Stripes of Gehenna Page 3

  “Hey,” he said, wiping some sweat off his face. My eyes wandered down to his arms. He wasn’t cut like some of the jocks, but I didn’t expect him to have as much muscle on his small frame as he did. And I certainly didn’t expect to care. “Can you hand me another one?” Shardul motioned to the bamboo pile.

  I snatched one up and passed it over. Rather than grabbing the bamboo on the other end, he placed his warm hand right beside mine.

  “Thanks,” he said, smiling.

  “Sure thing,” I said, pulling back my hand. He hadn’t touched me since Richy had taken me for ice cream. I didn’t mind brushing hands with him, just so long as no one else saw. By the sound of it, there were enough people talking about me and him. For a good hour I brought him bamboo, and his hand brushed mine every time. We didn’t talk a whole lot, not with Gavin and the other students all there. But I didn’t tell him to stop.

  We spent the next couple days the same way. Sometimes brushing hands. Sometimes he’d stand really close to me and I felt his bare arm on mine. Every night we climbed back into our individual hammocks. Melissa didn’t have any other opportunities to make out with Gavin, and whoever else was on her list. At least not that I knew about.

  The last day we made our way back to Panama City. I shopped for souvenirs with Melissa and settled on just a magnet. It was all I could afford since I’d spent all Richy’s money on the trip. Mom told me that the only souvenirs I needed were pictures.

  The last night of the trip, when we were all back in the lizard hotel, Gavin came to get Melissa. At midnight, again.

  “You coming this time?” Melissa asked.

  “No,” I said. “I’m tired.”

  She didn’t ask again. The door clicked shut and I lay awake listening to the lizards scurrying around the walls.

  Then someone knocked at the door. I worried for a minute that it was the teachers, come to check on us. Then I decided it had to be Melissa, back to invite me again.

  “I’m not coming!” I said, rolling over.

  "Kathryn," someone whispered.

  Shardul. I sat up and stared at the door for a minute. He knocked again. “Kathryn,” he whispered.

  I wouldn’t have opened it for any of the other boys, Shardul’s voice is calm. And I’d never been scared of him.

  I padded across the floor in my bare feet and cracked the door open. "What is it?" I think Shardul assumed that I didn’t fully open the door because I was being rude. I just didn’t want all the moths to fly inside.

  “I brought something for you,” he said. Then I looked into Shardul’s dark hands where he held a small box. Cocky Shardul didn’t even have shaky hands as he handed the box to me. I placed my hands on top of his as he passed the gift over.

  We’d touched more in the past week than we had in an entire year together at school. Personally, I blame the magic of tropical air. It muddled my senses. By the time I held the parcel in my hands, I noticed that my own fingers trembled.

  "Just open it," he directed, and touched my hand again as he shoved it into the open crack of the door.

  I slipped the lid off, and stared. Inside was a single gold bangle. Real gold judging by the weight. Though I tried not to gasp, I did anyway. The top was red with a simple gold vine winding through it.

  "Is this a joke?" I asked, and tried to give it back to him. “Is this real?”

  "The friendship of a good person is not easily interrupted, and if lost is soon regained: a golden bowl is not easily broken, but if broken is soon repaired."

  His proverbs were so annoying, but I knew now why and when he resorted to them. He must have been nervous. He only spoke in proverbs when he got really anxious. During the science fair he was particularly full of adages. I looked back to the bracelet.

  “So, it is real? Real gold?”

  “Yes, it’s real gold,” he admitted.

  “It’s not as shiny as my fake ones though,” I joked, trying to ease some of the awkwardness I felt at receiving such a generous gift.

  “Value isn’t always visible,” he said. I didn’t disagree.

  "It’s…it’s really nice…. thanks," I said and found myself looking at his lips.

  “You’re welcome,” he said and pulled me in for a quick embrace.

  "Oh…. thanks," I said, this time for the hug and found myself looking at his lips again. I shut my door as if the moths coming inside were poisonous. The moths weren't what scared me. It was my own feelings and desires. I had to shut him out and I had to do something drastic to dispel the desire to be close to him. I wanted to hug him or even lean my face in close to his.

  I found myself leaning against the door, clutching the bangle in my shaky hands.

  Chapter Four: Missing

  We got back from Panama on a Friday. Saturday afternoon, I tried to recover from jetlag while I watched baseball with my dad.

  If I had to pick a baseball team, I would have to say that I’m a Red Sox fan, simply because my dad watches them on the occasional night that he isn’t bowling, or working, or on a date with my mom. He would probably watch more if he had the time or if it didn’t upset my mother so much. You see, it was impossible for any sports to be on in the house without my mom becoming tense and bringing up her "disgraceful" older brother.

  My uncle, Richard Douglass, (now Speer), had been a minor league baseball player years ago, but due to his drug addiction he was convicted and dropped despite his indisputable skills and abilities as a pitcher. My mother constantly talked about how disappointed he was in himself even though he went on to get a Masters in Biochemistry. I hadn’t known a jock to be so academically and intellectually gifted, although I had unsuccessfully scoured my AP classes looking for such a man.

  Anyone who has watched Major League Baseball for any amount of time has learned a thing or two about steroids. I’m pretty sure the sports channel airs documentaries about steroids. Admittedly, I haven’t seen any of them so I don’t know that much about performance enhancing drugs. I don't know because I don't care.

  Even though I don’t know much about Richy, I would like to know about him- at least the present-day him. He’d defended me to Alec so he couldn’t possibly be the heartless man my mother painted him to be. On that afternoon when Uncle Richy took me to get ice cream, it planted a seed of curiosity. The answers to most questions are found through reading and research. Richy wasn’t that way. If I was going to solve the mystery that was Uncle Richy, I’d need more time with him.

  Apparently, he had the same idea, because halfway through the second inning, it sounded like SWAT was back at our house. Which only meant one thing. Richy.

  "Do you have to hit the door so hard?" my mother asked, opening the door.

  "I'm just knocking," Richy insisted.

  "Well, you're just knocking the house down!" She gets so frazzled around him. I get that he has a past. He got divorced. The challenge of having a disabled daughter had to have been taxing on their marriage. I'm not one to judge. He was abusing drugs but that was a long time ago. Now he’s a success story. He isn't depressed about the past. He moved on and has been doing great with his new work. Whatever that new work and research is.

  “What are you doing here anyway?” my mom asked.

  “Just checking in on my family,” he said. “Why do you have to get so mad every time I stop in to see my niece?”

  “You should stop in and see your daughter,” my mom hissed. She was so embarrassing when she got like this.

  For the first half hour he was here, his unnaturally huge muscles managed to dominate the conversation and my mother continued to call him out on how unnatural she thought he was with unabated ferocity. She said "Richy, your body isn’t even real. It’s not even your body!"

  He replied with laughter. “Want to feel them?” he asked, flexing. Had he been a stranger, I would have been terrified of him, but since he was family, I only had questions. And a little discomfort.

  I think he made my dad uncomfortable, too. My dad is an average-s
ized guy, but next to my uncle, he looks like mere skin and bones.

  Richy successfully ignored her and joined me and my dad on the couch. I updated him about the trip. Intentionally leaving out any details of Shardul and the bangle.

  I hadn’t even told my own parents about that.

  Halfway through the game, Richy muted the game and placed his arm around me. The sheer weight of it made it harder to breathe.

  “Kat, since you enjoyed Panama, how would you like to visit my research lab?”

  Mom about flipped. “What the heck are you suggesting?!” She stormed into the room, shut off the TV and glared at me and Richy on the couch.

  Richy kept talking to me. "As I’m sure you’re aware, I’ve been leading a research team out at my lab."

  I didn’t know much of anything about him and even less about his research. He went on.

  "We have been heading some breakthrough stuff. I mean, some of the things we've discovered will really make an impact on the world. I am not ready to publish, as some of the data is inconclusive, but it won’t be long." His voice was heavy with excitement, like mine when I present at National Science Fairs. "Anyway, I thought that since we share a field of interest, I could help you with those college applications by giving you the chance to come do some hands-on work and brush shoulders with some other important people."

  "Hands on work" certainly interested me. Besides, I was as curious about my uncle as I was about the scientific research he was conducting. He understood me as a scientist in a way my parents never would. I’d always be their little Kathryn, bringing in plants from the backyard. Catching bugs in jars. They’d always be there to pat me on the head and tell me I was their little genius. But I wasn’t a child anymore and at this point, only Richy seemed to get that. Only Richy took me seriously as an adult.

  Mom interrupted. "I don’t support whatever it is you’re doing over there. No, she has no interest in that sort of thing!”

  Richy scowled at her and turned back to me. "And you're interested in pursuing a career in science?" Richy’s voice echoed off the worn cabinetry and dirty dishes in the kitchen.

  "Yep, I’ve been looking at a few routes. I’m interested in wildlife science and biology and chemistry. Still a little undecided though."

  "Well, you’ve always been smart," he asserted. "You’d be great at any of those. I’ve been thinking of ways I could help you out. See, I know colleges get a lot of resumes and a lot of applicants so I found a way that you could really stand out with some experience." Meanwhile my mom squeezed in between me and my dad on the small couch.

  "Yeah?" I didn’t think he wanted to help me as much as he wanted to win my mother’s appreciation and acceptance. An impossible task really; I should know.

  "I don’t think my mom would-" She jabbed me in the ribs. Hard. "I mean, I don’t really think I would be good for that. Going all the way to…." I didn’t actually know where he was.

  "New Guinea," he divulged.

  "Yeah, New Guinea. Holy moly! Papua New Guinea?" My mom poked me in the ribs again. I grimaced at her before saying, "I don’t think I would be comfortable going that far." Of course, that wasn’t the problem. Panama had been far away and my mother had let me go. The problem for her wasn’t distance; it was Richy. She didn’t want to admit it to Richy so I was stuck selling her lies.

  "You think I would let anything happen to you? Nah, no, not in a million years. I mean, have you seen these guns?" He flexed again. "I’m the best bodyguard anyone could hope for. Besides I have my own little island out there."

  Yes, I’m nerdy. But even for this bookworm, an adventure was nearly irresistible. What could be more fun than going to a science lab on an island in the Pacific Ocean? And then he said it, the word that got me.

  "You’ll never guess what we’ve been working with. I’ve got two new buddies there; Amala and Amar. They’re the most beautiful white Siberian Tigers you will ever see."

  "Tigers!" I exclaimed. My mother shook her head violently and mouthed ‘no, no no.’ My heart started beating like a bird’s frantic wings against the cage that was my ribs.

  "Yep, my own two tigers. They’re so beautiful Kathryn. You really need to come see them. You could even touch the little one." He knew he was taunting me. He’d cast the line. I took the bait and he’d hooked me by the core.

  It was as though he knew me too well, which certainly came as a surprise considering the rarity of his visits. My love for tigers had onset a little before the science fair. Shardul's love for the wild cats had proven to be contagious. Now, Uncle Richy presented an opportunity for me to experience what Shardul only dreamed of. It was too perfect.

  "So, what do you say? You wanna come out in say, a month?" he asked.

  "Next month?" I sputtered like an old car.

  "Aha, so you do want to come!" He laughed. "A month is plenty of time. I’ll buy your tickets and get all the travel arranged. I’m actually in the country, so I can travel with you once you get to L.A."

  "Richard, she can’t go! She’s just a child!" my mom stressed. "She has school. How long do you think she has off? Education is important to her, she can’t just up and leave."

  She kept shouting at him but I stopped listening after she called me a child. A child? Of course she said I was just a child. She hadn't even registered me for kindergarten with all the other kids. She assumed I wasn’t ready. I'm still recovering from that lack of judgment on her part. Seventeen years old, and still a junior. There was no way I was going to let her snatch another opportunity from me. There was no way I was going to let her misjudge my abilities again.

  "Mom, I want to go! This is a great experience for me and besides, I am not a child anymore. I’m seventeen! I’m going away to college soon! You have to let me grow up.” She wasn’t listening to me. "MOM, STOP!" I yelled, but she was doing some yelling of her own.

  "I don’t want her to die in some forsaken country as part of your science experiment! And don’t you dare pretend that this is for her. I know you better than that!" She was hollering now. And she says that I’m the drama queen.

  “Dad!” I just about shouted it. “It’s not fair!” I persisted.

  “Take a breath,” he said. He always has a calming effect on us. Maybe it’s because he’s always dressed like Clark Kent. Plaid shirt, blue jeans, and glasses. But I couldn’t read the expression behind his lenses.

  Mom cleared her throat. "Kathryn, go for a walk. I need to talk to your father about this." She pointed to the door, as if I didn’t know where it was. My tongue should have been bleeding for how hard I resisted the temptation to tell her how I really felt. I settled for some less-than-choice words.

  "I shouldn’t have to leave. This is my decision. He invited me and I want to go!" I tried not to shout because I knew that would only make me seem more petulant than if I spoke calmly and reasonably.

  "Dad," I spoke slowly so I could select my words wisely. "I will respect Mom and step outside, but just know that I would really like to go with Uncle Richard."

  ***

  Despite my mother’s efforts to keep me at home, we finally agreed that I could go, since the trip would coincide with spring break.

  I couldn’t wait to rub it into Shardul’s face that I was traveling halfway around the world to visit a top-secret research center with tigers.

  Monday, I returned to school, wearing the new bangle. But I was disappointed when Shardul didn’t show. I had to keep my awesome surprise for the next day. I assumed Shardul stayed home to recover from the trip.

  But when Tuesday and Wednesday came and went with no sign of him, I got worried. Wednesday, when I was supposed to be schooling him at chess club, I did something I didn’t think I’d ever do.

  I went looking for him at his house. We knew it as the “rental” in our neighborhood. But I’d never been there while Shardul’s family lived there.

  After standing awkwardly on the sidewalk for about five minutes, I approached the door. I knocked three times and w
aited, fiddling with my bangle until the door opened.

  “Hello, how can I help you?” the woman said. She had gorgeous long, black hair and an even prettier accent than Shardul.

  “Hi, I’m Kathryn--” I began. She cut me off right away.

  “I’ve heard so much about you!” The woman opened the door wider and reached for me. It made for a very awkward embrace.

  “About me?” I verified.

  “Yes, Shar wouldn’t stop talking about you. How brilliant you are. And so gorgeous.” She looked to my wrist. “That’s a lovely bangle.”

  “Thanks, its, uh, from Shardul,” I said. “He bought it for me in Panama.”

  She grinned. “My sweet boy,” she said. Then, “What are you doing back already?”

  “Already?” I asked. I looked behind her, hopeful that I’d see Shardul back there with a smirk on his face.

  “Yes, we heard that the trip was extended. We thought you weren’t coming back from Panama until next week.”

  “No,” I said, confused. “No, we all got back on Friday.”

  Her eyes widened. “Friday?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I was on the same flight as Shardul. I last saw him at the baggage claim. He even offered me a ride home in the parking lot, but my dad was already on the way.”

  “You mean to tell me that Shardul landed on Friday, six days ago, and you saw him?” Her voice grew shaky and high-pitched.

  “Yes, why?” I said.

  She paused for a moment to wet her mouth. “We haven’t seen Shardul since before he left for Panama.”

  I couldn’t speak. My stomach started churning and my mind couldn’t find anything to hold on to.

  She and I stared at each other for a minute, both frozen in fear.

  “You mean, he’s gone? Missing?” I verified.

  She ran inside. I stayed where I was. Missing? Shardul gone missing?

  I heard her from the walkway, calling what I could only assume was the police.

  “My son is missing! He was last seen at the airport on Friday but never came home. Yes, we need to go look for his car! We need to find my son!” she screamed.