Cast a Pale Shadow

chapter Twelve

Going back to school was not as difficult as Trissa had imagined. Her new secret life was more easily kept than her old. Once the bruises paled, no new ones took their place as they had in the past. She managed to stay awake even through World History lectures. She spent no weary nights snatching at sleep on the hard wooden floor of a closet. She had a soft bed and, more often now than not, comforting arms to cradle her as she slept.

A gang of tutors ushered her through her studying every night, and while her make-up exam grades had been the best she'd ever earned, they were low compared to those she had scored since then. She amazed her teachers and herself with her insightful contributions to class discussions. And she never mentioned that the insights were gained over the supper dishes by listening to the debates and discussions of Augusta and Roger and Hattie and Jack and Nicholas.

Well, not so much Nicholas. He was not one to join in the discussions. He seemed content to listen to them and watch her with eyes as perceptive as the lenses of his camera.

Together over the past two weeks, Trissa, Nicholas, and his cameras, had spent their free time exploring the west and south ends of town: poking through the antique shops on Cherokee Street with their dusty collections of bric-a-brac from mansions demolished to make way for high rises along Lindell and Kingshighway, through Forest Park and the Zoo, the Jewel Box greenhouse with its rocky paths through a blanket of blossoms, the boat basin and the paddle boats you could rent, and the Art Museum.

Everywhere, Nicholas worked the magic of capturing light and shadow, sunshine and smiles so that these luminous times would never fade from her memory. As if they ever could. He let her in the darkroom at the camera shop after school so she could see the magic work. He bought her a camera of her own and taught her to use it, whispering instructions in her ear as he positioned her body in the perfect stance.

"Keep your elbows tucked into your side but not too close. Relax and let the tension melt out of your arms. Keep your knees slightly flexed, legs apart for steadiness, one foot forward but with your weight distributed evenly on both."

"Is this photography or ballet?"

"Art," he whispered in her ear, sending shivers swirling through her.

But she did not have his power. She could see the beauty, but she could not capture it. It seemed she was chasing the rainbow's end. And he held it right on the tip of his fingers.

"Do you see this captivating girl with eyes like smokey skies? Do you see how she smiles for me so that it seems you can look into the corners of her soul?"

The picture he had handed her was of herself, leaning against the pillars of the Jefferson Memorial, wearing a flower-decked bonnet he had bought her at an antique shop. She shook her head, as if to deny the face that glowed with happiness was hers. "Your camera flatters her. She's not so beautiful as you made her look."

"The camera only sees what I let it see."

Her training with the camera preceded more erratically than her other apprenticeship. If it seemed she had no aptitude for photography, she could not say that about kissing. If she never touched a shutter release again-- "Press gently," Nicholas said, "Never poke or jab." --it would not bother her one bit.

But that was not true of Nicholas' kisses.

With each one, she wanted more, deeper, longer, sweeter, until it had to stop before her heart did. Like a wizard, Nicholas sent little charges through the tips of his fingers as they pressed into her hair behind her ears when their lips first touched. The charges tingled down her neck until they reached major arteries then sizzled through her veins, making them live wires. He seemed to know just when the mingling of touch and mouth and tongue were becoming too much for her and amid the chaos, he was the one who could pull back. He was the one who would stop to rest, forehead against forehead, eyes closed, until her spasmodic breathing had achieved normalcy.

Then he was the one to start kissing again, not mouths this time, but ears and cheeks and tip of nose, chin and neck and collarbone. And he was the one who set the rules... no kissing on the bed, no unfastening buttons, no asking for more when the partner said stop. He apparently knew his limits. She wished she knew hers. Never once had she been the one to say stop.

In bed, their blanket wall had been breached the night following her exams when she had snuck her hand underneath to twine her fingers with his. She had thought he was asleep, but he groaned as if he were in pain when her skin touched his skin. Static electricity, she guessed, though she had not felt the shock. Without speaking, he folded his fingers around the back of her hand and his thumb stroked the juncture where her thumb met her palm.

The next night the blanket wall was not built at all. Instead she slept under the sheets and the tartan coverlet, and he on top, wearing his terry robe knotted closed like armor and using their former barrier to keep his ankles and toes warm. With this arrangement, she could snuggle up beside him. And sometimes they would reach morning nestled so close that she could sneak a kiss before he awoke and realized that they were on the bed and she was breaking the rules.

If her new life posed any jeopardy to her school career, it was in the daydreams that Nicholas' restraint forced on her. She supposed he waited for some signal, and daily, she pondered what it was and how to give it. Such thinking could strike her during geometry and she would totally lose the point of some theorem, or during World History and whole decades could drop from the march of time.

Most welcome of all was when the daydreams overcame her in the library, and she could surrender in her struggle to understand the symbolism in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and absorb herself in the mysteries of how to surrender to a man who seemed determined not to let her. She was deep in this reverie that afternoon when she heard someone call her name from very far away.

"Teresa. Teresa Kirk." the voice was like a dash of cold water in her face. She looked up to see one of the library aids beckoning her from the desk. "Aren't you Teresa Kirk?"

Still muddled by the abrupt end to her imagined seduction, Trissa bolted to her feet, nearly tripping over her purse in the aisle. "Yes."

"Take your books. There's an urgent message for you at the Student Resource Center."

"Yes, okay."

The Student Center was two blocks west of the library. Trissa used the journey to compose herself, to wipe all evidence of her pleasant, if unacceptably carnal, thoughts from her brain. Her mind flicked over the possible reasons she could be called to the student center in the middle of the day and tried to convince herself it was for advisement and nothing else.

She entered the building and turned a corner heading toward the office. A notebook slid off the stack of books she held clutched against her. She reached to rescue it and ran right into a man bent over the water fountain.

"Sorry, I -- Daddy!" Her heart squeezed and tumbled inside of her, and she didn't know if she should scream or run.

"Teresa, darling, we've been so worried about you, your mother and I."

"I'm fine," was all that squeaked out of her. She had the brief, preposterous notion that that was all he wanted from her, to see she was all right, to know that she still lived, and could go on living without his help. She wished it were that simple.

"I saw your report card. They mailed it to the house. You must be working hard."

"Yes. May I go now?"

"Go? I thought you'd come with me. We could go to lunch. I need to talk to you." He exuded that hypnotic charm that fooled all the women. Like a snake just before it struck.

"I can't. I already ate. I have an assignment to turn in this afternoon."

His teeth showed white, but it wasn't a smile. With deliberate slowness, he drew his thumb down the path of his scar, a trail that ended with his palm flattened over his heart. "Oh, but sweetheart, this is your father. Assignments can be made up."

The cross hatches of his scar burned into her eyes, like the flashing afterimages of the track she'd fled along. She closed her eyes and willed them away. The effort made her voice thin and tremulous. "I'm not your sweetheart. And as far as I am concerned, I have no father."

"See, I knew this would happen if we let this little misunderstanding between us fester into something worse. We have to talk things over, put them behind us, so we can go on." Never once did his cool, measured tone falter. Only the narrowing of his eyes revealed his growing impatience with her resistance. He reached out to take her arm. She ducked away from him.

"It could not get any worse and talking won't make it any better. I won't go with you today or ever. I have a new life now." She should have turned and fled from him then, denied him once and for always.

"Yes, your advisor, Miss Royal, told me all about your Uncle Pete. I didn't tell her I knew of no such relation. You didn't cool those round heels of yours long, did you, girl?" This time when he reached for her, he made sure he had her backed against a wall. There was no escape. He gripped her arm so tightly it brought tears to her eyes.

"Whoever this Romeo of yours is, I'll find him. And when I do, I'll teach him not to kidnap and seduce girls away from their families. And when I'm through with him, the police can have what they can scrape off the sidewalk. Do I make myself clear, Teresa Marie?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now, I'll give you a chance to prove yourself and perhaps save me and your boyfriend from a little unpleasantness. Come home tomorrow after you're finished here, but don't go in the house. Your mother and I are not currently residing together. You have succeeded in tearing apart a marriage of thirty years with your foolishness.

"But if you and I can settle some things, it could all work out fine. I'll meet you in the alley. If you are not there by five, I'm coming after you. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

Trissa watched him leave, wishing him dead. Then she took herself to the nurse's office and threw up. Afterwards, she couldn't relinquish her grip on the cold porcelain. She didn't trust her legs to hold her up without that support. Mrs. Rowan, the health aid on duty, offered to call for a ride. Trissa had to dig in her purse for Augusta's number. She was too rattled to remember it.



*****



Augusta's voice held brittle cheer when she called Nicholas with the message. Trissa had come home sick from school, but not to worry, a little stomach upset was all. She had sent her off to bed with tea and Saltine crackers. Nicholas hung up the phone and repeated the words to himself. They had sounded politely false, like an excuse used to turn down an invitation to a dull party. When Ben came in a few minutes later to work on the books, he asked him if he could leave for the day. It was no problem, Wednesdays were slow, and it was just an hour to closing.

He smoked three cigarettes on the way home, letting the smoke drift heavily through the car, hoping the soft haze would dull his worry. Over the past two weeks, his constant yearning for Trissa played like a screeching melody on the taut bowstrings of his restraint. It was a tune that was both sweetened and sharpened by her presence.

Every morning, "I love you, Trissa" was his first waking thought, never voiced, while the soft, creamy shell of her ear was cuddled so close to his lips that she would have heard him, however faint the words. She seemed to regard his arms as extra pillows, seeking him out to nestle in them, no matter how far he edged to his side of the bed. If she woke before him, as she often did, she would wake him with a kiss that gave him pain to feel and know that it was all he could allow. He'd have to crash away from her, muttering a grumpy good morning, and shuffling off to the bathroom where he drew his bath as numbingly cold as he could stand it.

In his dreams, he held her and loved her as if the shadows of her past were long forgotten. But in his waking, reasoned thoughts, he knew that they were not, and he feared that he would damage their tenuous hold on the moment if he went too far, too fast. He must count on time to heal her.

Time, his old enemy. And more so now than ever. Augusta's phone call had set the clock ticking loudly, knocking at his brain like a visitor that would not be denied entry. A little stomach upset, she said. Why must he torment himself with the suspicion that she was hiding something more?

Augusta greeted him at the back door, and he knew his suspicions were true. She stepped out of the kitchen where Ruth chopped onions at the sink to talk to him privately.

"Nicholas, I'm so glad you came home. She wouldn't let me tell you anything more than I did. But I'm afraid there is something terribly wrong." Augusta reached out and grasped his hand urgently.

"Did you call a doctor?"

"It's not like that. I mean, I don't think a doctor could help."

"But she was sick?"

"Anxiety, I think. I checked on her a bit ago, and it's clear she's been crying, probably ever since I left her." Her hand fluttered to her forehead to flick at a wiry strand of hair. "Oh, Nicholas, I'm so worried. She looks as if the world might end, and she might welcome it."

Panic welled in him like a seeping wound. An image of Trissa's face as she knelt on the railroad tracks harrowed him. "And you left her alone?" He pushed past her into the kitchen and bolted up the stairs.

"She wouldn't let me stay," Augusta called after him. "I'm sorry."

Trissa had locked the room, as she almost never did. She had told him once that real families had no need of locks. Nicholas fumbled in his pocket for his keys, cursing the delay. From inside, he heard the bath water running.

"Trissa! Trissa, answer me!" But there was no answer. When at last, he got the bent, old key to do its work, he opened the door to find the room a shambles. Every drawer was yanked out. The closet door stood open. Empty hangers littered the floor. Trissa's old record player lay smashed on the floor, her precious 45's dumped out of their case and into the waste can.

"Trissa!" The bathroom door was ajar, but no light was visible. The room was silent, too silent. He pushed the door open. Balanced on the closed toilet seat was her suitcase, filled with all her belongings, her brush and combs, her cosmetics and hair dryer all a jumble on the top layer. Otherwise, the room was empty, or seemed that way.

"Trissa?" The total silence that answered him nearly broke his heart. But just as he turned to leave the room he found her there, in the space below the bottom shelf, curled into that small space, kneeling on the tile floor. When he reached for her hand to pull her out, her face was puffy and red from crying.

"You weren't supposed to find me." Her voice was barely audible, as if she could hide herself inside it.

"Oh, Trissa, what's wrong?" He helped her to her feet and gathered her into his arms.

"Everything. Nothing." She cried and clung to him with a tangible desperation.

Nicholas freed one arm from her tenacious hug and led her out of the bathroom. "What were you doing? Why were you packing?" He sat on the bed and pulled her into his lap. "What is this?" A purplish-red bruise banded her left arm. Half moon gouges broke the skin where fingernails had dug in. "Who hurt you like this, Trissa?"

"He came to school. They called me down, and he was there," she said in a dull monotone, as if all hope had been stolen from her.

"Who? Your father?"

She nodded her head against his chest, and his grip tightened so suddenly, she gasped then relaxed, burrowing deeper. "He says I broke up the family. He wants me to come home. I can't. I won't."

"This is your home now. We are your family." Nicholas eased his hold on her, rocking her gently. He didn't want to frighten her with his growing rage. Left unchecked, it might boil out of him while the object of his anger was far out of his reach. He had to quell it with action. He stood and she slid from his lap to stand.

"Augusta is very worried about you. Should we go down after you change? The kitchen is warm and sunny. The teakettle's bubbling on the stove. The whole crew will be coming home soon."

He had to get her out of this gloom, away from the shadows that haunted her, back to life. He would find a way to deal with her father later. Trissa took a few tentative steps away from him.

"No," she whispered, her hand outstretched to keep him at a distance. "I can't. I'm leaving. I have to leave here. You. I have to leave you."

He met her eyes with a firm gaze. She set her chin and turned away.

"Don't look at me like that. It's the only way. He'll find us here. He won't leave us alone."

"He doesn't have any power over you anymore. You're protected here. I won't let him come in here. Augusta won't let him. No one here would. Come on. Come down to dinner. We can talk about this later. He frightened you but he can't hurt you anymore. Nicholas went to the bathroom door, looking back to her over his shoulder. "What do you want to wear?"

"Anything. It doesn't matter."

"Everything matters, Trissa. Everything." He brought her a blue sweater and a denim skirt with pearl buttons. Shrugging off her jeans and shirt so that she was clad only in her bra and panties, she shyly turned away from him and pulled the sweater on over her head. Her fingers trembled so badly, she couldn't manage the buttons on the skirt.

"Let me." Working from the bottom up, he quickly, efficiently buttoned her, straightened her collar, lifting her damp hair away from her neck, then he threaded her belt through the loops at her waist and buckled it.

When he reached the buttons at her cuffs, he halted, gently stroking the chilled skin from the heel of her palm to the bruised band that marked her father's grip. "He won't hurt you again, Trissa, I promise. But you have to promise me you will never think of leaving me again. Never." He bent down and kissed her bruised wrist then buttoned her cuff.

When he bowed his head to do the same with the other wrist, she touched his cheek to stop him. "Don't. I can't bear it. I can't make the promise you ask of me. I so wanted this new life to be mine, but it can't be. I was never meant to be loved and cherished. I learned that long ago. It's just that I let myself forget. I had a few magic weeks, but now it has to end. I have to leave."

"No. No, that can't be true because I love you, Trissa. I cherish you. And the magic is only just beginning for us." He laid his hands softly on her cheeks and kissed her, a kiss that tasted of salt and sadness and lost dreams. When it ended, she reached hungrily for another, and her pulse quickened where his fingers rested lightly near her ears, a leap to the hope he offered her. Her hands circled his neck, and she pressed her body along the length of his, willing him to continue until he was dizzy with desire for her. "Trissa..."

"Don't say stop, Nicholas. Don't say anything."

He took a deep breath to clear his head and smiled. "I don't want to. But we have to go downstairs. Augusta must be frantic by now." When he saw the disappointment that edged into her eyes, he said, "I know, but it will be all the sweeter for the waiting. When all our troubles are behind us. Trust me."

He forced himself away from her and went to the bathroom again to get her brush. His yearning and his fear for her mingled in his heart so that there seemed no room there for the blood. It rushed to his ears and his head confusing him with its sound and heaviness.

He was losing her. She would leave and they would both be lost if he was not careful. When her hand touched his as he handed her the brush, there were sparks that were more than static. "Brush your hair," he said, his voice sounding strangely muffled through the humming in his head, "And we'll go down. I have to change my shirt."

Nicholas went to his dresser and pulled open a drawer. A wave of foreboding swept him, and he clutched the edge of the dresser and doubled over to rest his teeming head against the cool oak.

He had never been one to pray, not wishing to acknowledge the power of a god who tainted lives with such grief that the gift of life seemed more like a deprivation. But he prayed now. He prayed for the strength and sanity to save her and himself. And more than that, he prayed for time.

When he opened the bathroom door, Trissa stood a few footsteps away, a look of impossible hope in her eyes. She saw him again as her savior, her guardian angel. God, how he prayed he could be.

In the kitchen, Hattie had already come home for the day and was in the midst of telling Augusta a fervent tale of a disgruntled parent. "Imagine the nerve to assume that the tuition he pays entitles his child, his lazy dolt of a child, to be wet-nursed through..." Sensing she had lost her audience, she followed Augusta's eyes to the source of her distraction. Trissa clutched Nicholas' hand tighter and tried to ignore her disdainful look.

"Are you feeling better, dear?" Augusta greeted her warmly, stepping toward them to give her a hug. "Will you join us for dinner?"

"Augusta, could Ruth just fix us a couple of sandwiches and wrap a few cookies? It's such a balmy night, we'd like to go to the park for dinner," said Nicholas. Trissa cast a surprised glance at him.

"Of course! The fresh air will do you worlds of good."

"Thanks. Trissa, you stay with Augusta. I forgot something upstairs." She let go of his hand reluctantly. "I'll be right back."

"Now what kind of sandwich would you like?" asked Ruth. "We got some meatloaf here, or ham."

"Ham, I guess."

"Shoot, mizewell give you both. Balmy or not, it's only April and that spring night air can make you hungry. In fact, spring can get you hankering for all kinds of things. I wish I had some of that tonic my old Gram used to dose me with. You sure do look a worrisome bit peaky." She clucked her tongue and went to the refrigerator for the meatloaf and ham.

When Nicholas returned, it was through the back door. "I had to put something in the car," he said. He brushed two fingers along Trissa's cheek to reassure her. "Augusta, may I speak privately with you a moment?"

"Of course." She followed him through the pantry to the cellar landing. "Oh dear, Nicholas, I almost forgot. I have a message for you. A Doctor Fitapaldi called."

"Who?"

"Doctor Lorenzo Fitapaldi."

Nicholas shrugged. "Never heard of him."

"Well, it was puzzling. He asked for a Cole Baker first, and when I told him..."

"Cole Baker," he repeated dully.

"Yes, and when I told him he must have the wrong number, he asked for Cole Brewer.... What's the matter, Nicholas? You're as white as a sheet. Is it bad news?"

The rushing blood had returned to his ears, muffling clear thought. "No one calls me that."

"But it is you? I hope so because the man is coming here all the way from Michigan just to see you this weekend."

"Here? To see Cole Baker?"

"Brewer."

"He's mistaken me for someone else. When he sees me, he'll know." He pushed the puzzle out of his mind. He could only worry about Trissa now. "I need your help tomorrow. Trissa must not go to school. I want someone to be with her at all times, and I can't be. She needs something to keep her occupied so she doesn't dwell on her troubles."

"I've got the perfect thing. We're making the floral arrangements and decorating for May's piano students' recital tomorrow. She can help Roger, May, and me if you think she's well enough."

"You were right, Augusta, it's not physical. Remember, I told you her family objected to our marriage? Her father is harassing her at school. He's pressing her to come home. She's very much afraid he will force her."

"But she's eighteen."

"That doesn't make any difference to him. He's a domineering man. There's no way to know what threats he has used or may use. I don't think he has this address but--"

"Don't worry. I'll take care of her. And if he dares to come here, Roger will take care of him." Augusta had her fists clenched at her side, ready to fight.

Nicholas smiled and took one fist and kissed her knuckles like a knight paying homage. "Thank you, Augusta. I knew I could count on you. One more thing, I may be late tomorrow night. I have some unavoidable business to attend to. If I am, cover for me with Trissa, will you? In her state, she's likely to think the worst."

"I'll keep her so busy she won't even notice you're gone."

Beverly, Roger and May had arrived home to join Ruth, Hattie, and Trissa in the kitchen. They were all laughing heartily as each in their turn tried to heft the bulging picnic basket Ruth had assembled.

"Well, feed a fever, as they always say. Even if it is spring fever," grinned Ruth. Like clowns jammed into a circus car, the picnic goodies included sandwiches and potato chips, pickles, celery and carrot strips, chunks of cheddar cheese, cake, apples and grapes, a jug of lemonade and a bottle of wine. Ruth had thrown in napkins, utensils, paper plates, wine glasses wrapped in tissue, and a couple of handfuls of candle stubs.

"There's enough to feed the lot of us," said Roger. "Maybe we should all eat in the open air tonight. Who votes yes?"

May and Beverly raised their hands, and Hattie seemed on the verge of it when Trissa's small voice squelched the voting. "No! Umm, I mean, I'd love to have you join us some other day. You know you're better than family to me. But tonight is not a family picnic. Nicholas and I need some time alone." When she looked around the circle and saw their knowing smiles and saw Roger jab Nicholas in the rib with his elbow, she blushed and added, "To talk."

"Roger is just teasing you, honey. Of course, this is a picnic for two only. Run along and enjoy yourselves."

"Yes, enjoy!" Roger raised the bottle of beer he held in his hand, which set May, and Beverly to giggling. "There's a full moon tonight. You know what that does to lovers." He took a deep swallow of his beer. "And madmen."

"Roger, behave yourself," said Augusta.

"Get a jacket," Nicholas whispered in Trissa's ear. After she left, he pretended to struggle with the lifting of the picnic basket. "All of your kibitzing will be for naught, folks, if toting Ruth's dinner ruins me for life." When May wrinkled her brow in her effort to understand the joke that Roger laughed at with such a pained expression, Nicholas winked at her. "Don't wait up, gang," he said and banged out the back door.