Strange Girl (28 page)

“In this world your conscience is like a whisper in the mind. Soft and wise, it’s always there, always guiding you. But should you fail to listen—in the next world it sounds like thunder.” Aja paused. “What does that whisper tell you about May?”

Levitt groaned, spoke faintly. “I should never have denied she was mine.”

“Go on.”

“I was afraid people would talk. I was afraid what they’d say if they saw me with her mother.”

“Angie,” Aja said.

Levitt drew in a deep shuddering breath. “Yes. I loved her and her daughter.”

“Your daughter.”

“Yes. But I never got to . . .” He didn’t finish.

“You never got to tell her that.”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you tell her now?”

“You don’t understand. I can’t. It’s too late.”

“May died?” Aja said.

“Yes. I can never tell her anything, ever again.”

“That’s not true. Tonight, you’ll have a chance to tell Angie how you feel. And in the future, you’ll see your daughter again.” Aja paused. “Now open your eyes.”

Levitt opened his eyes, wiping at the unexpected tears on his face. He looked dazed. His raspy voice sounded like the gasp of a dying man.

“How did you know?” he said.

“Talk to Angie.” Aja turned and gestured to someone I couldn’t see at first, not until she stepped free of the crowd at the rear of the gym. It was the black woman in the blue gown I’d met on the bench in the park. Tonight she wore a white dress. Seeing her, Levitt almost fainted. Aja had to grab his arm to keep him upright. But then the woman, Angela, was hugging our principal and Aja was able to let go. The audience watched rapt, silent, overwhelmed. They had not heard what had transpired at the end but it didn’t matter. The sight of the two embracing was what counted.

Aja turned toward the door and walked out of the gym.

It was her moment; I just watched her go.

The PTA meeting was over.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

MY MIND REELED as I drove out of the school parking lot. Naturally I was happy Aja had ended on such a positive note. Yet I wasn’t sure exactly what had happened. Had Aja spoken to Angela before the meeting? Had the healing of Levitt’s emotional wound been partially staged? For the life of me I couldn’t imagine Aja planning such an act ahead of time to impress the crowd. The girl was so spontaneous it was a wonder she remembered to wake up in the morning. Nor did she give a hoot what other people thought about her. Also, when she had turned off the microphone, she had gone out of her way to protect Levitt’s privacy, despite the fact the two of them had been standing in front of a large crowd.

No, I told myself, Aja would never have set out to con anyone at the PTA meeting.

Yet she had known things about Levitt she shouldn’t have known. It had seemed . . . well, like another miracle. I suppose it was odd that I found her insights more difficult to accept than her healings. It was easier for me to grant the Big Person infinite power but harder to accept that it was all-knowing.

Before I drove out to Aja’s place, I decided to swing by Janet’s house one last time. Mindy Paulson had shaken me up. She had acted like Janet’s situation was obvious and I was a fool not to see it. I didn’t like playing the part of the fool. I’d made up my mind I wasn’t leaving Janet’s front door until her father opened it. I’d kick it in if I had to.

As it turned out I only knocked once before Bo answered. Maybe he was weary of playing hide-and-seek. From the miserable look on his face he was clearly exhausted. He let me in without a word and I followed him into the living room, where we had watched so many football and baseball games together. A corner lamp was the only source of illumination; otherwise, the room was filled with shadows. He had a bottle of Jim Beam in hand and wordlessly offered me a drink but I shook my head. He took a deep slug and sighed, plopping down on a chair. I sat on the sofa across from him.

“How did the meeting go?” he asked.

“Aja blew them away. I doubt she’ll be expelled.”

“Huh.”

He fell silent, staring at a nearby framed picture of Janet, her mother, and Bo. I’d seen it a hundred times but had never given it much thought. The photograph was probably ten years old. Janet looked about eight years old and Mrs. Cynthia Shell was smiling radiantly, along with her husband.

Was Bo drinking because he was dreaming of the good old days? I’d never understood fully why their marriage had crumbled. All I knew was that Cynthia hadn’t met her present husband until after she’d left Bo and moved to New York. Back then Janet had split town with her mother, only to return a year later. At the time Janet had said she had come back because she missed her friends—me in particular. But I’d always wondered if there was more to the story than that.

“Is Janet still in New York?” I asked.

“As far as I know.”

“She’s not answering her cell. I’ve left a dozen messages.”

“I know the feeling.”

“I’m sure you do. Just like I’m sure you know why she left.”

Bo stared at me with bloodshot eyes. “It’s none of your business.”

“Don’t give me that shit. Your daughter’s my best friend. I have a right to know what’s going on.”

Bo snorted and took another hit of the bottle. “Ask that bitch you’re sleeping with. I’m sure she’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

His choice of words shocked me.

“Why are you calling Aja a bitch?” I snapped.

“What do you want me to call her? She’s the one who stirred up this whole mess.”

I pondered his choice of words.
Stirred.
He was implying that Aja had brought up something from Janet’s past, or from his past. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’d just witnessed Aja’s miraculous ability to pluck buried sins and old scars out of the ether.

Bo returned to staring at the photograph of his once joyful family. There was something wrong with the image that my gut sensed but my eyes couldn’t see. What was it? The trio looked so textbook happy the picture could have been used as a poster to advertise a new sitcom.

“Whatever Aja tells someone in private, she keeps private,” I said. “She won’t tell me anything about Janet.”

“Well, bless her heart. She should write the Pope in Rome and ask if he can make an exception and ordain her as Elder’s next priest. Then she can hear all our confessions.”

I stood. “You know, if you weren’t drunk right now I’d beat the shit out of you.”

Bo tried smiling but it ended up closer to a grimace. He drank again. “Don’t let the old bottle hold you back, Fred. I can drain it to the last drop and still kick your ass any day of the week.”

“Like you kicked Janet’s ass?”

He winced at my remark and I knew I’d hit a nerve. But I’d just been fishing. Except that it was something painful, I had no idea what the nerve was connected to. His reply didn’t help.

“I suppose,” he said.

“You didn’t beat your daughter. You wouldn’t have done that.”

He nodded, more to himself, and began to lean forward in his frumpy chair, coming close to falling out of it. I noticed he had tears on his face. He couldn’t stop looking at the framed picture. I took a step closer.

“Bo, come on, talk to me. I can help.”

“You can’t help. It’s not something that can be fixed.” He coughed before adding, “Or forgotten.”

Stirred. Forgotten.
He was definitely talking about something that had happened in the past, something that Aja had awakened in her contact with Janet. And the photograph appeared to remind him of that something. Yet, except for their exaggerated gaiety, I couldn’t see what Mindy had told me was so obvious. . . .

Frustrated, I took three long steps across the room and snatched the photograph off the table beside Bo’s chair. The move took him by surprise; it angered him. Dropping his bottle, he tried to snatch it back. But I held it out of his reach. I looked at it, I studied it. Boy, did I scan it inch by inch.

Finally, I saw something odd.

Cynthia had always been somewhat of a distant person. She was smart and extremely organized. She’d worked full-time as an accountant in Balen—she actually made more money than Bo—and still managed to keep a tidy home. She wasn’t greedy; she splurged on her daughter. Whatever Janet wanted her mom bought her. No one would have said the woman was cold. At the same time, no one would have said she was overly affectionate.

Cynthia was definitely not the type to smother her daughter in kisses, not like Janet’s dad. That’s why it hadn’t surprised me when I’d first looked at the picture that it was Bo who had his arm wrapped around Janet’s waist, while her mother had an arm on Bo’s shoulder but wasn’t touching Janet. Nothing about the positioning was unusual, at least given my memories of Cynthia.

But what was strange was the hint of uneasiness in Janet’s expression. She was smiling for the camera; her bright teeth sparkled in the old-fashioned flash. Yet there was a darkness in her eyes, a tension buried in her body, that told me she disliked her father holding her. Going more by my gut than my eyesight, it almost looked as if she was trying to pull away from him even as he struggled to pull her closer.

In that instant a thousand pieces of a puzzle I hadn’t known existed fit together in my mind and I understood everything.

Why Janet had left Bo when her mother had left.

Why, to this day, Janet jumped at every excuse to leave home.

Why Janet was uncomfortable accepting a car from Bo.

Why Bo was no longer affectionate with Janet.

Why Janet never went out on dates.

Why Janet had spoken to Aja and then fled to New York.

And why Janet was so desperate to find peace of mind.

I dropped the photograph, hearing the glass frame shatter on the wooden floor, and cocked my fist back. All I could think about was breaking every bone in his face.

“You bastard!” I swore. “You molested her!”

“No! I never touched her!”

“Liar!”

“It was nothing!”

I reached out and grabbed him by the throat, yanked him to his feet. “You filthy sonofabitch!” I yelled. “Admit it!”

“No!” he moaned, choking under the pressure of my clenched fingers.

“Admit it or I’ll break your goddamn neck!”

His face began to turn blue. “I can’t . . . Fred, I can’t breathe.”

I released him but didn’t back away. “The truth! Tell me the truth!”

He gasped for breath as tears streamed down his face.

“It was a long time ago! I made a mistake! I didn’t mean to hurt her! I love her!” His head dropped as sobs shook his body. “I’m sorry!”

I left the house. I made myself leave.

I was afraid if I stayed I would have killed him.

• • •

When I reached Aja’s house she told me she had good news. She said Mr. Richard Gratter from Paradise Records had called and wanted to fly me out to LA to meet with him Wednesday morning. I was horrified.

“That’s two days from now,” I said, my heart still pounding from my encounter with Bo. “I’m not done fixing my demo. I can’t go.”

“The demo doesn’t matter. They’re flying you out to LA to hear you sing. That’s what Aunt Clara set up for you. A live audition.” She paused. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re breathing rapidly.”

“I’m fine.” Like I was going to spoil her happy mood by telling her I’d almost just killed a man I’d looked up to my whole life. I spoke quickly to hide what I was really feeling. “A personal audition doesn’t make sense. These guys are professionals. They see a hundred guys like me a week. I’m a nobody.”

“You must be somebody. They’ve seen Casey Morall’s recording of you and Half Life playing at the Roadhouse. They told me you have what it takes to front a band.”

“You really talked to them?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s nonsense. Casey only posted the part where you stopped the riot and healed the soldier Mike hit on the head.”

“You forget. Casey showed you singing for at least a minute before the riot started.”

“Oh, wow. One whole minute,” I said.

“A star is born in a second.” She smiled as she put her palm on my chest. “You’re excited, admit it.”

“A part of me’s excited. A bigger part of me is scared shitless.” I stopped and shook my head. “This isn’t the time to try to score a record deal. Too much is going on. There’s a lot we have to talk about. Tonight’s meeting. The reason Janet flew to New York. I’m worried—”

“Shh,” Aja interrupted, kissing me briefly with her incredible lips. “Forget all that. Tomorrow we’re flying to LA. We’ll stay overnight in a big hotel with a big hot tub and order room service. The next day you’ll meet with the record company and knock their socks off.” She kissed me again. “You’ve dreamed about this all your life. Now it’s time to live your dream.”

The very idea of chasing after a fantasy when I knew Janet was struggling and needed my help should have stopped me cold. Somehow, though, holding Aja in my arms, I no longer felt a compulsion to fix the situation. A peace settled over me as she hugged me. We had our clothes on. We were not making love. Yet I felt so close to her right then I could have been inside her. A gentle voice seemed to speak inside my head.

The world will turn just fine without your help.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE TRIP TO LA was difficult. After checking plane reservations, we realized the best route was to take Sioux Falls to Denver to LAX. A pity Sioux Falls was a four-hour drive from Elder. And with the security measures in place, which demanded we get to the airport two hours before our flight, we ended up leaving Elder at three in the morning. Aja didn’t mind. While I drove, she slept the whole way across half the state.

Our layover in Denver was three hours. I was exhausted by the time we got to LA. But Sleeping Beauty was full of energy. After we checked into the Century Plaza, the hotel Paradise Records had booked for us, Aja wanted to go to Disneyland.

“The sun sets in two hours,” I said after calling my parents to tell them that we had arrived safely. They already knew about the audition and were beyond excited. I continued. “We can go tomorrow, after the meeting with Richard Gratter. If you want.”