Through The Lens (10 page)

 “What, the princess
thinks she’s hanging out with a frog?” he asked, sounding resentful.

Confused by this turn
of events, I lashed out with a quick tongue, one that was honed from years by a
brother who liked to torment me. “What, once that is removed, you’ll be a
prince again?”

“I was never a prince. 
Just a wolf in prince clothing,” he said, stoically.

“And now you’ve led the
lamb to slaughter,” I said, pensively. Though not really believing he was going
to kill me. Not letting myself that is.

Huffing out a laugh, he
said, “I didn’t lead you anywhere. You came on your own.”

Knowing he was right, I
said nothing for a moment. “How’d you get it?” I asked, quietly.

“Maybe you should have
asked that before you became judge and jury and convicted me,” he getting to
his feet.

Pointing out that he
had obviously already been convicted seemed in poor taste, so I watched him
start to head back the house.  Getting up, I trailed after him. “Wait,” I said,
feeling remorseful.

On a dime, he turned.
“Look, I have somewhere to be.”

Dismissed, I thought. 
“Ethan.”

“Don’t waste pretty
little words on me, princess.  Go back to your castle and live in your
fairytale world where everything is a black-and-white as you make it seem.”

“I,” I tried to say.

“If you continue to
stay here, I’ll have to prove what a big bad wolf I am.” His eyes stripped me
naked.  I was for sure he could see right through my clothes. “Run to daddy. 
That’s what you want.”

My eyes stung.  I was
pissed but felt like there was nothing for me to say.  He’d come back with a
quick retort, and it would be never ending.  So I opened the back door and
raced through the halls to the front.  Never did I look back as I exited the
house.  I just got in my car and headed home.

The week went by with no further contact
from either Allie or Ethan. The first night I did some research on the web to
find the story about Carly James.  She’d been in a few movies and was supposed
to have been the next “it” girl. 

What Ethan hadn’t told
me was in black-and-white.  According to the newspaper article online, Ethan,
Carly, Allie, and a boy named Sam were coming home from a party one evening. 
Ethan had been intoxicated over the legal limit, and he was a minor.  He’d wrapped
his car around a tree.  Everyone was fine with only minor injuries of cuts and
bruises except Carly went missing.  Ethan, Allie, and Sam had corroborated
stories that Carly had just “walked” off into the night and never returned. 
They claimed they tried to find her, but found nothing. Police searched for
days and collected some evidence that she had in fact been in the woods.

Further research gave
an account of a trial.  The reports claim that the police thought Ethan was a
person of interest.  He’d been dating Carly, but party-goers said that they’d
been fighting that night.  And she’d broken up with him.  All had been hearsay
and not enough for a grand jury indictment.

The article also went
on to talk more about Ethan.  The headline read “Prodigal Son finds himself In
Hot Water like his Father.”  It turned out that Ethan’s Dad killed himself in
his home after an indictment for the white-collar crimes of embezzlement,
fraud, tax evasion, and other various charges.  Ethan was reportedly in the
room when it happened.  The article further showed Ethan to be a troubled teen
who used drugs and alcohol quoted by  an unnamed teacher from his previous
school.

Unable to convict him
on murder because of a lack of evidence and a body, prosecutors charged him
instead with reckless driving and intoxication.  Normally, teen drinking and
driving meant an automatic suspended license, which he had endured for the
first six months.  But then the sentence was cut to allow him to drive because
of extenuating circumstances.  I bet it had something to do with his mother not
being in town.  As a compromise, he was given the ankle bracelet and couldn’t
leave the state of Maryland.

 With nothing more to
do than to tell my friends the tale with their sympathy, I called Madison.

“Holy Crap, Batgirl,”
Madison said. “Good thing you got out of there.  He sounds like the Riddler.”

“Riddler,” I
questioned.

“Yes, because he’s got
you all confused and not in a good way.”

I wasn’t convinced. “I
don’t know.  As weirded out as I was, I don’t get that vibe from him.”

“Hun, he’s wearing an
ankle bracelet. What more proof do you want?”

“Madison, if you saw
his house,” I shook my head, but she couldn’t see my face. “He watched his
father die.  That’s a lot to handle.”

“Facetime,” she said,
immediately ending the call.  Hanging up, I waited for my phone to ring again. 
When it did, I answered, video clicking on.  “Look me in the eye and tell me
this guy is worth it.  He’s got a girlfriend.  So why take the chance that he’s
not some psycho.”

She was right about one
thing, he was taken.  I thought about Allie saying he needed friends.  Now I
understood.  But I’d messed up.  I’d judged him without knowing the facts.  I
just couldn’t believe he’d murdered his girlfriend.  “You’re right,” I said to
her defeatedly.  If I saw him again, I’d apologize for not at least giving him
a chance to explain. 

After hanging up with
Madison, I picked up my summer reading first.  Then, I helped box things for my
Dad in the attic while he was at work.  Madison’s Mom ran an in-home daycare,
and Madison helped during the week.  And she had the job at the movies evenings
and weekends.  Bradley worked at his Dad’s office during the week. I didn’t get
to see them much. And so for the week I was left to the attic, summer reading
and my own devices. I was so bored, I even decided to help my Mom at the
bistro. And it was fine I guess, occupying my mind with these mundane tasks. It
wasn’t until Saturday my shift collided with Allie again.

During the first lull,
Allie turned to me with a serious face and said, “You know don’t you.” I study
her face for a second but not having the heart to lie, I nodded.

"About the
accident?" I mumble, looking down at the register.

Glossing over that fact
and right into the heart of it, she asked, “You don’t think he was responsible
for Carly, do you?”  I shook my head no, and said the word because that is what
I wanted to believe that he was innocent, a good guy. “Good, because he’s been
through enough as it is.  He already has enough guilt.”

Feeling compassion for
the boy that I feared, maybe just a little, I said, “What has he been through? 
What is he guilty of?”

Exhaling a breath, she
looked away before saying, “To answer your second question, he blames himself
for Carly.”

“Why?” I asked.  If he
says he didn’t do anything, why does he blame himself?

She stilled and looked
at me.  “He thinks that if he hadn’t had the accident, Carly would have never
walked in those woods and not come out.”  And then I understood.  I would have
felt the same.  “As far as your first question, about what he has been through,
his Dad killed himself.” I knew that from the article. “He did it in the
house.”

I forced on a smile for
the customer until they walk into the exhibit. After a long moment of silence,
where I felt her eyes on me, I opened my mouth. “Do they know why?” I asked,
even though I’d read the article.  Allie was a friend.  She would have an
inside view.  And I doubted Ethan would talk to me. 

“Unfortunately. His Dad
was an investment banker who was under investigation by the FBI, SEC, and other
branches of government I can’t remember.”

“Oh,” I said before
cursing.

“Yeah, he acts like
everything is okay,” she said, sounding genuine in her concern for him. "He's
not. No sane person would be." She finishes softly. He’d seemed to have
lost it all, his Dad, his Mom, and his girlfriend. If he wasn’t guilty, I’d
sure made him feel that way by jumping to conclusions.  There still was one
question I needed an answer to.  “So how did you and Ethan end up together?”
That was the million dollar question.

Sighing heavily again,
she said, “You mean because he was dating my best friend?”  Yeah, I wanted to
say, but bobbed my head slightly instead.  “It wasn’t like we set out to hook
up.  I was dating Sam, and I think he was all messed up over what happened.  He
hadn’t been drinking, but let Ethan take the wheel.  He didn’t get punished
with community service like I did.”  She said gesturing around us. Well, that
answered one question.  She was working here as a volunteer because of her
enforced community service.  She continued, unaware of my thoughts, “But the
ridicule sent him and his family packing for the Midwest to stay with
relatives.  That left Ethan and me.  We hung out more because everybody was
looking at us weird.  Him, more than me.  As the days passed and no word of
Carly, things just kind of happened.”

We got an influx of
customers and didn’t have a chance to speak much more on the subject.   When
Ethan came, my shift was over.  He didn’t speak to me, but moved like a specter
through the place swift, silent, and every bit captivating. I cowardly didn’t
speak to him either.  I didn’t know what to say, nothing I really felt I could
say short of apologizing. In which case after everything he'd been through,
he'd probably gotten sick of people saying 'sorry'.     

There was one thing I gleaned
from the information I gathered.  I could understand why Ethan began drinking
too much or at all or even why he might have used drugs if that were true.  I
blamed his mother.  How could she leave her son in the first place?  She’d
taken everything and left him in an empty house that could only serve as a
reminder for all he’d lost.

For the next week,
everything was again radio silence from the two. Allie was in Hollywood filming
and Ethan was obviously done with me.  I hoped maybe Allie would say something
to him, and we’d work it out.  Instead, I feared that I’d blown my potential
friendships out of blind fear.  I’d passed judgment before I knew all the
facts.  A part of me blamed Ethan for not saying he wasn’t guilty.  The other
rational part now knew why.  He still felt guilty because of the circumstances.

The next weekend at
work, Allie acted normal.  She filled me in on her week on the West Coast after
my gentle prodding.  I had a healthy curiosity for what it was like to be a
celebrity.  She didn’t make it sound all that fun. 

Somehow, the
unthinkable happened.  The paparazzi found her out.  Near the end of my shift,
a crowd of photo-snapping panthers came out in droves.  They leaped, climbed,
and did everything possible to get her picture with no care for her privacy. 

Having no choice, Allie
looked at me like a lost puppy. “I think I better go,” she said.

“Yeah, bye,” I added
quietly. 

She bowed out, leaving
me to cover the rest of her shift.  I had no idea how she eventually got out. I
imagined Ethan or someone came to her rescue.  Maybe she had some sort of
disguise. But with only me handling the booth, I had no way of knowing other
than she’d left through one of the back exits and hadn’t come around front. The
crowd brought curious people, thinking the exhibit was the target.  Ticket
sales that day were through the roof.

After a very long day,
with the Paparazzi trying to wheedle Allie's wherebouts from me, I made my way
out the door. Though before leaving, I checked the schedule.  Ethan wasn’t
scheduled for the next two weekends.  His name was listed for shifts during the
week.  Had he changed schedules to avoid me?  The thought had my gut twisting.
But I don't say anything. I didn’t call him.  I’d felt like such a coward.  The
weeks just passed.  Allie didn’t come either the next weekend, not that I
expected her to, the paparazzi was still hanging about.  I ended up on the
all-day shifts for the next couple of weekends until school started.

Finally, two weekends
before school started, I did end up calling Allie. I was rewarded with a
recording that said that her number was out of service.  Fear caught me.  Did
she think I ratted her out?  Had she changed her number because she didn’t want
to talk to me?  I didn’t want to think that.  Was her phone number compromised
to the paparazzi? And did she think I gave it out to them? It wasn’t like I’d
ever called her until now.  I let it go and ended up telling Madison everything
as I'd always seem to do recently. 

“Wow, Jess, that’s
crazy,” she said.

“I know.  I couldn’t
tell you.  I’m sorry,” I admitted.

There was a brief
pause. “I’m a little pissed you didn’t trust me and tell me,” she said sounding
ticked off.  After a long pause, she added, “But, hey, I forgive you.” 

Trust. There was
another secret I was keeping from her.  From what I gathered all our
conversations lately, Bradley still hadn’t told her.  I let it go.  “Do you
think she’s mad at me?”

“I doubt it,” Madison
replied. “Maybe she figured that if someone found out about where she worked,
they could have gotten her cell information.  Maybe someone called her?

That sounded
plausible.  After we hung up, I lay in bed wondering if I should just call
Ethan and ask.