Rebecca's Quest, page 7
part #8 of Finding Magic Series Series
Becky popped the last red-skinned potato wedge into her mouth and grinned. “This might be the best food I’ve ever had. Did they have cherry pie? I’d love a slice of that à la mode and a cup of great coffee.”
The waiter reappeared with a tray containing two generous slices of cherry pie à la mode and two coffees. Becky’s eyes widened. “Did you order this before?”
Paul grinned again. “Nope. You ordered it just now.”
“You mean there are microphones in the table somewhere that run to the kitchen staff?”
“No.”
Becky shrugged and tried a bite. The pie and coffee were excellent. Not as good as Livy Martin’s prize-winning cherry pies, but still one of the best cherry pies she’d ever eaten. Which was saying something. She lifted her napkin from her lap and wiped off the cherry juice running down her chin.
“More pie?” Paul asked.
She considered a second piece, and then shook her head. Maybe she’d have another chance later. “How about a coffee refill?”
As before, the waiter reappeared with two cups of coffee on a tray. He placed both cups on the table and left without speaking.
“So did you figure it out yet?” Paul said, still stuffing his mouth with potatoes and gravy. “I would tell you, but that’s against the rules. You have to discover the answers yourself.”
“What are you talking about? Figured what out?” Becky held the cup in both hands and leaned back in her chair. Paul ignored the question.
She thought about everything that had happened to her today, running through the hours and the moments in the order she’d experienced them. Her memories were jumbled up, and today’s new versions were both better and worse than what she’d lived before.
She thought she might be dead, suffering the same fate as the goat that fell over the cliff last night. Maybe she hit the bottom of the ravine and died on the rocks.
This place could actually be heaven, couldn’t it? Everything about the scene was heavenly to her. The temperature was warm but not hot. A nice breeze wafted through the trees. Music by a live trio she liked, played in the corner, not too loud. The food was amazing. Even good cherry pie. She was old enough to drink wine. Paul was here, which was perhaps the most amazing thing of all.
If this were heaven, she could be very happy in heaven forever. Why would she want to be anywhere else?
Becky said, “I’m in heaven, right? You died when we were twelve, and now you’re much older. I died tonight and now I’m older, too. Here with you, in heaven.”
“Kind of,” he said, with a mouthful of pie and ice cream.
Although the idea had originated with her, she was startled when he confirmed it so easily. “What do you mean? It’s not possible to kind of die, is it?”
This was something she’d never considered. In the real world, she’d heard of people having near-death experiences. But actual death was not something the dead people she knew recovered from.
“You mean philosophically? There’s a lot of debate about that. We grew up Lutheran, so you know how the pastor would answer that question. He’d say that life is eternal. Different people have different ideas about it,” he replied, his eyes twinkling in the starlight. “But I meant you’re kind of in heaven. If you were imagining heaven, would it be much different from this?”
Becky thought about that. Slowly, she said, “I don’t know. I never spent a lot of time thinking about it, I guess.”
Paul stood and held out his hand. “Want to dance?”
A few other couples were dancing. She and Paul had never danced together, but she’d imagined doing so a thousand times. So many things they’d never done. When he died, all those opportunities died with him, too. Or so she’d believed until now.
She took his hand and he led her to the dance floor.
She rested her head on his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her waist while he held her hand close to his heart. This place might not be heaven, exactly, but it was heavenly enough for her.
Becky opened her eyes when one of the other couples bumped into her shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
Becky smiled forgiveness and turned her gaze back to Paul. “I guess I thought people in heaven would be better dancers.”
Paul grinned. “You want to tango?”
“Maybe later,” she replied, as if she could actually tango. She’d never tried, so who knew? Maybe she could. “So what happens now?”
“I take it your mother didn’t make that clear?” Paul raised both eyebrows in question. Becky didn’t reply, he danced her away from the others.
“Mom said I should return to Gray Cliffs. But I don’t want to go back there, Paul. I feel like I’ve escaped from prison. There’s nothing for me there. Nothing at all.”
“There’s the small matter of a high school diploma, Becky. Your family has sacrificed a lot in ways you don’t even know. You are very close to graduating. Everything is yours for the asking, but you need to know”—he waved his arm to encompass everything about the idyllic evening—“none of this happens unless you graduate.”
Becky looked down at her pretty sandals and sparkly toenail polish. From here it seemed easy enough to do what they wanted.,,to take the last exams and graduate. She was a good student. She knew the material. And taking tests was simple for her. Always had been. But she didn’t see the point in it. Or how to get back there in time to do what they asked.
“Do you want me to go away, Paul? I feel like we’ve just found each other again.”
“You have to make all of those choices, too.” Paul glanced at his watch. “You don’t have a lot of time left to get back to Gray Cliffs. I’ll be right here, waiting, when you finish. I’ve waited almost six years already, Becky. It’s no big deal for me.”
She didn’t know what to do. He said to go back was her choice, and he said he’d be there waiting for her to return. She reached for Paul’s hand and led him to a quiet corner of the garden near a small pond where a bench had been placed. Surrounding the bench were pretty flowers and in front of it, a recirculating waterfall. The gentle babbling, combined with the warm evening and fairytale atmosphere, seemed like the perfect setting for a heart to heart. Paul was her soul mate. Always had been. Always would be. She trusted him implicitly.
“Help me decide. Tell me what happened to you,” she said softly.
He leaned his forearms on his thighs and looked down at the ground, hands folded. It seemed to take him a few minutes to organize his words. He spoke quietly as if others might overhear, although they were alone in this corner of the garden.
“I was a precocious kid, Becky. I was constantly getting into mischief and rarely minding my own business. You remember that, I’m sure.” He glanced at her and she nodded.
His adventurous spirit was one of the many things she’d loved about him.
Paul cleared his throat. “Maybe it’s a twelve-year-old-boy thing, I don’t know. But I would often find myself in situations to overhear things I wasn’t supposed to know.” He paused and glanced at her briefly. “And one day I overheard my mom and yours talking in our kitchen.”
Becky nodded, encouraging him to finish his story.
“I didn’t hear the whole conversation or understand exactly what they were talking about. But I heard enough to realize Mom and her best friend had been keeping big secrets from the rest of us for years. Things they hadn’t even shared with their husbands.”
He paused again, collecting his thoughts or something. “When your mother left that day, I confronted Mom. She was, well, I guess aghast is the best way I can describe it. Maybe even horrified, that I’d overheard.”
Becky leaned forward, straining to hear his near-silent words. “I can’t imagine they had any secrets that terrible, though.”
“That’s what I thought. But she’d awakened my curiosity. I wouldn’t let it go.” He shrugged.
Becky held her breath. She crossed her fingers on both hands, hoping the story won’t have a horrible ending. He was so serious about this. She was almost afraid to hear the rest.
“Don’t look so scared. It was nothing about you. Not exactly.” Paul shook his head. “She didn’t want to tell me, but I was relentless. I hounded her day and night until she finally told me.”
“Was it horrible?” Becky whispered.
He shook his head. “I was pretty excited about it all. She told me I’d be given a choice when I became an adult. I could choose to live the life she and Dad had built for us. Or I could, uh, make a different choice.”
Becky struggled to understand.
“I already knew what I wanted to do. I couldn’t see the point in waiting another six years to get there,” Paul said.
Becky frowned and cocked her head. “I don’t understand. You mean you chose to leave me?”
“I’m sorry, Becky.” Paul reached up and cupped her face in his palm. “I tried to tell you at the time. Cryptically...because I’d been sworn to secrecy. But you wouldn’t accept my explanations. Please believe that I really tried. I know you’ve been suffering with this, and I’m only telling you now so you can move on.”
“What do you mean move on?” Becky shook her head as if to clear the cobwebs in her brain and grasp his point.
Paul took a deep breath and raised his head to gaze directly into Becky’s eyes. “You did not capsize our boat that day. It was not your fault. I did it. I made it happen, not you.”
“That’s not true.” Becky shook her head. “Of course it was my fault. I was behind the wheel at the time. I was distracted. I didn’t watch the waves. I didn’t point the bow of the boat into that big wake. We took the full force of the wave along the starboard side. The Three Winds wasn’t up to the challenge.”
Paul hung his head. “That’s how you remember the accident. But that’s not what happened.”
“That’s exactly what happened, Paul. I’ve relived it a thousand times.” She widened her eyes and took a deep breath to keep the tears at bay. She barely whispered. “I allowed that wave to capsize us. If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be alive.”
Paul took both of her hands in his and held them as tightly as he held her gaze. “That’s not true. It was never true. I did it. I did it intentionally. I saw the waves, and I distracted you from them until it was too late. I knew they would hit the boat broadside. I knew we would capsize. In fact, I couldn’t have planned it better if I’d created the situation by Magic.”
Becky couldn’t wrap her mind around his story. She must have looked as bewildered as she felt. He put his arm around her shoulder and led her to the other side of the bench, facing the small pond with the waterfall. Lights reflected off the water’s surface.
“Let me show you,” Paul said, as he held his palm flat and made a circular motion. Something like a video began to play on the surface of the pond.
Reflected in the water was the scene Becky relived in her head millions of times since that horrible day.
They snuck out in the boat without telling anyone. Much farther out in Lake Michigan than they should have been. They were too young to take the boat out alone, of course. Which made it all the more exciting. She wore her favorite bathing suit and a cute cover-up she’d bought the previous day. Paul was dressed in swim trunks and a shirt. They were both barefoot. Both wearing sunglasses.
The weather was warm and sunny. A nice breeze kept them from getting too hot. Becky was steering the boat, and Paul was sitting in the passenger seat next to her. His body was half-turned to face her.
“See?” He pointed to the video. “You’re looking at me because I’m talking to you. The engine is loud, so watching me helped you to understand the conversation. Do you remember what I was telling you?”
Becky nodded as she watched the replay of one of the most fateful afternoons of her life.
“Our club was having a dance on Saturday night. You asked me to go. It was a costume party. You were telling me about your costume ideas for us.”
“What were they?” He grinned.
“You wanted to be Superman. There’d been a movie out recently. We went together. You loved it.”
He nodded, still grinning. “And what costume did I want you to wear?”
“Wonder Woman,” Becky whispered. “You said I could do anything. That I was stronger and smarter than any other girl you’d ever known.”
“What else?” Paul asked, gently leading her memory as the scene unfolded in the replay.
“You remember, don’t you?” I said. “You said, ‘I love you Becky Martin. And I’ll love you forever. I’ll marry you someday.’”
Becky had not remembered this before, but she did now. She touched her lips with her fingers as she whispered, “Then you leaned over and kissed me. It was the first time you’d ever kissed me. The first time any boy ever did.”
Paul leaned over and kissed her while her eyes were still dreamy. “Now look at the replay, Becky. Notice the big power boat that’s coming up behind us and off to the right. From your position, you can’t see it. And the noise of our engine masked the engine noise from the bigger boat. Do you see that now?”
“Yes,” she said quietly, mesmerized by the images in the same way gawkers are unable to tear their gazes from a train wreck.
“Watch as he passes us. See how close he is? You wouldn’t have much time to turn the bow of the boat into the waves and slow the engine, even if you’d realized what was happening. But I saw the power boat long before it came speeding past so close to us. I kept you distracted with talk about the dance. And then I chose precisely that moment to tell you I loved you. And then I kissed you, knowing you’d close your eyes and be completely with me for the kiss.” Paul reached up and touched her face.
Together they watched the rest of the scene unfold. This time, she grasped exactly what he’d done. Power boats were always speeding along that particular stretch of the water. That’s why they’d been forbidden to take the ski boat out there. And why Paul had persuaded Becky to go anyway. All he had to do was wait for the right opportunity. When he saw the chance coming, he ’d seized the moment. While they were kissing, the big wave hit their smaller boat and swamped it. The accident unfolded just as Paul had planned.
He palmed the air again to close the replay. Becky continued staring, as if the images remained in place.
“But we might both have died.” She shook her head. “You wouldn’t have done anything to hurt me like that intentionally, Paul. Never.”
“Of course, I wouldn’t let you be hurt. You were never in danger,” Paul said quietly. “You were wearing your lifejacket because I insisted that you put it on before we left the dock, remember?”
Becky shook her head in disbelief, even as she recalled his insistence on the life jackets that day. At the time she’d been surprised because usually she was the one demanding safety precautions. He was the daredevil, always more than willing to risk life and limb.
“I unfastened my lifejacket. I slipped out of it when I hit the water. I moved far away from the boat to make sure I couldn’t change my mind and swim to safety before I drowned.” He smiled and squeezed her hands a little tighter as he continued sharing the truth, at long last. “But you swam to my rescue and would not let me go. You damn near drowned both of us instead of just me. When the big boat’s captain realized what had happened, they came back to help. You got me out of the water, but it was too late.”
He paused to let her absorb his story. After a bit, he said, “I was never going to recover from drowning, Becky. That was my plan all along. The accident was no accident. I made it happen.”
Becky’s eyes widened, and her mouth fell open. Her body shook with anger. She tried to pull her hands away, but he held on tight. “You mean you told me you loved me and kissed me—and then you tried to commit suicide? But why? That’s crazy! How could you do that? You knew we’d all be devastated!”
He said nothing to defend himself while she vented her hurt and anger and grief for all they’d lost.
“No. I can’t…I don’t believe you. You’re saying these things just to try to make me feel better now. To lessen my guilt.” Becky breathed heavily, and her heart pounded painfully against her rib cage as she struggled not to cry. “I was there. I know what happened.”
“Listen to me.” Paul grabbed her hands again and squeezed them firmly between his palms. She tried to pull away, but he held tight.
And then he released her.
She jumped up and paced angrily in front of the garden bench.
“You have to believe your own eyes. You just saw it. Exactly as it happened.” Paul said, with a gesture toward the pond where the images had replayed. “I did it intentionally. I planned everything. I pulled it off. Events unfolded exactly as I wanted them to. And I had a good reason, Becky. I swear I did.”
“What possible reason could you have! You were twelve, Paul! Why would a twelve-year-old boy kill himself? That makes no sense. You were one of the happiest kids I ever knew. We had our whole lives ahead of us!” Becky stormed around. She punched him a couple of times in the chest and shoulder. When they were kids, she could get the best of him in a fight. Maybe she still could. She was tempted to try.
Paul made no effort to thwart her blows. He waited until she stopped for a breath. “I found out early.”
“Found out what?”
“And it was really exciting, Becky. I wanted to do it right away. I didn’t want to wait for my future to begin.”
“Wait for what future?” Becky demanded. “What the hell are you talking about?”
He shook his head. “I was twelve. I was headstrong. I didn’t think about what my decision would do to my parents. I regret that, and I’ve talked to my mom about it extensively.”
“And your dad? He’s never been the same.” Becky’s anger was boiling in the pit of her stomach and spilling out in a torrent of words. “Paul, my dad was devastated! What about me? And Brent? How could you do that to all of us?”
“Mom probably could have changed everything. She could have gone to the elders. Pled with them.”
Becky stopped pacing and widened her eyes. “Oh, really? Then why didn’t she?”
