The Paper Shepherd Page 6

  “You haven’t told him?” Eleanor asked. Tiar shook her head. “I’d like to buy the ticket for him for Christmas,” Eleanor announced. Tiar’s face brightened. “Can you keep a secret that long?”

  “I’ll do my best,” Tiar said, and gave the older woman a hug. “This is going to be so great.”

  The next few weeks rushed mercifully by. Tiar, who was terrible at keeping secrets, would have been tempted beyond her breaking point if not for her rigorous schedule of basketball games, term papers, and tests. She barely saw Max more than a few minutes a day. Looking forward to the end of this agonizing semester, she marked off days on the calendar in her room with checks, then X’s, then frowns. Finally, she got to December 23, the last day before Christmas break.

  Sarah and Tiar sat at the back of Mrs. Caldwell’s French class blowing bubbles into their cups of punch and whispering sarcastic comments to one another about the French Christmas movie she was inflicting upon the class for the second year in a row. Tiar looked out the window and watched the first few flakes of snow drift peacefully past. She wondered why, in a place where the first snow storms rolled in in October, everyone wished so hard for a white Christmas. The bell finally rang, letting the children and young adults of St. Jude’s Regional Catholic school out for two weeks of care free merry making. Tiar donned her long, blue coat and walked home.

  The next afternoon, Tiar walked to the Franklins’ house. Since she had arrived in the country seven years earlier, she had spent every Christmas eve with them at the late evening Mass, watched It’s a Wonderful Life, with them, and then come by the next morning to open presents. This year, the plan was no different.

  Mass was long and crowded as usual, with the church packed full and the collective body heat of the parishioners roasting them like chestnuts in their own woolen coats. The homily was a torturously long and complicated story about a simple circus clown whose one talent in life was juggling. Forty minutes into the tale, the action took a turn that, to Tiar, seemed more appropriate for a horror movie than for church. The narrative ended with the protagonist dying of a massive heart attack, and a statue of the Baby Jesus holding one of his brightly colored juggling accessories. Never in her many years in the town could Eleanor remember people rushing out of church with such a sense of urgency and purpose.

  Tiar, for her part, was on pins and needles the whole night trying to hold in confidence the plan she and Eleanor had hatched. This was the longest time she had gotten to spend in Max’s presence since the proposal had been unfurled several weeks earlier. Somehow, by the constant plying of holiday cookies and cider, Eleanor prevented the flood of disclosure.

  Christmas arrived with a blanket of white snow, as usual. Tiar avoid contact with her uncle, hung over from a night of merry making with other doctors from his practice. She put on the warmest, if not most fashionable, pair of boots she had inherited from Jen and began the hike to the Franklins’ house. When she arrived, the family was down stairs in bathrobes, coffee in hand, waiting for her.

  They emptied the annual complement of socks, underwear, batteries, and candy from their stockings. Eleanor gave Jack a 100 piece socket wrench set which he raved about for ten minutes. He, in return, gave her a juicer. Max opened a dark blue sweater from his parents. Having worn nothing but uniforms to school since age five, he was beginning to realize he had little to wear once he went away to college.

  Max opened a second box from his parents. This one was far too small to be a sweater. Inside the box was an envelope. He looked at Jack and Eleanor suspiciously.

  “What is this?”

  “Just open it, silly,” Eleanor said, obviously excited. He slid his index finger into the corner of the envelope and ripped open the side. As he emptied the contents, his brow furrowed with confusion. Plane tickets?

  “Here, open this one,” Tiar said, as though in explanation. He took the box from her and ripped off the paper. Inside was a London tour book. He flipped through the glossy colored pages. Two twenty pound notes fell out into his hand. He half laughed, half gasped, a dubious smile on his face.

  “You’re sending me to London?” he asked, in apparent disbelief.

  “For spring break,” Jack answered plainly, clearly not as enthusiastic about the plan as the two women flanking him.

  “But, that must be so expensive...” Max asked, looking at his father.

  “Don’t look at me,” Jack answered defensively. “If it were up to me, we would have bought seasons tickets to the Bills.” Max was distracted momentarily by his father’s halfhearted comment. He was unsure if his father assumed Max would go to SUNY Henderson in the fall and thus be available to attend Buffalo’s professional football games, or if he assumed that Max was going to school in Ohio and Jack would become the beneficiary of the tickets himself. Either way, Max was certain his father had not considered that this decision was still unresolved nor that Max had no interest in football.“Tiar will explain,” Eleanor said, interrupting Max’s thoughts. Tiar looked at Eleanor, not welcoming this unexpected attention. She then looked back at Max.

  “My uncle is sending me to London to check on my brothers,” she began. “I had a free place to stay and wanted some company. Your mom thought it would be a great chance for you to see another country.” Max looked at her, trying to make sense of what she was saying. He, Maxwell Franklin, was going to go to London, the home of the British Museum containing the Elgin Marbles and the Rosetta Stone and countless other priceless antiquities. He didn’t know if he was the luckiest 17-year-old boy on earth or the victim of an elaborate farce. His mother and Tiar both appeared to be quite sincere.

  “This is incredible,” he said, giving his mother and then his father a hug. “Thank you so much. This is just unbelievable.” He looked at Tiar.

  “Thank you. Really, thank you.”

  “No problem,” she said flippantly, trying not to appear to be the mastermind of this whole arrangement. “I’m just so glad I’ll have company.”

  The rest of the present exchange proceeded pleasantly but was anticlimactic in comparison. After cleaning up all the wrapping paper, bows, and boxes, Jack retired to the recliner to watch football, Max excused himself to go read, and Eleanor tried once again to teach Tiar to cook ginger bread. They needed plenty if they were going to have their annual gingerbread house making contest. Tiar’s previous attempts were, from an engineering standpoint, less than optimal for building anything other than a burial mound.

  One hour, half a dozen eggs, and a pound of flour later, Eleanor conducted their annual tradition of exiling Tiar from the kitchen until dinner. The young woman scampered up the stairs, giggling. Max’s bedroom door was open just enough so she could see he was lying on his bed reading. She walked quietly down the hall and knocked softly on the door.

  “Oh, hey, come in,” he said, sitting up, marking his page, and tossing his book on the bed. It was the tour book she had just given him a few hours before. Tiar walked timidly into the room.

  “You can sit down, Little Bird,” he said. She hadn’t been in his room in months. It suddenly seemed very foreign. She sat down next to him on the bed.

  “I just wanted to say,” she said hesitantly. “If you need me to talk to Michelle... you know, tell her this is just a family thing, I can....” Max looked at her, momentarily confused.

  “That’s not necessary, Bird,” he interrupted. “Michelle and I aren’t really... together anymore.” We never really were, he didn’t add. Tiar stared down at her knees. This didn’t change anything, she told herself. Max, by all rights, should be dating. Even if he didn’t have a girl now, the right girl might be right around the corner. It wouldn’t be right of her to scare that girl away by acting inappropriately affectionate. Tiar had become, if not comfortable, at least accustomed to their current distance.

  “Oh,” she said finally. “Well, I hope it doesn’t seem too selfish of me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, I didn’t want to be b
ored on this trip so I not only waylaid your whole spring break, but I convinced your parents to give you the ticket instead of a real Christmas present,” she said, laughing nervously. Max shook his head.

  “Bird, this is an amazing opportunity,” he said, sincerely. “I was just reading that book you gave me. Do you have any idea how much great stuff there is in London?” He picked up the guide book and showed it to her. He had already marked off a dozen pages with notes to himself. “I’m really looking forward to this trip.”

  “Well, good,” she said, smiling shyly.

  “I’m sorry if I didn’t seem excited before,” he said. “It was just so generous. I can’t believe it.”

  “Well, I didn’t actually pay for any of it except the guide book,” she laughed modestly.

  “It must have been a lot of trouble to arrange.”

  “No, not really.” They sat there awkwardly for a few seconds. Tiar seemed to be seeking reassurance, but Max did not know what for. Even before she got to his room, her footsteps told him she was hesitant and apologetic, but her statements gave him no clarity why.

  “Why did you really do all of this, Bird?” he asked gently. “I’m sure you could have had a great time going with Sarah or Jen.” Max watched Tiar as she struggled to formulate an answer. He could think of none. He was relieved but surprised that she would still put up with him, let alone engineer such a special gift for him. He didn’t deserve her, but he could not accept his life without her. Without her, his world was only fact, what actually was, black and white. With her, there was every shade of technicolor possibility. Without her, England would never be more then just a name on a map where he could never go. With her, it was sure to be a fantastic treasure hunt. Without her, he would never have even seen Ashford Hollow Sculpture park despite it being less then 50 miles from his house. Without her, he never would have considered that the park could ever be anything but what it was the day he saw it with her the previous summer—when they climbed up the hill to see crimson iron wending and wefting it’s way through the verdant clearing. Without her, he would never have considered it could be simultaneously the same park, yet entirely different in a different season. She dared him to imagine that the world was a beautiful and available adventure, that art was alive and could transform. She dared him to imagine the leafless tress, their brittle, thin branches dancing in the wind past arching ribbons of red metal mimicking the carefree strands of Tiar’s chestnut hair tossed by the wind through his car window past her tantalizingly full lips.

  Max’s guilt nearly suffocated him when he realized that his own moral weakness, his inability to keep discipline over his own desires shrank her world just as she was always striving to expand his. His fear that he would make some untoward advance toward her was why he was forbidden to take her there to see the art a second time. Despite this, she offered him more possibilities, oblivious to how his mind desired to corrupt them. Tiar, as if to demonstrate her young ignorance, merely stared innocently at the rug.

  “Jen and Sarah wouldn’t have understood it,” she began after a pause. “They would have wanted to spend the whole time shopping or something dumb. What good would that have been? But you…” She looked at him, crinkling up her nose, and then looked back down. “I had the opportunity to fill in a hole in your life. Isn’t that what you said best friends were for?”

  5

  Max fidgeted in a straight backed wooden chair in the front hall of St. Jude’s High School when shuffling footsteps got his attention. He looked up and saw a familiar face.

  “Hey, Max.”

  “Hi, Michelle. How’s the semester going for you?” he asked politely.

  “Pretty well,” she said sitting down next to him. “I think I have to drop French, though. Mrs. Caldwell really has it out for me this year.”

  “Je suis desolee,” he said sympathetically.

  “What?” Michelle asked without a glimmer of recognition. Max looked blankly back at her. No wonder, he thought to himself.

  “Never mind.”

  “You waiting to see Mr. Glending?” Michelle asked, dropping her book bag on the floor in front of her chair.

  “Yeah,” Max answered apathetically. “I was hoping he could give me some advice about choosing a college.”

  “Well, that’s what he’s here for,” Michelle answered flatly, swinging her legs carelessly back and forth under her chair. They booth groped in the silence for something to say, wanting to be polite.

  “Hey, I hear you’re going to England with Ti over spring break,” Michelle said finally. “That sounds really exciting.”

  “Yeah, I’m looking forward to it,” Max answered. The trip was now only a week away, and it still did not seem real to him.

  “Did you ever tell her?” Michelle inquired.

  “Tell her what?”

  “Oh, come on Max.” She lowered her voice. “Did you ever tell her how you feel about her?” Max shook his head.

  “Well, why not? And don’t give me that ‘I don’t want to ruin the friendship’ nonsense. I think she’s mature enough to handle it.”

  “She’s too young for… that,” Max offered vaguely.

  “Too young for what?” Michelle, a month younger then Tiar, asked indignantly. “Certainly not too young to go out on a date. She’s sixteen. And dating her doesn’t obligate you to sleeping with her or anything. There is a lot of gray area between friendship and sex, Max. Not all of us who are dating are putting out.”

  “Well, obviously,” Max said stalling. He looked around the lobby of the school hoping there was no one in ear shot to hear the conversation that was becoming painfully embarrassing to him. “But, still…You wouldn’t understand.”

  “You’re always saying that,” Michelle protested. “’You wouldn’t understand.’ No one would understand. No one will ever understand. Why do you make things so complicated? You always want to pretend there is some other future, Max. Some bigger truth. But, there is no future. The future doesn’t exist yet. The only thing that exists is right now. And the only truth is you’re a cute, funny 18 year-old guy who’s never kissed a girl in his life and has a crush on a girl who’s crazy about him. Now, you’re in serious danger of becoming a freak of nature pretty soon.” Max stared at Michelle, a bit taken aback. He wondered if she had been ruminating about this conversation for some time. “Maybe you do understand,” he accepted dubiously, hoping that by relenting to her argument he could stem any further tide of furious diatribes.

  “I do,” she insisted. “Maybe better then you do. Be honest, Max. Are you really afraid some cataclysmic event will befall the world if you admit you like Ti, or are you afraid she doesn’t want you back?” Max took a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak but had no answer.

  “There is no future, Max. Not yet,” Michelle concluded one last time.

  “There is no future,” he echoed under his breath as Mr. Glending’s secretary opened the door to call him into the office.

  A week later, Tiar and Max were in a small, gray car speeding from Gatwick airport into down town London. Tiar, having no memory of ever meeting her Aunt Genine, and never even having seen a picture of her before, was a bit surprised when a pale, redheaded, green eyed woman was standing at the international arrivals gate with a cardboard sign reading Alfred/Franklin. She was equally surprised when the woman, who gave she and Max each a huge hug, spoke to them with an English accent. The three of them piled into a BMW and headed out into the gray British spring.

  Whether from excitement or jet lag, Max and Tiar spent a good part of their first day in England sharing furtive giggles about their environment. Although they knew to expect cars to be driving on the left side of the road, they often found themselves feeling an instinctual sense of panic every time their host made a turn onto a new street and seemed to be heading straight into traffic.

  Aunt Genine’s home was a grand three-story row house near Hyde Park whose inside reminded Max of Sherlock Holmes mysteries he used to watch with his
mother on public television. He was almost afraid to sit on the furniture, worrying unconsciously that it was on loan from a museum somewhere. Aunt Genine, who had no children of her own, did not know what to expect her sixteen and eighteen-year-old American guests to eat after a long day of travel. She had stacked her fridge with everything from cookies to caviar and fruit punch to beer. She was relieved when they both agreed they would just like some tea to tide them over until dinner. She showed them where to unpack their belongings while they waited for the water to boil.

  Genine’s husband, William, a photographer for a travel magazine, was out on an assignment when the guests arrived. Max and Tiar were mesmerized by photos in their home of all the exciting places he had traveled to. Genine showed them an album of his most recent work while they had tea. When they were done, she set them free in the house while she started making dinner.

  Two hours after their arrival, they had made themselves at home. Tiar stood in the family room of her aunt’s London townhouse and stared at the mantel transfixed. Above the large mahogany shelf was a shield with a knight’s helmet over it. There was a checkered design on the shield in white and blue. In the top diamond was a crown, and to either side, a bright red ball. The banner below was inscribed with one word—Alfred.

  “What is that?” she asked her aunt, sitting in an armchair across the room.

  “That’s our family coat of arms,” she divulged.

  “But, I thought the name Alfred was made up,” Tiar admitted.

  “Made up?” Genine gasped.

  “An alias,” Tiar clarified. “I thought grandfather’s name was Al Saud. Didn’t he own Al Saud and Son’s Fine Rugs?” Aunt Genine stood up and crossed the room picking out an album from the book shelf.

  “Yes, but no. Al Saud is an alias,” she said, sitting down. “I can’t believe no one ever told you about the family. Then again, I guess your mother had her hands full. But, in all these years, Henry never said anything?” she asked. Tiar didn’t answer. “Of course, he didn’t. Henry is a donkey’s ass. Sit down, Tiar,” she commanded. “I’ll explain the whole thing.” Tiar sat down on one side of the couch, and Max, who had been reading his guide book on a chase lounge in the corner, joined them. Aunt Genine sat directly between them and opened the album on her lap.