My mom, however, didn’t answer Andy back softly at all. No, she wanted me to hear her reply: “No, I do not think I was too hard on her. She’ll be leaving for college in two years, Andy, and living on her own. If this is an example of the kinds of decisions she’ll be making then, I shudder to think what lies ahead. In fact, I’m thinking we should cancel our plans to go away Friday night.”
“Not on your life,” I heard Andy say very emphatically from the bottom of the stairs.
“But—”
“No buts,” Andy said. “We’re going.”
And then I couldn’t hear them anymore.
Jesse, who rematerialized at the end of all of this, had a little smile on his face, having clearly overheard.
“It isn’t funny,” I said to him sourly.
“It’s a little funny,” he said.
“No,” I said, “it isn’t.”
“I think,” Jesse said, cracking open the book Father Dom had loaned him, “it’s time for a little reading out loud.”
“No,” I groaned. “Not Critical Theory Since Plato. Please, I am begging you. It’s not fair, I can’t even run away.”
“I know,” Jesse said with a gleam in his eyes. “At last I have you where I want you….”
I have to admit, my breath kind of caught in my throat when he said that.
But of course he didn’t mean what I wanted him to mean. He just meant that now he could read his stupid book out loud, and I couldn’t escape.
“Ha-ha,” I said wittily, to cover the fact that I thought he had meant something else.
Then Jesse held up a copy of Cosmo he’d hidden between the pages of Critical Theory Since Plato. While I stared at him in astonishment, he said, “I borrowed it from your mother’s room. She won’t miss it for a while.”
Then he tossed the magazine onto my bed.
I nearly choked. I mean, it was the nicest—the nicest—thing anyone had done for me in ages. And the fact that Jesse—Jesse, whom I’d become convinced lately hated me—had done it, positively floored me. Was it possible that he didn’t hate me? Was it possible that, in fact, he liked me a little? I mean, I know Jesse likes me. Why else would he always be saving my life and all? But was it possible he liked me in that special way? Or was he only being nice to me on account of the fact that I was injured?
It didn’t matter. Not just then, anyway. The fact that Jesse wasn’t ignoring me for a change—whatever his motive—was all that mattered.
Happily, I began to read an article about seven ways to please a man, and didn’t even mind so much that I didn’t have one—a man, I mean, of my very own. Because at last it seemed that whatever weirdness had existed between Jesse and me since the day of that kiss—that all too brief, sense-shattering kiss—was going away. Maybe now things would get back to normal. Maybe now he’d start to realize how stupid he’d been. Maybe now he’d finally get it through his head that he needed me. More than needed me. Wanted me.
As much, I now knew in no uncertain terms, as Paul Slater did.
Hey, a girl can dream, right?
And that was exactly what I did. For eighteen blissful hours, I dreamed of a life where the guy I liked actually liked me back. I put all thoughts of mediation—shifting and soul transference, Paul Slater and Father Dominic, Craig and Neil Jankow—from my mind. The last part was easy—I asked Jesse to keep an eye on Craig for me, and he happily agreed to do so.
And I won’t lie to you: It was great. No nightmares about being chased down long, fogenshrouded hallways toward a bottomless drop-off. Yeah, it wasn’t quite like the old, prekiss days, but it came close. Sort of. Until the next day when the phone rang.
I picked it up, and CeeCee’s voice shrieked at me, loudly enough that I had to hold the receiver away from my head.
“I cannot believe you decided to take a sick day,” CeeCee ranted. “Today, of all days! How could you, Suze? We have so much campaigning to do!”
It took me a few seconds before I realized what she was talking about. Then I went, “Oh, you mean the election? CeeCee, look, I—”
“I mean, you should see what Kelly’s doing. She’s handing out candy bars—candy bars—that say Vote Prescott/Slater on the wrappers! Okay? And what are you doing? Oh, lolling around in bed because your feet hurt, if what your brother says is true.”
“Stepbrother,” I corrected her.
“Whatever. Suze, you can’t do this to me. I don’t care what you do—put on some fuzzy bunny slippers if you have to—just get here and be your usual charming self.”
“CeeCee,” I said. It was kind of hard to concentrate because Jesse was nearby. Not just nearby, but touching me. And okay, only putting more Band-Aids on my feet, but it was still way distracting. “Look. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to be vice president—”
But CeeCee didn’t want to hear it.
“Suze,” she yelled into Adam’s cell phone. I knew she was using Adam’s cell phone and that she was on her lunch break, because I could hear the sound of gulls screaming—gulls flock to the school assembly yard during lunch, hoping to score a dropped French fry or two—and I could also hear Adam in the background cheering her on. “It is bad enough that Kelly Mousse-for-Brains Prescott gets elected president of our class every year. But at least when you got elected vice president last year, some semblance of dignity was accorded to the office. But if that blue-eyed rich boy gets elected—I mean, he is just Kelly’s pawn. He doesn’t care. He’ll do whatever Kelly says.”
CeeCee had one thing right: Paul didn’t care. Not about the junior class at the Junipero Serra Mission Academy, anyway. I wasn’t sure just what, exactly, Paul did care about, since it certainly wasn’t his family or mediating. But one thing he definitely was not going to do was take his position as vice president very seriously.
“Listen, CeeCee,” I said. “I’m really sorry. But I truly did screw up my feet, and I really can’t walk. Maybe tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” CeeCee squawked. “The election’s Friday! That gives us only one full day to campaign!”
“Well,” I said, “maybe you should consider running in my place.”
“Me?” CeeCee sounded disgusted. “First of all, I was not duly nominated. And second of all, I will never swing the male vote. I mean, let’s face it, Suze. You’re the one with the looks and the brains. You’re like the Reese Witherspoon of our grade. I’m more like… Dick Cheney.”
“CeeCee,” I said, “you are way underestimating yourself. You—”
“You know what?” CeeCee sounded bitter. “Forget it. I don’t care. I don’t care what happens. Let Paul Look-at-My-New-BMW Slater be our class vice president. I give up.”
She would have slammed the receiver down then, I could tell, if she’d been holding a normal phone. As it was, she could only hang up on me. I had to say hello a few more times, just to be sure, but when no one answered, I knew.
“Well,” I said, hanging up. “She’s mad.”
“It sounded like it,” Jesse said. “Who is this new person, the one running against you, who she is so afraid will win?”
And there it was. The direct question. The direct question, the truthful answer to which was, “Paul Slater.” If I did not answer it that way—by saying “Paul Slater”—I would really and truly be lying to Jesse. Everything else I’d told him lately had been only half-truths, or maybe white lies.
But this one. This was the one that later, if he ever found out the truth, was going to get me in trouble.
I didn’t know then, of course, that later was going to be three hours later. I just assumed later would be, you know, next week, at the earliest. Maybe even next month. By which point, I’d have thought up an appropriate solution to the Paul Slater problem.
But since I thought I had plenty of time to sort the whole thing out before Jesse got wind of it, I said, in response to his question, “Oh, just this new guy.”
Which would have worked out fine if, a few hours later, David hadn’t knocked on my bedroom d
oor and went, “Suze? Something just came for you.”
“Oh, come on in.”
David threw open my door, but I couldn’t see him. All I could see from where I lay on my bed was a giant bouquet of red roses. I mean, there had to have been two dozen at least.
“Whoa,” I said, sitting up fast. Because even then, I had no clue. I thought Andy had sent them.
“Yeah,” David said. I still couldn’t see his face, because it was blocked by all the flowers. “Where should I put ’em?”
“Oh,” I said with a glance at Jesse, who was staring at the flowers almost as astonishedly as I was. “Window seat is good.”
David lowered the flowers—which had come complete with a vase—carefully onto my window seat, shoving a few of the cushions aside first to make a place for them. Then, once he’d gotten them stable, he straightened and said, plucking a small white tag from the green leaves, “Here’s the card.”
“Thanks,” I said, tearing the tiny envelope open.
Get well soon! With love from Andy, was what I had expected it to say.
Or We miss you, from the junior class of Junipero Serra Mission Academy.
Or even, You are a very foolish girl, from Father Dominic.
What it said, instead, completely shocked me. The more so because of course Jesse was standing close enough to read over my shoulder. And even David, standing halfway across the room, could not have missed the bold, black script:
Forgive me, Suze. With love, Paul.
chapter
twelve
So, basically, I was a dead woman.
Especially when David, who did not, of course, know that Jesse was standing right there—or that he is the man I happen to love with an all-consuming passion…at least when Paul Slater was not kissing me—went, “Is that from that Paul guy? I thought so. He was asking me all these questions about why you weren’t in school today.”
I couldn’t even bring myself to look in Jesse’s direction, I was so mortified.
“Um,” I said. “Yeah.”
“What does he want you to forgive him for?” David wanted to know. “The whole vice president thing?”
“Um,” I said. “I don’t know.”
“Because you know, your campaign is really in trouble,” David said. “No offense, but Kelly’s handing out candy bars. You better come up with something gimmicky fast, or you might lose the election.”
“Thanks, David,” I said. “Bye, David.”
David looked at me strangely for a moment, as if not sure why I was dismissing him so abruptly. Then he glanced around the room, as if realizing for the first time that we might not be alone, turned beet red, and said, “Okay, bye,” and was out of my room like a shot.
Summoning all my courage, I turned my head toward Jesse and went, “Look, it’s not what you…”
But my voice trailed off, because beside me, Jesse was looking murderous. I mean, really, like he wanted to murder someone.
Only it was anybody’s guess who he wanted to murder, because I think at that point, I was as prime a candidate for assassination as Paul.
“Susannah,” Jesse said in a voice I’d never heard him use before. “What is this?”
The truth was, Jesse had no right to be mad. No right at all. I mean, he’d had his chance, hadn’t he? Had it, and blown it. He was just lucky I am not the kind of girl who gives up easily.
“Jesse,” I said. “Look. I was going to tell you. I just forgot—”
“Tell me what?” The small scar through Jesse’s right eyebrow—not the result, I had learned, of a knife fight with a bandito, as I had always rather romantically assumed, but from, of all things, a dog bite—was looking very white, a sure sign Jesse was very, very angry. As if I couldn’t tell by the tone of his voice. “Paul Slater is back in Carmel, and you don’t tell me?”
“He isn’t going to try to exorcise you again, Jesse,” I said hastily. “He knows he’d never get away with it, not while I’m around—”
“I don’t care about that,” Jesse said scornfully. “It’s you he left for dead, remember? And this person is going to your school now? What does Father Dominic have to say about this?”
I took a deep breath. “Father Dominic thinks we should give him another chance. He—”
But Jesse didn’t let me finish. He was up and off my bed, pacing the room and muttering under his breath in Spanish. I had no idea what he was saying, but it did not sound pleasant.
“Look, Jesse,” I said. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you. I knew you were going to fly off the handle like this—”
“Fly off the handle?” Jesse threw me an incredulous look. “Susannah, he tried to kill you!”
I shook my head. It took a lot of guts, but I did it anyway.
“He says he didn’t, Jesse,” I said. “He says…Paul says I would have found my way out of there on my own. He says something about there being these people called shifters, and that I’m one of them. He says they’re different from mediators, that instead of just being able to, you know, see and speak to the dead, shifters can move freely through the realm of the dead, as well….”
But Jesse, instead of being impressed with this bit of news, only looked more angry.
“It sounds as if you and he have been doing a lot of talking lately,” he said.
If I hadn’t known better, I might have thought Jesse sounded almost…well, jealous. But since I knew good and well—as he had made it only too clear—that he did not feel about me the way that I feel about him, I simply shrugged.
“What am I supposed to do, Jesse? I mean, he goes to my school now. I can’t just ignore him.” I didn’t, of course, have to go over to his house and French-kiss him, either. But that was one thing I was keeping from Jesse at all costs. “Besides, he seems to know stuff. Mediator stuff. Stuff Father Dominic doesn’t know, maybe hasn’t ever even dreamed of….”
“Oh, and I’m certain Slater is only too happy to share all he knows with you,” Jesse said very sarcastically.
“Well, of course he is, Jesse,” I said. “I mean, after all, we both have this sort of unusual gift….”
“And he was always so eager to share information about that gift with the other mediators of his acquaintance,” Jesse said.
I swallowed. Jesse had me there. Why was Paul so keen on mentoring me? Judging by the way he’d jumped me in his bedroom, I had a pretty good idea. Still, it was hard to believe his motives could be entirely lascivious. There were way prettier girls than me who went to the Mission Academy whom he could have had with a lot less trouble.
But none of them, I knew, shared our unique ability.
“Look,” I said. “You’re overreacting. Paul’s a jerk, it’s true, and I wouldn’t trust him farther than I could throw him. But I really don’t think he’s out to get me. Or you.”
Jesse laughed, but not like he really found anything amusing in the situation. “Oh, it’s not me I think he’s out to get, querida. I am not the one he’s sending roses to.”
I glanced at the roses. “Well,” I said, feeling myself blush. “Yes. I can see your point. But I think he only sent those because he really does feel bad about what he did.” I didn’t mention Paul’s most recent transgression against me, of course. I let Jesse think I meant the stuff Paul had pulled over the summer.
“I mean, he doesn’t have anyone,” I went on. “He really doesn’t.” I thought of the big glass house Paul lived in, of the spare and uncomfortable furniture in it. “I think…Jesse, I honestly think part of Paul’s problem is that he’s really, really lonely. And he doesn’t know what to do about it, because no one ever taught him, you know, how to act like a decent human being.”
Jesse wasn’t having any of that, though. I could feel sorry for Paul all I wanted—and a part of me truly did, and I don’t even mean the part that considered Paul a really excellent kisser—but to Jesse the guy was, is, and always would be dog meat.
“Well, for someone who doesn’t know how to act like a
decent human being,” he said, going over to the roses and flicking one of the fat, scarlet buds, “he is certainly doing a good imitation of how one might behave. One who happens to be in love.”
I felt myself turning as red as the roses Jesse was standing beside.
“Paul is not in love with me,” I said. “Believe me.” Because guys who were in love with girls did not send minions to try to keep them from fleeing the premises. Did they? “And even if he were, he sure isn’t now….”
“Oh, really?” Jesse nodded at the card in my hand. “I think his use of the word love—not sincerely or cordially or truly yours—would indicate otherwise, would it not? And what do you mean, if he were, he isn’t now?” His dark-eyed gaze grew even more intense. “Susannah, did something…happen between the two of you? Something you aren’t telling me?”
Damn! I looked down at my lap, letting some of my hair hide my face, so he couldn’t see how deeply I was blushing.
“No,” I said to the bedspread. “Of course not.”
“Susannah.”
When I looked up again, he was no longer standing by the roses. Instead, he was standing by the side of my bed. And he had lifted one of my hands in his own and was looking down at me with that dark, impenetrable gaze of his.
“Susannah,” he said again. Now his voice was no longer murderous. Instead, it was gentle, gentle as his touch. “Listen to me. I’m not angry. Not with you. If there’s something…anything…you want to tell me, you can.”
I shook my head, hard enough to cause my hair to whip my cheeks. “No,” I said. “I told you. Nothing happened. Nothing at all.”
But still Jesse didn’t release my hand. Instead, he stroked the back of it with one calloused thumb.
I caught my breath. Was this it? I wondered. Was it possible that after all these weeks of avoiding me, Jesse was finally—finally—going to confess his true feelings for me?
But what, I thought, my heart drumming wildly, if they weren’t the feelings I hoped? What if he didn’t love me after all? What if that kiss had just been…I don’t know. An experiment or something? A test I’d failed? What if Jesse had decided he just wanted to be friends?