SHE DID NOT DREAM of Madrigals.
She dreamed of Jethro.
When she awoke much earlier than usual it was quickly and cleanly, with none of the usual muddleheaded confusion of morning. She arose swiftly and dressed without worry.
That in itself amazed Nicoletta. Choosing clothing normally took her half an hour the night before, and then in the morning half an hour to decide that last night’s choice would not do, and yet another half hour to find clothing that would fit the day after all. It was amazing how an outfit that had been absolutely the right choice for last Thursday was never the right choice for the following Thursday.
She did not brush her hair; Nicoletta’s permed curls were too tight for a brush to manage. She ran her fingers through it, fluffing and smoothing at the same time. She put on a simple black turtleneck, a plain silver necklace, and narrow dangling silver earrings. She wore a skirt she rarely touched: It had two layers, a tight black sheath covered by a swirl of filmy black gauze. The skirt was dressy, but the plain turtleneck brought it down to school level.
She did not look romantic. She looked as if she were in mourning. For Madrigals? Or for the boy she would not meet for lunch after all?
Jethro.
Her school bus did not pass the strange little country lane she had never before noticed. When she got off the bus, she looked for him, but she had never seen him wandering around the school before, and she did not see him now. In the halls, her eyes scanned the taller people, searching for him, both aching and scared that she would actually spot him.
First-period history, she covered a page in her notebook with the name Jethro. It looked historical. Where did it come from? It sounded Biblical. Who was Jethro and what had he done? She wrote it in script, in plain print, in decorated print, in open block letters. She wrote it backhand and she wrote it billboard style, enclosed in frames.
Second-period English, the other person in her life with an O name sat beside her. Christo.” Hi, Nick,” he said cheerfully.
She had always admired Christopher’s endless cheer. It seemed an admirable way to face life: ever up, ever smiling, ever optimistic and happy.
Now it seemed shallow. Annoying.
Am I comparing him to Jethro or am I angry with him for still being in Madrigals, for making peace in a single day with the fact that I have been replaced? “Hi, Christo,” she said. He had not even noticed how she skipped a beat before answering him.
The teacher had visited England last year and, sad to say, taken along his camera and several million rolls of film. Today he had yet more slides of where famous English authors had lived and gone to college and gardened. It was the gardening that most amazed Nicoletta. Who could possibly care what flowers bloomed in the gardens that no longer belonged to the famous—and now dead—authors? In fact, who could possibly have cared back when the famous authors were alive?
Nicoletta sat quietly while the teacher bustled—fixing his slides, flipping switches, lowering screens, focusing.
Christo murmured in her ear. “Nicoletta?”
His use of her whole name startled her. She turned to look at him, but his face was so close to her they touched cheeks instead.
“There’s a dance Friday,” whispered Christo. “I know it’s late to be asking, but would you go with me?”
Nicoletta was stunned. Christo? Who showed affection to everybody equally? Christo, who never appeared to notice whether he was patting the shoulder of Nicoletta or Rachel or Cathy, or—now—Anne-Louise? Christo, for whom girls seemed to be just one generic collection of the opposite sex?
Christo. Who was certainly the best-looking and most-yearned-for boy in school.
She absolutely knew for a fact that Christo had never had a date.
One of the things Madrigals spared you was dating. You had your crowd; you had your portable group. You had people with whom to laugh and share pizza. Rarely did any of them pair up, either within or without the group.
On the big white screen at the front of the class, appeared a dazzling slide from inside a cathedral. Great gray stones held up a gleaming and terrifying stained glass window. The glass people were in primary colors: scarlet arms, blue gowns, golden heads. If Jethro were hers, she, too, would be as vivid as that: Together they would blind the eye.
If I go to a dance with Christo, how can Jethro ask me out? Nicoletta thought. I want to be with Jethro.
Christo’s hand covered hers. She dropped her eyes, and then her whole head, staring down at his hand. His hand was afraid. She could feel uncertainty in the way he touched her. Christo, who touched everybody without ever thinking of it, or knowing he was doing it, was fearful of touch.
The slide changed and a gargoyle appeared on the screen. Carved stone. An unknowable man-creature stared out from oak leaves that were both his hair and his beard, which grew into him and, at the same time, grew out of him. It’s Jethro, thought Nicoletta.
“That sounds wonderful,” she murmured, mostly to Christo’s hand. “I’d love to go. What dance is it?”
“Fund-raiser,” said Christo. “It’ll be at Top o’ the Town.”
A famous restaurant where in years past her father had taken her mother for special occasions, like Valentine’s Day or their anniversary. Nicoletta had never been there. It was not a place that people wasted on children.
I’m not a child, thought Nicoletta. I’m a young woman, and Christo knows it. Christo wants me. He doesn’t want any of the others. Not Rachel or Cathy. And not this Anne-Louise. But me.
She looked nervously at Christo in the half-dark of the classroom. He was truly nervous. His easy smile puckered in and out. He had needed the dark to do this; he had chosen a place where they could not possibly continue the conversation or else people would hear, and because lights would come on in a moment, and the teacher would begin his lecture.
She was amazed at the discovery that Christo was afraid of anything at all, let alone her.
But when she looked at him, she still saw Jethro.
Who is Jethro? thought Nicoletta, that he has consumed me. Who am I, that I am letting it happen? Mother is right; daydreaming and fantasy are silly and only lead to silly choices. I’ll stop right now.
Then came chemistry.
Then came French.
Then came lunch.
And Jethro was there.
He had come. He was waiting. He did mean to meet her.
She saw him from far across the room. Her whole body shivered, and she did not understand him the way she had to her surprise understood Christo. She could not imagine who that person Jethro was. He was as hidden to her as the gargoyle in its mask and crown of oak leaves.
She could not smile. There was something frightening about this boy who also did not smile, but who stared at her in his dark and closed way. She walked toward him, and he moved toward her, exactly as they had in the lane, surrounded by thorns and vines and boulders that spoke.
They were only a table’s distance apart when Christo caught Nicoletta’s arm.
Nicoletta could not have been more astonished if an army had stopped her. She had thought her coming together with Jethro was inevitable, was destined, was a part of the history of the world before it had even happened. And yet Christo, who touched anything and whose touch meant nothing, had stopped it from happening.
“I’m over here, Nickie,” Christo said eagerly. “You didn’t see me.”
She looked up at Christo.
She looked back at Jethro.
Jethro had already turned. There was no face at all, let alone the smile she wanted. There was only a back. A man’s broad back, unbent, uncaring. Departing.
Jethro! her heart cried after him.
But this time she did not follow him. She sat with Christo, and within moments everybody that Christo and Nicoletta knew had learned that Christo had arranged his first date ever. With Nicoletta.
The attention was better even than Madrigals. Better even than solos or applause.
And she didn’t want it.
She wanted Jethro.