Free Wild Roses by Deb Caletti Page B

to
    73
    look? You've got to be quick, before a cloud
comes."
    Ian set his bike down on the grass, climbed
over it. His coat was apparently a conductor of electricity, because when his
sleeve touched my arm as he bent over beside me, I felt a jolt of current. I
shivered.
    "Cold?" he said, as he looked into the
telescope where I had pointed it.
    "I'm okay." Which was a lie. Some cruel person
had invaded my body and was squeezing my lungs. I could barely breathe, so I'm
not quite sure why I was suddenly worrying about my guacamole breath.
    "No way," he said. "Is that it?
Mars?"
    "Big white ball? Yeah." Casual. No big
deal.
    "That's amazing. That's Mars? That's an actual
planet? Man, that's hard to believe." He stood straight again. His eyes were
shiny and happy. "We're looking at a planet."
    "I know it. That's how I feel about it
too."
    "I've never seen inside a telescope
before."
    "Never?"
    "No. You know, this is my usual method." He
leaned his head back, looked up. "Wow. This isn't bad either."
    He was right. I looked up with him and saw that
the sky was showing off. The clouds had moved aside for a moment, and the
blackness was deep, deep. The stars were both simple and magical, thousands of
pinpoints of light. It was one of those moments you wonder how we could ever
forget what was up there. There is that majesty, you are overcome by the wonder,
and then the next day you're worrying about your math homework.
    74
    We just stared up there for a while, and then
Ian sat down on the grass, on the tails of his coat. It occurred to me briefly
to worry that Dino might see us, and about the trouble I'd be in then. I sat
down on the grass beside Ian. Right there next to him, and I started imagining
his arms around me. Eight months, I reminded myself. Eight months and he'd be
gone and not looking back. I remembered how much it had hurt when I broke up
with that asshole Adam Peterson, even when that had been my choice and he was a
creep. I remembered my father's arm through the glass of his car when his heart
was destroyed. I leaned down on my elbows. "This is the best way to see the
stars this time of year, anyway" I said. "The telescope gets impossible. Shaky
images. The atmosphere is more . . ."I looked for the word. Moved my hand in the
air.
    "Unstable?" he guessed.
    "Turbulent."
    I was sitting very close to him and he looked
over at me, laid down on his side and propped on one elbow. He looked at me and
I looked back, and he held my eyes for a while. I looked deeply inside of him,
and he saw me, too. Something passed between us right then. Some force, some
connection, and, God, I wanted it so badly, him seeing me that way, me seeing
him. I wanted more and more and more of it. I granted myself a concession.
Friends. That's what I would do. I'd be Ian Waters's friend, and I could still
have some piece of this without getting my heart broken. I could do that. I was
in charge of my feelings; they weren't in charge of me.
    75
    Ian looked away from me, back toward the sky.
"Wow," he said. He shook his head. Stood up. "Whew." "Are you all right?" "I've
got to go." "Okay."
    He went to his bike, set it upright again. "You
know, I'm jealous. You here, doing what you love." "You do what you love," I
said. "I don't love the violin," he said. "You're kidding." "Sometimes I hate
it." "You do?"
    "It runs my whole life. Then I try to remember
that I'm lucky to have a talent for it."
    "Talent?" I said. "You've got more than a
talent."
    "Mr. Cavalli thinks my playing lacks
passion."
    "Well, he's got too much of it. Way too
much."
    "That's what it takes to be great, he
says."
    "Then maybe it isn't such a good deal to be
that great," I said. Passion--you had Dino on one side with way too much, and
the Powelsons on the other with absolutely none. The cable truck had come and
gone, and now their house glowed blue again from television light. There had to
be a happy medium somewhere.
    I was standing next