A Guide to the Other Side (21 page)

“Oh. No.”

“It's been two days,” I said. “You need to figure something out.”

“I'm no good at this stuff, Baylor,” he said. “You've got to help me out, man.”

“How? Tell me what to do, and I'll do it.”

“Ask Cassie out. You're better looking than me.”

“Tell me to do anything else, and I'll do it.”

“Baylor, dude, come on!” he pleaded. “You've got to do this for me.”

I sighed. “Cassie isn't my type. I know she looks innocent, but I have it on good authority she's into some pretty messed-up stuff.”

“What? Why didn't you mention this before?”

“It's my burden to know this kind of stuff about girls. It's not fair for me to spoil your life adventures, Aiden.”

“It is if she's a devil worshipper or something!” he whispered, petrified.

“It's not that bad.”

“Well, it's only going to get worse in my head if you don't tell me anything else.”

“One word: taxidermy.”

“Oh my . . .”

I'd heard from one of her dead uncles that she was quite good at it too, a skill she'd learned from her family's annual hunting trips.

“I don't do hunting and dead stuffed animals, but that doesn't mean you can't grow to like them.”

“I don't want to grow to like anything about Cassie,” he said. “The only thing I want to grow to like is J, and I don't even have any more growing to do. I love her, dude.”

He sounded so pained, like his heart was being sawed slowly in half.

“We'll think of something,” I said. “Don't worry about it.”

I wanted to tell Aiden that his problem with J and Cassie was rearing its head at a terribly inconvenient time, and if he could just put everything on hold for a few days, that'd be great. But friends don't do that, so I held my breath and tried to pretend that his problems were as important as mine.

After I hung up with Aiden, I headed downstairs to find my dad. I needed to tell him that I saw Grandpa today, but I was worried he'd react in the same way as when he witnessed my interaction with Aunt Hilda and Marjorie.

I found him playing with Ella on the floor of the family room, which simply meant they were smacking some dolls around, while Jack played a video game. My mom was snuggled up on the couch reading one of her romance novels with a shirtless guy on the cover, a glass of red wine in hand.

I watched the four of them for a minute, thinking about Kristina and feeling lucky I got to be an active part of this family, even if I was permanently grounded. I couldn't imagine always watching from the sidelines.

“Hey, buddy,” my dad called to me, his voice giddy. Clearly he was in la-la land with a one-year-old. “Want to show Ella how ladies should be treated?” He reached out for a Barbie and held it next Mr. Potato Head. “With respect and courtesy,” he said in a weird, vaguely Irish accent. “Don't put up with anyone who doesn't treat you like the wonderful person you are.”

“Dad, I think you're getting to that point of playing with Ella where terrible ideas seem like good ones,” I said.

He laughed. “You could be right.” He examined my face, pushed himself onto his elbows, and frowned. “You look weird, Baylor. What's up?”

I saw my mom tense ever so slightly on the couch, and I knew she wouldn't flip another page until I was done speaking.

“I have something to tell you,” I said slowly, sitting on the ground next to him. “But I need you to brace yourself for it.”

My mom's grip on her book tightened until it looked like she was accosting the shirtless guy, and my dad tried to make his face as expressionless as possible.

“What is it, son?” he asked, his voice slightly deeper than normal. For a fleeting second I was sort of amused thinking of all the things they were bracing for me to tell them. How much more trouble could I really get into?

“Okay,” I said, drawing it out. “Here goes.”

My mom, her entire body clenched, looked like she was about to explode.

“I saw Grandpa Bosco today.”

For a moment there was total silence. Even Jack's video game quieted down. Then the reaction from both my parents was instantaneous.

My mom threw her book down and—wineglass still in hand—ran to the kitchen, grabbed an old rutabaga she'd purchased by accident at the farmer's market, and began hacking at it with her chef's knife. My dad, in that same moment, dropped both Mr. Potato Head and Barbie, grabbed a blanket from the couch, and, my fears coming true, wrapped himself up like a frightened woodland creature.

Jack and I met eyes, and his eyebrows shot up before he returned to his game. Over the rutabaga mutilation occurring in the kitchen—
clang, clang, clang!
—I said, “Dad? Are you all right?”

“Just fine,” he said, his voice muffled through the blanket. “Really! I'm
fine
.”

“Okay,” I said casually, acting along. “Great. So, yeah, I saw your dad, and it only lasted a couple of minutes because, well, it's a long, weird ghost story that you'd really hate, but he looked good.” I paused, but he didn't say anything. “He said he's been learning a lot in the Beyond, and that he's going to try to come visit soon.”

The chopping grew louder.

“There's one other thing. . . .”

He poked his head out of the blanket and stared up at me like some sort of sad turtle. “What?”

“He said to stop worrying. You made the right choice.”

His eyes widened slightly, then he nodded and returned to his hole.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“I'm just going to stay in here for a little bit.”

“Okay,” I said, standing back up. “Well, if you want to talk about it any more, I'll be upstairs.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, sounding just like a five-year-old. I mouthed “Good luck” to Jack before heading to the stairs. As I passed my mom in the kitchen, she whispered, “Baylor!” I turned to see the most finely minced vegetable I'd ever seen sitting in a light-yellow pile on her cutting board. There were even some little pieces stuck in her hair. “What on earth do I do with a rutabaga?”

  *  *  *  

At school the next morning J took me aside wordlessly, pushed me up against a locker, and crossed her arms.

“What is taking so long, Baylor? I need an answer today.”

“I, uh, I . . . you see, a problem arose, J,” I said, trying to choose my words carefully. I didn't want to sell out Aiden, but then it occurred to me that it might be the perfect thing to do.

“What sort of problem?”

“Aiden is so bad at life that he accidentally asked Clarinet Cassie to the dance,” I said breathlessly, “and now he doesn't know how to break off their date so he can go with you instead.”

“Oh,” she said, taking a step back and adjusting her bright-pink glasses. “Okay. Well, maybe I can take care of that.”

“Wait, what?” I asked. “What are you going to do?”

She walked away without answering, the brain beneath her bouncing hair obviously filling with ideas, and I wondered if I'd made a huge mistake.

  *  *  *  

Just before my lunch period I heard whispers from people, and I thought I heard the name Cassie mentioned a couple of times, and it was pretty distinct, because Cassie never gets talked about.

I furrowed my eyebrows, but I didn't ask questions because, frankly, I hoped I'd imagined it.

Sitting down at my normal spot, I took a second to check my phone and saw a text message from Reverend Henry asking me to stop by after school. He almost never texted me, so I was anxious to find out what he wanted, but that thought left my mind as soon as a pair of gruff hands clamped my shoulders and pushed me hard.

“What did you do, Baylor?”

Aiden's face was bright red as he hovered behind me, dropping his backpack to the ground.

“What are you talking about?”

“Haven't you heard? Everyone else has.”

I shook my head.

“Apparently, J went up to Cassie between second and third periods and asked if it would be okay if she went with me to the dance,” he said, his arms flailing like a madman while he glared at me. “But Cassie said it wouldn't be okay and told J that
she
had a massive crush on me, and no one was going to stop us from going together, which caused J to say that Cassie was being unreasonable, since I'm better friends with J, and that Cassie was just being selfish, which caused Cassie to slap J in the face
with her clarinet
and tackle her to the ground.”

I looked to the side of him but saw nothing. Kristina's absence was all too glaring in this moment. Not only would she have already informed me about the girls' tussle, but she would also have reacted perfectly to Aiden's dramatic telling of it.

“That's insane,” I said. “But why are you mad at me?”

“Because you told J about Cassie,” he said.

“But I told you about J in the first place.”

“So? You're supposed to tell me that because we're bros. But you can't go back to the original girl and tell her about the second girl that I never told the original girl about.”

I put a hand up. “This is getting confusing.”

“You talked to J when you should have kept your mouth shut!”

“No, she talked to me and said that she needed an answer by today, and since you said you had no idea what to do last night, I seized the opportunity, Aiden. I seized it hard, and apparently J seized some opportunities, and now it looks like all the seizing going on today has failed miserably.”

“I'm pissed at you,” he said, finally sitting. “None of this would have ever happened if you hadn't said anything. Now Cassie's probably getting suspended, and J's gonna have a bruise on her face in the shape of Cassie's clarinet.”

“You're looking at this all wrong,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “Aiden, two girls were fighting over you today. When has that ever happened to you? When will it ever happen again? You should go find J right now, thank her for fighting over you and getting everyone talking about you, and then kiss her.”

His mouth hung open a bit, and he blinked rapidly.

“Oh my God,” he said. “You're right.”

“I know I'm right.”

“I've got to find J.”

“You've got to find her right now.”

And, leaving his belongings behind, he stood up and half ran, half waddled inside to wherever J was.

  *  *  *  

I didn't hear anything about Aiden or J for the rest of the day, and once school ended, the thought of their troubles left my mind, usurped by the curiosity of what Reverend Henry had for me. It wasn't that far of a walk from school, and by the time I got to the church, I had decided that the reason he'd asked me to come by was that Kristina had visited him in a dream and told him of some way to find her.

The reverend was in his office doing paperwork when I knocked. He peered up for a moment, smiled, and said, “Just a second.” He was writing furiously onto a sheet of paper and finished by flourishing his signature dramatically.

“I have something for you, Baylor,” he said excitedly, reaching into his pocket for a crinkled ball of paper and handing it to me.

“Oh,” I said, taking it. “Trash. Thanks.”

“Open it up.”

It took me a second to wrangle it open, and I smoothed the paper against the edge of his desk. An address—8736 Triumph Lane, Brattleboro, Vermont—was scrawled across the page in crude handwriting.

I glanced from the paper to Reverend Henry's toothy grin. “What is this?”

“We found it in a pocket of a pair of the pants donated by the same person who donated the shoes,” he said. “I looked it up online, and it's a nursing home! That explains why ‘A. Parker' was written on the shoes.”

“A nursing home? That doesn't make sense. I spoke with Alfred's daughter, and she told me his new wife took care of him at home.”

Reverend Henry raised an eyebrow. “I say we go find out.”

  *  *  *  

“Mom, I'm spending some time with Reverend Henry this afternoon,” I said on the phone a few minutes later as we sailed down the highway.

“Oh, that's great,” she said brightly. “I think that's just what you need after the last few days. Tell him I said hi.”

“Will do!”

“Are you going to be back in time for dinner?”

“Um, I think so,” I said. “Just put any leftovers in the fridge.”

“You
think
so?” she said, her voice suddenly edgy. “What are you doing that's going to take so long?”

“Okay, got to go, love you!” I hung up. “Mom says hi.”

“Oh, that's wonderful,” he said lightly. “I would tell her hi back, but your suspiciously abrupt end to the conversation has rendered that all but impossible.”

For the thirty-minute ride I filled him in on the events from the day before, which he listened to in pursed-lip silence.

“I can't believe you would do something so reckless, Baylor,” he said once I'd finished, sounding genuinely mad. “I'm glad your grandpa was there to slap some sense back into you.”

“I was just trying to do a good thing,” I said defensively.

“And cause irreparable damage to your soul in the process.”

“You and my grandpa should get together and start a Pessimism Club.”

“That's a great idea,” he said. “For our first meeting we can talk about how this irresponsible kid we know has made us
pessimistic
about the intelligence of modern youths, since he goes off alone into other spiritual realms with no real protection or plan.”

“Well, that doesn't sound like a fun club at all.”

“It's a club for pessimists, Baylor. It's not supposed to be fun.”

  *  *  *