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  Chapter Nine - Lisa

  Cody’s kiss left me floating in a warm pool of something very much like love that night, to the point that I almost forgot to take my shoes off before I went to bed. It was exactly the way I’d always imagined it would be, sweeter than honeysuckle, softer than baby’s breath. It was a million times better than that awkward smooch at the fall dance all those years ago. I kept replaying it over and over again in my mind, wanting to make sure I never forgot even the slightest detail.

  I fell asleep still thinking about it, and my dreams picked up right where memory left off. No surprise, there. Somehow the two of us were somewhere far away; I knew that much, even though I couldn’t have said how I knew. A full moon shone down on a sandy white beach, and I stood there barefoot with palm trees all around. It was just like a scene from Scarlett’s Hawaiian Nights, one of my favorite stories of all time.

  For a second I was confused as to how I got there; it was one of those dreams which seems so real it’s hard to distinguish it from waking life. Then I saw Cody standing there in the shadows, watching me, and he put a finger to his lips to shush me when I startled. I saw the glint of a ring on his finger in the moonlight, and I thought with a flood of happiness that we must be married, though I couldn’t remember when or how.

  He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his smooth skin was pale in the moonlight. He came closer, and then I felt his arms around me, strong and sure, while I buried my fingers in his close-cropped hair and felt the muscles on his back rippling. He kissed me passionately, and then. . .

  Suddenly I woke up, the taste of him still on my lips, the smell of him still in my nostrils, my body still warm from the memory of his touch. I cried out in frustration, trying to keep the dream from slipping away. But he was gone, and I was back in my old room, and the phone was ringing.

  I thought to myself that if that caller was anywhere within a hundred mile radius, I was prepared to get in the car, drive to his house, and literally beat him to a bloody pulp.

  “Hello?” I snarled.

  “Hey, did I wake you?” Cody asked, sounding taken aback.

  “Oh, no, I’m sorry. I mean, yes, I was asleep, but it’s all right. I’d rather talk to you, anyway,” I said, my anger evaporating. Dreams were awesome, but the real thing was even better. Even if all I could do was talk to him.

  “Oh, okay. Go look outside,” he said. It wasn’t exactly what I expected him to say, but I was willing to go along with it.

  “What am I looking for?” I asked.

  “Never mind that. Just go look,” he said. I got up and grabbed a robe from the closet, then quietly walked downstairs and out to the patio in the back yard. Just above the trees was the biggest full moon I’d ever seen, wrapped in a blue ring of wispy clouds and flooding the world with silver light.

  “Do you see it?” he asked.

  I did, and for a second I was reminded vividly of the moonlight through the palm trees reflecting off his smooth skin, and my whole body felt warm at the memory.

  “You mean the moon? Yeah, it’s beautiful tonight,” I said.

  “I couldn’t sleep, so when I saw it I had to tell you,” he said.

  If one of Jenny’s boyfriends had woken her up at midnight to ask her to go outside and look at the moon, I’m fairly sure she would have cussed him out and told him to call her back in the morning. But as for me, well, I think Cody could have asked me pretty much anything that night and I would have thought it was sweet and romantic.

  I laughed a little.

  “What is it?” he asked, and I guess my laugh probably made him think he’d stuck his foot in his mouth after all.

  “It’s nothing. I was thinking about something Jenny said, that’s all. Where are you? At home?” I asked him.

  “No, I took a walk down by the lake. I’m sitting on the swing at the gazebo,” he said.

  “Wish I was there with you,” I said wistfully, unable to contain myself.

  “Yeah, me too. I couldn’t stop thinking about you tonight,” he admitted.

  “Yeah, you’ve been on my mind tonight, too,” I agreed, and smiled to myself. I could tell him that much without seeming disreputable.

  “Well, listen. . . I found a monster truck pull in Lufkin on Saturday, if you want to go,” he said.

  “Sure. What time do I need to be ready?” I asked.

  “Um. . . maybe four o’clock? It’s kind of a long drive, you know,” he said.

  “Perfect. I’ll see you then,” I agreed.

  There was a pause, but he made no effort to hang up the phone.

  “Was there something else on your mind?” I finally asked, pretty sure there was.

  “Well. . . yeah, actually,” he admitted, reluctantly.

  “Mm-hmm, thought so. What’s up?” I asked, and again there was a long pause.

  “Do you think you could meet me somewhere for a little while, Lisa? I know it’s late, but there’s something I need to talk to you about,” he said.

  I furrowed my brows at that, wondering what could be so important that he’d feel compelled to ask me such a thing. Under the circumstances I wasn’t inclined to say no, even though I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the idea of going out so late, either.

  “Sure, I guess. Where at?” I asked.

  “What about the park?” he suggested.

  “No, that won’t do. If the sheriff comes by and sees us sitting there he’ll wonder what we’re up to and he’ll come harass us. Do you know where Autograph Rock is?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I know where it is,” he agreed.

  “Can you meet me there in fifteen, twenty minutes?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he agreed, and that was that.

  I went back inside, wondering what other strange and fantastic things might happen before daylight. I threw on some clothes and quickly brushed my hair so it wouldn’t look too ratty, and then grabbed the keys off the kitchen table. I slipped outside without a peep, letting the car roll downhill into the street before I started it. Then I drove away, still yawning.

  Autograph Rock is maybe two miles out of town, on an old dirt road in the middle of nowhere. It’s a big block of sandstone, covered in names which people have carved there for generations, some of them so old they’re almost weathered away. It’s kind of a tradition amongst the old folks that whenever you get married, you go out to Autograph Rock and carve your names in the stone. I guess it’s supposed to symbolize that your love will last forever, or something like that. People don’t do it quite as much as they used to, but I’d always thought it was a sweet idea and hoped I’d get to follow through with it someday myself. But in the meantime, it was a good landmark where we could meet up and talk about whatever it was that Cody was so tied up in knots about.

  He was already there when I pulled in, sitting on his tailgate and looking at the moon. I killed the car and went to join him, trying not to yawn too much.

  “So what’s on your mind, bubba?” I asked, sitting down beside him. The moonlight softened his features, making him look younger than he really was, and for a fleeting moment I was reminded of my dream again. He seemed ill at ease, taut as a bowstring, and I wondered what could be wrong.

  “Lisa. . . do you like me?” he asked.

  “You know I do,” I agreed, deciding maybe it wasn’t the best time in the world for a joke. He didn’t seem to be in the mood for light banter.

  “I mean like more than just friends,” he clarified. That confused me a little; after the way he kissed me earlier it seemed like that would have been obvious. If it wasn’t, then something was wrong. So I hesitated, wondering what to say. For once I couldn’t read him at all, and every answer I could think of seemed dangerously risky. All I could think to do was speak the truth and hope for the best.

  “Yeah,” I finally said, unable to think of any way to embellish or clarify it. Cody let out a deep breath.

  “Me too. I guess you alre
ady know that, after earlier. But I need you to know some things, before we ever let it go any further. If it changes things then I’m okay with that, but I have to tell you,” he said.

  “What is it?” I asked, uneasy.

  “Do you remember when I told you I was the last McGrath?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I remember,” I agreed.

  “Well. . . there’s a reason for that,” he said.

  “Go on,” I finally said, when he didn’t seem disposed to continue. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed.

  “None of us has ever lived past thirty. My father, my grandfather, my aunts and uncles, all of us. No exceptions,” he said.

  “So what is it, then? There’s like a disease that runs in your family or something?” I asked.

  “No, nothing like that. It’s always something different. Accidents, diseases, wars; it’s never the same thing twice. The only thing we’ve all got in common is that none of us ever lived to be older than twenty-nine,” he said.

  “But that’s just a- “ I began.

  “Coincidence? Yeah, that’s what everybody says. And maybe if it was only three or four times then I might believe it. But every single family member since 1861? Nope, don’t buy it,” he interrupted.

  “But what else could it be, though?” I asked.

  “Maybe it’s a curse,” he said, watching me carefully.

  “I don’t believe in stuff like that,” I said automatically, and realized almost immediately that it was the wrong thing to say.

  “No? Well, I guess it doesn’t matter what you call it. I still might not be here much longer,” he said.

  I understood lots of things at that moment, and felt a gentle wash of compassion for him. I didn’t know what to think about his theory of a family curse; I was still inclined to believe it was bosh, honestly. But then again I’ll be the first to admit there are a lot of things in the world that I don’t understand, and only a fool says ‘there’s no such thing’ about anything. It didn’t really matter whether I believed it or not, though. What mattered was that Cody believed it, and that explained a lot.

  “That’s why you never would get too close, isn’t it?” I asked. All those times when he’d been so distant and cool made perfect sense now.

  “Yeah. I didn’t think it was fair to put somebody through that,” he said.

  I don’t know how else to explain it other than the grace of God, but somehow I had the wisdom not to argue with him over whether the Curse was real or not. That would have ended badly. Cody didn’t want a debate over the nature of reality; he wanted an answer for how I felt just in case it did turn out to be true. And that part was surprisingly easy.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said.

  “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?” he asked.

  “Well. . . maybe that’s not exactly what I meant. I wasn’t blowing you off. I only meant it doesn’t change anything, that’s all,” I said.

  “It doesn’t?” he asked.

  “No. Mama always used to tell me you’re never guaranteed tomorrow and you can’t buy back yesterday. Now is all that matters, cause it’s all you’ll ever have. Either one of us might die before we make it home tonight. Even if right now was all the time we ever had together, I’d never be sorry for that,” I said.

  “Really?” he asked, still looking like he didn’t quite believe me.

  “Yeah, really and truly. Never think of it again,” I told him, and grasped his rough hands in my own. His blue eyes were soft and lambent in the moonlight, and for only the third time he kissed me then, holding me tight in his arms and making it last a long, long time.

  Oh, I won’t pretend his revelation didn’t scare me a little bit. I’m not the superstitious type, but nobody is immune to a cold shiver of doubt now and then. No one wants to get caught up in that kind of heartache, either, and I’m no exception. But then on the other hand, the thought of abandoning him because I was afraid of what the future might hold seemed to me to be the most contemptible idea I’d ever imagined. I might not know what was coming, but I wasn’t going to bolt and run, that was for certain.

  “There’s something else, too,” he said, when the kiss was over.

  “Worse than what you already told me?” I asked.

  “Well, no. Not exactly, anyway,” he said.

  “I guess you better tell me, then,” I said, resigned.

  “Okay then. Sometimes I have dreams,” he said.

  “Well, yeah, so does everybody,” I said.

  “No, I don’t mean like that. I mean real ones. True dreams,” he clarified.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said.

  “I mean sometimes I see things that will happen in the future,” he said.

  “I see,” I said. I remembered hearing about things like that at church now and then, so I couldn’t exactly say it was impossible, but I’d never met anybody who said it was something that happened to them.

  “I know it’s a lot to swallow in one night,” Cody said, sounding sad.

  “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to doubt you or anything. What do you dream about?” I asked, feeling guilty for not believing him.

  “You, among other things,” he said, and I might have been pleased if I thought that was something good. But as it was, all it did was give me a deep sense of foreboding.

  “What about me?” I whispered.

  “You’re in danger, that’s what. Or you will be; I still don’t quite understand that part,” he said, and proceeded to tell me a crazy story about dancing with skeletons and I don’t know what all else.

  I think if it had been anybody else but Cody, I might have cut him loose right then. There’s only so much insanity a person can deal with at one time. But he already held too big a piece of my heart, and I couldn’t have let go even if I’d wanted to.

  I remembered my prayer that God would touch his heart and find a way for us to be together, if that would make both of us happy. Now here he was, the untouchable Cody McGrath, spilling his guts and telling me he wanted to be mine. I could only believe that all this was God’s gift to me and His will for my life, however crazy it might seem. I couldn’t imagine Cody saying all those things otherwise.

  I only hoped I was right about all that.

  “Never mind. We’ll figure it out together,” I said.