The Guardian (10 page)

“Can I get you anything else?” I ask, hoping they only want their ticket and I can close another table out.

The thing about being a waitress is that, until you’re needed,
you’re invisible. No one wants to talk to you unless they’re demanding A-1 Sauce. When you finally bring it, there is no “thank you” because this is your job. It’s what you do. And they don’t want you hovering, hanging around their table for no reason. Not
unless they’re complaining about lukewarm entrees or giving you hell because you accidentally brought them regular Coke instead of diet. If that happens, you’re forced to stand there, silent, and take their shit.
And that one, minor mistake?
It’ll cost yo
u a tip.
Every.
Time.

I perform a quick check. A few of their glasses are half empty. “I’ll be right back with refills.”

I pass
Flavia
on the way to the drink station. “The
pervs
at table eight want more drinks,” I tell her. The dark-haired, olive-skinned
girl looks over at them and groans. She shoves the scoop back in the ice machine and slams the lid shut.

“They have been here for almost an hour, and all they’ve managed to order are drinks and an appetizer. Do you know what the tip is for drinks and an a
ppetizer? It’s a total waste of my time, that’s what it is. I may as well be paying
them
. And God knows I give them about ten more minutes before they start begging for my number.
Culos
.”
She sighs, and then crosses herself.

I refill a pitcher with soda,
grab a few cups of ice, just in case, and head back to table twelve.

As I move through the crowd, a strange feeling washes over me, pushing through my veins.
Like I’ve been here before.
Done this very thing.
I mean, yeah, I’ve done this same thing on hund
reds of nights just like this one, but this is more, and the feeling persists. Everything around me seems to quiet as I focus on each step.

I’ve done this before.

I’ve done this before.

I can see it happening in my mind. It’s like, extreme déjà vu as I r
efill their glasses and set the cups of ice on the table.

In my head, it sounds like a different person asking: “Can I get you anything else?” The words emerge more sluggish than usual.

I’ve done this before.

One of the guys smiles at me. “Nah, we’re fine
, thanks.”

I knew he was going to say that
.

“Let me know. . . .” The complete lack of noise buzzes in my ears: as if the holes in my head that carry sound to my brain are clogged.

I’ve already turned on my heel, preparing to walk back to the kitchen, when
I see it in my mind—a cup.
A flash of ice spewing across the table, the frigid cubes sparkling in the light.
Without thinking, I am twisting around. Everything moves in suspended motion: the cup, which has just been knocked, and my hand, which reaches out
to snatch it before it falls over completely. In an instant, I’ve set the cup upright again, averting disaster.

The haziness vanishes and the room is as loud as it was before—louder, even. The lights are as bright, and I squint, trying to process what, exa
ctly, just happened. The déjà vu feeling dissipates, slowly leaking from my body. I
suck
in a quick breath and hold it in my lungs.

“No
freakin
’ way,” the guy mutters. He stares at me, eyes wide.

“I can’t believe you caught that!” the girl beside him says.

“What are you? Part Ninja?” he asks.

“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I stammer.

“Did you see that?” the guy asks his friends across the table. “Her back was totally turned.” He watches me, shaking his head, disbelieving. “How did
you know it was going to fall?”

How did I know? I saw it happen.
In my mind.
Right before it actually fell
.

But even though the words are poised on my lips, I don’t believe them.

“Lucky guess . . . I guess,” I reply. I offer a tiny laugh, but there is no
humor in it.

Please, just let me go away
, I silently beg.

“Okay, I totally missed something,” the girl across from him says, eyes darting back and forth between us.

“She like, grabbed the glass of ice before it fell over. She was like, literally walking
away from the table, but she still turned around in time to catch it,” the other girl gushes. “That is so freakish. It was
like,
you knew it was falling, or something.”

The guy ogles me, and for a moment I expect him to jump out of his chair, to announce
to the entire restaurant what they just witnessed.

No one will believe him.
I
don’t believe him
.

I mumble, half under my breath, something about having special talents. I’m not sure what I say, exactly, or if they even hear me. I hurry back to the kitche
n, heart pumping too fast, ready to pound through my skin.

I did. I knew it was going to fall. I saw it falling in my mind. It was like, déjà vu only crazier because this wasn’t in my mind. It was something that actually happened. It wasn’t déjà vu because
I’ve never done this before. Not Ever.

Stu appears in the kitchen window, an impish smile on his face. “Order up!”     

I stare back at him, confused.

What just happened here?

E
LEVEN

Splayed across my bed, I have every intention of making up an
other one of the algebra sets I missed while I was in the hospital. Instead, my mind keeps slipping back to the night before. Specifically, I think about Seth.
His eyes, his hands, his lips.
The way we moved together. . . .

After a few minutes I set my mec
hanical pencil down and shove my notebook to the side, hoping it will disappear.
Hoping that algebra will disappear.
That I’ll disappear.
That Seth will appear and take me back with him—wherever it is he goes when he disappears. I lay my head down on my bl
anket and close my eyes.

Tiny stars twinkle. There’s a burst of light. In a flash, my mind goes completely dark, and then there’s Mom, standing at the front door, laughing at something someone next to her is saying. The image is set in tones of gray: blur
ry, and hazy around the edges, but it’s her, and she isn’t alone. She’s holding something, reaching out to unlock the door.

My eyes fly open.

They dart around my room: the open closet, the photographs on the wall,
my
stolen from
the dumpster dresser. I listen for any unusual sounds. Everything is quiet.

I must’ve fallen asleep
.
It was a dream
.

I roll out of bed and walk into the living room. The house is dark. I shiver, turn on the lamp, and check the clock. It’s past midnight.
Mom still isn’t home. I move into the kitchen and listen as the fluorescent light buzzes, humming to life.

Outside, the screen door creaks. I spin around, the hair on my arms rising. A key inserts into the lock. It jiggles for a moment before Mom finally p
ushes the front door open. She walks inside, laughing. She’s not alone. I straighten.

“Hi, Hon. We brought pizza,” she announces.

“We,” I breathe.

“Oh. I forgot you two haven’t met, yet. This is Mike.”

Mike?

The truth is that every move we’ve made was p
recipitated by one of two things: running out of money and not being able to pay our landlord of the month, or a break-up. I have a terrible, sinking feeling about this. It settles in the pit of my stomach and roots there.

“Hey, Genesis.
I’ve heard a lot a
bout you. How’s the arm?”

“Fine,” I mutter, folding it protectively across my chest. 

“It’s much better,” Mom says, heading into the kitchen. As if she even knows. Like
her
wrist snapped in half instead of mine. “The first of the hospital bills came in la
st week,” she goes on. “Thankfully the family attorney said I could mail them directly to him. The numbers made my head spin. Mike is a banker!” She calls out this last part. As if I care. As if it matters. And then: “Can you make us some drinks?”

“Sure,”
I reply, standing. “You can, um, have a seat, I guess,” I tell Mike.

He thanks me and moves to the couch. I can feel his eyes watching me as I move away, his laser stare boring holes into my back.

In the kitchen: “Isn’t he adorable?” Mom asks, keeping her
voice low. I glance back at Mike, who has already spotted the remote and is flipping through the stations in typical male fashion. I take in his jeans and blue dress shirt, unbuttoned at the top. He isn’t entirely desperate-looking. He wears some fairly s
tylish glasses, even. It might’ve made him look younger had his hairline not already receded. And the dark color?
Totally from a bottle.
The slight paunchiness is just a bonus.

“Yeah,” I reply, grabbing three cups from the cupboard. “He’s great.”

*
             
*
             
*

I jerk awake. Sit up.
Panting.

Clear moonlight streams through the window.

“What’s wrong?” a low voice whispers.

I recoil at the sound, clenched with fear.

“
Shh
. It’s just me.” Seth sits down on the bed beside me, face hidden in the shadows. “What happene
d?” he presses.

“I don’t know,” I whisper, wrestling with my thoughts, trying to remember. “I was having a dream.
A nightmare.”

“About what?”

I sift through a thousand memories, concentrating, but come up empty. “I don’t know. What are you doing here?” I p
ull my comforter tighter.

“I thought you might. . . . I don’t know. You were scared.”

“I was. I mean, I
am
scared. These really, really weird things happened today.”

“Like what?”

“Like . . . I don’t know, I saw things,”
I say, keeping my voice just above a whisper. “And they happened.”

“What kinds of things?”

“Tonight?
At the diner?
I saw this drink, tipping over in my head, and I turned around and snatched it before it fell. And I had a dream about my mom coming home wit
h someone and she did. I know. It doesn’t sound like anything, really. But Seth, I had no reason to think these things, but I did.
Before
they happened.”

“Maybe it’s a coincidence.”

“You think I sound stupid,” I say, working to keep my voice even.

“You do
n’t sound stupid.”

“Is this even possible, though? That I’m seeing things happen before they happen?”

“It’s possible, I guess. Some people have a ‘sixth sense’ about things. They’re what we call clairvoyant. They see things, hear things,
have
strong feelin
gs. Do you remember the night nurse?
In the hospital?”

I nod.

“She talked to me. She never looked at me, but she could feel me. She knew I was there. A lot of major historical events were predicted in advance.”

“This has never happened to me before. And it
happened twice.
In one night.”

He eyes me thoughtfully. “You don’t know it will happen again, though.”

“You don’t know it won’t,” I point out, stubborn.

He tears his eyes from mine, sighing in defeat. “You should get some rest.”

“Will you stay?”

“I’d like
to, but. . . .” He trails off, unable to finish, forehead crinkling with concern. “I have to go now,” he whispers.

Before I can even tell him goodnight, he’s gone.

T
WELVE

“So I was thinking about prom,” Carter announces
as soon as we pull out of the parking lot. He’s driving me to work again. On an afternoon like this, I would usually take my bike. My wrist brace, though, makes it impossible to steer, and the last thing I need is irreparable damage to an already non-funct
ioning extremity. For a few more weeks, at least, I’m relying on Mom or Carter to drop me off and pick me up.