Awakening

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  FOUR

  After they’ve eaten dinner and washed and dried the dishes— by hand, no dishwasher here—Odelia announces that she’s going upstairs to take a bath.

  “I smell like a meatball,” she complains, or rather just observes, because that sort of thing doesn’t really seem to bother her.

  Calla smells like a meatball, too, which does bother her. But with only one tub in the house, she’ll have to wait for her grandmother to finish until she can get in there.

  “Do you want me to wash the pots?” she asks, eyeing the big skillet and kettle Odelia has soaking in one half of the double sink.

  “Nah, let everything soak until tomorrow.”

  Calla is struck, once again, by the stark difference between her mother and her grandmother. Mom would have never, ever left a pan in the sink overnight.

  In fact, Mom would have never, ever let food get stuck in one of her pans in the first place—she was as conscientious about cooking as she was about everything else she did.

  There’s only one occasion that Calla can ever recall her slipping up in that regard. It was recently, too—back in March. Saint Patrick’s Day. Calla is certain of the date because Mom had a soda bread in the oven. She made one every year, in honor of Dad’s Irish roots—but only once a year, because she didn’t like to bake with unhealthy white flour and sugar. Dad and Calla always looked forward to that soda bread, eaten with butter and jam.

  This year, though, one of Mom’s coworkers stopped by to give her a packet of information or something, just after she put the bread into the oven. Todd, or Tom—that was his name. Something like that. Calla remembers seeing him at the funeral.

  That day, she answered the door when the bell rang, went to get Mom, and then the two of them disappeared into Mom’s home office.

  Calla remembers the smoke alarm going off a while later, when she was up in her room doing her homework. She ran downstairs to find that the visitor had just left and her mother was frantically opening all the windows in the kitchen, trying to fan out the smoke.

  She was really upset—uncharacteristically so, Calla thought at the time. Mom was usually unflappable. That day, though, she was on the verge of tears as she dumped the burned soda bread, pan and all, into the garbage can.

  Probably because she prided herself on paying the same careful attention to cooking that she did to everything else. And because she had no patience for anyone who slacked off—least of all herself.

  Unlike Mom, Odelia is—well, not so conscientious. About much of anything, as far as Calla can tell. But she’s wildly creative. She put raisins in the meatballs and a pinch of brown sugar into the bubbling tomato sauce.

  “I like things sweet,” she informed Calla, who also likes things sweet . . . but spaghetti and meatballs?

  It was surprisingly good, though. As she dug in, Calla found herself thinking she would have to tell her mother about the crazy recipe, before remembering that (a) her mother only makes a meatless sauce using fresh organic tomatoes, and (b) her mother is gone. Not to mention (c) her mother probably wouldn’t be as amused as Calla is by Odelia’s eccentricities.

  Calla is really trying not to find her grandmother utterly charming, out of vague loyalty to her mother. Stephanie, after all, harbored some terrible, long-term grudge against Odelia.

  But Calla can’t help but get a kick out of some of the things her grandmother does. Not just putting raisins in the meatballs and brown sugar in the sauce, but also throwing a couple of strawberries into the glass of white wine she drank with dinner. Or counting to sixty, nine times—with a Mississippi between each painstaking number—while the pasta boiled to al dente, because her stove clock had broken and she never remembered to buy a new timer.

  Now, Odelia is tucking a couple of cookbooks under her arm before heading upstairs to the bathroom. Seeing Calla’s curious glance, she explains, “I do my best reading on the toilet.”

  “You read cookbooks on the toilet?”

  “Sure,” Odelia replies with a Doesn’t Everyone? shrug. “Listen, help yourself to dessert if you don’t want to wait until I get back downstairs. There are pecan sandies in the cupboard by the stove, and there’s mango sorbet in the freezer.”

  Calla, who isn’t quite sure what a pecan sandy is but happens to like mango sorbet, says, “I’ll wait for you.”

  “Okay, but I might be a while. I like to soak in a nice, long, hot tub.”

  Yes, and read cookbooks on the toilet beforehand.

  “You can entertain yourself, right?” Odelia asks.

  Remembering at last to pose the question that’s been nagging her throughout dinner, Calla replies, “Definitely, and I was wondering . . . where’s your computer?”

  “My computer?” Odelia snickers. “I keep it with my Porsche.”

  “What?”

  “Honey, I don’t have a computer.”

  “You don’t?” Uh-oh.

  I should have known, Calla thinks. But then, how could she have? Her grandmother is a virtual stranger, and Calla had no way of knowing that Lily Dale would be so . . . old-fashioned.

  If only she’d been able to talk her parents into buying her a laptop for her birthday in April, instead of just an iPod. Not that she doesn’t like her iPod, but a lot of good it will do her now, when it comes to staying in touch with her friends back home.

  This is just crazy. How is she supposed to live through a full three weeks without e-mail and the Internet?

  “I thought you had your own computer,” Odelia says. “I remember you being on it in your room an awful lot when I was down there.”

  “I do have one, but it’s a desktop.” Seeing Odelia’s blank look, and wondering how anyone in this century can be so clueless, she clarifies, “It’s not portable—not a laptop.”

  “Oh. That’s a shame.”

  A shame? It’s a crisis, as far as Calla is concerned.

  Really? A crisis?

  Ashamed of her reaction to what really amounts to an inconvenience in the wake of a true crisis in her life, she forces herself to say, “It’s okay, I’ll just learn to live without being online for a while.”

  “I guess you don’t have any choice. Sorry, honey.”

  “It’s okay. At least I’ve got my cell phone.”

  Odelia hesitates, as though she wants to say something about that. Then, thinking better of it, she shrugs and goes upstairs, humming what sounds suspiciously like OutKast’s “Hey Ya!”

  Calla listens. It is OutKast’s “Hey Ya!” Not exactly the most current song, but at least it’s from this century. Now, if Odelia could just update herself on technology as well . . .

  Shaking her head, Calla takes her cell phone from her pocket. Calling Lisa will make her feel better. Wait until she hears about—

  Huh? She raises the phone closer to her eyes and frowns. No service?

  Maybe it’s because she’s in the house. She takes the phone out onto the front porch and checks again. Still nothing. Not in the street, either, or halfway down the block.

  She returns glumly to the house. Now what?

  There’s always her iPod . . . but if she listens to music, she’ll find herself thinking. And if she allows herself to do too much thinking these days, her thoughts take her to dark places. She’ll wind up crying again. She doesn’t want to start crying, because she might not stop.

  She’ll have to keep her thoughts occupied, then. For now, she’ll find something to read and take it out to the porch. She brought along a couple of books from home, but she’s too lazy to go upstairs and get them.

  Too lazy? Come on.

  All right, she’s . . .

  Well, not exactly scared. Just a little . . .

  Spooked.

  Did she see a ghost earlier, upstairs? Did she see one in the cemetery that day? Will she see one again now?

  Does she even believe in ghosts?

  No. Of course not.

  She is, after all, the daughter of a very practical banker who wasn’t big on a
bstract thinking. Mom didn’t go to church or discuss ethereal topics like religion; she didn’t even encourage Calla to believe in Santa Claus, much less God. She didn’t actively discourage it, but when Calla asked if Santa was real, Mom would say things like, “Consider the evidence. Have you ever seen him? Not the department-store guys in the fake beards, but the real thing, sneaking down the chimney in the middle of the night.”

  “We don’t have a chimney.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And isn’t it too hot here for reindeer and a sleigh?”

  “What do you think?”

  Calla wanted to believe in Santa Claus, but she couldn’t find the evidence, so she reluctantly let go. She was six. God, she still believed in—secretly. Because she really needed to. Mom, who liked to equate seeing with believing, obviously didn’t. It isn’t hard to imagine what she’d say about ghosts.

  Alone in the living room, Calla quickly turns on the seashell lamp. Artificial light helps to banish the late-day shadows cast by the dying sun that just barely reaches the windows.

  Seeing a mirror on the opposite wall, Calla walks decidedly toward it.

  Will I see a ghost in my reflection again?

  No. It’s just me.

  There she is, looking like her usual self, if a little thinner than usual. Her arms look bony, sticking out beneath the sleeves of her white T-shirt. And her jeans are riding too low though her belt is buckled in the last hole; she needs either to find a smaller belt or to start eating more.

  Tonight, she realizes, was the first time she’s had much of an appetite lately. She even had two helpings of spaghetti. Odelia had four and didn’t even bother to do the whole “I really shouldn’t, but I can’t resist” routine typical of most women, like Lisa’s mom, Mrs. Wilson.

  Odelia was as unapologetic about overeating as she was about her choice of bathroom reading material—or the fact that she reads on the toilet in the first place.

  Calla sees herself smile in the mirror as she contemplates her grandmother’s many quirks.

  Then her smile fades and she looks long and hard at her reflection and beyond, wondering if she’ll spot anything—or anyone—unusual in the room behind her.

  Nope. Nothing at all. And the air temperature seems to be holding steady as well.

  Okay. So maybe what happened upstairs was her imagination.

  Or maybe the temperature really did drop and she really did see a ghost.

  But even if that’s the case, the ghost isn’t here now. Calla’s alone in the room—of that, she’s certain.

  Turning away from the mirror, relieved, Calla begins browsing the nearest row of books. Most of them appear to be romance novels, with a couple of new-agey nonfiction titles thrown in. She’s reaching for one of those when she hears something through the screened window at the front of the house.

  Footsteps crunch up the path, up the wooden steps, across the porch. The bell rings.

  Now what?

  Calla walks to the foot of the stairs. She can hear water running up there.

  Should she answer the door herself or ignore it?

  As she turns toward it, she sees that she has no choice. A figure is standing right there, watching her through the window in the old-fashioned door.

  Not a ghostly figure, or one that’s the least bit ominous, thank goodness. It’s a roly-poly middle-aged woman. Probably one of her grandmother’s friends.

  Opening the wooden door but leaving the screen door securely latched, Calla smiles expectantly. “Hi.”

  “Er . . . hello.” The woman’s expression is a little strained. Her face is drawn, and there’s a telltale red puffiness around her eyes. Calla recognizes it, having seen the same thing in her own reflection often enough these past few weeks. This woman has been crying.

  “Is Odelia Lauder in?” she asks in a way that makes it clear she’s not a friend of Calla’s grandmother’s. Nor does she know much about her, Calla assumes, when she goes on to ask, “You—you’re not her, are you?”

  “You mean am I Odelia? No! I’m her granddaughter.” Calla notices then that the woman isn’t alone. Someone is hovering in the shadows beside the porch steps, standing right in Odelia’s flower bed, actually. That strikes Calla as odd, and rude. It might not be the most manicured garden, but that doesn’t mean people are welcome to stomp on the blossoms.

  “My name is Elaine Riggs,” the woman says, not bothering to introduce her companion, who appears to be a teenage girl, judging by her slight build, slouchy clothing, and long hair. “Is Odelia here? I was wondering if she could do a reading. My friend Joan sent me. She said she’s really good.”

  Calla blinks. “Excuse me?”

  Now the woman—is she the girl’s mother?—looks equally confused. She takes a few steps back toward the edge of the porch, leans back, and glances up, toward the eaves, as if checking something. The girl she brought with her doesn’t move.

  Calla can feel her stare, though she can’t make out her features in the twilight.

  The woman gives a little nod, saying, “This is Odelia Lauder’s place . . . she isn’t in, then?”

  “No, she’s in . . . she’s just, um. . . busy.” Calla wishes the woman would tell her daughter to get out of the flower bed. Talk about rude.

  But she continues to ignore the girl as she asks, “So she isn’t doing readings tonight?”

  Doing readings? What on earth is this woman talking about?

  “I just drove five hours from Columbus. I probably should have called first, but . . . I guess it was a whim. Joan said Odelia takes walk-ins . . . and . . .” The woman falters.

  Walk-ins? Is her grandmother a hairdresser or . . . a doctor? If she were, I’d know it, Calla thinks. On the heels of that, she realizes she has no idea what it is, exactly, that her grandmother does for a living. She must support herself somehow. Odds are, though, that she isn’t a hairdresser or a doctor.

  The woman is still waiting, the girl still staring silently from the flower bed. Calla shrugs, for lack of anything constructive to say. She isn’t about to admit that she has no idea what her grandmother’s job is. Nor is she about to invite these strangers inside. Something about the girl is giving her the creeps.

  “I . . . she’s really busy right now. I don’t know what to say.”

  “All right. I’ll come back tomorrow. I can’t drive all the way back alone tonight anyway.” Dejected, the woman turns and heads down the steps.

  The girl stays where she is as the woman walks right past her without acknowledging her. Then, after seeming to give a little nod at Calla, she turns and walks away, right through the flowers, not caring that she’s probably trampling the whole bed.

  Standing in the screened door, Calla watches them head down the street. The woman glances from house to house like she’s looking for something or someone. The girl walks a few steps behind her. They aren’t interacting. That’s odd. Maybe they had an argument or something. And the woman did say she’d be driving alone. Maybe the girl lives somewhere else.

  Speaking of odd . . . what was the woman looking at above the porch? Curious, Calla unlatches the door and steps out into the twilight. She walks over to the edge of the porch, looks up to see what the woman might have been looking at, and finds herself staring at a wooden sign hanging from a bracket on the porch roof. She hadn’t even noticed it earlier.

  Now, peering up into the gathering dusk, she can’t quite make out from this angle what the lettering says, other than her grandmother’s name.

  Hmm. Calla goes down the steps to get a better view and looks again at the sign. There. Now she can see the whole thing:

  ODELIA LAUDER, REGISTERED MEDIUM

  It’s all Calla can do to drag herself back into her grandmother’s house after reading that crazy sign out front.

  Registered medium? Classic whack job is more like it.

  Mom was right about her mother. Odelia is off her rocker—and now Calla’s stuck here with a kook who puts raisins in meatballs and ad
vertises herself as some kind of fortune-teller. Or whatever.

  Back in the lamplit living room, Calla paces past the bookshelves and back again, their contents forgotten. She longs to keep on walking, right out the door, but she can’t do that.

  Where would she go? She’s stuck in the middle of nowhere. It’s not like she can hail a cab or take a bus or even call someone to come pick her up. Lisa is a thousand miles away. And now her father’s on the opposite side of the country.

  In fact, he should be calling any minute now. He promised he would when he lands safely in California. He’s going to want to know how everything is here.

  What will she tell him?

  That Odelia is a con-artist freak and lives in a haunted house?

  What, exactly, does a so-called medium do, anyway? Or claim to do?

  Calla’s never come across one before, and Mom would never let her watch any of those supernatural television shows or movies about ghosts and hauntings. She said they were ludicrous. And once, when Calla stupidly told her there was going to be a Ouija-board seance at Tiffany Foxwood’s slumber party, Mom made her stay home. Lisa’s mother did the same, which wasn’t surprising because she’s so religious. Calla was surprised Mom wouldn’t budge, though.

  “If Ouija boards are so stupid and fake, why do you even care?” she asked her mother.

  “Because I don’t want you to get caught up in ridiculous things like that. You have better things to do with your time and your brain.”

  “Last week you let me go to Amber Cunningham’s nail-painting party.That’s just as ridiculous and you had no problem with it.”

  “Fine.Then the next time you’re invited to a nail-painting party, you’re not going.”

  Talk about an unsatisfactory answer. Sometimes, Calla couldn’t figure out her mother.

  But I’d give anything for another chance at it, she thinks glumly, then drags her thoughts back to the present before the grief can kick in again.

  Calla’s pretty sure a medium supposedly has supernatural powers; some kind of paranormal connection to the spirit world. And if Calla had ever stopped to think about what kind of person might make such a claim, Odelia would probably have popped into her head.