Becoming Indigo

by Tara Taylor

  “I think we need a predrink,” said Sarah. “How about a vodka cranberry?”

  “I’m in,” said Natalie.

  “Me too,” I said, giving Sarah the thumbs-up.

  Sarah raced out of my bedroom and headed into the hallway.

  “What the heck?” She screamed so loud I jumped up and ran to the door of my bedroom with Natalie on my heels.

  Water was flowing down the hallway from the kitchen, and now I could hear the taps running. The loud music had obviously drowned out the noise in my room. All three of us ran to see the faucets on full and the sink overflowing, water cascading onto the floor. Because the building was old, the floors were a bit uneven, so the water flowed like a stream down the hall and toward my room and the front hall. Sarah slid across the tiles and shut the taps off.

  “That’s so weird,” whispered Natalie.

  Sarah ran out of the kitchen and down the hall and toward the front door. “My new Birkenstocks!” She picked up a pair of sandals from the pile of shoes heaped at the front door. Water dripped from the sandals to the floor. She groaned. “I just paid a fortune for these. They said not to get the suede wet!”

  She turned and glared at both Natalie and me. “One of you must have left it on, ’cause I sure as hell didn’t.”

  “I know I didn’t,” I muttered.

  “Wasn’t me either.” Natalie’s eyes grew huge.

  “Well, someone had to leave them on,” moaned Sarah.

  “We were all in Indie’s room,” said Natalie. Her voice sounded small and quiet. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Sarah scowled. “No,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  My face grew hot. “I don’t get it either,” I said quietly.

  “None of us could have left ’em on.” Natalie shook her head. “My grandma would say, ain’t that shockin’?” I knew she was trying to ease the tension in the room.

  “I’m calling the landlord right now.” Sarah stalked to the phone. “We must have major plumbing issues if none of us left them on, and this is totally unacceptable.”

  “I’ll get some towels,” I said quietly.

  I ran to the bathroom and grabbed all the towels lying on the floor and the one strewn in the tub. What was wrong with the taps? Goose bumps invaded my body, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up as, once again, I felt eyes on me, staring me down. Quickly, I glanced around. Was I being watched? I ran to the window and pushed it open. Then I exhaled the air I had been holding in. There was no way that anyone could stare at me through the bathroom window, because we were on the third floor.

  Suddenly, I heard the faint sound of someone singing coming through the bathroom vent, the same song from last night. I ran to the kitchen.

  As I mopped the floor, I listened for the lullaby, but I couldn’t hear it. What was wrong with me? Sarah was right; the plumbing was old. I closed my eyes to make all my feelings and strange sensations go away. Deep down, I knew that this was something more, something bigger than a plumbing issue.

  Natalie helped me mop up the water with the towels, and when they were soaked, we wrung them out in the sink. Sarah didn’t help because she was too busy arguing with our landlord. Finally, we were almost finished. As I was down on my hands and knees, I glanced at Natalie, who bobbed her head toward Sarah and whispered, “Wouldn’t want to meet ’er in a dark alley. She’d kick my butt to China.”

  The absurdity of the situation, and my nervousness with it, combined with Natalie’s obvious effort to lighten the situation, suddenly made me giggle, and because my giggles turned into laughter, I toppled to the floor. My sudden outburst caused Natalie to start giggling as well. Sarah slammed the phone down without saying good-bye and looked at us. “What? This isn’t really a laughing matter.”

  “Lard, girl, you need a wee drink.” By now Natalie was rolling on the floor holding her stomach.

  “You got that right,” barked Sarah. “That guy was a jerk with a capital J.” Then Sarah slid across the floor to the cupboard with the glasses. “One huge mother of a drink, then let’s get out of this joint.”

  Our bar of choice was the Royal Oak Pub, which was within walking distance. We lived in the cool, funky area of the Glebe, and I loved strolling on my days off to browse through all the stores. We locked our door and headed down the creaky stairs and outside into the oppressive heat. After what had happened with the taps, I wanted to be out of the apartment. Located across from the University of Ottawa, on the corner of King Edward Avenue and Laurier Avenue, the Royal Oak stood right beside a fire station that had wooden statues of all these different people.

  Fifteen minutes later, we were almost there when Natalie rummaged through her purse and pulled out her camera. “Lookie what I brought.”

  Since Natalie had arrived, she’d never left the house without her camera.

  “Photo time, girls!” Natalie put the camera up to her eye. “I told all my friends back home about our bar that we named ‘The Bar with the Wooden People.’”

  Once we arrived at the fire station, Sarah and I sidled up to one of the male statues and pretended to kiss it. Natalie snapped four photos as Sarah and I hammed it up for the camera.

  “Your turn,” I said. I ran over to her, took the camera, and allowed Sarah and Natalie to get posed, then I looked through the lens and said, “Work it, baby.”

  Sarah upped the ante and made sexy faces and wrapped her legs around the statues. Natalie tried to be funny, too, but ended up looking awkward as she contorted her body. I laughed and snapped.

  After I’d taken around ten pictures, Sarah waved her arm in front of her face and said, “Enough. I’m soaked in sweat. Let’s get out of this heat.”

  The cold air blasted us when we walked into the Royal Oak. The place had three floors and a huge deck outside where we could smoke, and it attracted an odd assortment of people, from students to professors to neighborhood locals like us.

  The scent of pub food, like chicken pot pie and thick, homemade French fries, combined with the distinct smell of draft beer, greeted me. I scanned the big room, looking for a table, but the place was jammed to capacity; there didn’t look to be anything free at the moment. I didn’t care, because for now, I was just relieved to be in the cool air. We jostled our way to the bar, with Sarah leading the way, and then we budged in line to order some beer. Sarah yelled over the noise and raised her hand to show that we wanted three.

  The busy bartender nodded his head, and Sarah moved in closer. Natalie and I followed and waited for the beer to arrive. Once I had mine in my hand, I again searched the room. “There’s a table,” I said, pointing to the other end of the bar. I quickly wove through the crowd and nabbed it just in time.

  “Good moves,” said Sarah. She plopped down on one of the chairs. “Okay, girls, that cost a wee fortune. We got to find us some guys to buy beer. They upped the price in this joint. Probably ’cause it’s so flipping hot out.”

  “It’s summer,” I said. “Beer is always inflated in the summer.”

  Natalie laughed. “Yeah, right. They’re not going to raise the price because of the heat.” She sipped her beer and winked. “Worth every penny.”

  As Natalie took her next sip, she looked at me over the rim of her glass. “So tell me about what Sarah said this morning.”

  “This morning?” I thought back to the morning, and, honestly, it felt like it had been eons ago. So much had happened. “About what?”

  Sarah snapped her fingers. “I get yah. You wanna know about her seeing and hearing things. Right?”

  “Yeah. I do,” said Natalie softly. “I think it’s fascinating.”

  I sipped my beer before I said, “I don’t know what to say. Sometimes I see something and then later it happens.” I shrugged and slouched in my seat, wrapping my hands around my beer glass.

  “How do you see, though? I don’t get it.” She furrowed her eyebrows.

  All my life I’d confused people, from my parents to doctors to my older b
rother, Brian, who thought I was just downright crazy in the head. Now here was Natalie looking at me the same way.

  Although I didn’t want to talk about this in a bar, I had to answer Natalie, because she seemed so interested. Everything she did was for real. “Um, well,” I started, “my mind kinda goes white, then something just comes into my vision. Sometimes it makes sense, and sometimes it doesn’t.” I paused for a moment, tapping my fingers on the table. “Sometimes I get what I’ve seen right away, and other times I have to wait and try to piece it together like a puzzle.”

  “You mean, like, you just get a picture of something? Like a camera snap?”

  I tilted my head and thought about what she had said. “Yeah. A little. I guess. Although sometimes it’s more like a movie. Things come to me both ways.” I thought about Juanita. “Like today,” I said. “I saw this woman I work with, she was with her grandson. Then I saw the words liver and onions appear.”

  Sarah guffawed. “Liver and onions? What would that be about? I mean, honestly, who eats liver and onions?”

  “Lots of people,” said Natalie. “My grandmother loves it. But, yuck, liver has such a horrible smell when it’s cooking. I would walk in the back door, smell it, and walk right out again.” Suddenly she snapped her fingers. “Maybe the woman will get food poisoning from it. Could that be it?”

  “I’m … I’m not sure.” Food poisoning wasn’t something that had come to me, but maybe Natalie was on to something.

  “You better call her and tell her not to eat liver and onions this weekend,” urged Natalie.

  “I don’t have her phone number.”

  “Can you call work and get it?”

  “Probably. I could call Miles.”

  “Is that the creepy guy?” Sarah asked, scrunching her face.

  “Yeah. He’s so disgusting.” I shook like I was having a seizure just thinking of calling him and hearing his greasy voice on the phone.

  “We have to do it.” Natalie pounded the table with her fist. “We have to call her.” She stood.

  Oh, right, go ahead and call Slimeball. The mean voice broke into my thoughts. You’ll be leading him on.

  Earlier today, my kind man’s voice had told me to listen to how I felt. And right now, I felt confused. I didn’t think it was food poisoning. But what harm would it do to make sure that Juanita was okay?

  I stood. “Okay,” I said to Natalie. “We’ll make the call.”

  “I’ll wait here,” said Sarah. “I’ll save the table and drink my beer.”

  Natalie and I went to the pay phone, and I looked up the hotel’s phone number in the tattered phone book. Miles answered.

  “Miles,” I said. “It’s Indie.”

  “Blondie,” he said. Immediately, my heart sank like a rock in water and I started to shake.

  “Would you have Juanita’s home number?” I asked. “I have a little gift for her grandson.”

  “Aren’t you just a beautiful angel. But I bet you can be bad when you want to be.”

  “Miles, just give me the number.”

  “Ahh, I like when you’re bossy.”

  I wanted to throw the phone and rip the cord right out of the wall, but Natalie was hovering over me. I had to see this through. Finally, I got the number and said it out loud while Natalie wrote it down. After I hung up, I grimaced. “That guy is a revolting pig.”

  “You got the number, though, right?”

  I tried to forget about Miles as I dialed Juanita’s number. She answered after the fourth ring, huffing and puffing, like she’d just run stairs. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Juanita, it’s Indie,” I said. “How are you?”

  “Why you calling me at home, girl?”

  “I just wanted to say have fun with your grandson this weekend and … don’t eat liver and onions.”

  Juanita laughed then started to hack. I pulled the phone away from my ear and stuck out my tongue as if I was going to barf.

  Juanita stopped coughing and said, “I hate liver and onions. You’re a strange girl.”

  “Have a good weekend,” I said, feeling like an idiot.

  Tell her to see a doctor.

  I was so surprised the man’s voice was with me that I blurted out, “See a doctor.” Then, feeling stupid, I quickly added, “That cough sounds like it’s getting worse.”

  “Aren’t you a nice girl to be so concerned for an old lady. Wish my own kids would be like you. I will, angel. I will.”

  I hung up the phone and said to Natalie, “She hates liver and onions.”

  Natalie shrugged. “At least you found out.”

  We made our way back to the table, where Sarah was drinking her second beer. “Took you long enough,” she said. “Any luck?”

  “She said she hates liver and onions. I must have seen it for no good reason. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “Okay. Done deal,” said Sarah. “I had to order another. Breaking my bank account, I tell you.” Then Sarah slapped the table as if she had just had a huge epiphany. “I’ve got a great idea!” She stared me right in the eyes. “Since you can see things before they happen, let’s try to get drinks for free. There’s, like, a ton of guys in here tonight. Indie, try to get a vision about which guy is a sucker and who will keep us in drinks all night.”

  “Sarah!” Natalie almost squealed. “That would be wrong. Just plain wrong.”

  “Why? Free drinks are never wrong.” Sarah scanned the bar. “Okay.” She lowered her voice. “What about that blond guy standing by the bar? He’s alone. And he looks like someone who might part with a few bucks. Do your thing, Indie. Close your eyes so you can see white or whatever your mind does.”

  “No. Way.” I shook my head. “I can’t. That’s not how it works. Anyway, even if it would work, I just couldn’t. And”—I stared Sarah down—“you said we wouldn’t talk about it anymore.”

  “You’re no fun.”

  Natalie waved her hands in front of her face like she was a hummingbird flapping its wings and bounced in her chair. “I don’t want no voodoo hex put on me.”

  “Man, oh, man,” moaned Sarah. “It’s just free drinks.”

  “I think I agree with Natalie,” I said. “It would be wrong. Let’s just do the drinks the old-fashioned way, with smiles and smart conversation. Talk is cheap.”

  “And safe,” said Natalie.

  “’Kay,” said Sarah, standing. “Have it your way. I’m going to need another soon, so let’s get a move on.”

  While Sarah chatted to some work friend, Natalie nudged me with her arm. “Let’s go outside to the deck.”

  If I went outside, I would want a cigarette. I must have hesitated too long, because Natalie hip-checked me.

  “Pleeease,” she begged. “I hate standing alone. Anyway, we need fresh air. Lots of people outside aren’t smokers.”

  “Okay,” I conceded.

  The busy deck was crammed with people, and we found a spot over by the railing. Natalie had just lit up when I heard a familiar voice yell my name. I quickly turned to see Lacey waving like crazy and weaving through the bodies to get to me.

  Finally, she was in front of me, and I hugged her hard. “How are you? How’s your summer?” Of course she looked amazing in her pink tube top and white skirt, colors that showed off her wavy dark hair and perfect golden tan.

  “I’m awesome,” she said, smiling. “Really awesome. I’ve had a great summer. I’m so glad to be finished with high school.”

  “You lifeguarding again?”

  “Yeah. It’s a fun job. I’m teaching swim lessons too, and I love the little kids. How about you?”

  “I’ve got a horrible crap job, but it’s money. I’ve never seen you here before.” I changed the subject, not wanting to talk for a second longer about my stupid job.

  “I’m here with a few friends from my volleyball team,” replied Lacey. “They’re going to the U of Ottawa next semester. I guess this is the local campus pub. They wanted to try it out.”
/>   Suddenly, I remembered that Natalie and Lacey had never met before. “Lacey,” I said, “this is my friend and roommate Natalie. We live just down the street.” Then I turned to Natalie and said, “Lacey and I go way back to, like, kindergarten days.”

  “Cool,” said Natalie. She smiled at Lacey. “I haven’t been in Ottawa long, so it’s great to meet some new people.”

  “I get you,” said Lacey. “I’ll be dealing with that soon enough.” She turned back to me. “I heard you moved out. Good for you.” She held her hand up, and I slapped it. “I can’t wait to get out of my house. My mother is driving me nuts.”

  “When do you leave?”

  “End of August. Not soon enough!”

  I turned to Natalie. “Lacey is going to Queen’s in the fall. She’s going to be on the volleyball team.”

  “No way,” said Natalie. “That’s where I want to go next year.”

  Shocked that Natalie wanted to go to university, as she’d never mentioned it before, I glanced at her before looking back to Lacey. Queen’s was the hardest school in Ontario to get into; it was the Harvard or Yale of Canada. Suddenly, I smiled. That was why Natalie looked like a queen to me. It had nothing to do with fair skin, dark hair, and the queens of fairy tales, and everything to do with where she was going to school. It was so crazy how my visions worked. I thought about the liver and onions. I had to get it out of my mind, so I steered myself back to the conversation.

  “What are you majoring in?” Natalie asked Lacey.

  “Business.”

  “Cool.” Natalie nodded. “They have the best engineering school in Canada.”

  “Are you thinking about going into engineering?” I asked Natalie.

  “Yeah. That’s the plan. I need to make some money first, though. My grandmother just didn’t have enough. I got accepted, but I deferred for a year. For now, I’m working reception and hoping to get a second job.”

  “I’m so excited to live in res,” said Lacey. “Just to get away from everything and everybody.”

  “How’s Burke?” I asked.

  “He’s okay. Still doing a ton of rehab, but he hopes to be skating by Christmas. He’s still begging me to get back with him.”