Save Her

Natalie - Chapter 4-3

“‘Nonsense,’ mother said. She was getting annoyed. ‘Blending is boring. We want you in this. This makes sense. The other one is not something we should have caved into getting.’

“‘But Mom—’ I started, but then Dad cut me off.

“‘I agree with your mom. It’s time for you to grow up and appreciate the finer things.’

“I nodded. I tried to smile. I tried to look grateful. When the two of them agreed on something, there was no fighting it. I could wreck it! I thought, or let it get stolen by leaving the keys in the ignition. Or sell it and buy a Volkswagen! That idea sounded romantic to me. I actually thought about me in a little Jetta with Drayden sitting next to me, holding my hand. Just me and Drayden driving down a countryside road inside a cozy car, looking at the cows, the far away misting of rain from a small pack of clouds over a farmhouse. In a Jetta, we could sit close enough for me to rest my hand on his knee, and he could put his strong arm behind me and caress my hair with his fingers while I drove. But in that hulking off-white beast that waited for me with a pretty pink bow, he would be too far away. A spontaneous kiss on my neck would be a stretch, a near impossibility.

“I got to the car and touched the smooth paint.”

“‘What did you think?’ My mother asked Livia. ‘Did you like it?’

“‘It’s the most beautiful car in the whole wide world. I’ve never been so scared,’ Livia said, not intending to sound negative, but that’s how my mother took it.

“‘Well, there’s nothing scary about it. You’re just not used to such nice things. Don’t worry. Hang around Natalie long enough, and her class will rub off on you.’

“‘Mom!’

“‘Oh, Livia knows what I mean.’ Yes, Livia knew exactly what my mom had meant because she was hurt by her words, and couldn’t respond the way she would have to a fellow classmate or a stranger because she was trying her hardest to maintain a respectful attitude with my parents.

“I wanted to tell them to take it back to the Bentley store, confident I would be the first in the world to turn down such a beautiful gift, but I just didn’t have it in me. Something about my parent’s presence always takes me away from myself, makes me shyer, quieter, more into the little girl I’m trying to get away from. It happens on the phone as well. I can’t help it, but I hate my voice whenever I talk to them. My ‘yes’s’ and ‘everything’s fine’s’ sound weaker somehow, despite my effort to throw confidence behind them. So I kept the shiny new auto, wondering how I could shield myself with large hats and anti-paparazzi style dark sunglasses, and whether I could get away with never putting the top down to avoid the judgmental stares.

“‘We’d like to take you both out for a nice lunch to celebrate,’ my mom said. What do you girls think about that?’

“‘Thank you, but I have so much homework piling up,’ Livia said.

“‘Nonsense,’ Mother said. ‘We know how smart you are. Homework can wait. Besides, you kept the car a secret, and we appreciate it.’

“Mom and Dad made me drive the beautiful behemoth to the restaurant. It drove heavy and strong, and I hated it. It absorbed every bump so you couldn’t feel a thing and was so beautiful that I never would feel comfortable enough to relax. I tried to smile. I tried to be grateful. Dinner was uneventful enough, with Livia and I disappointing both my parents by ordering a simple Cobb salad with grilled chicken breast, so they overcompensated for our lack of culinary stylings by over-ordering appetizer delicacies so small and beautiful that the point of eating them hardly seemed justified. We each picked at them for politeness-sake, but I was distracted by the thought of not gaining a poochy belly before seeing Drayden again, and Livia always looked out for her slim figure, not wanting to over-indulge on anything that might give her her mother’s hips and oversized breasts. The talk was standard and came back to the car a few times, and it saddened me to think I would never see my little BMW again.”

“I had to drive us back. Mom absolutely insisted. When we pulled up to my school and got out of the car, Livia saw him, standing by the door of my building, looking up at the closed windows. ‘It’s him!’ She whispered too loudly because my mother had phenomenal ears.

“‘Do you know that young man?’ my father asked.

“‘A little,’ I said, not sure how else to answer.

“‘She does,’ mother said with a questioning look to me. ‘Why is he here?’

“Drayden walks away in the opposite direction. I had to go to him! I thought about not going because of mother but he was walking away, and what if I never saw him again after this? Livia nudged me, and that’s all the impetus I needed. I hurried to him. He heard my light footsteps and turned just before I got to him. He smiled the crooked smile I love so much.

“‘Hi Drayden.’ I was close to him. Much closer than I meant to get. We were close enough to kiss by both of us merely leaning forward, but we didn’t do that. I turned behind me to see Mom and Dad approaching quickly. I turned back to Drayden, and his smile made me smile. I nudged my head a little, you know, like trying to tell him trouble was coming, but he failed to see my warning or didn’t care. He was focused on me entirely, just like he was at the cafe, and just like when I hit him with my car. His eye contact made me not care that the heat from my parents — or at least my mom — was inevitably coming.

“‘I wanted to see you again. Didn’t want to wait,’ he said.

“‘I’m really glad,’ I said. ‘I was worried maybe you fell in front of some other girl’s car.’

“‘Your the prettiest girl I’ve ever fallen in front of,’ he said. ‘Or fallen for.’

“Agent Love, I melted. Melted! I was still gushing when mother came up behind me. I knew she was there even though I couldn’t see her because of the way Drayden’s smile went from full to half, just as mine had done numerous times growing up.”

“‘Drayden, you remember my mom,’ I said without turning around.

“‘Nice to see you again,’ he said politely.

“‘I suppose you’re here because you want money?’

“‘Mom!’

“Her statement had caught him off-guard. The sound that came out of him was more of a chortle than a laugh, but it doesn’t matter because it offended her, even though she had been the offender. ‘No, ma’am.’

“‘That’s a relief,’ she said.

“‘You mean you’re relieved that I’m unhurt,’ Drayden said without missing a beat.

“‘Of course that’s what I meant. What were you doing in that tree, anyway? Were you committing suicide?’

“‘No, Mrs. Heston,’ Drayden answered as politely as he knew how to. ‘I was just falling, that’s all.’

“‘Excuse me, Mom.’ I took Drayden’s arm and led him into the grass where she couldn’t hear. ‘She’s protective,’ I said to him.

“‘It’s fine. Parents hate me. Always have. I think she can tell that my intentions with you are salacious at best.’

“I blushed, despite myself, and felt the heat flow from my face to other parts of my body. I wanted to kiss him for all the wrong reasons, and also for all the right ones, but doing so would have caused my parents to hire a private investigator to follow me and him, so I held back my desires.

“‘You really came back,’ I said.

“‘Of course I did.’

“‘Every time you leave I’m afraid I’ll never see you again.’

“‘Yeah, I know what you mean.’

“Oh my god, I’m telling you that if there weren’t people around — I mean I could feel myself touching him even though my hands were clasped tightly against my thighs. His neck was there in front of me — he loves that I’m that much shorter than him — and I was as turned on by the ridge of his neck muscle outlining its way to the inside of his shirt collar as I was by the hint of his Adam’s apple shading its manly existence.

“My dad had joined up with my mom, and I looked over only long enough to see him leaning in close enough to her to hear whatever she was saying about Drayden. I looked back at Drayden and shrugged as if to say: now what, oh Handsome Devil?; sweep me off, away from these dreadful studies and take me somewhere far away! As if he could read my mind, he said:

“‘How about I find you after your parents leave?’

“‘Yes,’ I said, giddy as I’ve ever been.

“‘I don’t think I can see you again without trying to kiss you,’ he said. ‘So, you should know I’m going to try later.’

“I bit my smile — so happy, so happy, so happy! Dad had pasted on his businessman-stoic face when we walked back, and I knew his voice would be the formal dinner-conversation tone when he met Drayden, because to him first impressions had a set of strictly followed rules, one of which was to establish the difference from his social class to that of other people. The car parked behind him was part of that ruse, the tailored clothing was another part, the tall posturing of his spine, the way his head angled slightly down to look at Drayden — even though he and Drayden were precisely the same height — was yet another attempt to separate his status. The thing my dad didn’t know, which I was only slightly aware of, was that Drayden was socially fearless, especially with a girl’s parents. I learned later from him that so much time around his mother and her many professional mates had dulled his admiration of adults, as had the encounters with the parents of some of his recent girlfriends, because none of them had ever liked him no matter how hard he faked trying, so he just stopped working to please them altogether. He entered conversations with adults as if he were a Spartan warrior ready for any verbal onslaught and even tried to pick fights if none happened his way naturally. That’s a bad thing, and I’ve told him he needs to stop doing it, but he likes it too much. Anyway, my dad didn’t offer to shake hands, and neither did Drayden, but I knew better than to interfere with Dad’s ways.

“‘You are the young man who bounces off cars and runs from ambulances?’ My father said, not jovially.

“‘And you’re the parent of the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.’

Livia smiled, but I clenched my teeth and curled my toes inside my boots. I could tell this was not going to go over smoothly. Drayden was as casual and carefree as Dad was stuffy. All my previous boyfriends had already soiled their pants by now. Not Drayden. He maintained eye contact, but not in a staring-contest way. It was like he was waiting to hear something interesting, or like he was waiting to hear whatever threat my father used to keep him away from me. Looking at the two of them standing so close, it was impossible not to notice the stark difference of their skin; my father’s was slightly wrinkled and taut from too much tennis outdoors, and Drayden’s was so young and so vibrant it was almost luminescent. Dad seemed to get a new sunspot in every new picture he fell into while Dray didn’t look a day over sixteen.

“‘Young man, you should know our daughter is focused on her studies,’ my father said. He has a warm and paced delivery when he speaks. He’s a great lecturer. It’s hard to interrupt him, and it’s difficult to argue with him.

“‘I support that,’ Drayden said.

“‘She has very little free time to spend wasting it with someone who isn’t from here, and who most likely has no intention of living in England.’ My dad is so well-mannered that the least polite word out of his mouth was none of them at all, but still, he was clearly laying down the threat to Dray: she needs to study, and you are getting in the way.

“‘You’re right,’ Drayden said. ‘My intention isn’t to live here. My only current intention is to get to know your daughter better.’

“‘That just isn’t going to happen,’ my mother butted in. ‘You and she are from two different worlds.’

“‘Mom, Dad, can we please stop this?’

“‘He’s trouble, Darling. I can see it in his eyes and the arrogant way he carries himself,’ my mother said.

“‘That should be my decision, not yours,’ I said. It was the first time I had talked back to them since I was little. It stunned them as much as me.

“‘When school is over, you can make your own decisions,’ Dad said, but I knew that would only not be a lie if I dated one of his boring friend’s sons. Livia stood there near my parents biting the skin around her thumbnail. She did that before important tests, too, and I usually stopped her because she didn’t know she was doing it, and because it was disgusting. I looked to her, shook my head, and she knew I meant she had better stop. She put her hands into the pockets of her coat and waited for me to speak.

“‘No. I’m making my own decisions now. I’m not a kid anymore. I’m not an ignorant little girl who doesn’t know what she wants. I’ll date whom I please no matter what their status or what their last name is. And I’m going to be an artist!’ I really hadn’t planned on using that setting to come free, but it seemed like an opportune time to speak out since I had already surprised everybody.

“‘You can’t be serious,’ laughed my mother.

“‘She’s very good,’ Livia said, at which time my parents looked behind them because they had entirely forgotten she was still with us, and the look they gave her was as if they didn’t know she could speak at all or hear for that matter, like my own friend-version of Helen Keller. ‘Sorry,’ Livia said to my parents.

“‘You are finishing prep school, attending university, and then concluding with law school,” my dad said.

“‘Dad!’

“‘And that’s final!’ His tone was sharp. It was the first time since my teenage years I could remember him resorting to that voice with me.

“‘This is all your fault,’ my mother said to Drayden.

“‘Don’t you wish,’ he said. ‘Then you wouldn’t have to blame your parenting books.’

“I had never heard anyone be so bold with them. I had never seen my parents so taken aback, so flustered at such confidence. If I wasn’t sure I was in love with him already, then I was certain about it at that moment. Don’t get me wrong, and please don’t think I didn’t love my parents because I did — I do! — but here was this beautiful man telling them in a forthright and somewhat respectful way what I had always wanted to say. And nobody ever told my parents anything. People listened, laughed and obeyed. To Drayden, the opposite came so effortlessly. It was contagious. I felt energized. The impossible had just happened, and I had witnessed it. My parents had been flummoxed.

“‘We’ll talk later,’ Dad said to me before kissing me perfunctorily on the cheek. Mom followed him to the car without a word or another glance to me, which wasn’t unexpected.

“When they had driven off around the corner, Livia said, ‘OMG! Girl, that was amazing! I’ve never seen you talk to your parents that way. I thought I would have a heart attack! Did you see your mother?’

“‘I’m in so much trouble,’ I said. ‘But I don’t care! For the first time, I don’t care!’ Livia and I hugged and jumped up and down quickly, and I remember her clapping excitedly. ‘I feel so good!’ I said to her. And in the heat of my excitement, of my newly found independence, and of the official announcement of my art career after law school, I turned around to Drayden and kissed him long and hard on the mouth.”

Agent Love listens with her lips parted and her pen down on the table, her pad of paper hanging at an awkward angle from her thumb and forefinger. “Is that video of Livia ready?” Natalie asks. “I’d really like to see her now before I continue and tell you more about Drayden’s teleportation.” Agent Love looks at Natalie and understands that Natalie is serious. She purses her lips and looks away as if relaying to Natalie that she wants to help. Finally, she looks up and nods.

“Okay,” Agent Love says.

“Okay,” Natalie says before pushing her chair out and getting up without the need of her lousy escorts to bring her to her room. She knows the way with her eyes closed, so why the pretense of a guard anymore? She turns away from Agent Love and feels the confidence and strength of womanhood escorting her to the place where she would relax until tomorrow when they show her a video of her roommate. Only then would she talk.