Telesa - The Covenant Keeper (35 page)

“Oh I just hate having to get all dressed up for these things, don’t you? I much prefer my shorts and t-shirt but Nafanua will insist on me wearing this thing.” I pouted petulantly and let my hands run down the length of my body-hugging dress. I leaned forward with my elbows on the table, my chin clasped in my hands, with an imploring look in my eyes. “What do you think Jason? Isn’t it just so unkind of her to make me dress up?”

The man laughed. It was a warm, golden sound. He regarded me somewhat sardonically, as if he knew something I didn’t. “Leila, I’m in complete agreement with your mother. You are sinfully stunning in that dress and a treat for the eyes. However, I must add, that from where I’m sitting, I’m convinced that, had you worn shorts and a t-shirt tonight, you would still have been the most enchanting woman here,” he nodded to Nafanua, “present company excluded of course Nafanua!” Nafanua laughed back at him and raised her glass. “Thank you, Jason.”

I flushed. This wasn’t how I had planned the evening to go. Nafanua was still smug and self-satisfied. She should be getting mad by now. I gritted my teeth.
Right, time to step it up a notch
. I placed a hand on Jason’s arm, playing my fingers along his wrist.

“Jason, I’m starving, can you come with me to get some food?” I tried to simper. Like Jessica Simpson. It was probably a hideous failure on a thug brown girl like me but hey, I was trying! Jason seemed to like it though. Without hesitation, he stood and took my hand to walk to the buffet table, only releasing it to pass me a plate. We meandered along the length of the tables, choosing our dinner. I kept trying to remember to
be a bimbo, be a bimbo
… I smiled foolishly. And laughed at everything he said. Even if it wasn’t funny. I pretended to be horrified by the sea slugs, the palolo and even the crab. “Oooh Jason, that looks soooo yucky!” And the
piece de resistance
… I asked him for a taste of his lemon cheesecake, then stood with my mouth open so he could slip me a morsel on a spoon. Just like a dumb movie chick, I closed my eyes in pretend ecstasy, “Mmmm, oh Jason, that’s so delicious!” Inwardly I cringed, as I thought what a fool I must sound like. A fleeting thought of Daniel had me cringing even more. He would be thoroughly appalled by such an idiot if he could see me now, but then, he wasn’t with me, was he? And I was mad at my mother and was on a mission.

After dinner, Jason asked me if I wanted to go see the swimming pool in the moonlight. By then I was getting tired of being alluring and forever enthused.
Gosh, how did real bimbo chicks do it? Stay so chirpy for so long?
It was exhausting. And my feet were killing me in the black stilettos. I didn’t even try to slink as we went to the pool. I gritted my teeth and basically stomped my nightmare shoes on the cement paving. Once out of sight of Nafanua, I relaxed. Time for the charade to go to rest. With a groan, I slumped to sit in one of the pool chairs, muttering darkly under my breath as I struggled to take off my shoes.

“Dammit, stupid things, who invented such idiotic contraptions …”

Jason surprised me with a roar of laughter. He knelt down beside me. “Here, let me help.” I was in full thug girl mode now. “No. I got it.” I pushed his hand away but he was insistent.

“I can help, here, you just have to unclasp this bit here.”

I shoved his hand away again and stood in full-frontal assault attack. “I said – I got it … aaaayyiii!”

I took two angry steps away from the overly helpful blonde, tripped over my own heels and fell. With a gigantic splash, right into the pool. I resurfaced to the sounds of more uproarious laughter. Which only had me madder. “Shit! Shit! I told you to leave it alone. I told you I could fix it myself!”

He looked down at me in the pool and shook his head. “Leila, you can’t even walk properly in those silly shoes let alone undo them by yourself. It’s a bit ditzy for a woman to wear shoes she can’t control.”

That comment was the most insulting of all. I didn’t care if I had been behaving ‘a bit ditzy’ all night, he needed to pay for that remark. I smiled up at him sweetly and put out my hand. “Oh Jason, you’re so right, could you please help me out of here?”

He leaned down to take my hand in his – whereupon I pulled with a mighty heave. And smartass Jason was in the pool too. And it was my turn to do the laughing as he spluttered and splashed his way up. I pulled myself to sit on the poolside, wringing out water from chunkfuls of my hair, still watching him with cautious eyes. In case he got any ideas about retribution.

The surfer dude swam over and climbed out to sit beside me, squeezing water out of his pants, taking off his shirt to toss it to the side. “Thank you Leila. I’m not sure that I deserved that, but I’m a gentleman even if you’re not a lady. So why don’t we call a truce?” He held out his hand. I stared at it suspiciously. Then shrugged and shook hands. Heck why not. I wasn’t planning on ever seeing this guy again. Funnily enough, it seemed that with both of us wet and all splashed out, the pretences were removed.

“So tell me, Leila, why are you wearing such crazy shoes – which, by the way, are incredibly sexy – if you don’t like them and ah…find them tricky to walk in?”

I half grinned and wrinkled my nose as I considered how to answer him. I decided to go for the whole truth and nothing but the truth. “Well, if you must know, I was on a mission tonight.”

“A mission?”

“Yeah.”

“What sort of mission? To see how gracefully you could fall into a swimming pool fully clothed? And wearing stilettos?”

“No you idiot. A mission to make my mother mad.”

It was clear that wasn’t an answer Jason had been anticipating. The smile was replaced with puzzlement. “What do you mean?”

Now that I had started to confess, I felt awful at the awfulness of it all. I hung my head, ashamed. It had been childish. And pathetic even to play up the whole simpleton routine.

He nudged me. “Go on, what do you mean?”

“Nafanua wanted me to dazzle the head scientist, you know, the old guy, Dr. Williams? She’s been going nuts because he won’t give her full access to all his data on the volcanic activity in the region and she said she wanted me to be nice and friendly because he was from America like me. And she basically asked me to lure him and fawn over him, get him to like me. I got so mad at her in the car for asking me to do such a despicable thing. I mean, you have to understand, she’s not really my mother. I mean, she is, but she isn’t. I only just met her a few weeks ago. Before that she was dead to me. And there’s a lot of stuff about her that doesn’t add up, doesn’t make sense. So we’ve been trying to get to know each other and then she has to go and do something stupid like bring me here all dressed up and tell me to be nice to some stuffy old scientist. Like I’m some sort of prostitute or something! What kind of mother does that to her daughter?” I halted abruptly, uncomfortably aware that I had probably said waaay more than I should have.

Jason’s expression was unreadable. “Yes, what kind of mother does that?”

I rushed on, “So when I got here and saw you, I decided to try and dazzle you instead. You know, because you’re just a lowly assistant or the gofer or something, not the real scientist she wanted. I thought that way she would get raging mad and I could punish her that way?”

My words died away as I waited to see how Jason would take my confession. He smiled at some hidden joke. “I see. So that explains your dazzling behavior tonight ay?”

I bit my lip, “Sorry, I’m not really that much of a ditzy blonde bimbo … oops I’m sorry again, you’re blonde and I didn’t mean any disrespect. And I hope you’re not offended that I said you’re only a lowly assistant. I’m sure you’re a very good assistant, very helpful to those guys over there …” I was babbling and Jason stopped me with a single finger to my lips.

“Hey, shush. Listen to me now. Let me see if I can get this straight. Which bits are true? Is your name really Leila Folger?” I nodded, “and you haven’t really been coming on to me tonight – that was just an act?” I nodded again and mouthed a silent sorry. He shushed me again, “And you’re not really a stiletto-wearing, slinky-outfit kind of woman after all? That was an act too?” I was too ashamed to even nod this time. I just hung my head, staring into the pool.

“Leila Folger, it appears that you have a lot to apologize for. You have misled me, you have mistakenly bedazzled me with artificial dazzle, and to top it all off you have gotten me all soaking wet with a dunk in the pool.” He spoke severely, but his eyes laughed at me. “I think you owe this blonde bimbo lowly assistant big time, Leila the fake bimbo!”

Our eyes met and together we both burst out laughing. Sitting beside a shimmering pool under a moonlit sky. I realized that when you had no agendas, no love feelings for a guy, you actually could be relaxed with him. Like the pressure to perform was off. Like you could just be yourself and not worry if they still liked you or not.

“Jason, I apologize. For all the bimbo stuff. How can I make it up to you?”

“Hmm, let me think. You could promise never to wear those shoes in my presence again. They’re deadly objects. Aha!” His eyes lit up. “I know, you can come visit the research site tomorrow with me. See what an assistant does. When he’s assisting. And go-fering.”

I smiled warmly. “I’d like that.” I said it without thinking, but when I stopped to think, I realized I meant it. This Jason person was funny. And I could certainly use all the friends I could find these days. The thought of visiting the volcano was intriguing. I had been putting it off because I was afraid of what my fire would do when confronted with its birthmother, but what the heck. Today, I had mastered fire in the palm of my hand. Surely I could handle a little visit to a volcano?

“It’s a date then. I’ll pick you up in the morning.” He helped me take off the silly shoes and then slowly we strolled, wet and laughing back into the main fale. Where Nafanua was patiently waiting, sipping cocktails with the others. She bestowed a radiant smile on me and raised one perfect eyebrow at my messy state but said nothing. There was only impeccable politeness as we farewelled the men.

In the car, I waited for her anger. Her rage. But it didn’t come. Instead, she was exultant. “Leila, you are a genius. I admit I wasn’t sure if you could do it, but you were perfect!”

“What do you mean?” I was confused.

“Why, you did it. You had Dr. Williams completely enthralled. It looks like the two of you had a wonderful time tonight.” A cold fist of realization clenched around my heart.

“Wait, what do you mean? I barely even spoke to Dr. Williams the whole night. I was with the assistant, with Jason.”

Nafanua laughed again. And it was coldly musical in the speeding darkness. “Yes, Dr. Jason Williams! Well done Leila, it appears you will make a brilliant
telesa
after all.”

“No, aaargh.” I stifled my exclamation of shock and sat rigid with amazement as I replayed my night with the blonde. Why did these dumb screw-ups always happen to me? What an idiot I was. And he had totally let me play the fool. My eyes narrowed in the darkness as Nafanua continued prattling on triumphantly. What was the man’s agenda anyway? I had confessed and instead of getting mad – at my mother, at me – he had played along. Actually, if I was being honest, truthful - he had been quite pleasant about the whole thing. But why? I reserved my cold anger for Nafanua. The strange Jason I could excuse.

At the house, I stomped up the stairs without responding to Nafanua’s good night. But I couldn’t contain myself when she asked, “Why Leila, what’s the matter? Didn’t you enjoy yourself tonight?”

“No … yes … oh, that’s not the point.” I took a deep breath before continuing, “Nafanua, you haven’t had much practice being a mother, so maybe I should cut you some slack here. Let me spell it out for you plain and simple. No mother in her right mind asks her daughter to … to … prostitute herself the way you expected me to tonight!”

Nafanua arched an eyebrow but I rushed on. “What you did, what you expected me to do … telling me to play up to the scientist so he would give you what you wanted, that’s just sick. Deceitful, cheap, and sick. I can’t believe you asked me to do that.”

Nafanua spread her arms questioningly. “But you had a great time with him. I saw you. You two were laughing and talking and he seemed quite taken with you. Are you saying you didn’t enjoy yourself tonight? Are you saying that befriending Dr. Williams was a CHORE for you?”

I gritted my teeth, “That’s just it, I didn’t know he was Dr. Williams. He introduced himself as Jason. I thought the old guy was the scientist.”

Nafanua was puzzled even further. “So why were you so quick to ooze all over Jason then … oh, I get it.” She frowned and folded her arms, looking up at me from the foot of the stairs with awareness. “You were trying to defy me. You thought you would antagonize me by focusing on the young, obviously junior, member of the group. I get it.”

Like two fighters sizing each other up in the ring, we stared at each other. My fists were clenched and I was ready to snap and snarl. But Nafanua laughed. Loud and long. So much that she sat weakly on the bottom step.

“Oh Leila, you’re funny.” She turned to wave me to a seat beside her. “Come down here, sit with me. This is classic.” Cautiously, I took the several steps to sit beside her. “You’re right, I don’t have much experience with being a mother, with teenage daughters, with beautiful young women who know their own minds and aren’t afraid to speak them. I forget that you are new to all this. You still have much to learn about
telesa
, and I must be patient as you go forward on this journey. Will you accept my apology?”

Mutely, I nodded. She didn’t try to hug me or touch me – which I was grateful for. The touchy-feely stuff was still far too uncomfortable for me.

“Now, apart from that, did you enjoy your first night out in Samoa?”

I nodded. “I guess. I’ve been stuck here training for so long now that it was good to get out and be around regular people. I didn’t even think about my fire stuff.”

Nafanua frowned. “Yes, you did well tonight, but still you must never let your guard down. Never forget what you really are. You don’t want to be caught unawares and have your fire unleash. Always be watchful.” She repeated the mantra that I must have heard a thousand times over the last few weeks. “A
telesa
must always be in control of her emotions. Only then can she hope to truly be one with her gifts.”