Chapter 18-2
1471 Words
Jaspar sat in his dad’s office. Getting the day off from school almost made up for having his arm in a cast. Tomorrow he’d get some good mileage out of it from classmates, even more than having sailed the big boat. ‘Course his dad had called the school and gotten all his homework assignments, so it wasn’t a totally free ride. And he couldn’t do squat downstairs with the crew with his arm in a cast.
Dad had been cool about it all. Clearly Tam had filled him in, but he hadn’t gone all parent-fake about it either. He’d made a point of settling Jaspar in the office, rather than out in the cubical he normally used for homework. And the stuff he was doing was neat once Jaspar started paying attention to it. More than once Jaspar had forgotten all about Kipling’s story of Kim’s adventures in India to listen to what his dad did to make the opera run.
When she got off school, Tam had been so afraid to come up to him that he’d given in way sooner than he planned. She sat on the couch and was all girly, offering to get him a soda, seeing if he wanted help with anything.
When Dad was out of the room he asked her quietly, “Why are you here anyway? Why aren’t you with her?” No need to explain who he was talking about, though he hadn’t meant it to come out so nasty. Tam looked miserable, right on the verge of tears for like the hundredth time since he’d been hurt.
“Dad said it was better if I didn’t,” she sniffled hard. “I checked Dad’s phone. She sent him a message saying she didn’t want me to come.”
Man the waterworks really were going. Tam was really, really sad about it. He didn’t want that.
“What was the rest of the message?”
She told him.
Jaspar had to think about it a bit. He had a funny feeling that the most important part of the message wasn’t the part that Tam cared about. Ms. Williams had said she was sorry. By itself, it might mean she was sorry that Jaspar had broken his arm, but that didn’t fit the rest of it. And it didn’t fit what a mess Dad was today, like he hadn’t slept or anything. Twice he’d seemed to forget what he was holding in his hands. When they’d gone out to lunch together, though it was embarrassing that Dad had to cut up his hamburger so that he could eat it, his dad didn’t eat much of his own.
Ms. Williams had said she was sorry and said that she would call, though not yet.
Almost every night for the last month he’d heard his dad talking with her. He couldn’t make out the words, except once or twice when he’d snuck up outside the bedroom door, but you didn’t talk that much to a girl unless you really liked her.
Dad came through the office, said something about Jerimy and the costumes. Did the kids want to go downstairs with him?
Tam, rather than leaping up as she had about costumes even before Ms. Williams first showed up, checked in with him. Jaspar tipped his head a little so she’d know he was fine with it and it was okay if she went.
She double checked, which made him even less angry at her. He did the finger flick for her to get gone, like when he was sick and she was hovering too much. She went, but Jaspar told Dad he was fine, wanted to read his book. What he really wanted to do was think.
He didn’t like that everything had changed. And he didn’t like that it had happened so fast. Tam was done with middle school next month. When did she get so old? And girl-shaped. Like he didn’t even recognize her, though he could see that boys sure did. Even grown ups would stop to watch her go by. They used to always say, “What a cute kid.” Now it was all, “What a beautiful girl.” Like she’d changed and left him behind. And those dresses.
Jaspar squirmed around on the couch trying to get more comfortable, but his arm was hurting and it wasn’t easy.
Tam had looked even more like an adult in her costume and those dresses she kept making with Ms. Williams. She was good at it too, everyone said so. Maybe it was more than just wearing them. Even before Ms. Williams, she was mostly down with Jerimy and Patsy, like she really cared about that stuff. He’d always been able to find her there when he needed something.
It wasn’t like the electricians, or even better sailing that whole big boat with no one but Mr. Morgan paying any real attention to him. But maybe it was what she liked.
Jaspar slowly became aware that there was someone standing at the office door.
Ms. Williams.
“Dad and Tam are downstairs.”
She nodded, but didn’t move to go to them, just stood there.
“What?” Dad would harass Jaspar about such bad manners, but he wasn’t here.
“Can I come in?”
Jaspar shrugged a yes and then wished he hadn’t. His arm really hurt.
She didn’t just breeze in like she seemed to always… Oh no! She was gonna do one of those serious adult-conversation-with-the-kid things. He really didn’t want to deal with one of those right now.
She sat down on one of the chairs and faced him.
He knew he was going to be rude, could feel it building up.
“I really screwed up, didn’t I?”
It took Jaspar a moment to figure out what she was talking about. He’d expected her to start with his arm or the book open on his lap or something safe. Even Dad usually did that, pretty much everyone except Tam did that.
“It’s not that I like Tamara better than you, I just know her better. I understand girls better than guys. Before your dad, I hadn’t met all that many guys that I liked enough to be friends with. Russell and Angelo married my best friends, but even them, it took me a long while. I’m really sorry for how I treated you, even if I didn’t mean to.”
Jaspar had to blink at her, as if she was turning into a different person without even moving.
“What I brought for you today isn’t some lame bribe to try and make it all better. It’s for the opera. Anything else, well, I just hope you’ll give me a chance to try and figure it out better than I have so far.” Then she opened the long bag she’d brought in. First she pulled out a dark cloth, elaborately sewed in the same colors as his costume.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a sling for you to wear with your costume.” She spread it out on the couch beside him where Tam had been sitting. “It will cover the whole cast and just make it look like your character was wounded in sword practice or something.”
“But I don’t have sword.”
She reached into her bag again and pulled out a wooden sword complete with belt and scabbard just like the one Carlo wore as the Prince, only smaller. It had been painted to look so real he had to touch it to make sure it was wood.
“This way you can still go on stage and your character will still make sense.”
On stage. He hadn’t even thought about how that might be a problem for a kid with a cast. But she’d thought of it and figured out how to fix it.
“Thanks,” he tried to think of something more intelligent to say.
She nodded and stood up to leave.
“You gonna wait to see Dad and Tam?”
She shook her head now.
“You’re making my dad and my sister really sad.”
That stopped her in the door as if he’d just stabbed her with his new sword. He hadn’t really meant to.
Ms. Williams took a deep breath before turning to look at him, her hand braced on the doorframe. “I know.”
Now Jaspar got why she’d said she was sorry. Why she’d said the rest of the text.
“You know what, Ms. Williams?”
“What?” She didn’t let go of the door frame.
“It might be okay if you called Dad tonight.”
She was silent for the longest time before she nodded to him and whispered, “Thank you, Jaspar. I don’t know if I’m ready, but thanks.” And she was gone.
He was still thinking about what it all meant when his dad came back.
“Hey, nice sword. Where did that come from?”
He shrugged and ran his hand down its smooth length.
Tam came in and spotted the sling lying where Perrin had left it beside him on the couch.
“Hey, that’s cool. A sling as a part of your costume. It matches perfectly, and the sword explains your injury.”
Tam didn’t get it, not yet. It always took her a couple extra moments while she thought about and tested a new idea. She was right more often than he was, just slower to make sure of it. Maybe about Ms. Williams she’d been right and he’d been wrong.
Dad figured out where the sword and sling had come from fast enough though. He dropped into a chair as if Jaspar had just hacked his legs out from under him.
- Writer
