Dangerous Scaffolds
Winter, 6 years before
“ M omma, tell me you didn’t,” I whine, begging this to be a joke.
“I did. You need to finish getting ready. They’ll be here soon!” She says, shooing me away, back into my room to get changed.
“Why… why would you do this?” I ask, incredulous at her audacity.
She knows we’re not speaking, that we haven’t for years, even if I’ve never told her why. She knows we don’t talk about Dellbrook, or Boston, or especially the Poe boys. So why, on the day of my 21 st birthday, would she invite them here?
“Because Evangeline,” she sighs, fed up with my tantrum. “They are your oldest friends. This is a milestone for you and besides your birth, they have been at every big marker of your life. It seems only fair to, at the very least, invite them to this one as well.”
Her words are too calculated, and I know that underneath them she’s hiding something.
“Liar!” I exclaim, knowing the distaste she feels at the word. “You are not that sentimental, and I am not that stupid. Why did you really invite them?” I beg .
Her mouth is straight as an arrow, but surprisingly, she answers.
“Don’t talk to me like that. I am your mother. Show me a modicum of respect.” She releases the last breath of resistance she’s been holding. “I didn’t. Paxton has been calling me for months, hinting and then downright begging that they be included in tonight’s festivities. Who am I to tell him no?”
Paxton wants to be here. Oliver wants to be here. My stomach turns in excitement and dread. It feels like a betrayal to the delicacy of my survival to allow them back in, but my heart has always been a traitor. Bubbles lift me onto my toes as I kiss Momma’s cheek, letting the excitement spill out and away from the fear.
“You’re right. I need to get ready.” I dash into the bedroom before she can respond. As I close my door, I see the flit of disappointment she has at my eagerness. I know I should be disappointed in myself and maybe, after tonight, I will be. But right now, the stubborn rock of hope is lodged too deep.
I take longer than I should primping myself. I don’t want to admit it’s all a show, a blatant sign that screams look how good I’m doing and don’t you wish I was yours? The curled hair and dark kohl are there to hide the emptiness I’ve felt in the middle of the night when I’m replaying what went wrong again for the millionth time. Thick mascara and ruby red lips distract from the fact that I haven’t let myself love anyone else because that would mean there was less of my heart to give to them. I wrap myself in all the ways I’m better, now.
I want Oliver to burn with regret at his silence and have him beg me to forgive.
I only know they’re here by the exclamation of Paxton’s name from Momma’s startled cry. I’m smiling timidly, catching the shadow of Paxton picking her up in a hug and spinning her around from my open door. It’s unkempt and playful in a way that I’m sure Momma doesn’t expect from a Poe. I try not to race down the hall and into the living room where they’re standing.
Paxton dwarfs my mother, making her look frail and far past the age she is. My head swivels around him to peek out to the apartment hallway, unable to hide my interest in who else may be darkening it. The light in me dims when I find it closed and no one else in sight. Paxton must notice, too.
“Oliver isn’t here. Yet. I told him to meet us at the bar. Now come here so I can get a look at you!” He says, turning the full of his attention on me.
Oliver will be here soon . I can’t help but throw up my arms in a ‘ta-da’ stance to Paxton, as if I am a prize on display, easily slipping back into who we used to be. He laughs as I hoped he would, time melting between us, as if it never existed at all. Will it be like this with him, too? I know it won’t, that Oliver’s a different beast and it will take feeling every second missed to come around. But there’s a beauty and an excitement in that, too.
Paxton whistles in appreciation.
“You look happy, Eve,” he says.
And I am. Tattered edges that have been ripping since the summer I lost them are ready to heal. I can feel the new pages already binding in, allowing for the world to begin again.
I take Paxton in for the first time in years. He doesn’t feel as much of a stranger as I imagined. Probably because we’ve had a few letters and telephone calls. I’ve seen him on social, the few times he’s posted, even if he never knew the abstract account was me. But to see him in the flesh feels electric and I cannot look away, even if I wanted to.
He’s broad, with the dark, handsome face the family is known for. While he looks as familiar as always, he feels different. Confidence has taken over where expectation used to rule. I would bet he’s found a stylist outside of the Poe name, by the way he’s dressed to the nines in bright purple button down and black and purple pinstriped pants that are so incredibly him .
His presence is still conflicted, on the edge of aggressive, as he’s known, but there’s a new anxiousness to him too. He plays with his watch, like it’s new, and he’s reached for his phone three times even though he leaves it in his pocket. I decide to leave it be.
“You do, too,” I say, and he smiles.
We sit in the moment, just staring, where I can see nine-year-old Paxton Poe making a startling jump from a tree, taunting me with this same smile. He claps his hands together, startling me back into the living room with my mother.
“I’m sorry to do this, Isabel, but I’ve got to steal her away now or we’re going to be late!”
He hugs Momma one more time and whisks me out into the streets of the city. The sidewalks are lively with the decorations of December, and there’s a chill in the wind causing me to tug my coat tight to my chest. Paxton doesn’t seem to be affected in the slightest.
“How have you been? How is school? You’re still going to school, right?” he asks .
“Yeah, I’m still going. I’ll be going for the rest of my life at this point. I’m applying for graduate school next year at NYU,” I tell him.
“You’re actually going to do it, aren’t you?” he asks. “Wow. I don’t think we’ve ever had a librarian in the family. Which you’d think, given our history, someone would have.” My chest coils at the word family , squeezing tight against the old hopes, pains, and fears I’ve kept locked away. I laugh instead, needing to ward off the drag of sadness that’s creeping ever closer.
“Yeah. I’m going to do it.” I stop, turning to the building we’re about to walk by. “Isn’t this the place?” But Paxton keeps walking, oblivious to my frozen form. I hurry to catch up before he crosses the street without me.
“Pax wait up!” I yell, but he keeps up his pace.
By the time I catch up to him, he’s standing in front of a door, to what looks to be a very busy restaurant, looking at his phone. He’s frowning down at it when I push into his shoulder.
“Hey! What was that?” I ask, frustrated by his odd behavior.
“Sorry! I know we’re meeting your friends for your big bash, but I wanted to get a drink alone with you before that. We haven’t seen each other in so long. I just need you to myself for a little while.” I look at him, eyeing his bashful expression with suspicion.
“One drink?” I ask.
“Just one. Promise.” He grabs my hand before I can answer, hauling me past the hostess.
The inside is split in two. On one side, the tables are dispersed around a stage and the other is set up as a speak-easy. Paxton pulls me to the lounge, passing us by the couches and beelining it for a black silk laced booth in the back marked reserved . He lets go of me so that I can slide in.
“Well, this is very on brand,” I say, picking at the parts of him I know are loose. I’m going for the teases of our past, but it comes out too trying, almost harsh. I can’t take back the words now, so I lean into them and let the silence hold their weight instead.
He eyes me. “It’s tradition. Besides, it’s one of the only places that serves even a decent drink.”
I groan. Anyone else would rage at his words, especially in New York. You can throw a rock and hit a bar all the way down each borough, each special in their own way. But he isn’t talking about just any drink.
“Paxton, no,” I plead, as a waitress sets down two sickly yellow glasses in front of us .
“It’s tradition ,” he emphasizes, pushing one glass toward me while taking a sip of the other.
“But I hate eggnog and I highly doubt that’s going to change just because you’ve added alcohol to it.” He looks at me sternly, tapping the glass in finality.
“You know, this was Edgar’s favorite. We all have had to drink this on our 21 st year. You will not be an exception in the face of generations of compliance. Can you imagine the embolism Alexander would have?”
I sigh, knowing there’s no way I’ll get out of this. The liquid swirls as I pick it up and take a quiet sip, letting the thickness run over my tongue. I work to ignore the eggnog and instead focus on the vanilla and the sweet burn of cognac. My lips wrap around the rim to take another drink just to appease Paxton and the spirits of his bloodline.
He smirks. “See? Not that bad.”
I set the glass back down, ready to address the missing black hole between us.
“Will Oliver be having one too? Or was he smart enough to insist on meeting us at the party?” I try to keep the desperation out of my voice, but know that I fail. Paxton loses his good humor, the dimple of his left cheek expanding back into creaseless skin.
“Actually, Eve, he isn’t coming.” He’s looking at his fingers that haven’t stopped turning his watch.
“Oh.” It’s all I can say. Of course, he isn’t. I was a fool to believe he would. I knew better than to think a few years and hundreds of miles between us could bring him back. I have been na?ve to keep my life on hold for the insignificant possibility that he still loved me. That we could be star crossed and not die alone in the end.
“I tried. I did. I thought he was going to agree, that he’d show up morose and gloomy and Oliver. I guess I was wrong,” he says, dejected.
“It’s okay. I should’ve known better. Honestly, it’s my fault for getting my hopes up,” I tell him, struggling not to cry.
Paxton grabs my hands in his. They’re warm and large, feeling of safety and home.
“No. It isn’t your fault. He’s being stubborn. You know him. You know us . And he’s stewed on this long enough. He’s written his poems and his stories. Locked himself away from the world. Now it’s time we all sit down and face this, so things can be how they’re meant to be. How they were always meant to be,” he says.
His words are a march. A call to action. A rally to the troops. And if I had been even a year younger, I might have answered it. Might have schemed and plotted and allowed him to create the riddles that needed solving so I could run his mazes back to Oliver. Back to Dellbrook. But today has reminded me of the cost of time and I’m unwilling to rot in the poverty of my future for the Poes.
“No. Paxton. I can’t do this anymore. I’ve spent all my life running after you boys, dreaming and wishing and wanting to be something I’m not sure that I am. Or can be. Oliver has accepted that, moved on from it, and I think it’s time you do, too. That we both do.”
“Eve, he hasn’t, though! If you only saw—” he tries, frantic. I cut him off.
“I’ve seen enough!” My voice raises to a level unbecoming of public, so I bring it down before continuing. “It’s enough, Paxton. I’ve given enough. It’s time I learned to live with this open wound. And now there’s a group of people who have constructed what little of a life I’ve allowed them to, waiting for me. I owe them the courtesy of showing up.”
I slide out, pausing to stand in front of Paxton Poe for what feels like the last time. I let my love and pain and all the emotion I’ve trapped go just long enough for him to see that I mean what I say. Then I bend down and hug him close, hoping he knows how much I love him.
He grabs me back tightly, then whispers into my hair, “I promise I’m going to fix this. I swear it. On my life, Evangeline Pierce. I’m going to fix it.”
I straighten, determined to not let his parting oath affect me, even as it chips off another piece of my heart. Before I can take anything back or change my mind, I turn my back, one last time, on the Poes, and the life we had.