Dr. Parker leaned back against a dark wood pillar, crossing one foot over the other, tilting his head at me. I had a feeling he had seen that pose in a movie. “Are you asking for a diagnosis?”
“Well, yes.”
“I can’t give one without a thorough evaluation,” he said.
“But you must have seen her behavior at school,” I persisted.
“Yes. And several of her teachers recommended an evaluation. But her mother would not agree to it. And though I invited Nora to my office a number of times, she never came.”
“I can fill you in,” I told him. “She’s totally phobic about water. My mother drowned here, and Nora says she is sleeping in an old boathouse on the property. She thinks that when the water gets stirred up my mother is doing it. She says my mother is looking for me. Wouldn’t you call that crazy?”
He shook his head. “Lauren, it’s like asking me if I’d call a painting good, telling me it is blue and red, but not letting me study it firsthand. The answer depends on how those colors are used.”
“But my godmother still won’t agree to an evaluation. And Nora is too confused to know she needs help.”
He spread his hands. “Then there’s nothing I can do. In my field, if the individual doesn’t want help and the person legally responsible refuses to take action, no one else can, not until something life-threatening happens. But I’m glad to talk with you about your feelings toward your godmother and Nora.”
“I don’t want to talk about me!”
He nodded—a little smugly, I thought. “I didn’t think so. But just in case you change your mind, here’s my card with my summer address and phone. I won’t be around school much longer.”
I took it from him and read the purple print: Dr. 7ames Michael Parker, Paranormal Investigator.
He laughed when he saw the expression on my face. “It’s my hobby,” he said. “But if you like, I can set you up with a therapist who’s more of a straight arrow. Tuck it away in case you need the number.”
I thanked him, perhaps not as nicely as I should have, and put it in my purse.
The music had started up again. Jason was in the mood to dance and—what a surprise—found space on the floor next to his ex and her date. Even luckier for me, Nick and Holly were close by.
I knew we were headed for trouble when the slow dance began, but with Nick right there, I had too much pride to duck out to the ladies’ room. As we danced, Jason kept moving his head. I figured I was supposed to move mine until our lips would just happen to come within an inch of each other’s. I kept my cheek firmly Jason’s lapel, figuring the angle would make it harder for him to kiss me.
Meanwhile Holly had her head on Nick’s shoulder, her eyes closed. I wondered what it would be like to stand that close to Nick, to feel his arms wrap around me and have him whisper something for my ears alone. I wondered what it would be like to kiss him.
I came back to reality just in time to see Jason’s ex kiss her date. Not wanting to be outdone, Jason quickly pulled my face up to his and put his mouth firmly on mine. I turned away.
“Not now,” I said, then wanted to kick myself for leaving it open for a later time. But I didn’t expect him to interpret my statement as thirty seconds later.
He tried kissing me again.
“No,” I said.
He persisted, his hands on the move.
I didn’t want to make a scene and embarrass us both. “No,” I said quietly, pulling back, “I don’t want to make out.”
He looked at me, incredulous, then tried again. I pushed him back with both hands. The couples around us started to watch. Holly and Nick stopped dancing.
“What’s wrong with you?” Jason said. “Are you frigid? Been going to an all-girl school for too long?”
Now I was furious.
He reached for my arm, trying to pull me back into a close dance. I remembered what Nick had said about Aunt Jule’s shoes and vampires. I stepped on Jason’s foot, and not with my tippy toes.
Jason yelped and went flying backward. Unfortunately, the punch table was right behind him. It tipped, the huge bowl sliding off, thumping on the carpet, sending up a volcano of pink liquid. Plastic cups tumbled around his head. Nick hooted with laughter.
Humiliated, I hiked up my skirt and ran. I didn’t notice the rain till I was halfway down the block from the Queen Victoria, my head swimming with what I imagined others were saying about me. I could hear Nick laughing his sides out. I was sure Holly wasn’t happy after all she had done for me. When I’d left, Steve was eagerly snapping pictures that weren’t on the approved list.
I held my skirt higher so I could take longer steps and strode for home. An old brown car cruised up beside me.
“Hey, there,” Nick said, rolling down the window. “Nice night for a walk.”
“Yup.”
“Hope that dress doesn’t shrink too much. Looks like it’s getting shorter.”
I silently marched on.
“Maybe you’d like a ride home,” Nick suggested.
“I can get there myself.”
“I know you can. I was being a gentleman, trying to save the reputation of the guys from Wisteria High.”
“I don’t judge a whole group by one person.”
“Lauren, come on, get in. Like it or not, I’m going to follow you and make sure you get home safely. It will be a lot more comfortable if both of us are riding.
My dress felt like a soaked wool stocking. My hair was hanging in short wet strings, and I figured that my mascara was making black rivers down my cheeks. I had never been more miserable.
Nick got out of the car and ran around to the other side, standing in the pouring rain, gallantly holding the door open. I followed him and got in. By the time he was back in the driver’s seat, he was thoroughly wet. His hair looked like it did when we used to swim together, turning into dark gold corkscrews, but his face was very different from the mischievous cherub I once knew. It was chiseled, the jaw line strong, the mouth sensitive—
I quickly looked down and buckled my seat belt. I had seen enough of mouths tonight. It was bewildering to me how much I wanted to avoid Jason’s and didn’t want to avoid Nick’s.
“All set?” he asked.
“Yes, thanks.” My voice shook a little. I hated it when this happened to me. I could get through all kinds of anger and frustration, but when a crisis was over, I wanted to cry like a baby. I blinked my eyes hard.
“Okay,” Nick said. “I’ll explain your job. See this string?”
I looked up. It ran from one side of the car to the other, disappearing out the side windows. Peering through the fogged windshield, I realized the string made a big loop and was tied to the wipers.
“The blades don’t work,” Nick said. “So you have to grab hold of this string and pull. Left, right, left, right. Got it?”
I looked at him for a moment, then moved the string to the left. In unison, the wipers moved to the right.
“You’re going to have to do it faster than that,” he said.
I started smiling. “This is crazy.”
“Left, right, faster, faster—there you go.”
“Why don’t you get them fixed?” I asked.
“It’s more fun this way.”
“I hope you don’t feel the same about brakes. They don’t need fixing, do they?”
“Why do you think I wear these thick rubber soles?”
I laughed. “You’re kidding.”
“You can try dragging your foot,” he continued, “but I don’t think those heels will do much more than knock off menacing forms of life.”
I laughed again. “They are pretty good at that.”
I liked being in the old car with Nick. I liked there being nothing but rain and us. He turned on the radio, which had lousy reception. I didn’t care. I could have ridden around with him for hours. Probably all his other one-night girls had felt the same way.
Nick pulled up to the edge of Aunt Jule’s driveway. “Last
time I went down there in the rain, I had to be towed out,” he said.
“No problem. Thanks for the ride.”
“I’ll walk you to the door.”
“No, you’ll get wetter than you already are,” I told him, “then drip all over the dance floor.”
Nick reached over the seat. “I just happen to have a shower curtain with me.”
“You do? Why?”
“It’s showering,” he said, then pulled it over his head and got out of the car. I watched him hop over the puddles to my side.
“I use it as a drop cloth when I’m painting at Frank’s,” he explained as he opened my door and helped me out. Still holding my hand, he used his other to grab an edge of the curtain. I did the same and we made our way down the driveway.
My slim skirt made it difficult. I needed a third hand to hold up my dress. Suddenly I lurched forward. My heels had stuck firmly in the mud, pitching me headlong.
“Whoa!” Nick cried, dropping his part of the shower curtain, catching me around the waist. He straightened me up like a toppled-over mannequin, trying to get me back in my shoes.
I felt my way with my toes and was standing squarely again, but Nick didn’t let go. The shower curtain rested on our heads like a collapsed tent He ignored it, facing me now, his arms around me, his eyes shining softly. My hands rested on his shoulders.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“I’d like to kiss you.” He waited a moment for my response, then added, “Or, if you’d rather, we can dance, as long as we can get you unstuck.”
“I think I’m in deep.”
“Me, too,” he said, looking into my eyes.
His head moved closer to mine. Then he lifted his hand, cupping my cheek ever so gently. His lips touched my lips, light as a butterfly, once, twice.
The kisses were lovely, so lovely I couldn’t help it—I did a totally stupid, uncool thing. I sighed.
I heard the laughter rumbling inside Nick and I started to pull away. But his arms wrapped around me. He held me close and pressed his lips against mine. A thrill went through me. I kissed him back—I didn’t think about it, just kissed him with all that my heart felt.
Now Nick pulled back, looking at me surprised. I wondered if I had done something wrong. My only experience was a smattering of hardly-touch good-night kisses after dance dates. What if I had done something weird and didn’t know it?
“I—I have to go,” I said, ducking out from under the shower curtain, making a dash for the porch without my shoes.
When I glanced back Nick was wearing the curtain like a cape, watching me run to the house. He turned away slowly and walked back to his car.
I stood inside the door and ran one muddy foot over the other. Aunt Jule’s red shoes were stuck in the driveway, like little memorials at the magical place where Nick and I had kissed.
ten
Aunt Jule looked up from her book, silent for a moment, surveying me. “Oh, dear.”
“I hope I haven’t embarrassed Holly,” I said, entering the river room.
“What happened? Where’s Jason?”
“I left him on the dance floor, sprawled on it.”
She laughed and pointed to the chair next to her. “Sit. Tell.”
I did. When I had finished, Aunt Jule smiled. “And you seem so sweet and innocent. I bet he was surprised.”
Not as surprised as Nick, I thought, recalling the expression on his face a few minutes before. I decided not to tell Aunt Jule that Nick had brought me home. She’d want every detail.
After cleaning the mud from my feet and wiping up the tracks I’d left in the hall, I headed upstairs, reliving in my mind Nick’s wonderful kiss. On the landing I stopped abruptly. Nora stood near the top of the stairway, as if waiting for me. Her hand gripped the banister, her fine bones exaggerated by the tension in her. The light shining from below threw Nora’s tall shadow against the wall, trapping it within the bars cast by the railing.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
Her voice shook: “Someone doesn’t like it when you wear that dress. Someone doesn’t like it when you wear that heart.”
“I’m taking off the dress,” I told her, “but not the heart.”
“Someone will be very angry.”
“Do you mean my mother?” I wondered if “Sondra’s” feelings were actually a projection of Nora’s.
“I won’t tell,” she whispered.
“Won’t tell what?” I asked loudly, and she drew back as if I’d threatened her.
“Don’t tell!” she exclaimed. “Don’t even think the words!” She lifted her hands and held the sides of her head. “Thinking can make it happen,” she moaned, then hurried down the steps.
I stared after her, trying to understand the darkness inside her. I’d lock my door again tonight.
Aunt Jule had laughed about the shoes stuck in the driveway and told me to leave them and trash them tomorrow. I had dumped my muddy stockings in the bedroom wastebasket and hung up the dress to dry. A long hot shower had washed away the last bits of mud and mascara, but not my apprehensiveness toward Nora.
I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t simply afraid for her but of her. The fact that Aunt Jule and Nick saw nothing in her to fear, and even Holly didn’t think her sister would harm others, made me feel alone. I worried that my own mind was playing tricks on me—perhaps I had never heard a voice like my mother’s.
I tried to read myself to sleep, but it was useless. When the bedroom lights of Aunt Jule and Nora finally went off, I pulled on shorts beneath my nightshirt and went downstairs again. On the garden side of the house, I restlessly walked the porch.
My thoughts shifted to Nick. I couldn’t believe I had kissed him, not just with my lips but my heart. Until now, it had been easy to blame my mother for her screwed-up life, labeling her as one of those girls who couldn’t live without a guy, who set herself up for disaster. But here I was, falling fast.
And what about Holly? I had told myself that she wasn’t really drawn to Nick-she wasn’t hooked on him. But by nature Holly was cool and collected, so there was no way to tell. It didn’t matter. Nick had clearly explained his dating policy: one girl after the next. After the prom he’d be working on whoever stood in line behind Holly and me. The red shoes seemed symbolic—abandoned in the mud.
I gazed out in their direction. The rain had stopped and the moon was peeking through quick-moving clouds, splashing silver on the soaked gardens and long path. What if Holly came home with Nick, found the shoes, and dumped them in the trash?
I had to have them.
I trudged through the mud, feeling foolish. The ruined shoes were useless—all I could do was display them next to my softball trophies. But I had to have them.
When I returned to the house, my feet looked as if I’d put on brown moccasins. I set down the high heels and headed for the greenhouse to fetch a bucket of water for dipping. I was just beyond the knot garden when I thought I heard a door open on the upper porch. Turning toward the house, I surveyed it.
“Hello,” I called softly.
No one answered, but I saw the slight movement in the shadows. If it were Aunt Jule, she would have replied. It had to be Nora, I thought, and continued on, determined not to be cowed by her.
The air was still and heavy, as water-saturated as the ground. It was the kind of humid Shore night I remembered as a child, when a light left on became a halo of mist and insects. When I entered the greenhouse, I kept the lights off so I wouldn’t be swarmed.
In the intermittent moonlight the glass house looked surreal. Plants, looming tall in the darkness, suddenly caught the light and seemed to bristle and straighten as I came near. Spider plants drooped long tongues over the edges of hanging pots. Short, thick plants reached out, then curled back on themselves with crooked stems.
Moonlit raindrops and condensation kept me from seeing beyond the glass panes. As I moved among rows of plants, I couldn’t get over the feeling that som
eone was outside watching me.
Something brushed my arm and I jumped. Just a branch, Lauren, I chided myself. Watch where you’re going and stop imagining things.
Still, the skin on my arms prickled as I moved toward the back of the greenhouse searching for a bucket. There was something in here with me—I could feel it—some disturbance in the air. There was no rational way to explain the sensation; the air didn’t move, but something unseen moved through it. I walked in the center of the main aisle and kept my arms close against my sides, reluctant to touch any of the plants.
Along the back wall was a bucket and six pots of vines, young plants that Nora was training on two-foot trellises. I leaned over to pick up the bucket. Something rustled. I glanced left, then right, and told myself I was acting paranoid.
I heard it again, soft but distinct, like leaves tussling in a breeze, though the air was as motionless as before. My forehead felt damp. A trickle of sweat ran down my neck.
I quickly picked up the bucket, then noticed the twisted shape of the vine growing next to it. The vine wasn’t just twined around the trellis, but knotted to it, its delicate tendrils tied in minuscule knots. I shivered, and with my free hand touched my necklace, running my finger along its smooth chain. Last night it had borne the same kind of knots. I looked at the other young vines. They were all knotted, some of their roots pulled up as if the force used to tie them had yanked them from the soil.
Clutching the steel handle of the bucket, I walked quickly toward the greenhouse sink, wanting to get the water and get out of there. But when I reached for the faucet, I stopped. On the shelf above the sink sat a jade plant, its fleshy almond-shaped leaves glimmering in the moonlight. It moved. I took a step back, staring at it, knowing it was impossible, but certain I had seen it. The branches had moved, as if invisible fingers had riffled them.
I was going crazy. I was seeing what my mother had seen before she died, things knotting, things moving. “There’s no hand touching them, baby. They move by themselves.” Maybe Aunt Jule was right: I was obsessed with my mother, so much so that I was imagining her experiences.