Enthusiasm Page 6

“Oh, you found the trophy room? Good place to take a nap when you’re supposed to be in study hall. There’s a big, puffy sofa behind the cabinets, and nobody ever goes in there.”

  The song ended, and the trumpeter blew a fanfare. I saw that the band had reassembled in the musicians’ gallery. The room fell silent. Parr leaned close so he could whisper in my ear, “I’m sorry to say this is it—the last dance.” His breath tickled my neck. The sensation made me my heart pound so loudly, I was afraid he’d hear it.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please take your places for the Virginia reel!” announced the trumpeter to moans and cries of “Already?!” In Jane Austen’s time—or her novels, at any rate—this dance, known to Miss Austen and her characters as the Sir Roger de Coverly, signals the end of a ball.

  “I guess it’s over,” I said to Ashleigh. “Better call Zach.”

  “Zach?” asked Ned.

  “Our ride home,” I explained.

  Ashleigh retrieved her purse from behind the knight, fished out her cell phone, and handed it to me. “Here, you do it—just hit redial,” she said, grabbing Parr’s arm. Ned offered me his again.

  The Sir Roger de Coverly is a complicated and vigorous dance: no easy thing to get through while talking on a cell phone. Still, I managed somehow, and by the time the dance brought my friend and me back within talking distance, I was able to report that Zach was on his way.

  Chapter 7

  An unglass slipper ~ A Farewell to Forefield ~ I eat the Pancakes of Anguish.

  The boys insisted on walking us to the gate, where we had told Zach to meet us. Clumsy in my silver pumps, I stumbled going down the steps. My right shoe flew off. Parr caught me by the elbow. “Careful, Cinderella,” he said, retrieving the shoe. I stretched out my hand for it, but he held it back for a moment. “Should I keep this, in case I need to find you again?” he said.

  “If you do, you’ll have to carry me to my pumpkin.”

  “Don’t tempt me,” he said. Kneeling, he held the shoe in front of my foot. I couldn’t decide which he was more like: a knight in a fairy tale, or an old-fashioned shoe salesman—the kind your grandmother might have taken you to when you were little, who measured your feet with a cold metal sliding device.

  The knight, I decided. The salesmen, I remembered, always had a bald patch clearly visible from above; Parr’s hair shone thick and pale in the moonlight.

  Parr eased my shoe over my heel with a little wiggle. He rose and took my arm again, holding me steady as I picked my way downhill along the grassy edge of the road. We caught up with Ash and Ned, who were chattering about which Wet Blankets songs would make the best waltzes.

  The rest of the walk went by in an instant. “Gentlemen, we cannot thank you enough for your gallantry,” said Ashleigh when we reached the stone lions.

  “Hey, it was our pleasure. Next time, though, don’t give Wattles the satisfaction of gobbling at you—call first or drop an e-, and I’ll make sure you get official invites,” said Parr. “Here—got a pen, Noodles?”

  Ned selected a small felt-tip pen from the items in his pocket.

  “Paper?” asked Parr, fishing around in his own pockets.

  “Here,” said Ashleigh, thrusting her hand into his. “Write on my palm. I always do.”

  Zach drove up as Parr bent over Ashleigh’s hand. “Oho! Grandison Parr!” he said, leaning over to pop open the passenger-side door. “So that’s how it is, is it? Are you treating my little friends right?”

  “Little friends, indeed!” said Ashleigh, waving her hand to dry the ink and flouncing into the car. “Mr. Parr is treating us with a great deal more respect than you do, Mr. Liu. He and Mr. Downing rescued us from a particularly nasty adder and stood up with us for a quadrille, a waltz, and the Roger de Coverly. He is entirely a gentleman.”

  “Yeah? Glad to hear it, because that’s one ass I’d rather not have to kick. I’m not saying I couldn’t, but it would be a challenge. Black belt yet, Parr?”

  “No, don’t worry, you’re still king of the hill,” said Parr. “I’m glad to see the Hunkajunk is still in one piece,” he added. “But if you’re so worried about the girls’ safety, why are you driving them around in that thing?”

  I was astonished to hear him speak that way about Zach’s pride and joy. Last year Haichang Liu had passed on to his son the family’s old—or, as Zach prefers to call it, vintage—Saab, as an early graduation present when Zach got into Cornell. Zach spent so much time tweaking, tuning, and polishing it that I was surprised he had managed to graduate afterward.

  But Zach just laughed. “Jealous? Learn discipline, young lion, and someday you too may be worthy of such a car. Come on, Julie, get in.”

  “Hai, Sensei,” said Parr, giving a little martial-arts bow, palms together. He opened the car door, helped me in, and handed me the end of my wrap, which was trailing out.

  “Thanks so much for everything,” I told him. “You too, Ned.”

  “No, thank you,” said Ned, poking his head in Ashleigh’s window. “I never dreamed I’d actually enjoy the Founder’s Quadrille. I’m glad you two decided to crash.”

  “Me too,” said Parr. “But once is enough for one evening. Don’t let Zach wrap you around a tree—use that e-mail address to let us know you’re okay, would you? Cparr@forefield.org.”

  “Yeah, yeah, get going before I wrap you around a tree,” said Zach.

  Parr shut the door and gave the car’s rear end a little pat, like a cowboy with his horse, to send us on our way.

  “So you know Grandison Parr?” asked Ashleigh.

  Zach nodded. “He’s a smartass, but a pretty fair swordsman. Decent guy on the whole. More than decent, actually—he helped me push the Saab all the way uphill to the garage when she broke down near the dojo last summer. Of course, he thinks that gives him the right to call her the Hunkajunk. Smartass. But he seems to like you.” He gave Ashleigh a penetrating look.

  “How long have the two of you been acquainted?” she asked.

  “Oh, three or four years, I guess.”

  “How did you meet?”

  “He practices kendo at the dojo.”

  “How could he? I was under the impression that the Forefield authorities kept their students locked up on the hill,” said Ashleigh.

  “No, they let them out for things like that. Haven’t you ever seen them rowing on the river or riding around on horses in those ridiculous outfits? Besides, his family has a weekend house not all that far north, so he’s around for part of the summer.”

  So that was why I’d seen him in town before school was in session.

  “Are there any girls at the dojo?” asked Ashleigh.

  “A few. Not as many as the guys, but a couple of the teachers are women, and there’s a women’s self-defense class that’s pretty popular. Some of the karate classes have a fair number of girls in them. Why?”

  “I was thinking kendo might be fun.”

  I was surprised to hear it. Didn’t she realize that the martial arts uniform consisted of a short, bathrobelike tunic over loose trousers? How did she expect to kick an assailant without displaying her lower limbs? Was it too much to hope that we might be in for a craze change already?

  “I think aikido would be more your thing,” said Zach. “It’s all about turning your enemy’s strength against him, so your size doesn’t matter so much, and face it, you’re pretty little—in most ways, anyway. The main thing is balance and discipline.”

  Balance and discipline, I reflected, were not chief among Ashleigh’s virtues. However, the conversation having left the riveting topic of Grandison Parr, it soon ceased to hold my attention; for the rest of the brief ride home I stared out the window at the dark trees, reliving the hours just past and musing on the uncertain future.

  The next morning—Saturday—I awoke to feel bouncing near my toes. I opened my eyes in wonder. Ashleigh, and so early! I could count on one hand the times she had willingly gotten up before me—and two of those times she had forgotten
to turn back the clock for daylight saving time. Her enthusiasm must have reached quite a peak.

  “There! Admit it. Was I not right to insist on our attending the dance? Did I not tell you that you would meet your Bingley and I my Darcy? Was he not wonderful? His charm, his gallantry! Come on, get up! Let’s go give Samantha back her handbags and see if Zach’s still there. Maybe he can tell me more about Darcy.”

  “Okay, okay. Ouch! I’m coming, you don’t have to pull my feet off,” I said. I was a little surprised to hear Ashleigh refer to Ned as Mr. Darcy. The square-set young composer seemed sweet enough, but nothing like the proud, aristocratic, icy-fiery hero of Pride and Prejudice. Nor did tall, teasing Parr seem in the least like the insipidly agreeable Mr. Bingley. And why should Zach be able to tell us anything about Ned, when Parr was the one he knew? I attributed Ashleigh’s confusion to Love. The tender passion is not known for sharpening the intellect.

  I packed up some schoolbooks and a favorite sweater—I was spending the rest of the weekend at my father’s—and wheeled out my bike. Ashleigh rode beside me, chattering swoonily about the dances, the dresses, the music, the ballroom, and—most of all—the gentlemen. Mr. Darcy, she maintained, was the picture of perfection, although she generously allowed “my” Mr. Bingley to be an intelligent, lively, pleasant fellow. I smiled to myself at the thought of anyone preferring Ned to Parr, although certainly he—Ned, that is—seemed made for Ashleigh, with his musical enthusiasm and pocketful of peculiar objects. They even looked a little like each other, with the same curly hair and warm brown eyes.

  When we reached the Lius’, the doctors were planting bulbs in their garden. “Hello, girls,” said Lily. “Samantha’s in the kitchen. We just finished eating pancakes, but there’s some batter left—you can have it if you’re hungry.”

  “Mmmm! Thanks, Dr. Lily,” I said.

  “You better cook it first,” said Haichang.

  “You don’t think pancake batter would make a good drink?” I asked.

  “Is Zach around?” asked Ashleigh.

  “He must be,” I said. “The Saab’s here.”

  “He’s still sleeping, the lazybones,” said Lily. “Serve him right if you eat up his pancakes. Go on, before the griddle cools down.”

  Sam was putting the butter away in the fridge, but she gladly took it out again when she saw us. She spooned batter onto the griddle.

  “How was the boy hunt?” she asked. “Zach says you landed a couple of live ones.”

  “We did indeed have the good fortune to make the acquaintance of two young gentlemen of high character and pleasing appearance,” said Ashleigh.

  “Hmm, not quite how Zach put it. What about you, Julie? Did you have a good time? Meet any lofty and pleasing gentlemen?” asked Samantha.

  “As a matter of fact, except for the really embarrassing parts, it was surprisingly fun. The guys we met were really nice—one of them was that friend of Zach’s you and I ran into in the Sports Barn. I overheard some of the girls making fun of our dresses in the bathroom, but none of the guys seemed to mind how we looked. Lots of them danced with us, anyway. On the whole, it was one of the more successful of Ashleigh’s marshmallow-headed schemes.”

  Ashleigh gave me her Reproachful Look. “You met Grandison Parr before?” she cried. “Why did you not tell me?”

  “Oh—I—There wasn’t much to tell. We just passed him at the mall—he didn’t even talk to us, and Sam couldn’t remember his name.”

  “Oh, that guy? I like him,” said Sam. “But be careful. If this were a real Jane Austen story, one of those guys would turn out to be a cad who’s only after your money.”

  “Scratch that—for me, anyway,” I said.

  “Or your honor, maybe—or just your clothes—remember that movie Clueless?” added Sam.

  “Yes, well, if this were Clueless, we’d all fall in love with Zach,” said Ashleigh scornfully, flipping the pancakes.

  The person in question chose that moment to make his appearance in the kitchen, clad only in pajama bottoms and looking pleased with himself. Zach obviously shares the widespread opinion that his shirtless torso is a magnificent sight.

  “Good plan! I wish you would. Then you’d be nice and give me those,” he said, reaching for the pancakes with a fork.

  Ashleigh fended him off with her spatula. “Keep your fork to yourself,” she cried.

  “I bet if I were Grandison Parr you’d let me have them. No, more than that—you’d make me my own batch. In heart shapes,” said Zach, easily evading her spatula like the fencer he was. He skewered a pancake and crammed it into his mouth, then followed it with a chaser of syrup, drizzled directly from the bottle, which he held a few inches above his lips.

  Ash jittered with indignation. “If you were Grandison Parr, you would never rob a defenseless female in this manner! You villain! You unspeakable adder! You are not fit to speak the name of the noble Mr. Darcy!”

  Busy as I was admiring Zach’s syrup caper, it took me a moment to realize what Ashleigh had said. As soon as I did, an electric shock went through me.

  “Darcy,” I gasped weakly. “Darcy—Parr?”

  I bit my tongue to stop myself from revealing any more of my feelings before I had a chance to understand them myself. It was too late, however. Every eye was upon me.

  “Why, yes, of course, Parr! Who did you think?” said Ashleigh. “Ned? Ned the Noodle—you thought he was Mr. Darcy?”

  “No, of course not, don’t be silly,” I protested. “Frankly, neither of them seems much like Darcy to me.”

  “Really? You certainly didn’t say so earlier this morning. I seem to recall you agreeing with me when I asserted that Darcy was wonderful. Are you not protesting just a teeny, tiny bit too much? Methinks?”

  Zach took up the cry. “Look, she’s blushing! Oho! Sensible Julie isn’t so sensible today, is she, now? Who would have thought those Foreskin boys would break two hearts!”

  “Stop it, you guys! I mean it! Ig—Ned—emphatic ig! I really don’t like him. I mean, I like him fine, but I don’t like him.”

  In my agony, it seemed, I had turned into a second grader.

  Ashleigh gave me a look of happy condescension. “Now, now, my dearest Julia, I cannot see why you refuse to admit it. Ned is a very agreeable fellow indeed—almost as handsome as my Parr. The two of you are a perfect match, exactly the same height. And he likes you, Julie—you know he does. He danced the last dance with you, and the first dance. He tried to talk Parr into bringing you a Sprite instead of a ginger ale, so we could get back to you. And he even asked me for your e-mail address—well, he asked for both of our addresses, but I gave him yours. I could tell that was what he really wanted.”

  Could she be right? Could Ned have developed feelings for me like mine for Parr?

  Samantha saw my discomfort and tried to help by turning the conversation from my affairs to Ashleigh’s. “Your Parr? Are you admitting you’re in love?”

  Alas, Ashleigh’s answer pained me more than all the previous conversation.

  “In love?” said Ashleigh. “How can I answer that? If you believe—like our English instructress, Miss Nettleton—that true love comes only to those who, upon first meeting, speak together in rhyme and meter, so that their conversation produces a sonnet, then no. But I confess that never before have I encountered so gallant, so courageous, so handsome a gentleman as Grandison Parr. If ever there was a man born to capture my heart, then that man is Grandison Parr. And although modesty warns me to discount them, I believe I saw signs that he returned my regard. He danced the quadrille with me. He drew me apart from the others as he searched the campus from end to end for ginger ale, thus affording us quiet time together, accompanied only by Ned. He queried me most particularly about my childhood, my abode, and the society I keep, showing a keen interest in all my doings. And he took my hand in his to write his e-mail address on my palm—writing I preserve to this day, and will as long as hygiene permits it!” She held her hand up triumphantl
y, palm out.

  “Yup, I saw that part,” agreed Zach. “Well, aren’t you the lucky girl! Won’t you please, please give me another pancake? Surely I deserve a booby prize.”

  She shot him a look of scorn and handed the pancakes to me instead. But although I tried to eat as if nothing had happened, they stuck in my throat. As soon as I could, I escaped to my father’s house to brood over my troubles.

  Chapter 8

  I Renounce my Dream ~ I maintain my Dignity ~ I carry boxes ~ I E-mail.

  Was Ashleigh right? Had Grandison Parr, over the course of the previous evening, developed feelings for Ashleigh?

  There could be no doubt about her feelings for him. I knew that enthusiastic gleam in her eye all too well. Had I been deluding myself, daring to imagine that he might like me? Sitting on the bed in the room I shared with Amy’s sewing machine, I went over the events of the previous evening in my mind, just as I had through the night. What a difference there was this time! Every clue that had raised my hopes could equally well dash them.

  At first, Parr’s promptness in rescuing us from the turkey-faced doorkeeper had seemed like evidence that my hero had noticed me, and maybe even liked me. But was that just wishful thinking? Wouldn’t the gallant fencer have sprung to the aid of anyone in distress? Or maybe—I shuddered at the thought, then shuddered at myself for shuddering—maybe it was Ashleigh’s daring and charm that had persuaded him to help us. After all, her liveliness, along with her rapidly developing maturity of looks, seemed to appeal to guys—especially in that crimson dress. Even Zach had noticed it. Why not Parr?

  Then, Parr danced the first quadrille with her. I had put that down to her energy—she had pulled him onto the dance floor. But he certainly hadn’t tried to resist, and they seemed to be enjoying it, chatting away. When he and I waltzed, our conversation seemed stilted and awkward. (Remembering the waltz, I felt his hand once again on my mind’s waist and shivered with pleasure and distress.) The night before, when I looked back on our first conversation, I hoped its awkwardness might be due to our mutual attraction. Maybe he felt shy with me at first, just as I felt with him. But maybe not—maybe he merely found me dull.