Twisted Roots Read online

  She pulled in the corners of her lips.

  "Very funny. You're as crazy as he is," she said, nodding toward Heyden's room. "You belong together."

  She walked away and I went to Heyden's closed door and knocked gently.

  "Heyden? It's Hannah. I missed you at school and came by to see how you were." I added.

  I heard nothing and the door remained closed. Suddenly his sister's angry and silly quip concerned me. Why had he locked himself up all day? Mommy once told me that suicidal people don't always appear suicidal, especially teenagers whose self-inflicted deaths surprise their own parents. Depression was a deeply seated and insidious disease that wormed its way into every remaining bright place, putting out the lights and leaving gloom and doom behind as it made its way toward your very heart. Could this be true for Heyden?

  I knocked harder.

  "Heyden? Are you in there? Please answer me. Tell rue to go away or something, but answer me." I pleaded.

  Elisha stepped up behind me. She had a lit cigarette in her hand. and she was smiling.

  "Maybe you should have the padded wagon came far him instead of for me," she said. Then she went to her own room, closed the door, and started to play her rap music loudly.

  "Heyden?" I knocked again. I was about to give up and go home when I heard the door being unlocked.

  He stood there shirtless and barefoot in a pair of jeans.

  "Are you sick?" I asked after a few moments of having him simply stand there and stare out at me.

  "Yes, sick of life,' he muttered and turned away. He returned to his bed and flopped back to stare up at the ceiling. He put his hands behind his head. I remained in the doorway a moment and then entered. closing the door behind me softly.

  "Did your sister do something else terrible?" I asked. He continued staring at the ceiling and not replying.

  "I was worried about you when you didn't come to school. Heyden. You didn't say anything about any other problems when you and I spoke last night."

  "I didn't know then what I would soon find out after we spoke," he said and sat up.

  "What?" I asked. He remained quiet. "I'm not just trying to be nosy, Heyden. I am sincerely concerned."

  He took a deep breath and turned to me.

  "When my mother returned home from work. I told her what Elisha had done and what I had found. I knew nothing would come of that so I insisted she call my father to tell him. I wanted her to impress him with how out of control Elisha has become and how he should devote some time to her when he comes home. My mother kept ignoring me and when I started to shout at her, she finally turned to me and told me my father wasn't coming home this time, maybe never."

  "Never?" I held my breath. "Why?"

  "Apparently, he has gone off with someone from his quintet and told my mother he didn't want to remain in their marriage.-

  "Oh. I'm sorry."

  "That's a funny way to put it, isn't it?" he asked. "Remain in their marriage? It makes it sound like a room, a place, rather than a relationship.

  "Anyway, according to what I managed to pull out of her, my mother revealed that this had happened a little more than two weeks ago. Can you imagine keeping that a secret or, as in her case, ignoring it for more than two weeks? Maybe she thought that the next time he called, if he bothered calling again, he would not mention ending their marriage, or maybe she thought he would just show up and none of that conversation would matter. Who knows how she thinks!" he screamed and pounded his own legs.

  The sight of someone inflicting such obvious pain on himself made me wince.

  He laughed rather than show it had hurt.

  "Imagine how stupid I must have looked insisting she talk to my father about my sister. Heyden who? Elisha who? he would probably say."

  "I'm sorry. Heyden."

  "Yeah, me. too. Actually," he continued, "I'm not sorry anymore. I'm out of sorry. I'm on to what's the difference?"

  He sighed deeply and shook his head.

  ''She started to cry, of course, and moan about our troubles. I felt so bad I gave her the money I was going to use to buy the guitar today. With my father deserting us like this, we're not even going to be able to afford this rathole if I don't get more work. She doesn't make enough. My father's checks were important. I guess I'll have to drop out of school," he added.

  "Oh. Heyden, no."

  "Not no. yes. So anyway, you can see why I didn't bother to go to school today. Why pretend the inevitable isn't going to happen? Why be like my mother?"

  "Maybe you can get some sort of student aid," I said.

  He raised his eyebrows, "Yeah. What I can do is get a cheaper guitar and play on the corner for small change. I'll put a sign on the can that reads Student Aid."

  "I know I have no right to encourage you. Heyden, but you can't give up."

  "Who's giving up? Who even had a start?'" He studied me a moment and nodded, "I knew when I first entered the magnet school that I shouldn't. I shouldn't go where so many well-to-do students were going. I never expected to feel comfortable there. I let some do-gooder guidance counselor give me advice, pump me up with myself,

  'But there I was among all of you in your expensive clothes, many driving your own cars, most taking private music lessons. I might as well have tried to go to school on the moon."

  "That's not true. Heyden. There's no one there better than you."

  "Not better, no but better of 'he said. "Hey, thanks for coming to find out why I didn't show up. I appreciate it, but now you can see why you're better off turning around and forgetting you ever met me, okay?" he said and lay back again.

  "No," I said approaching him. "It's not okay."

  I sat beside him on his bed. He kept his face turned away from me, but I leaned over and kissed him on the lips.

  "What are you doing?" he asked.

  "You promised to take me on an official date and show me a good time. I'm collecting on that promise."

  "Didn't you hear anything I just said?"

  "Sorry. It went in one ear and out the other," I told him, beaming my smile down at him like a ray of sunshine.

  "I'm not going to go look at that guitar, Hannah. It would be like torturing myself."

  "No, it won't. If it's good, we'll get it. I'll loan you the money." "I wouldn't take money from you." he snapped indignantly.

  "You won't be. I'm not giving you the money. I said I would lend it to you. Say at 7 percent interest annually. You'll pay me back from your first royalties."

  He shook his head. "This isn't some cheap toy we're talking about. Hannah. It's three hundred dollars."

  It wouldn't be worth it to lend you much less," I said. "How am I going to make any money

  otherwise?"

  "You have that kind of money on you?"

  I dug into my pocketbook and produced my charge card.

  "My father gave it to me last year for my birthday. I have a five thousand-dollar limit. I haven't used it very much. I'll admit. but I have it to use when I need to or want to buy something special.

  "My mother calls it his conscience money. Actually, because of her. I haven't used it very much, although recently she told me I should do it just for spite."

  "I don't know," Heyden said, but there was the breakdown of some resistence in his tone of voice.

  "I have another selfish reason. too." I said.

  He raised his eyebrows. "You mean, besides making all that money on the loan?" he asked skeptically.

  "Yes."

  "What?"

  "I thought if you play guitar so well and write a decent song or two. maybe I could sing it. Maybe you could play other songs as well, songs we could both sing."

  "And be an act?"

  "Maybe."

  He sat up again, his sad, heavy eyes suddenly brightening, "You would do that?"

  "I was more afraid you wouldn't want to." I said.

  "Oh, yeah. right. I wouldn't want the prettiest girl in the school with the best singing voice to do a duet with me, esp
ecially singing some of my own songs."

  "I'm not the prettiest girl in the school. Heyden, and I'm not saving I have the best voice."

  "I said it." he insisted.

  "Well... I'm not going to argue with you anymore," I said, and he laughed.

  "I'm adding on 'best personality.' too." he said.

  I held my smile and he held his. It was magical. Some guardian angel had waved a wand over us, and the dark clouds, the heavy and morbid sounds in our ears, were gone.

  "Hannah, you are terrific." he whispered and leaned forward to kiss me. It was a long kiss that grew more demanding every passing second. I could feel him trying to draw hope from me like some strange new vampire who fed not on blood, but on hope and love.

  He pulled back and brought his fingers to my chin to gently lift my face, forcing me to look into his eyes so he could search mine for truth and sincerity.

  "Are you sure about this. Hannah?" he asked.

  "Yes," I whispered.

  There would be times when I would question whether or not I had come to him out of just as much desperation as he had when he had come to me. In a sense I still felt deserted, too, felt alone, drifting. My mother and Miguel had a whole new world to live in and develop, and I didn't feel as much a part of it as they would expect. Most of my life I had been caught in that vacuum that existed between my mother and my father. Now, with the little attention he had given me my whole life diminishing, and with Mommy having a new top priority in her thinking and taking up her time, I could sense the vacuum growing bigger, wider, deeper.

  "Yes," I whispered again. It brought our lips back together. His moved off mine and to my neck. He took me back with him on his pillow, and he stroked my hair and gazed into my eyes.

  "I think you could make me forget the end of the world." he said.

  He kissed me again and then his hands slipped under my blouse and to my breasts. When I moaned, he lifted himself over me and flooded my face with more kisses. He unbuttoned my blouse and kissed me just above my bra. Then he reached behind and unfastened it. When he pushed it up and over my nipples and brought his lips to one and then the other, I began to question myself.

  What are you doing, Hannah Eaton? Aren't you throwing yourself at someone too quickly'

  I didn't even care to answer my conscience. I felt so good, so warm, so detached from all the unhappiness and pain in the world.

  His kisses grew more demanding, his fingers playing me, drawing the music out of me. I soon saw myself rolling down a hill of passion, speeding so fast, there was no possibility of putting on the brakes. He had his hands under my skirt. When his fingers went over the elastic band in my panties. I thought I had stopped breathing. Even my heart waited like some hammer held back.

  He paused, too, and his hesitation was so long. I opened my eyes and looked up at him.

  I felt him retreat.

  He looked down at me with suspicion clouding his eyes. "What?" I managed.

  "How many boys have you been with. Hannah?"

  "None." I said. "Not like this."

  His lips twisted with doubt.

  "I'm telling the truth."

  "Then why are you letting this happen so fast?" he asked. I pushed him away and sat up.

  "Now you're making me feel guilty," I said and reached back to fasten my bra. I started to button my blouse.

  "I don't mean to do that."

  "Well, you are," I threw back at him and stood,

  "I've been with other girls." he said. "and the ones who were fast the first time were always the ones who didn't matter to me after a short while or the ones I never mattered to very much at all. I just don't want that to be how it will be between us."

  Now it was my turn to look skeptical.

  "I mean it. Maybe I'm fantasizing, but I was hoping you and I were on the way to being very special."' he said. He looked so conflicted. I couldn't help but believe him.

  "You're not fantasizing."

  "I'm just tired of disappointments and

  betrayals," he said with a sigh.

  I stopped buttoning my blouse,

  "I'm not going to betray you. Heyden, and when I do or say something. I mean it. I know you have trouble accepting what I tell you, but please try to stop thinking of me the way you think about the other girls at our school. I have a lot more than bubbles and straw in my head."

  He laughed. "I know you do," he said. "And you're right. I'm being guilty of the very thing I accuse people of doing to me: stereotyping. Sorry," he said, holding up his hands.

  "It's all right. Actually. I'm glad you hesitated and put on the brakes. We could have gotten into trouble, or at least. I could have. I'm dangerously close to that zone of ovulation. Imagine me making my mother a grandmother just when she has become a new mother." I said.

  He nodded. "My fault. too. I'm usually not this carefree, forgetting to take precautions. Everything has just got me nuts. I feel like I'm sinking into some cesspool of oblivion."

  "Well, let's get you up and out of that immediately," I said. standing. "Take me to your new guitar,'" I ordered.

  He laughed and reached for a shirt he had draped over the back of a chair. Then he hurried to get on his sneakers.

  "If you're really sure you want to do this," he said. "If you're really sure..."

  "I'm sure. Heyden. Stop talking about it already and let's just do it."

  "'Right," he said. "Right."

  We started out of his room. He stopped in the hallway. Elisha's music was still loud. He looked at her closed door and then shook his head.

  "C'mon." he urged. "Let's get out of here. This is the only chance I'll ever have to get out of here."

  I followed slowly, wondering what would become of Elisha. At least Heyden had his song writing and his guitar. He was using music to lift himself up and out of the din. She was using it like a blanket to cover her misery.

  Maybe Mommy would give me some suggestions as to how to help her. I thought.

  But then again, maybe she wouldn't. Maybe she would be angry at me for trying to involve her and myself in Heyden's family problems. She had warned me about it already.

  There wasn't time to really think about it. but I was glad of that. I wanted to keep rushing, to keep charging forward with Heyden. Together, we would make the music that could drown out both our voices of sadness and disappointment.

  Couldn't it?

  .

  Heyden cradled the guitar in his hands with as much pleasure in his face as Mommy had holding little Claude. I thought. It was so rare that anything I was given gave me such pleasure. I was actually jealous of the instrument and not jealous of Heyden. It put him into such a pure ecstatic state, he practically glowed. Would he love anyone with as much passion as he loved his music? I wondered. Maybe he was more like his father than he cared to admit.

  In one of her more revealing moments with me. Mommy told me she loved Miguel because it was so clear to her that there was nothing more important to him than her. She made it sound almost as if she was therefore obligated to love him, and I wondered if anyone could truly love someone out of obligation. It seemed to me it had to come from a different place, sprout from a garden different from the garden of responsibility and expectation. It had to have more of a spontaneity. It was richer and far more exciting when it surprised you, when you looked again at someone and realized a force greater than anything you had experienced before was drawing you to him.

  Was that too romantic, too fantastic to come from the mind of Dr. Willow Fuentes's daughter?

  Watching the careful and loving way Heyden handled his guitar made me think of the careless way Adrian and Cade treated all their possessions. There was always a nonchalance and often an indifference. Neither of them was ever surprised at receiving anything, truly believing that for some reason, it was all coming to him. They deserved it all simply because they existed.

  Heyden smiled his pleasure at me and then tuned the strings while the store clerk watched us with a half-ann
oyed, half-suspicious expression on his face. He couldn't decide if we were just toying with him and the guitar or if we had the wherewithal to actually purchase the instrument.

  Heyden tried a cord and nodded. "It's in cherry condition," he said. "It's a find."

  "Well, then, let's get it," I said.

  The clerk's eyebrows were nearly hoisted off his head. "Is this the best price?" Heyden asked him.

  His smirk returned. "Absolutely," he said. "As you just said, it's cherry." he tagged on with a gleeful smile.

  "Right," Heyden turned to me and I produced my credit card. The clerk looked at it carefully.

  "Do you have a driver's license or any other farm of identification?"

  "Yes," I said and showed him my license. Still skeptical, he processed the card, looking as if he expected it would be kicked back. When it wasn't, he became more pleasant.

  After we had left the store with the guitar in our possession. Heyden couldn't contain himself. All the way back to his house, he played.

  "This is the song I wanted you to hear." he said and began. It was a beautiful sang about someone who was afraid of falling in love and yet very much wanted to fall in love. He warned his lover that when he was touched, he would be too weak to keep from falling in love.

  This is for forever, he sang, so don't touch me with your eyes, your lips, or your fingers unless you want for us to be true.

  Before he finished. I joined in with him on the final chorus. I pulled up in front of his house and he played the song again, this time with me singing as much as I could remember. After a third time I knew most of the song and we were bath laughing,

  "Just come in a little faster and don't be afraid to reach for that high note. I'll be there like a net to catch you if you fall," he said.

  We were at it again. While we were singing and he was playing. I saw the front door of his house open and his sister came out. She stood there watching us and listening to us and then she walked toward the car. Heyden stopped and looked out at her.

  "You comin' in for dinner?" she asked,

  "Why? You making it?" Heyden retorted.

  "No. Mama's home."

  "She's home?"

  "Yes, she's home and she's just workin' in the kitchen and cryin' at the same time,:' Elisha said.