Vibes

by Amy Kathleen Ryan

  "I think that whole thing has gotten blown out of proportion, Brian."

  "You're probably right, but we should still talk about it." He takes a deep breath. He seems unsure about something, as if he's trying to figure out what he can tell me and what he should keep private. Finally he launches into it, his voice low and frank, addressing me as an equal—very different from the Brian of Morning Meeting. "When I was seventeen years old, I had a terrible nightmare that my childhood buddy was trapped in a cave under the ocean. He kept calling my name from under the waves and I tried to dive down to save him, but I couldn't fight the current." He squints at me, pausing long enough to let me guess how his story ends. "The next morning we learned he'd been killed in a flash flood."

  "That's awful," I say. Stories like this freak me out. I've never had a premonition about death, and I don't want to.

  "If you talk to people, most of us have had experiences like that. Some more than others." He waits for me to volunteer something, but I keep quiet, so he goes on. "How long have you suspected you were psychic?" he asks.

  His manner is so straightforward, it sort of brings out my honest streak. "I guess it hit a couple years ago."

  "What was your first experience?"

  I'm quiet for a second because I'm not sure I want to talk to him about this, but something in the way he's quietly waiting helps me feel it's okay to talk. "A couple weeks before my dad left, I knew he was going to leave us."

  "And you're the only one who knew?"

  I nod.

  "That's a heavy burden."

  "But I'm starting to wonder if maybe I'm not as psychic as I thought."

  He shrugs, his eyes wandering over the clouds above us. "We all have to live with a measure of uncertainty in our lives," he says. He leans his head back against the tree. "What would it mean if you weren't psychic?"

  "I'll have to go through life guessing."

  "Guessing what?"

  "Whether I can trust people."

  "That's true for everyone, Kristi." He smiles at me very warmly, which makes me nervous, so I focus on the ground in front of me. A little red beetle is crawling up a blade of grass, which bends under its weight, so the beetle just ends up back where it started, on the ground. Brian says: "Trust isn't a black and white thing, you know. Everyone has the capacity to let you down at one time or another."

  "Then why should I trust anyone?"

  "Because if you can't trust, you can't love." His good eye is on me, and he's giving me this look as if he's really trying to reach me. It's so annoying.

  "Gee, Brian, if you put that to music maybe Barry Mani-low will record it."

  He surprises me by laughing deep from his belly. He laughs so hard, I can't help giggling a little with him. Just a little, though.

  During Story as Cultural Artifact I sit in the Contemplation Room, where I'm supposed to be working on an essay about the relationship between Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment and Nietzsche's theory of the Superman, but I can't concentrate. I hear the whisper of an opening door, and Gusty walks in with a notebook under his arm. When he sees me he pauses for just a second, but then seems to make a decision and walks up to my table. He smiles a hello.

  "Hi," I mouth.

  He sits down across from me. My blood is pounding through the veins in my ears and I'm shaking. I have so much to say to him, but I don't know how to start.

  He scribbles something onto his notebook and holds it up for me to read. Let's take a walk.

  I nod, and we both get up and walk quickly out the door. I don't know if our teachers saw us or not. I don't care.

  Gusty leads me out to the front steps of the school and gives me a long look before sitting down. I sit next to him. We're both quiet for a while, but I know it's really my job to begin. "I'm sorry about what happened on Saturday, Gusty."

  "You don't have to apologize."

  "Just the same, I'm sorry."

  He nods, but he still seems troubled by something. I can tell he doesn't really want to bring it up but feels he has to. "I talked to Hildie. About your fight yesterday. A lot of people heard you say some pretty weird things, Kristi."

  I feel suddenly cornered. I expected him to ask about Mallory, not about this. "So? You've never said weird things?"

  He breathes out hard. "Is it true? Did you say you could read Hildie's mind?"

  "So what if I did?"

  "Don't you know how strange that sounds?"

  His face is carefully blank, but I can see the fear in his eyes.

  I hate how he's looking at me. It makes me feel so...sick.

  I want to prove to Gusty I'm not crazy so that he'll never look at me like this again. I probably shouldn't do this because I might not be psychic, but talking to Brian gave me more confidence. Besides, if I have a connection with anyone, it would be with Gusty, right? "Close your eyes," I tell him.

  "Why?"

  "Close your eyes and think of an image. Think about it hard."

  He seems taken off-guard, and I can tell he doesn't want to do it, but then I put my hand over his eyes and he closes them.

  I tune out the sound of the trees sighing in the wind and try to focus only on Gusty.

  At first it feels as if I'm spinning, and I have to take deep breaths. Then I get an image, but what I see makes me feel shy. I wait to make sure it's real, but then I realize there's no way to know for sure anyway, so I just blurt it out. "You're thinking about the carvings behind the shed in your backyard. The ones you showed me that time." I crack an eye open and look at him. He's looking at me, but I can't read his expression. "Did I get it right?"

  His eyebrows crunch together. "I was thinking about that dog we met."

  "Oh." I feel crestfallen, but I try to laugh it off. "So much for my psychic powers."

  Gusty nods slowly, like he's expecting me to start spouting prophecies about the end of the world. "So you really believe you can read minds?"

  I could lie to him and say no, it was all a big joke. But I don't want to. I want him to know the real me. "For a while it seemed like I was unusually ... intuitive. Now I'm not so sure. Do you think I'm crazy now?"

  "I don't know what to think." He shakes his head, bewildered.

  This should make me feel hurt, but it doesn't. Instead, I'm boiling-oil mad. I've had about enough of Gusty Peterson's uncertainty. "Look, Gusty. Either like me for who I am or don't. I don't care anymore, okay?" He bites his bottom lip like he's trying to find the right thing to say, but I don't want to wait around for Gusty anymore. I want to hurt him. "Chicken out a second time. Be my guest."

  I stand up and start to pull open the school door, but I feel a hand on my arm. I turn around to see a seriously pissed-off Gusty Peterson. "You know, maybe I chickened out with you, Kristi, but you haven't exactly been easy to approach!"

  "So your being a coward is my fault?"

  I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't have called him a coward. His face flushes, and a tremor seems to move through him. When he opens his mouth I expect him to yell, but instead his voice goes very deep and very quiet. "I'm the coward? You're completely closed off, Kristi. You sit in an ivory tower, and you pass judgment on everyone else. Because you're the one who's afraid."

  We stare at each other in silence.

  I'm so hurt, I can hardly speak above a whisper. "Well then, I guess you're glad we never got together."

  "I didn't say that." He reaches toward me, and before I can pull away he's buried his hands in my hair and pulled my face toward his. Very softly he says, "I forgive your faults."

  Part of me wants to give in to the plaintive way he's looking at me, but I hate what he said too much. Who is Gusty to forgive me for being who I am? "I didn't ask for your forgiveness. And I don't care what you think of me."

  I pull away from him and walk back into the school building. Part of me wants to cry, but I won't let myself. Instead I calmly walk back into the Contemplation Room, find my table, pull out my chair, and sit back down.

  I am per
fectly calm. I do not care about what just happened. It doesn't affect me at all.

  I'm well into the second page of my essay before it hits me like a punch to the stomach. I told Gusty the truth about reading minds because I wanted him to know the real me. But he does know the real me. I'm judgmental, and I never let anyone too close because I'm afraid.

  Every word he said about me is true.

  MALLORY

  I feel like the scum that grows at the bottom of a dirty shower curtain. I feel like the sponge that mops up the scum and then is left wet on the rim of the bathtub to continue growing the scum. I feel like the starving rat who finds the scum on the sponge and has to make the decision: eat the scum or die?

  I feel awful.

  I keep going over my fight with Gusty, and I can't figure out what it means. He said he forgives my faults, but do I forgive him? Because even if what he said is true, it was still really crappy to lay me open like that.

  Is Gusty the jerk, or am I? Are we both jerks?

  How many things have to go wrong between us before we finally just accept the fact that we're not supposed to be together?

  At the end of the day I'm putting my books away in my cubbyhole when I see Mallory weaving through the crowd. He's carrying two backpacks, one draped over each shoulder, and he seems to be in a hurry. I position myself near the front door so that he has to walk past me. He glances through me for half a second before breezing right by.

  Now I feel like the poop of the rat who has eaten the scum off the sponge.

  Without even thinking about why, I follow him, brushing past people milling in the hallway. I try to clear my mind completely as I walk out the doors into the dim autumn air.

  Mallory is walking fast, and I slink along behind him. He cuts across the park behind Journeys, past the bench where we waited for a victim for our practical joke. I pause for just a moment to touch the graying wood with my fingertips as I pass by. Then I quicken my pace behind Mallory.

  It's windy, and the sky is full of clouds. The leaves sound like crinkling paper when I step on them, and I can smell that beautiful scent of autumn. It's the smell of decay, but somehow it smells so green and true.

  With the leaves twirling around him and his wild orange hair standing up, Mallory looks like a white wizard striding through the park. I have to jog to keep up.

  He turns onto Miller Street, kicking up dust behind him. I'm starting to get a stitch in my side, but I keep following.

  I don't know why I'm doing this. I am too afraid to talk to him, but I want to see where he's going. Somehow I think if I can follow him, I might see some sign that he will forgive me and I can feel a little less sad. But that's stupid. Life doesn't work like that. You don't really get signs. But sometimes hoping for a sign is all I can do.

  Mallory walks a long way down Miller Street, past the little houses that all look alike, with slanted carports and gravel on the roofs. After he crosses Colchester Avenue, he walks by the big houses where the doctors live. Each house is grand in a false way. One is made entirely of stone, another has thick wooden beams, and another looks like the kind of monstrosity Scarlett O'Hara would live in. Finally Mallory turns in to the hospital parking lot and walks toward the front door.

  I know what he's doing. He's going to see Eva.

  I hang back behind a fake ficus tree and watch while he talks to a receptionist with penciled-on eyebrows. She points to the hallway on the left, and Mallory takes off again. I follow behind him, careful not to be seen. He winds through the tiled hallways at a fast clip. He finally stops before a ward that's closed off with two heavy double doors. I hide just around the corner near a cart full of gross-smelling food and listen to his conversation with the receptionist.

  "I'm here to leave some things for Eva Kearns-Tate."

  "Your name?"

  "Mallory St. Croix."

  "I need to see if you're on the list. One moment." I hear the clicking of computer keys, and then she says, "Okay. You need to empty your pockets. I'll give you everything back when you leave."

  "She's not in here for drugs."

  "I still need you to empty your pockets, and I'll need to look through those bags."

  I hear a couple zippers and then lots of shuffling, as if the nurse is sifting through Mallory's backpacks.

  What kind of unit is this?

  Once she approves the backpacks, she gives him something to wear on his wrist and then I hear a loud buzzer go off. Soon I hear the voice of a man say, "Follow me," then the thunk of the heavy doors closing behind them.

  Finally I can peek at the sign on the doors. All it says is INPATIENT WARD.

  What the hell does that mean? Is that for chronically ill people? Does Eva have some kind of horrible disease?

  I know there's one person here I can ask—the chief of surgery. I follow the hallways back to where I came from, looking for the surgery ward.

  I haven't come to my mom's workplace for a few years, but it's still familiar. They have lots of arrows painted on the walls to help patients find their way from one department to another. There are fake plants everywhere that my mom wishes they would take away. It seems as though there's always someone mopping the floor and there's always something beeping and buzzing. When I finally find Mom's new office, I stop to read the nameplate. It says SERENA THEOPHILUS, M.D., CHIEF OF SURGERY in large white letters. The door to her office is open and I poke my head in.

  She is sitting behind a pile of charts two feet thick. She rubs her forehead as she scribbles. In the middle of a sentence she seems to get an idea and mumbles into a little tape recorder. She seems tired and stressed out, but she also seems really competent and smart. For the first time in a long time, I'm proud of my mom for who she is and what she does. She cuts into people to save their lives. She is the chief of surgery in a big hospital. That's pretty cool.

  I wait quietly, watching, until she closes one chart and picks up another. Then I clear my throat.

  "Kristi!" She stands quickly, almost knocking over a big pile of papers. "What are you doing here?" She seems crazy happy to see me.

  I shrug as I take a chair across from her. It's fake leather and makes a farting sound as I sit down. "I just wanted to check out your new office."

  She spreads her arms wide to show off how big the room is. There's a large philodendron drooping over a tall file cabinet. On the wall behind her is a tapestry of a human face composed of different geometric shapes, all in brown. It's very ugly, but it's interesting to look at, too. There's a frame propped on her desk next to her phone. I don't have to look at the picture to know it's a photo of her, me, and Dad that we took for a Christmas card five years ago. I hate how I look in that photo. My face is too round and my eyes are too big, and I'm smiling like a red-faced maniac. I complained about that picture, but Mom loved it because she said everyone in our family looked really happy. It makes me sad that she still keeps a picture of Dad around.

  "It's nice in here," I tell her.

  "It sure beats having nothing but a locker." She leans back in her chair, studying me. Strands are pulled haphazardly from the bun in her hair. "You know, honey, that phone call from Brian got me thinking. Maybe it's time to pull you out of Journeys after all. Give you a chance for a fresh start."

  I can't believe my ears. "Where is this coming from?"

  "Well, you've been complaining about the school from day one. And it struck me as very strange that Brian apologized for a staff member assuming you can't read minds. That seems a little kooky to me." She raises her eyebrows. "How about it? Want out?"

  Now's my chance to escape Journeys forever, if I want to. I'd never have to go back to Explorations of Nature to learn about how Robert Frost informs the study of cellular biology. I'd never have to sit in the stupid Contemplation Room scratching at homework. I'd never have to listen to Brian exuding his joy in life during Morning Meeting. I've been wanting an escape from Journeys for a long time, but suddenly I don't want to leave. It's weird, it's crazy, it's loopy
, but where else would the principal entertain the possibility that a student has psychic powers? It's probably the only school in America where I halfway fit in. "I think I'd rather stay," I tell Mom.

  "Wait!" Mom picks up her tape recorder and points it at me. "Can I get that on tape?" I think she's kidding, but she pushes record.

  To humor her I say very clearly, "I, Kristi Carmichael, still think that Journeys is totally bogus, but I don't want to leave."

  "Totally bogus?" she asks testily.

  "Well, fifty percent bogus."

  "Okay, then." She clicks her recorder off, smiling. She seems proud of me. If I didn't know better, I'd say I can feel it coming out of her. I even get a quick flash of myself through her eyes. For a second I hear her thinking how grown up I look and how pretty, but then I remember I'm probably not psychic after all. Old habits. One thing I do know for sure, though: my mom kind of admires me. At least, she's looking at me like she does.

  I guess I kind of admire her, too.

  But I'm not one to dwell on mushy crap like this. I'm here for a purpose. "I was walking around earlier," I begin, carefully choosing my words. "What's the inpatient ward for?"

  "It's for the mentally ill, mostly. But they have a drug-treatment program there and a clinic for eating disorders."

  "Like anorexia?"

  "Yes, like that." She narrows her eyes at me, suddenly suspicious. She can sense an ulterior motive lurking behind my wide, innocent eyes. "Why do you ask?"

  "Why do people need a clinic just to start eating again?" I ask. Blink, blink, innocence, innocence.

  "Anorexia isn't that simple, Kristi. Don't you know that?" Her eyes trail me up and down, checking to see if I'm starving myself, which is a real laugh.

  "Don't worry about me, Mom. I'm not so caught up in my looks that I'd stop eating just to get skinny."

  Mom grinds her teeth the way she always does when she's offended. "Kristi, people don't become anorexic out of vanity."

  "Then why else?"

  "I don't know. Control? Fear? I'm not a psychiatrist, but I've seen enough organ failure in anorexics to know it kills plenty of people. And it's an awful way to die." She shakes her head, seeming to relive some distant memory of a patient.