Sleight (12 page)

“Irina already has the music scripted,” Ted said. “I’ve got a cue sheet here.” He sifted through a messy stack of papers and handed me a list. I scanned the page, satisfied with Irina’s selections. I knew this stuff.

“Who’s handling the knives and the fire?”

“We’ve been working with the fire-eater Jimbo, and he’s going to be backstage with me,” Irwin added. “Trusting a blind man with fire, now that is insanity.”

They chuckled at the irony of such a picture, but I stil felt as though I was standing on the outside of their very inside joke. I could feel a headache, a real one this time, knotting up behind my eyes. Lucian Dmitri’s quest for drama and sizzle had driven my family to the farthest edge of reason.

“So, if this is no longer open for discussion, I’d like to be excused. I realy do have homework,” I said. I was done being ignored.

I left, deflated. I was worried about Marlene’s safety, puzzled about the weird control Ted had given to Lucian. Ted was usualy so bulheaded about this precious show. I couldn’t imagine the old Ted ever alowing someone to tel him how to run things. But things were so different now. I saw it in Ted’s demeanor at the dinner thing. He was…afraid of Lucian. Nervous. I’d never seen my uncle act like that around anyone.

“Hey.” Ash’s voice surprised me. I’d been walking with my head down and hadn’t seen him sitting on the steps of my trailer, his arms wrapped around his knees.

“So now you’re speaking to me?” I said, my voice cold.

“I wasn’t not speaking to you.”

“Then what the hel is your deal, Ash?”

“No deal,” he shrugged and patted the top stair, as if to invite me to sit down. “What happened to your boyfriend’s face?” Mr.

Nonchalant.

“Seriously? Wow. That’s classic. Why don’t you go ask Summer?”

“Come on, don’t be mad at me. You know I can’t take it when you’re mad at me.” He reached for my hand. I took a step backward, out of his reach. “I just figured you’d know, since you’ve been hanging with him so much.”

“Ash, even if I did know what happened, you’d be the last person I’d tel. Can you move, please? I have homework to do.” I tried to shove past him, but he grabbed my hand and puled me into his lap.

“Don’t do this,” he said, his voice sugary.

I bounded off his legs, uninterested in playing the sucker to his Lothario ways.

“Don’t touch me. You have gone above and beyond to ignore me. You’ve laughed at me and avoided me ever since we started school. I owe you nothing. Just leave me alone.”

“Gems, I’m not avoiding you. I just don’t want to get in the way of your budding romance with Henry.”

“That’s a load of shit and you know it.”

Ash smiled and shook his head. I wanted to punch him in the throat.

“Summer told me his nose was broken.”

“Yeah, wel, Summer’s her own tatt’d-up freak show who would tel you that gnomes were real if it meant you’d ask her out.” He laughed again, which pushed me just that much too far.

“You’re such an insufferable dick. You think this is funny, that I’m funny?” I hissed. With the ful brunt of my strength, I shoved him off the trailer steps and into the sawdust. “Everything’s just a big damn joke to you, isn’t it? You think I don’t see you skulking around the hals, shooting daggers at me and Henry, hiding in the smokers’ lounge with that skank? You’ve probably sold me out, told Summer al my deepest, darkest secrets, so she and her friends can have a good laugh. What is your effing problem? Al that stuff you said to me before we started at Eaglefern, how you’d be there for me, how I’d never eat alone, how we were in this together?

You’re so ful of shit, Ash!” I yeled at him, shaking with rage.

Ash was on his feet, brushing himself off, waiting for me to finish ranting. Before I could say another word, he closed the distance between us and wrapped his arms tight around me. I tried to pry loose but instead of letting go, he grabbed the back of my head with his right hand and kissed me hard on the mouth.

I struggled at first, but his ripped arms were fast around me. He was strong, way stronger than I was. And when his lips touched mine…as angry as I was, I gave in and kissed him back, something I’d dreamed about for so long, before public school, before our lives had been irreversibly screwed up by foolish adults, before Henry…

Henry.

My fury reasserted itself and I pushed Ash hard, untangling myself from his arms. Without thinking, I slapped him hard across the face.

The impact stunned him for a brief moment before he spoke.

“That was a mistake, Gemma,” he said, rubbing his cheek. “I only came to tel you I was sorry for being a jerk.” He stomped away, not looking back.

I stormed into the trailer, angrier that I’d been in recent memory

—angry at Ash for being such an insolent prick, angry at Ted and Marlene for treating me like a nobody, angry at Summer Day and her stupid gossip, angry at Junie for having new friends, angry at my crazy mother for abandoning me, angry at Henry for not trusting me today, angry at myself for being duped by al the people in my life.

I plopped down on my bed and touched the mousepad on my computer, a force of habit rather than a genuine interest in logging on. I felt the sting of tears behind my eyes, but to cry would mean to give in, to let al these people win. I held my breath until I was certain the threat had passed.

My inbox showed three new messages, and through the blur of residual water in my eyes, I could see that none of the emails bore the name I hoped would be there. Instead, the good people at Macy’s wanted me to know about some retarded sale coming up, Saturday and Sunday only.

I slammed my laptop closed, kicked my backpack across the floor, and cried myself to sleep.

:15:

Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

The next day started much like the one before had ended. I’d slept like the dead, though that’s a sily statement. The dead don’t sleep. They folow me around. The sole dream I could remember involved me being chased by some unknown entity. Whether friend or foe, I couldn’t tel but judging by the pace at which I fled from it, and the ache in my jaw upon awakening, I assumed it was a bad guy who very much wanted to hurt me. And in the dream, much as is the case in real life, there was no champion to swoop in and save me from my demons.

Henry was conspicuously absent from math. When Mr. Poole handed back the pop quizzes, he gave me one, blank except for a handwritten note across the body of the page: “See me after class.” Given yesterday’s hasty departure in a flourish of misguided loyalty, I guessed Poole was going to give me an ass-chewing about my lack of judgment.

I wasn’t far off. In al fairness, he wasn’t a total hard nose and offered an extra credit assignment to make up for the zero on the quiz.

“Even in the short time you’ve been with us, I can see you are an excelent student, Gemma. I urge you to not throw away these years of hard work over foolish affairs of the heart.” I thanked him for his generosity but was put off by his advice.

He sounded like he’d been talking to Ted. What the hel did Poole know about me, or my “affairs of the heart,” anyway?

The curious glances from other students continued throughout the day, in the hal and in class. I think everyone assumed, like Ash had, that I knew the deal with Henry, that I had talked to him and therefore knew what had gone down. But I didn’t know any more than they did, as I stil hadn’t heard from him. This fact did little to improve my mood.

No one talked to me, not even Summer during the lul in photo lab. Instead of working on the second project that was due by week’s end, she entertained a rapt group of brainless wonders at one of the high-top tables and made sure I heard her loud and clear when the subject of Henry Dmitri came up.

“Do you guys remember when we were sophomores and Henry came to school with a broken arm? I’l bet it was his dad. Probably beating the crap out of him for not being perfect enough,” she said.

If they talked about Henry, someone they’d gone to school with for twelve years, with such acidity, I didn’t dare imagine what they’d have to say about me.

And as tempted as I was to go and throttle Summer, just to shut her up, I knew better. These people owed me no loyalty. I was nothing but a blip on their radar, a nobody passing through until June.

I puled my cel phone from my pocket, mustering the courage to text Henry. I tried to think of something clever and breezy to say, something that might make him smile wherever the hel he was.

Before I could punch in the first letter, though, the phone buzzed in my palm.

The caler ID indicated I’d received a text. I flipped open the phone to read the display, careful to keep my hand under the table so as not to attract the attention of Summer and her merry band of fools.

Hi, G. Was thinking of u 2. Hope ur day is going OK. Don’t eat lunch alone. Meet me on the NE side of the student prkg

> photo. HD

Henry!

He was thinking of me, too? How did he know I’d been thinking about him? My heart fluttered into my throat. I wanted to bounce off my stool and do a happy dance right on the spot.

Rather than subject myself to the Summer’s endless drivel, I grabbed my bag and went to Mr. Stephens to see if he’d alow me to spend the balance of class “in the field.” I wanted out, and taking pictures of fog and open lockers was the ideal cover.

Mr. Stephens scribbled his signature on a hal pass. “I loved the series you did with your elephants. Go find me something beautiful, Gemma,” he said. I smiled, a real smile this time, and walked out of the classroom without giving Summer a second glance.

It was al I could do to not sprint out of the building across the student parking lot, but doing so would’ve attracted unwanted attention. I controled my cadence, even stopped a few times to snap some shots of random crap, before walking out the side doors to the northeastern edge of the campus.

Parked in the last row between two tricked-out riceburners sat Henry’s black BMW. My heart flipped over in my chest. As I approached the car, Henry stepped out and proceeded around to the passenger side to open the door for me. Seeing him again took my breath away, how tal he was, the way his pants fit his long legs, the cut of his heavy wool pea coat across his broad shoulders, the line of his clenched jaw, the slight hint of needing a shave, the not-quite-brushed hair… He was again wearing the sunglasses, despite the mist and obvious lack of sunshine.

After I’d climbed into his car, he closed my door and reassumed his position behind the wheel. I didn’t know if I should speak first or wait for him to say something.

“Hey…,” he said.

“Hi.” I sighed with relief.

“Thanks for coming out here so soon. Stephens gave you a pass?”

“Yeah. He told me to go find something beautiful.” I certainly had done that.

“Gemma, I’m sorry about yesterday. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.” He took the sunglasses off to reveal the rainbow of colors that had formed around his eye. It was just as shocking to see the second time as it had been the first, and my guts tightened, a reflex from seeing someone I cared about in pain.

“I was just worried. That’s al.”

“I know. Thank you.” A silence settled over the car’s interior. I didn’t know if it was my place to ask what had happened, if he felt comfortable enough to confide in me.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I said.

“It’s not that big of a deal. I got into a fight with Lucian. He has quite a temper, and I pushed his buttons. I didn’t stop when I should have, so he stopped me instead.”

“Your father did this to you? What could possibly be so important or terrible for him to hit you?” I was grateful that in al my years as child to a less-than-perfect mother, Delia had never raised a hand against me. My private gratitude was immediately folowed by a profound sadness for Henry. What could he have done to deserve such an explosive blow to the face?

“We were fighting…about you.”

I swalowed hard. “Me?”

“He doesn’t want me hanging around with you. He thinks it’s a conflict of interest.”

“What? We can’t be friends because he’s paying Ted’s rent?”

“There’s more to it than that,” Henry said. He paused and looked up at me. “He knows your secret, Gemma.” My secret? The secret? I stiffened in my seat.

“You’ve seen her. The woman who folows me around the school.” How the hel did Henry know this? “Haven’t you…?” It was more a statement than a question.

I was cornered. “Yes. I’ve seen her.”

“You see them al over the place, don’t you…the dead, stil hanging around.” I began to shake, diverting my eyes out the car’s window, toward the old building. The three shade children weren’t there.

“I’m not comfortable talking about this, Henry. No one knows.”

“Listen to me.” Henry turned in his seat to face me. “Lucian knows, and I know, and he’s freaking out because he doesn’t want the two of us to get close. He’s worried.”

“About what? This doesn’t make any sense. My crazy is none of his business. And it has nothing to do with you.”

“But it is his business, and it does have something to do with me, because it’s not crazy. It’s real, and he knows it. I know it,” he said.

“Who told you? Did Marlene or Irwin say something?” I whispered. “Was it Ted?” The white-hot heat of betrayal pricked at my consciousness. I could not imagine any of them teling my secret.

“No, no, it’s not like that,” he sighed. His face looked stressed.

“I feel so bad. There’s so much you don’t know, about al of this.

Let me back up a sec.” Henry moved his left arm to the dashboard, his right arm hanging on to the back of the headrest of my seat.

“You’ve probably figured out that my mother, like yours, is passed on, so it’s just me and Lucian. And like my mother, I’m not easy to manipulate. It infuriates Lucian. Sometimes he just reaches his limit with me and loses control.”

“So he told you to stay away from me, you said no, and he hit you? Henry, that’s not right! There are people who can help you if you’re being abused,” I said, rushing to his defense.