Immortal Light: Wide Awake (3 page)

She convulsed slightly as his touch sent a
somewhat electrifying current up through her arm. It wasn’t an
uncomfortable sensation, but it did take her by surprise. He didn’t
jump or react to it, but as she looked at him, she noticed that he
had frozen for a moment and was looking directly into her eyes. She
stared back at his electric green eyes; they were beautiful and
brilliant, and for a few seconds she was mesmerized by their
penetrating glow.

Returning his attention to the
flag, he took the triangle in his hands, and tucked the blue flap
covered in stars into the pocket created by the folds. Lucy looked
back to what he was doing so as not to seem like anything had
happened. She didn’t want to let on that she had felt something,
thinking that would just come across as weird, and weird is not
what she wanted to portray.

She watched as he unwound the rope
from the cleat and let the slack hang down. He maintained his focus
on the task at hand and didn’t say a word. Holding the flag in his
hands, palms up, he untucked the flap, making sure that Lucy
noticed the eyelet on the blue corner of the flag. Pulling the top
clip of the rope, he fastened it into the eyelet. Then, holding the
flag in one hand, he pulled down on the other end of the rope which
scaled the top of the flag upward and brought the second clip to
waist level. She could see that the flag was starting to unravel as
he clipped it onto the other eyelet at the bottom. Having secured
it, he began rapidly pulling down on the rope which sent the
unraveling flag toward the sky; and as the wind caught it, Lucy saw
how the method was all part of respecting the flag. It gradually
unfolded in a crescendo of visual majesty until it waved gallantly
in the wind.

Lucy looked back at her
instructor, who was admiring the brilliance of his task. He turned
and caught her gaze. She smiled and nodded appreciatively. He
returned the nod and walked back to his bench. She slowly followed
him, veering slightly to the door where she put the key into the
lock. As she pulled the door open, she looked to where he was once
again sitting and reading. Something about his touch made Lucy
curious. For some reason, she felt like she had known him all her
life; she felt close to him, but she didn’t even know his
name.

“
Thanks for showing me that, about
the flag. I’m Lucy,” she said.

Looking up at her, he smiled
entrancingly.

“
I’m Benjamin; and it was my
pleasure.”

As they momentarily locked gazes,
he winked, causing her heart to race a little, and she felt a
tightness in her gut that was something she had never felt before;
it was like being anxious about something. It was like waiting to
go on a roller-coaster: all anxiety and anticipation.

Before walking through the door, she stopped
and turned in his direction again.

“
How did you know that, anyway?
That’s not something they teach in school.”

Benjamin looked up from his book. “I’ve been
around,” he said with another wink and a smile.

Looking back into the library,
Lucy caught Kenny’s eyes staring through the front windows; he
seemed to be glaring at Benjamin. When he noticed Lucy, he
disappeared. With one last look at Benjamin, she went in to start
her first day of work.

***

“
You need to get a boyfriend this
year, Luce. For three months you’ve done nothing but work at that
library. C’mon. Live a little.”

Kat’s voice radiated so much excitement about
the upcoming school year that Lucy visualized satellites ducking
out of the way as her signal spastically approached
them.

“
Would you just let it go,
already? I’m not getting a boyfriend this year. It’ll be just like
every other year.”

“
You know, Steph said she heard
someone talking about you the other day at Cranberry Sweets. And
she couldn’t be sure, but she thinks it was Mark.”

Lucy’s eyes lit up as though Kat could see her
through the phone.

“
Really? She thinks Mark Thompson
was talking about me? Wow,” Lucy said in a stunned daze.

“
Why is that so amazing to you?
I’ve told you since the seventh grade that he’s got a thing for
you. I think he’s just too chicken to ask you out.”

“
More like he’s too chicken to go
out with the nerdy girl.” Lucy’s tone had become
disdainful.

“
You can’t be serious. Have you
looked in a mirror lately? Lucy, you’ve always been gorgeous, but
now you’re totally hot. How could he not want to go out with you?
He’s so sweet, too.”

Lucy practically melted at Kat’s
suggestion that she and Mark could ever be an item. If Steph’s
information was true, maybe all Lucy had to do this year was be
patient.

“
So are you coming on Saturday?”
Kat pulled Lucy back to earth by changing the subject.

“
What’s on Saturday?”

“
You haven’t heard? Chad’s folks
are letting him throw an end-of-summer party. They’ll be there, so
your dad should let you go, right? It’s not like there’s going to
be booze or drugs or stuff. So, how about it?”

Kat was, in almost every way, the
opposite of Lucy. She was a socialite and was never really without
a boyfriend. The list of physical differences between the two girls
started at the top and went all the way to the bottom, beginning
with Kat’s dark brown hair; it was full and thick and it had a
natural wave to it that made her look like a super model. She had
skin so rich with color and so clear of blemishes that she never
had to wear make-up. Her eyes danced like brown sequins in the
sunlight and she had a smile that went on for days. She stood
five-foot-six in the 7th grade and had gained an inch every year
since. Being a long distance runner—one of the best Marshfield High
School had ever seen—she had the stamina of a cheetah and the legs
of a gazelle. To top it all off, she had had curves in all the
right places since she was twelve. Kat was all the things you might
find in a Greek Goddess.

“
Yeah, it sounds like fun. I’ll
ask my dad. What time?”

“
I think it starts at six, but we
should be fashionably late, you know?”

“
I’ll take your word for it.
Should I pick you up?”

“
Yeah. You should come right after
work so we can get ready at my place.”

“
You got it. I’ll let you know
what my dad says.” The two girls said their farewells and hung
up.

Walking into the library, Lucy saw
Mrs. Breen behind the checkout desk. Her glasses were perched at
the tip of her nose and their silver braided chain swung gently
around her neck. She was typing away at the computer while talking
on the phone.

“
Good Morning, Sandi,” Lucy
whispered loudly to Mrs. Breen, who flashed a sunshiny smile full
of perfect, white dentures.

Mrs. Breen raised her hand and wiggled her
fingers in jovial greeting, despite the business being conducted
over the phone.

“
Any sign?” Lucy then whispered
with a distorted look of improbable hope.

Mrs. Breen shook her head. “I’m sorry dear,”
she mouthed apologetically.

Mrs. Breen was the only person
privy to the one little secret she hadn’t shared with anyone. Lucy
had been obsessed with Benjamin Raven all summer, in spite of the
fact that she hadn’t seen him since the flag incident. It was such
a trivial thing to think about and she had told Kat about him, but
she had never told her that he was almost the only thing that
occupied her thoughts constantly.

Lucy smiled and shrugged her
shoulders as she sat down at her computer. Sliding her keyboard
toward her, she noticed a small dark object lying just under the
computer monitor. It looked like a moth and as she looked closer,
she couldn’t be absolutely positive, but it appeared to be dead.
Grabbing a tissue from the box in front of her, she nudged the
little creature. It didn’t move and it felt quite stiff. As she
stared at it, she started to feel a little sad that it was dead.
She even felt a little bit of that throat choking sensation of
crying and had to pull herself together.
 

Having moved the keyboard away from the
computer, she gently stroked the top wing of the moth with her
index finger. It was soft and barely noticeable to the touch. She
carefully scooted the small, lifeless body to the edge of the desk
and brushed it into her other hand. Cradling her hands under the
creature she headed for the front doors.

“
I know you’re dead, little guy,
but the flower bed is probably better than the garbage
can.”

Lucy approached the doors of the library, and
before pushing them open she could hear the whistling sound of the
heavy winds that mark the coming of fall to the Oregon coast.
Protecting the moth from being blown out into further insult in
death, she cupped both hands around it like a shelter.

Gusts enveloped Lucy’s body in
staggered wisps of warm air. Her hair whipped her in the face as
she hunched her shoulders in order to hold her hands close to her
stomach. In spite of the somber occasion, Lucy noticed that the sun
was bright and warm and the sky was a perfect azure with scattered
puffs of white clouds. As she made her way to the nearest flower
bed, she noticed how the walls of the building created a cove of
sorts—a shelter from the intermittent gusts.

Safely guarded, Lucy gently opened her cupped
hands to take one more look at the moth.

As it came into view, Lucy
gasped. “What the—?
”

To her surprise, starring up at her on all six
of its legs was the moth, and it was clearly alive. Confusion
washed over her. She was absolutely certain that the small creature
had been dead; in fact, there wasn’t a single doubt in her mind
that it was dead. Yet, there it stood, as alive as any living thing
could be.

“
I thought you were
dead.”

With a bewildered head shake, she opened her
hands wide and the moth flew away as though nothing had happened.
Lucy walked back inside feeling somewhat embarrassed that she
almost buried something that was clearly not dead. If she hadn’t
known any better, she’d have thought she had magically brought it
back to life.

Chapter
2

Lucy sped north on Highway 101 in the
drenching rain.

“
He’s going to absolutely lose
it,” she said to the steering wheel as she peered through a
windshield that seemed to be made of rushing water, in spite of the
cyclonic speed of the wipers.

Her hand tapped nervously, but she couldn’t go
any faster in such thick weather. The clock on the stereo told her
that she was nearly fifteen minutes past curfew, and that wasn’t
good at all. She reached into her purse and pulled out her cell
phone. She didn’t even have to take it all the way out to see that
she had missed a call or two. The LED was already blinking like an
emergency vehicle. Her heart began to race a little bit as she
speed-dialed her father’s number.

He picked up the phone after one
ring.

“
Where are you, Lucy?”

“
Hi, Daddy. I’m
actually on my way home right
—
”

“
You know you were supposed to be
through that door nearly fifteen minutes ago?” he said, cutting her
off in a stern tone.

“
I know; I totally lost track of
time. I’m so sorry.”

She tried to keep the panic out of
her voice. She was in the middle of failing her first real test
with her car privileges, but she felt honesty was probably the best
policy if she wanted to keep her keys.

There was a long pause. Lucy was sure there
was no way he was going to let her drive again anytime soon. His
silence was deafening and Lucy’s anxiety was getting
worse.

“
Dad?” she prompted as innocently
and submissively as she could manage over the phone.

“
Lucy, you need
to call
before
your curfew. How do I know you’re okay when you don’t answer
your phone?”

“
I know; I
turned the sound off and—
”

She couldn’t finish the sentence. She wanted
to make up some lame excuse to make it all better but she couldn’t
do it.

“
I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said
dejectedly. “It won’t happen again.”

While the situation seemed hopeless, she
maintained the smallest spark of hope. Her father had been lenient
before; she just hoped that she hadn’t used up all of her
luck.

A long nasally sigh was breathed into the
receiver on the other end.

“
Okay,” he said, sounding
relieved. “You know I worry about you, Goosey. You’re all your
mother and I have. You have to be responsible for yourself. We
won’t always be there to catch you when you fall.”

“
I know.”

She made the final turn onto her street and
slowly pulled the car into the driveway. There was silence on the
other end and she could hear the sound of her car pull into the
driveway on her father’s side. She needed only to look to the
corner of the house to see him leaning next to the giant oak tree.
They just stared at each other for a minute. Lucy felt horrible,
but her father looked calm.