Matt and Elena - Tenth Date: On Wickery Pond, L.J. Smith [best ereader under 100 .TXT] 📗

“You know what this is?” Elena had greeted Matt, for once without
the cheerleading squad of girlfriends on the second story. They were
planning to see a horror movie at Fellʼs Churchʼs one working theater and
then have dinner at a small Italian restaurant in Ridgemont.
“What?” Matt had asked, feeling stupid staring as he was at Elenaʼs
golden beauty as she came down the stairs, this time dressed in an slim
pearl-white sheath, with an oversized black velvet belt showing just how
small her waist was, and a black velvet ribbon around her slender throat.
“Uh . . .” Matt tried to remember if there was some holiday coming
up, or some dance heʼd forgotten to ask her to.
“Itʼs our anniversary, silly! Itʼs our two-month, official tenth date
anniversary.”
“Almost two months,” Matt had said as Elena had put on an ivory
coat with faux fur—it looked real, but sheʼd confided to Matt that it
wasnʼt—at the cuffs and collar. He knew how long it had been to the day
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and minute, because he had been thinking about Elena nonstop ever
since then. He thought about her even when he was supposed to be
thinking about something else. His football coach was disgusted with him,
but all the guys on the team were green with envy. Elena and Matt were
formally together.
“Our tenth—oh, no!” Matt slapped his forehead. “I swear, Elena, I
swear, I bought this little pearl ring for you—we can go to my house and—
whoa—!”
“Shhh.” Elena silenced him most expediently—by kissing him. It
was a beautiful soft, chaste kiss, which branded Mattʼs lips like fire. Elena
was so light and delicate—almost fragile-feeling in his arms. But warm,
definitely warm. “Donʼt say a word about rings, especially where Aunt
Judith can hear you,” she whispered into Mattʼs ear, which gave rise to
such pleasant sensations that Matt could hardly follow what she was
saying. But heʼd managed to nod, and to say hello to Aunt Judith as she
came from the kitchen, and then sweep his treasure out into the cold latefall
evening.
“And I donʼt care about rings, silly,” Elena had said when they had
driven a few blocks away from her house and sheʼd given him a dizzying
kiss or two. “I just want you to know that this is an important day.”
She said it so adorably earnestly, looking at him with those lapis
lazuli eyes under their ridiculously thick lashes, that Matt wished he could
haul her over the central console of the car and kiss her hard. But if he
had learned one thing about Elena Gilbert, it was that kisses werenʼt
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things to be casually snatched up, not even if they were a couple. Elena
could turn into an Ice Princess in an instant if a kiss wasnʼt her idea. Matt
thought that she might have some cat in her heritage, somewhere way
back.
“Did you bring Uncle Joe?” Elena asked, solemnly, as she always
did when they went somewhere, even to Warm Springs with a picnic lunch.
“Of course,” Matt said, as he always did, and at a stoplight he
showed her his wallet with the precious hundred dollar bill in it, and Elena
said “Hello, Uncle Joe,” as seriously as if she saw his face instead of
Benjamin Franklinʼs there. She also opened her tiny black velvet purse
and showed him what she always carried since their first date: her auntʼs
Visa card.
This time, as on the last eight formal dates theyʼd been on,
there was no need to resort to either extremity, but as always, Matt had
the feeling that Uncle Joe was somehow with him, sometimes criticizing,
sometimes cheering for him. Since good old Uncle Joe hadnʼt been able
to hang on to even one of his three wives, Matt had decided that this was
a bad fantasy and tried very hard not to listen to Uncle Joeʼs whiskey-andtobacco-
hoarse voice. The real-life horror of that date
began as Matt was driving Elena back home, hands carefully positioned
on the steering wheel at the ten oʼclock and two oʼclock positions. He
couldnʼt help but feel dizzy inside every time Elena touched his arm.
Outside, it was freezing, but the Garbage Heap was flooding them with hot
air from below, so Elenaʼs pretty toes couldnʼt be too cold.
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They were chatting aimlessly. Ever since their first date Matt had
found Elena amazingly easy to talk to. They talked about things
happening in the world, in Fellʼs Church, and as they grew steadily more
fond of each other, about things closer to their hearts. Like about their
childhoods and how they had really known each other for years, although
they had never known each other. Elena admitted that she had tried
cigarettes years ago, but to Mattʼs relief added that the first one had made
her so dizzy that sheʼd fallen down and so nauseated that sheʼd almost
thrown up. And, to Mattʼs even greater relief, the rumors that were flying
all around school that Elena Gilbert had tried everything, everything legal
or illegal in this part of the world, looking for kicks, were completely
unfounded. She hated the taste of alcohol, so at social drinking affairs she
could be usually seen drinking a rum and coke—sans rum. She would
never go near drugs, she said, because of a cousin of hers that had died
when she was only fourteen.
“I cried so hard at the funeral service that they had to take me
outside the church,” she said. “Breanna had so much to live for. Why did
she even start drugs in the first place?”
“I donʼt know,” Matt said, feeling grim. “To fit in, maybe. Thereʼs a
fair number of jocks that arenʼt clean, either.” He used the derogatory
term lightly—as a jock himself. “They drink vodka from thermoses in the
locker room. Itʼs a wonder we donʼt lose half our games—hey!” He
interrupted himself. “Did you see that? Thereʼs some people out on
Wickery Pond.”
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“On it? Skating? This early?” Elena turned almost completely
around to see the pond, which might better have been named Wickery
Puddle, because it was such a small pool off Drowning Creek and froze
over so early and easily. But the water was deeper than most people
thought. Matt could remember being young and stupid and sliding and
skating on the pond, too, a month ahead of the real skating season. Matt
also remembered his motherʼs story of a girl who had died there before he
was born. The barely-there ice had cracked under her gliding skates, and
had taken three of her friends in the water, too. The rescuers had only
managed to get the three friends out. There was even a ghost story about
how the girl lived under the pond, seizing the feet of anyone who broke ice
over even the shallowest water, and pulling them down, down, down . . .
“Matt, turn the car around.” Suddenly Elena sounded neither like a
sweet Southern angel or an indifferent Ice Princess. This was the Elena
who always ended up chairing the Robert E. Lee High events committees.
It was the voice of authority, and as usua, Matt found his muscles reacting
before he had quite grasped what he was doing.
“Youʼre—youʼre not going to try to talk to them?” he asked, feeling
spaghetti turn to lead in his stomach. “Theyʼre just bratty elementary
school kids. Theyʼll laugh—”
“Not at me,” Elena said quietly. She didnʼt sound embarrassed—
and she didnʼt sound coy. She was just making a statement.
And Matt suddenly sucked in a deep breath as he realized that it
was true. Heʼd heard girls scream at Elena, with tears and mascara and
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everything else running down their faces; heʼd seen boys huddled in
hushed bunches listening to the proud Prom King of the year bragging
about his “night with the girl,” but heʼd never heard anyone laugh at her,
even behind her back.
I wonder how the world looks when youʼre Elena Gilbert, he thought
suddenly thinking back on their relationship. Different than it looks for the
rest of us, Iʼm sure. It must feel like having a ticker-tape parade for you all
the time. A nonstop party, with the spotlight always on you.
Then he slapped himself mentally. He knew none of that was true—
not inside Elenaʼs mind. He knew it as well as if heʼd taken a microscope
to her brain and examined and analyzed all the thoughts and feelings
there.
Elena knows it—how could she not know it? She knows sheʼs the
girl all the boys want and all the girls want to be. She even uses it. Sheʼs
using it right now. But sheʼs—using it for a good reason. Not to hurt
anyone.
Satisfied with his conclusion, Matt turned off the headlights and he
coasted onto dirt as they drew near the pond. He didnʼt want hysterical
kids thinking that parents and police had spotted them, and making a
frantic dash for the edge of the pond, without even looking to see where
they were going.
Then, with a last glance at Elena in the dim interior of the car, Matt
quietly opened his door, just as she quietly opened hers. The Junk Heap
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didnʼt have such luxuries as an interior light that automatically went on
when you did this, and that was good . . . tonight.
Elena had already taken off her fur-trimmed coat and thrown it in
the car. He shrugged out of his heavy overcoat and out of his dinner
jacket as well. They were going to need some warm, dry clothes if a kid
went into the water—even at the very edge of the pond, Matt thought.
Anyway they themselves were too agitated to be cold . . . yet.
“Put this and your wallet in the glove compartment,” Elena said
softly, handing him her auntʼs credit card. Then she was moving stealthily
toward the pond, actually more quietly than Matt would have believed a
person could walk in heels. His initial reaction was involuntary: a sort of
swooping disappointment that his extraordinary girlfriend would think
about money at a time like this.
“We donʼt want to lose Uncle Joe twice,” she added, just as softly,
and Matt felt something inside his chest turn over and his spirits bounced
and went swooping back up again. It was something in the—the nurturing
way—that she said it, as if old Uncle Joe were still here, as if she
understood the reason why Matt had once worn the same coat for two
winters, even when it had pinched under the arms, rather than spend
Uncle Joeʼs hundred.
Elena was still moving silently toward the pond, almost floating, not
rustling a leaf. Matt looked down and got a shock when he saw why.
Sheʼd left her high-heeled shoes back in the car.
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“Youʼll free—! Freeze,” he said, changing his volume in midsentence
from an exclamation to a whisper in reaction to a sharp motion of
her hand. Jeez, sheʼs really got me trained, he thought, not really minding
being tamed by this sweet, surprising, soft-eyed firebrand of a girl.
“But you canʼt walk in bare feet on that ice,” he added, still
whispering, but following her and wishing that he could avoid dried leaves
and twigs the way her pale feet did, apparently without her even glancing
at them.
“Iʼm not going to walk around the pond,” she replied in a soft little
voice like a lazy bumblebee hum. “Iʼm going to walk on the pond. And I
have nylons on—quite thick ones, as nylons go. Theyʼre really almost
tights, but translucent; I get them from a special place online.”
Matt tried to believe he understood all