The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball

by Risa Green

  Eric raises his eyebrows, and he looks surprised by the criticism. But then his mouth slowly breaks into that one-quarter grin. “That’s funny. My drummer said the same thing.” He narrows his eyes at her just a little, looking more intrigued than ever. And who could blame him? Even I’m amazed by her coolness and confidence. Plus, she has Aiden right where she wants him. I suddenly have the feeling that I’m in the presence of a master, and I watch, wide-eyed, waiting to see how she’s going to manipulate this situation to her advantage.

  “These are my friends,” she says, suddenly. “Erin, Jesse, and Aiden. Jesse’s a huge fan.”

  My mouth drops open. She knows that Aiden is a huge fan too. Aiden is the only reason that she even wanted to come, and she’s acting like he’s not important. She’s acting like he’s not even here. Like she doesn’t even notice that he has his arm wrapped around her like a python. Although I’m starting to think that that’s kind of the point.

  “Rock on, man,” Eric says. He makes a fist with his hand and holds it out toward Jesse, who fist bumps him back. “You want me to sign your shirt?”

  Jesse looks like a kid on Christmas morning. “Yeah. That’d be awesome.”

  Eric motions to the guy with the earpiece, who is still hovering nearby. He quickly produces a black Sharpie from his front pocket and hands it to Eric. Jesse turns around and bends forward slightly, and Eric leans on his left shoulder, writing with the Sharpie on his shirt. When he’s finished, he hands the pen back to the guy with the earpiece, then looks back at Samantha.

  “Me and the guys were thinking about going to an after-party at a club downtown. Do you want to come?”

  An after-party? At a club? I wonder how old he thinks she is. She definitely could pass for eighteen, but twenty-one? I don’t think so. I hold my breath as I wait to see how she’s going to get around this one.

  “I don’t know,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “I think I’m in the mood for something mellower tonight.”

  Eric’s eyes dart back and forth from Samantha’s face to Aiden’s hand curled around her waist, and it’s obvious that he’s having trouble figuring out the situation.

  “I can do mellow,” he says with a shrug. “But I gotta know first, are you with this guy or what?” he asks, nodding toward Aiden.

  Apparently he’s finished making small talk and if it’s not going to happen with Samantha, then he wants to hurry up and find someone who it is going to happen with before all the rest of the groupies take off. Samantha tilts her head, as if she has to think about it.

  “I don’t know,” she answers. She tosses her hair and then slowly turns her face toward Aiden. “Am I with you?”

  Aiden smiles. “Hell, yeah.”

  Samantha turns back to look at Eric. “I guess I am.”

  Eric raises his eyebrows. “Good for you, man,” he says to Aiden, giving him a grudging nod of respect. Then he looks pointedly back at Samantha. “We’re playing here again this summer. In case, you know, you’re ever not with him.”

  Samantha smiles coyly. “Good to know.”

  ***

  Outside, the full moon is hanging so low in the sky that it looks like a prop in a school play: a wooden cutout painted iridescent silver, suspended from the sky by invisible nylon cords. The four of us walk out to the parking lot together, Aiden and Samantha slightly ahead of me and Jesse. Aiden has his arm draped across Samantha’s shoulders, and Samantha is laughing and squealing. Every few seconds, Aiden pulls her toward him. To be honest, their PDA is making me feel a little uncomfortable with Jesse right next to me, sort of like how it is when I’m watching a make-out scene in a movie with my parents. Except…

  “What is that about?” Jesse whispers to me after their, like, fifteenth kiss. I roll my eyes and shake my head.

  “It’s a long story. Not even worth your time.”

  When we finally get to Aiden’s car, Aiden pushes Samantha up against the passenger side door and makes out with her, his hands traveling up and down the sides of her body. Ew. I clear my throat loudly. Aiden stops kissing Samantha and gives me a sheepish grin.

  “Right,” he says, reality dawning on him. “You guys came together, so you’re gonna need a ride home, aren’t you?” I nod at him, and Samantha grabs onto him by the belt loops of his jeans. “That’s cool. Not a problem.”

  I will admit that I am slightly surprised by this. I was definitely expecting him to throw a tantrum about having to give me a ride.

  “It’s all right,” Jesse says, stepping in front of me. “I can take her home.” Aiden looks at the two of us as if it has just occurred to him that we might be together, and he shoots me a concerned, big-brother-ish stare.

  “Is that cool with you?” he asks me.

  Again, not the Aiden I thought he was, and I can’t help but wonder if maybe I’ve got him all wrong, and maybe Samantha isn’t crazy for liking him so much.

  “It’s fine with me,” I answer. “I just need to talk to Samantha for a second. Alone.”

  Aiden steps back and bows a little, holding his hands out as if he’s making way for the queen. I grab Samantha by the arm and pull her away from the car.

  “Can you believe this?” she whispers giddily. “That ball is amazing. It totally worked! He ditched Trance to hook up with me, just like I asked!”

  I sigh. “Samantha, I will admit that he is being particularly nice to us right now, but are you really sure you want to do this? Just remember, he hasn’t technically broken up with Trance. They only got into a fight.”

  She looks at me like I’m crazy. “Are you kidding? He’s going to forget all about Trance. And don’t forget, it’s working for you too. You’re going home with Jesse now, so you’re going to get to kiss him. And see his hot body, remember? It’s perfect.” She plants a huge lip-gloss-sticky kiss on my cheek and starts to walk back toward Aiden, but I stop her.

  “There’s just one more thing.”

  “What?”

  I sigh. I hate that I feel like I need to be Samantha’s mother. It’s really not a healthy dynamic for a teenaged friendship. But her own mother just seems so incapable of doing the job, so…

  “Listen, just be careful, okay? Don’t do anything that you might regret in the morning.”

  Samantha looks at me like I’m a lost cause and shakes her head, annoyed.

  “Thanks a lot, Captain Buzzkill. Way to ruin the moment. Do you want to tell me how babies are made too?” I must look as hurt as I feel, because Samantha immediately leans in and gives me a hug. “Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean that. I’m just so excited about everything that’s happening, and, you know, I mean this in the nicest way, but you’re always so serious and responsible, and it’s kind of a downer. I mean, you just crowd-surfed! Go with that. Take a breather from being the voice of reason for once. Even if it’s just for tonight.”

  “Okay,” I say, trying to be peppy but still stinging.

  Aiden honks his horn impatiently.

  “Coming!” she yells, as she runs back to the car. She opens the passenger door and slips in, and Aiden leans over and kisses her again, grabbing the back of her hair. Samantha puts her head on his shoulder as he starts the engine, blowing me a kiss as they drive away.

  ***

  “Are you okay?” Jesse asks, once we’re in the front seat of his car, heading toward the highway. Now that we’re alone together, a heavy awkwardness has settled in, and the small space between us in the car feels more like a gulf. I so badly want to sidle up next to him, the way Samantha did with Aiden. I want to fall against him and breathe him in, and I want to feel his heart beating under his T-shirt, fast and hard, like mine is. But it just seems too contrived now. Plus, in spite of the earplugs, my ears are still ringing from the concert, and my head is throbbing from replaying Samantha’s words over and over and over again in my mind.

  “Yeah. Why?”
/>
  Jesse chuckles. “I don’t know. You’re just clutching the door handle, and you like you’re going to be sick any second.”

  I look down at myself; I am clutching the door handle. God, I am such a dork. I remove my hand from the door and slide over—slightly—toward him. I remember a romance novel that Samantha once stole from her mom about a housewife and her hot gardener. I didn’t quite understand what the narrator meant about the “sexual tension” that was always between them, like when she was sunbathing by the shimmering pool, caressing her smooth, tanned legs with oil, while he was kneeling just a few feet away from her, plucking the soft petals of the fading blooms with his strong, nimble fingers. Oh my God, it was the cheesiest thing ever. But boy, do I understand it now.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I’m fine.” Jesse looks up suddenly, like he’s just had an idea.

  “Hey, what time do you have to be home?”

  I glance at the clock on the dashboard. It’s ten-fifteen. “Eleven-thirty. How come?”

  He smiles. “I want to show you something.”

  ***

  A few minutes later, we pull up to an old, run-down, rambling white house with an enormous wrap-around porch. The paint is peeling off of the wood and the floorboards are littered with rusting chairs and a couple of swings that hang from the rafters. Above the doorway is a white wooden sign that reads, “The Mansion House Inn, est. 1923,” in a neat, fading script. I can’t imagine what we’re doing here.

  “What is this?” I ask as he turns off the car headlights.

  He smiles secretively. “You’ll see.”

  We both get out of the car and he motions for me not to slam my door, so I close it as quietly as I can.

  “Come on,” he whispers. “Follow me.”

  We tiptoe around the perimeter of the house, until we come to a flimsy-looking wire fence. We follow it for about fifty yards, and then Jesse stops. He crouches down and puts his hands against the fence, feeling for something.

  “Here it is.” He pulls on the wire, and a section of the fence opens out toward us, revealing a hole just big enough for a person to crawl through. He holds it back with one hand and puts his other hand out, motioning for me to go through. “After you.”

  Warily, I examine the hole. “I don’t know. Isn’t this trespassing?”

  Jesse laughs. “That’s right. I forgot that you were a rule-follower. Do you remember the time in fourth grade when Joey Forlenza said he was going to steal our lunch money? Remember how fat he was? I told you to run. But you wouldn’t do it, because there was a rule that no running was allowed in the hallways. And he got you, and he stole your lunch money, just like he said he would.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t remember that…”

  Jesse nods, still laughing. “Yeah, you do.”

  I can feel my face turning red. I’m glad that we’re outside, in the dark, so that he can’t see.

  “Trust me,” he says, motioning to the fence. “It will be totally worth it.”

  “The last time you told me to trust you I ended up being passed around a mosh pit on my back.”

  “And you had fun, didn’t you?”

  I hesitate, not wanting to admit it. As I contemplate the hole, I hear Samantha’s voice echoing through my head again. Take a breather from being the voice of reason for once. Even if it’s just for tonight.

  Okay, fine, I think. But just for tonight.

  I get down on my hands and knees and crawl through the hole, pretending not to hear Jesse as he cheers me on, softly clapping in the night.

  We make our way down a fairly steep embankment. After I trip on a tree stump and nearly kill myself, Jesse takes my hand to help keep me steady.

  “Where are we going?” I ask him for the thousandth time, and for the thousandth time he tells me that I’ll see.

  Finally, after at least ten minutes of me clutching onto Jesse’s hand for dear life, we reach the bottom. In the moonlight, all I can see is something that looks like steam, rising up from a pile of rocks. It’s beautiful.

  “What is this place?”

  “It’s a hot spring,” he tells me, still holding onto my hand even through we’re on stable ground now. “It’s one of the only ones on the entire east coast. It used to be a popular swimming hole in the 1800s. In 1884 they closed it to the public and put a sanitarium here. Doctors thought that sitting in the hot water could cure arthritis, so people came from all over the country for treatment. In the 1920s it was shut down and turned into an inn that’s been run by the same family ever since. But now the family is down to one old lady in her nineties, and she stopped taking in guests about fifteen years ago. And what’s crazy is that hardly anybody remembers that the hot spring is even here.” He bends down and picks up a stone, then tosses it into the water, where it lands with a soft pling. “I’m sure the second she dies, some developer will rush in and turn it into a health spa or a fat farm or something stupid like that.”

  I shake my head in awe. “How do you know all of this? And more importantly, why do you know all of this?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m just interested in history, I guess. I like knowing about what things were like before I was here to see them for myself.” He unclasps my hand and bends down to untie his shoes. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s go in.”

  “Go in? There?”

  “Yeah. The water’s, like, a hundred degrees. Think of it as the original Jacuzzi.”

  I stare at him like he’s crazy as he kicks off his shoes. Oh God, I think nervously. Is he going to get undressed? Is he expecting me to get undressed? Because I’m not. No way, Jose. I quickly turn around so that my back is to him, but I can hear the fabric of his T-shirt rubbing against his skin as he lifts it off, and I almost faint as I hear the ziiiip of his jeans.

  “You can turn around,” he says, but I stay where I am and shake my head, too nervous to say anything. Too nervous to breathe, even. “It’s okay,” he laughs. “I’m not naked or anything. Jeez. What kind of a guy do you think I am?”

  Finally, I exhale. Well, that’s a relief. For a second, I wasn’t sure what was going on. Slowly, I turn around to face him…

  I let out a little laugh. His boxers have red chili peppers all over them, and the chili peppers are wearing dark sunglasses and smiling huge, toothy smiles.

  “Come on,” he says, stepping into the water. “You have to come in. If you’re going to trespass, you might as well take full advantage of the property.”

  There’s a part of me that wants to go in so badly it hurts, but a boy swimming in boxers is not the same as a girl swimming in her bra and underwear. Especially when the girl wearing the bra doesn’t have anything to fill it with.

  “That’s okay,” I tell him. “I’ll just wait here. You have fun.”

  He dunks his head under the water, then pops back up again and leans his elbows on a rock next to where I’m standing.

  “Please?”

  I hear Samantha’s words echoing in my head again: Thanks a lot, Captain Buzzkill.

  “I don’t think so, Jesse. I’m sorry.”

  He bats his eyelashes dramatically. “Pretty please? With sugar on top? I promise I won’t look, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  You just crowd-surfed at a punk rock concert. Go with that.

  I don’t answer him. Instead, I start undoing my studded belt.

  “Yes!” he says, pumping his fist. “I knew you had it in you.”

  “Just turn around,” I order, dropping my skirt to the ground and pulling off the sleeveless hoodie, then the T-shirt, and then, finally, removing my shoes. I dip my toe into the water. It really is like a Jacuzzi.

  “Can I turn around now?” he asks, once I’ve slid into the water up to my neck.

  “Yes. You can turn around now.” He turns, slowly, and faces me, his black hair slicked flat a
gainst his head, his blue eyes blue even in the dark. He reaches out and puts his hands on my bare shoulders, and my whole body trembles.

  “So, you’ve never been to a punk concert before, have you?”

  Uh-oh. I guess my head-banging wasn’t all that convincing. I press my lips together and shake my head in mock shame. Jesse smiles.

  “And you don’t really like the Flamingo Kids, do you?”

  I shake my head again, trying not to laugh. “How’d you know?”

  “Um, let’s see…the outfit was the first tip-off. Not that you didn’t look good, but most people don’t get quite so dolled-up for a concert at the Corridor. But I knew for sure when you said you like the pit. No girls like the pit.”

  “That’s a little chauvinistic,” I tease.

  He raises his eyebrows and grins. “Oh, really? So you did like the pit, then? Should we go back for our second date?”

  “Okay, fine. I hated the pit. I felt like I was in a bad movie, in one of those rooms where the walls are closing in all around me.”

  We both laugh, and then his face turns serious again.

  “It’s funny, you haven’t really changed at all in the last two years, but somehow, you’ve changed completely,” he murmurs. “Do you know what I mean?”

  I nod. “I could say the same thing about you.” I lift his right hand off of my shoulder and turn it over, so that I’m looking at his wrist. I study his tattoo in the moonlight. It’s some kind of a word, but it’s not written in English. It looks like Hebrew maybe, or Arabic.

  “What does it say?” I ask.

  “It says ‘truth.’ It’s Hebrew.”

  “What does it mean?”

  He smiles. “It means that I should never forget who I am. That I should always do what feels right, and not what everyone else thinks I should do.” I trace over it with my fingers. His skin feels soft and raised just the slightest bit along the edges of the ink. He lifts his wrist out of my hand and puts his fingers under my chin, tilting my face up toward his. He looks so deeply into my eyes that I feel like he must somehow know everything that’s going through my mind. And then all of a sudden my eyes are closed, and he’s kissing me, and I’m kissing him back. This is amazing, I think. Everything is falling into place, just as the ball predicted.