Better Late Than Never

Chapter 11

AMANDA-KEN LAY ON KEN'S bed, staring at the ceiling, and listened. We spent a lot of time at the beach. The sun on her blond hair -- it was like gold sprinkled on gold. Her tan was golden, too. She was like that girl dipped in gold. Did you ever see Goldfinger?

No, but I've heard of it. It's an old James Bond movie, right?

She thought Rick was laughing. I keep forgetting you're living in another century! I was fourteen when I saw Gold finger. That's how old you are, right? You should see it; it's great.

I'll borrow it from the DVD store. .

Man, I wish we'd had DVDs in my time. That must be so neat, to watch movies whenever you want.

Yeah, it's . . . neat.

Nancy and I used to go to the movies practically every Saturday night. She liked romantic films, and I liked action ones. Every Saturday, we'd argue about what to see. Not argue, really -- more like debate.

Who won?

We took turns choosing. But she could have won all the time. I'd always give in to her.

By now, Amanda had figured out how to keep some thoughts to herself. So she could think about how wonderful it would be to have a boyfriend like Rick, who would cherish you and give you anything you wanted. And she didn't have to worry that he might hear that, because Rick still thought he was talking to another guy.

She communicated her next question.

What else did you guys do together?

You know the Public Gardens, near City Hall?

Sure.

That was one of her favorite places, especially when the roses were in bloom. She loved roses. When I sold my motorcycle, I used the money to give her one red rose every day till the money ran out.

Red roses and motorcycles. Wow! What a guy.

What?

She realized she hadn't kept that thought to herself.

Um, I was just wondering, why did you sell your motorcycle?

My brother joined the army and gave me his to use. There was a pause. I don't want to talk about that, okay?

She wondered if his brother had been killed. Had there been a war going on when Rick was a teenager? She still wasn't sure when that had been.

There was a knock on Ken's bedroom door.

"Come in," Amanda called.

Ken's mother stuck her head in. "Are you feeling all right?"

"Sure. Why?"

"It's Saturday afternoon, the sun's out, and you've been lying in bed all day!" She frowned. "I'm going to call a doctor. You haven't been eating much lately either. I think you need a checkup."

Amanda-Ken jumped off the bed. "I'm fine. I was just thinking about stuff. I'm going out now."

To Rick, she said, Later.

What she wanted to do now would require the computer, but she needed to get out of the house before she raised more suspicions in Ken's mother's mind. A teacher had told her class once that there were free online services at the public library. She'd never set foot in the public library before, but she knew where it was.

She was surprised when the librarian at the desk greeted her--greeted Ken, actually.

"Good to see you, Ken," she said with a smile.

Amanda noticed the nameplate on the desk. "Hello, Ms. Fletcher."

The woman looked startled. Then she saw that Ken was staring at the plate, and she turned it around. She laughed softly. "Very funny, Ken. Okay, I just came on and I haven't gotten around to changing the name." She put the plate in a drawer and took out another one that read Ms. Greenwood.

Amanda smiled back at the librarian and inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. That was a close call.

Locating the computers, she sat down at one and turned it on. The screen lit up, and then a message appeared.

Enter Code.

She got up and went back to the librarian's desk. "The computer says I need a code to log on."

"That's right," she said with a puzzled expression. "Ken, you've used these computers before.You know what to do."

Amanda swallowed. "I, uh, forgot it."

The lines of puzzlement on the librarian's forehead deepened. But at least she answered him. "It's five zeros, Ken. Pretty easy to remember."

"Yeah, right. Of course. I'm a little out of it today."

Now the librarian looked concerned. With Amanda's luck, the woman would turn out to be a friend of Ken's mother and call her to report that Ken was behaving strangely.

Back at the computer, Amanda logged in, and in the search box she typed Gold finger. What came up was a description of the movie, some pictures of the actors, and a date: 1964. How old had Rick said he'd been when he saw it? Fourteen?

She didn't want to go back to Ms. Greenwood or Fletcher or whatever her name was and make a fool of herself again. So she got up and wandered around the library.

It was kind of interesting--she didn't know libraries had CDs and DVDs and video games. But she didn't take time to look at any of them. She was on a mission.

Finally, she found what she was searching for in a little room off the main area, a room that looked like it hadn't been dusted in years. On a row of shelves she found all the yearbooks of all the schools in town, going back to the dark ages or whatever. If Rick had been 14 in 1964, that meant he probably was supposed to have graduated from high school in 1967 or 1968.

There were three high schools in town. She didn't know his last name. And Rick, or Richard, turned out to be a pretty common name. Checking indexes, she found seven possible Ricks.

She started checking pictures, although she had no idea what she was looking for. In their conversations, there had been no reference to his hair color or any other identifiable characteristic.

It was extremely frustrating. Several of the Ricks looked cute, others not so much. Some of them had really long hair, which must have been the fashion at the time.

There were photos of student activities, teams, and clubs, but she didn't know what Rick had been into in high school. Except Nancy, of course. Which was why she got very excited when she accidentally hit on a picture of a boy and a girl in formal clothes with a caption that read Rick Lasky and Nancy Chiswick.

There was always the possibility that there had been another couple named Rick and Nancy. Even so, this felt right. She remembered Rick talking about Nancy's golden hair. This photo was in black and white, but she could see that the girl's long, straight hair was very blond.

She was more interested in the boy. He had straight hair, too, but it looked like a deep brown in the picture. It was almost as long as Nancy's--you never saw hair that long on boys nowadays, except maybe on some hippie-type rock stars. He was thin, but he didn't look unhealthy. How did he die? she wondered.

He was wearing a tuxedo, but not an ordinary one. It looked like there was glittery stuff on the collar and cuffs. And underneath the coat, he wasn't wearing the white shirt and black tie you'd expect to see--he had on a T-shirt. Maybe it was some kind of fashion statement. Or maybe it reflected Rick's sense of humor. He had a great smile, and even though she couldn't actually make out a twinkle in his eyes, she felt very sure it was there.

Normally, Amanda wouldn't find this whole look attractive--she preferred guys who were more manly and athletic in appearance, like Ken. But there was something very appealing about Rick Lasky, something that stirred her.

She looked at Nancy again. Amanda had to admit that she was pretty. Not as pretty as Amanda, of course, but she had a nice face. The gown was awful--all fluffy and puffy--but she could see that Nancy had a good figure. She wore a corsage of roses, which Amanda assumed were red. Naturally, Rick would have given her her favorite flowers to wear.

It must be a prom picture, she thought. Was this the prom where Nancy broke up with him?

Now she had a last name, if this really was her Rick in the picture. How funny that she was now thinking of him as "her" Rick. She went to the back of the yearbook and looked up Lasky, Richard in the index. There were four page numbers after his name.

The first one directed her to a group photo of some club called Celestial Turnings. Reading the caption under the picture, she learned that this was a literary magazine that featured creative writing by students.

She'd always thought students who were in this type of club would be nerds--brainy types who didn't know how to have fun--but these kids didn't look bad at all. Rick looked even cuter than he did in the prom picture.

The next picture was the standard senior class photo--head and shoulders, dark robe with one of those flat tasseled things on his head, fake background of blue sky and clouds. Rick had pulled his hair back into a ponytail for this one, and this gave her a better view of his face. Small ears, high cheekbones, deep-set eyes. Brown, or maybe a very dark blue. Warm, soft eyes. She felt a little flutter in her--in Ken's--stomach.

The third photo was the one taken at the prom. The fourth was the same as the class photo, but enlarged, covering almost the entire page. And bordered in black. Under the picture, she read, "In Memoriam: Richard (Rick) Lasky, 1950-1968."

She remembered he had died during his senior year, just after the prom. An overwhelming sadness came over her, and she felt an almost uncontrollable urge to cry. Which was ridiculous--all this had happened more than 40 years ago. And it wasn't as if she actually knew him--he was just a voice, that was all.

She went back to the computer and entered his name and the school's name into the search box. She was rewarded with an article from the local newspaper. An obituary.

Richard Lasky, age 18, killed in an accident on the highway. He'd been on his brother's motorcycle, she guessed. That was why he didn't like talking about it.

For the longest time, she just stared at the report. Then she went back to the dusty room. On another shelf, she found bound copies of other school publications--directories, newspapers, theater programs. And Celestial Turnings.

She searched the issues published between 1965 and 1968 and found two short stories and several poems by Rick. The stories were a little too wordy for her liking, but the poems were nice. One in particular.

It was called "Nancy," and it was a love poem.

I want to dive into the blue ocean of your eyes

And swim to your heart.

If you want me to stay, I will live and breathe as part of you and ask for nothing in return. But even if you don't want me to stay, I will not leave. I will simply drown in a sea of my own tears.

Now she really wanted to cry. To be loved like that--how unbelievably beautiful. Nancy couldn't appreciate this. She didn't deserve him.

I do, she thought. She took the magazine to a photocopy machine.

Later that evening, alone in Ken's room, she read the poem over and over again. And each time she read it, she felt it more and more. And she fantasized about someday when a boy would write a poem like that for her . . .

But why fantasize?

She turned on Ken's computer and opened the word-processing program. Then she retyped Rick's poem, making one change--the title. She printed it out. Then she folded it carefully, put it in an envelope, and on the envelope wrote the name that was now the title of the poem. Amanda.