Everything was exciting. The music, the huge house with its opulent Christmas decorations. The people.
All the girls threw their arms around Gillian and kissed her as if they hadn't seen her in weeks. Some of the boys tried, but David warned them off with a look.
That was exciting, too. Having everyone know she was together with David Blackburn, that he was hers. It put her status through the ceiling.
"Want to look around?" David was saying. "I can show you the upstairs; Macon doesn't care."
Gillian looked at him. "Bored?"
He grinned. "No. But I wouldn't mind seeing you alone for a few minutes."
They went up a long carpeted staircase lined with oil paintings. The rooms upstairs were just as beautiful as downstairs: palatial and almost awe inspiring.
It put Gillian in a quiet mood. The music wasn't as loud up here, and the cool marble gave her the feeling of being in a museum.
She looked out a window to see velvet darkness punctuated by little twinkling lights.
"You know, I'm glad you didn't want to drink back there." David's voice behind her was quiet.
She turned, trying to read his face. "But... you were surprised?"
"Well-it's just sometimes now you seem so adult. Sort of worldly."
"Me? I mean-I mean you're the one who seems like that." And that's what you like in girls, she thought.
He looked away and laughed. "Oh, yeah. The tough guy. The wild guy. Tanya and I used to party pretty hard." He shrugged. "I'm not tough. I'm just a small-town guy trying to get through life. I don't look for trouble. I try to run from it if I can."
Gillian had to laugh herself at that. But there was something serious in David's dark eyes.
"I admit, it sort of had a way of finding me in the past," he said slowly. "And I've done some things that I'm not proud of. But, you know ... I'd like to change that-if it's possible."
"Sort of like a whole new side of you that wants to come out."
He looked startled. Then he glanced up and down her and grinned. "Yeah. Sort of like that."
Gillian felt suddenly inspired, hopeful. "I think," she said slowly, trying to put her ideas together, "that sometimes people need to-to express both sides of themselves. And then they can be ... well, whole."
"Yeah. If that's possible." He hesitated. Gillian didn't say anything, because she had the feeling that he was trying to. That there was some reason he'd brought her up to talk to her alone.
"Well. You know something weird?" he said after a moment. "I don't feel exactly whole. And the truth is-" He looked around the darkened room. Gillian could only see his profile. He shook his head, then took a deep breath. "Okay, this is going to sound even dumber than I thought, but I've got to say it. I can't help it."
He turned back, toward her and said with a mixture of determination and apology, "And since that day when I found you out there in the snow, I have this feeling that I won't be, without ..." He trailed off and shrugged. "Well-you," he said finally, helplessly.
The universe was one enormous heartbeat. Gillian could feel her body echoing it. She said slowly, "I ..."
"I know. I know how it sounds. I'm sorry."
"No," Gillian whispered. "That wasn't what I was going to say."
He'd turned sharply away to glare at the window. Now he turned halfway back and she saw the glimmer of hope in his face.
"I was going to say, I understand."
He looked as if he were afraid to believe. "Yeah, but do you really?"
"I think I do-really."
And then he was moving toward her and Gillian was holding up her arms. Literally as if drawn to do it-but not just by "physical attraction. It sounded crazy, Gillian thought, but it wasn't physical so much as ... well, spiritual. They seemed to belong together.
David was holding her. It felt incredibly strange and at the same time perfectly natural. He was warm and solid and Gillian felt her eyes shutting, her head drifting to his shoulder. Such a simple embrace, but it seemed to mean everything.
The feelings inside Gillian were like a wonderful discovery. And she had the sense that she was on the verge of some other discovery, that if she just opened her eyes and looked into David's at this moment, somehow it would mean a change in the world...
(Kid?) The voice in Gillian's ear was quiet. (I really hate to say it, but I have to break this up. You have to sidle down to the master bedroom.)
Gillian scarcely heard and couldn't pay attention.
(Gillian! I mean it, kid. There's something going on that you have to know about.)
(Angel?)
(Tell him you'll be back in a few minutes. This is important!)
There was no way to ignore that tone of urgency. Gillian stirred. "David, I have to go for a sec. Be right back."
David just nodded. "Sure." It was Gillian who had trouble letting go of his hand, and when she did she still seemed to feel his grip.
(This had better be good, Angel.) She blinked in the light of the hallway.
(Go down to the end of the hall. That's the master bedroom. Go on in. Don't turn on the light.)
The master bedroom was cavernous and dark and filled with large dim shapes like sleeping elephants.
Gillian walked in and immediately banged into a piece of heavy furniture.
(Be careful! See that light over there?)
Light was showing around the edges of double doors on the other side of the room. The doors were closed.
(And locked. That's the bathroom. Now, here's what I want you to do. Walk carefully over to the right of the bathroom and you'll find another door. It's the closet. I want you to quietly open that door and get in it.)
(What?)
Angel's voice was elaborately patient. (Get in the closet and put your ear against the wall.)
Gillian shut her eyes. Then, feeling exactly like a burglar, she slowly turned the handle of the closet door and slipped inside.
It was a walk-in closet, very long but stuffy because of the clothes bristling from both sides. Gillian had a profound feeling of intrusion, of being an invader of privacy. She seemed to walk a long way in before Angel stopped her.
(Okay. Here. Now put your ear against the left wall.)
Eyes still shut-it seemed to make the absolute darkness more bearable-Gillian burrowed between something long sheathed in plastic and something heavy and velvety. With the clothes embracing her on either side, she leaned her head until her bare ear touched wood.