Signs of You (5 page)

“I'm with Kate,” Jay says. “Can we please shelve astronomy and f igure out what the hell is happening here?”

“By all means,” Noah says. “Go. It just better be good.”

Jay describes what happened, how he saw his dad by the river. Summoning my courage, I explain in a rush how I saw my mother looking at bubble bath in the grocery store. Kate, clearly drained, chimes in last about her Aunt Lilly. She shivers as she speaks. When she's done, we look at Noah. He looks at the f loor.

“So, Captain Normal. You see anybody?” I ask him, forcing a smile.

Noah slowly shakes his head no. “Are you all serious right now? Like, this really happened?”

“Yes and we're doomed,” Kate says. “It's so end times.”

Kate is always saying that. We even joke that it's the name of her movie. If her dad and her mom make it through a whole day without f ighting, it's a sign of the end times. If she scores more than 70 percent on a math quiz, if three pairs of shoes she likes go on sale simultaneously: end times. Until now, I've always rolled my eyes. But even
I
can agree that when your friends start seeing dead people—TOTALLY END TIMES.

“I know what I saw,” Jay says, getting a faraway look. “It was him. It was my dad. And he was meditating or something. Calm. He'd never just go sit by a river. Not in a million years. Not without a martini, anyway.”

“Mom was doing something she'd never do, either—picking out bubble bath,” I say. “She wouldn't even allow herself to stay in bed when she had the f lu, let alone soak in the tub just for fun.”

Kate nods in agreement. “And I saw Lilly in the storefront of the Fountain Hobby Shop, where they offer painting classes.
And she was taking one.
Lilly would
never
take a class. She was the original Southern Lady Colonel. She couldn't stand to be told what to do.”

“What the hell is a Southern Lady Colonel?” Jay asks. “Sounds kind of hot.”

Kate rolls her eyes. “Do you people know
nothing
? An SLC is a totally feminine, proper woman.
And
a ball-busting-take-no-prisoners badass at the same time. To master that combination is an art form. I'd like to think I'm one.”

“You've never busted balls,” Jay says, ruff ling her hair. “Not even one single ball. Ever.”

“This is ridiculous,” I say, standing up. “Can we
please
stay focused? How the hell did we get onto southern gender norms?”

“Seriously,” Noah says. “I mean, I know
you're
being serious right now, so we have to f igure this out. There has to be a logical explanation. What have you all done together in the past few weeks? Did you eat bad food or something? Didn't you all have that disgusting fried f ish at Yorkshire Fish 'n' Chips? That's def initely
bad enough to cause hallucinations.”

“It's
not
the fried f ish, Noah,” Kate says. “It was—”

Three rapid-f ire gong sounds—from Jay's phone—cut her off.

She frowns as he fumbles for it. “Text emergency?” she asks.

“God, it's probably Sarah again,” I say.

“
Sarah Larsen
? No way,” Kate says with a wicked grin.

“Yeah,” Jay says, concentrating on his cell screen. “I think she's into me?”

“Oh, Jay.” Kate sighs dramatically. “You are
such
a lost soul. She wants a history tutor, not a boyfriend, honey.”

Noah scoots over to the couch and sits by Kate's feet. “Forget Jay. We have to f igure what you guys saw.”

“Just tell him,” Kate says. “It's because we wore that evil, cursed—
thing
. Ugh, I can't even say it out loud.”

“Whoa, hold up,” Noah says. His eyes are wide, attentive. “Wore what?”

“She wore it, too?” Jay looks up from his cell. I nod.

“We both tried it on that night at your house,” I say. “When you were in your room playing “Wish You Were Here”
on a loop.”

“Um, hellooo?” Noah says, waving his arms around like he always does when he's rattled. “Would someone like to f ill me in? Wore
what
?”

“The Saint Ignatius necklace,” Jay says, jabbing at his phone. Apparently he can f lirt with Sarah Larsen and still participate in our conversation and collective freak-out. What a multitasker. I f ind I am annoyed with him, and not just because I'm jealous of Sarah. “The cross. The old one my dad found. All three of us have worn it. ”

“You tried it on?” Noah says slowly. A weird look passes across his face; I can't place the emotion, and Noah, like all of us, is pretty transparent. “But it was locked up. In the case.”

“Maybe we're just nuts,” Kate mutters. “I mean, the necklace can't
actually
have caused this. This is
real life
, not Lord of the Rings.”

“Dude,” Jay says, eyes still on the phone, now waiting for a response. “The Lord of the Rings wasn't about
the actual Lord
. Jesus and the saints had nothing to do with that. If that's what you were going for, your metaphor doesn't hold.”

Noah scowls at him. He doesn't notice.

“Whatever,” Kate huffs. “Since you're besties now and all, can you text Sarah for me? Tell her I'm sick or something. She'll know what it's about.”

Jay f inally looks up. “What are
you
texting her for?”

“Just do it, okay? Long story.”

He shrugs, but starts jabbing at his screen again. I shoot a look at Kate.
Why on earth do you have a “long story” with Sarah that I don't know about?
She looks down at her nails really fast and acts like she doesn't see me—but I know she does.

“Um, Sarah says to tell you that you HAVE to come,” Jays says after a second, his eyebrows twisted in confusion. “In all caps.”

“Come where?” I ask.

Kate looks stressed. “You guys will kill me if I tell you. Can you just come with me to school really quick?”

“No way,” Noah says, pacing again. He comes dangerously close to pacing across the old Truth-or-Dare stain. “We need to go to Jay's and get the cross. If you all wore it, then—”

“I'll go with Kate,” Jay says. “I wouldn't mind saying hey to Sarah . . .”

Great. I'll go, too. I can watch Jay f lirt with his new crush and watch my best friend cavort with her awesome new best friend
. . .
Sounds like a real picnic.
I feel my f ingernails dig into my palms as I seethe on the couch.
Meanwhile, we seem to have conveniently forgotten that three of us have suffered HALLUCINATIONS. Yes: ALL CAPS FOR EMPHASIS, SARAH LARSEN FANS.

“Wait,” Noah says, giving Kate a be-reasonable look. “Can't we at least go get the cross f irst? And I'm not going to school with you unless you tell us what's up.”

“You'll understand when we get there,” Kate replies uncomfortably, her cheeks regaining some of their color. “Then we'll go get the cross. Okay?”

Noah sighs but nods.

“What's our plan if we see them again?” Jay asks. His voice is quiet. “If I see my dad—I don't know if I can handle it.”

“At least we'll all be together when it happens?” I say, working hard at being the cool one, the leader, like Kate said before. Like I do all the time. Like nothing can penetrate the numbness. But it hits me hard—the thought that I could see my mom. Deep inside somewhere, I feel the tiniest belief that she's alive. The thought is a tickle at f irst, but then it's an ache, then a vice-like grip. I worry I'm going to throw up.

“Hey,” Noah says, noticing. “You all right?”

Even though I've said
I'm f ine
so many times in my life it's my own personal mantra, I don't say it. I don't say anything, least of all the truth:

No. Not okay. Not okay at all.

Chapter 5

Working Theory

The school auditorium is in total pandemonium. People are everywhere: gathered around a huge Gatorade cooler by the door, up on stage practicing what looks like a choreographed dance, sitting on the backs of the blue and gold seats in the audience, and running up and down the aisles. Some are in jeans, but some are in full workout gear.

“No way,” Noah says as we walk in. He nudges Kate in the arm. “You got invited to be on the
air band
team?”

Kate nods in shame. No wonder she was embarrassed to share this with any of us.

Every year our school has an annual air band competition among the grades. It is exactly what it sounds like, and exactly as lame. Basically, the popular kids run the thing, select who'll be in each air band, select the songs that will be blasted over the speakers, and then the rest of us get to watch them make asses of themselves as they pretend to be rock stars, but with no props and no talent. It's ridiculous. But the fact that Kate has been asked to join means she's been invited to ditch us and move up in the social ranks.

“I love that they have a Gatorade cooler,” Jay says dryly. “Like air band is a sport.”

“Fake singing and fake instrument-playing are super dehydrating,” Noah says in an equally deadpan voice. “Throws off the electrolytes.”

“I just want to know when leg warmers made a comeback,” I say.

But even with the wisecracks, I can tell we barely have the energy to be all jokey-jokey. We're all on edge. I can't handle being in a crowd right now, and I'm generally not claustrophobic. We get who-invited-them looks as we go. I feel like even more of a total freak. I can't stop looking around, terrif ied I'm going to see my mom, yet part of me desperately wishing that I will.

“Can you just f ind Sarah and get going with this?” Noah asks Kate. “I want to get out of here ASAP.”

“Jay and I'll go look for her,” Kate says absently, scanning the crowd. Jay doesn't protest. My jaw tightens as I watch them head off toward the stage, but I keep silent.

“Let's sit,” Noah says. “Take a break? You're not looking so good, Riley.”

“Gee, thanks. People are saying that to me a lot these days.”

“You know what I mean.”

We slump down in a couple of empty seats. I take a deep breath and stare at the ceiling. I don't want to see Jay get all googly-eyed when he f inds Sarah, and I don't want to see Kate launch into a full-scale suck-up. Noah leans forward and checks his cell.

“I hate to be a downer, but I miss my brother's texts,” he remarks out of nowhere. “I mean, they were always weird and super dark. But funny sometimes, too. In that dark comedy kind of way.”

I shake my head. “You're not a downer. I totally get it. Missing weird stuff like that. I miss the way my mom would always make some really funny comment just when she was f inished crying. Her eyes would be all red and puffy, but she'd be smiling. I mean, it was sad, you know? But her jokes were always funny as hell.”

Noah shoves his cell back into his pocket. “Can I ask you a question?”

“You have to ask permission?”

“Do you
really
think you saw your mom?” he whispers. “And it was the day after you wore the cross, right?”

I shrug. “Yeah. It was the day after. And I thought maybe I just hallucinated the whole thing. You know, like I was just having some sort of crazy grief thing, thinking I saw her. But how do three people all hallucinate the same thing? I mean, how can that be just a coincidence? Part of me really thinks that I saw her—that she's alive or . . .” Or
what
? I stop, getting lost in all the improbabilities. I look up at the stage, as people run back and forth looking for their places. I'm terrif ied to look too closely, terrif ied they'll get that blurry look, that I'll see different people f licker and f lash in their places. Maybe even Mom.

“I chickened out,” Noah says. He's checking his cell again. “Just now. That wasn't my real question.”

“Well, you
have
to ask now.”

Noah slips his phone back in his pocket for a second time and smiles, his hair falling in his eyes a bit. I catch myself noticing why the band and theater girls are so into him.

“Why do you like Jay so much?” he asks.

He knows. Backtrack. Fake it. Hide it. Funny. Be funny.

“He's a friend. I like him for the same reason I like you. I don't have any other options.” I look at the f loor, hoping he'll drop it.

“No. You
like
him. I can tell. It's the way you look at him, even just now in Kate's basement. I can see it in your eyes,” Noah says. “Why? What is it about him?”

It's my turn to do the cell routine now, pretending to check for texts. I feel so exposed. Did Kate blab, or is it really just obvious? Am I that loser friend that everyone feels sorry for? Am I pathetic, but no one has the heart to tell me? I don't
feel
pathetic. But maybe that makes it worse—the truly awkward never know they're awkward,
which just makes them more awkward
. Maybe I should give up on lying. I suck at it, apparently.

“Does he know?” I ask.

“No. And that's kind of my point. It just seems like if a really awesome girl likes you, and you can't even see it, it's just—what a waste.”

“GO!” Sarah calls from the stage. She's in the leg warmers I'd just protested, tights, and a ripped-up T-shirt. Her getup reminds me of this old '80s dance movie I saw on TV. She moves her hips to the right. “Right!” she calls. Then to the left. “Left!”

The group behind her mimics her moves. They shake their hips, practically hump the air, twirl around, and then do some sort of god-awful sexy (at least I'm guessing) crawl move on the f loor. The music is loud, and it's a horrible pop song. From what I can tell, the whole thing is about the importance of being hot. And willing to make out with . . . everyone.

“Really? Is there even a guitar in this song? Who does air band without air guitar?” I ask, avoiding Noah's eyes.

The words “awesome girl
”
hang in the air between us. I'm awesome?
I mess with my phone again. If I hadn't vowed to avoid Twitter for the rest of my life, I know what I'd tweet:

 

Awesome girl? #def ineit.

But I don't tweet, and out of the corner of my eye, I can tell Noah is looking right at me. Finally, I give in and look up from my phone.

“I don't get it,” he says.

I can tell we're not talking about pop music choices.

I like Jay. That's all I can say. He gets it and he gets me and I can't help myself. When he's around, it's just—there.

“Well,” I start, searching for words. “He knows what it's like to lose a parent and—” I feel bad as soon as I say it. Like losing a parent is worse than losing a brother.

“Oh I get it,” Noah says slowly. “So that's it. It's the exclusive Jay and Riley Club. The rest of us don't
really
understand.”

I look down at my sandals and my unpainted toenails. Loss is loss. I shouldn't compare mine to Noah's or to anyone else's. But just as I'm about to apologize, Noah cuts me off.

“Just don't wait on Jay too long, that's all,” he warns, but his tone is gentle.

He gets up and gives me a look that's somewhere between sympathy and Riley-you're-so-clueless. Then he walks away.

I lean back against the blue velvet auditorium seat and watch him go. I want to call him back, to ask him what he means, ask him how he knew, ask him how lame I am on a scale from one to ten. I start to say something but chicken out. Mindlessly, I play with the mute button on the side of my iPhone, f licking it on and off with my thumb. Mute. Unmute. Mute. Unmute.

My spiraling thoughts stop when a girl in a red sequined f lapper dress costume catches my eye. She's standing in a group of Sarah Larsen's cronies by the stage, swishing the old-fashioned hem around her legs, tossing her head back and laughing like she's just heard the funniest thing in the world. She looks like she's straight out of
The Great Gatsby
. Like it's 1929 and she's off to drink a vat of bathtub gin to soothe the pain of the great stock market crash.
Why the hell are people in costumes for air band? Are they doing a 1920s take on current/awful pop music? That makes exactly zero sense.

I look down at my phone and silently beg for a text message to come through so I can have a distraction. But my phone sits silently in my hand like a dead f ish—a dead, incredibly unpopular f ish. I look back up from my cell. The f lapper girl looks frustrated now. She's not laughing anymore. It hits me that I don't recognize her at all. And Sarah's group is not big enough for me not to know . . .

And then, with the thump of a single heartbeat, she's gone. Her red sequin dress, her cute bobbed hair, her long string of beads—all of it vanishes. And in her place stands a girl I
do
know. It's one of Sarah's main “buffers,” the crew of slightly less good-looking girls that Sarah keeps around her as a human buffer zone to protect her from the onslaught of incoming suitors. I blink and blink again. But the f lapper girl is nowhere to be seen.

I stand but keep my eyes on the auditorium f loor. I'm too afraid to look up, scared of what or who I'll see.
Walk. Just walk. Just get out of here.
But it's hard to walk through a crowd when you're staring at the ground. I keep bumping into people and mumbling a half-hearted “sorry” here and there. But I can't look anyone in the eye.

It's only when I reach the hallway that I can f inally breathe. For the f irst time in my life I'm actually grateful for the rush of air from lockers-full-of-who-knows-what smells. I'm relieved to be out of the auditorium, out of the crowd, but then I realize that I'm running. I tell myself to slow down, to just walk, because now I
can't
breathe again. I pass classroom after classroom and force myself to read the labels by the doors to try to slow my brain down—biology, history, Spanish. My heart still pounds, and I catch myself peeking into my calc class, peering inside, half-wondering, half-hoping that I'll see my mom sitting in a desk chair, scribbling in a notebook with a pencil, or writing equations on the marker board in her beautiful handwriting.

But I see nothing. Just empty desks, piles of math books on a shelf, a trash can full of candy wrappers and Doritos bags.

I'm almost to the exit. But then I stop. In front of the principal's off ice. Because there, on the f loor, leaning up against a glass display case full of sports trophies and school artifacts, is Kate. And she's crying.

I kneel down beside her, put an arm on her back.

“Whoa,” I say, gasping for air, my own lungs heaving. “Slow down. Breathe. What happened?”

“Idiot,” she squeaks out and then wipes her face with her arm. “Total. Idiot.”

“What did I do?” I ask her.

She gently laughs and looks up, her face puffy and red, black mascara streaming down her cheeks. She's in full-f ledged ugly-cry mode. “No,” she says, her eyes softening. “Not
you
. You're awesome.” She sniff les again and leans into me. I gently push a strand of her beautiful black hair behind her ear before it gets covered in snot and tears.

“Then who's the idiot?” I scoot closer to her. Her head falls on my shoulder.

“Me,” she says. “For thinking they could actually want me in air band. I walked up to Sarah and her friends. And they told me that they just wanted me to come so I could be their
water girl
. One bee-otch even told me to go to 7-11 and get her some Corn Nuts. Ranch f lavor. To ‘keep her strength up' for her dance routine.”

I look up at the stained foam ceiling tiles.
High school. What a cruel last stop before adulthood.
“I'm sorry,” I say, wishing I could line them all up outside and tell off every single one, or better yet, magically turn them all into non-asses. “They're awful people. They really are—”

“But that's not it,” she says, her voice getting smaller. “Carl was there.”

“Well, we all know he's the worst one.”

“No, listen.” She sits up straight, looks right at me. She seems so scared all of a sudden, almost panicked. “He wasn't Carl the whole time. When he started saying stuff to me about being the water girl, he . . . changed. Just for an instant. He was this boy I've never seen. In old-fashioned clothes: brown burlap pants, this old thick cotton shirt. Like off that old show,
Little House on the Prairie
or something.” She stops, and the tears start again. “And then he was Carl again.”

I can't think of anything to say. My throat closes up; my mind goes blank. I want to tell her about the f lapper girl, I want to tell her this is real, I want to tell her that I'm so scared, that I don't know what's happening to us, that I have
no idea
if we're going to be okay.

“It'll be okay,” I say, feeling the normal wave of numbness take over. “Let's get out of here.”

Outside, the afternoon air is hot and humid. It's almost summer break, and the sun on my skin feels so good. My mind drifts to normal summer days—heading to the pool, eating frozen Snickers bars, accusing Kate of stuff ing her bikini top. What I wouldn't give to have a summer like that again.

I text Jay and Noah and tell them to meet us outside ASAP. Kate and I sit on a giant boulder by the school's massive f lagpole to wait, our backs touching. I can feel what she's thinking
. This is totally end times.
And I'm thinking she's right.

“What happened now?” Noah says as comes out of the school doors. Jay is right behind him.

“We're getting rid of it,” Kate says.