I was new to the vast city of Virginia Beach with its 38 miles of beaches and its maze of riverfront suburbs, wondering what was in store for me. The road was never easy and usually better forgotten. As a Navy brat, I had a hard time making friends. But then I saw her...Finity Chase. I'll never forget that day. Perched against the bricks like a frail tree, she watched me. Only her hair moved in the light breeze. Her attention held me firm, and I was in awe of her.
Ten years old with skinned knees and a plaid dress hanging on bony shoulders, she held up her hands and made tight fists when I got closer. I nearly laughed. I was taller and broader, and her frizzy hair made her look like a fairy dusted with magical starlight. I liked her spirit.
"I'm Barrett Fiztsimmons," I told her, only braving one step nearer to her. There was a good five feet between us. If she was too feral, I feared she might bite.
Studying me intensely, she finally shrugged and said, "Why do I want to know that?"
"I could use a friend to show me around."
"F-friend?" she stuttered. And then her sudden grin revealed pearly teeth with extra large canines that suited her. I tried not to stare, but they looked so pointy.
"So, how about it?"
"I don't know," she said, shrugging again. She twisted nervously from side to side in her sundress, and then crossed her arms across her chest. "What do you want to do?"
"Well, what is fun around here?"
Some bored older kids tossed a football nearby. Others wrote on the sidewalk with chalk. The neighborhood seemed quiet, but it had old bottles littering the street and an aura of disregard. Fields of weeds offered space for play and a marshy lake waited in the background. I'm sure I could go exploring and looking for frogs or turtles. Crows suddenly cawed as if something scared them. Finity glanced toward a grove of trees a little warily but then turned back to me.
A little panicked, she said, "I don't do much. I like to draw or read or walk by the lake."
"What about other kids?"
"I'm home-schooled. I don't get to be around other kids much."
She seemed depressed about that. She chewed on a fingernail while awaiting my reaction. Her eyes never remained on me long.
"There are bonuses to being home schooled. At least you don't get detention or have to do public speaking." I said, making her giggle in a small musical way.
After a moment, she said, "No, but you get to be normal."
I didn't know what to say.
"Barrett," a voice called from the moving truck parked by the curb. Burley men finished unloading furniture, and a stout woman waved to me. She was a homemaker and a loving mom. She kept things stable while Dad was protecting freedom. She stood at the edge of the sidewalk like a beacon leading me home.
"It's my Mom. I have to go," I explained, "So, what is your name?"
"Finity Chase."
"Finity," I repeated. "Okay. I'll see you around Finity."
She shyly watched me go. I don't know why, but I felt better after meeting her. She had that effect on me. It was as if I knew my destiny was bound to her. I kind of liked that.
Fitting in at school was rough. I disappeared in the overcrowded halls. None of the faces seemed to notice me. I made one friend named Neil Price, who was 12 like me. He was in my English class. He made snide comments under his breath while the teacher planned a birthday party to celebrate Shakespeare. I didn't think all those candles would fit on a cake. Mrs. Foster was a little crazy, and one and all knew it. Neil raised a hand and suggested a surprise birthday for him, making everyone laugh. It was as if our senile teacher really believed he would show up. Usually she just fell asleep at her desk, leaving us all to clown around. While she drooled, Neil and traded baseball cards.
Neil made me feel welcome. Freckled and as playful as a pup, Neil Price got along with all the kids, so that gave me an edge as a new kid around town. We hung out sometimes, though I still watched for Finity to appear from the far side of the brick complex. I wanted to see that twined head of dark wheat with red tones like her mother and those sleepy eyes. Her gently sloping nose was narrow and a little too long for her face, but it went well with her small mouth and arched lips. She looked like an intense angel existing on the edge of the world and that is usually where I found her.
Never a part of the crowd, she wandered alone, perfectly content to commune with life in her own language. It was as if an invisible bubble embraced her, keeping the profane away from her divinity.
Now and again, I would join her on her walks along the lake where she looked for tadpoles or flowers. Barefoot and free, she barely noticed that I tagged along. We played in the muck scouring for treasure. Every so often she talked about the shadows that watched her. She said they hovered nearby like shapeless wolves. Though I wondered if she was teasing, it made me a little unnerved. I always looked over my shoulder at the trees, and I swore something always rustled to the left of us, but I never saw what it was.
The only game she liked to play was hide-and-seek or games of pretend. We would sit on a blanket eating a simple lunch she made for us, such as olives and cheese and crackers, and we would pretend we were in ancient Greece or Italy, and we would describe the countryside or what went on around us in other time periods. She liked to speak of Socrates setting on hand-carved steps as he tried to reach the ignorant with his wisdom, but many didn't care or couldn't see the pictures in their heads that his words described. They could never reach the plane where he dwelled, just like her, though she just felt different and not smart like him.
When Neil or the other kids saw me with Finity, I became embarrassed. They always said there was something wrong with her. But I didn't see it. She was a little quiet and deep like the dark lake and its murky waters. I knew it struggled and existed as best it could despite the pollution around it, but I didn't think it would stagnate and begin its demise. Besides, she didn't mind my hanging around and I liked the company.
"Why do you hang around that weird girl?" Neil asked, while walking home from the bus stop. "She's strange and her mom is a witch."
I laughed. Every town had to have a witch and tall tales.
"I'm sure she and her mom aren't witches."
"Yeah, but ask her where her dad is."
I let that thought sink deep inside. I didn't want to hurt her by believing nasty rumors, but I still had to wonder how they all started. Maybe she would tell me in time.
After some time, I started to fit in. I played baseball and joined the Boy Scouts. Soon Finity accompanied me as I tried to get my badges, such as learning marbles or building a wooden derby car. She never said much, just listened to me and smiled. When I had to sell candy for school, she tagged along. While I did the knocking, she stayed in the background, staring at the people and at their houses. People intrigued her. Their facial features and their styles of dress held endless fascination for her as long as they weren't looking, but she would not engage them unless spoken to and then it would be a short, "Yes, ma'am" or "No, ma'am." Sometimes she barely made eye contact.
Afterwards, she would go on and on about their houses. She loved seeing how they lived, especially clean houses and good smells. She particularly liked one house in a better neighborhood across the highway, off Witchduck Road. Grand and encased in a wrought-iron paradise, the house near Ducking Point beckoned to her. Legend said that this part of the Lynnhaven River was where the real-life Witch of Pungo, Grace Sherwood, was tried as a witch in the 1600's, so we tip-toed warily to the stained glass door. We didn't know what to expect. Deep down, we thought a woman dressed in black would come to the door, so we held our breath. We were expecting a different sort of monster.
The man who answered was a burly Italian man with a cigar. He wore a casual suit and leather shoes. He seemed surprised at the sight of Finity. He chuckled.
"Aren't you Darlene's kid? You've grown," the large man asked, while contemplating her features.
Surprised by his attention, Finity nodded and backed away. She clasped her hands together and directed her focus on her pink sneakers.
The man eyed her with a warm smile and said, "I know your family. What are you hanging out with him for?"
"He's my friend."
Barrett added, "We're selling candy for a dollar. It's for our baseball uniforms. She is helping me."
The man pulled out his wallet and pulled out a ten.
"I'll help you out," he told them. "Keep the candy."
"Thanks," the kids said in unison. Their smiles beamed.
The man patted Finity on her head with his big paw and said, "Okay, Princess. Tell your Mom, Big Sal says 'hi.' Maybe I'll stop by for a visit sometime."
She nodded and backed away. With that we headed down the driveway that split in two directions around a gorgeous fountain. Finity stared back at the man. Why did she know him? Was he one of the shadow people who used to visit her when she was very young? Their faces long faded from memory. But their voices echoed to the present day, only her mind kept them in the recesses. She didn't want to ever know them, because what if they weren't real? Her Mom never believed her. That didn't help things.
"Do you know that man?"
"Yeah, but I don't know why," she said, leading the way down the road. She peeked back, checking to see if he watched from the two-story windows. She felt many eyes and told me so. I didn't know what to believe.
A storm brewed, but we returned to our mission. On and on, we knocked on doors. We sold a few bars, but not many. After a while, I lost interest. Instead, I kept wondering about her. She started seeming so lost, so far away. She was like a kite that went too high. I felt like I was holding the string wondering if I should just let go.
As the years past, I spent more and more time with Neil and his friends. I played baseball with them. Sometimes, I'd catch a glimpse of Finity watching me and waiting. I pretended not to notice. When she was sixteen, I saw how she blossomed and became rounder and less bony. After a break-up with a crazy girl named Sue Tanner, who annoyed the hell out of me, I felt lost and unsure about the dating world. Most girls stayed in their cliques like vultures picking at the bones of their discards and waiting to see who dared next to face their sharpness. That's when I started spending evenings with Finity again. We went to the movies. She liked the theater because it was dark and quiet, but she hated concerts because of the loud crowds. She couldn't fit in with the boisterous chaos. Worse than a wallflower, she became a wall when people neared her.
"So what do you want to do when you finish school?"
"I like going door to door, like I used to do with you. Maybe I'll sell Avon."
"Don't you want a real career?"
Her lip puckered and she turned away. She never liked criticism.
"Hey," I said, gently pulling her to me. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I just think you could do anything."
She shrugged and said, "What do you want to do?"
"I'm thinking about college and then law school."
She gave me a pensive look. She loved to stare at my features, at my deep eyes, my long face, my insecurity. This time, she touched my skin and then my lips. Her finger was feather light. It caused me to shiver. I had never really seen her that way. She had always been safe and a friend.
"I better go," I told her, and it wounded her.
I should have known that being the only male she ever got close to her that she would have developed a crush on me. But I didn't want to see her that way. I usually went for the trendy girl with the perfect hair, the endless chatter, and the bad girl appeal. Unfortunately, I was the preppy, smart, good kid that they didn't usually go for.
Then one day I saw Finity walking hand in hand with Neil. I was floored. They were on a path toward the woods where she and I picked honeysuckles together. The intoxicating scent of the woods beckoned to summertime and to my memories of her. I moved closer, thinking that this couldn't be happening. But there was Neil, rusty haired and broad with a million dollar grin which I once heard Sue Tanner say about him. He leaned against the tree, and pulled her closer. His hand was on the small of her back. She shyly looked away but he held her chin and turned her toward him.
As they were about to kiss, I shouted, "What in the world is going on?"
Neil just chuckled and Finity scurried away like a frightened mouse. She avoided my gaze from behind a cedar tree. Neil purposely got between us.
"Don't look at me like that," Neil said. He held his hands up in surrender.
"But you hate her."
"She's pretty. I can't help myself."
"That's not cool," I said. I clenched my fists. I could feel the blood in my face.
Neil grumbled, "Well then, you ask her out."
"I don't like her that way. She's..."
"Then it's settled. Back off."
I did. And it was perhaps the worst mistake I ever made. I left Finity to a world where she could never make it. I left her to the wolves and to the shadows where they dwell.