Helena Mary Cole

On the day Alex was well enough to eat his lunch in the kitchen (Mrs. Newcastle was bustling around on the other side of the island), Parker came and sat opposite his son. Mrs. Newcastle quietly came over and put a mug of coffee down in front of him. “Thank you, Fiona,” he said.

Alex hardly looked up from his soup. Parker was pleased to see his son was finally starting to have more colour in his face. He leaned back in his chair and said, “Alex, I had a rather interesting visit from Rafe and Anna while you were sick.”

“Uh-huh,” Alex said.

Parker watched him eat for a moment, “Aren’t you wondering why you haven’t seen Sandy since you’ve been home from the hospital?”

Alex shrugged. “I haven’t exactly been good company lately. Why? When’s she coming over?”

Parker stirred sugar into his coffee. “Soon. Probably not today. I think she’s going to be spending a little less time here in the future, at her parents’ request.” The discussion he’d had with Rafe and Anna still mystified him somewhat, but at the same time, he couldn’t help but find the whole thing amusing – he wished he could laugh about it with Anita. Still, he had no intention of making light of it now in front of Alex. He didn’t know how Alex was going to react to the news.

Alex had stopped eating as confusion and hurt spread quickly over his face. “Why?”

“Oh, it’s nothing you’ve done. It’s not that they don’t like you, it’s just…” He trailed off, struggling to know how to bring up such a sensitive subject.

Fiona Newcastle came to his rescue, “Wondering why their daughter spends so much time with your son, are they, Parker?” she piped up from where she stood behind the counter, having returned to the task of dressing a chicken for dinner.

Alex stared at her for a moment, making note of her smile, and then he looked at his father, who was busy taking sip of his coffee to hide a smile of his own. Alex didn’t point out that a lot of the time he’d been spending with Sandy had simultaneously been spent with Jay. Somehow that didn’t matter—somehow that detail had become a mere technicality somewhere along the way. Alex blushed and returned to his soup with sudden gusto.

“There’s no need to look like that, Alexander,” Mrs. Newcastle went on, “I noticed a long time ago that she was sweet on you—the only question was whether or not you returned the sentiment.”

Now positively red in the face, Alex only acknowledged Mrs. Newcastle’s words with a slight turning of his ear towards her, and chose instead to address his father, “Am I in trouble?”

“No,” Parker assured him, “From what I understand, they don’t have any objection to you, other than your age and Sandy’s.” He supposed if he had a daughter, he might be as ridiculous as Rafe, too. As it was, he couldn’t help feeling proud of Alex. A slight shadow darkened this feeling whenever he remembered Rafe saying he’d “feel more comfortable” if the boy his daughter went out with was Alex. Parker had not expected to have to defend his son’s manhood at the tender age of thirteen, thanks to ignorance about spinal cord injuries. It was so absurd, he had settled for retorting, Goodness, Rafe, the kids are still so young. Rafe had replied, Not for long, old boy, and Parker had let it go. Pushing this memory aside now, he reached across the little table and clapped his son on the shoulder. “I think they’re probably right. Just wait a few years before addressing the young lady and you’ll be fine.”

Alex went back to his soup. “Fine,” he said shortly, hoping this was going to be the end of the conversation. And it turned out it was.

When Alex excused himself five minutes later, Parker Hale and Fiona Newcastle looked at each other over the raw chicken and grinned.

“D’you think Anna and Rafe have any idea in their heads what they’re doing?” Mrs. Newcastle said.

“I’m not about to complain. Anita always dreamed that Sandy and Alex would one day make a match of it. The more Alex stuck his tongue out at Sandy, the more Anita saw the makings of a long and happy relationship.”

“I remember. There was no talking her out of it, was there?”

“Remember how she and Anna used to line them up for pictures?” he asked.

“Poor Anita was always threatening to file those photos away for their wedding day,” Fiona replied.

“The grouchier their expressions were, the more she laughed…” Parker’s voice trailed off as he got lost in memory and Fiona gazed at him sadly. Finally, he cleared his throat, “Well, there’s still no telling what will happen between them in the coming years.”

“True.” Fiona opened a packet of basil leaves. “True. It’s likely to be a passing thing.”

“Likely.” Parker took a sip of his coffee. “Do you think he’s called her yet?”

“Oh, he’s declaring his undying love this very moment, I have no doubt,” Mrs. Newcastle slapped butter-and-basil-covered hands on the trussed-up chicken and turned around to wash her hands in the sink. “The only question is, what about poor James?”

“Jay?” Parker Hale set down his coffee, frowning. “What about him?”

Mrs. Newcastle scrutinized Parker’s face for a moment. “Nothing in the world,” she said.
*
“Alex,” Sandy’s voice said from the other end of the phone, “How long have you liked me?”

As Mrs. Newcastle predicted, Alex had gone straight to the phone and called Sandy, to discuss the fact that their parents thought they liked each other. Of course, less than two minutes later, the matter had been settled between them: they did like each other. Alex hardly knew if he should stay still or sprout wings and fly away. “How long have I liked you?” Alex repeated her question, hardly knowing what he was saying, “Not long.”

“Really?”

“A couple of months, I guess. We used to hate each other, remember?”

“It has to be longer than a couple months,” she argued, “Hating each other as kids doesn’t count—in fact, I think we have to count it as the opposite.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Does so! Hating is almost the same thing as liking. I think I’ve basically liked you for as long as I can remember.”

“Oh, come on,” Alex protested, “My dad has a hundred pictures that prove you wrong, and what about the time our parents made us go to the Spring Fling dance together? Don’t tell me that wasn’t like going to the dentist because you sure acted like it.”

“Only because I was too stupid to know that I actually liked you.”

“Fine, have it your way.” Alex was in too good a mood to argue anymore. “Are you really only allowed to come over twice a week now?”

“Plus Sunday afternoons, but that’s it,” she lamented. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do about that.”

“I don’t get what the big deal is about you coming over and hanging out. Your parents know that Jay’s usually here, too, right?” Before she could reply, Alex swore vehemently. Sandy was shocked into silence, and Alex said, “Sandy, what are we going to do about Jay?”

She swallowed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, which one of us is going to tell Jay about all this?”

She only hesitated for a second. “Don’t worry about it. I had a chance to tell Jay what’s going on already.”

“Jay knows already?”

“Well, obviously, he doesn’t know what we’re saying right now. But I went over to his house the other day and talked to him. I had to complain to somebody about the new rules and you were always sleeping.”

“Oh. You didn’t know I was going to ask you out, though.”

“You asked me to go with you to the art museum when you were still in the hospital. What was that about?”

Alex did have a vague memory of this. “I don’t know what that was about but it wasn’t this. But now that this has happened, isn’t everything going to be weird for Jay?”

“Why would everything be weird for Jay?” Her heart was pounding. Did Alex know something she didn’t about Jay?

“Think about it—if we’re going out, that makes him the third wheel all the time.”

She exhaled noisily, “I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

A much longer silence stretched as Alex’s mood suddenly deflated and Sandy randomly pulled a blank diary across her desk and bent a hopeless dog ear into the upper right-hand corner.

Finally, Alex said, “Jay’s my best friend in the world, other than you.”

“I know that, Alex.”

“I’d really hate to lose him.”

“We’re not going to lose him.”

“I can’t afford to lose him,” he added morosely.

“Stop it, Alex, I’m sure nothing’s going to change between us and Jay.”

“Really?” Alex wasn’t so sure. “You already know he’s never really liked you all that much.”

“You arm-wrestled him out of that a long time ago,” she managed a laugh, “And when I talked to him at his house that day, he was really great about all this, actually.”

“Really?”

“Well, he told me to go for it if you asked me out. ‘I never knew you were such a rebel,’ he said. That has to be a good sign. Anyways, don’t forget that we can’t even really go out until I’m sixteen. Remember? My parents think we’re too young right now.”

“My dad thinks so too,” But Alex was beginning to think about the situation more hopefully, “Are we really going to let that to stop us, though? We still have almost half our time together this summer and when school starts again, we’ll see each other every day. Are we allowed to talk on the phone?”

“I think if I started spending too much time talking to you on the phone, my mother would make another rule to limit that. But if Jay could find some girl to bring along with us when we go out that might help,” Sandy suggested, struggling for cheerfulness, “My parents have always said I’m allowed to be in a group and go out. I’ve just never had one I wanted to go out with before.”

“Yeah, me neither. I guess that would be all right,” Alex said. He only wondered for a second what this unknown girl of Jay’s would be like before he pushed the thought aside firmly. There was no sense in worrying about that at this point.

“So, we’re going out with each other now, right?” Sandy asked, thinking it was about time they moved on from these sobering ideas, and rekindled their excitement.

“I guess we are, yes,” Alex said.

“Good,” Sandy said. “I’m so happy.”

“Me, too.”

And they were, for the most part.
*
The next evening, Alex found himself alone with his dad after six in the east living room, which was unusual because Jay often came striding in unannounced long before that hour, especially when the weather was nice enough for biking. Alex was troubled enough to interrupt his father’s ritual viewing of his preferred news program by saying, “Dad, has Jay been over since I’ve been home?”

“He’s called a couple times to see if you were available to receive guests,” Parker said, turning briefly away from the TV.

“Was I?”

“Now that I think of it, both times he called, you were sleeping.”

“In other words, he hasn’t been here in about a week.”

“The house isn’t the same without him, is it?” Parker mused, now looking at Alex with a frown. “But I’m sure everything’s all right.”

Alex thought about Sandy’s assurance that everything was still fine with Jay, and began to reflect that Sandy didn’t know very much about boys and she might have misread him. “I was really hoping he’d come over tonight,” Alex said aloud.

Parker was still looking at his son, “Why don’t you call him?”

Alex immediately took this advice. Calling the Belden household was almost never a straightforward affair. The Belden daughters were very possessive of the family land line and seemed to pounce on the phone the moment it rang. Alex had come to expect that, only today, he wasn’t thrilled about having to navigate past Jay’s sisters. He held his breath, listening to the ringing on the other end. Nothing could have been more shocking than the fact that Jay himself picked up after three rings. “Oh. Hey. It’s Alex,” he practically stuttered in his surprise.
“Alex?” the young male voice said in confusion.

Something plummeted in Alex’s stomach. Since when did Jay call him Alex? But then he put the two and two together. “Sorry, is this Simon?”

“Yeah,” Simon said uncertainly before the coin dropped for him, too, “Oh – you’re Alex Hale. Hi. Are you calling for Jay?”

“Yes,” Alex said in some relief, “Is he home?”

“I think so. Hang on a minute.”

Just then, the room erupted with noise as one of the youngest Belden kids came into the room, crying and screaming at the same time. Alex couldn’t tell if it was Maggie or Robbie. Half the family seemed to have entered with them, judging from the number of voice that he could suddenly hear. Alex thought he heard a door creak, suggesting most of the family had just gotten in. Simon was trying to get a word in edgewise, repeating, “Mom,” at a volume that Alex doubted anyone would actually hear. All of this was not helping the feeling of dread that continued to hover over him right now.

Finally, the noise dwindled to a more normal hum, and Simon finally got to saying, “Mom, where’s Jay?”

“He’s here, isn’t he?” Jay’s mom’s voice said, “He wasn’t with us.”

“He’s not home,” a younger female voice said. Alex’s dread spiked sharply. Jay wasn’t at home and he wasn’t at the Old Hall? He didn’t play on any sports teams in the summer, did he?

Simon said, “Alex is on the phone for him.”

“Alex is on the phone?” the same younger female voice said, “Give me the phone.”

Simon protested a little but Alex heard the phone being wrested away from him by his sister. Then, “Alex? This is Jay’s sister, Erin.”

“I know who you are, Erin,” Alex said, mockingly insulted, as if Jay didn’t complain about her every single day. But technically, they’d never met.

“Yeah, hi. When we turned onto Elm just now, I saw Jay heading your way on his bike. That was, like five minutes ago. He should be there pretty soon.”
Alex was so relieved, he almost laughed. “Okay, thanks. I was wondering when he was going to turn up around here again.”

Pause. “I’d say get well soon but I think it already happened, huh?”

“Um. Yeah. Thanks, Erin.”

“Okay, bye.”

Sure enough, when Alex went down the east wing corridor towards the kitchen, he heard Jay’s voice, and Mrs. Newcastle’s replying. On entering the kitchen, however, Alex thought Jay looked surprised to see him. “Sash, hi,” he said awkwardly, but quickly added, “You look much better than you did last time I saw you.”

“Thanks, I feel a lot better, too,” Alex rolled to a stop not far from where Jay was leaning against the kitchen island talking to his great aunt.

Jay looked at him with a hint of consciousness that had never been there before; what was more, he didn’t seem to know what to say. Something was definitely not “fine,” Alex thought.

Mrs. Newcastle filled the pause, saying, “What can I do for you, Alexander? Do you want a snack right now?”

“No, thanks, Mrs. N, I came to find Jay.”

“You came looking for me?” Jay said. “How did you know I was here?”

“I guessed. I just called your house and Erin told me she saw you biking this way.”

“Oh.”

Well, Jay was never a big talker, Alex thought, so what if he was especially short on words now? But he owed it to Jay to tell him what had happened between him and Sandy, even if it hurt. “So, d’you want to come upstairs and watch TV in my sitting room?” Alex glanced at Mrs. Newcastle as if afraid she might guess what he was going to say to Jay once they got there.

Jay had a smile on his face that made him look like he had gas. “Yeah, okay. We never watch TV in your room but sure.” The number of times he’d been upstairs at the Old Hall could be counted on one hand.

Mrs. Newcastle gave them each a suspicious frown. “Are you boys sure you don’t want some popcorn or something? I could bring it up in, oh, about a quarter of an hour.”

Alex was quick to say, “No, that’s okay, we’re fine.”

Jay tried to joke with his aunt, “Apparently, we’re not hungry,” he said, but the joke sounded stiff and unnatural.

“All right,” Mrs. Newcastle’s voice inflected up, as if she had never heard of a such a thing as boys not being hungry, “Let me know on the intercom if you change your minds. And Alex? Take it easy, all right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Alex said.

The boys didn’t say much on the way up to Alex’s sitting room. When they were walking toward the foyer, Jay asked a few questions about when Alex had started feeling better; when Alex was riding up on the stair lift, Jay made a joke about the almost non-existent possibility that Alex might have died of his pneumonia and Alex made an equally joking reply; when they entered the upper east corridor, they were totally silent, until Alex stopped suddenly and put a hand on his chest.

If Jay had been nervous before, now he was alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

“My chest feels tight.”

“I’ll get your dad, or Aunt Fi,” Jay took a step back toward the stairs.

Alex stopped him with, “It’s nothing to worry about. My lungs get tired out easily, that’s all.”

“Yeah, but I thought you were done being sick.”

He shook his head. “They keep telling me I won’t be completely over it until the end of August. I hate it when they’re right.”

“Oh.” Jay just stood there, unsure of what to do now.

Alex still had a hand pressed to his chest. “Would you mind pushing me?”

“What?”

“Just to my room.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes. My dad sometimes has to push me these days, when I get too tired. Please don’t make me ask twice.”

Jay quietly complied, but as he pushed his friend along the upstairs corridor, he couldn’t stop himself from muttering, “This is weird.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not having any fun either,” Alex said, “We’re thinking of setting up one of the rooms downstairs as a temporary bedroom, just until I get my strength back. As if I didn’t have a rotten summer last year, I had to go for two in a row. Dammit, why did this have to happen right now?” This little scene, which already felt like the ripping off of a super sticky band aid, sure didn’t need the reappearance of pneumonia symptoms. “I’m sick of being sick.”

Jay didn’t know what to say but, sure as he was that Alex wouldn’t see, he rolled his eyes at all the unnecessary trouble it was costing them to keep their conversation private. The Old Hall was miles wide and only contained two souls besides their own, not at all like his own house where you had to go into the basement if you didn’t want to be heard upstairs, and siblings lurked in every corner. Also, Jay didn’t think Mr. Hale or Aunt Fiona would bother ratting anyone out if they did overhear by some chance. Well, if Alex was being weird right now, Jay supposed it wasn’t his business. Friends give friends room to be a pain in the ass, he thought to himself. But it was a sore trial on his patience, especially since he was pretty sure he knew what Alex was going to tell him, and he didn’t want to hear it, not any more than he’d wanted to hear it from Sandy. He didn’t trust himself to break the silence until at last, he thought to say, “Let me know if you guys need some extra hands moving furniture downstairs. Dad and Simon might be able to help, too.”

“Yeah, okay.”

When they entered Alex’s sitting room, Alex asked Jay to close the door behind them and seemed to be recovered enough to take over operating his wheelchair. But no sooner had he crossed the room than he transferred onto a fat little couch opposite the TV. It was a pretty small couch so Jay helped himself to the desk chair, picking it up and moving it so that it was adjacent to the couch. Alex accidentally knocked a cushion onto the floor so Jay picked it up and tried to stuff it back behind his friend’s back. But Alex grabbed it and smacked him with it, saying, “Knock it off.”

“What? You just said you’re still sick.”

“Yeah, but I’m not a sick girl.” But he leaned back on the couch and still seemed to have slightly laboured breathing.

Feeling less annoyed, Jay smirked and put the cushion down beside his chair. For a second, things seemed to get back to normal between them, but another silence was stretching too long. No way was Jay going to begin this conversation – it was all on Sash. He raised his eyebrows at him.

Alex took the hint, but he was still nervous. “Can you promise not to tell anyone what I’m about to say, especially not my dad or your Aunt Fiona?”

“Of course. Now, which one of them are we going to murder?”

Alex didn’t think he’d seen him this uncomfortable in a long time. “I have to tell you something about me and Sandy,” he said tentatively.

Jay sighed. “Okay.”

“She told me she already talked to you recently,” Alex rushed on to say, trying to pretend he didn’t hear his friend’s sigh.

“Yeah. Last time I talked to her, she seemed to think you might ask her out pretty soon.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, did you? Ask her out, I mean?”

Alex looked at his knees but he smiled and nodded. “Yeah. I asked her out.”

“And she said yes.”

Alex grinned, half pained, wondering what Jay was going to say.

“Well, crap, Sash, you know this sort of came out of nowhere. It doesn’t seem like that long ago that we both agreed that neither of us liked her.”

Alex tilted his head. “Oh, yeah. We did say that, didn’t we?”

Jay picked up the couch cushion in order to fidget with the tassels. “Yep. We did.”

“I don’t know what happened. Sandy and I spend so much time together, I guess it was bound to happen sometime.”

“Yeah. My sister says it always happens sooner or later.” Jay knew he was coming off annoyed and also that Alex was totally misunderstanding why. He looked down and swallowed. Maybe this was a good time to just tell Alex… He could tell Alex about holding Sandy’s hand in the hospital waiting room, about not wanting to give her a pink sweater with hearts on it for her birthday, about the way his stomach felt when Sandy walked up his front porch the other day with a banana split. He could shock the pants off Alex and admit, “Yeah, I kinda fell for her, too.” He could get it off his chest, and clear the air, and Alex would say… what would he say? Would he even believe him?

Of course, Alex was unaware of his friend’s inner debate, “Anyways, her parents don’t think we’re old enough to go out, so we’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone, anyone at all.”

“Uh-huh,” Jay muttered.

Alex continued to study Jay’s frown and also to misunderstand it, “Look, I know you’ve never liked her, even in the non-crush sort of way, but I was sort of hoping you’d at least try to be okay with us being together.”

Jay almost couldn’t stop himself from contradicting the first part of this comment. Before he knew it, he was saying, “Hey, Sash, you know, when you were sick…” He stopped, still gathering up the nerve to say it.

Surprised, Alex prompted him with, “When I was sick?”

“Yeah, when you were in the hospital, Sandy and I…” What are you saying, you idiot? Are you going to tell him you like his brand-new girlfriend? He supposed that conversation could wait until after a few weeks went by and the two of them broke up. He randomly thought of the time Ashley Papazotos dumped Noah Morgenfeld after a mere three hours of “going out” because they’d kissed behind portable nine and Ashley claimed Noah “tasted like tuna fish.”

Alex was starting to look worried. “What happened when I was in the hospital? Apparently, I asked Sandy to the art museum when I was half asleep, and she thought I was asking her out then. What the heck else happened while I was out of it?”

Jay started to backpedal. He held up a hand, “Whoa, calm down. I was just going to say when you were sick, Sandy and I worked things out. We’re… friends now.”

Alex looked suspicious.

Jay went on, “I mean it, I really am happy for you guys.”

“Thanks for saying that, even though you look like you’re sitting on a nail,” Alex seemed pleased, underneath his words. “It’s not going to be as bad as you think. We’re not going to be one of those disgusting couples who are always trying to suck each other’s faces off.”

“That’s good,” Jay said, making a note of how Alex’s couch cushion had four dark green tassels, one on each corner.

“We were hoping that, from time to time, we could all hang out together, seeing as her parents are okay with her doing things in groups.”

On of the tassels was coming apart a little bit. “You mean like we already do all the time?”

“Well, you could bring a girl with you, if you wanted.”

Jay sighed. “I hate to disappoint you, but the girl I like…” Jay fished back in his memory to the time few months back when he was crushing on Emily Shepherd, “Emily Shepherd…” he named her nervously, “she’s going out with another guy.” It was true. Emily was still going with Matt Flynn. Kids at school were already calling it true love.

“How come you never told me about Emily Shepherd?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, that’s bad luck, Jay, I’m sorry about that. Next time, I hope it works out better.”

Jay noticed Alex looking at him in a bewildered sort of way, and said, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“It’s just that… I always thought you were the sort of guy who wouldn’t have trouble getting any girl you wanted.”

“No, that’s not me. Believe me.” He tossed the cushion on the other end of the little couch.

“Okay,” Alex said, while he tried to think where the conversation was supposed to go from here, “In any case, when you ask someone else out, it might be nice if you tried to pick someone you thought would get along with me and Sandy.”

Jay looked at him like he had two heads. “Sandy doesn’t get along with other girls. How could you not know that?”

“You’re right, I did know that. That’s a good point. You might as well pick any girl you want.” Another silence passed, one in which Jay still wasn’t looking at Alex and Alex was trying not to worry about the fact that Jay wasn’t looking at him. “But Jay,” Alex said at last, “I really, really want us to still be friends.”

Now Jay turned sheepish and said, “Stop embarrassing me, Sash.”

Alex just smiled and looked at the floor.

“Is this conversation over now?” Jay wanted to know.

“I think so.”

“Do I still have to go to the art museum?”

Alex stared. “Sandy tried to talk you into that? She’s unbelievable. Don’t worry, I do not expect you to come to the art museum with us.”

“Good.” Shallow smile. “You’re such a nerd, you know.”

“Dumb jock,” Alex replied.

A powerful imitation of normal settled between them, so Jay stretched his legs out in front of him and said, “Can we order some popcorn from Aunt Fi now?”

“Sure,” Alex tried to get more comfortable on the couch.

Only no matter what they watched or ate or how many other things were said, Jay couldn’t shake the heavy weight that seemed to have settled in the pit of his stomach. He told himself he could take it. What choice did he have anyway? It would pass, and he’d get used to the fact that his best friend was going out with the girl he liked.

It was an awkward situation but it couldn’t last long anyway.

The only question was what to do in the meantime.