by Cyn Balog
Eden says, "School spirit is important. Last year's championship Came was, like, the greatest night of my life. It was so fun."
I elbow her. "Ahem. Well, I hope that will change next Friday."
She thinks for a second and then shrugs. "Oh, right. I can't wait."
"My sweet sixteen," I explain to John. "Next Friday, October fifteenth. It's going to be really big."
He raises his eyebrows. For some reason, guys just don't get the whole sweet-sixteen thing. But mine is going to be one big-with-a-capital-5 party. Not like a Super Sweet Sixteen on MTV (my parents aren't owners of a rap label or anything), but pretty cool, since my father was college roommates with the manager of the Green Toad, a very exclusive restaurant in the city. I’ve been planning the event since April, and it's all Eden and I ever talk about now.
John doesn't feel the excitement. "Sounds cool."
"It's at the Toad!" Eden exclaims.
"You're invited," I say. "Didn't you get the invite?"
He looks contused. "Uh, I don't know."
Huh. Boys. Whatever; it's still going to be fantastic. "It's actually a joint birthday party for me and Cam, since we're both turning sixteen," I tell him, nudging Cam, who is busy flicking through the pages of music on the tabletop jukebox at our booth. "Right?"
Cam looks at me. "Huh?"
"I was just talking about our birthday," I tell him.
"What about it?"
Hello? Earth to Cam. "Our sweet sixteen?"
He purses his lips, hesitates, and then says, "Oh. Yeah." Then he goes back to flipping through the music.
Huh. Totally not the response I was expecting. Last year, when I brought up the idea, he was into it. He said he couldn't wait to put on a fancy suit and have a really swanky night just like a prom. Maybe the guys got to him. I mean, wanting to have a sweet sixteen isn't exactly something a football player would admit to.
"What's wrong?" I say, shaking him by the elbow. I wrap my arm around him and lean in close. He smells clean, like soap and his barber shop aftershave. "You okay?"
He shrugs, then relaxes. "It may be a sweet sixteen for you, but for me, it's a studly sixteen." He says this with a deep sexy voice and, though I'm not sure how he manages it, a completely straight face. Then he breaks into a grin.
The other guys laugh and I roll my eyes. "Oh, excuse me."
Abruptly, his smile disappears, and he shuffles in his seat. "Hey, I've got to get up."
"What's-" I begin, but he slides out of the booth and scrambles past the dessert case before I have a chance to get the "up?" part out. Okay, so maybe he just had a major urge to pee or something.
Scab and the guys begin to go on about the plans for their next Came. At least, I think that's what they're doing, because this is what I hear: "Blabbity blah blah blah." It's so boring, I'm superaware of every passing second that Cam is gone. And we're talking many, many seconds. After roughly fifteen hundred of them, I begin to wonder whether terrorists hijacked his urinal.
By the time the guys start to write plays on the backs of napkins, I’ve had enough. I take another sip of my milk shake, stand up, and navigate around the dessert case, toward the restrooms. I’m halfway there, at the cash register near the entrance, when I look into the front vestibule and see Cam. He's standing among the nickel-candy dispensers and free-newspaper racks. He has his hands shoved in his pockets and is surveying a bulletin board filled with want ads. He's staring intently at one that says
25 SCHOONER FOR SALE.
What is going on? Does he suddenly want to become the Skipper?
I open my mouth to say something to him, but before I can, he turns, grabs my hand, and looks intently at me. "You saw it, didn't you? That play?"
"Yeah." The intensity in his eyes makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. "It was amazing. So?"
"Everyone keeps saying that. Boo," he says, using his way-embarrassing nickname for me. In first grade I was a child of few words. One, actually. I found that not only could it be used as a frightening tactic, but it was also extremely effective as a question, a statement, a cry of frustration. Yes, I was weird. Leave it to Cam to bring up my long-lost weirdness on a daily basis.
"Because it was. Just accept it. Would you like me to feed you grapes?"
He glares at me.
"Sorry. What's the big deal? You should be happy."
He exhales slowly. "I probably would be. If I could remember any of it."
Chapter Three
MY PARENTS THINK they're so smart. Every time I go out with Cam, the porch furniture miraculously moves three feet away from the side of the house, so I nearly trip over it when I come home. As most concerned parents would, they leave the light on, but they also arrange the metal glider and side table so that they are in perfect view from the garage window. My dad has maintained a stalwart post from that window for so long that he might as well set up a Barcalounger and minifridge there. He thinks Cam and I don't know, despite the way the curtain in the window does nothing to disguise his hefty silhouette, and the way he says his good nights-completely out of breath after hightailing all four hundred pounds of his flesh up the stairs before I can get inside. Once, in the early days, I went into the garage at 11 p.m. to find him "fixing the lawn mower" Cam had the bright idea a few years back of using the situation to our advantage instead of busting him, which would be way uncomfortable.
And it would have worked great, if only Cam weren't the worst liar in the world.
"Wow, it's fifteen minutes past your curfew, Morg," Cam says in this loud voice as we settle onto the swing. "If only you hadn't Heimliched that poor old lady' who was choking on the meat loaf, we would have been home from our volunteer work at the soup kitchen on time."
"Yes!" I say, then shake my head at him and whisper, "I love you, but you really suck at this." My dad can't possibly believe that I work at the soup kitchen, the ASPCA, the League of Women Voters, and Greenpeace.
Cam grabs me longingly, like he's going to launch into the steamiest hookup since The Notebook, and then, when my face is an inch from his, gives me a very sterile, grandmotherly peck on the cheek. "Sorry."
At times like this, the "Is he really mine?" recording plays loudest in my head. He has the sexy bad-boy face, with dark skin, the black, intense eyes of an animal on the hunt, and, since last year, a constant spray of stubble on his jaw. That alone makes him easily the hottest guy at school, but he's also got a wicked sense of humor. And, to seal the deal, he's a total sweetie. My long, sometimes frizzy chestnut hair; heavy, dull brown eyes; pale complexion; strong profile, with what my father calls a pronounced but I call a freakishly big nose; and body, on the slender side but soft around the edges, make me just, average; I've inherited my mother's Sicilian looks. But we met when making friends was easy and appearances didn't matter. If we hadn't known each other all these years, I doubt he would have given me a second look.
"So," I whisper, putting my feet up and resting my back against his enormous shoulder, "you don't remember it, really? Like amnesia?"
He shrugs and wraps his arm around me. "I remember the huddle.
The next thing I knew, I was flat on my back and the refs were peeling guys off me."
You must have gotten hit pretty hard," I tell him, matching my palm against his. His hands are twice the size of mine, and I can feel the calluses beneath each finger from his daily weight-lifting sessions. "You'll be fine."
"But I've never blacked out like that before."
Boys. Such babies. I push my back against him. He's two of me, so it's like trying to move Mount Everest, "Is there anything, other than your ass, you want me to kiss and make better?"
He smiles and pats his backside. "You can't improve on this perfection:"
I try to smack him, but he grabs my wrist and leans over me to kiss me. He gets the bottom of my cheek, right near the tip of my chin, instead of my mouth. Huh. Missing the mark is totally uncharacteristic of Cam. "Hey: It's nothing. Don't let it get to you," I growl at him.
''I'm not. I'm just tired," he says.
"Okay, if you say so." Did I mention that Cam is a terrible liar?
He leans over to kiss me on the forehead, slides his body out from behind me, and stands. Then he loudly says, "I hope to see you tomorrow, for our UNICEF meeting."
"Whatever," I sigh as he turns and heads off between two manicured bushes surrounding my porch. Cutting across my lawn is the quickest way to his house. There's a little path worn into the grass there; we've involuntarily created it after years of visiting each other. We could both walk that route in our sleep.
I hear my father lumbering up the stairs inside my house. I decide to give the old man a minute's head start, so I sit back, watching a moth dance in the porch light. I'm expecting to hear the creaking of the Brownes' screen door, but it never comes.
I stand up and walk to the edge of the porch. It's getting chilly, so I pull my jacket around my shoulders and push aside the branch of a Japanese maple that's resting on the railing. That's when I see Cam standing all alone, staring up at the sky.
I knew it. He's letting it get to him.
Chapter Four
AFTER A HEARTY Neutrogena scrubbing and my daily application of Whitestrips (one's teeth can never be too straight or too white), I turn off my bedside lamp and slide under the covers… Moonlight slashes through my window and the open shades, painting a tic-tac-toe board on the wall. Cam's bedroom is across from mine, and, though his heavy curtains are drawn, they're rimmed in yellow light. He's still awake. This, from a guy who has been known to fall asleep at the dinner table.
I quickly pick up the phone and dial his number. Before he can call out a greeting, I say, "Go to sleep."
He laughs- and two seconds later; the curtain pulls back, and he appears in the window. His face is darkened, but I can tell he has his shirt off. Yum. "Stop spying on me."
"Just wanted to catch a glimpse of those rockin' abs of yours," I say. "Ooh, baby."
He starts flexing his muscles like a bodybuilder, giving me a private show. If my parents weren't on the other side of the house, I'd be nervous. Then I see him flop down on his bed, next to his laptop. "I'm fine. Just wound up from the Came. Probably going to surf the porn sites now, maybe get myself a mail-order bride."
"Have fun with that." I scrunch the phone between my ear and my shoulder, then pull my dark hair into a ponytail. That's the bad thing about Cam's sense of humor; he's always disguising his worries with one-liners. "On second thought, go to bed. You can be such the ogre when you don't get enough sleep."
He growls into the phone, which makes me laugh. "Okay, Boo. In a sec. One, two, three."
"One, two, three," I say back, pulling the sheet up to my chin and flipping the phone closed.
He jumps up and closes the curtains again, but after that, the light doesn't go off. After another minute of lying on my side, silently willing the room to go dark, I throw off the covers and pull myself up on my elbows. This calls for desperate measures. Cam might not want to know his future, but it doesn't mean that I can't take my own little sneak peek. Just because he blacked out once doesn't mean he's destined to be the subject of the next episode of House. Maybe I can find something that will calm him down.
And, okay, me too.
I stumble over the jeans I'd left balled up on the shag rug, grab my iPod, and tune it to some Enya. Then I sit cross-legged on my bed and begin the routine I use to calm myself and help bring up my visions.
Closing my eyes, I picture water. Clear, aquamarine ripples from a swimming pool. I guess I could use any soothing background as a canvas, but a swimming pool is what I've always used. Then I say "Fluffernutter" over and over again, until the syllables fall atop one another: Really, any word or phrase would probably do; it's just something to clear the mind. Just at the time that "Fluffernutter" becomes "lufferfutter," I introduce the name of the subject whose future I want to see. After two or three minutes, the waves become grainy, and images begin to float up to the surface. Fuzzy at first, they eventually clear, and I can see the subject just like they're on TV. I've predicted so many futures that I've found this method works best for me. But I still haven't gotten all the kinks out. For one thing, there's no sound in my visions. I can't hear what people are saying. And, even worse, I can't control what point in the future my gift will take me to. It might be tomorrow, or it might be fifty years from now. Sometimes I can scan the surroundings to catch a sign or something in the background, but not always.
"Lufferfluffernuffer…," I say, massaging my temples and staring at the cool, inviting water. "Show me Cam Browne."
The image of Cam's face floats up. He's sitting on the comer of a stool, hunched over, elbows on his knees. Completely normal- that is, until I see the look on his face. It looks like he swallowed ammonia. In fifteen years I'd never realized Cam's sexy facial muscles had such flexibility to contort into something that hideous. A chill pecks at my shoulders. What could be so wrong?
The camera pans back, and then I see he's surrounded by art. The most horrendous paintings I've ever seen. Where is he-the Academy of Fine Arts for the Blind? And Cam has his T-shirt pulled up to his armpits. Then I see myself, standing behind him. What am I doing? Giving him a massage? Like that would ever happen.
That's when I notice my expression. It's like I just saw my grandfather naked. I’m staring at his back and clearly disgusted. And… are those tears in my eyes? I admit to being a bit of a leaky faucet, but Cam's muscular back, with the way it comes to a perfect V over his tight waist, usually makes me drool like a dog. So what about it could have reduced me to crying? A mongo-zit?
I scrunch my nose and find myself snapping my head over, willing myself to switch viewpoints, to pan behind his shoulder so I can see what's up. That's another bad thing about my gift. I have absolutely no c
ontrol over what I can or can't see. Someone else is holding the camera, so at times it has a way of showing enough to pique my curiosity, but not the whole story. I found it merely annoying when it showed Emily Andersen convulsing at the sight of her PSAT scores yet wouldn't show actual numbers, but this is unbearable.
The vision pops out of my head, so I pull my earphones down and open my eyes. Tossing my iPod aside, I bear-hug my pillow and turn toward the window. Cam's light is still on. I imagine telling Cam tomorrow, "Don't worry, hon. I may not have discovered why you blacked out at the Came yesterday, but I did find out that you will soon be the proud owner of a gross back pimple. Now, doesn't that make you feel better?"
I'm nearly asleep by the time it hits me. I sit up straight in bed, and my entire body goes cold.
Chapter Five
I FLIP ON the lights and call Eden on my cell. "Cam is dying," I cry out, before she even says hello. "Wha…?" a half-human voice comes back.
"Wake up. Did you hear me?"
"Yeah, but…" A long groan. "It's two in the morning!"
I can't breathe, because my heart is in my throat and it's cutting off my oxygen supply. "Did you hear me? He's dying. Dying."
"To do what?"