Only two, and very minor. But hey, they're there.
Anyway, after our little detour with Ludwig, this story returns to the main narrative. It's another one of the Laurence-centered stories (actually, we won't start getting back to the main love triangle until story number ten...uh oh). But enjoy anyway.
Vicissitudes
7. Pearl
Yesterday, my oldest sister Kayla announced her engagement.
Our entire family was beside themselves with joy—and for good reason. After all, Kayla would be the first of us kids to get married. And to Alberto Zapata too, who I’ve got to say is one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. Kayla and Alberto, all the way out there in NYC, had been dating for more than two years and we’d all been holding our breath waiting for the engagement we were sure was going to happen. The instant the news came, Dad popped open a bottle of champagne with so much enthusiasm it sloshed all over his new shirt, but he didn’t care, and Mom collapsed in her chair, shaking with joyful tears. That night, Mom and Megan whipped up a fantastic meal and we gorged ourselves while we called Kayla, and put her and Alberto on speakerphone, raining congratulations on them both.
I didn’t really join in as much as, say, the twins Landon and Chris did, roaring curse-laden drinking songs along with Dad (much to Mom’s embarrassment). I’ve always been quieter than most of my siblings, less emotional, more prone to keeping my thoughts to myself than vocalizing them.
And besides…as my family celebrated my sister’s engagement, I couldn’t help but think about my own boyfriend.
Laurence Flannery is my second boyfriend. I know—it must be weird, me being sixteen and only having had two boyfriends! But unlike a lot of my friends, I never started getting into boys until around last year, when I went to Homecoming with Nicky Alfred. Nicky was okay, I guess. He just wasn’t memorable one way or the other, and when I caught him making out with another girl, I quietly ditched him.
Then, little more than three weeks ago, came Laurence.
I kind of already knew Laurence; he was the friend of our neighbors and friends the Flannerys, and he went to the same university as my older brother Tyler, apparently on a tennis scholarship. Sometimes, when we were little, Laurence came over to play, but he always played with the boys closest to his age—Tyler, Chris, Landon—and ignored me, the quiet little girl more interested in sitting in my room painting and drawing than playing with him.
So it surprised me when I found him at the gates outside school—waiting for me. When he extended his hand, a smile on his (handsome, I had to admit) face, I found myself at a loss for words. I couldn’t think. My throat was numb, my mind blank.
Finally, I coughed out a passable answer. “Uh…um…okay.”
So we went for a walk. Laurence took me to a shady sidewalk, little used, surrounded by trees. I hadn’t known it even existed. At first we made small talk, Laurence asking me about school, my friends, music and movies. I tried to answer in a halfway-normal way, but it was hard. I was never one for small talk and the “making-small-talk” portion of my brain had shut down in the presence of this attractive older man who was walking side-by-side with me, gazing at me with a smile in his hazel eyes, and was acting a little more than friendly with me.
I didn’t know what to do. I had no experience with this kind of thing—Nicky Alfred had been a blind date, set up by my friend Rosaline. I certainly had no idea how to properly talk to a guy. Laurence seemed to sense this and feel silent after a while. I was surprised by how grateful I felt.
Then we came to the tennis courts. I was surprised—then delighted—to find a recreation center so close to my school, and yet I didn’t know about it. When I asked Laurence, he smiled and told me, “Yeah, not a lot of people go here. Which means it’s good; we’ll be alone.”
We were alone the entire time, while we volleyed serves back and forth at each other. I was nervous at first because I hadn’t played tennis for a while, but when I tried to tell Laurence this my throat felt dry and my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth, so he just went ahead and gave me a racket before I could form a coherent protest. But after a while of serving and rebounding, I stopped worrying about how good I was, and started to relax. He helped me along by softening his serves—I could tell he could serve with so much more power if he wanted to. Soon I found it easy to just let the natural flow of the ball thunking against the racket, of the swish of air over the net, to take over. And as I did, my unease in Laurence’s presence began to dissipate. I was even able to laugh with him when I accidentally hit the ball too hard and lost it in somebody’s backyard.
I forgot that he was attractive, that he was older, that he was a powerful tennis player with a charismatic smile. I forgot all of that. I just felt a natural, relaxing ease, with him, as if we’d been doing this for years instead of hours.
When it started getting dark, Laurence packed away his racket and the tennis balls he had left, swung his sports bag over his shoulder, and winked at me.
“You’re not that bad,” he said.
“Really?” I said, surprised. A little bit of my old nervousness returned, and I had to cough loudly to clear my throat and continue. “I—I haven’t played since I was on the intramural team in junior high, but…”
“Trust me, you’re not bad,” said Laurence, his tone calm and reassuring. There was no trace of a lie in his words. Then, “Hey, same time, same place, tomorrow?”
And before I knew it, Laurence Flannery and I had started dating.
Mom and Dad were warily happy—wary, because Laurence was an older man, but happy because he seemed nice enough and was the son of friends. The Flannerys, too, were pleased about the arrangement.
“I’m glad you’re finally getting rid of her,” grunted Officer Flannery. “About time, I’d say.”
Tyler, on the other hand…
I ran into him about a week after I first started dating Laurence. Mom and Dad and my siblings still at home already knew, but I hadn’t had a chance yet to tell my four siblings who had moved out. Tyler’s meeting came as a surprise—I’d left school with my best friends Dana and Shelly in tow, and was walking down the sidewalk to home with them. They were discussing the upcoming Twilight movie, which I cared about with a vague, passing interest. I was thinking more about my current Surrealism-inspired art project, wondering if I’d picked too ambitious a theme, but I was confident I could finish it within the deadline…
Then I saw Tyler.
He was standing at the corner a few yards away, hands in his pockets—glaring at me. I took a step backwards, a cold shock coursing through my body. I’d never seen such anger shining in Tyler’s bright blue eyes before…and worse, it was directed at me.
“Pearl, what’s the matter?” said Dana, stopping along with me.
“Hey, is that your brother?” said Shelly, noticing Tyler.
I didn’t say anything, just waited for Tyler to approach. The instant he saw me he started towards me, his every step threatening and tense. If he wasn’t my brother I would have almost thought, from the way he was moving, that he was a criminal, intent on mugging me—or worse. I just stood where I was, waiting for him to approach, my heart pounding a violent staccato in my chest.
“Hi, Tyler,” I said when he had stopped only a few feet in front of me, trying my hardest to sound casual. “What’re you doing here?” That was the first thing I’d wanted to know—the university wasn’t far from home, but Tyler was adamant about his independence and rarely bothered to visit us unless it was a holiday.
Tyler’s blonde eyebrows drew together and he said, “You and Laurence.”
“Huh—your boyfriend? What’s going on?” Dana and Shelly were pestering me with questions, but I ignored them both, focusing all my attention on Tyler.
“What—oh! Who told you? Mom?” I said.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Tyler brusquely. “Listen, Pearl—why the hell are you dating Laurence Flannery, of all people?” He spat the name like it was a curse.
“I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” I said, anger beginning to replace my confusion.
“Look, he’s not the right guy for you—” began Tyler, holding his hands out, a faint edge of desperation beginning to color his words, replacing his earlier cold resolve.
“All right, then,” I said, my tone scathing. “I admit Laurence is no Edward Cullen, but I—”
“I thought your first boyfriend was called Nicky something or the other,” interjected Tyler. I resisted the urge to laugh and went on.
“I doubt I’ll find much better. I mean, he’s not bad to look at, for one thing, and he’s the kid of the Flannerys. He’s athletic and he’s smart, and he’s nice enough.”
“Nice?” Tyler made a curious choked sound, and turned away for a moment. “Nice! Ha…yeah, he’d make you think that. But he isn’t!” He turned back to me, a quiet desperation shining in his eyes, and began closing in the distance between us. Dana and Shelly backed down, but I remained where I was, matching his desperate eyes with a steely and resolute stare. “Look—Pearl—Laurence is only playing with you. He’s a cruel, sadistic dickwad. He’ll only care about you as much as you can please him.”
Then, to my shock, Tyler reached out and grabbed me by the shoulders, and bent down so we were eye-to-eye, our faces only inches apart. “Pearl,” he said, his voice quiet, serious. “You’re only a toy to Laurence. That’s all. Just a toy. A toy for him to screw around with and then break when he gets tired of it.”
A sudden burst of anger flared up inside me, and I pulled away from Tyler, throwing his hands off my shoulder. “What’s gotten into you?” I shouted at him, anger heating my words, causing them to rise and almost crack. “Why the hell are you suddenly playing the protective big brother, huh? You never cared before what I did. Why care now?”
And with those furious words, I left the stricken Tyler, and Dana and Shelly, and turned and ran.
It made me furious. No, more than furious. What right did Tyler—who’d been so laissez-faire in the past that I could count the number of times he’d ever played with me on one hand—have to get on my case for Laurence? There was no way Laurence was playing with me, as Tyler accused him of. I remembered our first date in the tennis courts, the easy rhythm of our volleying, his smile and his kindness. Slowly, I felt myself relax. Tyler was wrong. What he’d said were lies; that was all. Cruel lies.
I didn’t tell Laurence about my meeting with Tyler—though when we went to the recreation center the next day, I noticed he had several bandages on his face. Concerned, I asked him about them.
“Oh, your brother can be vicious when he wants to,” said Laurence, his voice airy. He didn’t sound concerned at all—but I boiled inside. So Tyler Daniels, my suddenly-protective big brother, had taken it upon himself to assault my boyfriend.
Perfect way to earn brownie points with your little sister, Tyler dear.
But Tyler’s a fool if he thinks he can stop me and Laurence. I don’t know why he doesn’t like Laurence, and I don’t care. It’s just an irrational grudge, probably carried over from their high school days or something. In the meantime, I enjoy Laurence’s company, and I know he enjoys mine. I know he isn’t “playing”.
Sometimes, we play tennis in the sports center like we did the first time we spoke for real. We can spend entire afternoons just volleying back and forth, not caring how many balls we lose nor my own bumbling attempts to handle a racket. Other times, Laurence comes into the studio Dad built me in our house’s backyard, away from the bustle and clamor of the indoors, and watches me paint. Sometimes, we go to McDonald’s and order our usual Big Mac and McFlurry (at first taking care to avoid the one where Laurence’s ex worked, but we soon found out she’d been fired for assaulting him, so we were able to go to that one freely. Good thing too, since it’s closest to Laurence’s dorm).
And sometimes, we go see the stars.
Tonight, we rest in the back of Laurence’s pickup, on top of a hill near the university. The night sky stretches above us, black and beautiful. Both of us keep our eyes on the stars, Laurence flicking his flame-patterned lighter open and closed in his hand. He’s not smoking, though, because early on I let him know what I feel about smokers.
“Beautiful, huh?” he says, his voice quiet.
I watch his face carefully. His hazel eyes are focused high above, on the stars, his attention seemingly elsewhere. But I can see the quiet concentration on his face…a concentration somewhere else, deep inside. He is thinking hard, but I don’t know about what.
I heave myself from the back of the truck and land in the grass beside him. I stumble a bit, but he reaches out and catches me, his arm warm and strong around my waist. He smiles at me, and I don’t find it hard to return that smile.
“It is beautiful,” I say.
“Huh,” he says, also watching the cold pinpricks of the stars above us, the majesty of the inky night. “You should paint this, Pearly White,” he says, using his nickname for me. He’s started calling me that ever since he found out my middle name is “Bianca”, after the character in The Taming of the Shrew. “No way,” I say, laughing and shaking my head. “You know me. I don’t paint landscapes.”
“You should,” says Laurence, his intent eyes meeting mine. He tightens his grip around my waist, almost imperceptibly, but I feel it. “This one, that is. It’s so…well, I can’t put it in words. It’d just be a shame if you didn’t capture it forever, wouldn’t it?”
“Then take a photograph,” I suggest teasingly.
Laurence laughs and ruffles his ginger-red hair, which stands out brightly in the dark night. “Naah. A photograph wouldn’t—wouldn’t do it justice, now, would it? It’s…” He turns away, focuses back on the million stars sprinkled across the sky. “It’s…wonderful. I can see why he likes the stars so much…”
“He?” I turn to face Laurence, confused. “What do you mean—‘he’?”
“Nothing,” says Laurence a little too quickly. When he looks back at me he is smiling, a kindly—but dismissive—smile. “It’s nothing to do with you.” And as if to reinforce that point, he draws me closer to him, pulling him into the warmth of his chest. I can’t protest—instead, I wrap my arms around him in return.
But I can’t help but feel a little discontent. Sometimes, I feel this way about Laurence—that he isn’t telling me everything. It’s times like these that I reflect on Tyler’s words of warning. He’s just playing with you…he only cares about you as much as you can please him…
But, I remind myself, we haven’t even been together for that long. Three weeks is not much time to form a full-blown relationship, after all. It’s a good thing we’ve already become so close. Over time, Laurence will open up to me. That I know. I already feel that what I have with Laurence is something more real than the relationships I see my friends get into, the relationships that start based on physical attraction but end up burning out after about two or three weeks. It’s more real than what I had with Nicky Alfred.
I’m only sixteen and naïve, so I don’t know if this is the real thing. It’s hard not to feel that way, though.
And so as I stand beside Laurence, his arms around me and my arms around him, as the stars burn above us, I’m content to lean on his shoulder, drink in his warmth, and feel safe, secure. And I know one thing for sure:
I can see myself with Laurence Flannery for a long time yet.
-----
Ahhh Pearl, you naive idiot!
Ha ha. The next story reprises Tyler, and, well...it's the longest one yet, so I might post it in two parts. Though I feel it flows relatively quickly, so maybe breaking it up will interrupt the flow? O_o We'll see. Anyway, it contains my first real attempt at a fight scene aaaand a kiss scene (and a LOT of bad language), so we'll see how that turns out!
Send me your best reviews. Fire at will, men!
