Элизабет Чандлер - Don't Tell

“Whoa!” Nick cried, dropping his part of the shower curtain, catching me around the waist. He straightened me up like a toppled-over mannequin, trying to get me back in my shoes.

I felt my way with my toes and was standing squarely again, but Nick didn’t let go. The shower curtain rested on our heads like a collapsed tent He ignored it, facing me now, his arms around me, his eyes shining softly. My hands rested on his shoulders.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

“I’d like to kiss you.” He waited a moment for my response, then added, “Or, if you’d rather, we can dance, as long as we can get you unstuck.”

“I think I’m in deep.”

“Me, too,” he said, looking into my eyes.

His head moved closer to mine. Then he lifted his hand, cupping my cheek ever so gently. His lips touched my lips, light as a butterfly, once, twice.

The kisses were lovely, so lovely I couldn’t help it — I did a totally stupid, uncool thing. I sighed.

I heard the laughter rumbling inside Nick and I started to pull away. But his arms wrapped around me. He held me close and pressed his lips against mine. A thrill went through me. I kissed him back — I didn’t think about it, just kissed him with all that my heart felt.

Now Nick pulled back, looking at me surprised. I wondered if I had done something wrong. My only experience was a smattering of hardly-touch good-night kisses after dance dates. What if I had done something weird and didn’t know it?

“I–I have to go,” I said, ducking out from under the shower curtain, making a dash for the porch without my shoes.

When I glanced back Nick was wearing the curtain like a cape, watching me run to the house. He turned away slowly and walked back to his car.

I stood inside the door and ran one muddy foot over the other. Aunt Jule’s red shoes were stuck in the driveway, like little memorials at the magical place where Nick and I had kissed.

Aunt Jule looked up from her book, silent for a moment, surveying me. “Oh, dear.”

“I hope I haven’t embarrassed Holly,” I said, entering the river room.

“What happened? Where’s Jason?”

“I left him on the dance floor, sprawled on it.”

She laughed and pointed to the chair next to her. “Sit.

Tell.”

I did. When I had finished, Aunt Jule smiled. “And you seem so sweet and innocent. I bet he was surprised.”

Not as surprised as Nick, I thought, recalling the expression on his face a few minutes before. I decided not to tell Aunt Jule that Nick had brought me home. She’d want every detail.

After cleaning the mud from my feet and wiping up the tracks I’d left in the hall, I headed upstairs, reliving in my mind Nick’s wonderful kiss. On the landing I stopped abruptly. Nora stood near the top of the stairway, as if waiting for me. Her hand gripped the banister, her fine bones exaggerated by the tension in her. The light shining from below threw Nora’s tall shadow against the wall, trapping it within the bars cast by the railing.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

Her voice shook: “Someone doesn’t like it when you wear that dress. Someone doesn’t like it when you wear that heart.”

“I’m taking off the dress,” I told her, “but not the heart.”

“Someone will be very angry.”

“Do you mean my mother?” I wondered if “Sondra’s” feelings were actually a projection of Nora’s.

“I won’t tell,” she whispered.

“Won’t tell what?” I asked loudly, and she drew back as if I’d threatened her.

“Don’t tell!” she exclaimed. “Don’t even think the words!”

She lifted her hands and held the sides of her head.

“Thinking can make it happen,” she moaned, then hurried down the steps.

I stared after her, trying to understand the darkness inside her. I’d lock my door again tonight.

Aunt Jule had laughed about the shoes stuck in the driveway and told me to leave them and trash them tomorrow. I had dumped my muddy stockings in the bedroom wastebasket and hung up the dress to dry. A long hot shower had washed away the last bits of mud and mascara, but not my apprehensiveness toward Nora.

I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t simply afraid for her but of her. The fact that Aunt Jule and Nick saw nothing in her to fear, and even Holly didn’t think her sister would harm others, made me feel alone. I worried that my own mind was playing tricks on me — perhaps I had never heard a voice like my mother’s.

I tried to read myself to sleep, but it was useless. When the bedroom lights of Aunt Jule and Nora finally went off, I pulled on shorts beneath my nightshirt and went downstairs again. On the garden side of the house, I restlessly walked the porch.

My thoughts shifted to Nick. I couldn’t believe I had kissed him, not just with my lips but my heart. Until now, it had been easy to blame my mother for her screwed-up life, labeling her as one of those girls who couldn’t live without a guy, who set herself up for disaster. But here I was, falling fast.

And what about Holly? I had told myself that she wasn’t really drawn to Nick-she wasn’t hooked on him. But by nature Holly was cool and collected, so there was no way to tell. It didn’t matter. Nick had clearly explained his dating policy: one girl after the next. After the prom he’d be working on whoever stood in line behind Holly and me. The red shoes seemed symbolic — abandoned in the mud.

I gazed out in their direction. The rain had stopped and the moon was peeking through quick-moving clouds, splashing silver on the soaked gardens and long path. What if Holly came home with Nick, found the shoes, and dumped them in the trash?

I had to have them.

I trudged through the mud, feeling foolish. The ruined shoes were useless — all I could do was display them next to my softball trophies. But I had to have them.

When I returned to the house, my feet looked as if I’d put on brown moccasins. I set down the high heels and headed for the greenhouse to fetch a bucket of water for dipping. I was just beyond the knot garden when I thought I heard a door open on the upper porch. Turning toward the house, I surveyed it.

“Hello,” I called softly.

No one answered, but I saw the slight movement in the shadows. If it were Aunt Jule, she would have replied. It had to be Nora, I thought, and continued on, determined not to be cowed by her.

The air was still and heavy, as water-saturated as the ground. It was the kind of humid Shore night I remembered as a child, when a light left on became a halo of mist and insects. When I entered the greenhouse, I kept the lights off so I wouldn’t be swarmed.

In the intermittent moonlight the glass house looked surreal. Plants, looming tall in the darkness, suddenly caught the light and seemed to bristle and straighten as I came near. Spider plants drooped long tongues over the edges of hanging pots. Short, thick plants reached out, then curled back on themselves with crooked stems.

Moonlit raindrops and condensation kept me from seeing beyond the glass panes. As I moved among rows of plants, I couldn’t get over the feeling that someone was outside watching me.

Something brushed my arm and I jumped. Just a branch, Lauren, I chided myself. Watch where you’re going and stop imagining things.

Still, the skin on my arms prickled as I moved toward the back of the greenhouse searching for a bucket. There was something in here with me — I could feel it — some disturbance in the air. There was no rational way to explain the sensation; the air didn’t move, but something unseen moved through it. I walked in the center of the main aisle and kept my arms close against my sides, reluctant to touch any of the plants.