Bluehour (A Watermagic Novel) (4 page)

I shrugged. “Well, that makes sense. I think
my dad would be empathetic to that. He really likes you. Your
happiness matters to him. But, you were talking to him for a while.
I feel like there is more to the story.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re right. I told
him I like Danny and if you stayed then maybe he would hang around
me longer and start to like me. I begged him to not send you home
so that I could work on Danny. I could tell you weren’t interested
in him.”

With that, I burst out laughing. “That’s too
funny!”

She scrunched up her face. “Why? What’s so
funny about it?”

I saw she was uncomfortable, so I
backtracked. “Oh, it’s just that I didn’t realize you liked him.
That’s so great—really. I could see you two together.”

Her eyes lit up. “You could?”

“Yes, definitely.” I noticed she didn’t even
realize she just ran a red light. “I guess I’m not the only bad
driver.”

“What do you mean?” She looked confused.

“You just ran that red light.”

Her eyes widened and then she laughed again.
“Oh, I hope Danny likes me. I’m so crushing on him.”

“He did spend a lot of time with you. Guys
don’t usually spend so much time with a girl unless they like
her.”

Her face was beaming with joy.

When she dropped me off, I hugged her. “I
have a feeling we won’t be talking on the phone the rest of the
weekend. My dad will probably put me on restriction.”

“Oh.” She looked sad. “Good luck with that.
So, I’ll see you on Monday at school. If he lets you talk, call me
and tell me what happens.”

I glanced at my watch and noticed it was
already almost ten o’clock, the time my dad said to be home. “If he
lets me, I will call, but don’t count on it.” I hugged her again
and then rushed into the apartment.

***

Monday morning my mom drove me to school. The
traffic was heavy as usual in the mornings. But even with the car
noises and delays, I enjoyed the warmth of the sun on my arms as it
shined through the passenger window. To pass the time, I counted
the palm trees that lined the streets. When I got bored with that I
counted the flashy billboards of supermodels and food ads.

“You’re so quiet today,” Mom commented to me
absent mindedly as she tapped her fingernails on the steering wheel
while we waited for the traffic to pick up.

“Yeah, I guess I am.”

She didn’t respond. I could tell she was
distracted.

Now that we were alone, I hoped I could talk
to her about my dad. All weekend he was watching over me like a
hawk. “Mom?”

“Yeah? Huh? What?” She looked over at me.

Sometimes she was so silly the way she
talked. “How did dad find me in the ocean?”

She shook her head in dismay. “One of his
shipmates from work told him about the big San Mo High party at the
beach that his son was going to.”

“Uh oh,” I uttered as my eyebrows lifted. “I
didn’t think about that happening.”

“Me neither.” Again she shook her head. But,
her attention shifted suddenly.

She rolled down the window and yelled at a
driver that was pulling out of a parking lot and blocking us in the
street. The woman looked bewildered. She shrugged and looked around
as if trying to figure out what to do. Then she pulled her car back
in and we passed.

My mother sighed, but then, after a moment,
she continued talking to me about my dad, “When Max found out about
the party, he immediately went to the beach and asked the other
students from your school if they knew where you were. They told
him that you were surfing and they pointed you out.”

“Oh, man.” My body tensed at the thought.

“He didn’t even hesitate. Terrified, he ran
into the ocean to get you. He didn’t even take off his shoes. Poor
Max—he thought his little girl was going to die.”

“He needs therapy,” I said as we turned into
Santa Monica High’s parking lot.

“You don’t talk like that, young lady.” Her
voice was harsh. “Therapy’s not for everybody and he’s a hell of a
lot better at fighting demons than a shrink is.”

She pulled up alongside the curb before the
attendance office and reminded me, “Make sure Agatha brings you
right home after school. You are on restriction this week. You’re
lucky it’s only for a week.”

“I know, I know. I’ll come right home.” I
leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Oh, no!”

“What is it?” She was startled by my sudden
outburst.

“I forgot that I start swim team practice
today after school. I can probably find a ride home. Can I go?”

“Of course.” She shook her head again, but
this time she smiled. “Have a good first day. Come home right after
practice.”

Now that I fought Marine at the beach in
front of everybody, I was surprised how much attention I was
getting from my classmates. People were cheering me on, calling me
“badass.” I wasn’t used to that kind of approval. Usually, I just
blended in and went unnoticed.

Agatha met me after homeroom. Her hair was
cut and styled differently. It was feathered like Farrah Fawcett’s
famous hairstyle from the 1970’s “Charlie’s Angels” TV show. It
wasn’t in style, but she looked kind of cute in a quirky way.

We compared our class schedules with each
other. We had history and cooking class together. My mom was making
me take cooking because I was so awful at it. She said that if I
just got some practice, I might get at least a little better. I
knew it wasn’t likely, but she insisted.

After I moaned to Agatha about cooking class,
I told her how I was on restriction for the week. She was glad it
wasn’t for a year like I imagined. The warning bell rang and we
both rushed off to our first period classes.

When I got to my English class, I was shocked
to see that all five French exchange students were in my class.
They were all sitting together in a cluster in the far corner of
the room. My nerves twitched when I saw them. Immediately I wanted
to leave. I couldn’t bear to be in the same room.

But I didn’t have a choice; I had to stay.
The classroom was filling up quickly. The bell rang. I had to take
a seat. The only desk open was also in the back of the room, but on
the opposite side of the exchange students. At least I wouldn’t
have to sit too close to them.

The class was pretty noisy with students
digging through their backpacks and all sorts of first day of
school chatter. I glanced over at the French kids. They were
engaged in conversation.

Laurent was as gorgeous as ever. His golden
brown hair hung down in his face. It was a bit of a mess. He wasn’t
talking with the others rather he was brooding, looking down at his
hands and deep in thought.

Danny was right—they dressed in fine
clothing. Their attire looked custom made. It had a sort of
understated elegance. The styles were of the latest fashions, even
a little casual, but with the slightest hint of décor reminiscent
of eighteenth century French aristocracy. And the way Brigitte with
her long shiny black hair sat up so straight looked unnatural. I
could imagine all of them sipping tea and parsing
intellectually.

To my surprise, Marine smiled at me coyly
from across the room. I couldn’t smile back, but rather returned
her gesture with a blank stare. I just couldn’t figure her out.

Oddly, she was waving a blue and white fan
with a painted scene at her lovely face. Her blond hair was
extremely long with tiny pearl adornments placed throughout. She
wore a plain white t-shirt that laced up in the front in an
eighteenth century style with a low bodice that showed the
slightest hint of cleavage. But, her jeans were modern and like
anybody else’s except that her body was as curvaceous and perfect
as a model in a magazine.

I looked away and set up my desk with my
folder and notebook. The teacher wrote her name really big on the
whiteboard: Mrs. Wallace. Then she proceeded in a boring monotone
voice to discuss the novels and short stories we would be reading
that year.

It was hard for me to concentrate. My mind
kept drifting to thoughts about the exchange students. I wanted to
know everything about them. I couldn’t help but turn my head to
look at them again.

When I turned, to my surprise, I saw that
Laurent Moreau was staring right at me. His ocean blue eyes were
boring into me. There was so much intensity underneath his blank
expression. Embarrassed, I looked away.

Then the strangest thing happened. I heard
him begin to sing a faint tune in the softest voice. It was like a
lullaby, but more beautiful and sensual. I looked around, afraid
the teacher would have a fit that he was disrupting the class, but
she didn’t seem to notice.

Even though the sounds were hushed and
subtle, I felt the power of his enchanting voice from across the
room, but I could sense that his mind was in turmoil as he sang.
Mostly, I just thought he was unruly to start serenading during a
lecture. But when I looked around again at the class, I noticed
that the other students and even the teacher appeared dreamy eyed.
They didn’t even seem aware of what was going on. It was like they
were oblivious to the melodic sounds.

And even odder, to my surprise, when I
glanced back at Laurent, I experienced a rush of feelings that were
different than anything I had ever experienced before. My insides
felt warm and fluid like the ocean on a hot day. My connection to
this boy seemed powerful; it almost felt otherworldly. It was like
I had connected to an energy source of pure pleasure.

I was so inexplicably moved by the exchange
that a tear fell from my eye. This wasn’t like me. I wasn’t an
overly emotional type.

And then, the most shocking thing happened.
In a split second, as the tear was falling to the floor, Laurent
suddenly appeared at my desk and caught the drop of saltwater
before it hit the ground.

I looked at him in utter shock.

Crouched down beside my desk with the
teardrop on the palm of his hand, he looked up at me. And then to
my astonishment, he licked the drop from his hand as he looked into
my eyes.

Suddenly he stopped singing. He looked
surprised, even disoriented. His expression turned to horror as he
gazed at me. “Did you see that?” he questioned, seemingly in
shock.

The teacher appeared to come out of her
dreamlike state. “Return to your seat, young man,” she demanded and
then continued with her boring lecture.

Laurent nodded agreeably. But as he strutted
back to his desk in his usual rhythmic gate, he shook his head in
seeming bewilderment. His body was tense. Once he got to his seat,
he looked over at me again, but this time with a streak of hatred
in his eyes.

The other French kids looked furious too, but
not at me—at him. They stared at him in dread.

He was the weirdest boy I had ever seen in my
life.

1. Curiosity
   

I felt like the rest of my first day back at
school passed in a haze. I couldn’t keep my mind off of Laurent and
his ever increasing peculiarities. Over and over again I kept
playing the scene that took place in English class in my mind.
Obsessively, I analyzed every fine detail.

The whole thing was perplexing. Why did he
sing in class? Why didn’t anyone else seem to notice? Yes, his
voice was quiet, but still, shouldn’t other people have heard it?
But aside from all that, what stumped me the most was that I
couldn’t figure out how in the world he appeared beside my desk in
a flash of an instant just in time to catch my teardrop.
Impossible.

I went over everything that happened step by
step in attempt to figure it all out. The first thing that
happened—he stared at me. The second thing that happened—he began
to sing. Third—I felt an odd rush of emotions—amazing, beautiful
emotions, feelings like I had never felt before. Fourth—as a result
of my overwhelming feelings, a teardrop fell from my eye.
Fifth—suddenly, he was right beside me like he transported his body
magically. Sixth—he caught my teardrop. And seventh—he consumed
it.

But I just couldn’t figure out how the heck
he got to my desk from all the way across the room fast enough to
catch my teardrop? It just didn’t make sense. The only explanations
I could come up with were farfetched at best.

One idea I had that was very unlikely was
that I became so emotional that I imagined it—that I got caught up
in my feelings and did not see him run over to me. No—definitely
not. That didn’t sit right in my mind. I wasn’t an illogical
person. I certainly wasn’t oblivious to my surroundings.

Another possibility was that maybe he
hypnotized me somehow and during the bedazzlement he told me not to
remember that he ran over to me. But how could he hypnotize me? He
didn’t even say anything. Don’t trained hypnotists have to give
verbal commands?

And that didn’t answer for the rest of the
class. Why were they so dreamy eyed and oblivious. I knew very
little about alternate states of consciousness, though I knew
science was evolving in that direction. Maybe he hypnotized me
somehow with his eyes. Is that even possible? And even if it was,
what about the rest of the students and the teacher? He didn’t
stare at them.

It seemed like he just suddenly appeared like
a witch or a genie from a TV show who blinks and then appears
somewhere else. How could something like that happen in real life?
Every idea I came up with was preposterous, beyond all reason.

Another thought I had was that he was a
magician. Maybe he was trained in trickery, like a guy who
travelled with the circus and had learned all sorts of illusionary
techniques. Possibly he planned the whole interaction to mess with
me.

But, why would he want to do that? He would
have had to set up his stage ahead of time the way a magician plans
and arranges beforehand for an audience. He couldn’t have possibly
known that I was going to be enrolled in the same class. Like, I
said, all my ideas were absurd.