Girl in the Shadows (Shadows 2)

When he arrived, he looked at me without any sign in his expression that he felt either good or bad about what had occurred in the motor home. In fact, he didn't act in any way differently from how he had acted previously. It was truly as if nothing had happened between us and it had all been my imagination. He had never come to the motor home. I actually planned on returning to see if the videotape was there so I could confirm it had all not been an invention of my desperate imagination.

He went directly to the assignments. In fact, for most of the day, the only things we discussed were associated with the work. I had difficulty with some of the math and he concentrated on it until he was satisfied I understood. At lunch, he began a discussion with Mrs. Westington about Echo's future and he used me to support his points. It was clear to me the time when he was going to leave was drawing closer and closer.

"She's doing fine. Mrs. Westington, but she's not getting a fully rounded education as she would if she were in a classroom with other girls and boys her age. April is really the first companion she's had anywhere near her age, but April will be the first to tell you, she should be with more young people.'"

He looked at me and I nodded.

"It's true. Mrs. Westington. She needs to build self-confidence for her social interactions later on in life."

"Everyone's always rushing to grow up in this world today," Mrs. Westington said. "Take a letter. You young people don't realize what you have when you're young. You're so anxious to get older and take on all those responsibilities. She's got time for all that."

"It's worse to drop someone into the adult world without preparation," Tyler insisted. "She won't know how to meet and greet strangers. She won't--"

"Oh, fiddlesticks," Mrs. Westington said. She became very uncomfortable.

He saw it and stopped talking about it until she left the room. Then he turned to me immediately. Finally. I thought, finally he's going to talk about what had happened between us. I was waiting for either an apology or an explanation for his running out like that. Instead, he continued to talk about Echo,

"Mrs. Westington's not a young woman. If that girl gets left alone in this world, she'll be practically a social invalid. You know what her mother is like. Even if they find her and tell her what's happened, she'd probably put Echo into an institution. Keep working on Mrs. Westington," he said. ''She likes you very much and will listen more to you. perhaps."

I promised I would. I waited for him to talk about us, but he did what he always did when he ended the day's session: he gave Echo something to do that would distract her from his leaving. I followed him out, my arms folded, my head down, my heart thumping so hard. I was sure he could hear it or feel the vibrations that traveled from it, down through my legs and into the floor of the porch itself.

He stepped off the porch, glanced back at me, and headed toward the pond. I hurried after him. It was a cloudy day and it looked like raindrops were hanging at the bellies of the darker clouds, minutes away from dropping. The wind had come up from the west and trees were nodding, the leaves rustling. A ripple moved over the surface of the water.

He paused and turned to me. Finally. finally we were going to have a special, intimate conversation.

"I didn't want to say this in front of Mrs. Westington, of course. but I think you should let her know that you're not going to stay here indefinitely. As I told you last night, she'll use you as a reason not to permit Echo from leaving, just as she's used me, and as I stressed last night, my time here is coming to an end soon. Once you pass your equivalency exam, you'll think about moving on, too, won't you?"

"I guess." I said. Tears were coming into my eyes. How could he simply ignore what had happened, pretend it never had happened? And here was stupid, gullible me actually expecting so much more, expecting him to ask me out on a date.

"You should. You can't have much of a future lingering here unless you want to work beside Trevor Washington in a miniature vineyard."

I became suspicious. Why would any boy ignore what had happened between us?

"You don't have a girlfriend here, do you?"

"No," he said. "Between my work here and all that I have to do at our store and plant. I haven't had much time to socialize since I returned.'"

"Did you have a girlfriend back in Los Angeles? Is she coming here?"

"I had no one special." he said quickly. "We're not talking about me,"

he added a little sharply. "We're talking about them and about you." His tone and cutting words were equivalent to a slap in the face.

"You're right," I said. "I might leave soon, sooner than anyone thinks."

"Oh?"

"My sister is returning to the States soon. She's taken a position with a professional basketball team in Seattle," I told him. "I might go back to living with her."

"What about her lover?"

"They're not together anymore."

"Oh." He thought a moment. My response had given him pause. "Well, then that might work out for you."

"I'll see. We're going to meet when she stops in San Francisco."

"Good. Well. I'm happy we had this little talk." he said. "Stay on that math. It's your weakest area."