At the Twilight's Last Gleaming by David Bischoff Page A

sat together a couple of minutes before the first bell the next day.
    The snow had died down a bit as soon as we’d gotten back, and the phone still worked, so Emory summoned his driver. He and Cheryl were whisked away, and I got to sleep in the spare room. I’d done it enough before that I had fresh clothing there, so all was well.
    Next morning the electricity was back on. Harold’s dad walked in with us to return the lantern, in case there was any problem. An open door at night didn’t sound exactly likely, but when a parent was along for the explanation, that helped. Mr. Hendricks was there in the morning again, as it happened, and he accepted the lantern with thanks. We didn’t ask where he’d been, just apologized — which smoothed things over a good deal.
    But, I looked back at him as we were walking away, and he did give us a very odd look.
    And I noticed, this time, what a lot of hair Mr. Hendricks had, all over his body. Tufts of it straggled up above his collar and the always present T-shirt below his flannel shirt.
    I was able to shrug all the associated feelings of that night and the following morning easily enough, though, with the demands of school work and the increasing work we were doing on the play.
    Nevertheless, I found that despite this, my fascination with Emory Clarke grew.
    I have always fancied myself a cerebral sort. I thought a lot, I talked things over a lot with parents and friends, and of course, I read a lot. It had always seemed to me that reason was my best friend. Of course I well knew I had feelings. Oh plenty of those! And adolescent hormones? Of course! It just happened! Nothing wrong with it.
    I well, I told myself, that my obsession with Gothic novels was a way that my neo-cortex — that is, the thinking part of my brain — was working out the issues about the way I felt about guys in the context of my emergence as an individual in society. Gothic heroes tended to be unpredictable, dangerous and deeply attractive; but there seemed no way a gothic heroine could escape having to come to grips with her own destiny regarding them.
    Or, anyway, that’s what I would write in a theme paper for English class.
    The trouble was, I was finding, that it’s one thing to think about things in the ivory towers of your head, and quite another to experience them. Analysis was vital, but it’s very hard indeed to analyze while in the throes of passion.
    And that’s the word I realized was the right one.
    Passion.
    I was a passionate person.
    I’d been passionate about Peter, which had gotten me into my role of Lucy in a high school stage version of Bram Stoker’s
Dracula
. Now I had another passion. A passion that felt stronger than I had for Peter Harrigan.
    It was a passion about Emory Clarke.
    This passion was not a transfer. Nor, I knew in my heart of hearts, was it a fickle thing, for I still was fascinated with Peter.
    I had a high school girl’s crush on Peter.
    With Emory Clarke, it was much deeper. And far more disturbing.
    I just didn’t want to be around Emory. I didn’t want to just hold his hands and look at him. The idea of Emory close to my neck wasn’t at all like the idea of Peter close to my neck, cape draping us into the folds of struggling, violent night. It was fact, and each time it happened during rehearsals, the feelings were more intense.
    Emory was a mystery.
    Emory was an enigma.
    He wasn’t just handsome in a charismatic way. He was handsome in a subtle, assertive way. He was handsome in a Clark Gable as Rhett Butler kind of way. And more and more, I began to realize the depth of his family and their power.
    I was passionate in a way that had seduced the reason and prudence of better souls than mine.
    I was curious.
    And that curiosity achieved far, far more than it sought.

    “D ID YOU HEAR the news?” said Gail Shawshank excitedly as she sat down next to us at our usual spot in the auditorium, awaiting the morning bell’s klang to be loosed into the