Not really. All the handsome charisma in the world couldn’t make the pain in my leg go away. I wanted a bath, a bed and a book. But Shawn stepped back from the doorway with a gesture of welcome – despite the fact that it wasn’t his house, I noted – and I had no graceful way to decline. I tightened my grip on Gigi’s shoulder strap, and entered the cosy den.
There were six or seven young people my age, lounging on couches and on the floor, surrounded by textbooks and cans of soda. The scene was set for a marathon study session, but it was a little too affected, a little too staged. They were carefully not staring as I crossed the threshold, but I felt spotlit by their curiosity nevertheless.
‘Everyone,’ said Shawn, ‘this is Sylvie. Sylvie, this is everyone.’ Only he didn’t actually say ‘everyone’. He rattled off a list of names that ran through my brain but didn’t stick.
‘Hi,’ I said, trying to be nice. The coffee table was piled with pizza boxes and greasy paper plates, and my stomach growled. Maybe Paula would think it was Gigi.
But she was too focused on the pile of boxes to notice. ‘Who said y’all could order pizza?’
A tall, slim girl, probably about my age, sat in an upholstered chair, her legs thrown over one of the arms. Her skin was creamy brown and her face could have been on any magazine – large, tilted eyes; high cheekbones; lips that women in my mother’s circle paid a fortune for.
Her expression, however, bordered on aggressively petulant. ‘Don’t blow a gasket, Paula. The guys were famished, so Mom said it was OK. She’s got sandwiches and stuff in the kitchen for y’all.’
I tried to process that. ‘Mom’ must be Clara, the business partner in the B&B endeavour. And if that was true, then this must be Addie, whom Paula had mentioned in the car.
‘Or,’ said Shawn, ‘Sylvie could eat in here with us. There’s still plenty left.’
‘That’s a fine, hospitable introduction.’ Paula set her hands on her hips. ‘Cold pizza on the floor of the den.’
‘We’ll give her a seat on the couch, Miss Paula.’ Shawn cajoled her with easy humour, and I could see her sense of propriety unbending under the influence of his smile. ‘Don’t you worry.’
Gigi had nosed her head out of the bag, audibly sniffing the pizza-scented air. ‘Oh my gosh!’ A redhaired girl jumped up with a squeal and hurried towards us, climbing over two classmates and their books. ‘What an adorable doggie!’
The squeal made my eye twitch, but Gigi accepted the attention as her due. Without asking, Red started petting her, and in a moment another girl had joined us, creating a logjam in the doorway.
‘What’s her name? Is she a Chihuahua? I’ve never seen one with fluffy hair like that. Look at her riding in your purse, just like a little movie star.’
‘I don’t think a movie star would be caught dead riding in a bag from Petco.’
She missed my sarcasm – too busy petting Gigi – but it got a laugh from Shawn.
An older woman appeared in a second doorway, drying her hands on a dish towel. She was dark-skinned and tall, and the bone structure of her face showed through the padding of middle age – she was definitely related to Armchair Girl. Addie, rather. These people seriously needed name tags.
‘I thought all that commotion might signal the Union’s arrival,’ said the new woman.
That joke was going to get really old, really fast. I didn’t say anything, though, because the woman had friendly eyes to go with her matronly figure. ‘Welcome to Bluestone Hill, Sylvie. I’m Clara.’
‘Nice to meet you,’ I answered automatically, my brain slow with fatigue and information overload.
‘I’ll fix you a sandwich, or we can reheat some pizza.’ She smiled kindly. ‘Either way, there’s cobbler and ice cream for dessert.’
‘Oh my gawd,’ said one of Gigi’s worshippers. ‘Clara makes the best cobbler anywhere.’
‘All right then,’ said Cousin Paula as she turned to me, ignoring the two girls still fussing over Gigi. ‘You sit in here and get to know everyone for a bit. And for heaven’s sake, kids, I hope you’re all using napkins and not my rug to wipe your fingers.’
‘Gawd, Paula.’ Addie rolled her eyes so hard that her whole head moved. ‘None of us was raised in a pigsty.’
‘Fine,’ Paula answered tartly, fists on her hips again. ‘But you’re running the sweeper in here tomorrow after school. Now, y’all be nice to Sylvie and make sure she gets something to drink.’
My cousin headed for the inside door. Clara gave me an encouraging smile and followed her out – missing Addie’s second eye roll. Left behind, I stood between the sitting area and the door, with Gigi still hanging from my shoulder, along with her admirers.
‘Can we take her out?’ Red asked.
Setting the bag on the floor, I crouched and unzipped it all the way. ‘Don’t feed her any pizza, OK?’
‘Paula won’t like it,’ said Addie, from the throne of her armchair. ‘She’s an absolute freak about her carpets.’
‘It’ll be OK in here, though,’ said Shawn, smiling at me with a hint of conspiracy in his eyes.
I didn’t point out that Addie had to vacuum tomorrow anyway. My keen powers of observation told me she didn’t need another excuse not to like me. For some reason she was already acting like I had peed in her Cheerios.
In any case, worry over the carpet was moot since Gigi never touched it; the girls took her to the couch and sat with her in their laps, cooing and cuddling her. She looked positively smug, with two such attentive acolytes.
I had a bigger problem. When I’d squatted to release her, the muscles in my right leg had cramped up, and I was stuck in a grand plié, with nothing to grab and inconspicuously haul myself up.
A hand appeared in my peripheral vision. For a startled instant, I thought of Rhys, of the many times he’d already offered me assistance. I would take it now, déjà vu or no. But it wasn’t Rhys, of course. He was helpfully stowing my luggage.
It was Shawn. His arm was tanner, more muscular. But equally helpful.
Thinking of Rhys, though, made me hesitate just a moment – for a whole muddle of reasons that didn’t really make sense – before I grabbed Shawn’s hand. When, after the briefest of bracing pauses, I let him pull me to my feet, there was no shock, no feeling of being hit in the funny bone. Just a warmth that was, oddly enough, as charismatic as his smile.
‘Thanks,’ I mumbled, grateful for the help, but grumpy and embarrassed that I’d needed it.
Shawn held on until I was steady, my delicate fingers swallowed up in his strong ones. He was taller than Rhys, and definitely broader. Close up I could see his eyes were an interesting shade of blue – dark, with a tinge of green, like sun on salt water.
There was clearly something wrong with me. First idling on the grass at the rest stop with Rhys, and now this stranger, holding my hand like I was some swooning Southern belle. And worse, my kind of liking it.
‘Glad to help. Here. Have a seat.’ Shawn nudged one of the guys slumped in the smaller sofa, who amiably slid to the floor, yielding his spot. No doubt who was the alpha dog in this pack.
I found myself glancing towards the door, for escape, or maybe for rescue. Rhys should have had time to park my suitcases by now. His response when I’d asked him about the Teen Town Council – ‘You’ll see,’ he’d said, unhelpfully – didn’t suggest a lot of time spent hanging around with them.
‘You want a Coke or something?’ Shawn asked, drawing my attention back to him. I liked him well enough – obviously – but the group was overwhelming all at once. Too many names to remember, and being nice was such an effort. I’d never been a social butterfly before The Accident, at least not outside my ballet friends. But I didn’t want to alienate the locals, or worse, anger Paula and make my stay here any more wretched than it had to be.
Which I suppose was how I found myself sitting where Shawn had directed me and answering his question. ‘Just some water would be great. Thanks.’
With a
huge sigh of imposition, Addie rolled her eyes again as she pushed herself from her chair and huffed over to a minibar in the corner of the room. ‘You’ll have to make do with tap water. We don’t have any Evian.’
Spurred by irritation, I replied in kind. Seriously, what was her deal? ‘As long as it doesn’t come out of the creek, that’s fine.’
So much for being nice. One of the guys snorted, and Addie shot me a death glare over her shoulder.
I took a moment to look around. The room was more casual than the parlour across the hall, and obviously more used. The furniture was traditional, but not authentic. The mantelled fireplace looked original, but there was also a big-screen TV against one wall, and a neat desk in the corner held a large and clunky computer. That, at least, was an antique. I noticed that, along with the books and binders on the coffee table, some of the kids had brought their own laptops.
‘What are you studying?’ I asked, because I had to say something.
‘Everything,’ said one of the boys on the floor. ‘Finals are this week for the seniors, and the week after for juniors.’
Shawn sat beside me, which tilted the cushions of the love seat, so I had to tighten my muscles to keep from falling towards him. See? Off balance. ‘Kim and Josh and I are seniors. Addie, Caitlin and those guys are juniors.’
I halfheartedly attempted to recall the names he’d rattled off. Gigi’s new handmaidens were Caitlin and Kimberly. The other guys were Josh and Aaron and Travis.
‘So, what about you?’ Caitlin asked, without interrupting her petting. ‘Does the school year finish earlier in New York?’
‘I finished last year.’ I shifted, feeling the weight of their attention heavily. Me, who had never had stage fright.
‘How’d you manage that?’ asked Josh. ‘I mean, I thought you were Addie’s age.’
No surprise, I guess, that I’d been a topic of conversation. Paula had hinted as much. So had their avid curiosity from the moment I’d entered.
‘I took my GED so that I could be free to travel with the company. The American Ballet Company,’ I added at their blank looks.
‘Your folks let you do that?’ Kimberly asked. ‘My mom would have a cow.’
‘My mother has always been supportive of my career,’ I said. The irony in this understatement was lost on them, making me feel like even more of a stranger. I could only make inside jokes with myself.
Caitlin confided cheerfully, ‘Addie got a chance to be a model, but she would have had to miss so much school, her mom wouldn’t let her go.’
Addie returned with my glass of water. She held it out to me with two fingers. ‘My mother believes that it’s important I get a real education. With a real diploma.’
The spark of annoyance flared, fanned by her contemptuous tone. I looked her up and down. She wore a cute little T-shirt and shorts that showed off her lush figure and perfect legs. ‘You don’t have to rush,’ I returned, in the same falsely sweet voice. ‘Playboy doesn’t let you model until you’re eighteen.’
Kimberly snorted back a laugh. The boys didn’t bother to hide theirs. The skin on Addie’s sculpted cheekbones darkened in a furious flush, and she shoved the water into my hand before stomping back to her chair. I felt slightly guilty, but only for stooping to her level.
‘So, what was it like, dancing with the ballet company?’ asked Caitlin. She and Kimberly seemed the warmest, thanks to Gigi’s cuteness, I guess. ‘Did you have flowers delivered to your dressing room? Get to travel first class?’
‘It’s not as glamorous as it sounds.’ At the pinnacle of my career – that is, the weeks just before my accident – I’d shared a dank basement dressing room with five other girls. And I only flew first class on Mother’s dime.
Rather than getting into painful – literal and figurative – explanations, I changed the subject. ‘So, this is the Teen Town Council, huh?’
Again, it was Caitlin who explained. ‘We’re all on it, but this isn’t the whole group, since it’s not a regular meeting.’
‘What does the council do?’ I pulled a pizza box towards me and peeked inside. Pepperoni. No way could I do that to myself, no matter how hungry.
‘You know how some towns have teen library boards and student councils and stuff?’ she said. ‘We’re all that, sort of rolled into one.’
‘That’s very efficient.’ The strain of being polite put a bit of a sarcastic edge on my tone, but Shawn answered with good humour.
‘There’s not a big pool to draw from.’ He’d noticed my rejection of the pepperoni, and set a different box within reach. ‘Since the same people were in every student organization anyway, we just consolidated.’
‘Shawn’s the president,’ said Caitlin, unnecessarily. I’d have had to be blind not to notice who called the shots.
The pizza in the new box was cheese. I didn’t especially want it, but grabbed a slice and a napkin to give me something to do with my hands. Across from me, Gigi watched with eager eyes. I’d fed her a quick snack before leaving the rest stop, so her starving puppy-dog face didn’t fool me.
‘Paula said something about your helping out around here,’ I prompted. This was a trick of my mother’s, appearing a brilliant conversationalist by keeping people talking about themselves.
‘We rebuilt the summerhouse out back,’ said Aaron.
‘It’s just a gazebo, really,’ said Shawn. ‘And it’s a win-win situation, since Miss Paula is nice enough to let the TTC meet there when the weather’s nice.’
‘Still,’ I said, genuinely impressed. ‘That’s not a small project.’
Shawn shrugged. ‘That’s what we do. Fund-raisers, odd jobs. We want to support people who want to bring business to the area. Like this inn, when it opens.’
‘So, if the inn isn’t open yet,’ I said, pulling the cheese off my pizza, since the crust wasn’t worth the carbs, ‘how did Rhys and his dad end up staying here?’
There was a funny sort of pause that made me glance up from my slice, catching the look exchanged between Addie and Shawn. Had my innocent question poked a stick under an interesting rock?
It was Addie who answered, in an almost normal tone of voice. ‘Professor Griffith is a friend of the guy in charge of the dig over at Old Cahawba. Dr Young hooked the professor up with Paula, and the Griffiths get to stay here for cheap in exchange for putting up with the construction mess.’
Kimberly leaned forward, telling me in a confidential tone, ‘I can’t believe Addie is so lucky to have such a hot guy in the house. I thought all English people had pasty skin and bad teeth.’
‘I think he’s Welsh,’ I said, but it didn’t seem to matter.
‘Oh, my gawd,’ said Caitlin, in rapturous tones. ‘That accent.’
Addie surprised me with a giggle. ‘I showed him how to surf the satellite channels on the TV, and he said, “Cheers, love.” ’
‘I know!’ Kimberly squealed, squeezing Gigi like a teddy bear. ‘Could you just die?’
‘What is it with y’all?’ Josh was the guy who’d given up his seat to me. He protested from the floor, his mouth full of pizza. ‘What’s so hot about the way a foreign guy talks?’
Kimberly threw a wadded napkin at him. ‘Ask that after you swallow, you pig.’
‘Seriously,’ said Aaron. (I hoped I was getting the names right.) ‘You showed him how to use the TV remote. It’s not like a first date or anything.’
‘It’s not just the way he talks,’ said Addie, scornful again, but at least it wasn’t directed at me. ‘It’s the way he’s a gentleman.’
Aaron unfolded himself from the floor and helped himself to a soda from the minibar. ‘He seems cool enough. But it’s not like he hangs with us. When we’re here at the Hill, we’re usually busy with – you know.’
‘With what?’ I asked, since they might know, but I certainly didn’t. The rest of that sentence could be anything. Like, ‘when we’re not giving each other pedicures, or performing virgin sacrifices.’
‘When
we’re not doing TTC stuff,’ answered Shawn, which didn’t exclude any of those things. But it shut Aaron down. Not secretive, exactly; it just put a period on the sentence. But I sensed – let’s call it a vibe, since that didn’t sound too nuts – that there was a tangled dynamic with this bunch.
Maybe it was just normal girl-boy stuff. I hadn’t missed the tension between Shawn and Addie, and I wondered how much of her resentment had to do with his friendliness towards me. Then there was Caitlin, who sat near Travis, but his eyes never left an oblivious Kimberly, who, when she wasn’t petting Gigi, was playing footsie with Aaron.
I recognized the insular soap-opera drama that happened in a closed group. Between classes and the company, I’d been with the same people eighteen hours a day for the past seven years. People hooked up and broke up, and half the time while they were with someone, they really wished they were with someone else.
‘Anyway,’ said Kimberly, ‘it’s sweet that Rhys is helping his dad with his research.’
Travis groaned. ‘Can we move on to a new subject, please?’
‘Oh my God,’ Kimberly snapped. ‘How many times did we have to listen to you guys talk about Sylvie? Deal with it.’
I blinked, like I’d been hit by a bucket of cold water she’d meant to throw on someone else. ‘Excuse me?’
Shawn cleared his throat and stared at the ceil?ing. Addie rolled her eyes (big surprise). Travis and Aaron exchanged grimaces of chagrin and Caitlin glared at Kimberly, who explained apologetically, ‘When we heard you were coming, we Googled you. We’ve never had anyone famous, or even semifamous, come here.’
‘We weren’t being creepy,’ Aaron assured me, after shooting Kimberly an irritated glare. ‘It’s just, there was this picture, and you were standing on one toe, with your other leg waaay up here.’ He measured a spot by his ear. ‘It was kind of impressive.’
‘Um, thanks,’ I said, vaguely. Dancers didn’t take compliments well. Nothing was ever good enough. And now it never would be, because even the attempt at a moment of dynamic perfection was out of reach.