Grand & Humble (4 page)

“‘H,’” Brian read. The pointer had stopped right at that letter. There was no mistaking it.

“‘H’ is for Harlan!” Jerry said.

“Which would make sense,” Amber said, annoyed, “except for the fact that I asked it a yes-or-no question!” She talked down to the board: “Will Harlan ever be elected
president?”

The pointer started moving again, but now it wasn’t heading for either “Yes” or “No.” It was heading
down, toward the row of numbers near the base of the board.

“This isn’t working,” Amber said, looking away. “Maybe I need a new partner.”

“Wait!” someone said. “It
is
working. It’s stopping on a number.”

“Two,’” someone else said. “H’ and ‘two.’ Amber’s right. That doesn’t make any sense.”

But the pointer was moving yet again, not herky-jerky this time, but smoothly, evenly. It was heading back to the letters.

Once again, everyone leaned in close.

“O,’” someone read when it stopped again.

Amber looked back at the board. “Wait a minute,” she said, thinking aloud. “H
₂
O.’ Water!”

“And Harlan’s a swimmer!” Rachel said. “That’s
it
!”

“Except it’s still not the answer to the question I asked!” Amber sounded seriously peeved. And Harlan would have sworn that she had figured out the meaning of “H
₂
O” just then. Which meant that she wasn’t moving the pointer, at least not consciously.

They were
both
moving the pointer. That was the answer; that’s how a Ouija board worked. Harlan remembered that he’d read about it in a book somewhere. The two people with their fingers on the
pointer interacted with each other, each pushing it a little bit. The result was that it felt like neither one was really controlling it. But it was definitely the two people doing it. That’s why a Ouija board didn’t work when the players were blindfolded.

Except, Harlan realized, Amber hadn’t even been looking at the pointer the last two times it stopped. Not only that, she was also reading the board upside down.

“Hey, Harlan,” Jerry said. “You okay?”

“Huh?” Harlan said. He coughed. “Sure. Why?”

“You’re being kinda quiet.”

“No.” Except that he
was
being quiet. Everyone in that room knew it.

Harlan was actually relieved when the pointer began moving again. This time it stopped on the ‘D.’

“D,’” someone said, even as it was moving again.

“‘A,’” someone else said when it stopped.

“N,’” someone said on the next letter.

“Water Dan?” Brian said. “Who’s that?”

“Shhhh!” Rachel said. “It’s still moving.” She looked down at the board and read the next letter. “‘G.’”

Harlan’s heart skipped. He wasn’t having a premonition. He just had a sense that whatever this Ouija board was spelling out, it wasn’t good.

“‘E,’” someone said.

“‘R,’” someone else said.

“D-A-N-G-E-R,” the board had spelled.

Danger!

“Danger?” Brian said.

“H
₂
O danger,” Jerry said, and no one spoke for a second.

Harlan’s pores were bursting with sweat—millions of tiny firecrackers exploding on his skin. Somehow he knew the message had something to do with his swimming.

“Well,” Ricky said. “I guess the board’s saying that if he runs for president, he’ll definitely lose the mermaid vote!”

It wasn’t a funny joke, but then, Ricky hadn’t said it to get a laugh. He’d said it to break the tension of the room—and to remind Harlan just how silly this whole exercise was.

It worked. A couple of people laughed, and Jerry snorted. As for Harlan, the tension fell from his body like a heavy robe.

Harlan was a swimmer, and he and Amber had subconsciously spelled out the words “H
₂
O” and “danger” on a Ouija board. What was so strange about that? There were plenty of dangers in a swimming pool. Two years ago, a swimmer from Maple Park had dived into
the shallow end, hit his head on the bottom, and almost ended up paralyzed.

“My fingers are cramping,” Harlan said. “Someone else go.” He shifted as if to lift his fingers from the planchette.

“Stop!” Amber barked. “We’re not done!”

“What?” he said.

“It’s still moving!” Amber said.

He glared at her. Why was she doing this? A minute ago she’d been annoyed that the Ouija board wasn’t answering her question; now she wouldn’t let him stop.

So why was he even listening to her? Why didn’t he just pull his fingers from the pointer? But for some reason, her voice had commanded him, freezing his fingers on the plastic. And even as Harlan kept staring at her, the pointer slid an inch or so to the right and stopped again.

“T,’” someone read.

It shifted to the next letter over.

“‘U,’” someone else read.

Then, without warning, the pointer swept its way up and left, almost to the end of the upper arc of letters. It stopped suddenly, like it had caught on something, at exactly the spot to be pointing right at a letter. What were the odds of
that?

“‘B,’” someone read. “Tub.”

And in an instant, Harlan realized what it was spelling.

Harriet Tubman High School. They had a swim meet there the following week.

H
₂
O danger Tub!

And suddenly Harlan saw himself in water. A premonition! But in his mind, he wasn’t on top of the water, being supported by it. No, he was sinking into it. The water was washing over him, pulling him down. He was gasping for air, flailing, but it wasn’t helping. Without warning, he sucked in a mouthful of water; it felt like someone jamming a solid rock down his throat. He continued to sink—and no one was coming to his rescue!

Harlan jerked his fingers from the pointer like he’d touched them on the burner of a stove. Somehow, the action also stopped the premonition in mid-image.

“Harlan!”
Amber said. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing!” Harlan said, feeling himself flush. “I’m done! I told you, my fingers are cramping!”

“We’re
not
done! The pointer was still moving! ‘H
₂
O danger Tub’? That doesn’t mean
anything
!”

“Well, you’re definitely done now,” Jerry said. “Once you take your fingers off the pointer, you break the spiritual connection.”

Amber sighed. “Okay, so let’s do it again.”

“No!”
Harlan said.

“Harlan—”

“I’m not doing it!”
he shouted.
“You can’t make me!”
Had he meant to slap the Ouija board like that? In any event, the board flipped up and the plastic pointer went flying across the room.

The room fell absolutely silent. Every eye was on him; even Ricky was too surprised to speak. Harlan knew that the only way to redeem himself in the eyes of Amber and their friends was to say something, make it seem like his outburst had been a joke.

But Harlan couldn’t think of any jokes. He wouldn’t have been able to choke the words out even if he had. And it wouldn’t have mattered anyway—he saw that now. He was too pale, his breathing was too rapid. People had to see the panic in his eyes.

He just kept sitting there stupidly, with everyone staring right at him. At the same time, a car alarm went off somewhere on the street outside, and it caused the neighbors’ dogs to start howling. It sounded like the baying of hungry wolves gathering for a kill.

The wooden stairs creaked under Manny’s feet.

“Manny?” his dad said, below him in the basement. “Is that you?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m coming down.”

Talk to him, Manny thought. That’s what Elsa had said. Talk to his dad. But what exactly would they talk
about?
That his dad had reacted strangely that one morning when Manny had told him about his nightmare? Maybe his dad really
had
remembered that he had some errands to run before work.

No. It was more than that. He’d been fine before Manny told him the dream. It was something about this particular dream—something Manny had said. It had meaning to his dad. There was something his dad wasn’t telling him.

Manny found his dad in one corner of the basement,
rooting through a rack of cluttered metal shelves. The basement was unfinished, windowless, with walls of bare concrete; the air smelled of spray paint, Christmas spice, and dried aquarium mold.

“Hey,” Manny said.

“Oh,” his dad said. “Hello.” The shelf had his attention, not Manny—not that that was necessarily such a bad thing.

“What are you doing?” Manny said. It seemed important to sound casual.

“Looking for some of that green florists’ foam that you put at the bottom of a vase. You know, you poke flower stems in it so they’ll stand upright? I was positive I had some.”

“Let me help.” Anything to avoid doing what he’d come down here to do. “Why do you need it?”

“Oh, I got snookered into donating something for this silent auction. I can’t afford to actually buy anything, so I figured I’d make a flower arrangement.” This was just like his dad—both the donation and the flower-arranging part. Knowing him, his arrangement would even turn out great.

His dad sighed and straightened. “Well, it’s not here.” He thought for a second, then glanced around the basement. “What else do we have that
I could fob off on the silent auction?”

“Dad?”

“Hmm?”

But Manny couldn’t put into words what he was trying to say. He’d always been able to ask his dad anything. Why wasn’t he able to ask him about this? Maybe because he wasn’t even sure what he was asking.

“Planters,” his dad said.

“Huh?” Manny said.

“We’ve got plenty of planters. Maybe I could fill one with tulips.” He bent down to examine a cluster of ceramic pots. “Nah, they’re all chipped. If they’re not chipped, they’re ugly. Why do I keep these plastic planters, anyway? I’ve never seen one that doesn’t look cheap.”

“I don’t know,” Manny said softly.

His dad kept scanning the clutter, thinking out loud. “Christmas is over, so wreaths and ornaments are out. I don’t have time to reupholster furniture—not that any of our furniture is worth reupholstering anyway. Something to do with old CDs? A mobile or something?”

Manny just listened. What was he thinking—that the perfect segue would magically present itself?
Hey
,
Dad, speaking of mobiles, I wanted to ask you about breakfast the other morning….

His dad sighed again. “I never realized what a load of junk we have. One of these days, we should take it to the dump. Well, I could always make fudge.” He turned for the stairs.

“Wait!” Manny said.

His dad jumped a little, startled. “Manny? What is it?” He had his dad’s full attention at last. But did he dare ask the question he wanted to ask?

Manny pointed. “The yard gnome! You could repaint it. Bright colors or something?”

No, Manny hadn’t dared.

His dad cocked his head. “Well, it’s a thought. But I think the crowd’s going to be kind of upscale. Lots of lawyers.” He started for the stairs again.

“Dad!” Manny said. “Wait.”

His dad looked back at him again.

“There’s something I want to ask,” Manny said.

His dad’s expression shifted. Was that nervousness Manny saw creeping across his face? Whatever it was, Manny was certain that his dad had suddenly realized what his son was going to ask.

“It’s cold down here,” his dad said, turning. “Can we talk about this upstairs?”

No, Manny thought, they couldn’t talk about it
upstairs. If he didn’t get this out now, he’d never be able to.

“Dad,” he said. “The other day, at breakfast—”

“Breakfast?” his dad interrupted. “What are you talking about? Look, I’ve really got to get started on that fudge.” Now Manny
knew
his dad had known what he was going to ask. He had responded far too quickly.

“Dad, just listen, okay?”

His dad stopped. He couldn’t keep walking now, not without being really rude. But even so, he didn’t turn around to face Manny again.

“It was when I was telling you about my nightmare,” Manny said.

“I don’t know what this has to do with—”

“It’s just that you seemed kind of weird. And I thought maybe I said something that upset you.”

“Upset me?” his dad said. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“All of a sudden, you wanted to get away,” Manny went on. “You said you had an errand to run before work, but I don’t think you did.”

His dad turned to him. “Manny, you were the one who was upset. You’d just had a nightmare!” So he
did
remember. He’d been lying before. And as Manny watched his dad now, he saw just how
tightly he was gripping the rail at the base of the stairs.

“Are you sure?” Manny said. “Because it seemed like there was something else going on. I thought maybe my dream reminded you of something. Something about the past.”

And right then, Manny knew: the nightmares were about something that had happened to him as a small child! He wasn’t sure how he knew this, but he did.

“Saturday!” his dad said suddenly.

“What?” Manny was confused.

“That’s when we’re throwing all this stuff away! I’ll call Goodwill! Maybe they can send a truck! Now, Manny, I’ve really got to get started on that fudge.” Then, without another word, he thundered up the stairs.

This time, Manny let him go. It didn’t matter. There was nothing he could say to get his dad to give him a straight answer.

Which was, of course, an answer of sorts.

Manny stared at his dad’s address book. He’d had the same one for as long as Manny could remember, and it looked like it, dog-eared and doodled on. His dad was always misplacing the damn thing, but Manny
had found it right away, by the phone in the kitchen, in the clutter of coupons and utility bills.

Manny thought for a second. Whatever his dad wasn’t telling him had something to do with Manny’s childhood, something that had happened to him when he was younger. So there had to be someone he could ask about that past: an uncle or an old family friend who could answer the questions that his dad would not, maybe even some relatives of his dead mother.

Manny kept staring at that closed address book, but no names came to mind. Not a single one. He couldn’t think of anyone who might be able to tell him what he wanted to know. His dad said his own family was all gone: he’d never had any siblings, and his parents and grandparents had all died before Manny was born—Manny had never asked how. As for relatives of his dead mom, his dad had never once mentioned any. Could it really be that his dad had lost all contact with them?

And even if his dad’s relatives were all dead, where were his childhood friends? His college roommate? Sure, his dad had moved since then, but didn’t he keep a Christmas card list? But there
were
no old family friends, not that Manny could think of.

He started paging through the address book.

Henry Bean. Jason Berg. Ernie Cruz.

Mostly single fathers, Manny saw. That made sense. Birds of a feather. No one in the address book was scratched out completely—that was the kind of person his father was, never expunging anyone from his life forever. But plenty of addresses and phone numbers had been updated—crossed out and replaced by newer addresses and phone numbers squeezed into the margins.

Jamie Gardner. Margaret Graham. Katie Ingram.

These were women his dad had dated; even though none of his relationships had ever worked out, he’d stayed friends with some of them. Once he’d overheard one of them accuse his dad of having “issues.” At the time, he’d thought she was just being overbearing. But now, given the way his dad had reacted to the nightmare, Manny thought maybe that ex-girlfriend had had a point.

Larry Middle. Sarah Newman. Matthew Orner.

Some of his dad’s friends had moved six or seven times in the years that his father had kept this book, mostly from apartment to apartment. It looked more like the address book of a college student. But it was really just the result of most of his dad’s friends’ being just as poor as they were.

Melinda Walker. Eldon Wood. Tim Yates.

He had come to the end of the address book. He
closed it and put it back on the counter.

He had recognized every single name. He also knew exactly where and when his dad had met them all: each and every one in the last thirteen years that they’d lived in this city.

The address book was old, but apparently it wasn’t more than thirteen years old.

There was no one Manny could ask. It was as if the past, at least the past before they moved to their current city, did not exist.

For the first time in his life, Manny realized that that was pretty damn suspicious.

Manny went for a long walk in the fading afternoon sun. The idea had been to clear his mind, but it sure wasn’t working. On the contrary, a tornado of questions swirled through his head. Why didn’t his dad have a past? Had his dad been estranged from his parents? Is that why he didn’t keep any pictures of them? Had they disowned him? Were they still alive? Where had Manny and his dad moved from, anyway—and why hadn’t his dad ever said? Where did Manny’s dead mother fit into all of this? And, of course, he still had the question that had started it all: What was it about his nightmare that was causing his dad to act so strangely?

Something had happened when Manny was a child. That had been his first thought. But what could possibly explain all the mysteries that had suddenly surfaced about his dad’s past?

Was it something that had happened
to
Manny? Maybe the event that explained his dad’s odd behavior was also the event that was causing Manny’s nightmares. Maybe he had long-buried memories that were finally reemerging in the form of dreams. If it was something his dad was trying to keep hidden, that would certainly explain his strange behavior in the kitchen and basement.

Manny caught something out of the corner of his eye—a handwritten sign in the front window of a small beige house.

Marilyn Swan
, it read.
Spiritual Reader.

Manny looked around. He had wandered into an older residential area—the kind with postage-stamp yards and streets that still had sidewalks and curbs.

He looked back at the house with the sign. It had window boxes and a stucco finish. There was a birdbath in the yard—made of real stone, something his dad would approve of, not Home Depot plastic. And the lawn was well edged, and cut as low as a putting green.

Manny was actually considering going to a psychic?
A couple of weeks ago, if someone had told him to go to a psychic, he would have laughed. And yet here he was. He desperately needed answers, and there was no one else who was able to give them to him. He knew she was probably a fraud. Maybe he just needed someone to talk to, someone to help him sort out his thoughts. Either way, how could it possibly hurt?

He walked down a narrow concrete pathway that curved its way to the front door. Then he knocked.

A moment later, the door opened. Could this be Marilyn Swan? She was an older woman, primly but tastefully dressed, a well-heeled matron expecting the Ladies’ Auxiliary for tea. Her smile was honey and molasses, sprinkled with powered sugar.

“Uh, hi,” Manny said. “I have some questions, and I was wondering if you’d—”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, projecting sincerity like heat from a radiator. “Unfortunately, I’m with a client right now. But if you’d like to come back later…” She handed him a business card—in a tasteful font, no rainbows, no angels, nothing froufrou at all. “It really is best to make an appointment.”

And with that, she smiled again and closed the door in his face.