Lynn Strong - Hold Still

“You tired?” Annie asks. “Hungry?”

Ellie shakes her head. She’d stayed up all night staring out her upstairs window, wishing she were free enough to roam around instead of being trapped inside. She hadn’t wanted to worry her mother. It was her last night with them and she had resolved no matter what to try her very best to be Good. They’d eaten a quiet, simple dinner, pasta with spinach and sausage, her dad had cooked, and afterward she’d sat on the couch with her feet in her mom’s lap.

“I wasn’t with him,” she’d said. Her mom held a book and was looking down at it. Ben was flipping channels on the TV. Their dad was outside working in the garden in the twilight. Ellie’s mom shook her head.

“All right, El.”

She’d wanted to hold her face up close to her mom and beg to be believed, to have Joseph call her to confirm she hadn’t been with Dylan. But there was no point in proving just this once that she had been better than her mom thought. She had years of proving still to do no matter what.

She’d curled in with Benny after everyone had gone to bed. He didn’t say anything to her. They were too old to touch; she just liked being close to him. She’d left his room before the sun rose, slipped on shorts and boots and one of her mom’s old sweaters, and left before anyone woke up. She’d walked out down Seventh Avenue and smelled the city wake up one last time.

It’s still early afternoon when they get to Annie’s house, which is smaller than Ellie’s mom’s house, simple with mounds of overly lush landscaping obscuring it almost completely from the street. The exterior is a mustard-yellow and the roof an orange-red. There’s a screened-in room right off the driveway. The door has a latch but no lock and there’s a large couch and two chairs covering one full side of the room, a brown ceiling fan whirring on high overhead. Behind that room is a frosted glass door with slats in it. You can make out only shadows on the other side.

Annie nods toward the slatted door. “That’ll be your room,” she says.

Ellie looks over at Annie, who nods again, and Ellie lets herself in. It’s a single room, but separate from the main house. There’s a small bathroom off the back. The bed is built into the wall, with two levels of bookshelves built-in around the edge. There’s a window AC unit in the side window and the other window looks out over the lush backyard. There’s a desk across from the bed and drawers underneath.

“It’s a little tight,” says Annie. “But it’ll give you some privacy.”

The bed’s been made up in a simple white comforter with large green and yellow flowers; the walls are yellow too. A sort of bright but unobtrusive yellow that has Ellie smiling despite herself. “It’s fine,” she says. “Thanks.”

She finally turns to Annie, looking full at her for the first time since the airport. And, before Ellie can think of how to stop her, Annie leans in and hugs Ellie tight against her, and Ellie rests her fingers on two separate nubs of spine and stretches her neck up, not willing to let her head settle too close to Annie’s face.

“Oh, El,” she says. “I’m really so happy you’re here.”

Ellie keeps her back hard and straight till Annie finally lets her go. They hear a car pull up behind them, and then a man’s voice, with laughter coursing through it: “You were suffocating the poor girl.” Both Ellie and Annie turn toward the driveway. Jeffrey looks much the same as he did ten years ago. He wears swimming shorts and flip-flops. His hair is long and floppy and he’s not wearing a shirt. His whole body’s firm. He walks over to the passenger’s side and opens the back door, then pulls a blond, wiry boy from the backseat. He’s a near-replica of Jeffrey, and Ellie wonders how Annie could have had so little to do with what this boy’s turned out to be.

“Hi, boys,” says Annie. She grins at Ellie, the lines around her eyes all bunched up and lovely, then turns her smile to her son. The boy jumps from his father’s arms and walks shyly toward them. Annie scoops him up and kisses his cheek.

“Jack”—she nods toward the boy—“this is Elinor. Ellie, Jack.”

“Hey,” Ellie says to the little boy, offering her hand to him. She used to babysit, when she was fourteen and fifteen, before people in the neighborhood knew enough to call other, less troubled kids. But Ellie had always been a hit with this age group, mostly because she treated them like peers. Jack’s eyes are small and blue and set wide on his face. His skin is nut-brown and he has a full head of white-blond hair.

Jack looks at his mom, then over at Ellie. “Nor,” he says, then smiles big.

“That works,” says Ellie. “Hi,” she says again.

“I like it,” says Jeffrey. He’s close to her suddenly. He kisses Annie on the cheek and offers his hand to Ellie. “Wonderful to see you again, Nor.” His eyes wander up the length of her and he leans in to kiss her too. “You’ve aged much better than we have, it seems.”

Jack fingers the thin white linen of his mother’s shirt, glancing at Ellie. “You want to go swimming?”

Annie repositions Jack on her hip and chirps a bit too loudly, “What do you say Ellie, no better way to welcome you back down here than a swim?”

Ellie smiles at Jack, then glances briefly at his father. “Sure,” she says. And she’s not tired suddenly. “I guess.”

Jeffrey walks past her into the room Annie has said is Ellie’s and turns on the air conditioner. “All right, then,” he says. “You two get changed before it gets too late.” He turns toward Ellie and she feels small beside him. He’s only a couple of inches taller than Annie, but he’s so much broader. He has a little stubble spread across his chin and cheeks.

The air conditioner chokes, then coughs, getting started, then blows cold and hard with a low chug against her back.

Jeffrey rests his hand just below her shoulder. “Leave this on while we’re out so it cools down for you,” he says. “It’ll take you a while to get used to this heat.”

Ellie nods and waits for them to filter into the main part of the house. She goes into her room and breathes in deep. She unpacks her toiletries in the bathroom, where Annie has laid out clean towels and washcloths. There’s shampoo and conditioner in the shower, face wash, lotion, Tylenol, two kinds of sunscreen (one for face and one for body), and aloe all lined up in the cabinet over the sink.

Ellie washes her face, then applies the sunscreen. She stands naked in front of the full-length mirror that hangs on the bathroom door. Her hip bones jut out below her abdomen and she runs one hand over her pale stomach, then up to her chest. She thinks briefly again of Annie long ago, tan and perfect in that dress. She walks out into the main room and begins rifling through her suitcase. Of course the bathing suit has managed to fall to the bottom.

She hears the door to the main house open. She’s cold from the window unit that continues to blow hard across her skin. She hears the smack of flip-flops and then nothing but the chugging of the air conditioner. Through the clear slats of the door she sees a wide expanse of shoulders. She stands still a minute, freezing without her clothes on, then pulls a shirt over her head and dumps her bag over the bed to find her bathing suit.

“I didn’t. . I’m so sorry,” Charles says.

Maya looks around. The hall outside the room is empty. The paisley on his shirt makes Maya want to cry.

“No,” she says. “ I’m sorry. I just. .”

He grabs his book from the desk and holds it. It’s like a shield against his chest.

She smiles at him, slowly. She wants to sit somewhere and let him put his head across her lap.