The Star Group (7 page)

“A minute is a long time,” I said.

Gale gripped tighter. “No!”

I released the bar. I shook off Gale's hand and carefully stood. Then I patted Gale on the shoulder. She looked frantic, as did Teri.

“Today's my lucky day,” I said. “I'll be all right.”

I leaped on to the side of the artificial mountain; it really was steep. The other three had gone around a bend, and I had to climb twenty feet to find them. The scene was not good. Shena was poised at the edge of a cliff, and the guys were pleading for her to come down. There were maybe ten feet between them and her. Apparently she had already threatened to jump.

“This is just a misunderstanding,” Jimmy said desperately. “I don't care for Cindy, I only care about you.”

Shena shook her head and wept. “I don't care about Cindy! It's me that's the problem! No guy could possibly love me! I'm a freak!”

Jimmy tried to move closer. “You're not a freak. You're a wonderful girl. You have your whole life in front of you. It will be a wonderful life, you just have to get past this time. We can get through it together, I promise you. Please come down before you hurt yourself.”

“Stay back!” she screeched. “I’ll jump!”

Sal moved in front of Jimmy and caught Shena's eye.

“Shena, listen to me,” he said calmly. “Suicide is bullshit. You die and we all feel like hell. But maybe that's what you want. But, think, think real hard, you might go to hell for doing it. Who knows what there really is? No one knows anything for sure in this crazy world. But you might just make your problem a thousand times worse. Now you don't want to do that, not to yourself and not to us. We love you. I know Jimmy does and I know I do. Come down because you love us. I'm begging you, Shena, I really am.” He reached out to her. “Come to me, Shena. I'll take care of you, I won't let you fall.”

Sal’s words were powerful. We were all crying, but I couldn't wipe my tears away without releasing my grip on the mountain. Shena's tears gushed from both her eyes, the good one and the bad. Maybe the water cleared her vision somehow, inside and out. The lines of pain on her ruined face softened and she lowered her head and nodded. Moving slowly, Sal climbed up to her and embraced her. Jimmy joined them a few seconds later, and I managed to make it to them a minute later. I held her as tight as I had ever held anyone in my life. The horror of her brush with death penetrated my soul.

I felt if she had died, we all would have died.

But maybe that would have been for the best.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ON THE RIDE HOME, GALE TOLD ME HER parents were out of the country, which explained why they weren't at graduation.

“Where are they?” I asked.

“In Europe.” She glanced over at me. “Don't feel sorry for me, I like to be alone.”

“But it must be lonely for you at a time like this.

She touched my leg. “I have you to keep me company.”

I teased. “Do you
have
me?”

She let go of my leg and nodded. “Yes.”

Her house was much nicer than mine, but it wasn’t extravagant. Her driveway was concrete and the hedges were all trimmed. She had a nice wooden front door. As we strode into the place, I noticed the sweet smell of incense. I commented on it, and she pointed out an incense holder above the fireplace.

“I burn it when I practice meditation,” she said.

“Really? How do you meditate?”

She considered my question a long time. “I don't know. It just happens if I sit silently and close my eyes.”

“I'm interested in it because I read a lot of esoteric literature.”

She nodded as she turned on more lights. I followed her to the rear of the house, and was surprised when she lit up a rectangular pool in the wide backyard with a flick of a switch. Steam slowly rose from the water and I heard the gurgling of pumps and pipes.

“Do you swim much?” I asked.

She stared at me. “Yes. Do you want to swim?”

I blushed, bad habit. “I don't have any trunks.”

She came closer, touched my shirt. “We can go skinny dipping.”

I stammered. “On our first date?”

She smiled shyly. “I won't look if you don't.” She raised up on tiptoe and brushed my lips with hers. She tasted like vanilla ice cream with cherries on top. “But if you look I'll have to look, too.”

I was having a minor coronary, but it was OK.

I swallowed. “I'd like to swim with you.”

She squeezed my hand and went away. “Take off your clothes and get in the water. I'll be there in a minute.”

I did as she asked. I mean, I would have been a fool to argue with her when she was in such an obviously generous mood. The water was delicious; it seemed to warm my heart as well as my skin. There was no question, I felt as if I had died and gone to heaven.

But then I recalled how close Shena had come to death.

The park officials had ordered all of us to leave the park.

It was only a little after midnight. Not late.

Gale was wearing a beach towel when she came out of the house five minutes later. Her dark blonde hair seemed longer right then, for some reason, and when she tossed aside the towel before stepping in the water, her eyes flashed with a wonderful light. Once again she appeared to me as the embodiment of all desire, a heart that pulsed with a life I could only hope to draw close to. She was beyond me, I knew it, but I still thanked God that He should allow me to spend even a brief time with her. My fatalistic attitude was as potent as ever. She swam into my arms and kissed me and pressed close so that I could feel the whole of her body. Her lips were so warm.

“Daniel,” she said as we kissed and touched.

I needed a dozen hands. “Yes?”

“Do you like me?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

Her tongue pressed against mine. There was a pause.

“Do you love me?” she whispered.

“I guess,” I mumbled.

She drew back; it was nice to see all of her. Thank God for shallow ends.

“You're not sure?” she asked, and maybe she was hurt.

I pulled her back. “It's always a possibility.”

She moved her mouth to my ear.

“I will make you sure,” she promised.

Much later, when we were lying naked in her bed together, her head resting on my contented chest, she asked if I had ever slept with a girl before.

“No,” I said. “At least, not that I remember.”

She liked that. She got up on her elbows. The light in the room was low, the moon peeking in through lacy curtains. Her skin seemed to glow.

“Would you be upset if I told you that you weren't the first?”

I considered. “You do seem experienced.” I hastily added, “That's not necessarily bad.”

She studied me. “I won’t tell you who it was, but it was somebody at school.”

I felt a stab at jealousy. “Tell me.”

She played with my hair. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I don't screw and tell.”

“Is that what we're doing? Screwing?”

She tugged at my hair. “Screwing is not a bad thing. But I’d like us to go somewhere after tonight.”

“Where?”

She kissed my chest. “Somewhere special. A realm of magic.”

I touched her hair. “You are magic.”

“Thank you.”

“But you can tell me who it was, I won't get upset.”

She ran her nail along my lower lip. “Yes. You will.”

“How do you know?”

“It was someone you know.”

Not a pleasant thought. “Who?”

“I told you already. I don't tell. It doesn't matter, it's over now.”

“But how well do I know this person?”

She looked sad.

“We shouldn't be talking about this. Please?”

“All right.” I felt unsettled. “What did you want to talk about?”

Her mood had changed. She sat up and stared at the window, then reached out and pulled the lacy curtains aside. The unfiltered moonlight on her face made her appear ghostlike. A spirit from an alien world.

“Shena scared me tonight,” she said softly. “I thought she'd do it.”

“What?”

“You know. Die.” She paused. “Do you think about death much?”

“Yes.” I paused. “I think that's why I'm drawn to esoteric books. But I am beginning to think death is a mystery that can't be solved.”

“Shena almost solved it tonight.”

“I don't think solving the age-old riddle was her motivation.”

Gale stared at me. “Jimmy did tell her to hook up the cables the wrong way. I saw it all. When I turned on my car and gunned the engine, the battery exploded right in her face. It
was
his fault and she has a right to hate him.”

I sat up. “Do you hate him?”

Of course I was asking another question. I was relieved when she shook her head. “I don't hate anyone.”

“Why didn't you wash the acid off her face immediately?” I asked.

“We had no water.”

“But why didn't you just wipe it off?”

Gale grimaced. “I wanted to, but she was crying so hard. I was afraid of wiping off her skin.” She paused. “But I should have done something. Do you know a day doesn't go by that I don't think of that night? Sometimes, lying here in the dark, it's
all
I can think of. Pretty sick, huh?”

“No. It means you're compassionate.”

“Am I? When she was screaming in pain, I kept thinking that I was glad it was her who had been standing next to the battery and not me. Does that make me cool?”

“It was an accident. There was nothing you could do.”

She studied me. “But you were questioning me. I don’t know if you really believe there was nothing I could do.”

“I do. I believe you.”

She smiled slightly. “But you don't know if you love me.”

“Do you love me?”I asked.

Her smile stayed small, guarded. “I'd like to. But I worry.”

“You worry about what?”

She frowned. “Time.”

“That we don't have enough of it?”

“Yeah. I guess that's it.”

“But we’re young. God, we just graduated from high school. We have all the time in the world, Gale, why are you talking this way?”

She lay back down, but with her back to me.

Her voice, when she answered, sounded as if it came from a distance.

“I don't know why, but I feel we're all cursed.”

J wanted to ask her to explain.

More, I wanted to know why I suddenly felt the same way.

CHAPTER NINE

THE NEXT AFTERNOON, SATURDAY, I SAT alone in my living room and thought of Gale. I couldn't think of anything else. My parents were at the movies, so I had the house to myself. I felt I could be content to sit there all afternoon and replay the events of the previous day. It was the most exotic videotape ever made, my laser disc memory of our final day at school. Even Shena's attempted suicide and Gale's late night bout of melancholy did little to upset the sweet tape that continued to loop through my brain.

I felt like I was in love.

Then I experienced a surge of the strange energy. The magnet, where had I put it? I stood and went into my bedroom and brought it and the large page of letters out. I tried to steady the string before I began. I wondered what Mentor would think of last night.

“Do you want to talk?”

Yes.
It swung clockwise.

“Do you want to do what we did yesterday?”

Yes
and
no
.

“Spell out what you want to say,” I said.

The words were spelled slowly but deliberately.

Get a tape recover. You will now speak for me directly.

I felt nervous. “Do you think I am ready?”

It will take some practice. You will feel as if you are speaking your own thoughts and not mine. This will be partly true, since I will be using your nervous system to communicate. But relax and have no fear – you will not go into a trance. You will be in control at all times, yet, at the same time, you must let go in order for the process to occur. To help you do this I want you to sit comfortably with the rape recorder on, and take long slow deep breaths for ten minutes. Breathe through your nose. Do not hyperventilate, just breathe easily. At the end of this time sit quietly and you will feel an urge to speak. Just go with this urge and don't care if what you say makes sense. It may not at first. But soon you will slip into a flow and you will feel great peace descend. Then, when you have a question you can ask it aloud and I will answer it in your voice. Once again, have no fear. It is only fear that can block the process. When you are with me, you are with yourself. In a manner of speaking, you will be home.

I considered for a moment. I could already feel a sense of peace. It gave me faith. There was a sweetness to Mentor's energy that I could not define.

“OK,” I said.

I had a small cassette player in my room. After finding a ninety-minute blank tape, I popped it in and rested the attached microphone. It was working fine. Returning to the living room, I sat in my father's favorite chair and positioned the recorder on the adjacent end table. I crossed my legs and closed my eyes. I wanted to be as comfortable as possible, I didn't know how long Mentor would speak.

Yet I didn't really have much faith that this would work.

The breathing was very relaxing. I glanced at my watch at the start, but didn't time anything exactly. At some point I think I drifted off, I could have fallen asleep, but I didn't think I did. I became aware that I was unusually relaxed. Words suddenly popped out of my mouth without my anticipating them.

“
You are ready to begin
,” I said.

Somebody
said. Or was it me? My voice sounded much the same, maybe slightly deeper. For a moment I had to struggle to keep my eyes closed and stay relaxed. More words emerged from my mouth.

“
You are ready to begin.
”

“Is that you Mentor?” I whispered.

“
Yes.
”

“But I feel like I am speaking.”

“
You are speaking.
”

“But how do I know it's really you?”

“
Relax and let it happen. Let there be no concern. Certainty will come later.
”