Shift (10 page)

When I could finally lift my head without spontaneously combusting, I peeked at Zachary’s feet. That way I could see if he shifted his
weight to look at me, without making it obvious I was staring.

Finally his foot moved, then his hip, then his head onto his fist, in an attempt to look slightly bored, yet politely listening to Mrs. Richards’s lecture. All while casually turning in my direction.

I looked at his face as his gaze flicked back to meet mine. He held it, held it, held it, while my entire body turned to flame.

Zachary was waiting at my locker after class. I was grateful he hadn’t tried to talk to me at my desk, where my babbling idiocy would’ve attracted attention. Here the hallway noise would cover up the lust in my voice.

“So what do you think?” he asked, like he was inquiring about the assignment.

I opened my locker, trying not to fumble with the knob. “Possibly doable. The site, I mean.”
Not you—you are supremely,
im
possibly doable.
“Can you make it happen?”

“I think so.” He draped his arm over the open door, then straightened up, as if realizing he’d fallen into a flirtatious posture.

“Maybe, um …” I stared into my locker, drawing a complete blank as to which books I needed for homework. “Maybe we could meet tonight to discuss it?”

“I’d love to.” His voice’s deep husk weakened my knees, but then he gave a harsh grunt. “No—bugger it, I can’t. Becca’s family invited me to come for their seder.”

My mouth fell open. “Seder?”

“It’s the Passover dinner.”

“I know what a seder is,” I said, too quickly.

“Sorry.” He twisted the loose coil at the end of his spiral notebook’s
spine. “Tomorrow you’re going to Philadelphia for Easter, aye?”

“My grandmom’s.” I retrieved the Faulkner novel I’d barely started reading.

He frowned at his watch. “My dad’s picking me up in three minutes. He wants me to take him to the doctor’s.”

“Everything okay?”

“I think so, but he says I need practice driving. Can’t imagine why.”

I tried to laugh, but my mind was stuck on him spending the evening with Becca and her family.

“I’ll ring you over the weekend,” he said. “Or you ring me. Either way.” His smile faltered. “Bye.” And he was gone.

“Bye.” I spoke softly into my locker, wishing it could swallow a scream.

This wasn’t going to work.

“Kill me now.” I glared at the ceiling of the Keeleys’ basement rec room, which doubled as Mickey and Siobhan’s rehearsal space.

“So Zach is going to a seder at the Goldmans’. It’s not a huge deal.” Megan tossed a peanut into the air and caught it in her mouth, then aimed one at Siobhan. “Rachel had you and your aunt over for a seder a couple times. You weren’t going out with her.”

“This is different.” I banged the back of my head into the squishy blue beanbag chair, hearing tiny particles spill onto the floor behind me. No wonder this thing was so flat. “If Zach’s meeting Becca’s family now, she’ll have her claws into him by prom. I am absolutely, definitely not going.”

“Want me to find you a guy from our school?” Siobhan asked, then opened her mouth for another incoming peanut.

“Yeah, a pity date for the prom. Because I’m not quite lame enough yet.”

“Hey,” Megan said, “you know what’s a lamer prom night than dancing with a cute guy from Hunt Valley? Sitting in your living room watching a
Law and Order
marathon with your aunt.” She lobbed a peanut at my head. I winced and let it bounce off my cheek, my appetite too sour for games or food. “If you don’t want a blind date, then get out Jenna’s list and we’ll do pros and cons of each guy. Siobhan can be the judge if you won’t decide.”

“Sounds like fun.” Siobhan opened her violin case. “But Mickey and I need to rehearse.”

The yells of victorious boys came from upstairs.

“Ugh.” Siobhan shoved her long, purple-streaked dark bangs back under a plastic headband. “This ceiling’s supposed to be soundproof.”

Megan fished another peanut out of her trail mix bag. “Nothing can hold back the testosterone rush brought on by Age of Mangling or whatever game they’re playing.”

I stared at the smooth white square ceiling tiles as a solution dawned on me. My first instinct was to analyze the idea from all angles, to see if it could really be that perfect.

But it was analysis and hesitation that got me into this prom mess with Zachary. I pushed myself off the beanbag chair. “I’m getting a water. You want anything?”

“Yes.” Siobhan waved her bow and rosin block. “I want my twin brother to get his ass down here.”

Upstairs, Dylan and three of his friends were splayed out on the long black leather couch in the den. Mickey stood behind them, arms crossed over his chest, gaze fixed on the huge wall-mounted plasma TV. I didn’t recognize the game, but it involved a lot of pink.

“What is that?” I asked Mickey over the steady
waka-waka-waka
noise.

“Ms. Pac-Man.” He kept his focus on the screen. “Dad got Mom a bunch of old arcade games for her birthday.”

Dylan spoke up from his reclining seat on the near end of the couch. “Ms. Pac-Man looks all girlie, but it’s harder than regular Pac-Man. The mazes have more traps, and the ghosts are smarter and faster.”

“Ghosts?” I examined the figures on the screen. “Is that what those blobs are supposed to be?”

“They can kill you,” Dylan said, “unless you eat a blinky thing and then you can kill them.”

“Guys, shut up!” Rashid jerked the joystick. “Trying to concentrate.”

Kyle nudged him with a pale, bony elbow. “Dude, what are you gonna do when you’re a fighter pilot—ask the bad guys to hold still so you can shoot them down?”

“This is different, so—aww, you suck.” On the screen, the little yellow mouth spun around and flattened like a popped balloon.

“Your parents think eating ghosts is entertaining?” I said.

“They’re not supposed to be real ghosts, like in Shade Hunter,” Jamal said. “This game’s from before the Shift. Duh.”

Dylan grabbed the controller from Rashid. “My turn.”

Released from the spell of the game, Mickey looked at me. “Did she send you up here?”

“Which ‘she’? Megan or Siobhan?”

“Whatever.” He slouched his lanky frame toward the basement door.

I scowled, wondering why Mickey wasn’t happier, like the rest of the Keeleys, now that Logan had returned from shade. Maybe because Logan was still dead.

I stood next to the couch, watching Ms. Pac-Man make it through the first level. Finally I got up the nerve to do what I came upstairs for. “Dylan, can I talk to you for a sec?”

He grunted, lips pulled between his teeth as he focused on the screen.

“Maybe when you’re done,” I said. “Or now.”

“Something with Logan?”

“No.”

“Okay, go ahead.”

I glanced at the other boys, all ignoring me. Kyle was paging through a gaming magazine, his long, skinny legs stretched out to prop his heels on the coffee table. Jamal was half-asleep, and Rashid was pawing through a bag of chips that reeked of nacho cheese.

“I’ll ask you later,” I said.

“Aura, what?” Dylan’s voice took on an edge.

I toed the border of the Oriental rug, resisting the urge to fidget with the hem of my faded green Keeley Brothers cami. “Will you go to the prom with me?”

Dylan’s hand slipped off the joystick. Jamal woke up. Rashid spilled neon orange chip fragments down the front of his T-shirt. Kyle froze in the middle of turning a page.

Dylan’s friends all gaped up at me, looking much younger than sixteen.

Dylan recovered his joystick, muttering “fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck” until he’d maneuvered Ms. Pac-Man through a tunnel that led to the other side of the screen.

“Did you hear me?” I said.

“Yeah.” Dylan’s knee jerked, making his heel quiver against the floor.

“Well?”

“Okay.”

I hesitated. “Is that a yes?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay.” I backed up a step. “Cool.”

Dylan’s friends were staring at him now, with the kind of awe usually reserved for World of Warcraft Feats of Strength.

I gave up waiting for him to look at me or use a multiword sentence. “Mickey can help you find a tux, and we’ll do it all as a group, so you don’t need to plan anything.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, then. Um. Thanks.” I started toward the basement door.

“Wait,” Dylan said.

I turned quickly, my shoes squeaking on the hardwood. Was he going to back out? Had he heard anything I said? Maybe it would be better if we pretended the last five minutes hadn’t happened.

“When is it?” he asked.

“Second Saturday in May.”
Please don’t say “okay” again.

Dylan was silent for a few moments, still playing. “Yeah, all right.”

* * *

“Are you insane?” Megan threw a handful of peanuts at me. “He’s a sophomore.”

I batted the flying nuts away from my head. “I’m sure in a tux he’ll look seventeen.”

“Or he’ll look seven,” Siobhan said.

“Besides, he’s fun to hang out with.” I turned to Mickey, looking for backup. “Isn’t he?”

He gave a one-shoulder shrug as he adjusted the pegs on his acoustic guitar. “I wouldn’t know. He’s my little brother.”

“So’s Logan.” I caught myself. “I mean, so was Logan.”

“Dylan’s different,” Siobhan said. “Geeky.”

I pointed at their framed original movie poster of
The Empire Strikes Back
. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re geeky, too.”

“Dylan’s a whole ’nother degree of geek. He collects action figures. It’s not too late to say you were kidding.”

“No way. I’ll hurt his feelings.” Not that he had shown any feelings when I’d asked him.

“He’ll probably be relieved,” Megan said. “Dylan wouldn’t know what to do with a girl if she came with an instruction manual.”

Mickey scoffed. “Megan, you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, so just—”

We all flinched, waiting for him to finish the sentence with “shut up.” Megan gripped the arm of her chair, looking ready to flee.

“Mickey, you don’t think it’ll be weird?” Siobhan asked, breaking some of the tension.

“Of course it’ll be weird. But at least we know Dylan. It might be weirder to hang out with some Ridgewood asshat we’ve never even met.”

“Then let’s set her up with someone from our school.” Siobhan turned back to me. “I swear he’ll be cute and not stupid. Then that way you can come with us to our prom the week after.” Her voice softened. “Like we always planned?”

I stared at Logan’s abandoned black Fender Stratocaster propped on its stand like a memorial shrine. We’d planned it all when he was alive, before everything changed.

Now I wanted someone who made things feel the same.

S
o, Aura, do you like any of the boys at school?” my grandmother asked as she dumped a two-pound container of ricotta cheese into a birdbath-size mixing bowl.

She’d asked that question since I was in kindergarten, even when I was dating Logan. But this was the first time she’d asked since he died. Another sign that my life should be turning a corner.

I gave her a tentative smile as I grated a lemon for the ricotta pie. It was four thirty a.m., Easter Saturday, but I didn’t mind spending the early hours in the kitchen of her bakery, as long as it meant hanging out with Grandmom and sampling fresh cookie batter.

“Actually,” I said, “there is one guy.”

“Is he—”

“He’s not Italian.”

“Hmph.” She thumbed a stray dark blond curl back under her
hairnet. “Well, I guess you gotta try the rest before you settle down with the best.”

I laughed. “That’s the plan, Grandmom.”

“You think you’re humoring me, but you’ll see.” She opened a double-size carton of eggs. “In the meantime, tell me about this boy.” Now it sounded like
she
was humoring
me
.

“His name is Zachary, and he’s from Scotland.”

“Ooh, like Sean Connery?”

“Exactly, except for the old and wrinkly part.”

Grandmom faked throwing an egg at me. “Just let me know when you want to meet a nice South Philly boy.”

She started cracking eggs, one in each hand, humming along to the oldies station on the radio. Out in the front room of the bakery, I could hear her two assistants sliding trays of cakes and pastries into the display cabinets.

Before they could come back in to interrupt, I asked Grandmom, “Did my mother go out with South Philly guys?”

“Oh, yeah. And not just our neighborhood.” She wiped her hands on her apron, which read, the
CUSTOMER
BOSS IS ALWAYS RIGHT
. “Your mother used to run around with the Sicilians over on Tasker Street.”

I smiled at the phrase “run around with,” like my mother and her friends were cavorting through the park like a pack of dogs.

Then I thought about my brown eyes and olive skin. The rest of my family was northern-Italian fair, with blue or green eyes. “You think my father’s from that neighborhood? Maybe he’s Sicilian?” I liked the idea of being 100 percent Italian. “I thought he was Irish,
since she was in Ireland when she got pregnant. Did she go there to meet up with someone from home?”

Grandmom sighed and dropped the empty eggshells in the wide trash can beside her. “Aura, honey, you’ve asked me a hundred times about your father, and a hundred times I’ve said I don’t know who he is. Your mother did a lot of things without telling me. I didn’t even know she was going to Ireland until she called me from the airport.”

I never knew that bit of gossip, though I was well aware of my mom’s impulsiveness. “What did she say when she called you?”

“She said, ‘I have to go to Newgrange, Mom, and it has to be now. Life’s short.’ She said it over and over while I argued with her. ‘Life’s short. Life’s short.’” Her chin trembled. “Of course, in her case, she was right.”

Grandmom’s assistant Kaye swept in, carrying a pair of empty cake stands. “I know you’re talking about me, Ms. Salvatore,” she said with a grin, “because I’m always right.”

“Hey.” Grandmom tapped her wooden spoon against her chest. “Talk to the apron.”