The flavor of pride is nasty and bitter. I woke with it in my mouth the next day as I realized that Helga had convinced me to spend the whole day with my parents in the park with my own kids and her and Grandpa. I found breakfast that day unusually hard to swallow. It didn't help that I had a lot of things on my mind. Like where to find three more renters. Like whether or not I would or could ever get a job or go to college like most of my classmates. Or that I still had the engagement ring I had bought for Helga four years ago in my wallet. I had kept it on my person every day for the last four years but was too scared to give it to her since she had bolted on me the last time I had talked of marriage.
It seemed things were endlessly complicated between us. Helga liked to play hard to get and so I was stuck between my fears that I would come home to the boarding house one day and find it empty and my fantasies that Helga and I would grow old together in this same house. And during this time of crisis in my life, my parents were here to complicate it further. I knew if I didn't at least put on a good show for Helga, my girlfriend and mother of my two children would be precariously angry with me.
But I could thank the lucky stars for my Grandpa. Yes, the angels must have left him here on earth to help me because he was there in my face first thing in the morning with a cup of coffee and a shish-kabob stick which had belonged to his own father. Grandpa and I had used it once to pry open the locket with my picture in it which, it turns out, had really been Helga's. Since Helga had moved in with me I had got her to spill a great deal of the secrets she kept and I had been allowed to read the locket's inscription. "Arnold, my soul, in my heart forever." It was those lines that I repeated to myself when I was feeling particularly nervous about my future.
It wasn't like I had exactly planned to have kids outside of marriage. No, originally my dreams had been to go to college and become a scientist like my parents, then get married at twenty-five. Or later. But then my parents had come back into my life and puberty had hit, big time. I was angry and resentful to be ripped away from Helga on purpose when were just friends with a deep and lasting crush for each other.
The day that I had lost Helga had started out ordinary. I was twelve, then, and Helga and I had gone out to play baseball at Gerald's field. But there was a sad truth we were facing. Most of the children we played baseball with were now old enough to join the minor league teams and so they had left Gerald's field for the large parks. On that day, when even my best friend Gerald failed to show, Helga and I had exchanged a single, miserable look. Because if we didn't have our excuse for hanging out together, if we did spend time together, it would be dating. Helga had coughed.
"Well, I suppose I should go home and study," said Helga. "Gotta catch up to old Pheobes." I debated whether that was possible. Helga was brilliant, but Pheobe is a studioholic genius.
"Wait Helga," I had said desperate for her to not turn and walk away from me. Perhaps forever if she never overcame her shyness. "See you at school?"
"Yeah, sure Arnold," said Helga jamming her hands in her pockets.
I had gone home in a miserable state. I brooded as I usually did, with the music turned loud and my couch flipped out so I could rest on it and look up at the clouds roll across the window on my roof. I didn't know what to do. Helga had told me she had loved me once. But then we had both pretended that nothing had happened. So we both still didn't know how the other felt. Except miserable. Yes, miserable, miserable, miserable.
I skipped dinner and dropped off to sleep finally. I woke up at two in the morning to a pattering rain. I watched the thunder roll by then stood up. Something just did not feel right to me. I was restless. So when the rain had stopped I looked out my fire escape to see something glittering and gold in the lamplight. And a bit of pink fabric.
I froze upright, my hands gripping the window ledge stoutly. Then I jumped down to the fire escape as fast as possible because it was Helga. She must have been walking on it again for her mysterious reasons then slipped and fell. A locket with my picture on it lay sprawled beside her hand. But she was unmoving and silent.
"Helga, Helga!" I cried with increasing worry. She did not seem to be bleeding anywhere and when she moaned I was grateful. But the rain had left her soaking and as she came to in my arms, she shuddered violently.
"Where...am..I… Arnold?" she said as her teeth chattered.
"Right here," I had said, my heart aching to see her like this. "You're right here with me. Come on, let's get you inside."
My arms were incredibly muscular from near daily sports, so it was not a difficulty for me to lift Helga bridle style and drag her onto my roof and from there, down onto my bed. Okay, so it was difficult but I managed. Helga was quivering with hypothermia from being out all night in the rain. So I turned the heat dial in my room up to its highest setting and did the only reasonable thing.
"Helga, you've got to get out of those wet clothes," I had said to her as unsuggestively as possible.
"Huh?" Helga had gasped, pulling my bed covers all around her shivering form.
"Here are some of my clothes. They're dry. Don't worry, I won't peek. I'll stand in the closet," I had said throwing her the first set of my pajamas I could find. The plain and blue ones.
"You..had..better..not," said Helga between rattles between her teeth. When I exited the closet a few minutes later, I was relieved to find that she was wearing the blue pajamas. All her water-logged clothes were now making a sizeable puddle on the carpet.
"Helga, are you alright?" I said placing hand on Helga's shoulder. But she was cold as ice.
"No, of course I'm not…. all right!" she managed despite shivering. I sighed. My next words would be tough.
"Helga, there is a way to warm you up. It's survival training. Grandpa told me about it. If you'll just let me and not get angry…" I sighed deeply, certain I was about to get a beating. "Helga, let me hold you."
"N...no!" Helga squeaked turning. My eyes narrowed at her.
"Helga, you're freezing to death! You told me once that you love me and I refuse to let you keep on pretending at a time like this. See?" I said pulling the locket I found on the fire escape next to Helga. It was the heart-shaped locket with my photo in it that I had caught Helga looking at on several occasions. "You will let me hold you!"
Having me hand her 'secret' locket back to her numbed Helga's tongue so well she did not utter so much a squeak of protest as I peeled back all my bed blankets and lay her down to one side. I then took the other side of the bed for myself and rolled all the covers back up around us and took Helga in my arms. I was too worried about Helga to consider the moment to be romantic. She shook fiercely from the cold and it was a full half hour before her icy skin, so unpleasant to touch, began to glow with warmth again. I kept my chest pressed against hers the whole time, conducting heat. I was relieved when the shuddering stopped and turned to shivers, then weak sneezes. Helga sat up and tried to press herself away.
"I should go home," Helga said, her mind in disarray. But I worried for her yet.
"You should eat something. I'll dry your clothes. Wait here and I'll be back." So I snuck downstairs to the boarding house kitchen to make Helga a bowl of soup. I went down to the basement, too, and threw Helga's pink dress and unmentionables in the dryer. When both were done, I crept up the dark boarding house stair to my room.
Helga must have still been feeling terrible because she had not tried to go home. Instead, she huddled with all my covers bunched around her. I set her clothes down on my desk then approached her with the tray of soup. Her eyes glittered strangely in the soft moonlight coming through the window and a now cloudless sky. They were softer and calmer than I had ever remembered them. I did not say a word. Neither one of us said a word as I spoonfed a bowl of tomato soup to her. Then, I lay the tray aside and curled up on the other side of the bed again. Helga did not resist as I simply held her. We looked up at the sky through my window together until we fell asleep.
It was in the morning after that my whole life fell apart. As I recall, it was a school day so when my alarm clock rang, my father was at the door looking in to make sure I had heard it. He saw two blondes and went ballistic.
"I didn't do anything wrong!" I tried to explain to my parents again and again. But to them my story seemed far fetched. They looked at each other with eyes that told me they did not doubt for a second that I was a liar.
"Now, now," Grandpa had said vouching for me. "There's no need to get hysterical. I say we should take Arnold for his word. Besides, even if he was lying, he's a strong, healthy boy. It's only a matter of time before he'd start a romance with someone. I always told him ten. And the boy's twelve now!" But my parents had not been pleased with Grandpa's declaration.
"We forbid you to ever speak to that girl again," they had said with solidarity. "In light of all that's happened, we've decided. We're moving in with your mother's relatives next week. Now, I know this all must be upsetting to you. Why don't you just not go to school today?"
"No!" I said sick with horror at what I was hearing. "Didn't you hear me? I didn't do anything! I didn't do anything! Why don't you believe me?"
"We're only doing what's best for you, sweetie," my mother had said with finality. My father echoed her words. But all I could hear in my head were the words I had never imagined I would someday feel. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!"
I didn't just lose Helga on that day. I lost everyone and everything. Except Grandpa. He decided to pull up stakes and move to the Dakotas with us until my father found a university faculty position elsewhere. We moved to a city even larger than Hillwood had been. But it felt empty of people to me. I had been cut off from everyone I cared about. I did call and explain everything to Gerald. But I was never able to stand in front of my class to say goodbye. I never heard my name on Helga's lips again until the day I turned fifteen.
When I turned fifteen, she floated down the Greyhound bus steps like a dream. She was everything I longed for. Everything I missed. When I had taken her hand in mine and found her flesh real I had never wanted anything to part us again. Especially my parents. It was foolish and selfish what I did. But I was Romeo and she was my Juliet.
So now I was nineteen and unmarried with two kids. But Helga was beside me and for that I refused to be ashamed. Instead, I fought against the storm of the words I had felt so long ago. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!" I began by clearing my throat.
"So, Dad," I said smiling weakly. "Grandpa, Helga, the kids, and I are all going to the park for a barbecue. Did you want to come with us?"
"Of course, son," my Dad had said in that faraway voice he now used with me.
"Oh good," I said nervously. "You and Mom stay here, then. I'll be back in a hour. I'm just going to go down to Harold's and buy some meat."
"I'll come with you," said my father standing up. He kept his hands shoved into his pockets as we both strolled slowly down Vine Street.
"You know," he said casually as we reached the butcher shop which Harold, my old school friend, and his wife now ran. "Back when I was a kid this place was owned by the Green family. Whatever happened to them?"
"Mr. Green's son turned out to be a vegetarian," I said looking in through the glass. "Different people I guess. With different dreams. It happens."
"So it does," said my father, deep in thought.
It was good to see Harold again. I saw him at least once a week, actually. I was a frequent patron to the butcher shop. I saw a lot of Stinky, Sid, and Gerald too, since we played cards often. I took comfort in that thought. I did have friends.
My father and I walked back from the butcher shop with enough meat for five barbeques. I looked up at him as we walked. My father was strong and tall and I remembered how much I had admired him for this when I first met him. I turned out half a foot shorter than he was so I'd never match his height. But somehow I was okay with this. I was just tall enough for Helga and that was all that mattered.
"Look, Dad," I said. "It's nice you've come to visit. It's even, well, nicer that you've been good with my kids. I know it's a bit of a shock to you. I don't expect you to approve, either. Just, thank you, for not starting an argument around them."
"An argument?" my father said dragging a hand restlessly through his hair. "I just don't know how I could have an argument. What's done is done. I suppose it's my fault for not being there soon enough to give you the talk."
"I've had the talk from lots of people, Dad," I said my eyes narrowing. "I know what I've done."
"So," said my Dad letting out a breath that was like a whistle. "What I'm curious about is your future? Do you...have plans for it?"
"Well, it'd be good if I did know," I said ruffling a hand through my own hair. It shocked me all of a sudden that perhaps I had learned this gesture from him. But I continued speaking.
"When I think about the future.. well there's a lot of things I don't know. I want to stay at the boarding house forever, I guess. I'm looking for more tenants so it makes a bit of money. I don't think I'll think about college or jobs until Alfred and Cecil are old enough to go to grade school. I mean, Helga has two jobs. She's too busy to take care of children."
"You really need to marry that girl," my father said softly. I tried not to rage out at him for the comment. He had acted on the opposite opinion seven years ago and ruined my life.
"It's not so easy to marry, Helga," I said with a scowl. "Helga has things however she wants. If she's ready for that I think she'd tell me. I don't want to scare her away again," I said, the bitterness rising in my voice again.
My face was one great big scowl again when I arrived at the garage where Grandpa was loading an ice chest. He saw my face and pulled me aside immediately for one of his unique pep talks. I was grateful for that. When the rest of the family poured out of the boarding house to walk to the park together, I was able to get lost in the crowd. I linked my fingers with Helga's and I was fine enough to get through the day.
We ate a lot of barbecues that month. At times I was able to forget. I was able to heal. Yet it was definitely the case that my parents and I were uneasy with one another. But we didn't forgive or understand each other. That didn't happen until Grandpa fell and broke his second hip and Helga accidentally ate strawberries- and Helga is allergic to strawberries.
ONE MORE CHAPTER TO GO!