Becoming Indigo

by Tara Taylor

  “Burke is her ex,” I explained to Natalie.

  “You ever see John?” Lacey asked me.

  Sharp pains crashed through my chest just at the mention of his name. How could he still make me hurt? I didn’t get it. I wanted to be over him already. And I’d worked so hard this summer to forget about him. Now just the mention of his name made me ache.

  “Not very often,” I quickly replied. I had to change the subject, and fast. “You’ll have to come over to our apartment one day and hang out.”

  “That’d be fun,” squealed Lacey. “And you guys will have to take a road trip to Kingston to come visit me at Queen’s.”

  “Really?” Natalie grinned. “That would be so awesome. I could tour around.”

  “Yeah, that would be fun,” I said. “Road trips are a blast.” I hip-checked Natalie. “And you have wheels.”

  “Bring your guitar,” said Lacey.

  “Natalie plays, too.” The thought of driving down a highway with guitars in the backseat had made my night.

  “Indie rocks the guitar,” said Natalie.

  “Yeah, but you play a mean fiddle.”

  “Bring all your instruments. That’d be so cool. We can have a par-tee.” Just then, Lacey waved at someone in the distance.

  “Listen, I got to go,” she said. “But let’s get together. And make sure you come to the river party at the end of the summer. It’s going to be huge.” She hugged me again before she turned to Natalie and said, “See yah.”

  The rest of the night cruised by, and soon it was last call. “Come on,” said Sarah. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Outside, the air was still hot and humid. I took off my high heels and walked in my bare feet, swinging my shoes back and forth.

  “That guy you were talking to was so cute,” said Natalie to Sarah. Then she hiccupped. Putting her hand to her mouth, she mumbled, “I shouldn’t have had that last beer.” She hip-checked Sarah hard, sending her flying across the sidewalk. “So who was he?” she asked.

  “A friend of a guy I work with at greasy, gross Denny’s,” slurred Sarah.

  “I thought he was cute, too,” I said. “And he bought you two beers.” I held up my fingers and gave her the peace sign. “Two means you have to give your girlfriends the goods.”

  “His name is Tyler.”

  Sarah squished in between Natalie and me and flung her arms around us. The three of us, like little Musketeers, tried to get in step but couldn’t. We ended up laughing hysterically.

  “And he just moved here from Toronto.” Sarah tilted her head back and screamed into the black sky. Then she looked at Natalie and me and said, “And get this. He’s looking for a place to live, and I told him the downstairs apartment might be for rent soon.” She squealed and raised her arms to the sky.

  “Are you kidding me?” I said. “That would be great. We’ll have friends downstairs. That would be so fun.” And that also meant that someone, mainly a big, strong guy, was going to be living downstairs. Tyler looked as if he lifted weights. With all the freaky stuff that was going on in our apartment, that would make me feel a bit better.

  When we got into our apartment, I wanted to stay up and talk but Sarah and Natalie were done, and they went to bed.

  The apartment took on an eerie silence as I sat at the kitchen table, drinking a glass of cold water. Only white noise again. I sat back and put the glass against my face, enjoying how cold it was on my skin. Then I picked up Natalie’s pack of cigarettes and tapped them against the table. One escaped, and I rolled it around in my fingers. Oh, boy, did I want it. No one would know if I stepped outside for one.

  “I don’t need one,” I whispered.

  Go ahead and have one. You deserve one. Again, my own voice; it was like it was me but with this huge attitude or ego that wasn’t really me. Made no sense. Sometimes it helped me do things I didn’t think I could do. But then other times, it made me do things I shouldn’t. Like now. Did I deserve a cigarette?

  I knew I didn’t need one. I put the cigarette back.

  Slam. Slam. Slam.

  I jumped up.

  Before I could grab my frying pan, I saw the outline of a tall, stately woman in the door frame. Her hair was piled into a bun on the top of her head and held in place with a beautiful tortoiseshell comb. She wore an olive green ankle-length skirt with a starched high-necked blouse and a little bolero jacket with fabric-covered buttons. Her lace-up boots shone in the dark. She rubbed her hands, and I immediately noticed her long, thin fingers, hands that were made for writing in a journal, smoking cigarettes from a long holder, and holding a wineglass by the stem. Her age was a bit uncertain, but from the lines around her eyes and mouth, I guessed 50 or 60. Her lips looked so severe, as if they had been drawn in a straight line with a marker. There was no curl to show any happiness, and she emitted so much anger and sadness through her mouth that I started to tremble. I couldn’t move. Not even an inch. I wanted to pick up my trusty frying pan, but it just seemed so wrong to hit someone in such obvious pain.

  “Who are you?” I whispered softly.

  “This is my house,” she stated in a stuffy British accent. Then she lifted her chin, straightened her backbone, and said, “I demand that you leave.”

  Chapter Three

  “Let’s go to the beach,” I said to Natalie and Sarah the next morning. After seeing the ghost, I had to get out of the apartment.

  Sarah nodded. “Good plan. This fan ain’t cutting the heat. There’s water and trees there.”

  “We could take our guitars,” said Natalie. “And play in the park. I think that would be fun. Give us something to do when we need to get out of the sun. This lily-white body can’t handle too many rays. The sun don’t shine all that much in Newfoundland.”

  “I’m game,” I said, rushing my words. “I can be ready in ten.”

  Sarah raised her eyebrow at me. “You? Ready in ten? What’s that all about?”

  I fanned myself. “I just want to get to some water.”

  I was ready in ten. Record speed for sure. As soon as I stepped outside, I exhaled. My shoulders relaxed as well, and just the relief of pressure made me realize how much weight I had been carrying since I’d seen the lady the night before. She had really affected me.

  I hopped in the backseat of Natalie’s old clunker car and put my head back to stare at the frayed fabric on the ceiling. I had hardly slept. How long had that woman been stuck in the apartment? Fortunately, Natalie and Sarah were oblivious to my mood and how tired I was; they chatted about random stuff the entire way to the beach.

  The parking at Britannia was scarce, but Sarah managed to find a spot on a side road.

  Bodies of all shapes and sizes packed Britannia Beach, but fortunately there were tons of trees, and we found a table under a big maple situated a little bit away from the beach area. We were all fine with that, as it gave us some privacy to play our music. I put my guitar on top of the picnic table and sat down on the bench.

  “Should we swim first?” Natalie whipped her T-shirt over her head to reveal her pale yet perfectly fit bikini-clad body.

  “You guys go,” I said. “I’ll watch our stuff. We can take turns.”

  Sarah held up her hands. “No argument here.” She threw a bottle of suntan lotion to Natalie. “You better lather up.”

  “I already did,” replied Natalie.

  “Race you, then.”

  “I’ll take the lotion,” I said.

  Sarah tossed me the bottle, then they took off, laughing and running toward the water. I just sat at the rickety wooden table, staring into space.

  And thinking.

  Of the ghost. The woman in the green skirt.

  She had been unhappy that we were living in the apartment. Well, really, her house, I guess. I wanted to tell the girls about her, but I didn’t want them worrying or getting freaked out. Sarah would go ballistic, and Natalie would cower under her messy bedcovers. Anyway, there was a chance that they wouldn’t believe me. I s
cratched at the peeling paint on the picnic table. Maybe she would just go away eventually. I flicked the little piece of peeled paint, then I tapped my fingers on the table. I shook my head when I realized how agitated I was, and I decided I needed to do something productive.

  I picked up my guitar and strummed, random chords that had no tune. The sun peeked through the leaves, and I remembered I hadn’t put on sunscreen yet. I set my guitar aside and squeezed the last of the cream out of the bottle. After rubbing it in, I glanced around for a trash can and spotted one on the other side of the trees. For fun, I decided to throw it and pretend I was a basketball player. Why not? I had never been good at sports, but what the heck? I tossed it so hard that it flew through the air and bonked someone on the back of the head.

  “I’m so sorry!” I put my hands up to cover my mouth. How embarrassing.

  He turned around and gave me a quirky smile. “No big deal.” Then he picked up the bottle, jumped, and tossed it in the trash can.

  “I guess you get a point,” I said, my cheeks turning red.

  “Helps that I was only a foot away,” he said, grinning. “But, hey, I’ll take any point I can.” He glanced at my guitar, sitting on the picnic table. “I thought I heard someone playing.”

  “Yeah, that was me. I’m better at music than sports.”

  He squinted at me as if trying to place me. He looked to be about my age, maybe a year or two younger. Clean-cut, with sandy blond hair and a bit of a baby face. He wore blue-and-yellow baggy swimming shorts that hung to his knees and accentuated his scrawny body, his white legs looking like birch branches. A T-shirt covered his torso, unlike so many of the guys who walked around with no shirts on to show their dark tans and bulging muscles. I figured he was a guy who wore his T-shirt all summer long to hide his skinny, hairless chest.

  After a couple of seconds, he shook his finger at me. “You, uh, go to Ridgemont, right?”

  “Not anymore.” I held up my thumb and smiled. “Graduate.” Then I squinted and looked a little closer at him. “Do you … go to Ridgemont?” Perhaps he was a year younger than me.

  “Louis Riel.”

  “Are you still there?”

  “Yeah, I’m going into grade nine.” He flexed his muscles, and I laughed.

  “Kidding,” he winked. “I’m on the small size for my age. I graduated last year, too. I think I saw you at a party once last year. You might … have been with a guy who used to go to my school?”

  “John Smith?” Just saying his name made my heart pick up its pace.

  The guy nodded. “That’s the guy. He got kicked out of our school.” He paused and shrugged. “We weren’t really friends.”

  That didn’t surprise me. John wasn’t the kind of guy who had a ton of friends.

  Suddenly I heard band music in my head, but it ended after about a bar with the blast of a trumpet. I quickly looked around. There was no band. When I turned back, I tilted my head and blurted out, “Were you in the jazz band?”

  “How did you know? I played sax.” He laughed. “I didn’t think we had fans. We were a bad high-school band.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. You look like you might be in the band.”

  “Ah. Yes. I am often mistaken for a geek.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  Again he laughed. “It’s okay. I’ve been called worse.” He stepped toward me and held out his hand. “My name’s Paul Thompson, by the way.”

  I took his hand in mine and shook it. “I’m Indie,” I said. “Indie Russell.”

  “Nice to meet you, Indigo.”

  “How … do you know my real name?”

  “Deductive reasoning.” He tried to sound cool, but then this impish grin appeared on his face. “I remember someone talking about Smith and how he had this girlfriend named Indigo. I just put two and two together.” He held up his hands and made peace signs. “Math’s my best subject. Get it? Two plus two.”

  Just the mention of John’s name quieted me down and made me speechless. Here was a guy I didn’t even know, but yet he kind of knew me because I was John’s ex. John’s notoriety was bigger than I thought. For the next few seconds, we didn’t say anything, and it was weird, because he just stood there, with his arms hanging like strings from the side of his body. The awkwardness made me mumble, “I should go swimming soon.”

  His shoulders slumped, and his smile left his face, but he said, “Gotcha,” in this fake-cool voice. He gave me a finger salute as he started walking backward, pretending to be casual.

  “Paul!” I said. “Watch out for the trash can.”

  But I was too late, because he smacked right into it, almost falling bum first into the piled-up fast food wrappers that heaped over the edges of the can.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, giving me a feeble thumbs-up. He quickly turned and walked away without looking back.

  After he was gone, I heard the man’s voice in my head.

  There are no coincidences.

  “Who are you?” I whispered.

  My name is Isaiah.

  Shocked that he had answered me, I said out loud, “You have a name?”

  Yes. I have a name.

  Just at that moment, Sarah came bounding up to the table. I wondered if she’d heard me talking to myself—well to Isaiah, really. She snatched a towel from her bag and wrapped it around her shoulders.

  “Who was that guy you were talking to? He looked kind of cute.” She shook her wet hair, and droplets landed all over me.

  I laughed and backed away from her. How had she seen me with Paul? “I don’t know. He went to Louis Riel and saw John and me at a party once. John went to Louis Riel before coming to Ridgemont.”

  “Yeah, I remember that. This guy remembered you?” She raised one eyebrow and made one of her funny faces. She had a million of them.

  I laughed at her. “I guess. But only because of John.”

  “Stalker.”

  I continued laughing. “Hardly. He seemed nice. His name is Paul Thompson. It was just a … coincidence.” Then I proceeded to tell her about how I’d hit him on the head with the sunscreen bottle.

  Sarah laughed hysterically. “Only you could meet a guy that way,” she said when I had finished embellishing the story. “But, hey, maybe he’s a nice guy. Be a good one for you.”

  “I’ll probably never see him again.”

  Sarah toweled her hair. “Nat is waiting for you. She’s treading water by the orange buoy.”

  I stripped off my beach cover-up and grabbed a towel from my bag, slinging it over my shoulders. As I approached the beach, I saw Natalie in the water, frantically waving. I dropped my towel on the sand, ran to the water, and stopped as soon as it swirled around my toes.

  “It’s not cold,” she yelled. Only her head bobbed out of the water.

  “It is to me!”

  “Just dive in.”

  I lifted my feet a few more times, waded a bit deeper, and when the water slapped my stomach, I dove. Coming up for air, I gasped to catch my breath, then I swam toward her.

  “The water feels good,” said Natalie. “Our ocean at home is so cold. I mean freezing. This is refreshing.”

  I treaded water and tilted my head to the sun. “Amazing.”

  “Hey,” she said, “we saw you talking to a guy.”

  “How could you guys see me from here? We were at the back of the park.”

  “Sarah has hawk vision.”

  I liked swimming but only for short bursts, and I wanted to change the topic of conversation. “Come on, let’s go in and get something to eat. I’m starving.”

  We waded out of the water, dodging the little bodies that were swimming like fishes along the shoreline and the bigger bodies stretched out on towels, catching rays. We strolled across the grass and headed back to the table.

  When we arrived at the table, Natalie and I got some money out of our beach bags and headed over to the burger shack. I looked around, trying
to see Paul, but he didn’t seem to be anywhere.

  The lazy summer afternoon crawled by, and we lounged on towels laid out on the grass and swam and slept. By late afternoon, parents started throwing sandy toys into beach bags and wrapping towels around their children. They herded them to the parking lot, and the beach became quieter.

  “Your guy never came back,” said Sarah to me, looking up from her issue of Rolling Stone. Madonna graced the cover, posing like an Indian goddess. I knew Sarah was more interested in the articles on Jewel and Steven Tyler.

  “He’s not my guy,” I retorted. “We talked for all of five minutes.”

  “Did you get his number?” Natalie checked out her tan lines before putting on a cover-up.

  “No.” I flipped onto my back. “And I didn’t give him mine either.”

  Sarah sat up and stared toward the water. Then she looked at Natalie and me. “Beach is almost empty. Guess we should head out soon.”

  I didn’t want to go back to the apartment yet, so I said, “Let’s get something to eat on the way home.”

  Natalie jumped up. “Ice cream cone! Let’s stop by Licks.”

  That prompted immediate movement. With our beach bags and guitars, we started to walk across the grass and toward the street where the car was parked. We were almost at the sidewalk when I heard a soft crying sound coming from behind a cluster of shrubs. I froze. Had the spirit followed me?

  I slowed my step and tuned my ears to the sound. I heard it again, but this time it was a mewling sound and not at all like the sad singing of the ghost.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked.

  We all stopped walking. “Sounds like a kitten,” said Sarah.

  I put my guitar down and walked to the shrubs. The mewling got louder and louder. I squatted down, parted the branches and peered inside the shrub. Stuck under a branch sat a scrawny black kitty. It looked at me with its big green eyes, opened its mouth, and let out a loud screech.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll get you out.”

  By now Natalie and Sarah had squatted down beside me and were pulling the prickly branches of the shrub apart to help me reach the kitty. I slowly reached in and let it sniff my hand for a few seconds before I gently pulled it out.