Intermission

Chapter Seven

It’s finally Sunday. Mom and Dad are having brunch with friends at the Parre Hills clubhouse and staying to watch some game on the big screen TVs in the bar area after.

Football? Basketball? I have no idea. Also, I don’t really care.

Normally, I would be basking in the wonder of an empty house, but not today. Today, I can’t sit still.

I’m pacing between the grandfather clock in the foyer and the cuckoo on the fireplace mantel in the family room, but the clocks’ hands are not moving fast enough. I grab my coat and gloves, call for Janey, and start up the hill, a full hour before I’m supposed to meet Noah.

He’s already there.

“Hey! You’re early.”

“So are you.” He grins. “Pastor Lewis wasn’t feeling too great today. It was a short sermon.” Noah cringes. “I guess I shouldn’t sound so happy about that.”

“I won’t tell if you don’t.”

“Deal.” Noah fills a mug from a thermos and hands it to me. “I hope you like hot tea. It’s either that or what Janey’s drinking.” He gestures to where my dog is lapping water from the creek.

“I’ll stick with the tea, thanks.”

“Wise choice.” Noah pours himself a mug and lifts it. Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath. “This smells like the color of your hair.”

I laugh. “Color doesn’t have a smell.”

“Sure it does.” Noah reaches over, lifts a handful of my hair, and lets it fall. “Okay, maybe not. But if it did, the color of your hair would smell like cinnamon.”

“Cinnamon.” The breeze pushes the tea’s spicy fragrance toward my face, and I inhale deeply. “Random Noah factoid,” I say, pretending to write in a notebook. “Dude likes cinnamon. Evidenced by a preference for Big Red gum, cinnamon hot tea, and the belief that the color brown has a smell.”

“Brown? No, not brown. Brown is boring. The color of your hair is much more cinnamon-y than brown.”

“Also,” I write in my pretend notebook again, “he creates new adjectives derived from the word, ‘cinnamon.’”

“That Noah guy sounds like a nutjob,” he says, grinning.

“Okay, so . . . I brought subs. Turkey on wheat with white cheese, mayo, lettuce . . . and some other stuff for you. I didn’t think to ask you what you liked, so I figured turkey was safe.

No tomatoes, though.” He smiles, as do I, because he remembered.

“You can pick off any toppings you don’t like. ”

“Perfect.”

“Not to be weird, but . . . do you mind if I, uh, bless the food before we dig in?”

“Go ahead.”

Noah bows his head. I follow suit.

“Thanks for a beautiful day and a beautiful girl to share it with, Lord. Please bless our time, this food, and those who prepared it for us. In Jesus’s name, Amen.”

“Amen,” I echo. It’s not the first time I’ve talked to God from this ledge. But it is the first time I’ve done it with a friend.

Or whatever Noah is.

The creek’s thin flow dives from the ledge and into the little pond below, and the sun’s reflection dances across the surface ripples like the kicks of a chorus line. Squirrels chatter and scamper in search of nuts to fill their winter stores. A slight breeze stirs the scattered leaves.

I take a bite of my sandwich. Noah’s simple prayer was perfect for this setting.

“We sometimes say a prayer before dinner at home, but not like that.”

“Oh? How does your family pray?”

“Bless this food for our good, help us do as we should, may we know you today in our work and our play. Amen.” As I finish reciting my family’s usual meal prayer, my cheeks heat.

I break eye contact and let my gaze trail down the narrow creek which flows out of the pool below us.

“It’s kind of embarrassing. I’m pretty sure it came out of a book of nursery rhymes or something. Your prayer seems . . . more real.”

“That doesn’t mean it was.” He sighs. “It can be pretty weird to pray aloud. Whenever I pray with other people, I have to fight the temptation to try and sound churchier than I am.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a pride thing, I guess.” Noah gives me a lopsided grin. “I’m a performer, right? So I should be eloquent. And I was raised by missionaries, so I should know all the proper, church-approved lingo, you know?”

“Um, not really. I was raised by an accountant and a cardiologist.”

“Right. So . . . in your case, people who know your parents probably assume you’re good at math, right?”

“I am good at math. But yeah. I guess it’s a fair assumption.”

“My parents are missionaries. God is their business, their life.”

“So people expect you to have a direct line to Heaven.”

“Something like that.” He nods. “And when I know people are listening, my prayers sometimes lose their authenticity. They become like . . . a kind of performance, I guess. More about what other people are thinking about me and my mad prayer skills than about me connecting with—talking to—God. It’s like they’re not really prayers, but . . . soliloquies.”

“To pray or not to pray,” I quip in my best Shakespearean accent, “that is the question.”

“Now who’s the hack?” Noah picks up a little stick and traces a design in a small patch of sandy mud in the cleft between our rock and the next. “But enough about me and my pride.” He sets the stick down. “What’s new in your world?”

“Not much. Oh! Well, I’m playing Liesl in The Sound of Music. That’s new.”

He chuckles. “Have you been accepted at any of the colleges you’ve applied to yet?”

“I haven’t applied to any colleges.”

Noah tilts his head. “Why not?”

Oh. My breath catches as I remember the conversation that was interrupted at our first audition. Noah probably thinks I’m a senior. That I’ll be going to college next year.

“I wasn’t kidding when I said I was sixteen going on seventeen. I am sixteen.”

He blinks. Squints. His eyes round. “You’re . . . what?”

“I’m a sophomore. Next fall—and the fall after that, when I actually do apply to colleges—I’ll still be at Kanton High.”

This fact falls between us like cymbals dropped on the floor of the orchestra pit.

“You’re a—” He stares at me. “You’re sixteen? Years old?”

“Mm-hmm.” The warmth that so recently moved within me dissipates like the fog of my breath on the wintry air. “I turned sixteen on October sixth.”

Noah is silent. “That’s why I don’t remember you from high school,” he says at last. “Because you weren’t even in high school with me. You were in, what, eighth grade when I was a senior?”

He graduated with Gretchen, so . . . “Yes.”

“Wow. That’s just . . . super.”

The sarcasm stings. I look away.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that I thought—never mind. It’s not like you can help it.” Noah rakes his fingers through his hair and lets out a long breath. “Sixteen. Wow. I’ll be twenty in September.”

“You must have been the baby of your class.”

“Yeah.” He agrees, but his voice carries a sense of deadness. “I was.”

“That makes you only three years and . . . a month older than me.” I resist the impulse to bite my lip. “If you would’ve been born a few days later, you would’ve been a senior when I was a freshman.”

“Yeah. I guess so.” He nods, but his eyes are on the ground.

“I tried to tell you at the audition, but . . .” I shrug.

“I got called up to the stage. I guess I forgot about it until now. It didn’t seem important.

” I let out a heavy breath. The age difference did seem a little weird to me at first, but since I’ve gotten to know him?

No. “It doesn’t seem that important. Not to me, anyway. ”

“When I saw you in Annie, I just assumed you were a senior,” he says, still looking at the ground. “Mrs. Thomas and Mr. Barron never cast underclassmen in named roles. It’s like, an unwritten rule or something.”

He sighs. When he glances at me, a gentle frown puts a crease between his eyes.

“To be honest,” he says, “that first night we met up here, well, I was surprised when you told me you were still in high school. Even in those few minutes, I’d assumed you were college age. My age.” He pulls at the collar of his coat. “But you’re sixteen. A sophomore. In high school.”

“Don’t feel bad. People usually think I’m older than I am. Some even think I’m older than Gretchen.”

“Gretchen?”

“My sister.”

I wince at Noah’s telling, sharp inhalation. “You’re Gretchen Prescott’s little sister?”

“We’re very different.”

“Well, yeah.” Noah snorts then cringes. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay. I know my sister’s reputation. And I know she’s earned it.”

“Sorry. Wow.” Noah shakes his head. “You have two and a half years of high school left.”

I nod and fiddle with the drawstring of my hood.

“Sixteen. You’re only sixteen.”

“Yep. Pretty sure we’ve covered that.”

Again, Noah shakes his head, as if the two sides of his brain are arguing with each other. He gazes out over the creek. Finally, he lets out a long stream of air and turns back to face me. “Does it creep you out that I’m so much older than you?”

“Only a matter of days kept us from being in high school together. So, no. It doesn’t.”

“Maybe it should.”

I open my mouth, but Noah holds up his hand to shush me.

“But . . . that being said, there’s a part of me that doesn’t care about your age. I knew you before I knew your age, and I think . . .” He takes a breath. “It’s weird, Faith, but this week I was thinking . . . maybe you’re the reason I’ve been stuck here in Kanton.”

“Uh . . .” Not sure how to take that. “Sorry?”

“No, it’s not a bad thing. At least I didn’t think it was before I knew your age.” He frowns. “I like you. A lot. I’ve never met anyone like you. There’s no one around here who gets it, you know? The theatre, performing . . .”

I nod. I do know.

“From the moment we met, we connected in a way that doesn’t have to do with age so much as .

. . as fate. Except I don’t believe in fate.

” He makes a gruff sound in his throat. “I don’t know how to explain it.

You’re pretty, you’re smart, you’re easy to talk to.

But it’s more than that. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something .

. . something almost magnetic going on here.

Between us. It’s like I’m being drawn to you by something beyond my ability to comprehend. ”

“I feel the same way.” He’s put into words every disorganized, random thought I’ve had about him—us—over the past couple of weeks.

“Every time I’ve seen you, it’s been like, ‘I know him,’ you know?

” I take a deep breath. “It’s like you’re a favorite old friend that I just met.

I feel like I’ve known you forever. No. It’s more like this sense that I will know you forever.

” I nod, more to myself than to him, because it feels good to say it.

“You’re right that it’s weird. But I think it’s weird in a good way. ”

“A favorite old friend I just met. I like that.”

In a swift, surprising motion, Noah stands and holds out his hand. I slip mine into his grip and let him pull me to my feet.

“So, Old-Friend-That-I-Just-Met,” he says, and although his smile seems true, it still holds the tiniest hint of caution, “beyond the required hours we’ll spend upon the Leopold stage, are you willing to be seen ’round about with an old man like me?”

“I think I can manage.”

“Good.” Noah lets go of my hand and begins packing the sandwich wrappers, thermos, and mugs into his backpack. “Would you like to go for a walk?”

“Do you think you can keep up with me, old man?”

He laughs. “I think I can manage.”

A sudden wind rustles the branches of the overhead trees, and their leafless arms creak in muted, arthritic pops of applause that swell as the breeze gains strength. A light, swirly feeling of almost-deific approval stirs within me.

“What time should I have you back home?”

A corner of my stomach twinges, and a bit of its warm comfort escapes.

Noah hasn’t said anything about dating since he found out I was sixteen. Neither have I. We’ve mentioned friendship. So . . . we’re just friends, right?

“Let’s make our way back here by about three-thirty,” I say. “That way we can both get out of here in the daylight.”

“Still worried about me getting lost, eh?” Noah arches an eyebrow, and his smile tilts the same direction. “Don’t worry. I can make it out on my own in the daylight. But I’d be happy to drive you home.”

“Nah.” I look away. “It’s actually shorter if I walk.”

“Really?”

“Really. From here I can be home before you even get back to your car.” And you won’t have to meet my parents. Not that it should matter, if we’re just friends, anyway.

“No wonder you come here so often. It’s like having a waterfall in your back yard.”

“Yeah, it is. That’s why I’ve always kind of claimed it as my own.

Discovering its acoustical awesomeness was by accident, though.

” I chuckle. “This was my first, and remains my most frequently used, stage.” I gesture to the waterfall ledge.

“And these,” I spread my arms and turn a circle, encompassing the banks, the weeds, the rocks, the trees, “make for a rather captive audience.”

“It’s pretty perfect for that.” He gazes around my “stage,” and a gently bemused smile reveals his dimple.

He probably had a pretend stage or two of his own as a kid.

I whistle for Janey, and we set off, hiking upstream.

A little bit later, when I realize my hand has found its way into Noah’s, I have to wonder what sort of “friendship” we’re embarking on.