Chapter Sixteen

CASEY SAID, "STAND OVER THERE, RIGHT BY THAT WILLOW tree. I want to get you against the sky."

Paul glanced over his shoulder to make sure he didn't back up into the pond and shuffled in reverse. "Here?"

Casey squinted through the eyepiece of her camera as hair blew across her cheeks. She saw a tiny Paul and a tiny tree. "A little to your right. No, left."

"Make up your mind."

"Left."

She saw the tiny Paul take two dainty steps to his left, which brought him right into the willow branches. She laughed and at the same time shivered from the icy wind that plowed across the duck pond. "Sorry. Three steps to the right."

He dutifully stepped to the right.

"Two more," she said.

He took two more steps. She laughed again. He was deliberately taking faggy steps and making faces. "Okay. That's pretty good." Now she could see the luminous sky behind him, rich blue lit with golden fall sun. The whole scene looked like one of those oil paintings where everything was drenched in sunlight.

"Smile," she said. He made a goofy face, with his tongue curled to the side and his eyes crossed. "Come on." He replaced the grotesque expression with a natural smile. She pressed the shutter.

"Now you take me," she said. Her Westfield jacket billowed in the wind, and her ears burned from the cold air. Her eyes drank in the ice-blue pond, surrounded by trees that were pale amber, rose flush, and brown. The ducks still glided on the water, but the fall wind riffled their brown feathers and they looked cold. The grass beneath her sneakers was pale yellow and brittle.

Paul trudged back up the bank to where she stood. She smiled brightly at him. He wore a long, flowing tweed coat with big leather buttons, and he'd cut his hair in a semi-punk style. He took the camera. "How many pictures do you have left?"

"I think three," she said.

"Good."

"Oh, come on," she said, grabbing onto one coat lapel. "I want to have some memories of this place."

"Why? Is it going to burn down?"

"Just do it."

She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cold lips. He returned the kiss and she shut her eyes and drifted for a moment. Then she released his lapel and said, "Take me by the pond, too, but get the ducks in the picture."

She ran down the bank and looked for the ducks. She knelt on one dungareed knee; the ground felt wet. The wind was at her back and she could hear it ripple her jacket. She kept pushing hair out of her eyes and smiling up at Paul, who peered into the viewfinder. His coattails furled behind him like condor's wings.

"A little to your left," he called to her.

She kind of waddled to her left, not wanting to ruin her pose. She could hear the ducks honking behind her, and the rush of the water. In the distance, she could hear cars.

"Okay," Paul said. "Raise your head a little." She lifted her chin. "Now take off all your clothes and look excited."

"Paul!" she cried.

"All right, all right, I got carried away. Just stay there. Don't move. I have to wait for the ducks. Come on, ducks. No, no, the other way."

She tried not to giggle, but it wasn't easy. Finally, he said, "Say pizza."

"Pizza."

"Got it." He looked up from the camera. "I got the ducks, but I cut you out."

"Very funny," she said. She stood up and looked around. The tip of her nose felt as cold as a puppy's snout. "I want to get a picture of the two of us."

"Who's going to take it, the ducks?" He ambled down to meet her.

"No, I can set the camera for time release. How about down by that rock?"

"This is stupid," he said.

"Come on. This is our special place."

"Okay, don't go hysterical. We can have a whole album of it."

She smiled at him. "I like that idea." She went to him and hugged him, slipping her hands beneath his coat and over his ribs. She pulled him tightly against her and felt the fabric of his coat scrape her windburned face.

He forced his own hands under the elastic waistband of her school jacket and rubbed her lower back. She felt a nameless sadness possess her body. She couldn't identify it, but she didn't like it.

"I'm freezing," he said. "We'd better go."

"Just a few more minutes," she said. "It's so hard to be alone with you."

"I know." He kissed her a few times and she nuzzled his neck. "Your mom and dad really clamped down."

"Well, my stupid coach had to try to save me," she said. "I'm so pissed off at him. I know he means well, but now I'm punished for three months. No Senior Banquet, no driving privileges, no going out on weekends. I have to see the stupid psychologist twice a week, and get this, I have to go to the doctor once a month to get examined."

"For what?" he asked.

"For bruises," she said. "I can't stand it. It's like I'm a master criminal. I feel so degraded."

He was quiet for a moment. He slid his hands from under her jacket and held her head, tenderly. His eyes looked sad. "It's my fault."

She sighed. "It isn't anybody's fault. Why am I getting punished for getting beaten up? It's my problem, anyway, and if I want to keep seeing you, that's my choice."

He smiled bitterly. "Forget it. You don't get choices like that."

"Tell me about it." She backed out of the embrace and took the camera from him, swinging it by its strap. "Let's go by the rock."

"Okay."

She walked down the embankment to a huge, smooth boulder that tipped precariously toward the pond. The sun gleamed from its brown surface. "If we sit on the rock, where would I put the camera?"

"In the tree?"

"Be serious." She looked around, piqued by the challenge. "We could put the camera on the rock and stand there by that tree, the one with the red leaves."

"It's a nice tree."

She looked at him. "You're humoring me, right?"

He nodded.

"You used to be romantic, Paul. What happened?"

"I'm romantic," he said. "By a warm fire."

"Two minutes." She scouted the tree, considering the angles. "Anyway, you're the one who suggested we come here."

"And I'm the one suggesting we go back."

She laughed. Then she felt the sadness again. "There's nowhere to go back to. I'm forbidden to see you. Mom swears she'll lock me up somewhere if I do."

"She can't."

"Don't bet on it."

He sat down on the boulder, and the way his coat spread made it look like he was a stork hatching an egg. "You're doing it again, Case. Giving them all the power."

He made her feel guilty. "I know, I know. But I'm scared to fight them. It would tear Daddy apart."

"Since when is Daddy worth your tears?"

"Don't be mean, Paul. He's as miserable as I am. I can see it more and more. He just works all the time and does whatever Mom tells him to do. He doesn't love her, but he's afraid to walk out."

"It all sucks, Casey. I told you that."

She stood in front of the tree, hearing its leaves swish. "Well, now I know why you feel that way. Boy, I see you so differently."

He seemed to stiffen, and his face, drained white by the cold, reddened at the cheeks. "I don't want to talk about my family."

"I know," she said hastily. "But just knowing about it—Paul, it explains everything, don't you see that?"

"I don't see anything."

She went to him and knelt in front of the rock, setting the camera on the grass in front of her knees. "I've been reading about it, Paul. Please, don't get uptight. I love you."

"Sometimes you make it tough to believe."

She felt her eyes burn. "I know. But it's just that I'm confused, too. Or I was. I couldn't figure out why you went crazy sometimes. But now I know."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Sure. It's because of the way you grew up, and what you saw, and what you went through."

"Bull."

"It is not bull. It's true. Your dad is sick, Paul. An alcoholic is sick, and so is a person who hits people. You have to read this stuff. It's a physical sickness, and it might even be some chemical imbalance in the brain, something they can fix some day. But it gets passed on. That's why you hit me."

He looked down at her with a puzzling, half-angry expression. "So what's the point?"

She breathed back her frustration. "Okay, I won't push it. But I'm really glad I went to see your folks. I know you're not glad. I know you're embarrassed and mad at me, but I don't care. I know you now. I really, really know you, and it makes me feel so close to you."

He looked to the side and narrowed his eyes. "I still don't know what that means."

"In what way?"

He looked back at her, a little fiercely this time. "Does it mean you pity me?"

"No," she said emphatically. "Please don't think that."

"Does it mean I'm a project for you?"

She felt her chest tighten. She seized both of his rough, icy hands in hers. "Stop it, Paul. You're not a dummy. You like to act like one, but you're smarter than I am. You know what I mean."

"I want to hear it," he said.

"Hear what?"

"That you're my lady."

His words, and his tone of voice, recalled savage memories that sent shivers through her. "You know I am."

"What about the dance?"

"I was pissed at you, Paul. You made me look like a fool."

"You made me look like a fool."

"Okay, so we're even. I don't want to fight about it again."

"You told your mommy and daddy I was beating on you."

"I didn't tell them. They figured it out." Why was this going downhill? She was scared, and baffled.

"Well, word's gotten around, Casey. I got laid off at the mall."

"Oh, no."

"Yeah. No explanation. My foreman said the management was cutting back."

"Paul, I can't believe Mr. Young or Mr. Burton would spread that around. Not even my mom and dad."

"No, it was probably your zit-faced little girlfriends, the ones who were screaming for you not to go with me. Made me feel like real dirt."

Casey stood up and let go of his hands. She turned around and folded her arms tightly across her chest. The sun burnished the trees so that each individual leaf stood .out like hammered gold. "I don't know what my friends did. They're not my friends anymore, anyway. You ought to be willing to take some responsibility if you got into a mess."

Her back shuddered, waiting for his attack. After a long time, he said, "Casey, I'm falling through space, you know? I've got nothing to hang on to."

She turned and looked hard at him. He seemed to be shaking. "All you have to do is reach out, Paul."

"But I have to know I can count on you."

"You can. I keep telling you that."

He was lit up by the sun. "I mean all the time. I have to know you're there for me, only me, not Mom, not Dad, not anybody, just me."

"I will be," she said, and some small piece of her said that these promises were stupid. But she sensed that she could stop him from hitting her, that she could keep him the way she wanted him, just by saying what he wanted to hear, and she was willing to say it again and again and agam.

"I have to know you won't cheat on me. You have to listen to me, Casey. You have to run to me. I have nothing else to hang on to."

"I'll be yours, Paul," she said. "Just trust me a little."

He stood up. "I'll trust you when you prove that I can trust you. I need total commitment."

She nodded. "I promise."

He observed her carefully, as if deciding. He shoved a purplish hand into his coat pocket and came out with a small, wrapped package. "Come here."

She stepped to him, feeling breathless and very cold. She felt as if she was out in an alien field, being enslaved, and nobody knew it. She felt as if she was going to be taken away in a ship and Mom and Dad and Faye and Mr. Young and everybody else would never know where she went.

He grasped her wrist and pressed the package into her palm. He curled her fingers up over it. "Open it up, Casey."

He was so serious now, like a solemn altar boy. Casey's hands shook as she tore the striped wrapping from the box. She knew it was a piece of jewelry. She still had his gold necklace and charm hidden in her room. Paddington had been put out front with the garbage after the Guidance Office conference. She'd cried like crazy over that, and didn't know how to tell Paul.

The wrapping was off. Casey could barely move her stiff fingers as she opened the blue velvet box. She felt her heart stop as she saw the small ring with its tiny diamond chip.

"What is this, Paul?"

"I want to marry you," he said. "Right after you graduate. Even if we have to drive down to Maryland and do it ourselves."

Her blood thundered in her temples. "I won't be eighteen yet .... "

"So we'll do it when you're eighteen. But meanwhile we'll live together. We'll get an apartment."

His words were like garbled shouts in her ears. "I don't know ... I have to think .... "

"That's what I figured," he said bitterly.

"No." She looked hard at him. "I don't mean I have to think about marrying you. But about the rest. It's a lot to digest right away."

"Tell me when you're ready," he said.

She clenched her jaws and clutched the ring box in her hand. She envisioned her parents screaming. She imagined her Grandma Lena under sedation and her aunts and uncles scolding her. She saw the college applications on her desk, the neat, ordered life that she and her friends were planning, being thrown in the garbage can at the side of the house. She imagined driving with Paul down dark, new roads, afraid and alone and cold.

"Can't I have a day to think?" she asked.

"About what? You're my lady or you're not. What do you want? You want to go back to your buddies and go to the Prom? You want to be a kid, Casey? I can't commit myself to a kid. Get lost if you can't decide. I'll go home and remember all your promises."

"Don't lay a guilt trip on me," she said angrily. "That isn't fair. I've given everything to you."

"What have you given only to me, Casey? And to nobody else? Man, you saw my life. I'm not going to stand in line for any girl's attention."

She shuddered. The sky was darkening to a copper shade, and she had to be home soon. He was right. Why was she backing out? She'd promised him that she'd be there, that she'd help him. And he was putting it all on the line. He was offering his life, too. This was her chance, probably her only chance to change direction. Always, she'd been too scared to take risks. Always, she'd given in, surrendered, been a punching bag. Now Paul had offered her a new future. All she had to do was take it. She'd never be alone again. Oh, man, that sounded good.

She nodded jerkily and used her numbed fingers to tweeze the ring out of the box. "Put it on," she said.

He smiled thinly at her, took the ring, and supported her outstretched hand. "Be there for me, Casey," he said, and worked the icy ring over her finger.

The metal of the ring seemed to burn its circle into her skin. She held up her hand and looked at her engaged finger against the brilliant sky. Rays of sun touched the tiny chip. Warmth filled her, and a sudden rush of optimism.

"Paul, I'm so happy," she said, and held him with savage tightness. He hugged her just as hard and she kissed him with long, desperate kisses. She whispered in his ear, "I want to be with you tonight."

"What about Mom and Dad?" he asked huskily.

"I don't care. I'll make up something. I love you."

He made a gratified sound deep in his throat. She clung to him as long as she could, until her arms burned with the effort. Her head ached throbbingly.

He said, "Still want to take the picture?"

She nodded, brushing at her eyes with the back of her hand. "I want a million pictures. We'll have our first album, and we can look at it years from now, sitting in front of the fire, with our kids asleep upstairs."

"That'll be nice," he said.

"It's going to be beautiful. I love you, Paul."

"I believe you."

She scooped up the camera, annoyed that the strange sadness had not left. Her heart ached as if he'd told her good-bye forever, and at the same time her blood sang with promise. Well, of course it wasn't going to be easy, but love was worth it.

"Come over by the tree," she ordered.

He strutted to the fire-red tree and stood in front of it. Casey set the camera's timed release with fumbling fingers and carefully positioned the camera on the boulder. She squinted through the viewfinder to frame Paul's midsection. "Kneel down," she said. He knelt and his head came into view. "Okay. Stay right there." She pressed down the lever and sprinted over to Paul. She knelt down next to him and threw her arms around him.

"Smile," she said.

"I feel stupid."

"Just smile." The camera whirred and then clicked. She whooped and punched a victorious fist in the air. "Geronimo! We did it."

"Screw the camera," he growled. "I want my woman." He twisted and threw her down on her back. She linked her hands around his neck and pulled his head to hers, shutting her eyes tightly. I love you, she said to him silently. It was as much a prayer as a declaration.