Love Over Matter (17 page)

Haley’s eyes roll back, but Aleks
returns my happy grin. “Hey,” he says, giving The Moondancer an
extended look-see. “Nice place you’ve got here.”

“
George liked it,” I reply
like a goof.

“
Coke?” Haley asks, wedging
her ticket pad into her apron.

He nods. “Yes, please.”

I say, “Aren’t you hungry? Dad—my
dad—wants to make you a burger.”

He pats his stomach. “Sorry. I gave in
to temptation an hour ago.” He pulls a sad puppy-dog face. “Forgive
me?”

It’s not like I have a choice. “No
problem,” I say, waving away the apology. “Forget about
it.”

* * *

“
These things reek,” Haley
proclaims, drawing a pair of funky bowling shoes to her face for a
sniff. Her nose recoils. “Ick.”

Ian asks the attendant, a beanpole of
a guy with long, stringy hair, a flannel shirt, and hipster
glasses, for a size nine and then turns to me. “You’re
up.”

“
Six and a half,” I say,
requesting a size smaller than normal, since the bowling shoes run
big.

The attendant skids a scuffed pair
across the counter and rolls on.

There are seven people in our party at
the moment, including Haley, Opal, Ian, Aleks, and me, plus two
relatively new friends of mine from school: Noelle and Jaye. Rosie
is supposed to join us in an hour, assuming she gets off work in
time.

I step aside and wait for
Aleks, who, in the ninety minutes he’s been here, has become my
manly shadow and the object of everyone’s morbid curiosity. “So you
never knew George?” asks Jaye, a pretty girl with a round face,
almond-shaped eyes, and a mess of spiral brunette curls. I get the
urge to remind her that
she
only knows George through my gushing memories,
since he died a year before she and I made friends.

“
Uh-uh,” Aleks mumbles as
we tramp off toward lane number one.

The cool thing about Pinhead’s is that
they have “glow bowling” on the weekends, which means we’ll be
chucking balls down the spit-shined alley in semidarkness, any
specks of white we happen to be wearing aglow like The Big Dipper
against the midnight sky.

Oh, and there’s music: a peppy mix of
dance hits from the last twenty years, blaring out of
megaphone-style speakers mounted to the ceiling. As we change into
our dancing shoes, I can barely hear myself think.

Noelle takes the first practice shot
(no surprise, since she’s the athlete of the bunch, her schedule
crammed with track meets and softball tourneys, her calves—which
are perfectly bisected by the turquoise leggings she’s
flaunting—taut balls of muscle). Even though I’m average sized, her
extreme fitness endows me with a feeling of flabbiness that, I
fear, can only be squelched by a liquid diet and a pair of stiletto
heels.

I don’t know Aleks well enough to
gauge his sportiness, but I do know his DNA. And his DNA tells me
he’ll be a shoe-in for second place, Ian being a bit bumbly and the
rest of our gang being—shall I say?—a skosh south of middling in
the accuracy department.

“
Phew, I’m thirsty,” I
declare to no one in particular, after knocking down a spectacular
four pins out of ten. “Anyone want anything from the snack
bar?”

Aleks jumps to his feet. “I could use
something to eat,” he admits with a coy grin.

Jaye makes like she’s going to tag
along until Ian reminds her that she’s up next in the rotation.
“Get me a Sprite?” she says instead, pressing a couple of ones into
my palm.

Aleks and I lope off to the snack
counter, where a cluster of kids hogs the rotating stools,
shoveling French fries and nachos down their throats, laughing and
punching one another and spitting food everywhere in the
process.

We step aside and study the menu. (I
use the term loosely, since Pinhead’s offerings are limited to a
handful of fried items, hamburgers, hot dogs, and an array of
not-so-fizzy sodas.) I take my eyes off Aleks for a second,
glimpsing the craziest thing ever through Pinhead’s smoked-glass
entrance. And THE CRAZY has a name: George Alfred
Brooks.

My heart starts hammering at lightning
speed. “Um, be right back,” I say, dashing off without explanation.
By the time I get to the door, my pulse has peaked at a level
synonymous with death. I lean into the vestibule and whisper,
“George?”

There’s no reply, but something
flickers outside in the dusky twilight. I bump past a new crop of
bowlers and venture outdoors. The air is thick with the scent of
lilacs, even though they’ve mostly died off this late in the
season. “George?” I try again. For some reason, I’m convinced my
love has returned to me—or at least his spirit has.

I’m listening hard—straining my
eardrums until tiny stabs of pain invade them—for a sign, my eyes
furiously scanning the parking lot, the adjacent tree line, even
the grass and the sky.

When the voice comes, it startles me.
“Is everything okay?”

It’s George—or Aleks (unless, of
course, there’s a triplet out there I have yet to stumble
across).

I pinch my eyes shut and
pray for a miracle, the emotional half of my brain insisting the
words are heaven sent, my logical mind knowing they’re something
else.
Keep talking, please,
I beg.
Say something only
George would know.

A friendly hand hangs over my
shoulder. “Cassandra?”

My heart sinks. I don’t want to turn
around. “Uh, yeah,” I mutter, clinging to hope in the face of
defeat. “I’m fine.” I force my eyes open, my brain winning the
tug-of-war with my heart. “Just fine.”

Aleks’s fingers travel down my arm,
stopping to make nice with my palm, which is embarrassingly clammy.
“C’mon,” he says, pulling me back toward Pinhead’s. “They’re
waiting for us.”

chapter 14

Mr. Brooks left a
late-night message for Aleks and me that reads like a bomb recipe,
the details of which are scrawled across a paper plate in Mom’s
angular handwriting. “Don’t ask me,” she said with a shrug when I
questioned her about it. “Since George, well, uh
. . .
you
know
 . . .”

To be honest, the Brookses never quite
fit in in Willow Crest. Now they’re practically pariahs.

* * *

“
I think we did
everything,” I tell Aleks, mentally ticking through the protocol
George’s father has prescribed.

We’ve called ahead and
confirmed our identities. Our cell phones (and
all
electronic devices, for that
matter) are safely out of our possession. And now, per the note’s
instructions, we’re slipping into the Brookses’ backyard and
heading for the rose bush, a beastly thing that, in full bloom, is
a blue-ribbon prizewinner.

Aleks draws the creased plate toward
his face and squints. “It says the red door,” he reminds me, as if
I could forget. I mean, who else has a rainbow array of entrances
occupying the rear wall of their house?

“
How many times do we
knock?” I ask, pulling up short by the specified door, which, if
you ask me, is more mauve than anything else.

“
Four times, then wait
three seconds,” he says robotically. “Then four times
again . . .”

“
. . . then
wait three seconds?” I finish.

He rolls his eyes. I don’t remember
him doing that before. It’s very George-esque. “That’s the
idea.”

“
Okay, here goes nothin’,”
I say with a chuckle. Before I begin tapping away,
though . . . “Does it say how
loud
to knock?”

He scans the plate. “I’d go with
medium.” He shakes his head. “George must have been a very patient
guy.”

Ouch. Hearing him say George’s name—in
George’s voice—jabs me in the gut. “Sometimes,” I say, and leave it
at that.

Rap, rap, rap,
rap
—pause—
rap,
rap, rap, rap
—pause—
rap, rap, rap, rap
 . . .

The door opens inward on a playroom
for the Brookses’ vicious, seldom-seen cat, Otto. “Hello?” I call
ahead.

Mr. Brooks’s voice is weak. “Yes, come
in.”

I look to Aleks for approval,
forgetting he’s less familiar with the Brookses’ house than I am.
He gives a polite wave. “After you.”

I nudge the door open wider with my
foot and lead the way inside. The room is exactly as I remember:
rich wood paneling, diamond-patterned black-and-gold carpeting,
even a cluster of furballs in the corner. And it’s dark. Much
darker (and spookier) than seems right for this time of
day.

The door drifts shut, Mr. Brooks’s
silhouette coming into view. Once my eyes adjust to the light (or
lack thereof), I’m surprised to see him dressed in a pair of
pressed khakis and an equally starched white polo shirt (honestly,
based on my last visit, I’d expected a silk robe, a pipe, and a
monocle). He’s even gone as far as trading those fringed slippers
for a pair of chunky leather moccasins. I skip the pleasantries and
ask, “Where’s Lillian—I mean, um, Mrs. Brooks?” If I didn’t know
better, I’d swear he’d offed her and buried her under that precious
rose bush.

He smiles wickedly, exposing a row of
browned lower teeth; meanwhile, I wait for the creepy organ music
to kick in. “She’ll be along.”

Aleks steps forward and extends a
hand. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

The air crackles, as if on the verge
of a thunderstorm. “I’d rather not,” says Mr. Brooks, “with the flu
making the rounds and so forth.”

Okay, I’m not the most medically
knowledgeable person on Earth (or even the most observant,
generally speaking), but isn’t flu season like a few months off?
“This is Aleks,” I offer, trying to introduce a bit of cordiality
to our meeting before it catapults off a cliff.

The wood floor groans as Mr. Brooks
steps for the hallway. “Very well,” he murmurs without looking
back.

By the direction he’s
heading, I anticipate another stiff exchange in the parlor. But at
the last minute, he swings left for the library. I breathe a sigh
of relief when I spot Mrs. Brooks seated behind a heavy oak desk, a
spread of books and documents laid out before her. “Good mor—” she
starts to say, her gaze (and her voice) stopping dead at the sight
of Aleks. Her eyes widen as she rises to greet us. “Oh, my.
It’s
uncanny
.”

I feel for her. It’s not easy seeing a
dead loved one brought back to life. “Hi, Mrs. Brooks,” I say,
bracing myself for the hug she’s marching over to deliver. When her
arms wrap around me, they’re as flaccid as Clive’s injured wing.
“How are you?”

Her touch is so light it
takes a few extra seconds for the drop in pressure to register when
she releases me. “Us?” She shakes her thinning blond hair, which,
thanks to all those chemicals, is a pretty close match to mine.
“We’re”—she shoots a questioning look at her husband—“well,
we’re
super,
I’d
say. Just humming along over here.”

Mr. Brooks clears his phlegmy throat.
“I’ll get the tea,” he announces. Then he’s off.

I point with my eyes at the bamboo
settee. (I could call it a sofa, but that wouldn’t quite capture
the fragility of this particular furniture specimen.) “Wanna sit
down?” I ask Aleks, who has gone suspiciously mum.

“
Please, do,” says Mrs.
Brooks. She attempts a smile, but it’s rejected by her surgically
sculpted permaface.

Aleks and I crunch together
on the settee, our thighs rubbing. “I like your house,” he says,
scanning the built-in bookshelves, which are stuffed to bursting
with everything from
The Cat in the
Hat
to
War and
Peace
. I’m embarrassed to admit that George
and I used to sneak in here and read aloud to each other
from
Lady Chatterley’s
Lover
. “Have you lived here long?” asks
Aleks.

“
Ten years,” Mrs. Brooks
reports, her eyes going misty.

I want to act as a mediator, but I
don’t know how. “Aleks is from New York,” I say. “His dad’s a
professor at Columbia.”

Mrs. Brooks: “Yes, we
know.”

They do?
“I might apply there,” I say, drawing an
enthusiastic grin from Aleks, who seems to be checking my ear for
mites.

Mrs. Brooks shoots me a doubtful look
that should be insulting but, due to her lack of expressiveness,
falls flat. “Let us know how that turns out.”

From the corner of my eye, I spot Mr.
Brooks wheeling a food trolley along. He parks it in front of his
wife and settles into a reading chair by the dormant fireplace.
When I get a look at the trolley, its mirrored serving tray and
crystal pitcher make me feel woefully underdressed.

As Mrs. Brooks reaches for the
pitcher, Aleks bolts to his feet. “I’ll get that,” he says,
snatching the handle out from under her French-manicured
fingernails. She gives a stammering gasp of surprise but quickly
relents, taking Aleks’s place beside me.