Chalk

21

Edward showed up two days later, asking me on a date from the front doorstep with a limp flower in his hand. It drooped against his knuckles and I leaned against the doorway in my bathrobe, propping up my sore leg. The bruises were only getting worse at this point, a splotchy blot of color across my pale skin. Edward looked no worse for wear, although his evidence was all covered up. He was in more of those cut off dress pants in a grayish-blue color, hanging precariously off his hips, and a light cotton dress shirt so thin it was practically see through.

“I know it’s a little impromptu,” he grinned at me.

“A little?” I fingered the wilted flower, picking the bud up between my fingers. It was a poppy, paperie and burning red, the petals bruising at the slightest touch. I wondered if it was metaphorical, or a joke.

He ushered me inside and ordered me to get dressed, fixing breakfast and packing me up in record time. I tugged on an airy dress, grabbed my sandals and found a floppy hat just before he had his hand on the small of my back and was pushing me out the door to the car. This wasn’t the vehicle I was used to being driven around in, lounging on the crash pads in the airy back of an old Land Rover while the boys talked over the wind up front. This car was the one I’d seen him with the first time, a low sleek silver object with dark leather interiors and squashy seats.

He took us into the mountains, climbing a tall pass before turning off on a tiny paved road, twisting through the trees and around craggy spots of rock. It was sort of like a video game from inside the car, the road a novelty and the vehicle a toy. Edward seemed to be enjoying himself, the engine snarling under his foot and his hand forever palming the gear shift.

“How many miles to the gallon does this thing get?” I hollered over the wind and the engine and saw the corner of his mouth pick up.

“Eight.”

“Eight!” I screeched, trying to control my wind-blown hair. “That’s worse than my truck!”

“It’s worse than most vehicles,” he snorted and shifted gears with a loud ripping noise around a sharp curve.

“Yeah, but my truck has at least fifty years on this car. You would have thought they’d have gotten more efficient by now.”

“Honey, this car isn’t built for efficiency.” He glanced over at me, his eyes like emeralds and his hair standing off his forehead. I had to dig my fingers into my thighs to keep myself from staring aimlessly back at him, his newest moniker striking me dumb and stumbling.

“What’s it built for then?” I coughed.

“Speed.”

---

We came to a dusted, cloudy halt at the end of the road, the car skidding across the gravel when Edward stomped his foot down on the brakes. He wasn’t lying about the speed factor, having raced that little car up into the clouds in record time. We were high up in the mountains, the earth flopped out before us, far away craggy cliffs signaling our normal outdoor destination. It was strange to say, but I sort of missed climbing, the three long weeks since I hurt my hand seeming endless and bland.

“This is beautiful,” I sighed as I stepped out of the car.

“It gets better.” Edward appeared beside me and pointed to a towering platform high above our heads, standing tall on four enormous legs crosshatched with support beams. The wood was peeling and dusty and the platform loomed above us, casting a dark shadow on the ground. I hadn’t even noticed it until Edward pointed it out, too awestruck by the vista before us to notice what was going on above my head. We stood at the bottom, both of us craned at the neck to look up.

“What is it?”

“A fire tower. You can see for miles.”

“Understatement,” I laughed and tested the metal ladder that stretched up to a distant hole in the platform at least fifty feet above my head. While I was getting better at stomaching my nausea when I got to the top of a rock, this was higher than I’d ever climbed before and it had me a little dizzy already.

“You first,” Edward smirked at me, motioning to the ladder I was gripping for dear life.

“No way,” I shook my head. “You have to go up first.”

“We’ve had this conversation. You can’t spot me, I’d at least like to spot you.”

“You’re going to look up my dress.” I clutched the wispy hem brushing my thighs, suddenly very aware that I’d put on a pair of underwear this morning that were almost as good as see through, lacy and meshed in all the wrong places for this.

Edward chuckled. “Well, I can’t say that I won’t. But I’ll try not to, if that’s what you want.”

I scampered up the ladder in record time, fully aware of his eyes glued to my ass in its not-so-decent covering, my heart hammering its way clear up into my throat before I reached the hole. I flopped onto the wood, breathing heavily and waited for him, a shadow across my face alerting me to his arrival.

“Nicely done.” He offered me a hand and pulled me to my feet.

There was a tiny room on top of the platform, barely bigger than my living room with glass windows and a little slanted roof. A peek through the glass showed a small studio apartment, a miniscule kitchen and a hodgepodge of mismatched furniture. There was a little bed shoved up under one window and an afghan that looked exactly like the one my grandmother had thrown over the back of her couch draped across the foot of the mattress.

I wanted to move in immediately.

We sat on the platform with our legs dangling over the side, the support railing pressed to our chests and watched the shadows cast from clouds crawl their way laboriously along the ground. They bathed spots of earth in shaded darkness before moving on, pulling themselves along like giant whales. Edward was examining his fingers intently, brushing his thumb across the worn-down prints with a pained look on his face. When he noticed me watching him rather than the scenery, he shrugged at me.

“I have to play tonight. I have the feeling it’s going to be difficult.”

“Play what?”

“The piano.”

“Really?” That surprised me, I had to admit. Rough rock and smooth piano ivories seemed like two opposite ends of the spectrum. “What do you play?”

“Concert, mostly. But I give lessons at an after school program most of the year, too.”

“With these fingers?” I touched my hand to his but instead of letting me rub the pads of his fingers, he gripped my hand tightly in his. The sandpapery feel of his peeling calluses passed steadily across the back of my hand.

“Yeah. Although I won’t say that I haven’t finished a performance and wanted nothing more than to cut them all off. The demanding pieces can get . . . painful.” Edward opened his mouth as though he had more to say, but it took him a full minute to speak again, gripping my hand tight enough to make it ache. “That’s sort of what this was all about, really. I was hoping you’d come listen tonight.”

“It wasn’t all about standing at the bottom of the ladder and watching me climb up it, huh?” I teased and even though his neck reddened, he broke out in a sly smirk that did nothing for his innocence.

“I’m not gonna lie. Those thirty-seconds would have made the entire day worth it.”

Next