“I guess, but—”
“We put a lot of work into this party, didn’t we, and after I promised you I wouldn’t let Jessica ruin it, I think it’d be a shame to let your fears ruin it. Don’t you think?”
Slowly I nodded. “You’re right.” It was incredible how Icka had gotten to me with her “warning” and now I was seeing disaster everywhere. Interpreting every coincidence as a sign of doom. Well, I wasn’t going to let her destroy my birthday party from afar by making me paranoid. That wasn’t fair to me and Mom and all my guests. “I’m going to go have a good time.”
“That’s the spirit! Here, take a sugar cookie with you.”
She pressed the warm cookie into my hand and gently pushed me toward the door.
I bumped smack into Quint in the hallway.
“Hey, you!” I’d completely forgotten about him. Beaming a cheesy smile in his direction, I said, “Check it out…you were totally right about the boots.”
“Nice.” He didn’t smile back but folded his arms across his chest. “I was waiting on that frickin’ couch half an hour. Did you walk to the mall, buy those boots, and come back?”
“Sorry…” I winced and mentally added ditching him to my growing list of not-nice actions. Exhibit Q. “I didn’t mean to take so long.” Think of a vague excuse to spare his feelings. “I got held up by some drama.” Quint shrugged, his mind giving away nothing. I squirmed. It was hard to reconcile his icy demeanor with the sweet boy who’d showered me with candy and compliments earlier. There had to be something I could say to bring that Quint back. I thought of his earlier Whispers. Maybe he still wanted to flirt with me.
“Quint?” I dropped my eyelids halfway, made my voice lower, breathier. “I’m really glad to be talking with you again. Let’s go sit on the couch together like before.” He raised his blond eyebrows as if to say, You must be joking. “This time I won’t take off,” I added quickly. “Promise. I’m all yours,” I’d never flirted so brazenly before, flipping my hair and tossing off cheesy lines. But all I could think of was making things okay, making Quint smile again, making him like me again like before.
He swallowed, then shook his head. “I think maybe you are drama,” he said, and stalked away.
I dug my nails so hard into my palms they left red half-moons. The phrase “made a fool of myself” kept repeating in my head.
It went on like that for another two hours. I would approach someone, or they’d approach me, and I would have no clue what to say or do. The awkward silences piled up around me, wounding the vibe of the room till I would be forced to take a chance—make a guess at what was the right thing to say—and then screw things up even worse.
By midnight, I was so on edge that when the living-room lights dimmed suddenly, I actually gasped and wondered if I was losing my vision as well. I felt extra stupid when I saw Mom gliding out of the kitchen carrying my birthday cupcakes with all the candles lit. Everyone started singing “Happy Birthday” to me, and at the end they burst into spontaneous applause. I hung my head. After yelling at my sister, kissing my best friend’s crush, and acting like a jerk all evening, I was getting applause.
I heard Ben’s deep voice urge me, “Make a wish!” For a crazy moment, I thought about wishing Ben would kiss me again. Then Parker at his side added, “And don’t tell us what it is!” and it was that way she’d added onto Ben’s sentence…it spelled “ownership” as clearly as if she’d kissed him in public. I could wish that Parker would stop liking Ben, but even then she’d already liked him so long it’d be awkward for me to date him. I’d have to wish she’d never liked him in the first place. It seemed dumb to waste a birthday wish on something impossible.
The whole room was staring at me. I was taking too long. I could hear the buzzing of human voices but no words, nothing clear. No Whispers. I couldn’t think of what to wish for. I just tried to concentrate on blowing out all the candles, even though without a wish there was no point.
Guests started to drift off soon after that. Instead of presents, I’d asked people to donate in my name to Heifer International, this organization that buys farm animals for poor families all over the world. (Of course, half the people got me presents too because people never listen about stuff like that.) Mom had gone to bed, so Parker read off the grand total of how much my friends had contributed to H.I. for my birthday present: $385.
More applause and I heard people say nice things about me, which made me feel uncomfortable because I knew now they weren’t true:
“Oh my god, Joy’s such a sweetie!”
“She cares about helping people.”
“I can’t believe she gave to charity instead of getting presents!”
I saw Ben looking at me with admiration in his eyes. I didn’t know what he was thinking, but I bet it was some version of “What a sweet, kind, unselfish girl.”
Nobody here knew me at all.
10
Seconds after the last guest left, Parker kicked off her heels and tied Mom’s frilly retro apron over her dress. Armed with a Hefty Cinch Sak, she zipped around our living room, loading the bag with plastic cups, plates, cans, and napkins.
I trailed behind her, halfheartedly dunking a cup here, a can there. “How can you have so much energy still?” I complained. “It’s like being friends with Wonder Woman.” My cheeks were sore from holding up my smile all evening.
Parker shrugged at the compliment and went on stacking cake plates. Her mind stayed silent, closed. I stared at the back of her head, a strange fear pounding in my chest. What did that shrug mean? Had she gotten suspicious about Ben? Was she irritated at me for some other reason? Without my Hearing I felt as helpless as a person suddenly blind, at the mercy of those around me.
“Thanks for everything you did today,” I told her. “You made it a great birthday.”
“Hey, you’re my best friend.”
Right, I thought. And I should start acting like it. How many kind words cancelled out a betrayal? How much praise and admiration would I have to heap on her before I’d feel less guilty about wanting to kiss Ben a hundred more times? I had a hunch it didn’t work that way, but after making a fool of myself all night I was almost scared to say anything that wasn’t positive and harmless. “This place looks a hundred times cleaner,” I said, bending to DustBust under the couch cushions. “You could put Merry Maids right out of business.”
Parker bit her lip. “Must be in my blood,” she muttered.
Shit. I could have kicked myself. Before saving up the money to open her nail salon, Parker’s mom had been a maid. It was one of those things she didn’t know I knew, an example of how my Hearing had brought me closer to my friend than she herself would let me get. I’d been so concerned with trying to get on Parker’s good side and not making a fool of myself, I hadn’t stopped to think how my compliments would make her feel.
Normal people lived in blissful ignorance of how often they stuck their foot in it. Maybe I would too, I thought. Maybe that would be the silver lining, if I was—gulp—losing my Hearing forever.
Which I wasn’t, I reminded myself. Mom had said it was nothing to worry about. I tried to re-center my thoughts on positivity, but the silence was like empty space, and my mind was all too eager to fill it up with scary thoughts.
We tidied, vacuumed, and loaded the dishwasher without another word.
It wasn’t until we were in the bathroom brushing our teeth and washing off our makeup that Parker turned to me and asked, “So what’d you and Quint talk about?” She said it casually, but in a sly tone, as if Quint and I were having a torrid affair. Was she hoping we were? Or had she changed her mind about matching us up, like Quint himself had, apparently? Without my Hearing, I didn’t want to commit to anything.
I stalled by swishing mouthwash around for forty-five seconds instead of thirty. “We just talked about science, and, you know, some other stuff.”
Parker nodded patiently and smiled. “And…?” she prompted. “Any sparks?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, is there potential for sparks?”
“Um.” I looked away. Was there any harm in conceding “potential”? It just meant possibility. Leaving the door open. “Sure,” I said, shrugging. “There’s potential.”
Parker beamed. “I knew it! Call him tomorrow and then call me.”
It almost sounded like an order, and I felt myself bristle, just like I had when she told me the silver boots weren’t “me.” Calm down, I thought. That’s just how Parker talks, she’s direct. I usually like that. Besides, I have no right to be mad at her. I was in the middle of forming a noncommittal open-ended reply when she gasped and grabbed my arm. I felt one of Parker’s famous subject changes coming on.
“Oh my god, I have to tell you my ideas for the recycling club!”
“Yeah, tell me!” I said, happy to be off the hook about Quint. Though, I couldn’t help thinking there was something odd about extolling the virtues of recycling when we’d just packed a landfill with soda cans.
She breezed on. “So. I was thinking Ms. Phelps for adviser…. Weekly meetings…one activity per weekend. And we can meet on Tues—no, wait. Wednesday? No…” She frowned. “Yeah, Tuesday or Wednesday.”
Normally I didn’t second-guess Parker’s plans. But it occurred to me, as it must have been occurring to her, that there was no way she could fit running a new club into her already tightly packed schedule. But I didn’t want to sound unsupportive. So I just kept swabbing my face with a toner-soaked cotton ball.
She squeezed toothpaste onto her brush. It was purple, like almost everything she owned. “Whatever,” she said as if to herself. “I don’t have to be at all the meetings.”
It was my turn to frown. “You don’t?”
“Mmm-mmm!” She brushed, spat, rinsed, and finally said, “See, that’s the coolest part of the whole plan. I wouldn’t be the club’s president. You would.”
I shook my head, probably harder and more times than strictly necessary. “I’d like to help you, I mean, if you want me to, but—”
“Joy, I want to help you this time.” She smiled at me. “I know how to run a club, so I could advise you, but you’d be the official president. You need something like this,” she said flatly. “No offense, but…it’d be good for you to polish up your transcript. I mean, how are we going to be roommates at Stanford if you don’t get accepted?”
I stared at her. I couldn’t see myself as president of anything: running meetings, breaking tie votes, making speeches…the thought made my heart race in an unfun way. And I’d never cared about puffing up my transcript with activities because Mom had always made it clear she’d be perfectly content if I went to U of O, like she and Dad did. But none of that mattered. What I felt more than anything else was an immense sense of relief. Parker wanted to be roommates. College roommates—Mom was still friends with hers, Icka and I even called her Aunt Joyce. Parker wanted to be my friend for life. Everything was still okay between us, better than okay. Even though I’d kissed Ben. The universe had taken away my Hearing, maybe, but it was giving me a second chance to be a good friend.
“We will be roommates at Stanford,” I assured her. “I’ll get all A pluses if that’s what it takes. I’ll even do that stupid SAT prep course my dad wanted Icka to take.”
“I’ll loan you my PSAT book,” Parker said, grinning.
Two magazine quizzes later, she settled into my bed—I always take the sleeping bag when she comes over because she can only fall asleep in a real bed—and pulled the covers up to her nose. I lay inside the too-warm bag trying not to make noise even though I felt like tossing and turning. As Parker drifted off to sleep, her breathing the only sound in my head, I started to feel alone, and scared.
I’d tried to relax and enjoy my birthday party, tried not to think about Hearing, but alone in the dark I could no longer deny my fears. Something was wrong with my Hearing, had been wrong since the sledgehammer headache with its crunching static took over my mind. What the hell was happening to me? The thought of losing my Hearing, permanently, was almost too much to think about. When Aunt Jane returned from her decade in the woods, she’d lost more than just her Hearing. She’d lost everything. Would I lose all my friends, lose people’s respect? When I grew up, would I be unable to cope in a job or a marriage?
Hearing was how I knew how to relate to people. What to say. What to do. How to be normal. Back when I could only Hear clearly by touching someone, I’d been awkward and shy around everyone but family. Would I have to go back to being that Joy?
Wait a minute. What if I could still Hear by touch, right now?
Slowly I rose to my knees and crawled over to Parker’s sleeping form. A ribbon of moonlight lit up her small, sharply pretty features. Her face had grown so familiar to me, and yet asleep she looked like a different person. Her twin, perhaps. Relaxed jaw, unlined brow, and those intense eyes turned to off. My hand snaked out and touched the top of her head. I felt the heat of her body, her life stirring behind those closed eyes…but no sound.
I sighed.
“What the hell are you doing?” Parker’s eyes were no longer closed.
I stepped backward as if from an angry dog. Busted. “Sorry, I just…erm, you know.”
“No, I don’t know. You’ve been acting really weird tonight, Joy! What’s wrong with you?”
“Uh…” There was almost no rational reason for me to be standing over her sleeping body, holding her head. So I picked the one thing I knew would excuse me, my Get Out of Jail Free card from the Bank of Parker. “There was a spider.”
It worked almost too well. She screamed like a banshee and danced madly across the room in her nightshirt. “Where? Ew, ew, where did it go? Did you kill it?”
“No, it ran off.” I waved vaguely toward the back wall, but she’d already flipped on the big light and was pacing.
“We have to find it, okay?” she pleaded. “Joy, you have to kill it, Joy. I cannot sleep—like, ever again—unless you kill it for me.” She hugged herself. “Please don’t let it get me!”
“Don’t worry,” I said, feeling like the worst friend in the world. “I’ll kill it for you.”
“Thank you, Joy!” Parker sounded about six. Guilt stabbed at me for the second time tonight. Not only had I betrayed my best friend, but now I’d roused her from sleep and whipped her into a frothing hysteria. Even Icka wouldn’t have sunk that low.
For the next few minutes, I conducted an FBI-level investigation in search of the alleged spider…while Parker chewed on her French manicure in the doorway.
“Are you sure it was on me?” Was that suspicion in her voice, or just terror? God, how did regular people survive without Hearing? “Wait.” Her eyes narrowed. “How could you tell in the dark?”
“I know I saw something…”
That’s when I spied him, a baby daddy longlegs in the far corner, behind the bed. He was just chilling, trying to look inconspicuous. No way was I going to kill this cute little guy. He wasn’t even a real spider. Not to mention, I wasn’t real big into killing stuff in the first place, though I wasn’t as extreme about it as Icka (who for six weeks ate nothing but fruit and nuts so the green blood of dead plants wouldn’t stain her hands, as she put it).
“Maybe you just thought you saw something.” Irritation was definitely back in her voice. “Imagined it. Trick of the light.”
I stared at the daddy longlegs. It stared back at me. I swallowed. “Found it.”
“You did? Oh, thank god. I can sleep now.”
I prayed she wouldn’t come and look, and maybe I could pretend I’d killed it. But the funny thing about Parker is that as much as she fears spiders, she always wants to look at them too. She tiptoed over.
“Oh my god…it’s huge and gross.”
I bit my tongue.
She dashed to the bathroom and returned with a wad of toilet paper, which she handed me with a wide-eyed expression of respect and gratitude.
The daddy longlegs d
idn’t have the sense to move before I smushed him with the tissue. As I carried the little murder victim to the toilet for his ceremonial flushing, I told myself he was probably almost dead from starvation anyway. I probably did him a favor. I scrubbed my hands and tried hard not to think of Icka and her ravings about plant blood.
Parker had already tucked herself into my bed again. When she saw me, she clasped her hands to one side and with a faux Southern drawl cried out, “Ma-a-ah hee-roe!” Then she cracked up.
Now that I’d saved her from giant spiders, things between us seemed back to normal. Even though things within me were very far from normal.
I wasn’t aware of falling asleep, only of waking up.
And what woke me was the unmistakable sound of dreaming Whispers. I should explain. When people dream, they express longings just as much as when they’re awake, only most of the time it doesn’t make any sense outside the dream.
I want to rule the ocean, Parker was Whispering as I came to on the floor. It was daylight. I wish I was Queen of the Indian Ocean and ruled over all the sharks.
I breathed a sigh. I was back, really back. I could have hugged Parker, but it probably would have woken her up, and I didn’t want to have to kill anything this morning.
I could really go for a banana split.
My ears perked up. That was actually something I could get her. We still had all kinds of stuff from the party: ice cream, whipped cream, nuts, cherries. I knew we had bananas because Icka was always going on about potassium. But just before I was out the door, I heard her Whisper one more time:
I wish I could trust Joy to stay away from Ben. I hope she knows he’d never actually go for someone like her!
I blinked. It was a dream, I told myself. People Whisper all kinds of things in dreams. I mean, she wanted to be Queen of the Indian Ocean.
But it wasn’t just a dream.
And I’d never Heard Parker—or any friend—Whisper something negative about me. I mean, wishing I would walk to school faster was one thing, but nothing really bad. My stomach felt cold. She was right not to trust me. Until yesterday I didn’t think I was capable of being disloyal, and deep down I still carried an image of myself as a model BFF. But Parker had seen through me. On a gut level, she sensed Joy Stefani wasn’t as nice as she seemed to be, at least not anymore. I wiped my clammy palms on my pj bottoms. The universe had given me back my Hearing, but now it was taking away my friendship.
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