NaNoWriMo: Day 11

Monday arrived and the four friends drove out to Cypress Estates with light hearts despite the gruesome nature of their quest. They had called ahead a few days ahead and secured an interview with Rhodes Shield who was only too happy to talk about what had gone on at Herlin Hall. His girlfriend, Selena Roberts would also be interviewed, as well as Leland and Jerry Hogg and the trapper from south Florida who’d ultimately killed the gator. Lottie had been the one to speak to Mr. Shield, but she’d somehow missed what the trapper’s name was. It was no matter. He was still at the house and they would interview all of the participants when they got there.

            Lottie’s plan was for Brad to hold the boom mic, Paige to hold the light kit, and for Stella to run the camera. Stella had worked with the camera before so it seemed fitting that she do it now. Lottie and Stella had been roommates freshman year during which time Stella had been coerced into all sorts of midnight film shoots with the film studies crew. She might as well have applied for a minor in film for all the work she put in with them.

            When they arrived at the gates of Cypress Estates they were awed by the amount of riverfront that Rhodes Shield owned.  It was more than anyone else on the road by more than half and the house he had built – Herlin Hall was the largest they had seen since they had been in Putnam County. When  they pulled up the front of the house, Rhodes and Selena walked down the front steps to meet them and helped them unload their equipment and bring it into the house.

            “Forgive me, but will y’all explain to me again what you’re doin’ this for?”

            “I’m a film studies major at the University of West Florida,” Lottie began “and I’m doing my undergraduate creative thesis in documentary film. I wanted to make a short documentary about the gator attacks, especially since I’m from here.”

            “I see. That’s fine. Anything to help a local, right Selena.”

            Selena didn’t say anything. She wasn’t very happy about having to talk to these kids about the gator. She was still angry about being ba”nished from Herlin Hall only to be invited back to talk to some college kids about the gator.

            “Where would you like us to set up, Mr. Shield?” Lottie asked when they were all in the foyer.

            “I reckon y’all can set up all that equipment in the Florida Room down there. There’s a bay of windows, so I imagine that the lighting’s pretty good.”

            Lottie motioned for the others to follow her and they set to work putting together the equipment. After she was sure that they had things well in hand she said “Listen, I’m going to ask Mr. Shield who all is going to be available for an interview today. I’ll be right back”

            “I think we’ve got it all under control in here,” Paige said. “Take your time.”

            Lottie walked out and the other three worked on fitting the pieces of the equipment together in relative silence. They were almost afraid to say anything in the massive house for fear that the sound of the voices could cause something to break. As Stella worked on setting up the tri-pod for the camera, he back was to the door of the Florida Room that faced the rest of the house. Her long hair was hanging over one shoulder and she leaned over the machine fastening each of the screws into their respective holes.

            Hearing all of the commotion downstairs, Buckley came downstairs to investigate. Rhodes had not seen fit to mention the interview to him the night before so the camera and the college kids would have been shock enough, but the girl with the long brown hair bent over the camera was enough to send him reeling. There she was, right in front of him. He didn’t know whether to run up to her and take her into his arms or to run away and hope she didn’t turn around before he could get away.

            Before he could make either decision, Rhodes came along and made a choice for him.

            “Buckley!” he cried. “These kids are from the University and they want to hear all about how you killed that gator.”

            When Stella heard his name her whole body tensed. Buckley saw it and his heart sank. She knew immediately that it was him. Her mind began to race. She wanted to see him. She wanted to go to him. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t tell him what she so desperately wanted him to know. She turned around and tried to smile at him, but her eyes were already beginning to fill with tears. She couldn’t do this, but she had to. She choked them back and swallowed them – hoped he didn’t see.
            “Buckley. So good to see you. How’ve you been?” she said. It wasn’t like she could act like they didn’t know one another.

            “You know each other?” Rhodes asked Buckley.

            Buckley hesitated, waiting to see if she would answer. “We went to school together.” She said.

            “Well, it’s a small world, ain’t it?” Rhodes said.

            “It certainly is.” She smiled.

            The interviews with Rhodes, Selena, and Buckley went exactly as Lottie had hoped, and she was quite pleased with the footage. She arranged with Rhodes to have the rest of the principal players interviewed at Herlin Hall over the course of the week. Stella was sick over this development as she learned that Herlin Hall was where Buckley was staying until he decided whether or not he was going to go back to the swamp or not.

She had wanted to see him, but now that she had she couldn’t deal with it. It hurt too bad, knowing just how much she loved him, but she couldn’t be with him.

But why? Why couldn’t she be with him?

Because he deserved better . . .

That evening there was going to be a big dinner party at Herlin Hall thrown by Rhodes and Selena for the kids from UWF. Jerry and Leland Hogg would be there, as well several of Rhodes’ other friends. It would be an opportunity for the kids to unwind and talk up their project but mostly it was an excuse for Rhodes to throw yet another party. Stella wished that she could get out of going, but she was at the mercy of her comrades. They all thought it was a riot that she knew Buckley the gator killer and she of course had to play along like they were old friends, and not old lovers.

The truth was that Buckley hadn’t done anything wrong. She hadn’t done anything wrong either, but things had ultimately gone wrong. She had been too weak willed to fight for her love and maybe that was wrong enough.

            Before the party, the girls were taken to Selena’s apartment to get ready. They were all relatively the same size and Selena thought it would be fun to let them borrow some of her clothes for the event. It was there that Selena caught Stella looking a little forlorn.

            “What’s the matter? Aren’t you having fun?” she asked, handing her a vintage blue cocktail dress.

            “Oh, yes. I’m having a blast. I’m just kind of in my own world, I guess.”

            “If you say so. If you need to talk, let me know. We girls gotta stick together, you know?”

            Stella smiled. “Thanks. I will.”

            At the party Rhodes thought it would be fun to sit Buckley next to Stella so they could catch up. They didn’t talk much during dinner, owing to the fact that both concentrated very intently on their meals. After dinner, Stella decided that she had had enough of this awkwardness and that they would have to at least try to clear the air. They problem was that they hadn’t had a moment alone since they’d seen each other.

            “Buckley,” she said to him, putting her hand gently on his forearm. “do you think I might be able to have a word with you outside on  the deck in a few minutes? When everyone is otherwise engaged?”

            He nodded.

            “Great. I’ll be waiting.”

            She made her way to the deck outside the Florida Room and watched the moon on the water while she waited. Something about the water of the river reminded her of home. Maybe this place would be just as good a place as going back down south. Surely they needed teachers here just as desperately?

            After about ten minutes, Buckley was able to slip out of the party and join her on the deck.

            “Do you think they’ll miss you?” she asked.

            “They never seem to.” He replied.

            “They party like this often, I take it?”

            “Yes.”

            “What are you doing here?”

            “I came up here to kill their gator. They asked me to stay on and I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going to stay on or not yet.”

            “I didn’t expect to see you again like this.”

            “Yeah, me neither.”

            “I feel like I owe you an apology.”

            “No. I’m fine.” He lied.

            “I still think about you a lot.”

            “I still think about you too.”

            “You never let me tell you why.”

            “Does it matter?”

            “It matters to me.”

            “You didn’t love me anymore.”

            “I never stopped loving you, you big idiot.”

            “Then what?”

            “I was scared.”
            “Scared of what? Of me?

            “Of losing myself. In you. In the baby.”

            “What baby?”
            She looked at him with tears in her eyes.

            “Oh Stella, why didn’t you tell me?”

            “Because I didn’t think you would have understood.”

            “What did you do?”
            “That’s between me and God.”

            “What did you do?”

            “Does it matter?”
            “Yes.”

            “You said it didn’t matter.”
            “Well now it matters.”

            “What would you have had me do?”

            “I don’t know. We could have made this work. You didn’t have to give it up.”

            “I would have never gone to school, Buckley!” She was crying now. “You would rob me of my chance to make something of myself?”

            “I would have taken care of you Stella. I would have taken care of us. I would have made sure you went to school. We would have been alright. Why don’t you believe in me? Why don’t you trust me?”

            “Maybe it’s me that I don’t believe in. Maybe it’s me that I don’t trust.”

            She fell into his chest and wept. “I’m so sorry Buckley. I’m so sorry.”

            “Was it a boy or a girl?”

            “Her name is Hope.”

            “How fitting. Do you see her?”

            “No. It was a closed adoption.”

            “Do I get any say in this?”

            “No. Now do you understand?”

            “Yeah. Now I think I do.”

            Stella did what she felt she had to do. She loved Buckley and in another time she would have loved to have had a family with him. But the time was not right. She had only been seventeen. Her life hadn’t yet began and her mother and father hadn’t really given her much of a choice. Abortion wasn’t an option for them and keeping the child was out of the question for her. She felt ashamed for keeping this from Buckley, but what else could she have done. He wouldn’t have understood then, just as he didn’t understand now.

            Buckley was dumbfounded by this revelation, but he found that he couldn’t be angry with Stella as she sobbed into his chest. Although she was convinced that he didn’t understand her predicament, he did understand her conflicted feelings. He just wished she would have trusted him to take care of her. He couldn’t believe that he was a father.

            He reached down and brushed the hair out of her tear stained eyes.

            “You must hate me,” she sobbed.

            “I could never hate you,” he said. “I’ve tried.” And then he just held her, which is all she’d wanted for all the years they’d been apart.

            After some time, Stella was able to pull herself together and she and Buckley found themselves wrapped in each other’s arms on the deck looking at the stars and catching up on the past four years in earnest. She told him about her pregnancy and how her family had made her hide it from everyone. That bit of conversation was difficult, but Buckley was patient and understanding.

            She told him about her major in college and how she thinks she picked the wrong one. He told her about the trapping and how he’s been making a name for himself. But then the slipped into the old familiar comforts of the conversations that had had a thousand times before. They talked about bands they loved and what albums they enjoyed. The talked about movies and books and inside jokes that only made sense to the two of them. The laughed like they used to laugh and Stella smiled as she soaked in the sound of Buckley’s voice. She wanted to bathe in him. She felt like she was home.

            Stella began to wonder why she couldn’t be with Buckley after all. Then she remembered her family and their objections to the Indian half-breed. It wouldn’t be fair to subject him to their scorn. She loved him too much to put him through all that. And then there was the fact that he couldn’t trust her because of them.

            There was option of disowning her family, but that idea was easier said than done. How does one divorce oneself from one’s entire family? And for a boy? The idea was completely unthinkable. Unheard of. It just wasn’t done. Then again, if she were to be with Buckley, they would make it easy – they would disown her outright and save her the trouble.

            Stella’s family were not bad people, they were just racist. To a more enlightened mind this might automatically make them bad people, but to a Southern mentality it’s not racist, it just is. You don’t marry outside of your race. This made Stella very sad.

            Buckley broke Stella’s train of thought on this subject when he asked “Are you alright?”

            “Oh yeah, I’m fine. Just thinking.”

            “Oh, Okay.”

            “You know, Buckley, I’ve really missed you.”

            Buckley pulled her closer to him. “I’ve missed you more.”