Porcelain Keys Read online

  Thomas Ashby.

  He jumped out and rushed over with an alarmed expression and an extended hand. “Are you okay?”

  As if I needed another way to humiliate myself in front of him. I stood up without taking his hand and tried to swipe the muddy gravel from my jeans, but my palms were so raw I gave up. “I’m fine.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “You didn’t,” I said flatly. “I just slipped off the wet road.” I picked up my bike and climbed back on.

  “Hold on.” His brows pulled together like he was calculating what to say next. “I . . . I need to talk to you.”

  No—you don’t. I sheltered my face from the rain with my hand. “Can it wait until we’re not being poured on?”

  “It’s dry in my truck. Can I give you a ride?”

  “I like the rain,” I lied. I put my foot on the pedal to leave, but his hand came over mine on the handlebar. It was warm, and his large fingers encased mine like an electric blanket.

  “Wait—just let me—” He sighed, and a cloud of his breath hung in the crisp morning air. “You’re cold. Your lips are trembling.”

  I bit down on my lip to make it stop.

  He raised a hand to shield his face from the rain. “Let me give you a ride.” His face was pleading, and for the first time, I noticed the striking color of his eyes. Brilliant azure, like the wings of the blue jay I’d seen the other morning. Something about them calmed me, and for a split second, every ounce of fear inside me was dispelled. I was cold, and the cab of his Bronco looked inviting. It had to be toasty to keep his hands so warm.

  “What about my bike?”

  He pointed his thumb at the back of his Bronco. “I’ll put it on the rack.”

  I got off my bike and handed it over, then climbed into his Bronco and sat on the brittle, cracked leather seat. The heavy door squeaked loudly as I slammed it shut.

  He climbed in and we got back on the road. The moisture in the cab clung to the windows, and he reached over and flipped on the defrost. When I clutched my wet backpack against my chest and shivered, he switched it to heat. Warm air blew loudly through the broken slats on the vents.

  “So, about the other morning,” he started.

  I held my breath, bracing myself for the dreaded confrontation.

  “I’m sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable,” he said. “I should have just left you alone and gone back to the house.”

  “It’s okay. You didn’t know I was there.”

  “Actually . . .” He pressed his lips together. “I did.”

  “What?” At first I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. But then he gave me a guilty-looking sidelong glance.

  “I came up there earlier and saw you sleeping. I was going to just leave you alone, and I started walking back to the house. But then I started wondering . . . what if I never saw you again?”

  “Would that have been such a bad thing?” I didn’t know whether to feel flattered or more embarrassed.

  “Yeah—I mean, I’d be left wondering for the rest of my life who that mysterious girl in my grandpa’s tree house was.” He glanced at me, his full lips curving into a smile, but his eyes were still troubled. “Anyway, it wasn’t my intention to embarrass you or anything, so I’m sorry if I did. And I want you to know that even though we’re living there now, you’re welcome to use the tree house whenever you want.”

  So this was his indirect way of bringing it up, by letting me know that I still had a refuge. “It’s okay,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m getting too old to hang out in a tree house anyway.” The windshield wipers were on high-speed, but they barely kept up with the raindrops pelting the glass. I gazed into the storm through the blurred window, hoping he would just drop the topic.

  “Well, I’m just saying that—”

  “Really,” I cut him off and turned to him, letting out a little exasperated laugh. “It’s okay.” Desperate to change the subject, I asked, “So, how is it exactly that you know Dutch?”

  It took him a minute to switch gears, but slowly his uneasy frown relaxed into a straight line. “I just returned from living in the Netherlands for a year.”

  “Is your dad in the military?”

  “No. My mom’s an astronomer like my grandpa, and she had a research project there.”

  “Are you going back there after you sell your grandpa’s property?”

  He shook his head. “She’s finished with her research there, for now anyway. So we’ll go back to Pasadena, where we’re originally from. My parents still have a house there.”

  In order to keep him from going back to our first topic, I kept up a steady stream of questions. He seemed eager to tell me about life in the Netherlands, and as I watched him talk, I noticed a thin, inch-long scar above his right eyebrow. I wanted to ask him what it was from, but I didn’t know if it was too personal a question to ask. I tried to imagine how he could have gotten it. Maybe a mountain-biking accident or an elbow to the face during a basketball game.

  “Do you play basketball?” I interrupted.

  He glanced at me with an amused smile. “Why is it that when someone is tall, people always assume they play basketball? Like being tall is the only requirement for the sport? It’s like saying to a short person, ‘You’re short. You must be bound for the Kentucky Derby.’ ”

  “Sorry—I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s okay.” He laughed. “I played some lacrosse in junior high, but I’m not really into sports.”

  We rode in silence the rest of the way, him watching the road, me watching him from the corner of my eye. Apart from his stylish jacket, crisp jeans, and new hiking shoes, there was something strangely organic about him. Maybe it was the cracked skin over his knuckles, or the dirt embedded deep under his fingernails like he’d been working soil with his hands. Or maybe it was the stubble on his sharp-edged jaw and the tired lines under his eyes. I wondered if he’d slept roughly through last night’s thunderstorm like I had.

  He pulled into the school parking lot and we walked into school together. As we parted ways and I watched him disappear into the crowded hall, I realized that I liked Thomas. I wished that I could start over with him, like we’d only just met that morning. I decided that I would. I would forget about our first meeting in the tree house, and in time, maybe he would too.

  ~

  When classes got out for lunch, I went to my locker, debating whether to go to the cafeteria to find Thomas or just retreat to the auditorium to get some piano time in. But as I shut my locker and saw Thomas a few feet away, his tall, lean figure leaning casually against the row of lockers, my decision was made.

  “Hey,” he said with a little smile that made a dimple appear at the side of his mouth. “Can I eat lunch with you today?”

  I nodded with nonchalance, trying not to betray my acute interest in him.

  In the lunchroom, I took a seat at an empty table while he went to join the lunch line. Before I could remove the sandwich from my lunch sack, Trisha and two of her friends swooped in with their lunch trays, tainting the air with coconut and nail polish.

  Trisha’s wide-necked shirt hung off one shoulder, revealing the sparkly purple strap of her dance uniform. Her long golden hair was secured on the opposite shoulder in a loose side ponytail, as if the display of her uniform was intentional. “Is Thomas eating lunch with you?” she asked, bewildered.

  “So it would seem.”

  “Do you mind if we eat with you?”

  I knew she’d stay regardless of my answer, so I asked, “Why aren’t you eating with Dirk?”

  As if on cue, cheering erupted from across the lunchroom, and we turned to see Dirk on a table, doing some shoulder-jerking dance move that resembled a cat coughing up a hair ball.

  “Ugh. Are you kidding me?” Trisha rolled her eyes. “He’s been doing the funky chicken on my nerves.”

  Dirk was a football star with broad shoulders, bleach-blond hair, and a toothy grin every girl in sc
hool found irresistible. But by the way Trisha was eyeing Thomas across the cafeteria, I knew she had found something more irresistible.

  “You know,” I said, feeling oddly protective of Thomas, “I don’t think Thomas is your type.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I mean, I think he has a minimal supply of shoulder pads and tight pants.”

  “He could be in chess club for all I care,” Trisha said, smiling at her friend Christy. “Can you just picture the way his bicep would flex as he moved his queen across the board? Checkmate.” She leaned on Christy and they giggled like twelve-year-olds.

  Thomas came over with his tray, and since Christy and the other girl were sitting next to me, Thomas sat across from me next to Trisha. She dove into conversation with him, not wasting any time staking her claim. She asked question after question, and I noted that she didn’t ask him anything unless it gave her an opportunity to say something about herself. Did he play golf? She did—her pro-golfer dad took her almost every weekend. Did he like sushi? She did—inari was her favorite, and she didn’t mind the way wasabi made her sinuses tingle.

  She said all these things with a glint in her eye and a smile that made her as sparkly as her dance uniform. It seemed her goal wasn’t to get to know Thomas, but to put herself on display like a piece of merchandise on the home shopping network.

  Thomas did a lot of smiling and nodding, but I couldn’t tell if it was because he was being polite or was genuinely interested.

  I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I twisted around to see Dirk standing behind me in his letterman jacket with a tray of food. “Hey, Ariel. Mind if I sit with you?”

  I gave him a withering look. “I’ve worked with you for three months, and you still can’t remember my name?” Dirk’s parents owned Pikes Pancake House, the place where I bussed tables. He held the position of underworked-overpaid host.

  He stared at me blankly for a moment before smacking his forehead. “Aria . . . Ariel . . . You see why I get confused, right?” He wedged himself between Christy and me, and she scooted over to make room.

  Trisha eyed Dirk warily, like he was intruding in her new social bubble. With an exaggerated eye roll, she turned back to Thomas and started talking about fortune cookies.

  “So . . .” Dirk nudged me. “Do you like lemon Skittles?”

  I arched an eyebrow. “Not really. Why?”

  “I don’t either.” He pulled a deflated Skittles package from his jacket pocket. “I have a bunch in here I’m trying to get rid of. Trisha used to like them.” His eyes flitted to Trisha and his shoulders slumped. “But not anymore.” He glanced back at me, and his gaze latched onto my cheek. “What happened to your face?”

  I reached up and ran my fingers over my cheek. It felt like sandpaper where the pine branches had whipped me the other night. “I . . . collided with a tree.”

  He let out a bark of amused laughter, loud enough that students at nearby tables turned their heads to stare. “Well, could’ve been worse. I collided with a goalpost last summer, and, man . . .” He shook his head vigorously as though trying to expel the memory.

  While Dirk told me the story leading up to his run-in with the goalpost, I caught part of Thomas and Trisha’s conversation. She’d asked him if he had a girlfriend. He said he didn’t, then said something about how he didn’t date.

  “Why not?” she asked, biting her glossy lip while waiting for him to answer. I listened closely, curious to know the answer myself.

  “I just don’t,” he said, a fleeting grimace rippling across his expression.

  “Are you going to be a clergyman or something?” Trisha smirked.

  He cleared his throat and smiled the way I did when people asked me how my mom died. “No,” he said simply.

  “Then why not date?” she pressed.

  “It’s not that I’m never going to date. Just not right now.”

  “Why not right now?”

  The lunch bell rang, and Thomas stood with his tray. “See you guys in class.” He gave that small, courteous smile again, then walked away.

  “This makes no sense,” Trisha whined as she gathered up her things. “What hot seventeen-year-old guy isn’t interested in girls?”

  “Maybe he’s just playing hard to get,” Christy suggested.

  “He sounded like he meant it,” I couldn’t help saying as I stood.

  “Well, if anyone can change his mind, it’s me,” Trisha insisted. “I’ve never been one to back down from a challenge.”

  “Or walk away once the challenge is over,” Dirk accused with narrowed eyes.

  Trisha aimed a death-ray glare at him and started spitting out her own accusations.

  I didn’t stay to witness the end of their fight, but from the way Dirk sulked through Mr. Becket’s lecture, his pocket must have still been full of lemon Skittles.

  Thomas gave me a ride home after school, and when he dropped me off, he got out to lift my bike off his rack. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning for school, okay?” he said as he handed over my bike.

  “It’s supposed to be sunny the rest of the week. I should be fine riding my bike.”

  “You live next door. Why don’t you just ride with me from now on?” The earnest way he cinched his brow and pursed his lips in anticipation of my answer was kind of cute. What would it hurt to just ride to school with him?

  I sighed. “Okay.”

  He nodded and climbed back into his Bronco, but before shutting the door he said, “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then. Seven twenty.”

  ~

  The house was quiet and dark as I came in on Friday afternoon after Thomas dropped me off. Dad wasn’t scheduled to work at the fire station, but it was the busiest time of year for his taxidermy business, so he was probably hunkered down in his barn. I opened the kitchen blinds to let some light in, and that’s when I noticed the garage was empty.

  On the table lay a piece of yellow notebook paper with Dad’s handwriting.

  Got called into work. Be back in the morning.

  A sense of respite came over me, a feeling that for a small space of time, I was free to be myself. My fingers tingled with anticipation, and I hurried back to the living room and pulled a pin from my hair. As I was about to pick open the parlor door, there was a tap at the front door. Feeling thwarted, I slid the pin back in my hair and opened the door. Vivian Dobbs, our thirty-something neighbor who had a relentless crush on Dad, stood on the porch holding a golden-tipped meringue pie. She’d moved here a couple years earlier from Mississippi, seeking a drier climate and, from what I’d gained from our brief conversations, a new start in life.

  “Hey, darlin’,” she said with a southern drawl and a brilliant smile that lit up her youthful eyes. “I bet your Daddy ain’t never tried a caramel banana pie.” She handed me the pie.

  “Probably not. But it looks delicious.”

  She craned her neck and looked past me while twirling her long beaded necklace around her finger. “Your daddy home, or is he off savin’ folks today?”

  “He’s working. He’ll be back in the morning.”

  “Darn.” Her disappointment was evident as she tapped her high-heel boot and blew a lock of blonde hair from her face. “Well, I guess I’ll go deliver somethin’ sweet to the new neighbors.” Her face suddenly lit up. “You seen them yet? Now who would’ve thought old Frank had such a good-lookin’ grandson?”

  “Yeah, his name is Thomas. I actually—”

  “I have an idea!” she squealed, grabbing my arm in a death grip. “Why don’t you go get dolled up, and you and I can go over there for a little visit. That way you can have first dibs on him before all the other girls at school move in on him.”

  “It’s too late.” Besides, I thought, first dibs don’t matter when you’ve already ruined the first impression. “The other girls are already moving in on him.”

  “It’s never too late.” Her eyes swept over my clothes, and her expression turned sour. “You know, I have s
ome size-four clothes that I can’t quite squeeze into anymore. I went a little shopping crazy after the divorce, trying to start new and all.” She sighed. “But it was lonely too. And after months of keeping company with Sara Lee and Little Debbie, it’d be easier to squeeze myself through a biscuit cutter than into those new clothes.” She eyed the pie in my hands. “Why don’t you go put that in the kitchen, then come on over and try some on.”

  “I have homework.”

  “It’s Friday.”

  “And chores.”

  “Chores, schmores.” She took the pie from my hands and walked past me into the kitchen to set it on the counter. “So this is what your kitchen looks like.” She shook her head. “Needs a woman’s touch. But another time. Right now, you’re comin’ with me.” She grabbed my wrist and led me out of the house.

  Vivian lived down the road in a tiny two-bedroom bungalow. Her living room overflowed with the woman’s touch, from her floral sofas to her brass and glass shelves filled with knickknacks.

  She gave me a tour of the house, which lasted less than sixty seconds, and we ended up in a guest bedroom full of collectible dolls. She slid open the closet door. It was full of clothes, some still with tags on. “Try somethin’ on,” she instructed, “then come out and show me.”

  I pulled out an airy white blouse and miniskirt and changed into them while trying not to be creeped out by the hundreds of doll eyes staring at me.

  It turned into sort of a fashion show, though it probably looked more like I was walking the plank instead of strutting the catwalk. Most of the clothes actually fit me really well, and I was grateful that I could update my wardrobe without having to take money out of savings.

  “Anyone ever tell you how pretty you are?” she asked as I came out in the last outfit, a sleek black sweater and skinny jeans.

  I shrugged. “Not really.”