Deciding the car is the more urgent matter at the moment, I ask, “You really got your own car?”
Rachel nods, jumping up and down and clapping her hands with excitement. “I so told you I’d get one for my birthday.”
“Your birthday! Rach, that was months ago. I hardly think getting it now qualifies as a birthday present.” I lean over to peer inside. Rachel turned seventeen last November and since the beginning of the school year she has kept up a near-daily litany on how she is absolutely positive she is getting a car – first for her birthday; then when that didn’t happen, for Christmas; then as the holidays faded into the distance and the new year came and went, for the straight A’s on her report card. But as the end of our junior year at Crestview High drew relentlessly closer and a car had yet to make an appearance, I’d spent the last month pleading with her to just give it up, already. Rachel, however, refused to accept defeat, convinced her parents were just holding out on her, opting for the element of surprise. If that were true, they had certainly succeeded - at least on my part.
“So why now?” I ask, still in the throes of disbelief. “Or were they just sick of listening to you?” If she had kept on about it to her parents as much as she had to me, I think I would have given in, too.
“No,” she says, wrinkling her nose at me. “I never said a word to them. Like I’ve been saying all along, it is for my birthday. And Christmas. And my 3.8 GPA this year. Go on,” she urges, opening the door. “Get in! It is so awesome!”
I slide onto the driver’s seat, hands clasping the wheel. Rachel is right. It is awesome. Cute and compact, and coolly stylish with its retro-chicness, it’s perfectly…well, Rachel. Granted, it isn’t the blue Mini Cooper with the British flag on the roof and backs of the side mirrors that she’s been gushing over, and it doesn’t come close to the well-used Jeep Wrangler that’s for sale at the end of my block, and that I’ve been fantasizing about for weeks, but there’s no question it’s a close second. Really close. A flash of jealousy surges through me as I finger the silk daisy in the convenient vase attached to the dashboard. My seventeenth birthday is in two weeks, and I know with absolute certainty that I won’t be getting a car. Unless I can pay for it myself. And even that involves a long and protracted argument with my parents that makes me tired just thinking about it. As it is, they have yet to confirm that I’ll even be getting my drivers license.
Rachel is lucky, no question about it.
I look up, peering through the sunroof at the clear blue Colorado sky, the rays of the late spring sun warming the interior. My fingers trail across the air vents and the buttons on the CD player, down to the cup holder and back up across the smooth circle of the leather-covered steering wheel. I sigh and turned to Rachel with a smile. “Wow. It’s amazing, Rach.”
Rachel squats down and runs her hand along the edge of the black leather seat. “I know. Isn’t it?” The expression on her face changes from total happiness to resigned dejection.
I look at her with surprise. Rachel is rarely bummed about anything. “What?”
Grimacing, she says, “I have to work in my mom’s shop this summer.” The shop being a recently opened home interiors store in LoDo, the trendy area of lower downtown Denver. “And be her delivery driver,” she adds, lifting one side of her upper lip in distaste.
“Oh, come on,” I protest, with a laugh. “It won’t be that bad. You’re mom’s store is nice. And it beats going home smelling like greasy French fries every day.”
“Yeah, but selling throw pillows and designer sheets to overly-accessorized and perfumed fifty year olds isn’t exactly my idea of exciting.”
“You know there’ll be more people than that coming in. And who knows, maybe you’ll meet some really cute guys.” I waggle my eyebrows at her.
Rachel cocks her head, raising one eyebrow in disbelief. “Any cute guys coming into an interior design store aren’t going to be checking me out. I’m not exactly their type, if you know what I mean.”
I laugh, shaking my head, because everybody checks her out. Young. Old. Men. Women. Gay. Straight. It doesn’t matter. Because Rachel de Santis is beautiful. Tall and thin, with an athletic build, thick dark brown hair, golden skin and deep brown eyes surrounded by lush, dark lashes she never has to use a stroke of mascara on, she is one of those rare beings who never have a pimple or a bad hair day. Even if she gets caught in the rain, she just flips her hair to the side, letting it air dry into long waves. She’s like some Italian goddess. It’s disgusting. But we’ve been best friends since third grade, bonding over our mutual dislike of our teacher, Miss Keppel, a woman who obviously despised children so decided her ideal job would be a teacher so she could spend the rest of her days torturing them. Unbelievably, three years later, the school administration had moved her to sixth grade so we’d had to endure her all over again.
“Well, it could be worse,” I say, nodding like an all-knowing sage. Rachel shrugs, unconvinced by my profound words of wisdom. My brows draw together. “What’s really bothering you, Rach?” I know there has to be something more than the lack of available boyfriend material.
Rachel sighs. “I don’t know. I guess I just really don’t want to work for my mom. I mean, she’s great and everything, but I just…would rather do something else.”
“You’d rather have a boss who’s not your parent too?” I guess.
“Yes!” she exclaims. “Totally!”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say, rubbing her arm. “It won’t be that bad. You’re mom’s pretty cool. I’m sure she’ll understand where you’re coming from.”
“Yeah. We’ll see.”
Taking one last look around, I step out of the car and gave her a big hug. “This really is awesome. Congrats, Rach.”
“Thanks, Kat,” she says, breaking into a smile. “I can’t wait ‘til school’s over today. I’ll give you a ride home.”
“Sweet!”
The sound of the bell sends us into panic mode and gathering our backpacks we run through the parking lot, dashing through the double-door, glass entrance.
Jostling our way through the congestion of the hallway, I toss my backpack into my locker, grabbing notebook and pencils for dreaded first period chemistry. Before closing the door, I glance in the small mirror mounted on the back. Unimpressed, I swing the door closed.
As students make their way into classrooms, the crowd thins, revealing the perfectly coiffed blonde head of Steph Henderson. She is crouched on the floor, frantically flipping through a stack of papers. With just two weeks left before the end of the school year, most of us have already begun the process of cleaning out our lockers. But Steph’s is still crammed to overflowing with loose paper, overdue school library books, balled up tshirts, crumpled and torn notebooks and miscellaneous candy wrappers. It amazes me how someone so disorganized and sloppy manages to look so flawless. When it comes to Steph, there is never a hair, an eyelash or thread out of place. From her make-up to her clothes, she is perfection.
Her personality, however, is a different story. Cold, calculating, and endlessly critical, she is the epitome of the word bitch. And for some reason, ever since freshman year, she’s had it in for me, never missing an opportunity to make some insulting remark about my hair, my pale skin, what I’m wearing and just about anything else that pops into her tiny head.
Watching her slowly descend into panic mode, I feel a small sense of satisfaction.
Adjusting my books, I paste an innocent expression on my face. “Is everything OK, Steph?”
She glances up and gives me a withering look, flipping her long hair over her shoulder. “No, it is not OK,” she snaps, as if she can’t believe I’ve just asked such a stupid question. “Ogre-face said I never turned in my last chemistry test, which I know I did. She just never marked it in the grade book. And now I can’t find it anywhere. This is so going to effect my final grade.”
“Wow. Sorry, Steph. Um, good luck with that,” I add, smiling sweetly. I look doubtfully at th
e piles of paper crammed in her locker. She sneers again and goes back to flipping through papers. Stepping around her, I make my over to Rachel. “I think she’s gonna be there awhile,” I murmur, suppressing a smile.
Rachel glances at Steph and agrees, adding, “I think a little Organization 101 and Personality Upgrade 3.0 would help her more than finding a chemistry test.”
I laugh silently, my attention drawn to the pale shadow flitting past the end of the hallway. There is a slight buzzing in my ears. Ignoring it, I bring my gaze back to Rachel. “And by the way,” I say, returning to my earlier concern. “Lose the braids.”
Rachel closes her locker and turns to me, pushing out her lower lip in a fake pout. Tilting her head to the side, she widens her eyes in mock surprise. “You don’t like them?”
“No,” I say firmly. “We had a pact, you know.”
Reaching out, she twirls a lock of my hair around her finger, her blue nail polish sparkling under the overhead fluorescent lights. “You should braid yours. It would be so cute.”
Pushing her hand away, I grimace. “Yeah, I’m thinking not.”
Rachel sticks out her tongue and reaching into the pocket of her skirt, extracts a tube of clear gloss, giving her lips a quick application. “I don’t know why you don’t like your hair. I think it’s beautiful. And, you know, there are people who pay their stylists big bucks trying to get that color. And yours comes naturally.”
“Trust me, if they had this color naturally, they’d be paying big bucks to get rid of it. Now, if I had your hair…” I start to say, before catching sight of Mrs. Oglethorpe’s stern expression, her arms folded across her chest as she stands like a sentinel in front of the door to the chemistry lab. Edina Oglethorpe, or Ogle the Ogre, as everyone calls her, is five feet one, one hundred and ninety pounds, with tightly curled bottle-black hair and beady black eyes that glimmer behind red-framed, square eyeglasses. As the self-appointed hall monitor, she ensures no one lingers in the hallway after the bell rings.
“Sorry, Mrs. O,” Rachel says, flashing one of her brilliant Pepsodent smiles and wiggling her fingers in a friendly wave, before continuing down the hall to her French class. I muster an apologetic, rather lame smile in comparison and step past her into the lab. I sigh, mentally crossing off one more day on my internal days-to-the-end-of-school calendar.
_________
We’ve completed most of the curriculum for the year, and with the exception of upcoming finals in English and American History, most of the classes consist of year-end reviews and boring videos.
After Oglethorpe quizzes the class for forty-five minutes on balancing chemical equations and Hess’s Law, I head to world geography, taking a seat by the window. While our teacher, Mr. Dawson, pulls down an oversized map of Asia from one of the rolls attached to the walls, I pull out my notebook, and flip to a blank page, doodling along the margin while trying to keep my gaze from straying outside.
It started two weeks ago – the girl who shouldn’t be there, but is. Dancing across the athletic fields in a pink prom dress. Endlessly spiraling in a dance no one but me can see. Although this kind of thing has been happening for as long as I can remember, it’s the first time it’s happened at school.
And that bothers me.
It should be easy. I’ve had years of practice in learning how to ignore these things: The visions. The images. The voices. Acknowledging their existence only makes it worse. I know that.
I try to focus on the blank page in front of me. But my eyes involuntarily move to the window. I can’t help it. It’s like some kind of magnetic pull impossible to avoid.
Nor can I ignore the odd indecipherable, whispering brushing against my eardrums.
I force my eyes back down to my notebook, making several dark, heavy lines on the page.
You can do this, Kat.
I rub my ear, trying to block out the low buzzing, adding more details to the series of flowery, interconnecting lines I’m drawing.
Don’t look.
But my gaze slides sideways and my head turns to the window, focusing on the girl. I watch as she dances and twirls, arms stretched wide, the skirt of her dress billowing out in pink waves. Reluctantly, I feel myself being pulled toward her, the whisper in my ear growing more insistent. Although I know it isn’t physically possible, the distance between the window and the athletic field begins to shrink, the deep pink of her dress growing more vibrant until it seems to glow with a luminous intensity. Like an oversized neon light in a dark room. The whisper grows louder, the sound rushing around my eardrums, drowning out the classroom around me.
Stop it. Stop it now.
But my eyes remain locked on the window, the droning growing in intensity. The hissing slowly begins to morph into a faint semblance of words, faint and not quite distinct, with an underlying sense of urgency.
The girl draws closer, turning and turning, like a crazed ballerina, locked in an endless pirouette. Her long, blonde hair swings across her face. My heart pounds in my chest. In another moment she will close the gap between us and I will see her clearly. Something close to dread spreads through me. I don’t want to look. Don’t want to know. But I am frozen in place.
I can hear my pulse pounding in my ears, nearly drowning out the whispering voice. I try to decipher the words, but any meaning eludes me.
I tense. She is directly in front of the glass now, her movements slowing, arms dropping to her sides. She stops and turns towards me, her hair falling slowly away from her face…
“Ms. Matheson,” a voice says sharply to my left, and I snap my head around to find Mr. Dawson standing with his arms crossed, gazing down at me with a look of barely concealed intolerance. I swallow and struggle to bring my attention back to the classroom. “Perhaps you would like to share with the rest of the class just what is so interesting outside?” He peers out the window, looking for the answer. Suppressed giggles rise from the back of the room.
“Maybe there’s a fairy outside the window,” Deena LaMonte pipes up from behind me, eyeing my notebook as she gazes over my shoulder.
Biting my tongue, I slap the notebook closed and mumble, “Sorry. There’s nothing.”
Mr. Dawson uncrosses his arms and walks back to the front of the room. “I realize it’s the end of the school year, but could we, just perhaps, make an effort to stay focused?”
My ears pick up more twittering, and I can feel everyone’s eyes turning in my direction. My face flushes bright red. I lower my head to my textbook, grateful for the fall of hair across my face. From the corner of my eye, I see David Sanchez and Eric Grunwald lean toward each other and whisper. Laughing silently, David turns and looks at me, twisting his lips into a zombie-like grimace. Anger, mixed with embarrassment, surges through me. Feeling suddenly defiant, I glare back with the full force of my green eyes, silently daring him to say something. He stares back, an odd expression crossing his face. Then he flinches, flashing me a menacing look. “Jeez, freak. Stop staring,” he murmurs before turning back to Eric and laughing.
Mr. Dawson gives him a warning look over his glasses. “Now, I’ll ask again. Can anyone tell me how industrialization has affected Southeast Asia’s water supplies?”
My eyes dart back to the window. The girl is gone. I exhale silently in relief. Shifting position in my chair, I look to the front of the room, focusing all my attention on the map.
That was a major slip I can’t let happen again.
CHAPTER THREE
I sigh with relief when the lunch bell finally rings, and shoulder my way to my locker. Grabbing my backpack, I head to the cafeteria. My eyes roam over the hundreds of students making their way to tables or through the hot lunch line, but I don’t see Rachel anywhere.
Tempted by the promise of fresh air and warm temperatures, I head for the double glass doors to the outdoor eating area. Not surprisingly, I’m not the only one with the same idea. All the round, cement tables and benches are full of students, the noise a dull roar as their voices bounce
off the gray brick walls. Bypassing the tables, I make my way across the grass to a giant spruce tree near the teacher’s parking lot.
Taking a seat on the ground, I settle myself against the trunk. Feeling the rough bark pressing into my skin, a shudder runs through my body, last night’s dream still vivid in my memory. Ignoring the sensation, I grab my iPod from my backpack, along with the sandwich, chips and bottle of water my mom had thoughtfully tossed in before my mad rush out the door. Inserting the earpieces, I choose a song at random. Turning up the sound, I lean back against the tree, watching the other students talk and eat, trading food items across the tables. I watch as Deena picks the black olives from a slice of pizza, flicking them to the ground. Two boys across from her try to toss Fritos into another boys open mouth, without much success. At the far end, a leggy blonde who could be Steph’s cheerleading twin in a mini-skirt and varsity sweatshirt sits on her boyfriend’s lap, feeding him pieces of her Baby Ruth bar.
I watch it all with a sense of detachment, my thoughts centered elsewhere.
I bite my lip in anxiety. Why is it happening? The dreams. The nightmares. The incident in geography class. Am I starting to snap? Maybe I’ve spent so long denying the things I see, the pressure has become too much. Because the truth is, I’ve been dealing with this for as long as I can remember. And, normally, it wouldn’t be any big deal. Just another day in the life of Katriona Matheson. But, lately, it’s been different. A lot different.
More vivid.
More intense.
And what happened earlier – the strange pull, the inability to look away, the sensation of time and space condensing and shrinking – it’s bizarre.
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