said she’s crazy and he’s suing for sole custody of me. He’s taking me away, Zellie.  He’s making me leave with him. I don’t know what to do.”

I held his face in my hands, forcing him to look at me.  “Listen, we’re going to figure this out.  Let’s call my dad and see if he can help us. Y’know maybe he’ll let you stay with us while your mom gets herself together.”

He sat up. “Your dad is not going to let his daughter’s boyfriend that he doesn’t even know about crash on the couch.  That is not going to work.”

The bedroom door opened a crack and Claire spoke from out in the hall.  “You can stay here, I’m sure my parents wouldn’t even notice.”