Jinx (6 page)

I sighed. “I would think it would be perfectly obvious, after what happened. I'm a bad luck magnet. In fact, since birth, wherever I am…well, things always seem to go screwy.” I told him about the supercell that struck the very moment I'd been born, and the people who'd had to be airlifted to the hospital the next county over, due to all the power going off.

“The doctor who delivered me joked that they should name me Jinx, not Jean,” I went on. “And everyone thought that was real funny, so the name stuck. Unfortunately.”

Zach shrugged. “Well, that's not so bad. My dad has a client who was born with a lot of spit in her mouth, so everybody calls her Bubbles. That would be worse.”

I said, “I guess so.”

But I kind of doubt that Bubbles has gone through the rest of her life with saliva bubbling out of her mouth, whereas my streak of bad luck had still not let up, not for sixteen years.

Which reminded me of something I had meant to ask Zach, if I ever ran into him alone again.

“About my cousin Tory,” I began tentatively. Because, of course, although I knew how Tory felt about
him
, I didn't know how Zach felt about Tory. I remembered how surprised he'd looked when Robert had mentioned his crush on Petra…and Tory's crush on him.

“Yeeesss?” He stretched the word out so that it had multiple syllables.

“Does she do…um, drugs…a lot? I mean, like, is there a problem? Or is it just a recreational thing? Not that I'm going to say anything to her parents,” I hastened to add. The other bad thing about being a preacher's daughter is that everyone automatically assumes you're a narc. “But if it's serious—”

“Tough being the preacher's daughter,” Zach said, tossing a penny he'd found into the pond we were standing near. “Isn't it?”

Whoa
. I flushed. It was like he'd read my mind.

“Yeah,” I said, feeling my heartstrings twang again. Calm down, Jean. He's in love with Petra, with whom you could never compete. Even if you wanted to. Which you don't, because she's your friend. “It is, sometimes.”

“Thought as much. Don't tell anyone—it'll destroy my street cred—but
Seventh Heaven
was my favorite show
when I was a kid.” He winked.

I laughed. I liked how it appeared that when I was with him, the knot in my stomach seemed to go away. “It's not actually like that,” I said. “At least, not that bad. I just…I'm worried about her, is all.”

“Most of what your cousin Tory says and does,” Zach said, “she says and does to get attention. Your aunt and uncle are busy people, and Tory's a bit of a drama queen, in case you didn't notice. I think she feels like she has to go to extremes to get noticed. Like with this witch stuff.”

The pain in my stomach returned, with a vengeance. Wow. So much for it going away when Zach was around.

“Oh,” I said, my heartstrings banging—not twanging. And not in a good way. “You know about that?”

“Are you kidding? I think Tory's made sure the whole school knows. Her and that coven of hers. They actually brought a cauldron to school one time,” he went on, “to do their witchy little spells in the caf. Only they set off the smoke alarm. Principal Baldwin was
pissed
. Tory tried to make this big stink about how he was preventing her from practicing her religion. Like witchcraft is a religion.”

“Actually,” I said, stung by his tone, “it can be. But you shouldn't get what Tory and her friends are doing—playing at being witches—and real witchcraft mixed up. Real witches don't cast spells to get attention, but because it gives them actual spiritual fulfillment. And witchcraft, if it's done properly, is more about giving
thanks—and showing appreciation—for nature than it is about trying to bend it to someone's will or…or make things magically appear.”

“Don't tell me,” he said, sounding disapproving, “you're one of them, too.”

“I'm not,” I hastened to assure him. “But one of the side effects of being a preacher's daughter is an interest in spiritual practices.
All
spiritual practices. I can tell you all about shamanism, too, if you want.”

“Rain check on that,” Zach said. “I guess this means I'll have to take your word for it on the spiritual thing. Still, I can't help thinking your cousin isn't into this witch stuff for any New Age, crunchy-granola reason, but because it's the hot new thing in her social set.”

“I think it goes a little deeper than that for Tory,” I said, thinking of how angry she'd gotten with me during our conversation about our ancestress, Branwen, my first night in New York. “But I'm relieved you don't seem to think she has a problem. With drugs, I mean.”

“Honestly, I think Tory's too smart ever to get herself in over her head that way. I think a lot of what you saw in the gazebo the other day was just…well, showing off.”

For him. He didn't say so, but who else could Tory have been showing off for?

The question was, did he know it?

Thinking it might be best to change the subject, since the last thing I wanted to do was get accused by Tory of
talking about her behind her back—and these things do have a way of getting back to people—I asked, “So where did you spend your year abroad?”

Zach's descriptions of the sights and sounds of Florence, Italy, took us all the way up to Fifth and Eighty-ninth, where Coach Winthrop, the P.E. instructor, was waiting with his stopwatch. We threw our ice pop sticks away—I had only managed to get down to the white part of my Rocket, and not even sampled the blue—and did a few stretches to limber up for our big finish. Then, crouching behind some bushes, we waited until a herd of royal-blue-shorts-wearing runners came our way, then came bursting out to join them…

…and thundered toward Coach Winthrop and his stopwatch, panting as hard as if we'd just run ten miles, and not just a tiny fraction of one.

“Excellent, Rosen,” the coach said, throwing a towel in Zach's direction. “You cut a whole minute from your sophomore year's time.”

I couldn't hold back a fit of giggles any longer, especially when Zach said somberly, slinging the towel around his neck, “Thanks, Coach. I've been training pretty hard.”

Later, as we were filing back into school, Zach found me in the crowd of girls trying to get into the girls' locker room to shower and change, and asked, “Hey, Jean, have you tried souvlaki yet?”

“No.” I felt myself turning red, because, of course,
the other girls turned to see who he was talking to.

“Oh, man,” Zach said, grinning mysteriously. “Tomorrow, we try the souvlaki. Are you in for a treat.” Then without another word, he ducked into the boys' locker room.

Whoa. So Zach was planning on taking me for souvlaki tomorrow during class.

Which was kind of like a date.

Well, okay, maybe not, because he was probably only doing it to make up for that whole thing where I saved his life.

But still.

It wasn't until I was freshly showered and headed for my next class in a dreamy daze that I remembered that Zach wasn't exactly a free man. I mean, if the rumors were true, he was in love with Petra…

…and my cousin was madly in love with him.

Madly enough in love with him to make a doll of him, and stick it with pins.

Which meant, if I did anything to displease her—such as go for souvlaki with the guy she liked—there was nothing to keep her from doing the same thing to me.

And it wouldn't be my thoughts she'd be piercing, I was pretty sure.

And yet, remembering the way Zach's green eyes had laughed into mine at the finish line in P.E. that day, I found I didn't even care. I didn't care that Tory loved him. And I didn't care that he, in turn, loved Petra.

That's how far gone I already was.

You would think, given my lifetime of experience, I'd have recognized the warning signs.

But that just goes to show how really rotten my luck is, after all.

It was as I was pouring Mouche's used-up cat litter into a trash bag that I saw it.

Chores. They were a big deal around the Gardiner household. Not because there were so many of them. It was because there were so few. Thanks to Petra, the au pair, and Marta, the housekeeper, and Jorge, the gardener, there wasn't a whole lot left for us kids to do around the brownstone.

But Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Ted believed as strongly as my parents did that children needed to learn responsibility, so a few days after my arrival—once my bruise had had a chance to die down—there'd been some discussion as to what my “chore” would be.

“She can't have my job,” Teddy had declared. We'd been eating the filet mignon Petra had promised to cook the night of my arrival…just a few nights late. “I'm in charge of emptying the dishwasher when Marta's not
here, and feeding the koi. And I
like
my jobs.”

“She can have my jobs,” Tory muttered. She had decided just that morning that she was a vegetarian, and had forced Petra to prepare her tofu instead of filet mignon. And it looked to me like she was regretting that decision, if the way she was gazing at my steak was any indication. “Loading the dishwasher, and the cat box. I don't know why
I
have to clean the cat box every day.”

Aunt Evelyn had looked at Tory darkly. “Because you're the one who wanted a cat,” she pointed out. “You told us you'd take full responsibility for her.”

Tory rolled her eyes. “That cat,” she said, “is the most ungrateful animal I've ever seen. She sleeps with
Alice
every night, even though
I'm
the one who feeds her and cleans her box.”

Alice, who was eating her filet mignon hamburger-style, between two slices of white bread and smothered in ketchup, said indignantly, “Maybe if you didn't scream at Mouche all the time for getting hair all over your black clothes, she'd want to sleep with you more.”

Tory rolled her eyes again and said, “Just give Jinx cat box duty.”

Aunt Evelyn didn't approve of the new arrangement—of me taking over Tory's job of monitoring Mouche's litter box—but that's what happened. I also volunteered to watch Teddy and Alice on the one afternoon when Petra's class schedule did not allow her to get back to the city in time to do so, a chore formerly performed by Marta…I guess since no one had ever been able to get Tory to do
it. Not even her own parents.

But then, I didn't exactly mind. I genuinely liked my younger cousins, because they reminded me of my own brothers and sisters, whom I was missing much more than I ever thought I would—thirteen-year-old aspiring model Courtney; ten-year-old baseball fanatic Jeremy; seven-year-old Sarabeth, obsessed with Bratz; and especially four-year-old Henry, the baby of the family.

Having chores to perform, just like the ones I'd left behind, made me feel less lonely and more like I belonged to the Gardiner family, which, in turn, made me miss my own less.

Still, when weekly allowance day rolled around, and Aunt Evelyn presented me with a brand-new fifty-dollar bill, I knew I wasn't back in Iowa anymore.

Staring down at it, I asked, “What's this for?” thinking she must want change back.

“Your allowance.” Aunt Evelyn passed Tory an identical bill. Teddy and Alice, whose financial needs were apparently deemed less dire, received a twenty and a ten, respectively.

“But…” I stared down at the bill. Fifty dollars? For scooping Mouche's box and picking the kids up after school once a week? “I can't take this. You're already paying my tuition for school and letting me stay here and everything—”

I suspected the Gardiners had done more than this, even. I couldn't be sure, but I gathered, from things I heard around school, that not just anyone was admitted
to Chapman. There was a wait list, one that I had apparently jumped to the head of, due to a “donation” the Gardiners had made on my behalf. I didn't know if my parents were aware of this, but I certainly was, and it made me more conscious than ever of just how much I owed the Gardiners. Especially since I'd brought the reason for my needing to transfer to Chapman on myself.

I did
not
deserve one more
cent
of their money.

But they apparently felt differently.

“Honestly, Jean,” Aunt Evelyn said, “I owe you at least as much for looking after Teddy and Alice every Wednesday. Any babysitter in Manhattan would have charged much more.”

“Yes, but…” I mean, I'd been looking after my own siblings, free of charge, for my entire life. “Really, I don't think—”

“God, Jinx.” Tory shook her head at me in disbelief. “Are you crazy? Just take it.”

“I agree,” Aunt Evelyn said. “Take the money, Jean. I'm sure this weekend you'll want to go to the movies or something with some of your new friends from school. Enjoy yourself. You deserve it.”

I didn't exactly point out that I had no new friends from school. Oh, there were the kids from orchestra, who liked me well enough, once they got over an outsider scoring second chair violin her first day. If you can play an instrument, you'll always fit in with the orchestra crowd.

And there was Chanelle, whom I sat next to at lunch.
But she was Tory's friend, really—although she took no part in Tory and Gretchen and Lindsey's “coven” talk, and seemed to be there, really, just because that's where her boyfriend, Robert, sat with Shawn. Tory let me sit there, too, but never without giving the impression that by allowing me to do so, she was granting me this humongous favor. I knew she'd have preferred for me to sit with the orchestra crowd, instead.
I
would have preferred to sit with them, too.

But I couldn't figure out a way to do it that wouldn't cause Tory to make some sarcastic comment. Because even though I knew she didn't want me there, I knew she'd like it even less if I deserted her. She hadn't exactly been Ms. Friendly since the whole Branwen conversation.

Still, ill-gotten as I felt it was, I found a use for my sudden financial windfall the first day I changed out the litter in Mouche's box.

The Gardiners favored clumping cat litter, which is easy to clean, since all you have to do is sift through it with a little slotted shovel.

But either the litter was inferior, or Tory hadn't changed it in a very long time, because no matter how thoroughly I scooped it, it still smelled…a lot. The ammonia-like odor of cat urine literally filled the utility room in which the box sat. I felt sorry for Marta, who had to use the utility room every time she did the laundry.

So I found an unopened container of litter, and
decided to give Mouche a fresh new supply, after dumping out the old.

I didn't understand what I was looking at, at first. I thought it had to be a mistake. Then I saw the tape, and realized it wasn't a mistake. I dropped the empty litter box like it had caught on fire.

Because even though I'd dumped out all the old litter, the box wasn't empty. Not completely. Taped to the bottom of it, previously hidden under several inches of old, smelly cat litter, was a photograph. A photograph that I could see, in spite of the fact that it was scratched up and considerably faded, was of Petra.

I couldn't believe it. I really couldn't believe it. Because I knew who had put that photo there.

I also knew why.

I just couldn't believe anyone—
anyone
—would be so mean.

Maybe, I thought, as I carefully peeled the photo up from the bottom of the box, Tory hadn't known what she was doing. She
couldn't
have known.
No one
who knew what something like that could do to someone would ever try it…not even on her worst enemy—

Oh, right. Who was I kidding? Tory had known
exactly
what she was doing.

Which was why I knew I had no choice but to try to stop her…by whatever means necessary.

Even if it meant breaking my word.

And okay, it had only been a promise to myself.

But sometimes, those are the hardest ones to break.

I found what I needed online…a store—an actual
store
—that carried what I was looking for. Such a store, in Hancock, would surely have been shut down by outraged citizens.

In New York, however, that was apparently not a concern.

The store, which was in the East Village, closed at seven. I had two hours to figure out how to get down there.

The subway was the most logical choice, but since I'd never ridden on the New York subway, the thought of doing so filled me with terror.

The problem was, what might happen if I
didn't
make the trip filled me with even more terror…just for different reasons.

So I fished a subway map out of a drawer in the kitchen, where I knew Aunt Evelyn kept such things, and left the house, studying the map carefully as I walked.

I had gone approximately three steps before someone reached out and crumpled the map up in front of me. My heart thumping, I looked up…

…and nearly crumpled up myself when I saw it was Zach Rosen.

“Do not,” he said, “walk down the streets of New York City with your head buried in a subway map. People will know you're from out of town, and will try to take advantage of you.”

After having spent every fifth period of that entire
week shirking the Presidential Fitness Test with him, and instead exploring the delicacies offered by what Zach calls the Umbrella Cafés of Central Park, including the mysterious—and delicious—souvlaki, I felt comfortable enough to wail, “I have to go to the East Village. Do you know which subway I should take?”

Zach, who'd slung off his backpack and was obviously just returning from somewhere, nevertheless shouldered it again and said, “Let's go.”

Okay, THAT was not an answer I'd anticipated.

“No,” I said, appalled. Because he was the last person I wanted to know where I was going. Not because I was still crushing on him…I was, of course, even though I knew it was completely futile. Just yesterday, in fact, I had gotten Zach to admit he was in love with Petra. The conversation—which had taken place in the Gardiners' kitchen after school, where I had found him recovering from a game of catch he and Teddy had been having in front of the brownstone—had gone like this:

 

Me (summoning all my courage, after Petra had finally left the room with Teddy, in order to supervise the washing of his exceptionally grubby hands before letting him sample cookies from a batch she'd just made): “So is it true you're in love with Petra?”

Zach (choking on a cookie): “What makes you think that?”

Me: “Because Robert said that day I first met you that that's the only reason you hang around here.”

Zach: “And Robert, as we know, is a consummate authority on all things, having such keen perception that is in no way compromised by mind-altering substances.”

Me (heartstrings twanging): “So you're saying Robert is wrong? You never liked Petra?”

Zach: “I will admit there was a time when I found Petra quite fetching.”

Me (not even jealous because Petra really
is
fetching, plus kindhearted and a great cook): “But she has a boyfriend.”

Zach: “I know. I've met him. Willem. He's very cool.”

Me: “But you still keep hanging around.”

Zach (gets up): “Does my hanging around bother you? Because I can leave.”

Me (panicking): “No! I just…you know. I just wonder why you still hang around. If you know she has a boyfriend.”

Zach (holding up a cookie): “Aren't the plentiful baked goods around here excuse enough?”

Me: “Admit it. You still think you have a chance with her.”

Zach: “Is there someone in this house with whom you think I'd have a better chance?”

Me (thinking of Tory, with whom he'd definitely have a better chance, but whom he should definitely steer clear of, considering that doll): “I guess not.”

Zach (looking amused): “Well, then.”

The thing is, I didn't even mind about his loving Petra. Because for one thing, it gave us plenty to talk about—not that we ever seemed to fall short in that capacity, since we seemed to share the same opinion on a lot of things, such as politics, food, music (although Zach wasn't actually all that familiar with classical), a hatred for organized sports of any kind, and the deplorable state into which the show
7th Heaven
had sunk ever since Jessica Biel left it as a full-time cast member.

But on the rare occasions when there was a lull in conversation, I could always mention something Petrarelated—that maybe if Zach took German lessons, he could surprise her by asking her how she was doing in her native language, or something like that. Personally, I think he really appreciated my help in his pursuit of her.

And I, in turn, really appreciated that I didn't have to worry about how I looked or acted around him. It didn't matter that my Chapman School shorts were so ugly, or that I walked into the paths of Rollerbladers almost daily and had to be pulled to safety by him. Because he wasn't interested in me that way. We were just friends. When I was with Zach, I could forget all the horrible things I was running away from, and just relax. My stomach didn't even hurt when I was with him…well, unless I happened to find my mind straying, and wondering what might happen if Petra somehow disappeared from the picture, and Zach—miracle of miracles—ever
did
happen
to think of me as more than a friend.

That's when my stomach would seize up. Because, of course, he'd made it clear how he felt about witches and witchcraft, and there was…

Well. My past.

And then there was Tory.

But I tried to talk about her to him as little as possible. I still didn't know if he knew how much she liked him—or if, witch thing aside, he could ever like her back. I couldn't see how, actually, any guy
wouldn't
be flattered to learn that a girl as pretty as Tory liked him.