Spiritdell Book 1 (12 page)

“You're Zan, aren't you,” he says. “I knew your parents.”

I stop breathing, all the better to appreciate the sensation of my guts curdling.

“That was some nasty business,” the man says. “Any idea if what your father was trying to do actually worked?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I lie.

“Zan. Zan the little man. Dan's little junior man, like his old man, but smarter, right? You're smarter than old man Dan, aren't you, Zan?”

“Gee Mister, I think you have me confused with someone else. My name is Alex.”

He turns and looks at me with those dark holes where eyes shouldn't be so far back. “My friend Heidi was trying to help. Why won't you let us help you, Zan? We can take your suffering away. We can take it all away.”

I pretend to push my sleeve up and check my imaginary watch again. If ever there were a good time to suddenly remember I need to be elsewhere, it's now.

I sneak a sideways peek at the man, even as I'm pretending to ignore him. I've seen him before—a couple weeks ago, in the hallway at school. He knew my name then too.

Keeping my voice as calm and steady as I can, I say, “Look at the time. I've got to get to my appointment. Seeya around.”

When I stand up, my thin khakis stick to my legs. My shirt is moist, soaked with sweat. Is he going to follow me? He doesn't seem to be moving, but I don't know if I dare look, except out of the corner of my eye. Why am I so panicked? We're in public, right in the center of town, with people all around, going about their business.

I catch the attention of a woman carrying her groceries in one arm and a toddler in the other.

Help me
, I plead with my eyes.

She smiles and nods on her way past, oblivious to my distress. Of course, she can't hear my pulse like I can.

I start to cross the street when I hear a sweet voice in my ear:
Don't be careless
.

I halt, and a big SUV speeds by, fanning my hair. Carefully, I check both ways, then cross the street, at a slow jog and trying to look casual. Instead of going into The Bean, I circle the block, keeping an eye out for Mr. Bad Suit. The bus bench is empty. The whole street is empty. A little too empty, but I don't know, maybe downtown is always like this. Maybe I'm imagining things, going crazy. Maybe I am crazy. Wait, crazy people never think that about themselves, do they? How can you know you're crazy and yet still act crazy?

I look for the busiest street and head there, stopping in front of shops to check the reflections in the windows for people who might be following me.

I'm not crazy
, I tell myself. I know crazy.

Gran and I had a neighbor who thought she was nine months pregnant. Year after year, she was about to go into labor
at any moment
, according to her. She'd buy tiny little baby clothes, sometimes pink and sometimes blue, and show them to Gran. Gran looked so sad, watching the woman pushing an empty baby carriage around.

What I don't understand is, our neighbor lady could do basic math. She had to know nine months plus three years is not nine months. She always knew the day's date, always had clean clothes on, and most people she encountered probably didn't even guess she was crazy.

But late at night, at four in the morning, sometimes I'd hear her. She'd rant for hours, this one-sided conversation full of swear words, anger, and pleading. “I just want to have my baby in peace,” she'd wail. “Why won't you leave me alone?” Those were about the only parts I could make out. The shouting was loud enough for me to hear across the street, but the things she said weren't usually sentences. Just words.

The next morning, she'd be looking a little tired and would pat her swollen abdomen—swollen with what, I don't know—and say the baby kept her up late kicking. Most times she'd fix her gaze on a spot over your shoulder, but sometimes she'd look right at you, lucid as anyone, begging you with her eyes to keep complicit in her delusions.

One day she moved away, and Krystal moved into the house with her son. The whole neighborhood breathed a sigh of relief.

The woman came back once, and I saw her standing in front of the house, looking at the garden. Gran went to check on her, and she promised she'd be back for a visit right after the baby was born, but she was really busy right now, getting ready for the baby's arrival. “Isn't life wonderful and magical?” she'd said to Gran, and Gran had to agree. We all have our own perspective.

As I put my hand out to open the green wooden door of The Bean, I swallow hard and will myself to not think about crazy people.

* * *

The girl is Austin and also not Austin. Has two weeks' time erased her face from my mind? Or have I overwritten reality with a fantasy version? This girl makes my heart soar and sink at once.

She's Sadmachine! Of course, she's the girl Julie and her friends call Sadmachine, and she's Austin's cousin. That's why she's fooling my emotions. There's a strong family resemblance, although this girl was not quite as blessed with the genetic lottery. Then again, she probably doesn't have an inoperable brain tumor.

When I reach the front of the coffee line, I stick my hand out and say, “Hi, I'm a friend of Austin's. I'm Zan. We've met, I think. I'm a good friend of your friend Julie. Well, mostly James. Her brother. No, I take that back. Julie is also my best friend. The twins are my co-best friends.”

In response, Sadmachine gives me a blank, dazed look. She's the exact opposite of someone you'd expect to find working in a funky little coffee shop. Finally, she shakes my hand. Compared to people who simply order their soy lattes or non-foam mochawhatevers, I probably am strange and stupid.

“The twins in question being James and Julie,” I say, continuing to talk and thereby removing all doubt about my stupidity. “Because they were, ah, born at the same time. James and Julie. Not that I was there. I'm a few months younger. And I was born in Kansas.”

“Kansas,” she says, a hint of amusement crinkling in the tiny lines around her eyes. Now that I see a bit of a spark in her, I can appreciate her as a person with good qualities, though not undeserving of her nickname of Sadmachine.

“I came to see Austin,” I say.

“Austin's really sick.”

“I know. I was hoping I could see her.”

Sadmachine looks at the big clock on the wall, which is the hugest clock I've seen outside of a bus depot—so big you might not recognize it as a timepiece, but be blinking at the giant beige thing covered in roman numerals while asking someone for the time. “Austin doesn't have very long,” Sadmachine says.

“You could say that about all of us,” I say solemnly. “Days, months, you could walk out of here and get hit by a bus.” As I say this, I picture the girl James saw at the bus loop, toppling to the ground, annoyed about all her papers scattering, but not appreciating the fact she was hit by a bus and lived.

“No,” the girl who is like Austin but not Austin says. “I mean she's checking into the hospital tonight, for surgery tomorrow.”

Behind me, another customer sighs and shifts back and forth, making as much noise as possible without crossing the threshold for rudeness. I apologize and say I'll just be a few more seconds. “I thought the tumor was inoperable,” I say to the girl.

We're interrupted by a woman saying, “Do you mind?” She's near the coffee counter, sitting alone at a table for four, with a laptop and dirty dishes spread all around her. “I'm trying to work,” the woman says.

Austin's cousin nods for me to join her at the other end of the counter, so I do. Another person working behind the counter starts helping the people in line.

“Thank you!” the woman with the laptop calls over cheerfully. I am not a violent person, but I would love to fold that laptop up like a taco and shove it down her throat.

In a low voice, I repeat to Austin's cousin, “I thought the tumor was inoperable.”

“Anything can be removed,” she says. “The problem is there might not be anything left.” Her cheeks are puffy and her eyes are rimmed with pink that isn't makeup.

“I'm sorry. I didn't know. We only just met. Do you think she'd want to see me?”

The girl sniffs and holds up her finger to indicate she'll be right back. She disappears behind the big, silver, steam-billowing coffee machine, so I take a good look around the cafe. The counter is bright orange, as I remembered, but the floor is red, a stained concrete. Funny, I always pictured the floor being gray and white tile. I thought I could count on my memory, but apparently it fills in the blanks with imaginary details.

That nice aroma must be all the coffee, which almost smells like something I'd want to eat. I don't drink coffee, except for some mochas during final exam week at school. School. It feels like somewhere I've never been.

Austin's cousin returns, handing me a paper cup filled with hot beverage and a generous topping of whipped cream. “I can only talk to
customers
,” she says, nodding her head in the direction of a woman, who I guess is her boss.

I reach for my money, but she says the drink's on the house.

“You know Austin better than me,” I say. “Would she
want
to see me? Either before or after the surgery?”

I lift the foamy drink to my lips.

“Better go before. You never know. She's over at her husband's house. I'll give you the address, hang on.”

Husband? My mouth is full of burning liquid that hurts all the way down.

So I'm holding, in my sweaty hand, the address for Austin's
husband's
house, which is guess is her house too, unless he's her ex-husband. Gah! I did not have these issues a month ago when I was in grade eleven at Mountain High School. Still, does this new knowledge change how I feel about Austin—that she is or has been married? No. I love her. Thinking those words makes me gooey inside, as though the word
love
were a magic spell of just one word. Love.

I thank Austin's cousin for everything.

On my way out, I notice how lovely the door to The Bean is. The wood must be old, as it's covered in multiple coats of textured paint, the most recent a tropical parrot green. It's the kind of door I would photograph, if I had my camera with me, and didn't have life and death matters on my brain.

Outside, I blink in the bright sunlight and take another sip of the drink to ground myself in reality. I don't know what this beverage is, and I probably shouldn't drink any old thing someone gives me, but this is good.

Down the street, I think I see Mr. Bad Suit, but it's a young guy wearing an old-fashioned hat. On second glance, this dude with the thin mustache doesn't look
unlike
a serial killer who makes wind-catcher mobiles out of teenage boys' bones. Now he's pretending to not watch me while he watches me. Has the whole world turned creepy?

“Zan!” a female voice calls out. I think of the girls from the lake—Missy and Facepuncher—and how I don't relish seeing them. My head down, I run in the opposite direction, my drink sloshing in its cup.

A block later, the girl calls my name again, sounding closer. I cast my hot beverage into a garbage bin so I can pick up some speed. On the next block, as I reach the park, I'm tackled from behind. I tumble to the grass, the other person rolling over me. She's laughing.

“Julie?”

She punches me on the arm, almost as hard as her brother James would. “You nozzle, why are you running?”

“You're calling me nozzle now?”

“Yeah. Wanna wrestle?” She pushes me to the grass.

I clutch my arms up protectively. “Not right this moment, but ... Julie, you do know you don't have to act exactly like James, right? We're real friends now, like I said. You can still be a girl.”

She rolls her eyes. “Girls like wrestling and roughhousing too.”

“I knew that,” I say, unfurling and relaxing back on the cool grass.

Julie lies down next to me at an angle, so that our shoulders and the tops of our heads are touching.

After a few moments of observing the bunny-shaped clouds, she says, “I need to know you'll marry me.”

I sit up, startled. “Are you pregnant?”

She makes a cute little disgusted expression. On James, it's undignified, but on her, it's cute, like a ladybug on a leaf, or a ladybug anything. Even when pissing on your hand, ladybugs are cute.

“No, I mean when we're old,” she says. “If we haven't found anyone else by a certain age, you and I should get married. James would be the best man.”

“Of course he would. Okay, sign me up. I will totally marry you if we get old.”

“Not
if
, when,” she says.

“Yeah, I guess some of us will get old.”

As I say this, the smile falls off Julie's face, and I know we're both thinking about people who get tumors and die tragically young.

“Have you seen her yet?” Julie asks.

“No.”

“I heard she's going in for surgery. There's a, um, decent chance she'll live. I only talked to her at the party for a few minutes, but she was nice. She's older than us, you know. I'm sure she's done some stuff. You know, with her life.”

I lean back and return my attention to the clouds, since Julie's pep-talk is not giving me any pep. Above me, a fluffy cloud bunny is being chased in slow motion by a giant cloud monster. The monster slowly opens its big cloudy jaws.

“Is it awful that I'm excited about our wedding?” Julie asks.

“Yes.”

“Okay, then that's definitely
not
what I'm thinking about.”

* * *

Julie and I are standing in front of a pizza-by-the-slice place, and I can smell the mozzarella and onions, but the scent isn't making me as hungry as it should. My brain notes that the air smells delicious, but also that my stomach doesn't want any. Julie, talking about marriage, makes me wish I'd kept on running, faster than her.

After cloud-watching in the park, Julie offered to buy me an early lunch, which led us to the pizza place. We go in and order some slices. I get pepperoni, and Julie gets plain cheese with honey drizzled on top. I choose a table near the window, so I can keep an eye out for Mr. Bad Suit.

“I'm thinking thirty-five,” Julie says, still on the topic of our hypothetical arranged marriage. “Because of, you know, fertility issues. The eggs.”