by Stacey Jay
Ugh. No way. I wasn’t going to let phobia win. I’d beaten my fear once today and survived a mini-ninja attack. I could do this. Mitch could too.
“I climbed out on the light grid to replace a spot at the fashion-show practice this afternoon,” I said, grabbing the discarded basket from the ground. “All by myself.”
“You’re kidding. That’s, like, forty feet up.”
“Fifty.” I stuck my nose in the air, playing up my pride in my accomplishment.
Mitch laughed. “Wow. Aren’t you the badass?”
“I am the badass. The. Badass. I am so badass I’m going to climb that ladder even though I am much less coordinated than you are and much more likely to break something doing it.”
“That’s not true.” Mitch followed me over to the base of the ladder, but he didn’t look happy about it.
“It is true. You used to be almost as jocky as Isaac,” I reminded him. “And I get B’s in gym. Nobody gets B’s in gym. Coach Miller gives A’s for showing up and dressing out.”
Mitch grunted as he looked up, his dark eyes flitting from the ladder to the apples and back again. “Yeah. You aren’t the most athletic Katie I know.”
I snorted. “How many Katies do you know?”
“At least ten, and they’re all better at sports than you are.” He grinned a crooked grin and nudged me with his shoulder. “You were pretty bad at swimming too. Did you ever learn to do anything but doggy paddle?”
“Nope.”
“That’s sad. Poor baby.” He started to pet my head like I was a puppy-pound reject, but I growled and snapped at his hand. He pulled away with a laugh. “Hey, that’s okay. I like sad clowns.”
“Thanks, but you know what’s really sad? I’m not the one who’s too chicken to climb a little ladder.” I propped the basket on my hip and started to climb, ignoring the gazelle-like leaping of my heart in my chest as my brain complained that it wasn’t safe to climb a ladder without both of your hands free.
People had been picking apples for hundreds of years, maybe thousands, and you never heard of anyone falling off a ladder and dying at their friendly local pick-it-yourself farm. This was perfectly safe. Besides, I was only five feet in the air, six . . . seven . . . eight.
Oh . . . man. Nine . . . ten . . . eleven. Gulp.
I plunked the basket down on the top of the ladder, gripped the top rung with both hands, and took a deep breath. It didn’t help. It was getting harder and harder to breathe as I imagined myself toppling backward, breaking my neck when my body connected with the hard ground. In my mind’s eye, I saw the unnatural bend of my limbs and my blood splattered on the dust—tiny spots of crimson dwarfed by the red apples scattered around my broken body.
I was about to cry uncle and scurry back down the ladder when Mitch started up behind me.
“Fine, I’m not going to let you out-manly me,” he said, an edge in his voice, though he was obviously joking around. “But if we die, I’m going to say I told you so a hundred zillion times.”
“That’s fine. Jews and Catholics don’t go to the same heaven, right? So I won’t be able to hear you anyway,” I said, feeling a marked loosening in my chest when Mitch’s hands grabbed the ladder just below mine. His body surrounded me on every side. He wouldn’t let me fall. And even if we did, he was in prime impact-softening position.
“So you believe in heaven? In the white-wings-and-fluffy-clouds kind of way?” he asked, his tone light, but with an undercurrent of seriousness I couldn’t ignore.
“No, not really.” I shrugged. “I don’t know what heaven will be like.”
“But you don’t think I’ll be in yours?” He stepped up another rung and his mouth was in my hair, his breath warm against my neck.
If I turned my head, his lips would touch my cheek. My pulse picked up again, and I was suddenly very aware of how close Mitch was. The heat from his body seeped through my clothes, warming my skin, making my bones ache in a disturbingly pleasant way.
When I spoke again, I didn’t sound like myself. “Of course not. If there’s a heaven, I think all good people will be there.” I swallowed, struggling to get a hold on the quiver in my voice. “I was just joking around.” I shifted to the right, but that only brought Mitch’s lips into my peripheral vision.
Bad idea. Bad. I tried to shift back, but Mitch moved closer, until we were nearly nose to nose.
“So you don’t think it matters which religion you are?”
Wow. Heavy question. I’d been raised Catholic, but did I believe I was right and everyone else was wrong? There were parts of my faith that seemed to demand I think that, but . . . those parts had never felt right to me.
“I’m sorry,” Mitch said, moving back a few inches. “Am I getting too—”
“No. I don’t think it matters.” I met his gaze and held it, even thought I knew I shouldn’t, even though every second I stared into his eyes made me more and more aware of the not-just-friends energy licking at every bare inch of my skin. “Do you think it matters?”
“What matters?” he asked, lips parting slightly. “Did you know you have a blue swirl in your left eye?”
“No, I didn’t.” I tried to laugh, but it came out as a sigh. I needed to move. I had to get away from Mitch. Now.
“You do. When the light hits it just right, you can see it.” His mouth moved a little closer to mine. My head spun and my lips tingled, every traitorous nerve ending urging me closer, closer. “It’s pretty.”
“Thanks.” My breath was coming faster. I wondered if he could tell.
Tension spiked the air, making each breath a shot of rum I shouldn’t drink. Mitch’s smell—honey shampoo and incense from the air freshener in the van, mixed with the salt and cinnamon scent of his skin—teased at my nose. He smelled so good, so amazingly good. I wanted to brush my face against his neck and suck in his scent, feel his pulse beat beneath my lips. I wanted to—
For the first time since my rewind, the locket grew hot beneath my shirt. Terror blossomed in my chest—sharp and fast, like a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart. This couldn’t happen! I didn’t want to go anywhere! I didn’t want another do over. I wanted things to stay the way they were—with Isaac still in love with me and Mitch my good friend.
I clutched wildly at the burning locket, grabbed a fistful of my shirt instead, and would have tipped over backward and made my bloody, head-splattered vision of a few minutes before a reality if Mitch hadn’t steadied me with a hand on my shoulder.
“Hey,” he said, fear in his voice as the ladder swayed for a moment before growing steady once more. “What’s wrong? Are you—”
“I don’t know. I . . . I . . .” The locket cooled, its temperature dropping rapidly. Too bad I couldn’t say the same for my racing pulse. It took several seconds for me to regain control and convince my heart to stop trying to crawl up my throat.
Finally, I sucked in a shaking breath, wondering if my inappropriate thoughts about Mitch had triggered the jewelry’s power. There was no way to know, but I could make darn sure I didn’t trigger it again. No more thoughts about kissing anyone but Isaac.
“I thought I saw a bee. It’s gone now.” I thrust my arm into the air between us, fumbling for the closest tree limb. “We should start picking. We’ve only got like twenty minutes, and that’s if we catch the hayride. But you wanted to walk, right? So you wouldn’t start sneezing again?”
Mitch’s lips pressed together and he swallowed hard, but then his hand reached up to grab a mostly ripe piece of fruit. “Yeah. That would probably be better.”
“Cool. We’re still good. This shouldn’t take long.” I snatched at anything red and thrust it into the basket, attention trained on the tree limbs, ignoring the feel of Mitch’s eyes still on my face.
“Good. Following my manly ladder-climbing display, I wouldn’t want to ruin your image of me by having another allergy attack,” he said, sounding mostly normal. “Allergies aren’t manly.”
“Nope. Not rea
lly.” I smiled, a fake smile that I hid by twisting around to pluck an apple on my left.
“Wow, thanks, Minnesota.” Mitch grabbed the nearly full basket and backed down the ladder with a dramatic huff. “That’s a nice thing to say.”
I followed him with a tight laugh, doing my best to relax. The tension was fading, the locket was cool and calm, everything was going to be fine. “I didn’t say it, you did! I was just agreeing with you.”
“Whatever. My rock-god guitar playing and cool hair and unusually awesome tallness make up for my delicate health and fear of heights. Completely.” He reached the bottom and moved around the side to watch me finish climbing down. “You should really think that. That I’m awesome and adorably flawed.”
“Since when do you care what anyone thinks?” I rolled my eyes as I stepped off the ladder.
“I don’t care what anyone thinks.” Mitch’s lips quirked at one side, but his eyes were soft, telling. “I care what you think.”
My mouth opened and closed with no words coming out. What could I say to that? To the sweetness and scariness and heaviness of that? I didn’t even want to think about his words. They were dangerous.
I just shook my head and grabbed the apple basket from his hands. “I think you’re almost perfect, dork. You’re my best friend.”
The way my voice lingered on the word “friend” made it echo through the orange-and-pink-streaked orchard, down the trail past the pumpkin patch and cornfields, all they way into the van. It was still whispering in the air when we pulled into my driveway forty-five minutes later.
“Mr. Almost Perfect will see you later,” Mitch said, shifting the van from drive straight into reverse, clearly intending to drop me and go.
I bit my lip, wondering if I should leave the tree house for tomorrow. It was almost dark and—after the weirdness between us—it seemed better not to let Mitch know I’d spent my every free minute this week working on a secret project for him. He might get the wrong idea.
And maybe he should. You didn’t spend any time making something for Isaac.
I blinked, trying to erase the realization from my mind.
“Um, right. It’s late. I’ll call you, then?” I sounded as unraveled as I felt. I was so confused, so—
“Katie!” Dad stuck his head out the front door, smiling and waving when he saw Mitch. “You two come on in, Katie’s gran is here.”
Gran! She was here. A day early! It was the answer to a prayer.
“Bye, see you tomorrow!” I was out of the car so fast I almost tripped and fell flat on my face. Thankfully, I didn’t. I didn’t have time for skinned palms. I had to talk to Gran. Now. Yesterday. Five days ago!
“What about your apples?”
“I’ll get them tomorrow!” I called over my shoulder, giving Mitch a little wave. “Yay! Gran!” I squealed to my dad as I ran past him into the house, following the smell of lavender and rotted peaches into the living room.
There Gran sat, right next to my mom, wearing the same pink and black turtleneck dress she’d been wearing when she arrived the first time. I’d never been so happy to see her crazy 1970s wardrobe or her silver bun and muddy green eyes. I opened my mouth, ready to tell her how happy I was that she was here, how I’d been dying to talk to her, but she beat me to the punch.
“My Katie!” She laughed and tapped my mom on the knee. “Lord, girl, your hair is as red as it was when you were a baby!” Her friendly green eyes were flat, empty of everything but the usual good humor, and I knew right then . . .
She didn’t know that I had the locket.
Chapter Nine
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 10:36 A.M.
Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming. As I flicked switches up and down, working the board in the light booth, the fish from Finding Nemo’s mantra played on an endless loop in my brain, powered by fear and anxiety and the need not to think about last night.
I couldn’t think about Gran’s complete confusion when I’d asked her about the locket. I couldn’t think about Dad’s insistence that he’d never seen his mom wearing the piece of jewelry. I couldn’t think about the hours I’d spent digging through the family photo albums after everyone else had gone to bed, searching for some proof that Gran had worn the necklace and coming up empty.
And I especially couldn’t think about the pictures inside the locket.
My fingers worried the clasp, a part of me sickly tempted to open it again, to check one more time and make certain I hadn’t been imagining things at three in the morning. Finally, I gave in to compulsion, but even in the dimness of the darkened theater, I could see that Grandpa wasn’t Grandpa anymore.
It was a picture of a different man. A. Completely. Different. Man.
I stared at the blond hair and mustache and fought the urge to scratch the stranger’s face away with my fingernail, anything to destroy the evidence that reality was crumbling all around me.
I snapped the locket closed with unnecessary force. Destroying the picture wouldn’t solve anything. I had to calm down and keep it together. “Okay. It’s okay,” I mumbled under my breath as I punched in the next light cue and the stage warmed, blue light fading into bright yellow. Everything was okay.
Ugh. No, everything wasn’t okay. I couldn’t begin to wrap my head around what this latest wrinkle in time meant in the greater scheme of things. How could that be my grandpa? How could Dad still look like Dad if he’d had a different father? How could I look like me? What the hell was going on? And why didn’t Gran remember the locket?
“And where are the pictures? I know there were pictures of her wearing it.”
“Are you talking to me?” Sarah asked over the headset, making me realize I’d actually said the words in my head aloud. “What pictures?”
“Nothing. Sorry.” I tried to laugh, but ended up sounding like a strangled muskrat. “Just having a minor mental breakdown.” Minor. Right. There was nothing minor about the way I’d been feeling since last night.
“You want me to come up there?” she asked.
The light booth was at the rear of the theater looking down onto the stage and the sound booth was in the wings stage left, so Sarah and I couldn’t see each other. Which was probably a good thing. I knew I looked like death. I’d barely slept last night. I’d spent hours tossing in my bed, stressing about the space-time continuum and other time-travel dangers I had pushed to the back of my thoughts until my “Gran will explain everything” hopes crashed and burned.
“The sound is cool for another five minutes, Katie. I can—”
“No, it’s okay. I was just kidding. Mostly. It’s just some family stuff.” I turned my attention back to the stage, hitting the next light cue as Ally completed her last pivot turn and disappeared behind the stage right curtain. I could do this. I could get through the fashion show rehearsal and then go home and hide in my room and sleep the rest of the day.
Heck, maybe I’d sleep for the next week, just stay in bed with the covers over my head and hide until this do over was finished.
“If you want to talk, I’ve got time after this run-through,” Sarah said, her voice comforting me the same way it had yesterday. “I don’t have to be at the Rep until two today.”
“Yeah. That would be great. Maybe we could get coffee or something?” I couldn’t talk to her about what was really bothering me, but still . . . girl time sounded good.
“Perfect.” Sarah sighed. “Now if only this torture would end already.”
“We’re almost to the finale. It will be over soon.”
“If Rachel will quit giving walking lessons.” Sarah growled into her mike and cut the music as Rachel once again raced out onto the stage to give Natalie Bean grief about leading with her pelvis. Or not leading with her pelvis . . . or something.
I was so under-caffeinated I hadn’t figured out if Rachel wanted her to stick her hips out further or pull them back in, but I had never been more happy to be hidden in the darkness at the back of the theater
.
“Who does she think she is, anyway?” Sarah asked. “Tyra?”
“Well, she is pretty fierce.”
Sarah giggled softly, before continuing in a whisper. “No, she’s just a bitch. You should hear the stuff she’s been saying back here when she thinks only her underlings are listening. I wish I had a tape recorder. Her sweet-pea image would be ruined forever.”
“Really? Like what?”
“Like telling everyone that Natalie had an abortion last year and still has some horrible case of crotch cooties.”
“No way!” Natalie was a beautiful blonde and one of the best cheerleaders on the BHH squad.
She’d also dated Rader—Rachel’s ex—for a very brief moment last year, before Rachel had started flirting with him again, leading him on until he broke up with Natalie. Afterward, Rachel had lost interest in her ex in a few days. She hadn’t really wanted Rader back, she’d just wanted to make sure her ex was never happy with anyone else, though she herself had been dating a young country music up-and-comer her dad had signed to his promotion company for over a year.
“I just can’t believe that,” I said. “Natalie’s so nice.”
“That doesn’t mean she couldn’t have crotch cooties. Sometimes bad cooties happen to good people.”
I snorted. “You are bad.”
“But I’m funny.”
“True, but—”
“Um, hello? Earth to Katie?” Rachel covered her eyes with one hand and waved the other impatiently in the air. “Could you dim that light? I’m having a hard time giving instruction with that glaring in my face.”
“Sure! Sorry!” I yelled, hurrying to dim the spot by fifty percent.
“Oh my God, give me a break,” Sarah mumbled into my ear. “Giving instruction. I can’t handle much more of this. She really thinks she’s—”
A loud snapping from the ceiling cut her off. Sarah cussed, I jumped, and the two adult sponsors sitting in the audience stopped gossiping about who was getting kicked out of the PTA long enough to look around—searching for the source of the sound. My eyes flicked up in time to see something big and gray plummeting toward the stage, a hunk of metal my brain didn’t even have time to process was one of the grid lights until after it had connected with Rachel Pruitt’s head and was lying broken on the floor.