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

slowly, slowly, eyes shut but eyelashes
flickering occasionally to refine her aim, lips indrawn to gather heat from
her mouth. And then warm lips were touching Mattʼs, and he went straight
to heaven, with no need to pass go or to collect a hundred dollar bill.
Elena Gilbert was kissing him for the last time.
Granted the circumstances were not ideal. Mattʼs lips were numb
and what he felt of the kiss was simply a gentle, warm bumping. But
suddenly he could smell again and Elenaʼs perfume went to his head
where it made him as dizzy as if heʼd had a glass of champagne.
“Now then,” Elena said, relaxing, lying on his arms, molding her
slender self to him, “We can stay up a bit longer, canʼt we?”
“Yes,” Matt said, with all the breath left in them.
His strength was gone. Her strength was gone. But Elena had
something besides physical strength. She had a power of sheer will that
went beyond physical strength, that rose above it. That power was what
was holding them both up now.
Time lost meaning. Matt would feel himself resting—and then
Elenaʼs voice would call him back, or Elenaʼs nails would prick his face
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pulling at him, or—if he was lucky and hadnʼt slipped down too far, soft
chilled lips would touch his.
It wasnʼt a bad way to go, he decided. Things had turned into a sort
of loop so that sometimes he was dressing up to meet Elena for his first
date with her, sometimes he was driving to her house, sometimes he
heard the laughter of three lovely girls as they looked him up and down,
demanding that he prove himself worthy. Sometimes they were in a
restaurant, eating delicious hot, oh, hot hot chocolate soufflé along with
hot coffee. Hot water sounded delicious to him right now. He could drink
a bubble bath full.
It probably lasted no more than five or ten minutes. But it
seemed . . . it was much, much longer, in real time, as counted by the
number of dizzy thoughts that went through his head.
“Matt?” Every ten seconds or so Elena asked that, getting her
strength from somewhere beyond his understanding. And every time she
said “Matt?” he woke up a little to give back to her a “Yes.” If he didnʼt do
it right away, he would feel the dimmest of prickles on the sides of his face
and he would know that Elena was using the last of her precious energy to
try to lift him out of the water. So Matt stayed in a zone, where he could
still say, “Yes,” with lips as numb as if heʼd just had a trip to the dentist,
and lower body gone.
The noise started out in a roaring in his ears that sounded like a
waterfall, and he had confused, icy black thoughts of going over the edge.
Then he heard Elenaʼs voice in a kind of whispered glad cry.
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“Matt! Theyʼre here! I told you theyʼd come. Matt, theyʼre here!”
Although Matt only half understood it at the time, it was the
amateurs who had arrived first. The paramedics, the sheriffs, were still yet
to come. But four sobbing children, all terrified to move from the bank of
the pond, all huddled like puppies around a damp little girl in wet blankets,
sharing their body warmth with her, told of the boy who had pulled Lindie
out and had gone under, and of Elena Gilbert, the Elena Gilbert, who had
pulled him out.
“His name is Matt,” one of the girls offered shyly.
And that was when Matt heard something other than the
background roar.
“Matt Honeycutt!” a voice bawled from the side of the pond. “Itʼs Dr.
Alpert, and Iʼm here to help you out.”
Matt turned watering eyes to see what the adults would do. They
had an aluminum ladder, and that was good. That was a good
improvisation for spreading weight around. And now they were unhitching
the ladder, and now they were sliding it out toward him.
But he didnʼt realize who was sliding on the ladder coming toward
them until he saw white eyes and a white, grim smile glinting at him in
darkness. Then, in the moonlight, he could make out the outlines of the
old town doctor, not the clinic doctor, but the old-fashioned one who still
made house calls.
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“Well, now, well, now,” she said, taking his wrist in her dark- brown
hand. “So this is what young people do for dates these days. Me, Iʼd stick
to the movies and buttered popcorn of my day, I think.”
“We already did it tonight,” Elena said, in a croaking whisper.
Matt laughed, but only inside. Something in him was hurting
because he could hear from Elenaʼs voice how much she hurt.
“Young folks will get into such shenanigans,” the doctor said, and
suddenly Mattʼs eyes were focusing on her in the moonlight and he was
realizing that despite the cold, her forehead was covered with little sweat
drops. She had passed a rope around him, and she was beginning to tie a
knot.
For a moment there was only the sound of hard breathing, from
both Matt and Elena. And then, almost simultaneously, they cried, “No!”
The doctor gave them a weak smile. “I never was much good at
tying rope-sized knots,” she said. “Now, if this were a little suture—”
“Are there other grown-ups out there?” Matt gasped.
“Three of us, and would you believe, Iʼm the lightest?” The doctor
wriggled her substantial hips. “Thatʼs why they sent me out. Theyʼre going
to pull, once I tie this rope around you.”
”The knot—it has to be strong enough to hold him while they pull
him through the ice,” Elena said forcefully. Matt had no idea where she
got the force from and even less idea where she got the knowledge.
Maybe she just knew everything. All he could do was whisper, “And if it
tightens as they pull—my chest—”
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Dr. Alpert was nodding already. “Your ribs,” she said worriedly.
“Crack, crack.” Matt hated to admit to seeing concern on a grown-upʼs
face, but there it was.
“I wish Iʼd been a girl scout. They teach you how to light fires and
tie knots and things. But when I was young, things were . . . well,
different.” Dr. Alpert gave a rueful smile. She was still trying her best to
tie a knot in the rope.
“Wish Iʼd been a girl scout . . .” A girl scout . . . A boy scout . . .
Matt gasped suddenly and forced himself to speak clearly. “What
we need is a bowline. A bowline knot.” He pulled his hands out as Elena
lifted herself up, but his fingers had clawed again. “I . . . canʼt . . .” he
realized and inside him there was a terrible crashing as all his hope fell
into darkness, smashing down the entire way. He couldnʼt use his
hands . . .
“But you can tell her how,” Elena was saying, as if she could read
his mind. Her eyes were fixed on his as if she could make the words
come out by sheer will alone.
BUBALA BUBALA BUM!
For a moment, Matt was afraid heʼd said it out loud. But the two
others were still looking at him, with intense and hopeful speculation.
“To tie . . . a bowline knot . . . well, first take the rope off of me.
Now, you make a loop . . . with plenty of rope left . . . on the right of it. . .
more than that . . . more . . .” and on until he said, “Now you . . . can
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lassoo . . . that big loop over me. It wonʼt slip . . . it will only . . . swell in
the water . . . and it wonʼt break my chest.”
Elenaʼs cheer was loud enough to be heard by those on the edge of
the pond, and Matt heard a shrill echo of applause.
Suddenly everything was moving fast again.
“All right, Iʼm sliding back,” Dr Alpert said. “Elena, can you roll to
the shore?”
“I have to,” Elena said simply. “I will.”
Matt had been looking back and forth, listening to this conversation.
Now, as he looked Elenaʼs way, he was bumped softly on the lips.
“See you on solid ground,” Elena whispered, in a tiny whisper, just
for him. And then she was rolling away in her pearl-white sheath, with her
wet hair sticking icily to her back.
When Matt looked away he saw that the doctor had gone, too.
But now the ladder was being pulled. Matt thought he could help
himself a little, by grabbing hold of the last rung, but his hands wouldnʼt
stay closed around it.
He was all alone, and the shouting and cheering seemed far away.
Then he felt a tug on the rope. He tried to tug back, to show he
was ready. He wrapped his arms around the rope, which was around his
chest, under his arms. And then . . .
He was suddenly plowing through icy water breaking ice with his
face, with his head, with his outstretched hands. And then somehow
miraculously he was out of the water, sliding out as smoothly as a seal,
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and coasting on good ice until he reached the edge of the pond. Then
strong hands were pulling him out of the water entirely.
And then everything turned into a flurry. Someone was giving him a
sippy cup, the kind kids drink out of, but there was coffee inside. Hot
coffee. He heard a voice say, “Donʼt let him burn himself,” and another
answer, “Itʼs only lukewarm.” But it felt hot and he drank it in desperate
gulps.
Some pioneer spirit had built a bonfire. Matt tried to stumble toward
it and was caught by kindly calloused hands and led there. Elena was
sitting by it already.
And she had changed again. By the look of her hair, she must
have found somebody and borrowed a brush. Or found somebody to
brush it for her, more likely, Matt thought entirely without prejudice—
whoever it was, was one lucky chump. He himself would have happily
brushed it for hours and let her charge him, on top of it. Charge him a
hundred dollars.
He shook his head at such thoughts. But just then Elena turned
around and the feeling he had on seeing her was an actual physical shock.
Her face was pale and drawn, but it suited her, her eyes were dewy and
wondering, and as she saw him she held one slim pale arm out of the
blanket—and then he was sitting beside her.
“Matt!” It was the beginning of something, some explanation, but
there was a wrong look in her eyes. They should have held only joy and
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celebration and instead they were wholly anxious, questioning—and
holding back something unfinished.
He could only think of one reason. He sucked his breath in. “Lindie
didnʼt make it.”
“Oh, yes, oh yes, she did!” Elena cried in one sweet rush. “Her
parents—theyʼre driving her to the hospital just in case. People say theyʼll
take us, too, when the paramedics get here.”
“Then, what? Somethingʼs wrong. Whatʼs wrong?” Just as the
moonlight had shone down on her with silvery light earlier, the bonfire
outlined her with red-gold now. When she turned toward it, her eyes were
violet.
“I have to know,” she whispered, just as someone came along with
cocoa for them—in sippy cups. Well, fine, nobody had perfectly steady
hands right now.
“What?” he whispered back.
“The bowline. Who taught you . . . the bowline knot?”
“Huh?” That was what was making her look so haunted? He
shook his head. “It was a long time ago.