The Soul Seekers

by Amy Saia

  “I’ll go with you and help you get your money back. Does that sound okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Let me go speak to Phil.”

  Jesse left me by the register while he went to the back store room. I looked out the window to the rain-drenched world, thinking how the weather was almost as pathetic as I was; letting loose for no reason and with no hope for sunlight. I wanted sunlight—I still believed it existed, somewhere. If only I could find a way to get to it.

  Jesse sauntered out, a leather jacket draped over his arm. “Phil’s docking my pay every second I’m gone, we gotta make it quick.”

  He didn’t hold the passenger door open for me but got in his side and waited for me to do the same. I was fine with that. I knew where he stood and what to expect of him. Jesse was no gentleman, but he was helping me out and that made him ten times better than most guys on earth.

  “Halstead,” he said, turning onto Oak off of Main. “It’s probably Old Jenkins. That guy, lord, Emma. I can’t believe you went all the way out there. He’s probably already put the money in his mattress, and you don’t want to see that thing.”

  He was right, I didn’t.

  Jesse looked me over, cocking an eyebrow at my soaked appearance.

  “What?”

  “You don’t look like hell, you look hot.”

  “I don’t feel like it.”

  “I know, and that’s what’s cool about you. You don’t know how sexy you are, do you?”

  I shrugged.

  “Emma’s hot, Emma’s hot,” he chanted in a whisper, leaning in. “She needs my help and came to get me. Why? Because she secretly loves me. That’s why.”

  I guffawed. “You’re full of it.”

  “Full of love—for Emma.”

  “Shut up, Jesse.”

  The car was idling at a streetlight and he was too close.

  “We’ll leave town together, don’t you see how perfect this is? We’ll get your money back, sell the coin, and leave in a few days. I’ve got a gig tomorrow at the Summerfest on the square, and Phil owes me one more paycheck.”

  Coin. I fished it out of its spot in my wallet and held it up.

  “Jesse, what is it about this thing? Ouch.” A fiery shock snapped at my fingers, worse than before. “Here.” I placed it in his outstretched hand.

  “Mmm, it’s beautiful. Here, you keep it for a little longer. I don’t want that thing on me any more than needed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean—nothing.”

  The car dipped and jolted a few times onto the gravel road leading us closer to the washed-out bridge. When it came into sight a few bumpy minutes later, Jesse hopped out of the Camaro to take a look, coming back over to stand by my window. “Yeah, that’s pretty much a waste—nothing’s driving over that. Let’s get your money back.” He reached in to turn off the ignition and motioned for me to get out.

  The man was disappointed but relinquished the cash into my hands anyway.

  “Where is this hunk of junk?” Jesse asked, after the door closed behind us.

  “In the garage.”

  I watched as he took a peek through one of the wide cracks of wood. When he turned around, his mouth was twisted in suppressed laughter. He grabbed my hand, pulling me to the road. “Five-hundred dollars for that? I won’t say anything about suckers and minutes.

  “Know anything about stick shifts?” Jesse asked out of the blue, on our way back to the bridge.

  “A little. My dad gave me a few lessons back before. . . .” My voice trailed away.

  “Oh. Well, here. You can drive us back to town, seeing as to how you just lost your first and only car. Go ahead.” The keys were dangling in front of my face, tempting me. I grabbed at them and let out a groan when Jesse pulled them away. “Sorry, had to do it.” He took my hand and placed them inside. “They’re all yours.”

  We both got in, with me laughing in a nervous way before starting the engine.

  “Don’t ride the clutch,” he warned. “Okay, whoa, you don’t have to yank the gear so hard. Here.” His hand fell on top of mine. “Be gentle, Emma.”

  I shot us forward on purpose, making his hand fall back.

  “Slow.”

  The engine revved, and we sped down the road, gravel crunching against the tires until at last we were on solid pavement. I looked over to see an impressed expression on his face. “I’m not a complete idiot,” I threw out, letting out a laugh when his expression contorted into scrunched up craziness.

  “Didn’t say you were.”

  “You practically called me a sucker back there.”

  “Well,” Jesse said, looking out the windshield. “I guess we all make mistakes sometimes. Don’t we?”

  I shrugged. “I guess.”

  Before we knew it, we were back in town, sitting in front of the record store. Phil was inside, drinking coffee at the front desk, looking bored.

  I shut down the engine and handed Jesse the keys. “Sweet car. Thanks for letting me drive.”

  “Anytime. Look Emma, are you going to tell this imaginary lover of yours how you feel, or do you want me to do it for you?”

  I looked down at my hands. “He’s the reason I’m leaving, actually. When I’m around him I turn into a complete idiot, and all I can do is melt and think stupid thoughts. I think he knows and likes to play little tricks on me, you know? Anyway, I don’t want him knowing what a fool I was about to make of myself.”

  “What were you going to do?”

  “Oh, I was going to say . . . hi.” We both snorted with laughter. “And magic rainbows would appear and he would say he loved me.”

  “And you’d be stuck in Springvale for the rest of your life.”

  I thought about that. “No, he never gave me that impression. I think he wants to get out, too. Maybe we should form a group.”

  Phil glanced out at us with a perturbed expression.

  “Gotta go back to work,” Jesse said. “You got your money back, life is good, right?”

  “I guess.”

  “You’ve definitely given up on the imaginary guy?”

  “Definitely.” Why did I always bite my lip when I was lying?

  “I wasn’t kidding when I said we should go. I want to leave, with you.” Jesse reached across the gear shift to grab my hand. “What’s a few days, I don’t know? With you Emma—you. Please think about it.”

  He squeezed my fingers, and for a second wound them into his. His skin was warm. Calloused and warm.

  “I will.”

  Jesse let go and dropped his head back against the car seat with a long sigh, then sat up to grab his jacket. “Write down your number before I go inside.”

  I wrote it on the half-dried newspaper I’d shoved in my purse hours before.

  “I’ll call you later.”

  We got out of the Camaro and stepped onto the sidewalk.

  I watched Jesse go inside the store. It was three o’clock, and I had a purse full of money, but no real plan. It was always the same road, going nowhere, but steadily passing by. Every time I had a direction, it disappeared and I had to get creative again. Jesse had ideas, but I couldn’t trust him yet.

  The Pontiac was parked just a few spaces down from the record store, and I hesitated beside it for a moment. I didn’t want to go home, didn’t want to work. I just knew I wanted to be somewhere.

  Ethel was surprised to see me but gave a pat to the counter when I walked in. “What happened?”

  “I bought a car.”

  “Good!”

  “Then I lost a car.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s okay; I’m still deciding what to do.”

  She got up and poured me a hot cup of coffe
e. “You’ll figure it out. If they had a damn bus line in this town it’d be so much easier.”

  “That would definitely help. As it is, I might have to consider hitchhiking out to Brentwood.”

  Ethel looked worried. “I wish my car worked. I’d drive you out there.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I grabbed an empty cart. “I guess I can work, since I’m done with my business for the day.”

  I started to fill each row with nonfiction, my secret way to be near William. I wheeled the cart to the back corner, noticing how nervous he looked. It was as if he were trapped inside some sort of dilemma with no hope for escape. He looked the way I felt.

  “What’s wrong, Superman?” I asked boldly. “Afraid your toy’s gonna leave?”

  He sat like stone.

  “Pretending I don’t exist? Just like that night in the gazebo, when I spilled my heart out to you? Whatever, I’m used to it.”

  I grabbed a book on Eastern religion and flipped through its contents.

  “Are you talking to me?” he sounded terrified.

  I let out a harsh breath. “Yeah, I’m talking to you. Am I being annoying?”

  “You can see me?”

  I shook my head, laughing low. “What a stupid game. You won, okay, you won. It can stop now. I’m leaving town, and you can have your sacred spot in the back of the library all to yourself.”

  William got up slow and came to my side. “I don’t understand. No one’s ever been able to see me, not any normal human at least.”

  “Oh, I’m not normal, or haven’t you noticed? I talk to the breeze, or is that ‘shoot the breeze?’ Whatever you call it, I do it.” A cold hand reached out to touch my arm, and I backed away. “Don’t you see? I was already messed-up before I got here, and you with your tricks and your stupid game.” Tears were flowing. “One more thing and I’m gonna break.”

  His face looked strange—horrified and mesmerized.

  I was freezing. Wild shivers ran up and down my arms, taking over my ability to stand or breathe or think. I took another step away.

  “Actually, I should go home. I’m sorry I bugged you like this. It’s just been a really bad day and my brain must not be working.” Every breath came out with a little cloud of frost.

  Our eyes met, his—endless vibrant blue, like sky and water meeting together on a sparkling summer day, and mine—dark brown, fluttering, scared. My throat fought hard to swallow a dry cord of saliva.

  “I’ll see you later, okay?” I choked out the words.

  And then I was running. I grabbed my things by the desk and shoved out the door, pausing a moment to catch my breath before reaching the Pontiac parked in front of the record store. Jesse looked up from the counter and gave a little wave, but I ignored him. I threw open the car door and slid inside quick. My hands shook out of control.

  Driving down Walters Street I heard this one phrase, repeating like one of Dad’s scratched 45’s: No one’s ever been able to see me, no one’s ever been able to see me, no one’s ever been able to see me. Not any normal human.

  7: Flashes

  Coin, five-dollar bill, book on Springvale: I had them laid out on my dresser. Sitting on my bed, I stared at them from across the room. Mom was still mad at me about the whole money thing, asking me why and what I was going to do. I couldn’t talk to her. Talking was hard at the moment. All I could do was think.

  What did he mean: No one’s ever been able to see me before? People didn’t say things like that. They said, “Hi. How’s the weather, did you have a good lunch?”

  I pulled my legs up and wrapped my arms around them tight. What did I expect? I’d egged him on, fallen right into his trap. It was the last play, big guns and all, and I’d walked by like a big fluffy deer with its tail swishing around. What a fun summer he’d had.

  “Emma, dinner’s cold,” Gran had been trying to lure me out of my room for the last hour, using her Salisbury steak and soft, steamy biscuits as bait. “Chocolate meringue pie!” She was worried, I could feel it.

  “No, thanks! Not hungry.”

  I heard her argue with Mom, telling her to come up and talk to me.

  Pushing them out of my thoughts, I jumped off the bed to grab the book of Springvale with its no-fuss black and white cover. Sitting back down on the bed, I opened the front cover and began scanning pictures, starting from the mid-1800s. There were folks with sun-baked faces. They stood in the midst of a wild and unplowed earth. A town began to emerge; people looked healthy, happy, and proud of their little town beyond the bluffs.

  The decades changed. Main Street, the one I knew, began to emerge with buildings of brick and stone among the original shanty-like structures. I turned another page, but stopped halfway.

  Shakily, I pulled it back.

  It was a shot of Main Street, 1956. Nothing exciting really, but my eyes couldn’t help focus on a tiny object jutting from the shadows in a very familiar way—it looked like the corner of someone’s elbow. I swung my legs over the bed and leaned into the lamp to get a better view. I had seen the same checkered print this whole summer, but with the book’s black and white photography, I couldn’t tell if it was the same blue. A lot of guys wore that kind of shirt back then. Back then. . . .

  Taking a few steady breaths, I looked to the bottom of the shadow.

  Black boots with scruffs on the toes, and above them a hint of a cuffed jean. Still, with the car and the building post in the way, it was hard to tell. I knew those boots; but of course, it was impossible. Everyone had boots like that in the fifties. I swallowed through a tight throat and rushed a hand through my wild, tangled hair. Maybe I did need to eat something, my brain wasn’t functioning.

  I dropped the book onto the dresser and rushed down the stairs.

  “Hey, look who’s out.” Grandmother Carrie stood by the kitchen counter with a lone plate of food next to her. “Finally decided to eat?”

  “Yeah.” I grabbed the plate and sat down at the table.

  “Want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “No.”

  “Did you get fired?”

  “No.” I shoved a forkful of mashed potatoes into my mouth.

  “What are you going to do with all the money you withdrew today?”

  “Nothing.”

  Gram bent down beside my chair, taking my hands into hers, suntanned and spotted with age. “Look,” she said, “this whole intuition thing, it isn’t easy. I’m sorry you had to be the one who inherited it.”

  The potatoes stuck in my throat like paste.

  “But, you get used to the idea, and it does become a gift in many ways, though it may not seem like it now. You see people on a deeper level, you feel things the rest of the world ignores. Although I know it’s confusing, I believe there’s a reason the gift went to you.”

  “Gift . . . gift?” I pushed away from the table. “Why do you keep calling it that? I don’t have it by the way. It’s just stupid old me in here and nothing else.”

  “Really?” She looked kind of mad now, maybe because I was rejecting her special inheritance.

  “Yeah. I mean, I never saw Dad. I never saw anything. When he died, I felt absolutely nothing. I don’t have the gift. I don’t.”

  She searched my eyes, brown just like hers—another inheritance. “Emma, these things you seek will come. Just let them.”

  The phone rang. And rang. And rang. Finally I jumped up to grab the receiver. “Yes?”

  “Hey, what’s goin’ on? You looked kind of upset there this afternoon when you got in the boat.” It was Jesse.

  “I’m fine.”

  Pause. “Wanna go out tonight? We can go driving, anywhere you like.”

  “No thanks.”

  “I’ll come over then. You sound like you need me.”


  “I don’t need you, Jesse.”

  “You do.”

  “I don’t. I need to be alone. I’m hitchhiking out to Brentwood tomorrow to buy a bus ticket.”

  Pause. “I’m coming over.”

  “No.”

  His end clicked dead and I hung up the phone. I turned to Grandmother Carrie. Her expression was full of a nervous expectation.

  “You’re leaving?”

  “No.” There went that eyebrow again. “I mean, yeah, of course I’m going to leave someday. You’ve been begging me to do it.”

  “Are you leaving now?”

  “I don’t know.” I took my plate to the sink and washed the food into the disposal. I watched it spin and grind until every last bit was decimated. “You tell me.”

  “I see a car. And I see you driving away. Soon maybe.”

  “Well then, it’s all set I guess. Since you see it and all.”

  I’d miss you.

  My mouth opened but no words came. Avoiding her stare, I moved past her to the front door and went outside. It wasn’t long before I heard the giant rumble of a muscle car descending the hill. It parked on the curb, a brake was cranked up hard, and then brown boots clicked up the drive toward me.

  “Think we’d better take a drive.”

  “Jesse.”

  His hand squeezed around my arm, dragging me to the curb. “What about our plans, Emma? We were going to leave together. How is that supposed to happen when you selfishly decide to hitchhike out into nowhere?”

  “I can do whatever I want. Let go of my arm.”

  He let go, standing back with an angry expression, arms crossed. His eyes held accusation. “I trusted you.”

  “Yeah, well . . . don’t. You barely know me.”

  Our eyes locked for a long time, neither one wanting to back down. “That’s it then? You’re gonna do this?”

  “Yes.”

  I watched him change tactics. I wasn’t trying to notice things like that, but saw it the second it happened nevertheless. His eyes softened, his body relaxed. “Emma, what are you trying to prove? You know you can trust me now, don’t you? Or are you still afraid?”