Time. I pull out my phone to check the time. I click the button for missed calls, hoping to find Austin's name there, even though we didn't exchange numbers. My hopeful heart still believes she may have called, despite not having my number, and despite my being deep in the woods with no cell phone reception.
From what she said this morning, I guess Austin's at her job now, at The Bean. I know where the coffee shop is. In my head, I imagine her there, at the counter, grinding espresso. The floor is grey and white checkers, and the counter is orange. Everything's orange, and she's wearing the same dress she wore when I met her—navy blue with stars. She tips her head to the left and looks up at the ceiling. Her long, pale hair pools on the counter as she remembers the great time she had last night. Her eyebrows knit together as she wonders why the guy she met isn't coming to bring her flowers today. Or at least calling. She doesn't know he's at the lake, out in the middle of nowhere, with his best buds, one of whom hates him.
Julie starts yelling, jarring me out of my daydream. “You little prick, you prick!” she says.
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” I yell back.
“Don't make me pull over and discipline you two,” James says. Bits of gravel from the road are flying up into the bottom of the Jeep, banging away aggressively. A vehicle coming from the other direction sprays us with more gravel. “Jerk,” James says of the other driver.
“Prick!” Julie yells.
“She was really hot, okay?” I yell at Julie. “I'm sure you'd meet someone too if you got your face out of your books! No need to call me a prick.”
“Not you,” Julie says, waving her arms and pulling off her hoodie. “In my sweatshirt, he stung me. A bee, or a hornet, or whatever, flew in the window and stung me!”
“So I'm not a prick?” I ask. “The bee is the prick here?”
“Oh, that's good luck,” James says.
Breathing heavily, Julie glares at her brother as though he raised the bee from a tiny grub and trained it to sting her on just this occasion. “Good luck?” she spits out. “In what culture?”
“Some culture, probably,” he says. “Lots of things are good luck. Depends how you look at it. You can't make something up and not have it be true somewhere in the world.”
“Getting pooped on by a bird is good luck,” I say.
“Lucky you,” James says.
She rubs the red welt on her arm. “This is not good, whatsoever. I hope you get stung by a bee,” she says to her brother. “And break a leg. You too, Zan, stop laughing.”
“Hey, you just talked to me,” I say. “You're not choked.”
She crosses her arms.
“You're a good friend,” I say.
The big, red welt on her arm stares sullenly back at me.
* * *
I'm scraping away at the black gunk on the barbecue when James hands me a beer and tells me to stop moping. I was concentrating, not moping, but I let his comment go.
“Beer? From whence cameth beer?” I ask.
“Enjoy that one, I only found three and sacrificed one to Julie. I'm surprised there were any at all. One of my dad's business buddies must have left them behind.”
I examine the label. “Fancy. European.”
“Julie's inside with her novel, so you don't have to pretend you're all contrite and stuff.”
“I'm not feeling contrite, because I didn't do anything wrong. I'm thinking about stuff. Can't a guy be serious now and then?” I don't say so to James, but I've been thinking all afternoon about my so-called gift, my power, and how free I am now that it's gone.
“You look like you got sexually-transmitted sadness,” James says, punching me in the arm. “Was your performance that lousy? I could give you some pointers, for a few bucks.”
“I'll pay you ten dollars not to.” I open the beer and take a drink. It's warm, which makes me think of my granddad—Gran's husband—saying tastes like piss whenever he drank beer that wasn't chilled. People often say things taste like piss, or like crap, but how would they know? I know what vomit tastes like, for obvious reasons, but not the other stuff, and I hope I never will. To steer clear, all I have to do is not join a fraternity ... or work at Arnold's Bar and Grill.
“Warm. Tastes like piss,” I say, in honor of my granddad's spirit. I imagine him smiling up in heaven. And bowling. I picture him bowling in heaven.
“So, are you going to give me all the details about last night, or what?” James asks.
“When a man loves a woman,” I begin.
He sits down in the aluminum-framed deck chair, which squeaks ominously. “I missed that day in school. Tell me how the fallopian tubes work. They're like a subway, but for eggs, right? Whenever they say eggs, I picture chicken eggs floating around in there. Like with shells and yolk and everything.”
“That sort of explains the vegan thing,” I say.
He takes a swig from his beer and grimaces. “Mmm, good.” The deck chair groans and squeaks as he leans back. “So, what's the problem? The real problem you're not telling me.”
I scrape at the black gunk on the barbecue until my arm aches. “The problem is she left rather fast. And this may not be a problem, but I've been going over the things she said, and she might be weird, you know.”
“Girls are weird. Have you not met my twin sister?”
“Not like that. She talked about seeing auras and stuff.”
“Zan. Seriously? You yourself have creepy, x-ray, future-matic visions.” He waves his hand in a rainbow shape. “So she's a bit woo-woo. You, of all people, should be more understanding.”
“That's the thing. She stuck her finger in my belly button and nothing happened. I think it's gone. Gone.”
We're alone on the deck adjoining the cabin, but I'm suddenly aware of the neighboring cabins, and people who could overhear this conversation. I listen for laughter or conversation, but pick up nothing but the wind in the trees and a few birds. The cabins next to us show no signs of life.
James rubs his chin thoughtfully. “Gone, you say. Or ... maybe she's perfect and there's nothing to see. Or maybe there's nothing so bad it would scare you away. Or maybe one of you is going to die.”
I drop the barbecue grill brush, sending it clattering to the weather-beaten wood deck. “What the hell? One of us is going to die?”
James fidgets in the squeaking chair. “That was meant to sound more lighthearted. Like when people say 'Screw it, maybe I'll get hit by a bus.'”
The birds have stopped chirping and a hawk circles overhead. “People don't say that.”
“I saw a girl get hit by a bus,” he says. “At one of those big bus loops. She was standing there talking to her friend and didn't get out of the way, and the bus was going maybe two miles an hour and just sort of ... bop.” He makes a motion like pushing someone into a swimming pool. “Over she went, books everywhere. It was the funniest thing.”
Now the image is in my head: the girl from his story, in her white jeans, with her hair up in two ponytails because she thinks it's cute, even though she's got dandruff that shows along the part. She's the kind of girl who'll say rude things and swear like a roofer, but acts positively outraged when someone else steps over her line with a slightly tasteless joke, then she'll dress him down on behalf of all humanity everywhere. She probably deserved to get lightly knocked over by a bus.
“Finish your beer and we'll go down to the dock,” James says. “I want to find out if your power is really gone or not.”
“It's gone, I feel different.”
“Don't be a suck. You're just missing your v-card.” He kicks off his sandals and says, with the high-pitched version of his voice, “I can't believe you gave it up without her even buying you dinner first.”
Something clicks in my brain. “You sound exactly like Julie when you talk that way,” I say. “I think I know why the thought of kissing her makes me feel nauseous. It would be like kissing you.”
“I've been told I'm a good kisser,” he says. “But I'm serious
about tonight. We need to test this thing on some girls, figure out what we're dealing with.”
“You're the one who advised me to stop. I thought you'd be happy.”
“Yeah, but I want to know if your power's broken. I said to stop using it for yourself, but you could still use it for me, on my behalf.”
I pick up the tool and go back to scraping the grill. I don't know if there's even any metal in here. It's just black stuff on top of black stuff. If I keep scraping, there'll be nothing to cook our veggie wieners on.
I'm not looking forward to my tofu dinner, but another thing is bothering me. Power or no power, I don't want some other girl's finger anywhere near me. I only want Austin.
* * *
Four hot dogs are my dinner. If I'd been thinking clearly, I would have asked James to stop at the little gas station convenience store to get some hamburgers, or lunch meat, or anything not soy-based. Still, having eaten four, I admit vegan hot dogs aren't too bad. Even meat hot dogs are mostly filler, so the taste is not dissimilar.
Julie won't look at me at all during dinner. The bee sting on her arm is red and angry, but fading, and I hope her feelings are also calming down.
She eats her two hot dogs with mayonnaise—no ketchup or mustard, just mayonnaise, and lots of it, with crumbled potato chips. I crush some barbecue corn chips on top of my fifth hot dog and compliment her for the idea. She stares at the wood planks on the deck.
I make the arp-arp noise that always amuses her—the bark their neighbor's dog makes ever since he had a growth in his throat removed. “Arp-arp,” I say again. “Who am I?”
This goes on for twenty minutes: me making sounds and doing funny things, Julie's mouth twitching, but not opening except to eat. I'm exhausted and relieved when she finally goes back into the cabin to read.
“She'll come around,” James says. “Come on, time to meet some girls!”
James and I grab some bottles of soda—chilled, thankfully, unlike the beer—and walk down the trail to the lake. The sun hasn't set yet, but the trees blot out the light here.
James curses and snaps some branches. “I fear the trees are displeased with me,” he says.
“How so?”
“Displeased with me,” he repeats. “Movie quote, from Crazy People. Come on, we just watched it last week.”
I walk through a sticky spiderweb and get smacked on the face by some branches. Finally, we step out of the trail, onto the rocky beach. “Ahh, perfection,” I say. From where I'm standing, you could take the perfect photo for a jigsaw puzzle or a postcard. Unfortunately, I didn't bring any of my cameras.
James stops to survey the surroundings. “Is it just me, or is the lake getting smaller every year?”
“You think someone's draining the lake?” I joke, imagining a big white, rubber plug at the bottom, attached to a silver chain, like the plug for a bathtub.
We walk around for a few minutes, gathering dry wood for a bonfire in the communal pit. There are a few people around, but not the ones James is looking for.
“Nothing but old people,” I say to James. “And couples with small children. Maybe all the other kids our age went to a different lake this year, like there's some hot new lake a few miles away. Maybe they stole the water.”
“Nah. There'll be girls here.” He puts his hands on his hips and says, “If you build it, they will come.”
“Familiar ... what's that line from?”
“Conan,” he says with a smirk. “No, Ghostbusters. No, Men in Black. No, Star Wars. What's your best guess, nozzle?”
“You're a nozzle. Don't quote it if you're not going to say.”
“Field of Dreams. You need to watch more movies.”
“If this shrinking lake had cell phone reception, I could have looked it up.” I slap at something on my neck. Great. It's dusk, the mosquitoes are coming out, and I didn't put on any bug spray.
James squints at the dim horizon and drops some wet-looking wood on the pile. “Those shapes. Those are girl shapes. Off that way. Let's wave.”
“Those aren't girl shapes. That may be Sasquatch.”
“Either way, let's have some fun. Come on, wave,” he says.
I sit on a log and finish my can of soda. “Hey, what would happen if you boiled carbonated water?”
James stops waving. “I think those shadows are bushes, not people. They're not moving.”
“Can you imagine a hot, carbonated beverage? Like tea? It would look like it was still boiling, while you were drinking it.”
“You're a strange dude, Zan.”
* * *
An hour has passed since we started the bonfire. I have seven bug bites and I'm three for ten on guessing lines from movies of the '70s, '80s, and '90s. James prefers old movies, because—as he puts it—computer-generated special effects have ruined storytelling.
The fire crackles hypnotically, making me mellow enough. I'm eager to get back to town so I can try to talk to Austin, but since I'm stuck here tonight, I may as well enjoy myself.
James excuses himself for a moment, and to my surprise, returns with two girls in tow.
The girls are not entirely unattractive, but they're both smoking cigarettes, which is a steer-clear sign for me. James doesn't seem to mind, and happily introduces everyone.
I shake both of their hands and try to figure out a quick way to get one or both of them to put a finger in my belly button. Their hands are both moist, which makes me feel strangely protective of my stomach area.
The blonde produces a bag of marshmallows from her big purse.
“Marshmallows! Great, here we go,” I say with a laugh.
They stare at me, open-mouthed.
“You know those are meat,” James lectures. “Gelatin is rendered animal tissue. Those are blobs of fluffy white meat, and you're going to melt them over a fire and eat them. Pig feet.”
“Huh huh,” the one girl laughs. I almost forgot her name, but she has a Miss Piggy nose, which reminds me her name is Missy. “I like fluffy white meat,” Missy says, tossing her processed-looking yellow hair over one shoulder. “Num num.” She pops one on the sharpened end of a stick and licks the powdered sugar off her fingers. She takes an extra-long lick on her index finger, and I shudder at the thought of that moist finger going in my belly button.
“No, he's right,” the other girl says. She's got asymmetrical, straight black hair and tattoos visible around her wrists. The two girls are nearly opposites: Missy is curvy with yellow hair, while the other girl is pale and stick-thin with raven-black hair. The dark-haired girl continues, “I don't mind gelatin. I don't get any readings from Jell-O, or marshmallows.”
“Readings?” I ask.
“That's why I'm vegetarian,” she says. “If I eat meat, I can feel the vibrations and the emotions of the animal from when it was killed.”
“No way,” James says. He couldn't sound more impressed if she'd started sneezing gold nuggets out of one nostril and silver out the other.
“Yeah, meat makes me really sick,” the hard-looking angular girl says, her expression earnest. “But marshmallows are okay. I don't know why.”
“My friend Zan here also has a psychic ability,” James says. “He can see into your soul if you poke him in the belly with your finger.”
“Does it work with tongues?” Missy sticks out and wiggles her tongue, which, yep, has a silver stud right in the middle. Why do girls think that's going to be a big turn-on? Nobody wants something sharp and metallic being raked along his body parts. Wait, actually, that thought gave me an interesting feeling. Never mind.
“You could try the tongue,” James says. “But he's a kinky little bastard and he loves the finger. He likes it when you wiggle around.”
I hold my hands open, palms upraised. Seriously? What part of secret does James not understand? We're barely a couple of hours from our town; we're not in some foreign country where we'll never encounter these people again.
“I wanna go first,” Missy says, eyeing my midsec
tion.
“It might not work,” I say. “My powers might be broken.”
“Kiss me while I do it,” Missy says, shoving another marshmallow in her mouth. “I've read about psychic stuff, and sexual tension can really amp up the wattage.”
I look over her shoulder at James, who nods, encouraging me to go for it.
Best to get it over with quick, I tell myself. I lift my shirt and lean down to kiss her cheek. She steps up to me, her hand getting closer, then suddenly she grabs my face and turns my head. She thrusts her tongue in my mouth at the same time her finger goes in my belly.
I taste the marshmallow with undertones of ashtray. It's not going to work, I think, then, so that's what a tongue piercing feels like in your mouth.
Chapter 8
Missy's finger is in my belly button. The fire crackles in slow motion. C-rrr-aaa-ck, pop, hiss. An individual ember rises from the glowing logs and arcs toward my face, but I can't move. I begin the motion of closing my eyes, but I'm distracted by the tongue in my mouth, which tastes like how hot garbage smells.
In my vision is Missy, waving a gun inside a jewelry store. She's wearing a black mask, but I know the girl in the vision is her—I can sense more than just what's visible, plus her yellow hair's sticking out. The side of her neck is fresh and unlined, suggesting this armed robbery is not far in the future.
I'm having a vision, I realize with a start. My power still works.
Dimly, I note my physical eye closes just as the errant ember from the fire sears my eyelid. The pain spreads, sizzling, but I can't move to brush the ember away.
I desperately want to come out of this vision, but I'm stuck watching as Missy, with a dimpled, maniacal grin, runs along the side of someone's car, digging her keys into the paint. She smashes store windows and grabs electronics in a montage of wanton property destruction. The horror! This vision can't get any worse, can it? Oh, but it can. I am treated to the image of her squatting, doing something unspeakable all over someone's new-looking white tennis shoes.
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