Love Comes Calling (4 page)

It didn't take long to realize I was the only one who could fill in for Irene. In the first place, my role as jester wasn't a
very big one. In the second place, I was the only other person who knew her lines. The costume girl helped me don the fur-tipped cloak. I drew it tight around my throat so no one would be able to see the jester costume underneath, but there was really nothing I could do about my hair. Irene's was black and mine was blond. If I did a good enough job of acting, then I hoped I could make everyone forget I wasn't her.

I made it through act two by throwing the cloak on and off behind the tree, hunching when I played the jester and standing regally tall when I was the queen. As I said my lines, I scanned the audience for my parents, but I didn't see them.

Act three started with a boom. Quite literally. A tympani drum filled in for cannon fire during the epic battle with the trolls. Though the king handily won the war, the queen, doubting his ability to triumph, had previously betrayed him. She'd gone behind his back with an offer of peace, which the troll prince had accepted. For all intents and purposes, she had turned the king into a dastardly, ruthless murderer, ruining his good name forever.

The climax of the play occurred as the king confronted the queen, asking her why she'd done it.

Griff clasped my hand in his. “Did you doubt my strength? Or my courage? I would have fought a thousand battles, I would have died a thousand deaths, knowing you believed in me . . . that you believed in us. Just tell me that you love me still.” And my goodness, but didn't he draw me close and then dip me right over backward as if he were Rudolph Valentino!

The play was a tragedy, so the queen was supposed to refuse the king's love. She was supposed to be mean and evil
and wicked, just like Irene had turned out to be. But as he took me into his arms, my knees melted, and I threw an arm around his neck so I wouldn't dissolve into a puddle right there on the floor.

His arm tightened around my waist.

As I looked into his eyes, I wanted to believe every word he said. And I wanted to be forgiven, even though I'd done all the wrong things. Even though I was no good for him and had ruined his reputation, I wanted to believe he loved me still. And so I said, “Yes—I do! I
do
love you!” before I could remember I wasn't supposed to.

He pulled me closer and bent toward my ear. “You're supposed to say, ‘No.'”

“ . . . what?” How come I'd never realized before what a truly tragic thing the queen had done?

“Ellis!” He said it with a hiss. “You're supposed to say ‘No'!”

“No?” But . . . I didn't want to. I'd never immersed myself so fully in a role before. It was so strange and . . . and wonderful. How was it I'd imagined the queen could so glibly refuse his love? Why hadn't I realized she would have second thoughts? And then third ones after that? Why didn't I know how much she'd crave forgiveness and that the worst of it was, she couldn't manage to forgive herself? It was all so much . . .
more
 . . . so much more complicated, so much more emotional, so much more complex than I'd thought.

“Ellis?”

“What?”

“My back's really starting to hurt.”

“Oh!” I put a hand to his chest, straightened, and then
turned away from him toward the audience, my other hand at my brow as if I couldn't bear to look at him any longer. And it was true: I couldn't. There was too much love shining from his eyes, and I couldn't figure out why because I didn't deserve him. I mean,
she
didn't deserve him.

“No!” I was supposed to add, “Not for a hundred thousand victories. Not even for one hundred thousand eternities.” But it just seemed a little too cruel. So with that final word ringing through the air, the curtain fell for the last time.

My parents had never shown up, so Griff offered to walk me back to the dormitory. I'd played two roles. I'd made the audience laugh, and then I'd turned right around and made them cry. I'd become my part so completely I'd all but melted in Griff's arms and thrown away any chance I had of leaving Boston with no regrets. It was the best work I'd ever done . . . and my parents hadn't been there to see any of it.

“Want one?” Griff held his open palm out to me.

“What?”

“Licorice. Want one?”

“No. Thanks.”

He closed up his fist and jammed it into his trouser pocket. “I'm sure glad that's over!” He sounded suspiciously happy as he spoke the words.

“Didn't you like the play?”

“I liked it fine—and I still can't believe you actually wrote it—but acting is a lot of work. I've never been good at that sort of thing. I'm not like you.”

“You wouldn't want to be me.”

“No.” He smiled agreeably. “Then I wouldn't be able to play football.”

Football! There it was again. Why did everything always have to be about football?

“So, why
do
it? Acting in all those plays? Is it for the applause?”

I felt a blush rise on my cheeks, and it didn't have anything to do with the way Griff was looking at me. Applause wasn't why I liked acting. I'd act even if no one was watching. In fact, I did it all the time. “I just—I like being other people.” I liked it much more than being myself. Truth be told, I did a better job at being almost anyone other than myself. “I don't do it for the applause. I do it because I'm good at it. Do you play football for the applause?”

He slowed his pace and glanced over at me. “Naw. When I'm playing football, I decide what happens. I call the plays. And when I'm out there on the field, nothing else matters. I don't have to worry about all those things people say about my being governor someday. I don't have to worry I'll maybe end up disappointing them. . . .” His gaze dropped from mine. He shrugged. “I can just . . . throw the ball. And I'm really good at throwing the ball.”

I knew all about disappointing people. I put my hand on his arm.

He stopped walking and held it up, pressing our palms together, examining them the same way he'd studied a starfish that had stranded itself on the shore at Buzzards Bay back when we'd been little.

I'm sure he didn't mean to make my insides melt away, but
as I looked at my hand lying there in his, I honestly couldn't think of any good reason to pull it away. Except for the fact he'd just said something that wasn't right. I pulled my hand from his and socked him in the arm. “You shouldn't worry about those people, Griff.”

“No?”

“Do you even want to do all those things everyone wants you to?”

“I don't know. I guess . . . maybe . . . I don't know.” He sighed. “They call me
Prince
, did you know that? Like I'm some kind of royalty or something.”

“You are.” He was! “You're something really special, Griffin Phillips.”

“But I'm not
that
.”

“I know you're not.”

He sent me a sidelong glance. “Sometimes I think you're about the only one who does.”

That blush started creeping up my cheeks again. If I was any kind of decent actress, you'd think I would have figured out how to stop myself from blushing, but I never had.

“I think we're the same, you and I. And I just want you to know, all those things I said at the end, as the king, I really meant them.”

“Oh, Griff . . .” I was supposed to be stopping him from saying things like that, not giving him opportunities. Panic fluttered in my chest. I needed to keep him from saying something he'd regret. Something I'd have to deny. Why couldn't life be fair? Why couldn't I be a girl he could be proud of instead of just dumb old Ellis Eton?

“I mean, I know it was just supposed to be acting and
all, but I need to tell you—if it weren't for you being here, Ellis—”

I couldn't let him finish because it wasn't fair. I wasn't going to be in Boston very much longer, and if he knew I was leaving, he wouldn't be saying things like that. So I kissed him on the cheek and made a dash for the dormitory.

F
riday was moving-out day. We were supposed to pack up everything in the morning so we could move it back home for the summer. And we were to do a thorough cleaning besides. Just the thought of it made me tired, so I lay in bed after waking for a few minutes, repeating the phrase, “Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better.” One of Louise's aunts had gone to France for psychoanalysis the summer before and came back with that phrase as her cure. It was supposed to work as long as you repeated it each day and really meant it each time you said it. I always repeated it ten times for good measure, and I always put a lot of feeling into it.

Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and
better.

I'd been saying it every day for so long you might have thought it would have started working by now, but I didn't seem to be getting any better. At much of anything.

When I couldn't ignore the banging about of trunks anymore, I got up and started packing, though it seemed like it shouldn't have taken as long as it did. My shoes were at the
bottom of my trunk. I'd found my stack of dance cards from the year, and I was trying to figure out what to do with them. I thought I might tie them up with a ribbon, but a search through my drawers hadn't turned any up. A chain of bobby pins didn't really do the trick, so I set them aside and picked up my mah-jongg set instead. It was missing three tiles, so I started a search for them—which led me back to the drawer my dance cards had been sitting in, where I found the most darling rhinestone hair bandeau I hadn't even remembered I owned. Which was a real shame since I could have used it for a play back in January—I'd had the starring role as a princess, and it would have made a much better garland for my hair than the ratty old ribbon I'd been given to wear. I was trying to remember how I'd come by it when one of the freshmen knocked at the door and poked her head around the doorframe.

“Your sister's here to see you.”

“Julia?”

She shrugged.

What was Julia doing here? It was an awfully long way from Brookline early on a Friday morning, and she wasn't one for visiting. After she'd come back from Europe, she mainly just stayed at home. What if—? Fear gripped my heart. The only reason she'd be here at school was if something bad had happened!

I dropped the bandeau and sprinted out the door, straight into—“Janie? Where's Julia?”

She tottered, reaching out toward me, and then toppled to the floor. “Julia . . . your sister?”

“Someone said she was here.”

Janie shrugged, and that's when I remembered she looked like me. That is, I looked like her. Or . . . we looked like each other. She was our cook's daughter, and when we were little, people were always mistaking Janie for me. Once, we traded places for a whole day. Nobody missed me, but I got Janie in trouble with all the staff, dirtying up the house behind them and terrorizing the horses in the stable. Not that I meant to do any of that. But for a month afterward, boy, did I hear about it!
“Why can't you just be good
, Ellis, like you were that one day?”
That was the last time I ever traded anything with Janie and the last time anyone ever accused me of being good at anything.

She was staring up at me from the floor.

“I'm sorry.” I gave her a hand up. We were both blondes with brown eyebrows, although hers were very nearly black. We shared the same wavy hair, although hers always seemed to stay exactly in place while mine did whatever it pleased, which generally meant it formed a sort of fuzzy halo around my head. We were about the same height: short. If someone took all the oomph out of me, Janie is exactly what they would get. And as I peered at her, I realized she looked rather more pale than normal and . . . had she been
crying
? “Is everything all right?”

“No . . . it's—”

“Wait. Wait just a second. Let me get you a handkerchief.” I had some. I knew I had some somewhere. The trick of it was to remember exactly where I'd put them. I rummaged through my trunk for a few moments before I realized I hadn't put them anywhere at all. They were right where they'd been all year: in one of my hatboxes. I found one and handed it to
her, then sat her down on my bed. “Oops. Wait.” I took her hand and yanked her up to standing and pulled my coverlet up over the pillow. “There.”

She sat and put the handkerchief to the corner of an eye.

“Now, what is it? Can you tell me?”

“It's my mother. Hadn't you heard?”

“Heard what?”

She wrapped her arms about herself as if she were cold. “She died.”

“She's
dead
?” Mrs. Winslow couldn't be dead. I would have known if she were dead. Someone would have told me. “She can't be dead. I know she can't be dead.”

Janie's shoulders collapsed, and she began to wail.

“Oh! I'm so,
so
sorry.” It must be true if Janie was that upset about it. I sat down beside her, put an arm about her, and let her have a good cry on my shoulder.

Eventually she stopped crying and dabbed at her eyes instead. I went to get her a glass of water and, when I came back, she told me there was to be a funeral up in Maine, where Mrs. Winslow had been born.

While she was telling me about it, I spied a lid on my dresser and tried to remember what it belonged to. It was broad and flat, so it had to be from a jar of cream, didn't it? It looked like it was from a jar of cream. But then you'd think there ought to be a jar of cream without a lid around somewhere if that were the case, but I hadn't come across one in my packing.

“ . . . so what do you think, Ellis? I know it's a lot to ask, but would you do it? For me?”

“What? I'm sorry. I was just . . .”

She looked at me for one long moment, then her face crum
pled and her shoulders folded. “I shouldn't have come.” She was shaking her head as tears streaked down her cheeks once more. “And I'm sorry to have asked. Never mind.” She got up and started toward the door.

“Wait. I'm sorry. I'm truly terribly sorry. Here you are, you've lost your mother, and of course I'll do it.” I went to her and took up her hand between both of mine, clasping it to my bosom and looking her in the eyes. “I will. I'll do it. I promise.”

“Really?”

I nodded. “Truly.”

“Oh, Ellis, thank you so much.” She embraced me before having another good cry for rather a long while as I looked around for my hats before realizing I didn't have any—which was a big relief because it was one thing less to pack. Or three things, actually. I'd brought three hats to school with me in the fall. That first one I'd left behind at some fraternity dance. The second had blown right off my head in a storm we'd had in February, and the third one . . . the third one had been snatched away by that goose at the beginning of the week. But I hadn't really liked that one anyway. It had been a wide-brimmed straw with a bunch of cream-colored bows, and I'd always thought it made my head look as if it were topped by a big pastry puff.

Janie sniffed a good, long sniff. “Are you sure, Ellis?”

I patted her on the shoulder. “Of course I'm sure.”

“It would only be for two weeks.”

“That's fine. I want to do whatever I can to help.” Janie had always been nice to me, and Mrs. Winslow had worked for us for practically forever. Helping her daughter was the
least I could do. I surveyed the room once more as I stood there. It seemed like there should be more things to put into the trunk. Hadn't I come to school with more things?

“I'll have to tell you how it all works. Maybe I could come over this weekend . . .”

“Come over anytime. I'll be back at the house this afternoon.”

“How about seven tomorrow morning?”

“Seven!”

“It might take a while to tell you everything.”

“Let's at least be reasonable about it then. Come at ten.”

“Ten. Tomorrow. And you'll be there?”

“I'll be there. I promise I will. And then you'll tell me how I can help?” Because she hadn't really said, had she? I didn't think she had. At least . . . it didn't seem like she had.

I was late to lunch. All the rolls were gone by the time I arrived and most of the slaw as well. Louise left her place at one of the other tables and came to sit beside me.

I glanced up toward her. “You're already finished?”

She shrugged. “My hips are too big, and all those new dress styles might as well have been made for boys, so I'm on a diet.”

“Which one? That Hay diet?” I could never remember how it went, whether you were supposed to eat meat with potatoes or without and whether or not you could eat cheese. It was beyond me how anyone could starve themselves to death on purpose.

“That one didn't work. I'm on the grapefruit one now. You can eat anything you want as long as you eat grapefruit with
it.” Louise glanced up as Mary joined us. “Only . . . I don't really care for grapefruit.”

“Shouldn't take long to start working, then.”

Mary elbowed Louise. “Did you hear Irene telling us girls about the cigarette diet?”

I nearly retched. “Cigarette diet! People eat cigarettes?”

Irene must have heard her name, for she sat down at the table as if gracing us with her presence. “No. You smoke them instead of eating dessert.”

I stabbed at my fish with a fork. “Sounds like a bunch of nonsense to me.”

“Only because you can't stand the smoke. Bet you wish you could.”

She already knew I wished I could. We'd talked about it when we'd roomed together, how our fondest daydreams included walking around in a glamorous, smoke-colored haze. Only now she was the one actually doing it.

“Don't worry.” Irene bent close as she got up. “There's a new tapeworm diet. All you'd have to do is swallow a pill that has a tapeworm egg in it and before you know it, all your unstylish curves will be gone!” She smiled as she left.

Mary scowled at her. “With friends like that . . . ! What'd you ever do to her?”

“Nothing.” I'd done nothing at all. I put my fork down. I wasn't hungry anymore.

Louise inched her chair closer. “So, I never had the chance to ask you. Did he?”

“Did who what?” I was still thinking about Irene. We'd been the best of friends at the beginning of the year, and now all of a sudden, she was . . .
mean
.

“Did Prince ever pin you?”

“First of all, his name is
Griffin
. Second of all,
no
. And third of all,
he's
not going to
. He's never even asked me on a date.”

“He might as well have. You're the only girl he ever talks to.”

I was? Really? “Well . . .” Well. That was something I hadn't really noticed before.

Louise patted my hand. “Don't worry. He's going to. I promise you he's going to.”

“But I don't—”

“What you need to do is take your mind off it. Why don't we go to Billings & Stover for a soda in an hour, after we've finished packing.”

An hour wasn't quite enough time for me to finish. I'd thrown the contents of my desk drawers into the trunk and found that jar of cream that belonged to the lid, but I hadn't even started emptying my closet. I figured I could do it once I got back. As I took one last look over the room, I realized there were some big puffy dirt-colored balls of goodness-knew-what in the corners. I used the toe of my shoe to scrape them out and hurry them along into the hallway where Mrs. Smith was going to have someone come along later and sweep up behind us. I took one last look again and noticed a whole bunch of dust on the windowsill. I'd already packed my handkerchiefs and didn't have anything to wipe it off with anymore, so I picked up the hem of my skirt to do it and found it wouldn't reach. No one was around to do any looking, so I just sat down on the sill and wiggled along the length of it. As I left the room brushing my bottom off,
I realized I'd marked up the tips of my shoes with the dust balls and wasn't that just perfect because it was one more thing my mother would be able to scold me about.