From Where I Watch You (10 page)

She stares at me. There’s softness in her eyes, something I never saw when she was alive.

“This is not happening,” I say, maybe to her, I’m not sure. I think briefly of Mom, and of her insistence that Kellen visited her after she died. “You’re dead. Go away, Kellen.”

Even as I say it I’m not sure I mean it. I’m not sure about much anymore. My sister is trying to make me crazy like Mom. Even in death she has to try and get me.

Raul pops around the corner. “You okay, Kara? Who you talkin’ to?”

“Sorry. It’s nothing.”

He nods and disappears around the corner.

My notebook sits there, opened to my last sketches. The corner of a familiar blue-gray envelope sticks out from the pages.

How did I not see this before? I think as I rip it open.

You’re nothing like the first.

June: Thirteen-Year-Old Carrot’s
Summer
Fun
Before High School

Everyone looks at us now. Kellen grabs her bag and climbs over the rope to the sidewalk. The pizza in my mouth is a chunk of wood I can’t swallow. I watch my sister storm off down the Ave, leaving me there with Nick and Tad.

“Shit,” Tad mutters, shaking his head. “She’s a fuckin’ nut job.” He points at me. “You can tell her I said so!” He grabs another slice of pizza, folds it in half, and crams it into his mouth.

I’m not sure what to do, follow her or stay. I keep hoping that she’ll yell for me to come with her.

“Aw, Christ,” Tad mutters, his mouth full. He hops out of his chair and over the rope, walking fast in the direction that Kellen went.

I still can’t believe she left me. I’ve been to the Ave a zillion times but never by myself. Mom only started letting me come here with friends a couple months ago. She’s going to be so pissed at Kellen when she finds out.

Nick puffs his cheeks out with a long exhale. “I’ll walk you home when you’re ready, kid.”

He wipes his mouth, sighs, and checks his watch and phone.

I nod.

I’ve been around Nick enough, just never alone so I’m nervous about going with him. What do I say? He’s seventeen. I’m thirteen and feel like more of a baby than ever. I push my plate away and shuffle my flips flops underneath the table.

“Finished?” Nick asks, looking at his watch again.

“Yeah,” I wipe my hands off on a napkin and stand up. I have to pull my sundress off my butt because it’s stuck there from my damp swimsuit.

Nick tosses a five on the table and walks out to the sidewalk. He waits, hands in his pockets, staring across the street and I hurry over, even though I don’t want to walk with him because I see this is such a burden for him—walking the baby home.

“I can walk myself, okay? I’m old enough and I know the way home,” I tell his backside as I walk past him. For some reason my eyes sting, threatening tears. I feel a hand on my shoulder and I stop and turn around. When he sticks his hands in his pockets I notice the tan and how the little hairs on his arm seem lighter than his skin.

“Look, Kara, it’s getting dark and you shouldn’t be walking by yourself okay?” He’s in front of me and his mouth turns up with a hint of a smile. “I really don’t mind. Plans are kinda shot now anyway.”

I follow behind when he starts walking and when he stops, I almost walk into his back. Over his shoulder he smiles. “You don’t need to walk behind me, kid.”

I move up next to him and for the first time ever I notice how good he smells. Clean. Not bathed in cologne like my dad—just clean. I keep up with him and notice he’s slowed down a bit. I catch a whiff of Fritos. Ugh, my swimsuit.

The peal of giggling girls comes from across the street. I recognize some of them from school but we aren’t friends. Nick and I are waiting for the light to change so I move a little closer to him and smile. The noise hushes a bit and I know they’re impressed and I have a feeling that if we were in school tomorrow they’d be asking me about him. Their mouths hang open, and one whispers and points at us. I don’t think Nick notices them, but I flip my damp hair to one side and stand up taller. Should I grab his arm? Gaby would do it for sure.

“Kara,” he starts and my stomach plunges because I think he’s onto me. “Back there, what they were saying, that was . . .” He doesn’t finish and we walk down toward my street. “Not right. They shouldn’t be talking like that in front of you, you know?”

The light changes and the girls still whisper and stare at us as we cross the street. Suddenly I realize how silly and obnoxious they seem. I’m embarrassed for them.

“I mean, really, you’re just a baby, a kid. I hope you just forget all that, everything they said. It was wrong of them, okay?”

“Yeah but I’m not really a kid anymore. I’m almost fourteen.”

Nick chuckles and pats my back in a brotherly sort of way. I shrug my shoulder away from his hand, so sick of being called a baby today. I make a great effort to walk ahead of him and when I see my street, I decide I don’t need him to walk me the rest of the way so I run. My flip flops are still damp and squishy and chafing the heck out of the spaces between my toes. Gnats are buzzing into my face. Nick calls out after me, but I ignore it because there’s no way I’m crying in front of him and showing what a baby I really am.

10
. Beat to stiff peaks.

..........................................................

My latest ridiculous thought is that my dead sister is leaving me the notes.

It’s crazy, yes. But I feel crazy right now.

I’ve been sitting here with Noelle, deciding if I’m going to tell her about the notes, but I see that guy with the varsity jacket. “Noelle, who is that guy over there, sitting with the jocks?”

She turns around. “Which one?”

“The guy on the end, he’s looking at us now.”

“Umm, I forget his name, but I’m pretty sure he had a very hot older brother. I remember him from parties, but I can’t remember his name, either. Why? Are we hot for him now, too?”

I ignore this and she turns back to look at him.

“He is cute, but not like his brother . . .” Noelle slams her hand down on the table. “Noah! His name’s Noah.”

Her cell distracts her, which is good because I’ve changed my mind and don’t want to get into the whole stalker thing with her right now.

When she gets off her cell, I avoid any more comments about Noah by telling her I saw Kellen again.

“What did she do this time?” Noelle asks, picking at the pizza on her cafeteria tray.

“Nothing, just—”

“How exciting.” She takes a bite of pizza and then talks with her mouth full. “So does she say how Elvis is doing these days?”

I stare at my chicken burger, deciding if I really want lunch at all. “Can you be serious?”

Noelle finishes chewing before she speaks again. “I don’t know, Kar. What do you want me to say? That I think you’re crazy? Or that I think maybe you need to believe your mom when she says Kellen visited her and told her to make her Jesus soup?”

I hate that Mom’s craziness could’ve been caused by my dead sister. But it certainly fits with Mom’s current version of events: a few weeks after Kellen drowned, Mom went to the couch with her wine, and the next day she claimed to have had a near death experience where my sister waited in the light and told her to go back, sell our house, and open the café. Putting yourself to sleep with two bottles of wine could make your dreams unusually strange, right? At least that’s what I thought back when it happened.

But it was weird, the way everything changed so quickly. One day she was catatonic, the next she had the first smile on her face in months, and she had a mission.

“Hey, Noah!”

When I look up, Noelle is grabbing Noah’s arm, and he has no choice but to sit down next to her.

She smiles at him, takes a drink of his Coke, and gives it back. “Thanks, Noah. Hey, do you know my girl Kara here?”

Noah’s eyes flick around to a few different spots before they land on my shoulder. “No, can’t say that I do.”

“Well, then, Noah, Kara, Kara, Noah.”

He offers a weak smile with a millisecond of eye contact. I do the same. His group of friends walks by and he pops up fast.

“Well, now we know balls don’t run in his family,” Noelle says. “I know his brother wasn’t scared of girls.” She flashes a grin. “So how come we never see Charlie at school?”

“He goes to Kennedy,” I tell her.

“How do you know?”

“He told me.”

She waggles her eyebrows. “Well, well. You seem to know a lot. You kids getting a little sloppy back there between dishwasher cycles? Hmm?”

“God, can you possibly be serious for a whole minute? Some people have actual problems, you know?”

Noelle frowns. “Yes, I know. How could I not when you remind me daily? This is why our ancestors invented beer. And by the way, life is also about getting some, and getting over sad stuff and having fun, and not wasting all of your best years hiding in a kitchen baking cookies. You know, I put up with a lot from you and your moods, Kar.” She sweeps her hand around the room in a giant circle. “Take a look. Is there anyone else here that you could call a friend besides me?”

I want to tell her to kiss my ass, but then I’d have no one else to talk to. Because she’s right. But I think about how if Jen and Gaby were still my friends I’d be able to tell them things. Like how Hayden kissed me, and I’ve wanted him to do it forever, but then it wasn’t what I thought it’d be. I could tell them that I have a stalker, and they wouldn’t joke about it. But I can’t tell Noelle any of this.

After another bite of burger, I drop it back on the tray. “I have other friends, Noelle.”

“Mm-hmm. Where? Sometimes I worry about you.”

“So stop ditching me every chance you get to spend time with Mason!”

There. I said it. My insides feel hot and twisty as I wait for the verbal annihilation that will leave me humiliated and alone in this big cafeteria.

Noelle glares at me. I’ve done it, somehow. Because my only friend stands up, grabs her stuff, and marches away. When I dare look up I see her leaving the cafeteria with Mason.

People watch. Or maybe they’re staring at my French fry log house in the corner of the tray next to the grapes, which Noelle and I think are cat eyeballs. Maybe he watches, too. My hands shake when I carry my tray to the garbage. Noah’s just turning to walk out the door and I see the entire back of his letterman jacket.

Bender. It’s written in big script.

Noah Bender.

But I still don’t know why he’s so familiar.

THE REST OF THE
day blurs by me and the ground is the only place that feels safe to look. In sixth period home ec I’m not in the mood to bake. I think about ditching and taking the Playtex box home, to my old house.

Later, while I robotically crack eggs into a bowl, Mr. King approaches the counter. “Kara, how are things on the contest front? Did you get permission from your mom yet?”

I can’t even force a smile for him and his Captain Morgan apron. “I bought my plane ticket, earned enough money working.”

He nods.

Everyone is busy, stirring and sifting and measuring. I should tell him about the notes. He’s my favorite teacher. He’ll help me.

But instead I say, “I’ve narrowed down my designs.”

He stares down at me, nodding his head while his eyes do that teacher-roving-around-the- room thing.

Now, Kara! Tell him now.

He nods again and my insides twist because I know what he’s asking.

“Kara, I am glad that you’ve raised the money, but the entry form clearly states that those under eighteen need written parental consent. Have you gotten it?”

I look down into my bowl of butter, eggs, and vanilla. The vanilla separates, making the egg look like it has freckles on it. “Working on it.”

“Kara, you have to do this.”

I have to tell him.

“Mr. King!” I hear someone yell from across the room.

Mr. King pivots and hurries toward the smell of burning pans. But I can’t tell him anyway. He’d probably feel obligated to tell Mom, and she can’t ever know. If she found out then she’d find out about other secrets. I go back to mixing and try to see my future in the bowl. I don’t need anyone. I need to get out of this city and off to school, and maybe France, and get my own life and start over.

Dreams are all I need, anyway.

“HMM, LOOKS LIKE YOU
just lost your best friend.” Justine rubs hand lotion over her elbows.

“Just a crappy day,” I say, restocking bags.

“I see. Sniff is at the bank, so go on.”

I smile at Dickhead’s new nickname. “There’s just something I want more than anything in the world, and I know my mom’s going to say no.”

“Tell me,” Justine leans over. “What? A piercing? A tattoo? Bigger tits? Not that yours aren’t just precious.” With that she cups both of hers, frowning and shaking her head at them. “Good Lord, what’s a girl to do with these? Love to get me down a cup or two.”