A sun-kissed, shimmering cherry-red Chrysler ragtop sat in the driveway, but the jutted roof blocked her view of both the porch and the stranger standing upon it. With a low growl of frustration, she ran to the bedroom door and pushed her ear against it, listening as her mother crossed the floor below to answer, her clipped, subterranean steps echoing off the walls of the starkly-furnished home.
The front door opened and she heard excited voices. A young man’s voice by the sound, and her mother’s high-pitched fake laugh, the one she used at cocktail parties and while on the phone with old friends. Ellie slipped out of the bedroom and moved deftly to the top of the stairs, looking down at slanted squares of bare white walls and polished wood floors. She leaned over the railing, saw the back of her mother’s calves and a pair of black sneakers pointed forward, then moving.
The door closed and Ellie pulled away from the railing, out of sight, inexplicably held her breath.
“Ellie!” her mother called, her voice bouncing off the bare floors and walls.
“Yes?” she replied flatly, her porcelain-skinned hands resting on the bannister, her chin lifted regally in anticipation of being introduced.
“Can you come down please?”
As no faces appeared beneath her to look up and notice her perfect positioning, Ellie blew out a breath and walked down the stairs, stopping just short of the bottom to maintain superiority of height.
She saw the lithe frame of her mother, dolled up in a white dress with light pink polka-dots, her blond hair pulled back from porcelain features. Beside her stood a tall, skinny boy. He smiled down at her mother with stunning white teeth; his high, tanned cheek-bones shone like polished brass. He had a bold pompadour of slicked black hair, glistening like a black ocean wave atop a broad forehead.
Ellie coughed lightly, announcing herself. She felt color rise to her cheeks when the boy’s eyes met hers. They were of the brightest blue, piercingly so, like the sky above her new town. Blue eyes were her favorite.
“How do you do?” she asked politely, staying on the stairs for now.
“Honey...” her mother started, as if to reprimand, then brightened. “Ellie, this is James. James... what was your last name, dear?”
“Honeycutt.”
“Of course,” she said, giggling as if he’d goosed her behind. “Honeycutt. James Honeycutt. James has come to welcome us to the neighborhood. Come here and say hello. He won’t bite, will you James?”
“No mam,” he said, those white teeth shining.
Ellie went to them slowly, lifted a hand and allowed James to shake it.
“James goes to your new high school. He’s the class president, isn’t that something?” her mother said, all but scribbling out wedding announcements in her head while she did so.
“That’s true,” James said humbly, “and as such it’s my job to come meet any new students, show them around, make them feel welcome.”
Ellie nodded. Even she was taken off-guard by the boy’s sincerity and obvious kindness. And he was such a strong, handsome, obviously popular boy; traits she rarely found in combination with generosity of spirit, at least with the boys back home.
“I see,” was all she said in response.
“I gather you have a lot of unpacking to do, but perhaps, when you’re settled, you’d allow me to escort you around our fine town, show you some highlights, introduce you to some of the locals.”
“Oh, well, there is a lot yet to do…”
“That is the most wonderful thing I’ve ever heard of!” her mother interjected, giving Ellie a cunning look. “You two should do exactly that. James, dear, what are your plans today?”
“As it happens,” James said, “I’m quite free. I was going to offer to take Ellie this afternoon, but then I saw how much work there is to be done here… hey, I’d be glad to stay and help move some things around.”
“Nonsense!” her mother said, so loudly Ellie jumped in her skin. “Harry, that’s my husband, will be home from his new job in just a few hours and he and I will get everything in its place. You two kids should go and have fun, really. Ellie, you should take a sweater in case the night gets chilly.”
Night? she thought, hesitating.
“Go on, dear,” her mother said, in a polite yet firm tone that was not to be denied. “Go get your blue sweater. I hung it in your closet with a few dresses so you’d have something to wear until we got settled. Go on, hurry up, James doesn’t have all day.”
“Oh, no hurry at all, it would be my pleasure,” James said silkily, and smiled at her, those blue eyes twinkling like melting ice on a sunny day. “I have a few things I think you’ll be real interested to see.”
“SO,” SHE SAID, warm under the glass of the wide windshield, but not wanting to put her window down for fear of mussing her hair, “how long have you lived in Sabbath?”
“All my life, of course,” he said, steering the massive red car out of the suburban street and onto Lakeview Drive, the town’s one main road that circumnavigated the lake it surrounded. She felt the power of the car beneath her as he sped up, the purr of the engine belying its unleashed force.
“Why ‘of course’,” she said, trying to subtly catch her face in the side mirror to check her lips.
“Oh, I guess I just mean, you know, why live anywhere else? As far as I’m concerned, Sabbath is the most wonderful place on God’s green earth.”
Ellie laughed, not able to help herself. “And how would you know that, James Honeycutt? Have you been everywhere else on earth?”
He turned and smiled at her, as if playing along, but his blue eyes weren’t twinkling like they had been. They looked hard and flat, like dead sky. She made a point to not break eye-contact with him, despite his steely gaze, and she wondered if this boy, no more than a year or two her senior, perhaps had been all over the world. There was knowledge in those eyes.
“Jimmy,” he said, his gaze softening.
“Sorry?”
He looked toward the road once more. “Call me Jimmy. All my pals do.”
Pals, eh?That’d be a first for me, she thought. The boys back home certainly never wanted to be “pals.”
“Thanks,” she said shortly, making sure not to sound impressed. “So, Jimmy, where are we headed on our whirlwind tour of the wondrous, God-given, eighth wonder of the world that is the town of Sabbath?” She laughed a little so he wouldn’t think her bitchy, and he smiled along this time.
