by Risa Green
But the worst part is, lately, Megan’s been getting even meaner. A few months ago, Lindsay found a can of beans sitting on her desk when she walked into homeroom, and just last week, there was a huge picture of Supergirl taped onto Lindsay’s locker, but with a big F written on her chest in thick, black Sharpie and wavy lines coming up from her butt…as if to depict, you know, a wafting odor. And everyone is so afraid of becoming Megan’s next victim that people who used to be friends with Lindsay just stay away from her now. Even boys have been avoiding her. Samantha and I are the only stalwarts. Lindsay and I have been best friends since preschool, and I’m not about to abandon her because of an idiot like Megan Crowley. And Samantha…well, Samantha just doesn’t care. She thinks that everyone at our school is a loser anyway.
But it’s a shame, because Lindsay is really cool and funny—not to mention super-cute. (Just don’t ever call her that to her face, because she’ll launch into a diatribe about how “cute” is not exactly a compliment, unless you’re a puppy or a newborn baby.) She’s short (though she prefers the term “petite”), but she’s got a great body and she already wears a size 34C (okay, I’m jealous). She has thick, perfectly straight chestnut-colored hair with natural red highlights that never frizzes, not even in the middle of August, and she’s got crazy blue eyes that are so blue that strangers sometimes stop her to ask if they’re real or if she’s wearing colored contact lenses. And that dimple, of course. You could bury treasure in that dimple, it’s so deep.
If Megan had just been absent that day in eighth grade, or standing on the other side of the locker room, I know Lindsay would be way popular now. Although, the truth is, I’m not really complaining. I know it’s selfish, but I kind of like that Samantha and I have her to ourselves.
***
A long, thin finger of lightning cracks open the sky and, for a moment, my room lights up like it’s the middle of the day in August. I realize that I’m going to have to ask my mom to give them a ride home. I can’t let them go out on bikes in this kind of weather.
“Oh, I totally forgot!” Lindsay suddenly announces. “Speaking of Megan Crowley, wait until you guys see what I bought.” She goes over to her backpack which she dumped next to my door and pulls out a brown paper bag. “I know this is going to work. I just know it. It’s the top seller for eradicating evil.”
Samantha and I roll our eyes at each other. That’s the other thing about Lindsay: ever since this feud with Megan started, she’s gotten progressively more new agey on us. First it was protective healing crystals and sacred essential oils, and then it was tarot cards and runes, and God only knows what she’s discovered this time. She found this place in town called Ye Olde Metaphysical Shoppe (yes, its real name) and whenever Megan Crowley does something really mean, Lindsay goes there and blows her entire allowance on whatever the crazy lady behind the counter says will help. Samantha and I are both convinced that Lindsay and Lindsay alone is keeping Ye Olde Metaphysical Shoppe from filing for ye olde bankruptcy. But hey, whatever works.
Lindsay opens up the paper bag and pulls out a small doll made from what appears to be old dishrags. It has blond hair made from yellow string, it’s wearing a badly sewn, miniature replica of a GCHS cheerleading uniform, and its eyes have been sewn shut with black thread in the shape of small x’s. “What is that?” I take it from her and turn it over in my hands.
“It’s a voodoo doll,” Lindsay answers excitedly. “Of Megan. I sewed her eyes shut so that she can’t see me coming. And now,” she pulls a small pin cushion out of the paper bag and removes a sewing needle from it, “I’m going to stick this in her mouth, so that her tongue will hurt whenever she’s about to say something mean.” She pushes the needle through the doll’s red lips, and it emerges out the back of its head. “There,” she says, smiling with satisfaction. “Take that, biyatch.”
Samantha and I both laugh.
“Okay, really, that is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen,” I tell her. “Please tell me that you don’t really think that this is going to work.”
Lindsay lets out a heavy sigh, as if I’m the one who needs to be reasoned with. “You’re so closed-minded,” she says. “Why can’t you just accept that there are things in this world that aren’t concrete? Veronica says that people like you are just threatened by the idea that you can’t control everything.” (Veronica being the crazy lady behind the counter who, apparently, has received her Ph.D. in armchair psychology.)
“I’m not threatened,” I tell her. “I’m logical. And sane. You should try sanity some time. It feels pretty nice.”
Lindsay pretends not to hear me, gazing into the x’s where the doll’s eyes used to be.
“Let me see that,” Samantha says, reaching out for the doll. She takes the pin out and sticks it through the top of the doll’s head. “Oooh,” she says, in a falsetto, Megan Crowley voice. “It’s a good thing I don’t have a brain, or that might have hurt!”
Lindsay and I giggle. Samantha tosses the doll back to Lindsay, who carefully removes the needle and puts it back through the doll’s mouth.
“Lindsay, you should talk to my mom. She’s becoming more and more like you every day,” Samantha says, flopping down on my bed. “Seriously, did I tell you? She just started seeing a psychic. Madame Gillaux. She does readings for all of these celebrities and socialites, and my mom flies her down from New York every other week. Because, you know, why give your money to starving children in Africa when you can spend it in so many other, more important ways? Anyway, last week, Madam Gillaux said she saw a baby in our family’s future, and my mom totally freaked out and made me go to the gynecologist, and now I’m on the pill.” Samantha tosses her hair back. For a second, she seems a lot older than sixteen.
“Really?” Lindsay asks, laughing. “But you don’t even have a boyfriend.”
“Thank you, Lindsay, for reminding me,” Samantha groans. “But don’t worry. I will. Aiden is going to see the light and dump that fleabag slut of his one of these days. And when he does, I will be ready. And, thanks to Mommy Dearest, protected from unwanted pregnancies.”
I shake my head. Aiden Tranter is a somewhat popular junior—emphasis on “somewhat.” In my opinion the only reason that Samantha is even interested in him is because he has absolutely no interest in her. In fact, he totally hates her. Ever since he got his license last year, his mom has been forcing him to drive Samantha to school every day, because Samantha’s mom doesn’t want to have to get up at the crack of dawn to drive her own daughter herself. (Or, as Samantha would say, she needs to get her ugly sleep.)
The thing is, Aiden lives two blocks from school and Samantha lives in this fancy, gated neighborhood that’s, like, fifteen minutes in the other direction. So Aiden has to get up extra early in order to pick up Samantha and make it back by 7:30 a.m. It’s a completely ridiculous arrangement; there are tons of other kids who live closer to Samantha, not to mention tons of boys who would gladly drive three hours every morning for the chance to sit in a car with her for twenty minutes. But Aiden’s mom is a social climber, and she desperately wants to join the snotty, exclusive country club that Samantha’s parents belong to. So Samantha got her mom to promise Aiden’s mom that if Aiden would drive Samantha to school every day, she would put in a good word with the membership committee.
Meanwhile, Samantha turned sixteen three months ago. But she keeps failing her driving test on purpose just so that she can continue to get rides with Aiden. Which only makes Aiden hate her that much more.
Personally, I don’t see what the big deal is about him. He always looks like he just rolled out of bed, even when he’s trying not to look rumpled. And he’s got to be dumb because there’s no way that even a remotely smart person could tolerate his girlfriend, the aforementioned “fleabag slut,” for more than five minutes. Her name is Trance Jacobs. (Yes, really. Trance. And this just occurred to me: Maybe she should get a job at Ye Olde Metaph
ysical Shoppe?) I tutored her in math last year. The girl just could not understand the concept of a fraction unless I put it in terms of sale prices at Wet Seal. “You should get a voodoo doll of Trance,” Lindsay suggests. “Or else a love potion! If you can get three drops of Aiden’s sweat, you can do the one that activates his pheromones. Veronica swears that after any guy has drunk her famous love potion, he will never look at another girl ever again.”
Three
The phone rings before Lindsay has a chance to slay us with another one of her Veronica-isms, and I lunge for it.
“Hello?” I say into the receiver.
“Is this Erin?” asks an unfamiliar woman’s voice on the other end.
“Yes. Who is this?”
“I’m a friend of your aunt Kate’s,” the stranger informs me. “Could I please speak to your mother?”
My aunt Kate. Now there’s a name I don’t hear very often. Aunt Kate is my mom’s younger sister, and they have what my mom describes as “a complicated relationship.” Complicated as in they haven’t spoken to each other in over a year.
According to my parents, when I was a baby I couldn’t say the word Kate, so I called her Kiki instead, and that’s what I’ve called her ever since. Even today, I would never refer to her as my aunt Kate. She will always be Kiki. Although my dad calls her my aunt Kooky, because she’s always doing weird things like running off to live in an ashram or becoming a vegan or joining a Native American tribe and changing her name to She Who Communes with Water.
Still, she’s fun to hang out with. Or at least, she used to be, back when she and my mom were still on speaking terms. In the summers, I used to go to her house in the afternoons, and we’d spend hours on the porch, working on the New York Times crossword puzzle together. She’s the one who taught me how to do them in the first place. She used to say that I’m a lot like her, even though everyone else says that I’m exactly like my mom. Smart. Rational. Black and white. Stubborn as hell. Actually, come to think of it, my aunt Kiki is stubborn as hell too. I guess it runs in the family.
“Yeah, hold on a second,” I say to the woman on the phone. I open the door to my room. “Mom,” I yell. “Phone’s for you.” I deliberately leave out the part about Kiki because I don’t want to get into a whole explanation when I have none.
“I’ll be right there,” my mom yells back.
When she picks up the phone, I hang up and stand at the top of the stairs, hoping to eavesdrop a little on the conversation.
“Yes?” I hear her say. And then she says it again, but this time her voice is tight and tense. “Is something wrong?” she asks.
By this time, Lindsay and Samantha have come out to join me in the hallway and they nod as I put a finger to my lips.
“What?” Her voice is filled with alarm. Suddenly, I’m nervous. Lindsay looks at me and I shrug. I can only imagine what Kiki did this time. I just hope she didn’t get busted for smoking peyote again, because the judge warned her that he wouldn’t be so lenient if he ever saw her in his courtroom again.
Then my mom starts to cry.
Now I’m officially freaked out. Mom never cries. Ever. She’s a pediatrician. She sees sad, sick kids every single day, so she’s trained herself not to get emotional about anything.
Example: when I graduated from preschool, our class sang “The Circle Game” by Joni Mitchell. If you don’t know the song, the chorus goes like this: The seasons they go round and round/something, something, up and down/We’re something, something, something, time/We can’t return, we can only look behind. Okay, so maybe I don’t remember all of the words, but my point is, imagine a group of five year-olds singing some sentimental song to their sappy parents while wearing tiny little mortar board hats. I’m telling you: Mom had the only dry eye in the house.
“Okay,” she whispers. “Thank you.” I hear a beeping noise as she hangs up the phone, and then a heavy thud.
Four
When I get downstairs, I find my mom lying in a crumpled heap on the kitchen floor.
“Mom! Mom, are you okay?” I check to see if she’s breathing, which she is, and just as I shout for someone to call 9-1-1, she lifts up her hand.
“No, don’t. I’m fine. I mean, I’m not fine, I’m just…you don’t need to call an ambulance.” I’m not sure if she hit her head when she fell, so I check for signs of a concussion, just the way she taught me.
“What’s your name?” I ask her. “Are you nauseous?”
She pushes herself into a sitting position, then waves me away. “I didn’t hit my head. I just, I just, oh my God! Kate!” She starts to sob, right there on the floor.
“What happened? What did that woman say?” But my mom just shakes her head. Now I’m the one who’s starting to feel nauseous. I’ve never seen my mother act this way. “Mom, come on. Tell me what happened.”
“She’s gone.” The words stick in her throat.
“What?” My heart is pounding, working overtime as my brain tries to comprehend what she’s telling me.
“They found her outside in a field, with a metal umbrella. The lightning…” she lets her sentence trail off, but I don’t need for her to finish it. I get it. My aunt was struck by lightning, and now she’s dead.
In freshman science we learned that in just the few milliseconds that a lightning strike lasts, it delivers four hundred kilovolts of electricity. In other words, if it hits you, nine times out of ten, your heart is going to stop immediately. And if you do somehow manage to survive, you’ll have deep burns at the point of contact, as well as a host of medical problems ranging from respiratory distress to brain damage.
I picture my aunt’s body being electrified. I wonder if she was afraid. I wonder if she even had time to think about being afraid.
“What was she doing in a field?” I hear myself ask. Aside from a swimming pool, the dumbest place to be during a thunderstorm is in an open field. And the dumbest thing you can do while in an open field during a thunderstorm is carry a metal object. Everybody knows that.
Mom just shakes her head. “I don’t know. Her friend didn’t tell me much. She just said that they found her about an hour ago, and that the EMT declared her dead when the ambulance arrived. She wanted to be cremated, and there’s going to be a memorial service on Wednesday.”
Lindsay and Samantha clear their throats uncomfortably and I spin around. I had completely forgotten that they were there.
“Dr. Channing, I’m so sorry,” Samantha says.
“Um, Erin, I think maybe we should go,” Lindsay adds.
“No,” I shout, not really meaning to raise my voice. “You can’t ride your bikes home in this. Especially not after what just happened. Please, my dad will be home any minute. He can drive you. Just wait for him.”
Lindsay and Samantha look at each other, and Lindsay bites her lower lip, just like she always does when she’s about to agree to something she doesn’t want to do. My eyes are welling up with tears and I open my mouth to say something, but I don’t know what to say. All I can think is, How is this happening? How can Kiki be gone?
The garage door opens with a low rumble.
“There,” I say, feeling relieved that I have something else to focus on for a minute. “See? He’s home. Come on, let’s go upstairs and get your stuff.”
We trudge up the steps in silence, the three of us wincing as we hear my dad opening the door, and then my mom telling him what happened. She’s crying again.
“This is so crazy,” Samantha whispers, putting her arm around my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
I nod, even though I’m not. It all feels surreal, like it’s happening to someone else. Someone in a movie that I’m watching. A bad movie.
“I…it’s just, I haven’t even seen my aunt in almost a year,” I stammer. My throat is clogged. “It’s just weird, though. It doesn’t make any sense. I mean, Kiki was a lot of thin
gs, but stupid wasn’t one of them. Why would she go out into an open field, with a metal umbrella, when there’s been thunder and lightning going on for days?”
Lindsay starts to say something, but then hesitates.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she says. “It’s totally inappropriate under the circumstances.”
“What?” I ask again. “Just say it. It’s me.”
“Okay, well, I was just thinking that it’s kind of a coincidence, how you were just saying how boring your life is and that nothing ever happens to you, and now, you know, just out of the blue, this happens.”
I tilt my head, unclear as to where she’s going with this. I notice that Samantha does the same thing.
“So what’s your point?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I’m just saying, like…maybe you conjured this,” Lindsay mumbles. “It’s all very strange and mysterious. Maybe you conjured the whole thing. Like…maybe this happened so that your life could become more interesting.”
I glare at her. I know she meant for that to come out differently, but still. I try to swallow, but the golf-ball-sized lump in my throat makes it difficult.
“So, you’re saying that I’m responsible for my aunt’s death just because I happened to mention that I think my life is boring and that I can’t come up with a good reason for why I want to go to Italy this summer?”
She opens her mouth and closes it.
“You’re right,” I snap, and I can feel my eyes stinging. “That was totally inappropriate. Do me a favor? When you’re in the car, don’t say anything like that to my father, okay?”