The talk with Thomas went better than Abby had hoped. Yes, okay, she had been right all along about Timmy. She hadn't told him where they lived, had she? She hadn't even pointed in their general direction? She hadn't been too public in her movements? No, no, and - well - not very much. Then he stumped her for an answer.
"This boy has has been very public for the last couple of years - he's an international celebrity now. But he's never going to grow up - you know that. So what does our little buddy Timmy do when someone really notices that he hasn't grown an inch in over two years?"
"Well…ah…I, I don't know. We didn't talk about that."
"Maybe you should. You're going back to see him again, aren't you? Of course you are."
And of course she was...although she hadn't said that. Now Abby wondered again just what it was she heard in Thomas's voice - and a new thought struck here. Was it jealousy? Why would he feel that way? She needed some way to smooth things over, say the right thing.
"Well. You're right. And I don't want to argue about this - I know you're looking out for me, I really do. And I appreciate it."
She wanted things between them back to the way they had been. The long silences and tension that erupted into shouting matches, so startling the first time it had occurred, had become more frequent and she felt frustrated and helpless to stop it. She stepped closer to him, leaned in against him, felt his heart thumping and his veins pulsing, and hugged him.
He held her a few seconds, returning the hug. The he stepped back and threw what he clearly thought was his second stumper at her.
"And think about this: for anyone who truly knows what to look for, this boy is hopping around on stage in front of the cameras and saying: 'Look at me! I'm a vampire! Look at me!' And someone - maybe more than one someone - is going to come hunting for him. Do you want to be there when they show up with stakes and torches? Hell, maybe they come with flamethrowers and solar lamps these days."
She did have a reply for that one, after all. "Well - maybe anyone seeing him will think it's all just a gimmick, like you did. A marketing ploy. That's what you said, the other day."
"And if someone gets suspicious - like you did - and looks a little deeper, they'll notice things. Like he hasn't grown. Like, no one ever sees him eat or drink anything - do they? Like, does he have a mother and father? Because I'm betting no, they can't be found. How long can he keep up this charade?"
The answer was obvious, of course, not long at all. Why hadn't she thought to ask any of these things? Because she had been like a preteen groupie with a celebrity crush after all, hadn't she? So happy and stunned to meet someone like herself, who actually seemed like a feeling person and not a horror movie monster. Abby realized she would have to ask all these things of Timmy - and in turn, tell him more of herself.
Two nights later she was flying northward toward Chicago, knowing so much more than she had on her trip to the Indianapolis concert and yet filled with so many new questions. Thomas had headed back to the truck stop and gotten her another map, and she had called directory assistance and gotten the hotel number and found out the street address, and now she rushed onward to what she sensed might not be as happy a meeting as she had thought. What would Timmy think, if she presumed to challenge and question him about so much? And then Timmy's voice sounded in her memory.
We can be such good friends, Abby.
She had not gone to Indianapolis even thinking about having a friend - the idea simply did not cross her mind. How could such a thing be? She was a monster. Anyone who might be a possible friend would run shrieking into the night when they finally realized - as they must, sooner or later - what she really was. Well, Thomas was one of the rare exceptions. He had accepted her, because of what she had done for him all those years ago, but now she felt the long years pulling them apart.
But now she realized it was possible, with Timmy. He was a - what she was. She did not like even to think the word, if she could help it. Silly, after all these years. But it still made her feel ugly, monstrous, to put the name vampire to what she was. But Timmy was one too, and he would never reject her because of what she was, and a spark of something like hope flared deep inside the cold dead flesh of her heart.
The metropolis of Chicago was far larger than Indianapolis and she was passing over densely populated areas still far from the city center. When she came across more built-up areas, with alleys between buildings, she dropped onto a roof and then descended a wall into the alley. It was a busy street, with lots of traffic, and she was betting there would be a bus route heading north into the heart of the city. She could ride, and it would give her time to think. In mid-March it was still dark out early enough that most people would think nothing of a girl her age riding a city bus alone. Sure enough, close to next intersection there was a bus stop. She waited, along with a couple of adults also standing in the cold wind, until a bus pulled up some five minutes later.
"Excuse me" she said quietly as she stepped on, "does this bus go downtown?"
The driver was a middle-aged black man with a neutral expression on his face; he looked her over a couple of seconds, and his expression softened. "Sure does, young lady. Where you going?"
"Downtown Hilton. My, uh, family has some out-of-town friends visiting."
Was that a mistake? She suddenly realized her shabby clothes did not suggest someone whose friends stayed at the Hilton. The driver looked her over again for a second, then shrugged his shoulders, as if to say Well, none of my business. "I can drop you off two blocks from there."
She collected her thoughts, mentally rehearsing what she would ask Timmy (and what more she would reveal about herself) until the driver's voice came back to her. "Miss? Young miss? This here's your stop."
"Thank you." She stepped out and onto the curb, and found herself on a street far busier than anything she was used to in her home. Cars and taxis and buses; a petrochemical stench that assaulted her enhance sense of smell; and people, hearts thumping and veins pulsing and the odors of life swirling past her, carried on the chill breeze. She soon oriented herself to the location of the hotel - just two blocks over, as promised - and made her way to the entrance.
She approached the front desk, with only a handful of people in line, and when she headed to the next clerk available she noted the young woman's open curiosity as she approached, obviously alone, and (as she knew too well) perhaps a little under-dressed. Well, at least I'm wearing shoes.
"Can I help you?" What are you doing here?
"Yes. Timmy Valentine is staying here. I'm his friend Abby, from Indiana."
"I see. Do you have some ID?"
"Miss, no, I don't. I'm a kid. I don't have a driver's license or anything. But I am Timmy's friend, and he said he would leave word at the front desk to give me the room number."
"Hold on." The clerk headed over to a row of slots, some kind of message center, and pulled out a slip from one of them. She read it over, conspicuously eyeing Abby. Abruptly making her decision, she suddenly smiled, and came back over to her. "Suite 2213. The elevators are behind you and to the right."
"Thanks so much!" Abby chirped brightly, and headed across to the elevators. She didn't take them to the 22nd floor; she didn't want anyone to see her going up, and besides, she had decided to play what she thought would be a funny trick on Timmy. She would show up outside his hotel window, not his door. She got off on the third floor, scouted briefly to figure out how the room numbers were laid out, then descended back to the lobby, moving quickly back onto the street.
Alley time again. If she ever lived in a big city, she thought, she was going to wind up spending a lot of her time in alleys. In the middle of the block there was a service alley that ran back between the buildings, including the hotel. She saw some service vehicles and ducked down a short offshoot of the alley that headed down into the hotel garage. A quick glance to be sure there was no one in sight, and then she was climbing the wall again. Spend much more time in cities and I might as well be the female version of Spider-man, she thought.
At the 22nd floor she began to circle around the building, to the side where she thought Timmy's suite would be. She had checked the clock in the hotel lobby and it was more than an hour and a half past the ending time for the concert - surely he would be there, expecting her. She soon realized the suite level had fewer rooms than the lower floors - of course, silly, he's in a bigger room - and she took time to quickly peek into each one, trying to see if anyone might be inside.
After scouting out several windows she came to it - she could see his costume cape draped over a chair in the bedroom area, a door leading out to the sitting area of the suite, and another to - she assumed - the bathroom. No Timmy. She decided to wait a few minutes before giving up on her idea and heading back down to re-enter the hotel and appear at his door instead.
The the bathroom door swung open and out walked Timmy, a towel wrapped around his waist. He did not glance in her direction, but first looked out toward the sitting area, where she could just make out the edge of a TV set. He dropped the towel from his waist and Abby - who had certainly had the opportunity to see men and boys naked before - just had time to think Nice Butt (a thought that seemed to sound, inside her head, like a giddy schoolgirl voice) when he turned toward the window, reaching for a bathrobe that lay on the bed. And then she did gasp out loud. Because she could see clearly that Timmy, who certainly did have a penis - about the size one might expect for a boy his age, and hairless - had no testicles. The thin pale organ hung flat against his body; there was nothing underneath it.
He heard her - of course he would - and stared out the window, his face first assuming an expression of surprise and then (oh no) anger and then changing again to what seemed like - dismay? He snatched the robe up and slipped it on, belting it around his skinny waist. It was an adult size, so large it almost looked like he was wearing a housedress as he approached the window.
"Abby! What are you doing?" he hissed through the glass.
"I - I just wanted to play a trick, a joke, I'm sorry - "
"Well, you've had your laugh, haven't you?"
Why was it all going so wrong, so quickly? It just wasn't fair. "Timmy." She spoke slowly, deliberately. "I. didn't. laugh."
He seemed to consider this, his face softening. "This window doesn't open. Go back down and come up to my room." He turned away, without waiting to see what she did, and walked toward the sitting room.
Abby clambered, rather slowly, back to the alley side of the building and descended in no particular hurry. What was she going to say to him?
He has no balls. He's been castrated.
And he's angry I saw him.
But not just angry. Hadn't that been something like - fear - that she saw flicker across his face? Was he worried about how she would react? She knew she would have to be very careful, very thoughtful, in what she said, to repair the sudden breach between them. Maybe he would have told me, eventually. But I saw too much, too soon.
By the time she appeared at his door and knocked, she felt more composed. She could make it right. She would. She needed a friend like Timmy, someone who could understand her and accept her and...Acceptance. Was that the meaning of the flicker of fear she was sure she had seen on his face? That she would somehow reject him, not want to be with him, if she knew what had been done to him?
Then the door swung open, and Timmy stood there, still in the large fluffy bathrobe. He must have been stewing in his own thoughts the whole time, for a hard and defensive look had returned to his face.
"Come in then. At least knocking gives me fair warning."
"Timmy. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude on your privacy, I just wanted to surprise you, I thought it would be fun."
"And did you see something funny?"
With that, she felt sure of it. He's afraid. Afraid how others would react. Of course he would be. And it was almost funny in a way, considering how she thought (when she could bear to) about the way others would see here, anyone other than Thomas, if they found out what she truly was. Monster. Freak. You worry that they would say the same about you, don't you?
"I saw something I didn't expect, Timmy. But funny? No. Never funny."
"A boy with no balls. Come on, it is funny, isn't it?"
"No. Whoever would do such a thing to you...I hate them. They're evil."
He looked at her for several seconds, saying nothing, and she forced her face into as neutral an expression as she could manage.
Then Timmy undid the belt and dropped the robe, and stood there naked, his mutilated genitals just feet away from her. He spread his arms, and said "What do you think?"
Slowly and deliberately, she looked down at his groin, gazed there for several seconds, then back up at his face. For a moment she thought about stepping forward and reaching out to hug him, she could see so clearly now the vulnerability. But no, he may not like being touched. And, truth be told, she rarely touched anyone in an affectionate way, even Thomas. She worried if she would do it right.
So Abby looked at him, and said "I think...I want to be your friend, Timmy. You said the day we met that we could be such good friends. That's what I want."
Suddenly Timmy looked very self-conscious. "I,..uh,...I...better get dressed." He turned away quickly and headed back into the bedroom, reappearing a few seconds later. Now he was in jeans and a black turtleneck shirt, looking like any boy that might walk by on the street.
Before she could speak again, Timmy said "It's my turn to apologize to you, Abby. I understand you didn't mean any harm. I know I was...confrontational. But what you saw...I had to know how you would react, what you thought of me when you saw...Only two people know, Rudy and my housekeeper in L.A...So anyway, I guess you must be curious. Go ahead and ask, really, it's OK now."
Of course, she was curious. "Okay. How did it happen? Who would do such a thing to you?"
He sighed, and looked away for a moment, before turning back to her.
"I told you In Indianapolis I might not have the answers to all your questions. I will tell you what I can. It happened in Pompeii, when I was turned. I remember blood and fire. That is all."
"Blood and fire?" Don't be so cryptic, Timmy. Please tell me more.
"I remember blood spattering on the paving stones. My blood. Blood from where my testicles had been, a pain I can't describe. And blood from my neck too, where he had bitten me, through the jugular. I was bleeding to death on the street, Abby. And fire. Vesuvius was erupting, and the sky seemed red with fire from end to end, and hot stones were raining down from the sky...and there was a fire in my veins too, the fire of the change. You know what I mean, you have felt that too. And I screamed, and fell down in the street, and after that...darkness."
"Who did it to you? Why?"
"I can't see his face, any more than I can see what happened those days in France, all those centuries later, when I somehow changed again and I could walk in the daylight again. I remember the Sibyl, and a man coming to see her, and his face in shadow...we left her cave outside of Rome, with its polished floors and walls and lamps and rich furniture, and went to a townhouse in Pompeii. I must have seen his face, heard his voice, but now...my mind won't go there..."
He stopped, and she tried to digest what he had said, and felt sick at the horror of it all.
"Abby? Your turn. Tell me what happened to you."
And she did. About her parent's plantation, in the colonies, and the uncle no one wanted to talk about, in the dark house with the animal skins, on the far corner of the family's property. How she would go there to look at the house, and had even snuck inside, encountering no one...and how he came to her bedroom one night, and the weight of his cold body on her back, pressing down, and the teeth in her neck. And the fire, yes. The fire in the veins, the fire of the change.
"So how did you live after that, Abby? You wanted to live, that's obvious. How did you survive?"
And she told him of the root cellars and abandoned farmsteads, the caves, the hiding in corners and hoping (praying) that no one would come by in the day while she slept, the unsuspecting travelers she would leap on in the night, how she slowly trained her body to go days and finally even weeks between feedings, because she hated herself so much after each time.
"You hated yourself because you had to kill, right? Because you were a vampire."
"I don't even like that word."
"Vampire? But that is what we are, Abby. You can choose not to speak the name for it, but you still are one."
"It just...it makes me feel like a monster..."
And now he looked surprised at her words. "But we are monsters, Abby", he said softly.
No Timmy, don't say it, that's not what I want to hear..."We're not evil! We're not! You care about humans, you feel for them, I can see it!"
"I do, Abby, I do...We don't have to be evil. But still we must live on blood. You feel compassion for your victims, Abby, and I do too. But compassion is a terrible thing for a vampire to feel."
"No, no...Timmy, you're wrong. It keeps us human, doesn't it? In a way?"
"From the very beginning, you felt remorse every time you had to kill? You felt pity for those you fed from?"
"Yes, Timmy, always..." It seemed like things were going wrong again. "But you feel the same way, don't you? In Indianapolis...you weren't cruel to that man in the alley, you felt sorry for him, for what you were doing to him...didn't you?"
He thought for a moment. "Abby...For a long while after I changed, I was evil. I thought I had to be evil, because of what I had become. I was not sadistic or cruel, it's just...I did not feel pity or compassion, I simply did what I had to, without regret. That time in France...everything comes back to that. I somehow learned not just to walk in the day, but to feel compassion again. Such a human emotion. I learned how to be friends with humans again, not just allies when it was useful to me. I wanted to be human again, I really did. I dreamed and wished that somehow it could happen. A vampire Pinocchio, right? I wanted to be a real boy." He paused. "And I don't see how that can happen. I can live in the day, and feel compassion. And that brought me back into the human world, not just to watch, but to participate. But that is all the humanity that I can have, I think. Yes. You never forgot how to feel, it seems, and it took me a thousand years to learn how to feel again. It keeps a part of us human. But the other part must still kill, to live. And it hurts." He looked at her intently, his blue eyes shining. "I didn't mean that it is bad to feel compassion, Abby. I just meant...it makes it difficult for us to go on doing what we must do, to live."
He stood up from his chair. "We can talk more later. But there is something I wanted to do with you. Let's go out." So Abby followed him, back down to the lobby and out to the street, and they walked. She saw that they were heading closer to the Sears Tower, now soaring up above them, well over a thousand feet into the sky.
"Timmy...where are we going?"
"Up. Congratulations, Abby! You've won a date with Timmy Valentine. A million middle-school girls wish they were in your shoes right now."
And I don't even like shoes, she thought, and laughed aloud. The tension of their long talk was draining away, and Timmy was just a boy again, and she a girl.
The Sears Tower covered an entire city block; there was no way to approach any side of it and begin to climb, unobserved. Timmy led them into an alley on the last block before the enormous structure. "Let's climb, Abby. Race you to the top!"
He leapt onto the wall and began clambering up, and she called out "No fair, you have a head start!" and sprang after him, and soon they were both on the roof of the building. They walked across until they were directly opposite the Sears Tower, across the street, and Timmy said "Time to fly, Abby!" and leapt out into the air and circled up, and she followed. Higher they went, Timmy leading her on, until at last the very peak of the building was just feet away, and then they settled down together near the edge, her facing him with her back to the drop-off down to the street.
Timmy said "Turn around, Abby" and she did, and he stepped up beside her. They were facing east; they saw before them a few city blocks, the lights of Midway Airport down and to their left, and out past that the vast darkness of Lake Michigan stretching to the were alone; it was late at night, and March in Chicago was cold, and a strong chilly breeze blew around them as well. Neither of them felt it, of course; they could no longer be cold. There was a crescent moon, and the night sky was actually lighter than the great lake, where a few tiny lights from boats bobbed here and there in imitation and reflection of the sky above them.
After a while Timmy led her to face north, and they saw the two huge towers of the Amoco Building and the Hancock Center, both over a thousand feet tall but not nearly a match for the heights where they watched. The lights of two endless streams of traffic on Lakeshore Drive, one northbound and one southbound, stetched out below them, the lake to one side and the apartment buildings of the Gold Coast to the other. Then Timmy led her the other way, and they faced left, and saw the streets and buildings stretching west, and far off the planes ascending and descending at O'Hare Airport. He led her to the southern view, and the city streets stretched away to the horizon straight as arrows for mile after mile. Finally they turned back east to look out across the lake again.
Then Timmy reached out his cold hand to hers, and she took it. The two dead children stood there together, atop the tallest building in the world, with the perfect stillness of death, the only motion the edges of their clothes blowing in the wind, with the lake and all the vast city spread out around them. Now they also took in the sounds and smells from all around them, the traffic on the streets below, the distant whine of airplane engines, the lapping of the lake waves against the shore. The stench of gas and oil, the scents of millions of humans, the dank smell of the dark water swirled about them. It was beautiful, and she was glad to be there, hand in hand with a friend.
Finally, though, she remembered what she needed to ask him, what Thomas had said.
"Timmy...this is all beautiful, I'm so glad you brought me here. But there are some things I have to ask you."
"Sure."
"You're never going to grow up. How long do you think you can be Timmy Valentine, before all the questions start, and people get suspicious?"
"Not long. I've never kept the same name, stayed in the same place more than two years, maybe two and a half. Less than a year, now, and this will end, and I will have to become someone else."
"Why do it? Why did you become...all this? A celebrity, a pop star?"
"Abby, do you remember how I told you that I had lived with families?"
"Yes."
"After France, the dark forest - and I found that the sun could not kill me - I wanted to make myself part of the human world again. How does a child by himself do that? Sometimes I lived as a street kid, they were in every town and village, because plague and war and famine always made certain that there were orphans and abandoned children. The world was harder for children, in those days. But I also would find families that would take me in, out of sympathy, or because they had lost a child, or simply because they needed an extra pair of hands to work around their farm, and I could do that. It never lasted, of course, because I didn't grow, and they became suspicious or fearful, and I had to move again."
"I understand...but I don't see how this - "
"I'm getting to that. I came to America in 1961, with Rudy. He will tell you his own story, later. But I tried living with families again, and after a disaster at a certain summer camp, that my foster parents had talked me into going to, I decided I was done with that. I would live in the adult world on my terms, not those of any parents. So I lived full-time with Rudy, and eventually I planned it. Planned this. I would make myself rich and famous, I would make the world come to me, I would do it my way. I studied the music industry for years, figuring out how I could get discovered, become an overnight sensation, and Rudy helped me study and plan. And it worked. They love me, Abby, don't they? The kids, their parents, the adults, they think I'm wonderful, they scream out my name, they write letters telling me they love me..." His voice trailed off.
But they don't really love you, she thought. They love their fantasy of you.
As if he heard her thoughts, Timmy continued. "I know it's not real love, just infatuation and idol worship, and they would be horrified if they understood what I really was. But I can even act like I'm pretending to be a vampire, and they love the act, they want more...they want me. And I will give it to them."
He turned to look at her again. "I have become very rich, Abby, I have millions of dollars, and my fourth album will come out this year and I'll go back on tour. And I'll have millions more. And then when I disappear, Rudy and I - and our friends - can do anything we want, go anywhere." A pause. "Come with me, Abby...Come to Los Angeles, you'll love my mansion there, in the Hollywood Hills, it's huge, it's got everything, a pool, a game room, my train room, did you know I have one of the biggest collections of model trains in the world?"
Yes, I did..."Timmy...I have a place to live, here, where I'm safe. With Thomas."
"Bring him along. There's room for him as well. More space then I could ever use."
"He thinks the publicity you get will bring...hunters...after you. They'll see who you are, come after you, try to kill you and anyone there."
"Let them. It's been tried before. And I'm still here, and the ones who wanted to kill me are not. Why should I be afraid of them? They should fear me." His voice had a sharp and predatory edge now, and suddenly he didn't seem so much like a boy anymore, but something darker, almost eager for a battle. Abby was troubled again, and this time she knew why - he seemed more the centuries-old vampire than the boy she wanted so much for a friend.
A little while later, they descended, and returned to the hotel. Abby didn't want to talk anymore; she had so much to think about, and she knew there was one more night she could come to see Timmy. He insisted on having Rudy drive her at least part of the way home, and she relented. Flying was so physically tiring, and made her hungry quicker than she liked, needing to fill the physical void that grew inside and could only be satisfied by one thing. She could sit, and think, and not drive herself to hunt again so quickly.
When Timmy called Rudy in to take Abby to Indiana, he turned to her one last time. "Pleae think about what I asked, Abby. Los Angeles. My home could be yours too."
But only for a short time, she thought. Timmy, Timmy, do you really know what you're doing? Do you really have plan for what you could face?
Rudy said little as he led her down to the garage, held the limo door for her, and then pulled out onto the city streets. That was fine; she was lost in her own thoughts again. But once he was on the highway heading southeast into Indiana, he asked her about what roads he should take, how far they should go. Impulsively, she decided to ask him about himself. Thomas was so closed off from anyone besides herself...how much would this man be wulling to tell her?
"How did you meet Timmy, Rudy?"
"He saved my life, Miss Abby. In Auschwitz."
Dear God. "The concentration camp? In Germany?"
"Poland, actually, miss. Auschwitz is in Poland. But yes...it was 1942. I was a very young man then, one of the "privileged" inmates because I had special talent...I played the violin, and quite well. So the Commandant had me play in a quartet for him. And I..stripped corpses. Trains would come in, and men and women and children would go into the gas chambers, and afterwards there were piles of naked bodies dumped outside. The corpse-strippers were supposed to find anything of value that had been overlooked. Usually gold tooth fillings. We pulled a lot of teeth.
"One day a group of gypsies was brought in, and sent to the chambers, and when I worked among the corpses a hand grabbed mine and I let out a little scream - fortunately there was no one else close by. And the eyes of a young boy opened and looked at me, it was Timmy, and he asked where he was. I almost fainted. Of course no one had ever come out the chambers alive before. Well, he was dead, of course, but not in the way that I expected. I asked how he had survived, and he simply said that he was a vampire."
Abby listened in utter horror to this matter-of-fact tale; it was certainly nothing like what she had expected.
'He had been going by the name Emilio then, living with a gypsy family, and you know the Nazis hated gypsies almost as much as they hated Jews. A million of them died in the camps. He had been performing on the streets with his adopted family and their clan or group, in Czechoslovakia, when the SS did a round-up. And so we met there, he because he could not die, and I because I could play the violin. So I found him some discarded inmate's clothes, and after that I saw him around the camp. Every few days some guard saw him and decided he had been overlooked by mistake,and...well, he went to the chambers more than once. I always brought him some clothes afterwards.
"Then one day the Commandant decided to hang me, and guards dragged me right off the stage where I had been playing with the quartet, and the Commandant told the others to play on, and they did. They put the rope around my neck that afternoon, and just as they were about to pull the lever for the trapdoor, 'Emilio' leaped out of the crowd. His nails had become claws - he slashed the ropes, and pciked me up, I had no idea he was so strong, and leaped right over the fence in front of guards and inmates alike. I heard a few shots, but they must have been too stunned to aim very well. He carried me into the forest, and when he stopped I asked why he had saved me. It was because of my music...he liked the way I played. I was babbling with gratitude, saying that I owed him my life. 'So you do, Rudy Lydick, and one day I will come back for it' he said. He left me there, in the forest, miles away from the camp and the soldiers, and I escaped."
"He left you? But then...when did you get back together? And come here?"
"In 1961. I had finally gotten permisison to emigrate from Poland, and shortly before I was to leave, Timmy turned up one day. It had been 19 years and I had almost convinced myself that it had been some bizarre dream or hallucination, that I had been driven crazy by my experience in the camp. 'I have come for the life you owe me,' he said. He wanted to come to America too, you see, and he needed an adult to do it. Needed me. He said he would pose as my son for a couple of years, but that was all that was possible, and then...well, I would help him, with whatever he needed. So...here I am."
And are you happy? Abby thought. Happy, with him? Is Thomas still happy? He was, I know he was, what has happened to us?
"I know he has asked you to go to Los Angeles with him." Rudy continued. "Will you?"
"I..I don't know...I couldn't decide, not yet. Tell me something, Rudy...do you think he is taking too many risks, putting himself in too much danger? What do you think, about what he is doing?"
Rudy was silent for a few seconds. Then he asked "Do you know the story of Icarus?"
"Yes, Greek mythology." I really am an expert on Classical mythology, she thought. "He and his father made wings of wax and feathers. But he flew too close to the Sun, and his wings melted, and he fell and died."
"Timmy...he thinks he is invincible, Miss Abby. The daylight cannot hurt him now, and he has survived so much, and lived so long. He fears nothing, and is determined to prove that he can live on his own terms, be adored by millions, have adults do what he says because he is rich and famous. And so he flies too close to the Sun...he will fall, and I will try to catch him, because I owe him everything." A pause. "But it would help, if he had others...close to him..to hold him back from going too far."
You want me to go with him, I can see that much. Ahead, she saw a sign for a rest stop by the highway. "Rudy...we're close enough to my home, now. I want to go the rest of the way on my own. Tell Timmy I will come see him tomorrow, and give him my answer."
"As you wish, Miss Abby." He smoothly pulled into the rest area, and once again held the door for her. She darted off into the ring of trees that surrounded the stop, then past them and through them, and began to race across the fields toward home. But she had lied; she already knew her answer; she would not go. She had realized why, despite having a friend now, someone who could accept her, it still did not feel right.