The Understorey, Book One of The Leaving Series (24 page)

    “Hush your mouth Maddy
Gray unless you’re interested in going to bed hungry,” my dad
threatened.
Jules ignored it. For some reason she loved Maddy even though she
was such a brat to her. We prayed over the meal and dug in. My mom
made fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and rolls
with cinnamon butter.
    “Mom, this meal is incredible,” I said.

Everyone agreed in silence, their mouths full
to the brim. The chicken was hot, juicy and crispy. I sank my teeth
into it and let its salty goodness slide down my throat.

    “Arlene Chambers got laid
off today,” my dad said somberly.
The rest of us continued eating accept for my mom.
    “What?” She asked, setting down her cob. “That
can’t be. They let Bob go just six months ago. What are they gonna’
do Mark? Arlene was just telling me the other day that because of
Bob’s layoff they were several months behind in their mortgage.
Trust Bank sent them letters threatening foreclosure. She said
she’d need five thousand dollars to get them out of their hole and
she didn’t know how she was going to do it because her wages alone
were barely putting food on the table.”
    “Don’t they have four kids?” My dad asked
pensively.
    “No, Mark, five,” my mom said with tears in her
eyes.

The table got really quiet and none of us
continued to eat, including Maddy. After a minute of silence, Jules
rapped my foot with hers. My heart sunk to the pit of my stomach. I
knew what she was thinking because I was thinking the same thing
myself.

    The next day, after
school, Jules and I climbed into my truck and headed to Trust Bank
in Charleston because the last thing we needed were people knowing
what we were doing. We slumped out of my truck and dragged our feet
toward the front doors.

“Wait a minute Jules!” I said stopping
abruptly. “Maybe we can think of another way to help them.”

“No sweetheart,” she smiled at me, “there’s
no other way.”

I knew she was right too, but I had to try.
She held my hand while we stood in line and waited for the teller
to call us to her station.
    “May I help you?” Asked the short, blonde
teller.
    “Yes,” said Jules, knowing I wouldn’t be able to
speak. “We’d like to make a withdrawal from our joint
savings.”
I sighed heavily and Jules rubbed my back in sympathy.
    “May I see your I.D.? And do you know your
account number?” She asked with a smile.
    “Of course.”

Jules took out her wallet, handed over her
driver’s license and wrote down the account number on a withdrawal
slip. The woman notated the license in her system and handed it
back to Jules.

    “Whoa!” I said, perking up
and grabbing her I.D. “I’ve never seen your license before. You’re
very photogenic Jules.”
    “Oh hush!” Jules said embarrassed. “But thank
you.”

The teller pursed her lips trying not to
appear amused by my comment and exchanged a glance with my Jules.
Jules rolled her eyes with a grin and shrugged her shoulders.

    “Do me a favor,” asked the
teller, “and fill in the amount you’d like to withdraw.”
Jules bit her lip crookedly, almost sending me into a frenzy.

“Well,” she said, “that’s the thing. You see,
we’re trying to help out a friend and we need to know what they owe
in missed mortgage payments.”

“Oh,” said the teller, her face squished,
“I’m afraid I can’t give information like that out.”

We all sat in silence for a minute.

“Well, let’s see what I can do,” whispered
the teller. “Do you know the account holder’s name?”

“Yes,” said Jules. “Their names are Robert
and Arlene Chambers.”

We heard the clacking of computer keys.

The teller looked up, her eyes hopeful, “And
their address?”

“Yes, I think so,” said Jules eyeing me.

“Uh, yeah,” I said, “it’s 587 Sycamore,
Bramwell.”

“Okay,” said the teller perching closer to us
from her chair and speaking under her breath, “I could get into
tremendous trouble for doing this, but I figure, you came all the
way from Bramwell and that means you’re looking for anonymity. So,
I’ll strike you a deal.”

Jules and I leaned closer.
    “I’ll give you the dollar amount owed on the
loan each month and you tell me how many months you’d like to
pay.”
    “Deal,” said Jules.
Her eyes lit up like fireworks in July. The teller wrote down a
figure on a small post-it. Jules and I borrowed her little hand
calculator and did some figuring.
    “We’d like to pay for four months,” she’d
said.
    “And for the next two,” I chimed in.
Jules looked at me with surprise.
    “Might as well do some real good. I mean
London’s out anyway,” I said.
Jules kissed me on the cheek.
    “And the next two months as well,” she
repeated.

We ended up withdrawing most of the money and
decided to leave the rest for a rainy day. The teller made the
payments in cash so they’d never know who made them and we asked
the teller to have her manager ring the Chambers’ home and let them
know to disregard those letters.

She agreed and waved at us as we walked away
from our painful good deed. The pain seemed to dissipate as we got
closer and closer to home and also as we came to terms with missing
out on London. We promised ourselves that we would do it someday
and that someday should be soon.

    When we arrived at my
house we had almost forgotten about it and were bickering in good
fun back and forth about who was more annoying, pop singers or
those people who pretend you can’t see into their cars when picking
their nose.
    “No way,” I said, “at least when they pick their
noses it’s not hurting anyone.”
    “Okay, okay. You’ve a valid point. I concede,”
she laughed.

We slammed both the doors of my truck closed
and a few seconds later my mom opened the screen door and leaned
against the jamb, the proverbial tea towel tossed over her
shoulder.

    “Hey Elliott?” She asked
across the little hill.
    “Hey ma. What’s up?” I said, clamping my hand in
Jules’ and leading her up.
    “I was just thinkin’. When is the deposit for
your trip due?” She asked.
Uh oh
, I thought.
    “Not sure. Actually, turns out, Jules and I
don’t have enough money to go after all. I guess we underestimated
the cost. Right Jules?” I said turning to Jules.
    “R,Right,” said Jules nervously.
She was a terrible liar.
    “Oh, well, y’all are only needin’ a small
deposit right now. I bet you could earn enough by the time the last
payment is due,” she said in reply.
    “Maybe,” I said, “maybe not. Actually, it
doesn’t really matter because Jules and I were talking about it,
ma, and we’ve decided that we’re not interested in going after
all.”
    “Is that right?” My mom asked
suspiciously.
Aw crap
.

“Guess what Elliott?” She continued.

    “What?” I asked.
    “I just got off the phone with Arlene Chambers
and can you believe it? Some bank manager in Charleston called her
up and told her that her mortgage was not only paid to date but
that the next two payments were also covered and that they didn’t
owe a dime until January.”
    “That’s fantastic news mom,” I said. “I hope
that it helps them.”
    “Oh,” she said, tears streaming down her face,
“I think it will son. I think it will.”

We tried to walk past her into the kitchen
but she stopped us at the door, hugged us firmly and kissed us each
on the cheek.

“Feelin’ sentimental mom?” I asked, wiping a
tear away from her face with my thumb.

“No, son. I’m just choppin’ a few
onions.”

We both smiled at my mom and walked straight
into the living room.

That night, when I took Jules home we sat in
her driveway but before I would let her leave I grabbed her door
and slammed it shut.

    “You don’t think your dad
heard that do you?” I asked.
    “No,” she shook her head, her eyebrows pinched
together, her bottom lip in a pout.
My face was right next to hers and I could smell her perfume. It
stung sweetly. I sat back up and pulled her closely to me.
    “I’m glad we did it,” I said.
    “I know, me too.”
    “You know,” I began coyly, changing the subject,
“your parents are probably asleep.”
    “Your point?”
    “And you’ve got half an hour before curfew
right?”
    “Again, your point?” She asked cautiously.
    “I just thought that maybe, if you wanted to, we
could hang in the cab of the truck for awhile before you go
in.”
    “What are you suggesting we do?” She asked
flirtatiously.
    “I don’t know, maybe, as a reward for doing such
a good thing today we could make out?”
    “Elliott,” she laughed, “what am I going to do
with you? You know one good thing doesn’t cancel out one naughty
thing right?”
    “Wait a minute! There’s nothing naughty about
making out,” I protested.
    “No, there isn’t, but there are things it can
lead to that aren’t exactly good for us,” she replied, “and we
aren’t exactly the suppressing type.”
    “I think we can control ourselves for a few
minutes Jules. We did that night I fell asleep on your living room
chair,” I basically pleaded.
She sat for a few seconds, thinking.
    “No argument there,” she smiled.

We were at each other before you could blink
an eye. She felt so warm to me, warmer than the heater blowing
through my vents. There’s always something so romantic about the
winter. The chill in the air forces you closer to one another and
what can be an already satisfying touch always feels extraordinary
when it’s cold outside but there was also, for me, the added bonus
that every touch from Jules included a shivering electric shudder
through my spine.

Winter also brought with it the most enticing
smells as well. The clean snow, warm chocolate drinks, the
satisfying punch of the woodsy billowing smoke from everyone's
chimneys. The smoke was always my personal favorite, besides Jules’
fragrance that is.

    When I began to kiss her,
I could feel her breath warm against my mouth. I pressed my fingers
into the small of her back and culled her into my body. I ran my
hand down her hip and thigh and cupped my hand around the back of
her knee. She let her hair fall behind her and I brushed my lips
along her neck until they reached the hollow beneath her ear. I
repeatedly kissed her there. Tiny, insignificant kisses that spread
a shiver across her skin. I continued across her collarbone to the
bottom of her neck, kissing up her throat and paused when I heard
her swallowing hard.

“Stop,” she barely whispered.

“Stop?” I asked quietly.

“Don’t stop,” she corrected.

    I continued until I
reached her chin and kept going until my lips met hers. She slammed
her mouth against mine and the electricity hammered its way through
my body, ravaging every nerve that I had, firing off each one with
tumultuous effectiveness. I pulled her knee up and around me as I
pressed her against the window on her side of the car. I propelled
my body into hers, pressing my left hand against the cold
glass.
    The cold shocked me back into reality. I sat
back up and scooted myself away from her.
    “Wow,” I said and dragged both my hands through
my hair.

Her chest huffed with each winded breath. She
rested the back of her head against the cold passenger window and
attempted to straighten out her hair but I could tell she was
thinking of something. She quickly sprang for me and grabbed the
collar of my shirt. She crushed her lips into mine with the same
severity as before, but this time I resisted.

    “No,” I said grabbing her
shoulders.
    “Yes,” she said pushing herself against
me.
    “No Jules.”
    “Please Elliott.”
    “Jules!” I yelled.

Her eyes popped open, startled. She sank into
her seat, licked her lips and wiped her mouth with her thumb and
index finger, pulling at her bottom lip. She ran her fingers
through her hair and bit her thumb, her elbow resting on the door
staring out of the window. I could see her reflection in the
frosted glass and her eyes began to wet with tears.

“I’m sorry,” was all I could muster up.

The tears flowed more steadily and she opened
her door without a word. She scrambled quickly to retrieve her bag.
I jumped out of the truck and followed her up the porch steps to
the front door.
    “What are you doing Jules?” I asked
desperately.
    “What does it look like I’m doing?” She
bellowed, the tears still coming, “I’m going to bed.”
    “What happened? I don’t understand,” I said,
racking my brain for an answer to the question of how this had
turned so badly, so quickly.

Her hands trembled as she searched in the
dark for her keys in the front pocket of her bag. When she found
them she slid the key in the door and turned it. She walked in and
left me standing on the porch without a word, without a second
glance.

    The whole way home, I kept
trying to guess what I had done that so terribly offended her.
Jules was dramatic but she had never been unreasonable, so I had to
have done something pretty awful. I parked my truck and turned off
the lights. I slid out of my truck and bounded up the steps to the
kitchen. When I walked in, my mother and father were at the kitchen
table.
    “What’s wrong son?” My mom asked
immediately.
Either I plainly wore my emotions on my face or it was a mother’s
intuition, or maybe it was a little of both but she could tell
something was up.
    “Nothing,” I said. “I’m going to bed.
G’night.”

I tumbled into bed still wondering if it was
the rejection but decided I needed some sleep and that maybe after
a night’s rest Jules would come to her senses and talk to me.

    The next morning, I ran to
my truck once I was ready for school. I went to The Perry House and
knocked on the door but no one answered. I went around back and
Jules’ car wasn’t there.
She’s already left for school
? I
raced down the road to Bluefield and saw flashing lights behind
me.