 |
Building
a Mystery
oh you're so beautiful
'cause you're working
oh you're a beautiful
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Julia, Zac and I walked out onto the balcony to find both Taylor and Ike sprawled out on lounge chairs. Someone had gone into the room and grabbed a stereo, so we were listening to a local radio station. A station they were supposed to appear at the morning of the concert. As the DJ prattled on and on about the scheduled appearance, I noticed Julia was watching each of them closely for their reactions. Taylor appeared to be asleep with his eyes closed, sunglasses perched atop his head because his expression didn’t change one bit, Isaac turned toward the radio when the familiar strains of “Mmmbop” began and Zac scowled and had a look of disgust on his face when they played a sound bite of him when he was much, much younger. I almost laughed out loud, because she seemed to be watching them, looking for secret signals, but not finding any. Really, they are so normal. With them, what you see is what you get. No hidden agendas, no false pretenses.
I quickly laid claim to the remaining lounge chair and settled down into it. Zac and Julia continued over toward the pool. Julia sat on the edge, her legs trailing in the water, while Zac climbed into the pool. I could hear a soft splashing of the water in the pool and the drone of their conversation, but could only occasionally pick out any actual words. I heard her giggle often. Zac was not being goofy and obnoxious, doing his myriad voices and making strange sounds. He was being suave and sophisticated, his voice so deep and smooth. Was he really a player? It made me sad to think the sweet innocent boy of my youth had changed so much. Seriously, when I close my eyes, he’s a brilliant, blonde 7 year old, wearing a dirty way too big t-shirt, his eyes shining with unshed tears as I lean down and kiss his skinned knee.
The sun was warm and comforting. I could hardly believe by the next day we would be in the grips of an angry storm. Even though we were several miles from the ocean, I could smell the sweet aroma of the ocean and magnolia trees. The cloudless blue sky hung so close it felt like a blanket settled over my skin. The sun a slow burning fire, warming my body from the toes up. I reached my hand out and casually caught Taylor’s fingers. His hands were constantly cold now, was no exception. One of his favorite things to do was to sneak up on some poor unsuspecting soul and put his icy cold hands on their neck. It was always shocking and truly unexpected. His hands were so cold his mother had taken him to the doctor once to see if he had a problem with his circulation. Ironically, his favorite target had always been his mother. Maybe that’s why she wanted the doctor to fix his cold hands. Diana is always warm and welcoming in so many ways. She is the mother every child deserves. The mother Thad and I deserved. Being hugged by Diana was like being wrapped in pure joy, she perpetually smelled of chocolate chip cookies and she literally felt like home should. Each time Taylor would place his icy hands on her neck, she would shriek. Then she would laughingly threaten to wring his neck. An empty threat if ever I heard one. And really, this habit had continued on until this very day. I encircled his cold fingers with my warm ones. I turned my face towards his and found him watching me, a very serious look on his face. He looked like he was contemplating the deepest mysteries in the universe. I hoped I wasn’t behind this too serious look, his eyes seemed to contain no joy. I smiled what I hoped was an inviting smile. I wanted him to see I was honestly trying. His dubious look slowly melted and he smiled back. And I felt my breath catch in my chest. He was just so achingly beautiful. And he was mine, if I wanted him. And yes, I think I wanted him.
“Taylor, I’m so sorry about earlier.” I said my voice just above a whisper.
“I know,” he answered so quietly I was not quite sure what I heard. I hoped that was what I heard. I needed to know he had forgiven me.
Even after the tongue lashing I had gotten from Ashley and the possibility I had let the enemy come through the front gates, I really felt at peace. Truly. As the familiar strains of “Building a Mystery,” by Sarah McLachlan wafted over me, I could feel myself falling asleep. I smiled as she sang of her “beautiful fucked man.” I felt my eyelids flutter as I tried to open my eyes and look over at Taylor, but I was too tired. When did I become so tired? I was tired all of the time... “I need to talk to my doctor about the possibility of some sort of vitamin deficiency” were my last thoughts as I drifted off to sleep.
I walked through the sliding glass door into my parents’ house. The heat of the early August afternoon in Tulsa was horrible. I could hear the television coming from the sun porch, but both of my parents were at work. Who would be watching television at this hour? “Hello?” I called as I wandered slowly back towards the noise.
“Hey Doofus.” A familiar voice called back.
“Thad? Is that you?” I called as I rounded the corner; I was greeted with the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen. Thad lay sprawled out on the couch. He wasn’t the Thad I remembered, not the tall, lanky boy with hair and eyes that matched mine exactly, now he was a man. He had changed so much from the last time I had seen him. The last time I’d seen him, he had been standing in the door to my room in a baggy t-shirt and his swimsuit, a towel thrown casually over his shoulder, his hair was shaggy and curly, just a touch too long. At his funeral I had refused to look at his body, I didn’t want to remember him forever the way the mortician thought he should look. His shoulders had broadened, his head rested in his almost too large hands, his legs were so long they were hanging over the end of the couch. He really had become a man. “Oh God, Thad.” I cried throwing myself onto his chest my breath sobbing out of my chest.
“Hey, Doofus, what’s wrong?” He said putting his hands on my shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s been so long...” I said just giving in and crying. “I’ve missed you so much...”
“But Doof, I’ve been here all along.” He said resting his hand over my heart. “Even if you can’t see me, I’m always there. You keep forgetting that...”
“Why did you leave me?” I asked quietly. “How could you leave me?”
“Cleo, I didn’t want to leave you, but I had no choice...” He said sitting up and smoothing back my hair. “And you needed to step out from behind me, to become the glorious woman you should be today.” He gently placed a kiss on my forehead. “But, somewhere you lost your way...”
“Where? Where did I go wrong?” I asked searching his eyes. “I got so lost when you left me, when you died... I stopped existing...”
“No, you just forgot to breathe...” He said holding me close. He smelled of carnations, a smell I always associated with the dead, but he felt so real, so substantial. I sighed into his chest. “Let’s go get the guys and play some soccer.”
“They don’t live next door anymore...” I said realizing how much of my life he had missed. Six years had really changed me.
“Oh, that’s right.” He said laughing. “Sometimes I forget things happened after I... Well, after you know...”
“There is so much I need to know, need you to tell me...” I said burying my head against his shoulder. “I need you so much... I need you...”
“No, you don’t.” Thad said tucking my hair behind my ear and kissing me on the forehead. “You are amazing, simply amazing. You were always so much smarter than I was.”
“No, I’m not.” I said wrapping my arms around his chest. “You don’t know the mess I’ve made of my life...”
“Jarrod?” Thad asked. I mutely nodded. “I know about that.”
“How?”
“Cleo, we are the same person...” He said standing and walking over to the wall covered with pictures. My mother had literally made a mural out of hundreds of photos. They chronicled our lives from our first moments clear up until the afternoon before Thad died, then stopped. Because in the Burton household, life stopped that afternoon. His fingers lightly trailed across the pictures, they were always of us, only rarely is there a picture of just me or just him. It is always us. His fingers stopped on what had always been one of my favorite pictures. This picture showed a digital date stamp of 8/26/1996, the night before our lives changed. It showed the golden sun almost even with the horizon reflected off the smooth, placid surface of the Arkansas River. And in the shallows, there are four bodies of various sizes engaged in a major water fight and a fifth body standing apart. Unless you knew who the five people were, then it was impossible to tell if they were boys or girls or a combination of both. But I knew. The only face recognizable in the half-light is Thad’s. He has his face tipped away from the rest of us and is looking towards the horizon, as if he hears a call none of us can hear. The sun created a halo out of his riot of chestnut hair. Diana had caught her sons with their best friends in the last, truly golden moment of childhood. Thad, Ike and I had been 15, on the edge of becoming adults. Isaac, Taylor and Zac were standing on the precipice of stardom. And Thad was literally living his last 18 hours of life. We all knew in some kind of sad and melancholy way this was the last moment of our childhood. It really makes me sad to think Zac lost all of this at 10; Taylor and Isaac at least got to be innocent for a time. “All that glistens is gold...”
“No,” I stood and walked over to the wall running my fingers over the barely raised edges of the photo encased forever in shellac. The wall was essentially an enormous decoupage. “The saying goes: All that glistens is not gold.”
“Are you sure?” Thad asked, placing his too big hands on my shoulders.
“Yes.”
“Well that isn’t a very good saying then...” He trailed off, his eyes so far away from me, but really wasn’t he always far away now. “It doesn’t hold much hope.”
“Well, it’s about not being sucked in by a pretty face.” I said, my eyes resting on a picture of us at 10. We looked so much alike it was spooky. The biggest difference was our eyes; Thad’s eyes shone with the purest joy and mine were guarded, not giving anything up. I always kept my secrets well.
“Hmm, I think I’ll stick with my version. I think there is something hopeful in believing everything can be golden.” He said walking over and looking out the window at the woods behind our house. In the heat of the summer, that was our favorite refuge. “Let’s go for a walk,” he said holding his hand out to me. I followed him blindly out the door off the sun porch. He led me towards the woods out back. His long legs were covering more ground than I could, I found myself practically jogging to keep up with him. “It’s just over the next hill, what you need to know to fix everything.” Thad said to me as his strides became longer and longer. “What is out there will allow me to stay with you forever...”
Soon, I was practically running trying desperately to match his steps. “Thad, please slow down.” I said as I slipped in the darkness of the woods. I could feel the ground become softer and wetter. I needed to stay with Thad, to find my way, to see where I got lost. I needed to fix things so he could stay with me. I was running along next to him, hoping I could stay caught up with him. The woods were streaking by me, we should have come out in the Benton’s backyard by now, but the woods were just getting thicker and darker. I now was slipping down about every third or fourth step. Thad was holding my hand still, dragging me off the ground each time I fell. He kept pulling on me, telling me to hurry. My knees were sore and bloody. Finally as I fell my hand slipped from his grasp. I quickly stood back up and began to run with all my might after him, but he was just too fast. I was running, but I couldn’t get near him. I fell one last time and looked up to see him disappear over the hill. I just lowered my head to the ground and began to sob. “How could you leave me again?”
“Cleo, who left you?” I heard someone ask behind me. I felt a hand gently fall onto my shoulder.
“You, you left me...” I whispered and looked up at the person with his hand on my shoulder. It was Taylor. The sun was positioned behind his head making his hair into a glistening halo.
“I would never leave you...” He said as he moved and the sun shone fully on my face.
I rubbed my eyes as I came fully awake. The sun now was angry with me, burning into my skin. I could feel the tears on my face as I sat up. “Cleo, are you okay.” Tay asked leaning over me, a look of real concern on his face.
“Yeah, I’m sorry... I just have to go inside.” I said as I stood and quickly ran into my room. I honestly don’t remember ever having dreamt of Thad in the last 6 years since his death. And when I finally did dream of him, I dreamt he abandoned me and I had hated him for it. Hated him for leaving me. And I wasn’t supposed to hate him. Maybe all the horrors I had heaped on myself had been to indirectly punish him. I just didn’t want to think about this anymore. Sleep had always been my escape from this horror, but now it didn’t seem so safe. I curled up on my bed, pulling my blankets as tightly around me as possible and pulling a pillow over my face. I had an almost irresistible urge to scream. I needed to mellow out, I needed to pull myself together, I needed to not have a nervous breakdown.
I lay curled up in a ball as long as I could. Actually until it became too hot beneath the blankets. Finally, I took a deep breath and rolled over onto my back. I heard a sound over by the door of my room and looked up to see Isaac standing in my doorway waiting patiently for me to notice him. “Hey,” he said, as he slowly walked over to my bed. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, why?” I asked.
“Cause Tay said you were crying in your sleep and I should come in here and see if you were okay.” He said wandering over to my bed.
“Why didn’t he just come himself?” I said fairly disappointed Taylor felt it necessary to send an emissary.
“Because, he was afraid you’d tell him to go away.” Ike said sitting down next to me. “Afraid you’d reject him completely again. Cleo, why are you still so sad?” He said wrapping his arms around me. My face was literally pressed against his chest. I sagged against him, willing to surrender. Willing to stop fighting whatever it was I was fighting. Actually, maybe that was the problem, maybe Zac was right, maybe I wasn’t fighting anything at all. I was simply going along with the flow, allowing life to happen around me.
“Ike, why are you so good to me?” I asked, into his neck.
“Because, you’re Cleo...” He began. “Because, you are the girl from next door who always played full-body tackle tag with the boys. The girl who is quite possibly the best belcher in the history of the world. The girl who shamed all of us by being the only one daring enough to jump off the highest tree limb at the river. The girl with the perpetually skinned knees. The girl who knew all of the best hiding places when we played sardines at night. The girl who could beat all of us at Laser Quest. The girl, I’ve always loved...”
But I thought you said you were over me I said pulling away from him. “You told me you didn’t care I was falling in love with Taylor...”
“Well, I lied.” He said leaning down and kissing me gently on the lips. “But really, if you are in love with Taylor, then I guess I’ll have to live with that. I won’t like it, but I’ll live with it.”
“That’s very magnanimous of you...” I said as he again planted his lips firmly on mine. This morning, his kisses had been so soft and full of true emotion, now they weren’t as gentle, but still so full of emotion. His lips were more insistent, much more powerful. This morning he had felt unsure, but now... His hand slid down my body, stopping at strategic points only to continue on to my hips. “So, Ike, is this your open invitation for sex?” I asked as his kisses became more frequent, I could feel how open this invitation was. And my traitorous body began to respond against my will. He laid me back and slowly slid his hands up under the top of my swimsuit. I could feel the rough calluses on his fingertips as he slowly slid my swimsuit top off. I lifted up so he could pull it all the way over my head, before I lay back down to begin kissing him again. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me tightly against him. My hands traveled up and down his back, tracing and learning the delicate muscles on his back. I rested my hands on the waistband of his suit. When suddenly the truth of what I was about to do hit me. “Ike, stop!” I said rolling away from him and jumping off of my bed.
“What?” He asked. “Why?”
“Because, I can’t.” I said quietly as I pulled the top half of my swimsuit on. “Not with you, not with Zac, not with Taylor. I just can’t and I won’t.”
“Cleo...” He said a quiet petulance to his voice.
“No.” I said again walking towards the door back outside. “You’d better go and take a shower. It’s time to get ready to for the camera crew. And you said you needed to practice the newer songs today...”
“Are your denying that you enjoyed that?” Ike asked exasperated.
“That is not the point.” I said.
“Then what is? Enlighten me, please?”
“Ike, this can’t happen.” I said standing at the door watching Taylor and Zac talk to Julia. “I can’t take the chance of losing you. I would die without you; I mean I've already lost Thad... Now you want me to risk you too.”
“You’ll never lose me, I’m not planning on going anywhere, ever.”
“That is what Thad said...” I said pulling the door open. “You cannot promise me that you’ll never leave...”
“Okay,” he said pulling himself off of my bed. “We’ll play this the way you want... But never let it be said that I didn’t try to save you from yourself.”
“Is saving what I need?” I questioned, as I stepped through the door back into the sun. It was time for me to gather the boys and focus them back on the work at hand. The rest of the day was going to be very busy and we all needed to get ready. And I really, really needed another shower.