"Fine," she says. "But get ready to be wrong." She presses the speakerphone button, followed by the receiver button. "Hello?"
"Hi," he says. "It's me." His voice is coarse, like beach sand.
"How are you?" Drea asks.
Silence.
"Hello?" Drea says.
"Don't ever think you're smarter than I am," he says. "What are you talking about?"
"I know I'm on speakerphone right now. And I know your friends are listening."
"No," Drea says, leaning in closer to the speaker. "It's just me."
"Don't lie to me," he says, his voice stern and cutting. "What do you want?" I ask, looking toward the window, wondering if he's somewhere, watching.
"This is between Drea and me, Stacey. It has nothing to do with you. Besides, I don't believe in witches."
A ten-pound pause drops in the center of us. Our eyes lock. I know we all must be wondering the same thing: How does he know my name?
"Why are you doing this?" Drea's voice crackles. "I thought we were friends."
'And I thought we were much more than friends. At least that's what you said the other night. But since then, you haven't exactly been faithful."
Drea's cheeks pinken, like roses beneath her skin. "Did you get my gift?" he asks.
"Those lilies were from you?"
"Four of them," he says. "For the number of days until we meet."
"Why are you being like this? You Weren't like this before." 'And neither were you. Four days, Drea. I can hardly wait." Click.
"His voice is so familiar," I say.
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"Dial star-six-nine," Amber says.
I press the receiver button down and dial, expecting to hear the operator say that the number is blocked. But instead the mechanical voice chants out the numbers. Amber jots them down on the back of her hand with an eyeliner pencil.
"So now what?" Drea asks. "Call him back?"
"Why not?" Amber grabs the phone receiver. "Let this freak know who he's dealing with."
"No, don't." Drea snatches the phone away and holds it under her leg.
"Why?" Amber asks.
"Just wait," she breathes. "I want to wait." She tucks the phone farther under her thigh.
"Wait for what? If we call back right away he might still be there." Amber dabs a bit of the blue eyeliner from her hand and smudges it onto her eyelid like shadow. "Hey, at least we know it's not Chad now. This isn't his number."
The droning of the dial tone off the hook, muffled only slightly by Drea's leg, plays like a continuous scream between the three of us.
"What do you think he meant by saying you haven't been faithful?" I ask. "Do you think he's talking about your breakfast date with Chad?"
"I don't know anything anymore," Drea says.
"Maybe it is Chad," Amber says. "Maybe he's jealous at the way you walked off with Donovan in the cafeteria. Maybe he's just using someone else's phone."
"Four days," Drea whispers. She dips her fingers into the pot of petals. "How is all this supposed to help me?"
I take the glass bottle from the window and place it in front of her. It's slender, a bit smaller in size than one of those old-fashioned Coke ones, and was once used to hold sea salt. "It's already been bathed in the moonlight," I tell her.
Drea picks it up and fists the base, hard, as though trying to break it in her hands.
"Drea--" Amber reaches out to touch Drea's forearm. "It's gonna be all right."
I squeeze the lemon sections over the pot of petals, the juice drizzling down in pulp-filled drips. I chase the mixture with three splashes of vinegar from the cap and mix it all up with my fingers, the contents of the pot warming in my hand as the petals become saturated.
Together, Drea and I finger the damp and gooey petals into the spout of the bottle, trying to make sure that all the drips make their way inside.
"Here," I say, handing her a small, wooden container that fits in her palm.
She opens it and looks down at the array of shiny pins and needles.
"Put in as many as you think you'll need to protect yourself," I say.
'Are you serious? I'm supposed to stop this guy with some sewing needles?"
"Just fill it," I say. "It's a protection bottle. Keep it close to you always."
Amber and I watch as Drea feeds all the pins and needles into the bottle. When she's done, I tilt the candle over the spout so the wax drips down to make a seal. "Concentrate on the idea of protection. What does protection mean to you?"
"Probably not the same as what it means to me." Amber fans her eyebrows and flashes us a tiny, neon-green package from her Daffy Duck lunch box.
"That's a temporary tattoo," Drea says. "I was there when you won it out of the machine."
Amber looks at it. "So what? It's the thought that counts."
"Shh," I say "Drea, you need to concentrate. What thoughts or images come to mind when you think of protection?"
I look at Amber, busy unwrapping the tattoo package. Inside is a picture of a smiling chicken.
She rolls her sleeve up and presses it against her forearm.
'Amber--," I say.
"Fine." She tosses the tattoo back into her lunch box. "Let's hold hands," I say.
I place the protection bottle into the center and we join hands around it, our bodies forming a human triangle. "Close your eyes," I say, "and concentrate on the bottle. I'll start. When I think of protection, I think of the moon. I think of nature: rain, sky, and earth. I think of truth."
"My thoughts exactly" Amber peeps her eye open at the same time I do. "When I think of protection," she begins, "I think of armed guards, multiple armed guards, with strong hands, and big, throbbing, masculine--"
'Amber!" I shout.
"Biceps," she finishes. "What else?"
"When I think of protection," Drea says, "I think of my parents, the way they used to be, when I'd sit between
io6
them in their bed, watching movies. When we'd go for walks and each would take my hand.
When they loved each other.... It just always made me feel safe."
I squeeze Drea's hand, sending the gesture around the circle until it comes back to me through Amber's hand. "Bottle of protection," I say. "Help protect Drea through the powers of Mother Earth, guardian angels, and parental love. Blessed be the way"
"Blessed be the way" Drea says.
"Blessed be the way" Amber opens her eyes and hands the bottle to Drea.
"I'm ready now," Drea says. "Let's call."
"I have a better idea," Amber says. She rummages through her lunch box and extracts an address book. "Stace, do you have a student directory? We can find the number and see who it belongs to. If it's someone on campus, it'll be in there."
"There's one in my night table," Drea says. "But there's, like, twenty pages in the directory. That could take forever."
"Well, I have nothing better to do," Amber says.
I pull the campus directory from the drawer and sit beside Drea with the pages sprawled across our laps. We scan down the long rows of numbers while Amber pages through her address book.
"How stupid would this guy have to be to call from his own dorm room?" I say, flipping a page.
"Wait a sec," Amber says. "I have it." She taps her finger over the number.
'Already?" I ask.
-Yeah. It's the pay phone. The one over by the library
"Can I ask why you have pay phone numbers listed in your address book?" Drea asks.
"I just do. You know, in case I ever need it. In case I want someone to call me there. It gets expensive feeding all those quarters in."
"Even though you have a cell phone," Drea says.
"What are you implying?" Amber closes the address book up and tucks it away.
"Seems pretty weird," Drea says. "Some guy wants to kill me and you just happen to carry his number around in your purse."
"It's not his number."
"Stop," I say. "This isn't getting us
anywhere. We need to trust one another. Remember our pact."
I watch as Drea's jaw locks into place.
"I say we go," Amber says. "If this jerk used that phone, he might still be around there. At least in the library"
"It could be anybody" Drea says, looking at Amber.
"Even two people working together."
"Look," I say. "If we all just go over together..." "Fine." Drea clutches the protection bottle.
"Let's go."
fourt-un
Drea, Amber, and I run as far as the O'Brian Building, separated from the school library by a single clay tennis court. I'm not sure how effective this is going to be. Only a complete nimrod would be hanging around the same phone he used to make a threatening call. But I suppose there are plenty of nimrods in this world. I look at Amber, case in point. She's hoisted her skirt up, the wool fabric held between her teeth, and is jumping around, yanking her tights into place.
Io8
-Okay," Amber says, grabbing at my arm. -We need to act casual. You know, like, we're really here to take out a book or something."
"You? Amber 'I-buy-my-term-papers-off-the-Internet' Foley? Looking for a book?" Drea says.
"Whoever it is will know we're onto him as soon as we walk up the stairs."
"For your information, I go to the library at least once a quarter." Amber slides a Hello Kitty pencil behind her ear. 'Am I the picture of studiousness or what?"
"You're the picture of something," Drea says. She moves toward the edge of the building and inches her head out to look. "Oh my god. It's Donovan."
'At the library?" I ask.
"No. He's coming out of O'Brian." Drea pulls her head back and draws in a deep breath. "I think he's coming this
way.
"So what?" I say. -There's no law against hanging out. We'll just act normal."
Drea scrunches the protection bottle into the waist of her skirt and pulls her sweater over the bulge.
"Good choice," Amber says. "Nobody will ever go looking in there."
Normally, Drea would volley a remark back, but instead she backs herself up against the building and starts breathing all weird, puffing in and out.
"Drea, are you okay?" I ask.
She shakes her head and presses her lips together. "What's wrong? Do you think it's Donovan?"
-That's the problem." She blots her eyes with her sleeve. "I don't know who it is. I don't know who I can
II0
rrnist anymore.- She looks at Amber with giant fish eyes, I waiting for a dose of words that will cure any doubt thitnk, she.-. has. Waiting for Amber to explain all over again why she has the pay phone number in her purse.
"But Amber is too busy ignoring Drea to notice. 'Donovan rounds the corner and jumps at the sight of us, praictically wallpapered to the brick. "Jeez," he says. "You guys scared the crap out of me."
"Hey there, Donovan," Amber says, a smile twisting up on iher face.
He nods to her. "What are you guys up to?"
Do you see any guys here?" Amber gives one last good yanik to the back of her tights. "We're women."
-Just hanging out,- I say, though I'm not even sure why I borrier. If Donovan's eyes made brush strokes, Drea would 1001,- like a Picasso by now.
Drea," he says, kneading the toe of his Doc Marten into the dirt. "Are you coming to the hockey game this weekend? I mean with Chad playing and all."
not sure. I haven't talked to him yet.- Drea folds her bancis over the bulge of her sweater and lets out a big breath of air. 'Actually we were just running over to the rarYlib We should really get going."
"sure," he says. "I was just asking because some of us are ;-,onna hang out afterwards. Maybe get something to eat.-Flockey
players and food." Amber takes a giant step to- war, Donovan, landing smack-dab under his nose. "You don't have to ask me twice. What time shall I be there?"
don't know," Drea says. "I might have something to do.
"Another time maybe." His eyes hang on Drea a few more seconds before he moves away, not even bothering to say goodbye to Amber or me.
"Oh my god," Amber says, when he's out of earshot. "He so wants you." She peers around the corner of the building to watch him walk away. "You don't think it's him, do you?"
"I've known him since the third grade." Drea plucks the protection bottle from under her sweater and secures it in both hands.
Amber tilts her head to size up Donovan's assets from behind. "Not bad. I'd say about an eight on a one-to-ten scale. What do you think, Stace?"
"I think I can't believe he still continues to ask Drea out after all these years."
"Painful," Amber says.
"Did you see the way he studied me?" Drea asks. "He always studies you," I say.
"No. It was different today. More intense."
"He is an artist," Amber says. "I just love artists." "You just love everyone," Drea says.
"Do I sense a note of jealousy?" Amber juts her bosom forward. "The boy is fair game. Maybe I'll let him sculpt
55
me.
"I don't think he's into abstracts." Drea kisses the protection bottle and shoves it back into her skirt. "Come on, let's go to the library before I change my mind."
We creep around the side of the building, and even though everything feels as if it's been changed in some way--who we can trust, what we can say, where we can say it--the library appears just as it has on any other day, like a giant brick harmonica dropped down from outer space. The constancy of it comforts me.
We round the corner by the tennis court and there it is. In full view. The pay phone. But it isn't the actual phone we stand there gawking at; it's the person using it.
Chad.
"Oh my god," Drea says. "He's calling home, right? Tell me he's calling his home."
-Right," I say. "Home."
"Right," Amber repeats. "Even though he has a perfectly good phone in his dorm room with an economical calling plan."
"Seriously," I say, "what are the odds that whoever called us would still be on the phone? It could be anybody" I glance around at the swarm of navy-blue-and-green-plaided bodies sitting, stretching, and standing in the quad area.
"Yeah, and maybe if we didn't stop to flirt with Donovan," Drea evil-eyes Amber, "we could have gotten here a lot faster."
"Hey" Amber says, "don't complain. I was just trying to do you a favor."
"Well, don't try so hard next time, okay?"
We continue toward the phone, toward Chad, our eyes burning blisters into his back. He doesn't look like he's talking to anyone, just listening, or waiting for somebody to pick up.
"Chad," Drea says, when we're close enough. "What do you think you're doing?"
He turns and clunks the receiver back down on its cradle. "Oh, hi, guys. What's up?"
"Who were you talking to?" Drea asks.
"Nobody"
"Well, I guess you just hung up on nobody then."
"What are you, my mother?" He flips his notebook shut and stacks it atop the heap of books on the shelf.
"I guess I just don't think it's polite to hang up on someone. That's all."
"Well, not that it's any of your business, but I wasn't talking to anyone. They weren't home."
"Who's 'they'?" Amber asks.
Chad ignores her and looks at me, and I feel my cheeks turn into fireballs. "What's up, Stacer
"Not much," I say, watching his eyes linger at my hips, move past my wobbly knees, and land on my clunky black shoes. Why did I wear socks instead of tights today? I wonder if he notices that the left sock is yanked up at least six inches higher than the right. I cross my legs at the ankle, hoping it offsets how stylistically challenged I am, and glance at Drea. She shoots me a quick dose of the evil eye and then looks away.
"Well," Amber says. "Maybe we should get going." She yawns in Chad's direction. "We were just heading off to the library to study."
"Study?" Chad arches his eyebrows.
"Yeah," Amber says. "You know
, that thing you do with books."
"Really?" He folds his arms at us. "How come I don't believe you? What are you guys really up to?"
"Women, asshole," Amber says. "Not guys. Not girls. Women."
"Don't think for a minute that I don't know what you women are doing here."
"What are you talking about?" I say.
A smile curls up his perfectly kissable cheek. "You came for the Olympics of the Mind meeting, right?" He points to a bright orange flyer taped to the wall, calling all first-time brain athletes into the library basement for a meeting.
"Oh, yeah, right," Amber says. "My brain gets enough of a workout in school. The last thing I want to do is use it after school."
"That explains a lot," Drea says.
I glance at the iron clock in the middle of the quad. It's just after four o'clock, only twenty minutes after the phone call in our room. "When did you get here?"
'About five minutes ago."
"Did you see anyone using the phone before you?" "No, why? What's up?"
"Nothing," I say. "I was just supposed to meet someone here. That's all."
"Really?" Chad's eyes narrow on me. 'Anyone I should know about?"
"Yeah," Drea bursts out, before I can speak. "Our little Stacey here was just waiting for someone. Get the picture?"
"Now get out of the picture," Amber says, fake-smoking her Hello Kitty pencil.
If tearing someone's acrylic nails off, glue and all, and cramming them down her throat didn't look so unattractive, I would probably do just that to Drea right now. She II5
knows exactly what she's doing--burning away any bridge of possibility that exists between me and Chad.
"Three's company" Drea says, twirling a lock of hair around her finger. "So we need to split too, right Amb?" Amber nods.
"I can take a hint." Chad collects his books and leaves, without even one last minuscule peek in my direction. Drea elbows me in the ribs when he's gone. "That totally worked. He so believed you were waiting for someone." "Great," I say.
"So now what?" Amber says. "You don't seriously think it's Chad, do you?"
"He knows something," Drea whispers.
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