Gina was like none of them. She was sweet and never talked down to him. She treated him as if he were an important person instead of a tall clumsy boy with a shriveled leg. He found her intoxicating. He didn’t want summer to end. He wanted to be with her for all time.
He was grilling burgers on the patio one Sunday afternoon while his mother sliced tomatoes onto a plate at their picnic table. She looked over at Drake and said, “You look happy.”
He sent her a sidelong glance. “Why do you say that?”
“You just do.”
“Gee, let me wipe it off my face.”
“Don’t be sarcastic. Happy looks good on you.”
He shrugged self-consciously.
Connie spread the tomatoes in a semicircle on the plate and opened a jar of pickles. “I’m your mother. I know when something’s up with you.” She paused, cocked her head. “Are you in love?”
Drake almost dropped his spatula. He felt his face redden. “What are you saying?”
Connie walked over, her arms crossed with a knowing smile on her face. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
He waved her away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It’s not a bad thing, son. Nothing to be ashamed of. I’m just wondering why you didn’t tell me that you’ve met someone. Talk to me.”
He took a deep breath, knowing that she’d eventually wheedle the information out of him. “Okay … so I know a girl. She’s the professor’s daughter.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Nothing to tell. Her name’s Gina and … and she’s nice.” He was uncomfortably warm. He probably should have mentioned Gina to his mom before now, but he hadn’t. Keeping Gina to himself had been self-protective at first. No use talking about what he couldn’t have. But now, after holding her and kissing her, he felt she was somehow a part of him.
“Am I going to meet her?”
He thought about Gina’s reaction when he’d asked her on a date. She’d said, “I can’t.” Maybe now she would. “I don’t know. They’re going back to Boston after Labor Day.” School would start for him in a week. He wrapped up his job soon.
“Oh,” his mother said, looking disappointed. “I’d really like to meet her.”
“I’m going to see her as much as I can until they leave,” he said. “I’ll try and bring her by for a visit.” He was taking a chance—he had no idea whether she’d come.
“She must be special if you like her,” Connie said.
What was special was that she liked him, but he didn’t say that to his mother. He scooped up the burgers and put them on a plate. “Dinner,” he announced instead.
Drake had noticed that although it remained hot in the city at the foot of the mountain, the air was growing cooler on Sandstone. On his drive up in the mornings, he saw hints of autumn color in the foliage, saw berries on bushes turning red and birds beginning to flock together for long flights to sunnier climates. Fall was coming—everywhere except at 13 Sandstone Mountain.
“You must be a heck of a gardener,” Drake said to Gina one afternoon. They were holding hands, walking the path that wandered between flowerbeds.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because these flowers look just the same as when I first came to apply for my job.” He paused on the path. “Like these.” He gently shook a pink mop-head hydrangea.
“Oh, they’ll die when it gets colder.”
“You mean without you to take care of them.” Drake looked over the gardens, at roses still full and bright, at black-eyed Susans standing tall and summery, at tulips still holding on to their waxy spring petals.
Gina turned to face him, slipped her arms around his waist. “Are we out here to talk about flowers? Or do you want to kiss me?”
He grinned, bent toward her lips. “What flowers?”
Drake made his way along the crowded hall on the first day of school. He hugged the wall, not wanting to become entangled in the swarm of foot traffic. His mood was dark because the last time he’d seen Gina, they’d argued. His mother was on his case about meeting Gina, but nothing he said could persuade her to come down the mountain with him. He’d become so frustrated with her refusals that he’d made her cry. Now he only felt miserable, because Gina had hurt him all over again, and he’d said things to hurt her.
“Hey, Drake!”
Surprised, he turned and saw a dark-haired girl weaving through the mass of bodies toward him. She skidded to a stop. “It’s me—Beth,” she said with a breathless smile. “You know, your faithful guide.”
She clicked into place in his head. Beth from registration day. “Hi.”
“Crazy, isn’t it? First week is wild … everybody trying to find their way.”
“I take my time,” he said.
“So let me see your class card.”
He pulled out the card and she quickly scanned it. “We have third-period trig together. That’s cool.”
“Sure,” he said, not meaning it. He realized she might honestly be a nice person, but he didn’t care about anything except Gina right now.
“Our lunch periods overlap too. Look for me when you hit the cafeteria and I’ll intro you around to my posse.”
He didn’t crack a smile. His mind was truly elsewhere.
She leaned in. “Get it? Posse? Friends?”
“I get it. That’s fine.” He was not quite rude. Beth was trying to make him feel welcome. “I’ll look for you,” he said, with an apologetic shrug. “I had a tough weekend. I’m a bit out of it.”
“No prob,” Beth said.
“Guess I’d better get to first period.” The human traffic crunch had thinned and Drake pushed off from the wall.
“I’ll walk with you,” Beth said.
“I’ll just slow you down. Make you late.”
“Like that’s never happened,” she said, rolling her eyes. “This way.”
They walked in silence, Drake ever mindful of his bad leg and wounded heart.
8
Drake stayed away from Gina as long as he could—thirty-six hours. When school let out on the first day, he called his mother and said he was going up to the Dennisons’. Once there, Drake stood at the gate staring at the house and gathering his courage. The stones looked a little dingy, and the lawn, so beautiful days before, now looked brown, as if it were drying up and withering.
He looked skyward and saw dark clouds gathering, heard a rumble of distant thunder. A storm was coming. When he knocked on the front door, Gina flung it open. She looked terrified. She hurled herself at Drake, almost knocking him over. Alarmed, he held her. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s going to storm and Father’s not here.” She pulled Drake into the house.
The foyer had a hollow sound. Furniture was covered with sheets and blankets in rooms off the foyer. Drake’s workroom had been emptied of boxes and books. She was really leaving. He held her more tightly. “I’ll stay with you.” He forgot all about their argument.
“Don’t leave me.”
“Not happening.”
The great grandfather clock still stood in the hall, its hands frozen at four o’clock. Drake knew it had to be close to five, because when he had parked the car, his cell had displayed four-thirty-five. He didn’t have to look at his phone to know it wasn’t functioning, because it never worked on the premises.
“Do you mind if we go up to my studio?” Her eyes looked frightened.
“If we go slow.”
They took their time up the stairs, arriving just as thunder clapped and rain pelted the windows. Gina cried out, began to tremble.
“It’s just rain,” Drake said, trying to soothe her, not understanding her irrational fears. “And we’re safe here inside.” He stroked her hair, walked her to the sofa. A great bolt of lightning split the sky, cracking like a whip. Gina screamed. He took her in his arms. “It’s okay. I’m with you.”
The room was dusky gray and growing darker. “Look, I’ll light all your candles,” D
rake said, in an attempt to quell her terror.
She clutched him tighter. “Don’t go.”
“It’ll be all right.” He pried her arms away, found matches near the record machine and hobbled around the room lighting every wick, until the room glowed like a curtain holding off the dark. When he returned, she huddled in his arms.
“You won’t leave me?”
“No way.” He kissed her.
She pressed closer, clinging to his mouth. Together they tumbled onto the sofa, exploring one another’s bodies with mouths and hands. He kissed her throat, sweet-salty from her fear. He pulled aside the neckline of her blouse, heard her moan, and ventured to taste the swell of her breast. She reached for his hand, brought his palm to her breast, and he felt the hammer of her heart, heard the sound of her breath coming in short gasps. Heat seeped through his clothes, and all he wanted was to feel her body on his, skin to skin.
He burned and ached with a primal need as old as time. The need was feral, mind-bending. He’d never experienced it before. He was losing control. “Gina, what if … what if your dad shows up?”
“He can’t get back,” she whispered, tugging Drake’s shirt out of his jeans.
“Why? Where did he go?” By now Drake knew the rain had made it impossible for either him or the professor to get up or down the mountain.
Her hands stroked his bare skin. He thought he’d spontaneously combust.
“It’s raining,” she said. “He can’t get through the static.”
Through what static? his last vestige of logic asked.
“Do you love me?” she asked.
“I love you,” he answered, forgetting all else as the vortex of passion sucked him into ecstasy.
It rained solidly for two days. He thought about his mother. She’d be worried, maybe frantic about his safety. He had no way to reach her and tell her he was all right. But she knew where he was. When he did get home there would be hell to pay, but now, in these hours with Gina, he didn’t care.
The house was without electricity from the storm, and the rain fell steadily outside. Gina lit candles, carried one with them through the darkened house wherever they went, while the halo of light threw their shadows on the walls like wandering ghosts. They foraged for food in the kitchen, made meals of apples, cheese, some stale bread. “We don’t have much,” she explained. “Pretty well cleaned out the icebox a few days ago.”
Drake nibbled on her ear, making her giggle. “I’ve got all I need.”
They slept on an oversized couch in one of the rooms downstairs, wound tightly in each other’s arms, using blankets that had covered furniture. The first night Drake slept restlessly to the relentless drumming of rain on the roof, the whip of wind rattling window glass, the distant roll of thunder. The next night he slept more soundly, found comfort in the beat of the rain and the feel of Gina spooned up against his chest. He awoke with a vague feeling that something was missing. As night turned to soggy dawn he finally locked onto what it was—the clock. It chimed no more. Maybe he should wind it. Gina would know where her father kept the key.
The patter of rain slowed. He kissed the back of Gina’s warm neck. “Wake up. I think the sun’s going to shine today.”
She moaned, turned over. “My head hurts,” she whispered.
Drake pulled back, lit a candle, held it toward her. Her lips looked parched and her skin had gone pale except for two dots of hot pink color on her cheekbones. He pressed his cheek to her forehead. “You feel hot. Maybe it’s too many covers.” He kicked off the blankets. Chill hit his skin.
Gina moaned. “I can’t move. Everything hurts.”
“Do you have some aspirin?”
“Don’t know,” she mumbled.
He pulled himself off the couch, covered Gina with the blanket and struggled into his clothes. “I’ll look around.”
“Don’t … leave …”
“I bet you have a fever. I need to find some aspirin.”
He hobbled off, rummaged through kitchen cupboards, went upstairs, searched medicine cabinets. Everything was empty. He started to panic. If Gina was really sick, what was he going to do? Back downstairs, he found a cloth, wet it and pressed it to her fiery forehead. She coughed. He heard rattling in her chest. What was happening? How could she have become so sick overnight? Fear squeezed his stomach. He said, “Come on, honey. We have to get down the mountain. You need a doctor.”
“No …” With pitiful weakness, she pushed against him. “Can’t … go. Wait for Father.”
“I have a car,” Drake said, as if talking to a truculent child. “We’ll leave your dad a note.” He’d take her home to his mother; she’d know what to do.
He sat her up, fed her arms into her robe, slid her feet into slippers. He wrapped her arm over his neck, gripped her waist and shuffled her toward the front door. She was deadweight. He encouraged her outside, down the porch steps, onto the front lawn. He was sweating, his breath heaving, his legs trembling. He cursed his bad leg. He had to get her to his car, and there was a long way to go and rough muddy terrain to get through. Without warning, rain began again. It fell hard, coming in cool waves. Gina cried out in pain.
“Just a little more,” he told her. “Hang on.”
He was almost to the gate when behind him, he heard the word “Stop!”
Drake glanced over his shoulder and saw Dennison seemingly coming out of nowhere. He ran toward them.
“She’s sick,” Drake shouted above the rain. “We need to get her to a doctor.” Weak with relief, Drake held up at the gate. Dennison would help them.
Dennison reached out, pulled Gina from Drake’s arms, shifted her weight toward himself. “Go!” Dennison said. Rain poured down his face in rivulets.
“We just have to get her to my car!”
“She’s not going anywhere. She’s staying here with me.”
“No!” Drake lurched toward the man. “Don’t you get it? She’s sick! We have to find a doctor.”
“Get out!” Dennison lifted a limp rain-drenched Gina and carried her back toward the house.
Stunned, Drake started after him, but his bad leg slid in the mud and he fell to his knees.
Dennison turned, yelled, “Leave. I’ll handle it. She’s my child.”
Drake reached for the gate behind him, hauled himself upright. “She’s got to have a doctor!” he cried. “Let me help her.”
Dennison shuffled backward. “Go,” he commanded once more. He paused. “Listen, there’s a large rock on the back corner of the property. Look for it later,” he added enigmatically.
Drake watched helplessly as Dennison carried Gina through the pouring rain, up the porch steps and into the house.
9
Drake flung open the front door, shouted, “Mom! I need your help!” The rain had stopped by the time he’d come off the mountain and headed across town. He was soaking wet and shivering uncontrollably.
His mother ran from the kitchen. “What’s wrong? Honey, what’s the matter?”
“Gina’s sick and I can’t get her father to take her to a doctor.”
Connie stopped short. “Drake, I’m sorry—”
He butted in with, “I’m sorry about being gone for two days. I—I couldn’t get off Sandstone because of the rain.”
She stared at him. “What are you talking about? You’ve only been gone a few hours. I’m in the middle of fixing supper for us.”
His mind reeled. “No … I’ve been with Gina for two days.”
“Stop it. You’re scaring me. You left here right after school. Now it’s almost six.”
He braced his hand on a wall, suddenly light-headed.
Connie rushed closer. “You’re soaked to the bone.”
“Dennison took Gina away from me. I wanted to bring her here … to a doctor.”
“He’s her father. He’ll take her to a doctor himself.”
“No … I couldn’t help her. My leg …” Drake felt as if he were swimming through fog.
Connie reached up and touched his forehead. “Good Lord! You’re burning up!”
“You don’t get it. It’s Gina. She’s really sick.” His words felt thick in his sore throat. His head hurt. He went woozy and his legs buckled.
Connie caught his arm, grabbed her car keys from the catchall table in the foyer. “Get in my car,” she commanded. “We’re going to the ER. And I mean right now.”
“But Gina—”
“You’re the one who’s sick.”
Drake was hardly aware of the ride to the ER. He shivered violently the whole way, and once there, seemed to be immediately taken into the triage area. A nurse covered him with warmed blankets, took his temperature and blood pressure. He heard the nurse tell his mother, “I’ll get the doctor.”
Other hands probed him, felt his limbs; something scraped the back of his throat. “Gina …,” Drake whispered. “Help her.”
A man’s voice said, “ … need to check him in.”
Drake said, “No.”
The man’s voice said, “Get him up to ICU isolation.”
Connie asked, “What’s wrong?”
“We’ll run some tests, but whatever it is, he’s a very sick boy.”
Drake tried to move but couldn’t. As the gurney beneath him began to roll, he fell into blackness.
Dreams fought with reality in Drake’s mind. He felt needle pricks and saw people wearing masks bending over him. He drifted into his workroom on Sandstone Mountain, saw Gina sitting beside the sunny window, creating rows of purple flowers on squares of linen. She would look up and smile; then her image quivered like heat waves on a distant road as Drake reached for her, and she melted away. He felt a mask fitted over his nose and mouth, heard a machine beeping next to a bed—his bed? He wasn’t sure. He saw Dennison through a veil of rain, and when Drake tried to force his way through it, his feet became cemented to the ground and he couldn’t move. He saw his mother’s eyes peering at him, her hair covered with a head scarf, her mouth and chin swathed in a green mask. He felt hot and cold, and his body ached as if a truck had run him over.