Nicholas Sparks 3 страница

“You’re not giving Landon a hard time, are you? ” she said cheerfully to her father.

“We were just visiting, ” I said quickly before he had a chance to respond.

For some reason I didn’t think he’d told Jamie about the kind of person he thought I was, and I didn’t think that now would be a good time.

“Well, we should probably go, ” she said after a moment. I think she sensed the tension in the room. She walked over to her father and kissed him on the cheek. “Don’t stay up too late working on the sermon, okay? ”

“I won’t, ” he said softly. Even with me in the room, I could tell he really loved her and wasn’t afraid to show it. It was how he felt about me that was the problem.

We said good-bye, and on our way to the car I handed Jamie her corsage and told her I’d show her how to put it on once we got in the car. I opened her door for her and walked around the other side, then got in as well. In that short period of time, Jamie had already pinned on the flower.

“I’m not exactly a dimwit, you know. I do know how to pin on a corsage. ”

I started the car and headed toward the high school, with the conversation I’d just had with Hegbert running through my mind.

“My father doesn’t like you very much, ” she said, as if knowing what I was thinking.

I nodded without saying anything.

“He thinks you’re irresponsible. ”

I nodded again.

“He doesn’t like your father much, either. ”

I nodded once more.

“Or your family. ”

I get the picture.

“But do you know what I think? ” she asked suddenly.

“Not really. ” By then I was pretty depressed.

“I think that all this was in the Lord’s plan somehow. What do you think the message is? ”

Here we go, I thought to myself.

I doubt if the evening could have been much worse, if you want to know the truth. Most of my friends kept their distance, and Jamie didn’t have many friends to begin with, so we spent most of our time alone. Even worse, it turned out that my presence wasn’t even required anymore. They’d changed the rule owing to the fact that Carey couldn’t get a date, and that left me feeling pretty miserable about the whole thing as soon as I found out about it. But because of what her father had said to me, I couldn’t exactly take her home early, now, could I? And more than that, she was really having a good time; even I could see that. She loved the decorations I’d helped put up, she loved the music, she loved everything about the dance. She kept telling me how wonderful everything was, and she asked me whether I might help her decorate the church someday, for one of their socials. I sort of mumbled that she should call me, and even though I said it without a trace of energy, Jamie thanked me for being so considerate. To be honest, I was depressed for at least the first hour, though she didn’t seem to notice.

Jamie had to be home by eleven o’clock, an hour before the dance ended, which made it somewhat easier for me to handle. Once the music started we hit the floor, and it turned out that she was a pretty good dancer, considering it was her first time and all. She followed my lead pretty well through about a dozen songs, and after that we headed to the tables and had what resembled an ordinary conversation. Sure, she threw in words like “faith” and “joy” and even

“salvation, ” and she talked about helping the orphans and scooping critters off the highway, but she was just so damn happy, it was hard to stay down for long.

So things weren’t too terrible at first and really no worse than I had expected. It wasn’t until Lew and Angela showed up that everything really went sour.

They showed up a few minutes after we arrived. He was wearing that stupid T-shirt, Camels in his sleeve, and a glop of hair gel on his head. Angela hung all over him right from the beginning of the dance, and it didn’t take a genius to realize she’d had a few drinks before she got there. Her dress was really flashy—her mother worked in a salon and was up on all the latest fashions—and I noticed she’d picked up that ladylike habit called chewing gum. She really worked that gum, chewing it almost like a cow working her cud.

Well, good old Lew spiked the punch bowl, and a few more people started getting tipsy. By the time the teachers found out, most of the punch was already gone and people were getting that glassy look in their eyes. When I saw Angela gobble up her second glass of punch, I knew I should keep my eye on her. Even though she’d dumped me, I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. She was the first girl I’d ever French-kissed, and even though our teeth clanked together so hard the first time we tried it that I saw stars and had to take aspirin when I got home, I still had feelings for her.

So there I was, sitting with Jamie, barely listening as she described the wonders of Bible school, watching Angela out of the corner of my eye, when Lew spotted me looking at her. In one frenzied motion he grabbed Angela around the waist and dragged her over to the table, giving me one of those looks, the one that “means business. ” You know the one I’m talking about.

“Are you staring at my girl? ” he asked, already tensing up.

“No. ”

“Yeah, he was, ” Angela said, kind of slurring out the words. “He was staring right at me. This is my old boyfriend, the one I told you about. ”

His eyes turned into little slits, just like Hegbert’s were prone to do. I guess I have this effect on lots of people.

“So you’re the one, ” he said, sneering.

Now, I’m not much of a fighter. The only real fight I was ever in was in third grade, and I pretty much lost that one when I started to cry even before the guy punched me. Usually I didn’t have much trouble staying away from things like this because of my passive nature, and besides, no one ever messed with me when Eric was around. But Eric was off with Margaret somewhere, probably behind the bleachers.

“I wasn’t staring, ” I said finally, “and I don’t know what she told you, but I doubt if it was true. ”

His eyes narrowed. “Are you calling Angela a liar? ” he sneered.

Oops.

I think he would have hit me right there, but Jamie suddenly worked her way into the situation.

“Don’t I know you? ” she said cheerfully, looking right at him.

Sometimes Jamie seemed oblivious of situations that were happening right in front of her. “Wait—yes, I do. You work in the garage downtown. Your father’s name is Joe, and your grandma lives out on Foster Road, by the railroad crossing. ”

A look of confusion crossed Lew’s face, as though he were trying to put together a puzzle with too many pieces.

“How do you know all that? What he’d do, tell you about me, too? ”

“No, ” Jamie said, “don’t be silly. ” She laughed to herself. Only Jamie could find humor at a time like this. “I saw your picture in your grandma’s house. I was walking by, and she needed some help bringing in the groceries.

Your picture was on the mantel. ”

Lew was looking at Jamie as though she had cornstalks growing out of her ears.

Meanwhile Jamie was fanning herself with her hand. “Well, we were just sitting down to take a breather from all that dancing. It sure gets hot out there.

Would you like to join us? We’ve got a couple of chairs. I’d love to hear how your grandma is doing. ”

She sounded so happy about it that Lew didn’t know what to do. Unlike those of us who were used to this sort of thing, he’d never come across someone like Jamie before. He stood there for a moment or two, trying to decide if he should hit the guy with the girl who’d helped his grandma. If it sounds confusing to you, imagine what it was doing to Lew’s petroleum-damaged brain.

He finally skulked off without responding, taking Angela with him.

Angela had probably forgotten how the whole thing started anyway, owing to the amount she’d had to drink. Jamie and I watched him go, and when he was a safe distance away, I exhaled. I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding my breath.

“Thanks, ” I said mumbled sheepishly, realizing that Jamie—Jamie! —was the one who’d saved me from grave bodily harm.

Jamie looked at me strangely. “For what? ” she asked, and when I didn’t exactly spell it out for her, she went right back into her story about Bible school, as if nothing had happened at all. But this time I found myself actually listening to her, at least with one of my ears. It was the least I could do.

It turns out that it wasn’t the last we saw of either Lew or Angela that evening. The two glasses of punch had really done Angela in, and she threw up all over the ladies’ rest room. Lew, being the classy guy he was, left when he heard her retching, sort of slinking out the way he came in, and that was the last I saw of him. Jamie, as fate would have it, was the one who found Angela in the bathroom, and it was obvious that Angela wasn’t doing too well. The only option was to clean her up and take her home before the teachers found out about it. Getting drunk was a big deal back then, and she’d be looking at suspension, maybe even expulsion, if she got caught.

Jamie, bless her heart, didn’t want that to happen any more than I did, though I would have thought otherwise if you’d asked me beforehand, owing to the fact that Angela was a minor and in violation of the law. She’d also broken another one of Hegbert’s rules for proper behavior. Hegbert frowned on law-breaking and drinking, and though it didn’t get him going like fornication, we all knew he was deadly serious, and we assumed Jamie felt the same way. And maybe she did, but her helper instinct must have taken over. She probably took one look at Angela and thought “wounded critter” or something like that and took immediate charge of the situation. I went off and located Eric behind the bleachers, and he agreed to stand guard at the bathroom door while Jamie and I went in to tidy it up. Angela had done a marvelous job, I tell you. The puke was everywhere except the toilet. The walls, the floor, the sinks—even on the ceiling, though don’t ask me how she did that. So there I was, perched on all fours, cleaning up puke at the homecoming dance in my best blue suit, which was exactly what I had wanted to avoid in the first place. And Jamie, my date, was on all fours, too, doing exactly the same thing.

I could practically hear Carey laughing a squeaky, maniacal laugh somewhere in the distance.

We ended up sneaking out the back door of the gym, keeping Angela stable by walking on either side of her. She kept asking where Lew was, but Jamie told her not to worry. She had a real soothing way of talking to Angela, though Angela was so far gone, I doubt if she even knew who was speaking.

We loaded Angela into the backseat of my car, where she passed out almost immediately, although not before she’d vomited once more on the floor of the car. The smell was so awful that we had to roll down the windows to keep from gagging, and the drive to Angela’s house seemed extra long. Her mother answered the door, took one look at her daughter, and brought her inside without so much as a word of thanks. I think she was embarrassed, and we really didn’t have much to say to her anyway. The situation pretty much spoke for itself.

By the time we dropped her off it was ten forty-five, and we drove straight back to Jamie’s. I was really worried when we got there because of the way she looked and smelled, and I said a silent prayer hoping that Hegbert wasn’t awake. I didn’t want to have to explain this to him. Oh, he’d probably listen to Jamie if she was the one who told him about it, but I had the sinking feeling that he’d find a way to blame me anyway.

So I walked her to the door, and we stood outside under the porchlight.

Jamie crossed her arms and smiled a little, looking just as if she’d come in from an evening stroll where she’d contemplated the beauty of the world.

“Please don’t tell your father about this, ” I said.

“I won’t, ” she said. She kept on smiling when she finally turned my way.

“I had a good time tonight. Thank you for taking me to the dance. ”

Here she was, covered in puke, actually thanking me for the evening.

Jamie Sullivan could really drive a guy crazy sometimes.

Chapter 4

In the two weeks following the homecoming dance, my life pretty much returned to normal. My father was back in Washington, D. C., which made things a lot more fun around my house, primarily because I could sneak out the window again and head to the graveyard for my late night forays. I don’t know what it was about the graveyard that attracted us so. Maybe it had something to do with the tombstones themselves, because as far as tombstones went, they were actually fairly comfortable to sit on.

We usually sat in a small plot where the Preston family had been buried about a hundred years ago. There were eight tombstones there, all arranged in a circle, making it easy to pass the boiled peanuts back and forth between us.

One time my friends and I decided to learn what we could about the Preston family, and we went to the library to find out if anything had been written about them. I mean, if you’re going to sit on someone’s tombstone, you might as well know something about them, right?

It turns out that there wasn’t much about the family in the historical records, though we did find out one interesting tidbit of information. Henry Preston, the father, was a one-armed lumberjack, believe it or not. Supposedly he could cut down a tree as fast as any two-armed man. Now the vision of a one-armed lumberjack is pretty vivid right off the bat, so we talked about him a lot. We used to wonder what else he could do with only one arm, and we’d spend long hours discussing how fast he could pitch a baseball or whether or not he’d be able to swim across the Intracoastal Waterway. Our conversations weren’t exactly highbrow, I admit, but I enjoyed them nonetheless.

Well, Eric and me were out there one Saturday night with a couple of other friends, eating boiled peanuts and talking about Henry Preston, when Eric asked me how my “date” went with Jamie Sullivan. He and I hadn’t seen much of each other since the homecoming dance because the football season was already in the playoffs and Eric had been out of town the past few weekends with the team.

“It was okay, ” I said, shrugging, doing my best to play it cool.

Eric playfully elbowed me in the ribs, and I grunted. He outweighed me by at least thirty pounds.

“Did you kiss her good-night? ”

“No. ”

He took a long drink from his can of Budweiser as I answered. I don’t know how he did it, but Eric never had trouble buying beer, which was strange, being that everyone in town knew how old he was.

He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, tossing me a sidelong glance.

“I would have thought that after she helped you clean the bathroom, you would have at least kissed her good night. ”

“Well, I didn’t. ”

“Did you even try? ”

“No. ”

“Why not? ”

“She’s not that kind of girl, ” I said, and even though we all knew it was true, it still sounded like I was defending her.

Eric latched on to that like a leech.

“I think you like her, ” he said.

“You’re full of crap, ” I answered, and he slapped my back, hard enough to force the breath right out of me. Hanging out with Eric usually meant that I’d have a few bruises the following day.

“Yeah, I might be full of crap, ” he said, winking at me, “but you’re the one who’s smitten with Jamie Sullivan. ”

I knew we were treading on dangerous ground.

“I was just using her to impress Margaret, ” I said. “And with all the love notes she’s been sending me lately, I reckon it must have worked. ”

Eric laughed aloud, slapping me on the back again.

“You and Margaret—now that’s funny. . . . ”

I knew I’d just dodged a major bullet, and I breathed a sigh of relief as the conversation spun off in a new direction. I joined in now and then, but I wasn’t really listening to what they were saying. Instead I kept hearing this little voice inside me that made me wonder about what Eric had said.

The thing was, Jamie was probably the best date I could have had that night, especially considering how the evening turned out. Not many dates—heck, not many people, period—would have done what she did. At the same time, her being a good date didn’t mean I liked her. I hadn’t talked to her at all since the dance, except when I saw her in drama class, and even then it was only a few words here and there. If I liked her at all, I told myself, I would have wanted to talk to her. If I liked her, I would have offered to walk her home. If I liked her, I would have wanted to bring her to Cecil’s Diner for a basket of hushpuppies and some RC cola. But I didn’t want to do any of those things. I really didn’t. In my mind, I’d already served my penance.

The next day, Sunday, I was in my room, working on my application to UNC. In addition to the transcripts from my high school and other personal information, they required five essays of the usual type. If you could meet one person in history, who would that person be and why? Name the most significant influence in your life and why you feel that way. What do you look for in a role model and why? The essay questions were fairly predictable—our English teacher had told us what to expect—and I’d already worked on a couple of variations in class as homework.

English was probably my best subject. I’d never received anything lower than an A since I first started school, and I was glad the emphasis for the application process was on writing. If it had been on math, I might have been in trouble, especially if it included those algebra questions that talked about the two trains leaving an hour apart, traveling in opposite directions at forty miles an hour, etc. It wasn’t that I was bad in math—I usually pulled at least a C—but it didn’t come naturally to me, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, I was writing one of my essays when the phone rang. The only phone we had was located in the kitchen, and I had to run downstairs to grab the receiver. I was breathing so loudly that I couldn’t make out the voice too well, though it sounded like Angela. I immediately smiled to myself. Even though she’d been sick all over the place and I’d had to clean it up, she was actually pretty fun to be around most of the time. And her dress really had been something, at least for the first hour. I figured she was probably calling to thank me or even to get together for a barbecue sandwich and hushpuppies or something.

“Landon? ”

“Oh, hey, ” I said, playing it cool, “what’s going on? ”

There was a short pause on the other end.

“How are you? ”

It was then that I suddenly realized I wasn’t speaking to Angela. Instead it was Jamie, and I almost dropped the phone. I can’t say that I was happy about hearing from her, and for a second I wondered who had given her my phone number before I realized it was probably in the church records.

“Landon? ”

“I’m fine, ” I finally blurted out, still in shock.

“Are you busy? ” she asked.

“Sort of. ”

“Oh. . . I see. . . , ”she said, trailing off. She paused again.

“Why are you calling me? ” I asked.

It took her a few seconds to get the words out.

“Well. . . I just wanted to know if you wouldn’t mind coming by a little later this afternoon. ”

“Coming by? ”

“Yes. To my house. ”

“Your house? ” I didn’t even try to disguise the growing surprise in my voice. Jamie ignored it and went on.

“There’s something I want to talk to you about. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. ”

“Can’t you just tell me over the phone? ”

“I’d rather not. ”

“Well, I’m working on my college application essays all afternoon, ” I said, trying to get out of it.

“Oh. . . well. . . like I said, it’s important, but I suppose I can talk to you Monday at school. . . . ”

With that, I suddenly realized that she wasn’t going to let me off the hook and that we’d end up talking one way or the other. My brain suddenly clicked through the scenarios as I tried to figure out which one I should do—talk to her where my friends would see us or talk at her house. Though neither option was particularly good, there was something in the back of my mind, reminding me that she’d helped me out when I’d really needed it, and the least I could do was to listen to what she had to say. I may be irresponsible, but I’m a nice irresponsible, if I do say so myself.

Of course, that didn’t mean everyone else had to know about it.

“No, ” I said, “today is fine. . . . ”

We arranged to meet at five o’clock, and the rest of the afternoon ticked by slowly, like the drips from Chinese water torture. I left my house twenty minutes early, so I’d have plenty of time to get there. My house was located near the waterfront in the historic part of town, just a few doors down from where Blackbeard used to live, overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway. Jamie lived on the other side of town, across the railroad tracks, so it would take me about that long to get there.

It was November, and the temperature was finally cooling down. One thing I really liked about Beaufort was the fact that the springs and falls lasted practically forever. It might get hot in the summer or snow once every six years, and there might be a cold spell that lasted a week or so in January, but for the most part all you needed was a light jacket to make it through the winter. Today was one of those perfect days—mid-seventies without a cloud in the sky.

I made it to Jamie’s house right on time and knocked on her door. Jamie answered it, and a quick peek inside revealed that Hegbert wasn’t around. It wasn’t quite warm enough for sweet tea or lemonade, and we sat in the chairs on the porch again, without anything to drink. The sun was beginning to lower itself in the sky, and there wasn’t anyone on the street. This time I didn’t have to move my chair. It hadn’t been moved since the last time I’d been there.

“Thank you for coming, Landon, ” she said. “I know you’re busy, but I appreciate your taking the time to do this. ”

“So, what’s so important? ” I said, wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible.

Jamie, for the first time since I’d known her, actually looked nervous as she sat with me. She kept bringing her hands together and pulling them apart.

“I wanted to ask you a favor, ” she said seriously.

“A favor? ”

She nodded.

At first I thought she was going to ask me to help her decorate the church, like she’d mentioned at homecoming, or maybe she needed me to use my mother’s car to bring some stuff to the orphans. Jamie didn’t have her license, and Hegbert needed their car anyway, being that there was always a funeral or something he had to go to. But it still took a few seconds for her to get the words out.

She sighed, her hands coming together again.

“I’d like to ask you if you wouldn’t mind playing Tom Thornton in the school play, ” she said.

Tom Thornton, like I said before, was the man in search of the music box for his daughter, the one who meets the angel. Except for the angel, it was far and away the most important role.

“Well. . . I don’t know, ” I said, confused. “I thought Eddie Jones was going to be Tom. That’s what Miss Garber told us. ”

Eddie Jones was a lot like Carey Dennison, by the way. He was really skinny, with pimples all over his face, and he usually talked to you with his eyes all squinched up. He had a nervous tic, and he couldn’t help but squinch his eyes whenever he got nervous, which was practically all the time. He’d probably end up spouting his lines like a psychotic blind man if you put him in front of a crowd. To make things worse, he had a stutter, too, and it took him a long time to say anything at all. Miss Garber had given him the role because he’d been the only one who offered to do it, but even then it was obvious she didn’t want him either. Teachers were human, too, but she didn’t have much of an option, since no one else had come forward.

“Miss Garber didn’t say that exactly. What she said was that Eddie could have the role if no one else tried out for it. ”

“Can’t someone else do it instead? ”

But there really wasn’t anyone else, and I knew it. Because of Hegbert’s requirement that only seniors perform, the play was in a bind that year. There were about fifty senior boys at the high school, twenty-two of whom were on the football team, and with the team still in the running for the state title, none of them would have the time to go to the rehearsals. Of the thirty or so who were left, more than half were in the band and they had after-school practice as well. A quick calculation showed that there were maybe a dozen other people who could possibly do it.

Now, I didn’t want to do the play at all, and not only because I’d come to realize that drama was just about the most boring class ever invented. The thing was, I’d already taken Jamie to homecoming, and with her as the angel, I just couldn’t bear the thought that I’d have to spend every afternoon with her for the next month or so. Being seen with her once was bad enough. . . but being seen with her every day? What would my friends say?

But I could tell this was really important to her. The simple fact that she’d asked made that clear. Jamie never asked anyone for a favor. I think deep down she suspected that no one would ever do her a favor because of who she was. The very realization made me sad.

“What about Jeff Bangert? He might do it, ” I offered.

Jamie shook her head. “He can’t. His father’s sick, and he has to work in the store after school until his father gets back on his feet. ”

“What about Darren Woods? ”

“He broke his arm last week when he slipped on the boat. His arm is in a sling. ”

“Really? I didn’t know that, ” I said, stalling, but Jamie knew what I was doing.

“I’ve been praying about it, Landon, ” she said simply, and sighed for the second time. “I’d really like this play to be special this year, not for me, but because of my father. I want it to be the best production ever. I know how much it will mean to him to see me be the angel, because this play reminds him of my mother. . . . ” She paused, collecting her thoughts. “It would be terrible if the play was a failure this year, especially since I’m involved. ”

She stopped again before going on, her voice becoming more emotional as she went on.

“I know Eddie would do the best he could, I really do. And I’m not embarrassed to do the play with him, I’m really not. Actually, he’s a very nice person, but he told me that he’s having second thoughts about doing it.

Sometimes people at school can be so. . . so. . . cruel, and I don’t want Eddie to be hurt. But. . . ” She took a deep breath, “but the real reason I’m asking is because of my father. He’s such a good man, Landon. If people make fun of his memory of my mother while I’m playing the part. . . well, that would break my heart. And with Eddie and me. . . you know what people would say. ”

I nodded, my lips pressed together, knowing that I would have been one of those people she was talking about. In fact, I already was. Jamie and Eddie, the dynamic duo, we called them after Miss Garber had announced that they’d be the ones doing the roles. The very fact that it was I who had started it up made me feel terrible, almost sick to my stomach.

She straightened up a little in her seat and looked at me sadly, as if she already knew I was going to say no. I guess she didn’t know how I was feeling.

She went on.

“I know that challenges are always part of the Lord’s plan, but I don’t want to believe that the Lord is cruel, especially to someone like my father. He devotes his life to God, he gives to the community. And he’s already lost his wife and has had to raise me on his own. And I love him so much for it. . . . ”

Jamie turned away, but I could see the tears in her eyes. It was the first time I’d ever seen her cry. I think part of me wanted to cry, too.

“I’m not asking you to do it for me, ” she said softly, “I’m really not, and if you say no, I’ll still pray for you. I promise. But if you’d like to do something kind for a wonderful man who means so much to me. . . Will you just think about it? ”

Her eyes looked like those of a cocker spaniel that had just messed on the rug. I looked down at my feet.

“I don’t have to think about it, ” I finally said. “I’ll do it. ”

I really didn’t have a choice, did I?

Chapter 5

The next day I talked to Miss Garber, went through the audition, and got the part. Eddie, by the way, wasn’t upset at all. In fact, I could tell he was actually relieved about the whole thing. When Miss Garber asked him if he’d be willing to let me play the role of Tom Thornton, his face sort of relaxed right there and one of his eyes popped back open. “Y-y-yes, a-a-absolutely, ” he said, stuttering. “I—I—I un-un-understand. ” It took him practically ten seconds to get the words out.

For his generosity, however, Miss Garber gave him the role of the bum, and we knew he’d do fairly well in that role. The bum, you see, was completely mute, but the angel always knew what he was thinking. At one point in the play she has to tell the mute bum that God will always watch out for him because God especially cares for the poor and downtrodden. That was one of the tip-offs to the audience that she’d been sent from heaven. Like I said earlier, Hegbert wanted it to be real clear who offered redemption and salvation, and it certainly wasn’t going to be a few rickety ghosts who just popped up out of nowhere.