Casting Shadows (The Ash Grove Chronicles) Page 4

  “A lot of them, yeah. They were all paid for with money I earned, but… anyway, I doubt I’ll be needing a Hugo Boss suit in the near future.”

  “Why not?”

  “Working with Bobby in his garage? Nope, it’s jeans from here on out for me.”

  She sat back, the clothes forgotten. “I forgot about that. I guess I assumed the same thing as Dad—that you’d be checking the job listings, going on interviews.”

  He shrugged. “No point. There aren’t a lot of options out here, and there’s not much I’m equipped to do, except tinker on bikes. I’m going in this afternoon to get reacquainted with his setup.” Becoming aware of her silence, he sat down beside her. “It’s not much,” he said. “But it’ll be some money coming in. Are you disappointed?”

  “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “It just seems like such a comedown for you. Especially when I know you’ve got it in you to be so much more than a small-town bike mechanic.”

  “That’s a good girlfriend talking. Above all, she believes in her man.” When she didn’t respond to his joking tone, he said more seriously, “Will it bother you? Having a grease monkey husband instead of a famous model?”

  “Of course not! I don’t care about status or anything like that. But will you miss it? If not the work, then the lifestyle?”

  “Not at all,” he said positively. “Being an unknown will be a relief. And hey, I may be starting off small in Bobby’s shop, but it’s just temporary. After Rose is born and you’ve finished school, we can do anything we want. Move anywhere—” But she was gazing at him in consternation.

  “I’m not going to leave Dad,” she said. “Not when he’s just gotten over being so sick.”

  He didn’t answer at once. “Okay,” he said presently. “We can figure things out later.” He began sorting clothes, starting a pile of rejects.

  “Save one of your suits, at least,” she said. “You never know when it’ll come in handy. How about the navy blue with the chalk stripe.”

  Silently he set it aside. She couldn’t read his face. In repose he always looked brooding, because of his sharply angled eyebrows and his deep-set eyes, but most of the time the expression was misleading. Most of the time.

  “Are you angry?” she ventured.

  “No.”

  “It’s okay if you are,” she said. “We can talk about things. We can even disagree.”

  “I’m not angry, Joy. Why do you think Dr. Aysgarth wants both of us at the meeting tomorrow? I’ve hardly seen her since I left Ash Grove, and I sure don’t have anything to do with the school’s internal workings.”

  She recognized this as a diversion, but it was a valid question.

  “Maybe she wants to do a postmortem on what happened the night of the ritual. Get both of us to go over everything we remember.”

  He grimaced. “Great, I can’t wait to tell the whole council about it.”

  That night had been the nadir of his life. She reached out and touched his face. “We’ll get through it. I’ll be there with you. And we won’t tell them anything they don’t need to know.” She let her hand linger on his rough cheek. “But right now, if we’re going to go run errands you’d better shower and shave.”

  He grinned at her, good mood restored. “While we’re living with your dad, I think we should help keep the utility bills down,” he said. “Say, by conserving water and showering together.”

  “Don’t tempt me.” She kissed him and then pushed him away from her. “We’d never get out of the house. Go on, before my self-control gives out.” Living with the love of her life was going to prove challenging in some ways.

  Chapter 3

  Being in love, William had decided, was a little like having asthma. Sometimes it was a powerful, agonizing attack, and at other times it was almost low-level enough to ignore; but either way, it was always in your system, always ready to flare up.

  He had fallen in love with Maddie in freshman year, when she was seated in front of him in geometry class. It was the back of her neck that did it. She had already started dyeing her hair black, and it was cut in a chin-length bob that left the pale slender column of her neck bare. There was something so enticing about that vulnerable bit of skin that he was already half in love with her before he even had a face to attach to it. Ever since then, he’d been crazy about her—and seemingly doomed forever to be nothing more than a friend.

  He knew that he’d gained a reputation among his friends as absentminded because when he was around Maddie she was all he could think about. His awareness of her was so heightened that he saw everything about her with piercing clarity: the way her eyes turned up ever so slightly at the outer corners; the tiny freckle on the inside of her right wrist; the way her hair swung around her face when she turned her head. And if she wore a sweater, forget about it: he was a goner.

  It had been such a relief to confide in Joy a few months ago, to have someone aware of what he felt. At the same time, though, it had been hard when she hadn’t responded with any reassurance that Maddie had shown any interest in him. Maddie was drawn to handsome, moody actor types, not skinny bespectacled nerds like William. He had seen her go through so many boyfriends, and the frustration was something he never got used to: watching the whole cycle from initial giddiness to heavy-breathing intensity to the inevitable shouting, tear-filled end, followed by the bitter aftermath of complaining to her friends. He had finally cracked last summer and called her out on it, and since then she hadn’t been so vocal about her boyfriend dramas.

  The thing he couldn’t understand was why Maddie would choose some of these douches over him. It seemed like she’d make out with any self-absorbed poser with good hair, but William—who had been there for her through every triumph and failure, who had brought her chocolate and Kleenex when she didn’t get a role she wanted, who had reassured her after every failed relationship that she deserved to find happiness—he had never gotten so much as a kiss on the cheek from her. And he was old-fashioned enough that even that would have been nice. He wasn’t one of those guys who didn’t think a date counted if the girl kept her top on. Just to be near her and be able to tell her how he felt and see an answering warmth kindle in her eyes: that was all he asked.

  Well, that, and to be able to put his arms around her and hold her. He could imagine it so clearly: the softness of her body pressed against him, the feel of her heart beating against his chest. He’d breathe in the scent of her, that spicy fragrance she always wore, and her eyes would drift closed as she parted her lips for a long, slow kiss that only ended when she whispered…

  “William!”

  “Huh?” He jumped in his seat, knocking his coffee over. In the confusion of pushing books out of the way, scrambling for paper napkins, and mopping up, Maddie threw a laughing look at him.

  “You’re really out to lunch lately. Composing a symphony or something?”

  Before he could think of a reply, Tasha added, “You look flushed, too. You’re not coming down with anything, are you?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” He’d already got the full-fledged virus: a chronic case of Maddie, possibly fatal, certainly debilitating. “Just underslept.”

  “Me too,” said Maddie, and yawned and stretched; her sweater pulled up to reveal a glimpse of her midriff, and William almost knocked his coffee over again. Were his glasses actually fogging up? He took them off and made himself busy polishing them, keeping his eyes off Maddie.

  Joy was conspicuous by her absence; until this week, she’d always joined him and Maddie for coffee at morning break. She was only a few days into her suspension, and William missed her already; but he planned on visiting her and Tanner as often as he could manage. If Tanner was any good at guitar—and Joy swore he was—he might be a good replacement for Eric, if he was serious about leaving Aerosol Cheese. It would be good riddance as far as William was concerned; of all Maddie’s exes, Eric was one of the most obnoxious, and he kept trying to draw Blake and Jeremiah into bitch sessions abou
t Maddie.

  In fact, now that their drummer had graduated, William was the only member of Aerosol Cheese who had never gone out with Maddie. The realization depressed him. Even Blake, who was gay, had gotten further with Maddie than William had. And it stung that she had chosen a jerk like Eric over him, even temporarily. Did girls really prefer guys who treated them badly?

  If they did, Eric was made to order. He was acting true to form when William arrived at the chorus room for rehearsal that afternoon, holding forth about how insatiable the Ash Grove girls were.

  “And I’m all, ‘Baby, give me some space already.’ I mean, I know I blew your tiny mind, but I’ve got more important things to do than take care of your needs.” He put air quotes around the last word. “But that’s the way it always goes. Once they’ve had a taste of me, I can’t get rid of them.”

  “Is that why the place is so cluttered up with your groupies?” murmured Blake, looking out over the empty risers of the chorus room.

  “I’m serious, dude. Take Maddie Rosenbaum. Chick was panting for more when I dumped her.”

  “Hardly,” said William. “She said she was done when you wouldn’t see a therapist about your anger issues.”

  Eric sprawled back in his chair. He was sporting a soul patch these days, and muscle shirts to show off the physique he worked hard at maintaining. He rolled a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “Oh yeah, I forgot you’re tight with her. You hang out together in your nighties and do each other’s hair, right?”

  “Absolutely, and we give each other mani-pedi’s every Friday. And Maddie tells me everything.” William folded his arms. “Everything.”

  It wasn’t exactly a bonus, to tell the truth. He really didn’t want to hear all the gruesome details of Maddie’s love life. But there were times, like now, when it was an advantage to know the real story.

  Eric was unabashed. “She didn’t seem worried about the state of my mental health when she was getting her freak on with me. It wasn’t my mind she was concentrating on, if you know what I mean.”

  “Maddie didn’t sleep with you.”

  “The hell she didn’t. We practically broke her bed.”

  “Eric, let’s get started already,” said Jeremiah. “The sooner you stop running your mouth, the sooner we can get out of here, and I’ve got a paper due tomorrow.”

  “You guys are just jealous. Well, I can see that. That girl is one sweet piece of tail.”

  “Don’t talk about Maddie like that.” William knew he sounded like a prig, but he couldn’t keep quiet.

  “Aw, come on. Even you must have thought about what she’s like in the sack, what her O face looks like—”

  William closed the space between them in two steps and grabbed a fistful of Eric’s shirt, trying to yank him to his feet. “Shut up. Just shut up.”

  “Dude, chillax.” With humiliatingly little effort, Eric freed himself from William’s grasp. “Don’t get your frillies all in a bunch just because you never got anywhere with her. Can I help it if the girl likes her vitamin E?”

  He wanted to knock his teeth out. “Stop talking like that about Maddie,” he ordered. “You never even got to second base with her. You know how I know? Because she told me. She said she thanked god she realized what a jackass you are before she did anything she’d regret.”

  “William, chill,” said Jeremiah. “And Eric, shut up. Maddie’s my friend too, and you’re out of line.”

  “Damn, what is this, kindergarten? We can’t even have a little adult conversation?”

  “We’re not here to listen to your fictitious amorous exploits,” said Blake. (“Whatever that means,” muttered Eric.) “If you two are going to fight, at least take it outside so Jeremiah and I can rehearse.”

  “William’s not going to fight me,” said Eric, smirking. “Not with those pipe-cleaner arms. Isn’t that right?”

  “Skip it. Let’s just get started.” Moving stiffly, William walked over to his bookbag and took out the sheet music for a new song. He knew he couldn’t beat up Eric. But it was shaming to know that Eric knew it too.

  Jeremiah glanced over at him. “Just so we’re clear, Eric,” he said. “If it turns out you and William can’t work together? William’s essential to Aerosol Cheese. You’re not. So you might want to keep that in mind.”

  “Okay, okay. Bunch of tight-asses,” said Eric, under his breath.

  William had a hard time concentrating during rehearsal. It was bad enough hearing Eric make up stuff about Maddie, but the worst thing was that it could easily have been true. He remembered hearing another of her exes bragging to his friends about her, and he had wanted to knock the guy’s block off, but he had to sit there silently seething and take it. Maddie sometimes gave her heart—and the rest of her body—to guys who weren’t discreet. Eric wasn’t far off base: jealousy was part of what ate at him. But it also killed him that Maddie sometimes settled for guys who didn’t appreciate her.

  After they had wrapped up and the guys started to disperse, Jeremiah hung back, taking his time putting away the sound equipment. On his way to the door, he paused where William sat jotting down notes. He said, “I’m not sure if you know, but when Maddie and I were going out, we slept together.” When William didn’t reply, he went on, “I’m not trying to make a big deal out of it, but I didn’t want it to take you by surprise.”

  “Yeah, I knew,” said William, since Jeremiah evidently expected him to say something. “At least you’re not telling the whole school about what the two of you did in bed. I just think some things ought to be private.”

  “I hear you. But it’s pretty hard to keep anything secret here. Things get around.”

  William looked him in the face. “Does that mean you’d heard things about Maddie before you started going out with her?”

  Jeremiah shrugged. “Of course I had, but that’s not why I asked her out. I thought she was cute and funny and I liked her. I still do, just… from a more comfortable distance, you know?”

  It was the distance William had been wanting to close for as long as he’d known her. “So what are you saying, I need to lighten up?”

  “Look, man, there are always going to be rumors, and you can’t stop them. You can’t go white-knighting around trying to defend Maddie from trash talk. You’d never stop.”

  He knew Jeremiah was right, but it wasn’t that easy. He couldn’t just sit back and let Eric and guys like him make Maddie out to be a slut. Except that he had to. He couldn’t stop them from talking. All he could do was call them on the lies, and try to put the truth in context.

  “So,” said Jeremiah, “are we cool?”

  “Yeah, we’re cool.”

  Jeremiah slapped him on the back and went on his way. It was nice of Jeremiah to check in with him. Maybe Maddie’s taste was improving. But no, she was with Derek now, who was narcissistic even by drama-student standards.

  Sometimes it seemed like her only consistent requirement for a boyfriend was that he wasn’t William.

  The next afternoon Joy and Tanner came by to retrieve Joy’s things from the dorm room she’d shared with Maddie before going to some kind of meeting. By the time William arrived at the girls’ dorm to help, the three of them had finished packing all of Joy’s stuff into Dr. Sumner’s car. There hadn’t been much to move; Joy had never fully committed to dorm life, and her half of the girls’ shared room had always looked somewhat empty. But, scanty as her belongings were, now that they were gone her half of the room looked truly bare. After Joy exchanged emotional hugs with them and took off, William helped Maddie do some rearranging in an attempt to make it look less forlorn. They moved the extra bed into the supply closet, and pushed the two desks together to make one big one.

  Finally Maddie shut the door on the sound of someone singing scales down the hall and plopped onto her bed with a sigh. “It’s no use,” she declared. “It still looks sad and empty.”

  He sat down next to her on the bed, wondering if he dared to put his
arm around her. He was always careful about any physical contact with Maddie. Joy he could put his arm around or even hug without it being mistaken for anything more than friendly. But with Maddie, because he was so aware that he wanted to push past that friend boundary, he wasn’t sure what might be too much. He didn’t know what she might do—laugh at him, or draw back in disgust, or give him a sisterly talking-to—but it wouldn’t be good, and he didn’t want to screw up what he had now, as insufficient as it was.

  So he just put his arm very lightly around her shoulders to convey sympathy, ready to withdraw at the first indication that he’d gone too far. “I know you’ll miss her,” he said. “But on the bright side, you’ve got a single room now. Not many of us are that lucky.”

  To his amazement, she leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m worried about her, though. This is just so not her, to get knocked up and kicked out of school… it’s like seeing Meryl Streep take up pole dancing.”

  “She seems really happy.”

  “Well, you know Joy. Optimistic to a fault.” She sighed again, but made no move to dislodge William’s arm. “I just hope Mr. Supermodel appreciates her. She’s the nicest person I know, except for you. It’s going to be lonely without her here.”

  “C’mon, she’s just a couple miles away. We’ll see her all the time. And you’ve still got the rest of us. Tasha, Clark, Derek, me, everyone.” She said nothing, and something in her silence made him ask cautiously, “Did you and Derek break up?”

  She nodded without looking at him. “It’d been coming on for a while. Honestly, William, I don’t mean to be a disaster magnet. It’s not like I deliberately pick guys who are wrong for me. I’m just drawn to these intense guys who… they turn up the volume on life, you know?”

  “I know.” That was his problem; he wasn’t intense enough.

  “Maybe I need to stop dating for a while, just get my head straight.”