Hanging by a Thread (8 page)

“Oh,” I said, remembering the card on the counter. “Mrs. Granger stopped by. Dillon’s mom?”

My mother looked up, surprised. “You’re kidding. What did she want?”

My irritation spiked again. “Jeez, Mom, calm down. She was being
friendly
. Something you could maybe learn from her. She wanted to talk to you about the historical society, about putting our house on the house walk this fall.”

“Really.”
Mom’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “So that everyone in town can walk through here and whisper about ghosts and your crazy grandmother? No thanks.”

Even though that had been exactly my first reaction, coming from Mom it made me mad. “You know what, maybe you should give her a chance and not just assume everyone’s out to get you. So you were a loser in high school—that was decades ago. I mean, Mrs. Granger lost her
child
and she’s still making an effort.”

Mom’s look of wounded surprise meant I’d won this round. But as I left the room, her silence wasn’t nearly as satisfying as I’d expected it to be.

“I have a surprise,” Rachel said as we walked down the twisting path to the beach, dragging a wheeled cooler behind us. She had just changed into the dress I’d tailored for her, and it fit her perfectly.

The north end of Black Rock Beach was sheltered by cliffs that the tide had carved out of the shore. The rock face wasn’t really black—it was a mottled gray—but when it was wet, it looked black and kind of spooky. The beach below was one of the best for miles, sheltered by the cliffs from the wind, the sand pebbled with shells and bits of sea treasure. During the day it was crowded with families, picnickers, and sun worshippers. In theory the beach closed at sunset—signs announcing that rule were posted at the top of the path—but with the California government being so
broke, it was cutting services left and right, and the cops never patrolled the beach at night. In the half dozen times I’d been there, we’d never been visited by the police.

It helped that the place where we built our bonfires was shielded from view by the curve of the cliffs. Mom had been worried about safety, and even threatened to talk to the other parents about setting up some sort of patrol rotation to make sure we weren’t venturing into the water or walking along the rocky overhang in the dark. Common sense won out when I asked her if she really thought I would mess up the hair it took me half an hour to straighten, and she agreed to leave me alone if I stuck to the curfew.

“Let me guess,” I said. “Does it come in a bottle with a Dell Market sticker?”

Everyone knew that the Dell Market had a company-wide no-chase policy—meaning that if a shoplifter made it out the front door, they were home free. Inside the store, you were dead if they caught you, but because of liability or something, they forbid their employees from chasing anyone who got past the doors.

I still thought it was a pretty stupid risk to take, but some of the guys had made stealing liquor into a competitive sport. Last week one of them got two forty-dollar bottles of champagne. Generally, though, they went for the high-proof stuff, hiding a bottle of vodka or rum under their baggy shorts, and the girls’ job was to bring the ice, mixers, and snacks. I’d gotten stuck being the designated driver tonight, so I didn’t care what they’d managed to snag.

“No! All that’s in here is water and soda. Swear!” Rachel
flashed me her innocent smile, the one that had her parents convinced she was up to nothing more than a little wholesome fun. Rachel was an incredible actress, but her real asset was her willingness to go the extra distance to keep that image: it wasn’t for nothing that she kept her grades up and showed up for every Gold Key project and sang in the youth choir at her church—all these were worth it, according to Rachel, to keep peace with her mom.

Mrs. Slade hadn’t just been a member of the Gold Key Society, she’d been its president. She’d also been valedictorian and president of the Winston High student council, facts that she was constantly holding over Rachel’s head. To outside appearances, Rachel was an outstanding kid. But she’d hinted in the past that it was never enough for her mother, who expected her to excel at everything. In Mrs. Slade’s mind, Rachel should have been
captain
of the cheer squad, bringing home perfect grades and probably saving the world in her spare time. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to live with that kind of pressure—and I sometimes wondered privately if that was the source of Rachel’s occasional recklessness, which she managed to hide from everyone but her closest friends.

“Okay, let’s think,” I said. “Hmm, you’re going to invite me to be part of a threesome.”

Rachel laughed. I had learned that the best defense against her bad-girl side was a good offense; as long as I played along, she didn’t give me a hard time. “I hadn’t thought of that. Let’s see, who should we get?”

“Nobody around here,” I said, with feeling. The truth
was that I was having doubts about my plan to have casual sex with
one
guy at a time, much less two, but it was easier to pretend that I just wasn’t interested in any of them.

“I know, right? And that’s why …”

Rachel’s voice trailed off as we took the final hairpin turn in the path and reached the beach. Eight or ten kids were already gathered around the fire pit, trying to get the fire started.

Including Jack.

He was wearing a clean T-shirt and the shorts he’d had on earlier in the day, but he’d been in the water—the shirt was plastered to his chest and arms. Giselle Dollson wasn’t even bothering to hide the fact that she was staring, and Jenna Liu was standing too close, curling her hair around her finger as she talked to him.

Figures. The day I discovered a guy I might actually like, everyone else in town discovered him too.

“I thought you said he didn’t hang out,” I said.

Rachel frowned. “He doesn’t. I’m not sure what he’s doing here.” She sounded irritated. “The surprise was that I told Ky and Luke to leave their stupid Frisbee at home. Thought you and Luke might finally get a little time to yourselves.”

“What did you do?” I demanded, heart sinking.

“Just texted him. Nothing! Don’t get all weird about it.”

I found Luke in the crowd, tossing Fritos into the air and catching them in his mouth. He missed about half the time. I had a feeling Jack Dimaunahan didn’t have a lot in common with the rest of the guys here, but before I could
dwell on it, Rachel let out a whoop and ran straight into the clump of kids. At the last moment Ky picked her up and carried her to the water’s edge, pretending to throw her in, while I did my usual last-minute pep talk and tried to convince myself that this time I’d actually be able to relax enough to have fun.

R
ELAXING WAS HARDER THAN USUAL TONIGHT
, given what had happened with the denim jacket and the presence of Jack, who turned out to be pretty good at volleyball. He and a few of the other guys split into teams, switching to a glow-in-the-dark ball when night fell. He had a wicked serve, and every time he spiked, the ball crashed down onto the sand on the other side of the net, guys falling on the ball a split second too late. I noticed the way his team moved back to give him space.

I wasn’t the only girl who watched, but I was the only one with my own personal bartender. “Okay, okay,” I protested the fourth time Rachel filled my plastic cup with Diet Coke, adding rum to her own cup. “But unless you want me to float away, how about you slow down?”

“Sorry, I’m going off the clock.” Rachel laughed and, true to her word, she disappeared with Ky. Apparently Hopper had been given the bad news that he was being dumped—Rachel had been thinking of breaking up with
him for a while—and Ky wasn’t about to let his friendship with Hopper get in the way of a chance with Rachel.

I sipped my soda and talked to Jenna and Lara Prytowsky and Victoria Abelson—actually, I mostly listened, enjoying the sound of their laughter, the salty air on my skin, and the cool night breeze. I had hoped to have some time alone with Rachel tonight; I was thinking about telling her about the jacket. But first I’d have to tell her about my visions. I had thought that after she had a drink or two it might be easier for me to tell her—and maybe easier for her to hear it—but I hadn’t gotten my nerve up before the party got into full swing and it was too late.

I wanted to trust my friendship with Rachel, but something was keeping me teetering on the edge. Occasionally she got quiet and seemed to retreat into her thoughts. Sometimes she snapped at me for no reason. It wasn’t just me—I’d seen her do it to her other friends, too, and she could be impatient with Adrienne. She could also be really sweet, and most of the time she was upbeat and positive. Her dark moods were so dark, though, it sometimes worried me.

For the thousandth time I found myself missing Lincoln, and I promised myself I’d call him soon. I’d been so busy with my life that I hadn’t talked to him in over a week. He had a few flaws as a best friend—chief among them that he had no interest in clothes or fashion—but he was a good listener and I knew I could trust him. Rachel had never done anything to make me regret sharing my thoughts with her, but she wasn’t an open book the way Lincoln was.
And what would happen if she ever figured out that I wasn’t cool enough for this crowd after all?

As if reading my thoughts, Lara leaned over and touched the hem of my shorts, smoothing out the ragged fringe. “You always look soooo amazing,” she said in the dreamy voice of someone who’d been drinking a lot. “You have, like,
real
style. Not like, you know, everyone else’s style. But real. You’re
real
. On the inside. Where it really counts.”

For emphasis Lara tapped on her chest and sighed, staring into my eyes like she was about to hug me. She was wearing a tight, cropped red and white striped tank top with a white star appliqué on the chest, and as her fingertips brushed the star I remembered that there would be fireworks over this very beach three nights from now to cap off the big festival.

Luke and Hopper, who’d been making a beer run to the coolers, dropped to the sand next to us.

“Oh, Jesus, are you guys gonna make out?” Hopper demanded drunkenly. “Oh, shit, that’s so hot.”

Lara giggled and put her hand on my shoulder. “Hopper! I’m totally straight. But if I wasn’t …”

I’d seen this before, girls flirting with each other, mostly for the guys’ amusement. None of these girls were bi, that I knew of, not in this crowd. Lincoln had a theory that everyone experimented by the time they got out of college—he even had a list of straight guys he hoped to catch during their experimental phase—but somehow I doubted that Winston High was quite as progressive as
the Blake School. As for me, the thought of kissing a girl wasn’t appealing.

But tonight was different. Everything was so beautiful—the inky sky full of stars, the glimmer of moonlight out on the water, the laughter of my friends. Somewhere nearby, I had a new best friend, someone who cared about me and who I would have all kinds of fun with in my last two years of high school. I was feeling funny and clever and happy, even if I wasn’t drinking—what would it hurt to play along, to have a little fun tonight?

I put my arm around Lara and leaned against her shoulder. She smelled nice, like spicy perfume and rum, and she giggled and hugged me back. As my hand slid down her back and rested on the fabric of her top, the energy inside me hitched and bucked and reversed, the pleasant moment being sucked backward toward a swirling vortex, a voice shrilling over a thick blanket of pain.

Take your hand away
, I willed myself. Ordinarily I would never have my defenses down when I touched someone—it had become second nature to me to steel myself. I tried to resist the visions, or at least control them. But tonight everything seemed possible, and I hesitated, enjoying being part of the crowd, part of this group of pretty girls who seemed to take all their good fortune for granted. I liked feeling popular. I liked feeling wanted.

But as my hand rested on her back, I sensed … something. And still I didn’t pull away. Lara’s memories, her emotions and thoughts, flowed through my fingertips and
flickered to life in my mind, and I had barely absorbed her brittle cheer before I felt it break into a thousand shards against the sadness that lay just below the surface.

Once it began, it was too late to break away, to interrupt the transfer. I let myself go, the energy flowing through her shirt into my hand, along my nerves and veins to my mind and heart, and the cool sand fell away beneath me, the starry sky disappeared above me, and I was inside Lara’s mind. It was an anxious place.

In the vision, Lara—her hair longer, and not as blond—was walking along the liquor aisle of a grocery store. I knew it had to be Dell Market even before I recognized the well-stocked refrigerators full of sodas and beers, the bakery cases at the end of the aisle. Where else would a couple of high school girls go to steal liquor?

Sure enough, in the vision, Lara was accompanied by another girl. I saw her from the back, her long hair cascading over her shoulders as she bent down like she was considering the bottles of carbonated juice stocked on the lowest shelves of the refrigerator. Her hands moved over the bottles, and as she picked one up and looked at it, I saw a flash of her profile, her high cheekbones and lips curved in a smile.