Girl in the Shadows (Shadows 2)

"You look very good," he said. I was sucking in my stomach. "Turn around."

I did and he whistled.

"My legs look like they belong on a baby elephant."

"They're not that bad. You don't have to lose all that much. April. and I'm not simply trying to make you feel good. You've known me long enough to know I'm brutally honest when I have to be."

I stared at him, not knowing what to say. He stepped up to me, pouring his eves into mine. He brought his lips closer and closer. I was afraid to move, afraid I was dreaming and I would wake up. His kiss was so soft. I wasn't sure it had even occurred. He put his hands on my waist and gently pulled me into him before he kissed me again, this time holding his lips on mine while he moved his hands up to the straps of my costume and slowly pealed them off my shoulders and down my arm.

Was this really happening? I asked myself. Was I going to let it happen?

He didn't say anything. He stepped back slightly and continued to lower my costume. My breasts fell free. He stared at me a moment and then he touched my nipples as if he were examining them first. He kissed me again, but he did nothing more. It was as if he wasn't sure what came next or if he should do anything more.

I looked up at him, anticipating. He looked like he had just snapped out of a coma.

"I'm sorry," he said, his lips trembling. In fact, his whole face looked like it was in an earthquake. "I'm sorry. I... I have to get home."

He turned and hurried out of the motor home. I stood frozen and confused, not only at what he had done, but how quickly my own heart had begun to pound and how excited I had become. I wanted him to do more. Why didn't he try? I felt like I was drowning in disappointment.

My eyes fell to Destiny. I didn't remember turning her head my way, but that's the way it was. He must have done it while I was changing. I thought.

I had to sit and get myself calmed down before I took off the costume and put on my clothes. I decided to leave the videotape in the motor home to watch it there, and for now. because I was still trembling and confused. I decided to leave Destiny where she was.

I started back to the house in the darkness, my mind still reeling in confusion. Should I be happy about what had happened? Did my body turn him off finally? Should I be sad? Were the feelings I felt different from the feelings I had felt when Celia had touched me?

How would I ever fall asleep tonight? I paused for a moment and looked to the rear of the house where Trevor Washington had his own private quarters. His television set spilled a glow o

ver the side of the house and onto the small patch of grass. How lonely his life was, I thought. How was he able to contend with that loneliness? Was his work enough? It hadn't been for Uncle Palaver. Trevor seemed so contented, accepting. Would I end up like that, alone into my senior years?

Rather than feel elated and excited by what had just occurred between me and Tyler in the motor home. I now felt frightened. I'll be rejected all my life. I thought. Why was I born?

Mrs. Westington had gone to bed and I imagined Echo was asleep. I stopped by her room and looked in and saw her in her bed, her eyes closed. Was she dreaming of Tyler? It occurred to me that in the darkness, she was truly alone. She couldn't hear me and she couldn't see me. I could stand by her bed and tell her things she would never know. Despite how terrible I felt about myself. I felt sorrier for her. I stood by her bed and looked down at her sleeping so softly.

"You've never heard the sound of your own name and your own voice," I told her. "It is truly as if you have been locked away in your own body. I'm sorry for you. Echo. I really am."

She continued sleeping and breathing regularly. "Who's worse off?" I asked her. "You or me?"

I went to my room and prepared for bed. For a while after I had crawled into my bed. I just lay there staring up at the darkness wondering if Mrs. Westington was right about my parents watching over me from the great beyond. What did they see, feel? What could they do to help me, if I could do so little, it seemed, to help myself?

We're all disabled in this house. I thought. Maybe that was why I was so comfortable living here. why I was so quick to accept Mrs. Westington's invitation. She was cutoff from her only child and struggling with her granddaughter. Echo was so dependent upon everyone around her, in danger of being cut off and left to drift. Trevor worked on a patch of a vineyard to cling to what had given him meaning in his life. His survival was so tightly entwined with those grapes. They would die with him and he would die without them.

And then there was me, a tiny voice trapped in a body it despised. I closed my eyes and dreamed I was a snake anxious to slither out of its skin.

I was tired when I woke up. I knew I had spent the night tossing and turning, twisting out of the grip of one nightmare after another. I barely had the energy to get up and get dressed, much less go for the morning jog I had planned to take daily. If Brenda was here, she'd be shaking her head and muttering about me. I thought. At least. I ate little at breakfast, which displeased Mrs. Westington.

"You're taking this weight thing too far," she said. "A body needs nourishment."

I ate a little more just to satisfy her. She tapped her cane in frustration.

"We don't really need enemies," she said. "We do plenty of damage to ourselves without them, thank you. Take a letter,"

Echo ate slowly, her eyes shifting constantly from her grandmother to me. She's deaf. I thought, but she senses people's moods and feelings with a sensitivity that might be greater than the sensitivity of people who hear.

"Are you all right?" she signed.

I nodded and gave her my best smile, but her eves told me she could see right through it, maybe down to my very dark and lonely soul.

I couldn't help being nervous about Tyler's arrival. He was returning for his final lessons of the week. Weekends, he had told me, were particularly busy in his retail outlet and he had to spend most of the day in the store. They sold more than just the wine sauce they made. There were jams and honey and all sorts of wine-related kitchen and dishware items, as well as souvenirs and books about the valley. He'd revealed that Echo had never been to his store.