Stork (23 page)

“I don’t feel so great this morning.” It was true. I woke with cramps. “By the way, I’m almost out of tampons. Can I take some from your bathroom?” That part was not true; besides, I wouldn’t normally ask before raiding her supplies.

“Of course, honey. Get what you need.” And then there it was. That flicker of realization. Calendar pages flipped across my mom’s eyes. I saw them shuffle like cards.

“Oh.” My mom tapped her bottom lip with her index finger. She lifted her chin. She was counting days; I knew it.

I cleared my breakfast dishes and made the phony trip to her bathroom. By the time I got back, my mom was a different person — or maybe, more precisely, an additional person. She was clearly flustered and distracted. I don’t think she heard me say good-bye. If she did, she didn’t respond before the door closed. I sat in my car and took a few cleansing yoga breaths. She’d be fine. It’d take a little while, but she’d be fine. She was the type who could roll with life’s curves. That’s why she was such an excellent mother. And Stanley, he was a good guy, even if a bit of a goof.

I drove through the parking lot twice. No beat-up truck. I felt as gray as the gathering clouds. I was beginning to sense a resiliency about myself, though. I lifted my chin as I walked, alone, to first period. Kids looked at me inquiringly and I flashed smiles at them, as if we were old pals. I heard about every other word out of my English teacher’s mouth, and understood about half of those. I watched the halls carefully between classes. Nothing of interest. Though Monique did wave to me once. I supposed a pregnancy scare could knock the entitlement out of even the loftiest of stuck-ups. I also saw Wade. He gave me an odd look, though at least he didn’t click an imaginary camera at me. Nor had I yet to hear of compromising photos circulating via cell phones or the Web. At lunchtime, when I arrived to Mr. Parks’s journalism room, Pedro pulled me aside.

“Have you heard from Jack?”

“No,” I replied.

“I called his house again. His dad just said he’s unavailable. What kind of an answer is that?”

“I don’t know.” Pedro must have seen something in my eyes, though I tried very hard to look normal, knowing cheery would be a dead giveaway.

“Are you OK?”

“I’m good.” I wasn’t. I reached into my backpack. “Do me a favor.” I held out Jack’s cap. “Give this to Jack next time you see him.”

“You give it to him,” Pedro said.

“Nah,” I said. “A good-luck charm, as it turns out, but I think I’m done with it.”

Pedro took the hat from my outstretched hand.

Assistant editor Penny called the room to order and reminded everyone of the Monday deadline for stories. She seemed comfortable in front of the group. I thought that she was the kind of girl people underestimated. “Good work on your profile of Ms. Bryant, by the way, Jessica,” she said. “Who would’ve known she could guess anyone’s age to within twelve months? What a great anecdote. So unusual.”

After everyone settled into their assignments, Penny took a seat beside me. She opened her notebook and flipped through a few pages. I grabbed her hand.

“What are these?”

“Some dress sketches.” She seemed embarrassed. “You know, for the dance.”

They were all shaded in seafoam green and floor-length.

“Are you making it?”

“My
amma
is helping me.”

I grimaced. I couldn’t help it.

“She’s a good seamstress,” Penny said. “And she’s letting me make all the decisions. We’re actually fashioning it out of one of her old dresses.”

I didn’t cringe this time, though it took everything in me not to. Poor Penny. I could just imagine what one of Old Grim’s dresses looked like. “Which is the final version?”

She flipped the page, and I studied the drawing. Though it was traditional, I nodded my approval. “You will look stunning.”

“I just hope I’m still going.”

“Why wouldn’t you be going?” I asked.

“My
amma
was so angry at me last night. She went out for like ten minutes and came back as mad as I’ve ever seen her. Apparently, she’d been looking for that bag of hats we joked around with on Saturday. You’d think I’d stolen a car or robbed a bank, the way she reacted. And she was only gone for a few minutes, so what was the big deal?”

I thought of the Stork time-bending phenomenon. The way an hour in the dungeon accounted for nothing on the clocks. A pretty clever device should you happen to belong to a clandestine organization. I also realized I’d achieved bronze, silver, and gold in the piss-Grim-off Olympics. My three-part performance included: bronze for conspiracy in the concealment of hats, thus rendering her late to council; silver for taking advantage of her tardiness and rushing through my first vessel recommendation in an effort to avoid her dissenting vote; and the coveted gold for a public accusation of being the Messenger of Death. Somehow I did not see the cover of the Wheaties box in my future.

Penny drummed her fingers across the notebook. “It’s really weird, but for whatever reason, she doesn’t seem to like you.”

“Maybe she didn’t like the makeover I gave you.” Penny had been doing a much better job of styling herself, and I’d not seen a single sweater-vest since the night of the Asking Fire.

“It seems like it’s more than that. She even wanted to know who you were going to the dance with, and when I said it was Jack, she had this weird reaction, like she didn’t approve.”

“Why would she care who I go to the dance with?” I asked. Was it me? Or was Grim worming her hooked nose into every corner of my life? And why?

“I don’t know. I’m just going to make sure I don’t set her off again this week.” Penny traced the silhouette of her gown with a finger. “Did you get a new dress?”

“No.” I probably answered too quickly.

“You’re still going, right?”

I took a big breath. “We haven’t really discussed it. And now he’s had these two unexplained absences, so I doubt it.”

“But has he taken back the invitation?”

“No. Not formally.”

“What about your column?” she asked. “You need to be there for the article.”

Just yesterday, I had pitched her a sort of red-carpet review of Homecoming’s hottest and trendiest looks. “I’ve got a backup plan,” I lied.

“You have to get a dress.” There was an urgency to Penny’s voice. Like dresses were a commodity more precious around here than balmy temperatures, or decent coffee.

“I’ve got an old one that will work,” I lied again, but could tell by the way Penny scrutinized me that she wasn’t convinced.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “He won’t let you down.”

I did worry. Jack was a no-show the entire day.

At the end of the day, just as I was closing my locker, Wade startled me with his sudden appearance.

“Boo,” he said in a teasing tone.

“What do you want, Wade?”

“To apologize and promise to be nice.”

“Just leave me alone.”

“Hope to die,” he said, crossing his fingers over his heart. “Monique said she’d take me back, but only if I change my ways. Make amends.”

“You’re getting back together?”

“Trying.”

I shook my head. “You two have more ups and downs than an elevator.”

“Do you accept my apology? There never were any pictures.”

Bastard
.

“Jack’s on my sorry list, too. Haven’t seen him around, though.”

“Neither have I.”

Wade looked at me with a funny expression, though I supposed atonement was a strange emotion to him. He took a step back. “Tell you what. I’ll give you some time to think about it. In the meantime, you’ll see I’m a new man.”

As I walked to the parking lot, I thought about Wade’s claims of being a “new man.” And what had Jack once told me? That shiny and new isn’t always better. Still, with Wade I figured it couldn’t get any worse.

My dad was waiting for me. He honked and waved and pulled around to the curb. I could tell by the way some of the kids gawked that he was flashy for a dad, as was his car — for a rental.

“We’re going to meet Hulda at the factory,” I said.

He rolled his eyes, but asked for directions. It was just a little outside the downtown area. I drove past it often, but had never really taken a good look. Probably because there was a tall line of trees camouflaging the front of the square brick building. It had a decent-size parking lot, even if the pavement was cracked and sagging. Above the gated entrance, a large wrought-iron sign in an old-fashioned scroll said
INGA PAPER MILL
. We pulled in and parked in one of the spots closest to what looked like a formal entrance.

My dad took a long look around. He even sniffed with flared nostrils, never a good sign. I did my best to point out the positive. The building itself seemed solid and imposing, and brick was usually a sign of good construction, as it was an expensive building material. My dad had taught me that. He noticed that a few of the windows on the first floor were broken, but I reminded him that was an easy fix. I pointed out that the site was close to the river. A bonus, he countered, to manufacturing in the nineteenth century. I didn’t dare mention the abandoned railroad tracks, though I saw him look at them with disdain. It was definitely going to be a tough sell.

We stepped into the office. It had a small front section with an old metal desk, presumably for a receptionist. A few chairs lined up along the window functioned as a small waiting area. Two glassed-in offices were positioned behind the reception desk. It was very cold inside. It obviously hadn’t been heated in some time. And now was the time to sniff, as even I had to admit the air had a musty quality to it.

“Very small,” my dad mumbled.

One of the office doors opened, and Hulda appeared, though I hadn’t noticed her the first time I had looked through the glass. “Good afternoon,” she said rather formally. She wore the same long gray woolen skirt as she had on every one of our encounters, but with a white blouse, which appeared clean and pressed, and a black tweed jacket, which almost seemed businesslike. She’d made an effort.

I introduced them, and then Hulda did that commanding thing at which she was so effective. “Follow me.”

I almost wanted to chuckle when my dad scurried obediently behind her. How did she do that?

We walked through an unmarked door, down a short hall, and ended up on the floor of a very large warehouse. It was an open space at least three stories high, with large equipment scattered about, and the remnants of a conveyor line. Enormous barn-size doors provided access to what looked like the back of the building, and light flooded the area from a large number of rectangular windows.

Hulda provided a quick history of the site. The factory was built by her father in 1940 and named after his wife and Hulda’s mother, Inga. Hulda, a fifteen-year-old recent immigrant at the time, remembered the celebration of its opening day. The mill had been nonintegrated, meaning they purchased the wood pulp as dried bale, which was then converted to a slurry and passed through a series of presses, rollers, and driers. The end product, huge rolls of paper, had been newsprint quality. After her father’s death, Hulda had closed the factory, as its old machines had become outdated and the factory too small to compete with the large integrated mills, which produced their own pulp. She seemed proud of her father’s operation, which explained her refusal to sell the site.

She then took a deep breath and walked, with her hands on her hips, to the center of the space. “So you seek to harness the wind.” She looked at my father gravely. “The wind is an ancient force whose powers are capricious. Think carefully of what we know as airborne — snow and rain, the obvious — but remember, too, plague, pest, and choking dust are carried on the back of an evil tempest.”

Uh-oh
. I was afraid of this. White Witch Hulda and her third eye. My dad gave me a what-have-you-gotten-me-into look.

“Yet,” Hulda continued, “luck is ferried on the breath of the gods.” Hulda pointed to my father. “So, Gregor, I understand your business partners are in Japan.”

“My investors, yes.” Funny how my dad’s posture straightened as he spoke to Hulda.

“There are some important things you must share with your investors. First thing,” Hulda said, stamping her foot on the concrete floor. “Solid bedrock underneath us here. Very stable foundation for a business. No?”

“Couldn’t hurt.” My dad opened his arms playfully.

“Also, the bamboo that bends in the wind is stronger than the oak that resists.” Hulda looked at him expectantly. “I speak of change here.”

“Change can be good, I suppose,” my dad said, but I could tell he was just humoring her.

“One more thing. Listen carefully. Karma is the turning of the wheel and is very important to the ancient religions of the Orient. Is much like fate, but they believe karma is our will as we swim in the river of our past and present. We cannot change the course of the river, but the strokes of our swim influence our destination. This you must tell your investors.”

“Uh. I’ll tell them if it comes up,” my dad said.

Hulda gave him a sharp eye and, again, his shoulders snapped back. I heard the ping. “You bring it up. You tell them at the Inga Paper Mill, and you must use the full name, an old woman told you that karma is the turning of the wheel.” She pointed at him with a crooked finger. “You will see.”

After that, Hulda cleared us out of the place like yesterday’s newspaper. She walked us back through the reception area and to the front door. Her parting remark was, “I will think about this wind harnessing of yours. I will let you know my decision.”

My dad and I walked back to the car with our hands dug deep in our pockets. Finally, he turned to me and said, “What was that?”

What was there to say? “That was Hulda.”

“And you want me to enter into business with her? She’ll let me know
her
decision?”

I got in the car. “I know. I know. She’s a little odd.” And wouldn’t he be surprised to know the extent to which she was odd. Though it seemed to be a lost cause, I persisted. The thought of having my dad around on a regular basis was just too appealing. “Besides all the mumbo-jumbo, what did you think of the site?”