“Why not?” Paul asked. “You don’t seem to have a problem when it comes to judging me.”
But he wasn’t going to get me with that one. “Your grandfather warned me once that when he’d realized all the things we mediators could do, he’d made the mistake of thinking he was God,” I told him. “And look where that got him. I won’t be making the same mistake.”
Paul just blinked at me. I really think he’d believed I’d meant to do it. The soul transference thing, I mean. Now that I’d taken all the wind out of his sails, he seemed… well, as stunned as I’d been earlier.
“So you see,” I said while I still had the advantage, “your whole going-back-through-time-to-save-Jesse scheme? It’s kind of pointless. Because for one thing, you can’t travel back through time unless the person you’re going back to see actually wants your help… which Jesse most definitely does not. And, for another, I was never going to steal your body and give it to Jesse, Paul. But, you know, you can keep on flattering yourself that I was, if it makes you happy.”
I shouldn’t, I realized a moment too late, have been quite so flippant. At least not then. Because when I attempted to stroll by him after that last remark—even giving my hair a toss to show my disdain for him—something inside him seemed to snap. Next thing I knew, his hand had shot out and caught my arm in a grip that hurt.
“Oh no, you don’t,” he snarled. “You’re not getting away that easily—”
But he was wrong. Because the very next second, Paul’s hand had been pried off me and his arm was bent behind his back in what looked to be a pretty painful position.
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you,” Jesse asked, in a semi-amused voice, “that a gentleman never lays a hand on a lady?”
Which I thought was kind of funny, considering where Jesse had had his hand the last time I’d seen him. But I thought it better to let that slide.
“Jesse,” I said. “I’m okay. You can let him go.”
But Jesse didn’t loosen his grip. If anyone had happened to walk by, they’d have seen Paul bent over at a peculiar angle, his face white with pain. Because of course, only he and I could see the ghost who had hold of him.
“I wasn’t gonna do anything to her,” Paul insisted in a strangled voice. “I swear!”
Jesse looked at me for confirmation of this.
“Did he hurt you, Susannah?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I’m all right,” I said.
Jesse held on to Paul for a second or two longer—just, I think, to prove he could—then he let go, so suddenly that Paul lost his balance and fell to his hands and knees, onto the stone slabs that made up the floor of the breezeway.
“You didn’t have to call him,” Paul said to me, with wounded dignity.
“I didn’t.” I was telling the truth, too.
“She didn’t have to,” Jesse said, going to lean against one of the breezeway’s support pillars. He folded his arms across his chest and looked at Paul dispassionately as he climbed to his feet and brushed himself off.
“What’d you, sense a disturbance in the Force, or something?” Paul asked testily.
“Something like that.” Jesse looked from Paul to me and then back again. “Is there anything going on here that I should know about?”
“No,” I said quickly. Too quickly, maybe, since one of Jesse’s eyebrows—the one with the scar through it—went up inquisitively.
Paul, to my fury, burst out into scornful laughing.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “You two have a great relationship. It’s really great how honest you are with each other.”
Jesse narrowed his dark eyes in Paul’s direction. That seemed to cause some of his laughter to dry up, without Jesse even having to say a word.
Then Jesse turned his penetrating gaze on me.
“It’s nothing,” I blurted, feeling a little panicky all of a sudden. “Paul was just… he was thinking of doing something to you. But he changed his mind. Didn’t you, Paul?”
“Not really,” Paul said. “Hey, I have an idea. Let’s ask Jesse what he’d want, shall we? Say, Jesse, how would feel if I told you I could—”
“No,” I interrupted with a gasp. Suddenly, it was getting very difficult to breathe. “Paul, really, that’s not necessary. Jesse won’t—”
“Now, Suze,” Paul said as if he were speaking to a three-year-old. “Let’s allow Jesse to decide. Jesse, what if I told you that in addition to all the many other wonderful things that we mediators can do, it turned out we can also travel through time? And that I had generously offered to travel back to your time—the night you died, I mean—and save your life. What would you say to that?”
Jesse’s dark gaze didn’t leave Paul’s face, nor did his expression waver from cold disdain. Not even for a second.
“I would say that you’re a liar” was Jesse’s preternaturally calm response.
“See, I thought you might say that.” Paul had the smooth patter and the self-confidence of a traveling salesman giving his spiel. “But I’m here to tell you it’s the absolute truth. Think about it, Jesse. You didn’t have to die that night. I can go back through time and warn you. Well, you won’t know me, of course, but I think if I tell you—the past you—that I’m from the future and that you’re going to die if you don’t do what I tell you, you’ll believe me.”
“Do you?” Jesse asked in the same deadly calm voice. “Because I don’t.”
That stumped Paul for a second or two, during which my breathing became easy again. My heart swelled with affection for the man leaning against the stone pillar beside me. I shouldn’t have worried about hiding this from Jesse. Jesse would never choose life over me. Never. He loves me too much.
Or so I thought, before Paul started his patter once again.
“I don’t think you understand what I’m saying here.” Paul shook his head. “I’m talking about giving you back your life, Jesse. None of this wandering around in a sort of half-life for a hundred and fifty years, watching the people you love grow older and die, one by one. No way. You’ll live. To a ripe old age, if I can, you know, get rid of that Diego guy who killed you. I mean, how can you say no to an offer like that?”
“Like this,” Jesse said tonelessly. “No.”
Yes! I thought, flushing with joy. Yes!
Paul blinked. Once. Twice.
Then he said, his voice devoid of the friendliness that had been in it moments before, “Don’t be an idiot. I’m offering you a chance to live again. Live. What are you going to do, hang around here for the rest of eternity? Are you going to watch her get old”—he thrust a finger at me—“and eventually turn to dust like you did with your family? Don’t you remember how that felt? You want to go through all that again? You want her to sacrifice having a normal life—marriage, kids, grandkids—just to be with you, when you can’t even support her, can’t even—”
“Paul, stop it,” I commanded because I could see Jesse’s face growing less and less expressionless with every word.
But Paul wasn’t done. Not by a long shot.
“You think you’re doing her any favors by sticking around?” he demanded. “Man, you’re only keeping her from leading a normal life—”
“Stop it!” I shouted at Paul as I reached out and grasped Jesse by the arm.
Two things happened at once then. The first was that classroom doors suddenly flew open all around us and students began streaming out into the breezeway as they changed classes for the next period.
The next was that I seized Jesse’s arms with both my hands and, looking up anxiously into his face, said, “Don’t listen to him. Please. I don’t care about those things, marriage and kids. All I want is you.”
But it was too late. I could tell it was too late. Some of what Paul had said was already starting to sink in. Jesse’s expression had grown troubled, and he seemed unable to look me in the eye.
“I mean it,” I said, giving him a frustrated shake. “Don’t pay attention to a word he says!”
/> “Um, hello, Suze.” Kelly Prescott’s voice rose above the noise of slamming lockers and chitchat. “Talk to the wall much?”
I flung a glance over my shoulder and saw her standing there with the rest of the Dolce and Gabbana Nazis, smirking at me. I knew, of course, what they were seeing. Me with hands raised, clutching nothing but air, and speaking to one of the pillars in the breezeway.
Like I don’t have enough of a reputation for being a freak. Now I really looked like I was going around the bend.
But when I turned my head back to tell Jesse we’d finish this conversation later, I saw that I was too late. He’d already disappeared.
I dropped my hands and turned to face Paul, who still stood there looking angry and defensive and pleased with himself at the same time.
“Thanks a lot,” I said to him.
“Don’t mention it.” He walked away, whistling to himself.
Chapter
nine
“Is there wheat in this?” a petite woman in a China chop and huge dark sunglasses asked me as she held up a chocolate chip cookie.
“Yes,” I said.
“What about this?” She held up a brownie.
“Yes,” I said.
“What about this?” A Mexican wedding cookie.
“Yes.”
“Are you telling me,” she demanded, looking outraged, “that there is wheat in all of these baked goods?”
I lowered my chair. I’d been tilting it out of boredom, to see how far back I could lean without falling.
“Because Tyler doesn’t eat wheat,” the woman went on, her hand going to cradle the chubby-cheeked face of a kid standing beside her. His blue eyes blinked out at me past his mother’s perfectly manicured nails. “I’m raising him on a gluten-free diet.”
“Try one of those,” I said, pointing to some lemon bars.
“Is there dairy in it?” the woman asked suspiciously. “Because I’m raising Tyler lactose-free, as well.”
“Dairy-and gluten-free, I promise,” I said.
The woman slipped me a dollar, and I handed her the lemon bars. She passed one to Tyler, who inspected it, bit into it… then gave me a dazzling smile—his first of the day, no doubt—as his mother took his hand and led him away. Beside me, Shannon, my fellow bake sale attendant, looked appalled.
“There’s wheat and dairy in those lemon bars,” she said.
“I know.” I rocked my chair back again. “I felt bad for the little guy.”
“But—”
“She didn’t say he was allergic. She just said she was raising him without it. Poor kid.”
“Suu-uuze,” the eighth grader said, giving my name multiple syllables. “You are so cool. Your brother Dave said you were cool, but I didn’t believe him.”
“Oh, I’m cool, all right,” I assured her. It was weird to hear someone call David “Dave.” He was such a David to me.
“You so are,” Shannon said with perfect seriousness.
Whatever. It was so the story of my life to be stuck running a school bake sale while the rest of the world was enjoying such a perfect Saturday. The sky overhead was so blue and cloudless, it was almost painful to look at. The temperature was hovering at an extremely comfortable seventy degrees. A beautiful day for the beach or cappuccino at an outdoor café, or even just a walk.
And where was I? Yeah, that’d be manning the eighth grade bake sale booth at the Mission’s charity antique auction.
“I couldn’t believe it when Sister Ernestine told us you would be helping out at the booth,” Shannon was saying. Shannon, I’d discovered, was not shy. She likes to talk. A lot. “I mean, you being an eleventh grader and all. And, you know. So cool.”
Cool. Yeah, right.
I hadn’t expected so many people to show up at the auction. Oh, sure, a few parents, eager to look like they cared about their kids’ school. But not, you know, hordes of eager antique collectors.
But that’s exactly who was here. There were people everywhere, people I’d never seen before, all wandering around, peering at the items that would be auctioned off, and whispering conspiratorially to one another. Occasionally, some of them stopped by our booth and shelled out a buck for a Rice Krispies treat or whatever. But mostly they had their eyes on the prize…. In this case, a hideously ugly wicker birdcage, or some old Mickey Mouse watch, or a snow globe of the Golden Gate Bridge, or some other equally non-designer thing.
The bidding got started late because the monsignor was supposed to have been acting as auctioneer. Because he was still in a coma up in San Francisco, there appeared to have been some frantic phone calls on the part of Sister Ernestine, as she looked for someone worthy to fill in.
You can imagine my surprise when she got up onto the dais at the end of the courtyard and announced into the microphone, in front of all the many antique collectors gathered there, that in the monsignor’s absence, the auction would be called by none other than Andy Ackerman, well-known host of a home repair show on cable…
…and my stepdad.
I saw Andy climb the dais, waving modestly and looking abashed at all the applause he was getting. Not sure if there could possibly be anything more embarrassing than this, I started to slink down in my chair….
Oh but wait, there was something more embarrassing than my stepfather calling the school antique auction. There was also the fact that most of the applause he was getting was coming from a woman in the front row.
My mother.
“Hey,” Shannon said. “Isn’t that—”
“Yes,” I interrupted her. “Yes, it is.”
A few minutes later the auction began, with Andy doing a very good imitation of those auctioneers you see on TV, the ones who talk really fast. He was gesturing to an ugly orange plastic chair and declaring it “authentic Eames” and asking if anyone would be willing to bid a hundred dollars for it.
A hundred dollars? I wouldn’t have traded a Rice Krispies treat for it.
But wouldn’t you know it, people in the audience were lifting their paddles, and soon the chair went for 350 bucks! And nobody even complained about what a rip-off it was.
Clearly Sister Ernestine had impressed upon this audience just how badly the school needed its basketball court repaved, because people were just throwing their money away on the most worthless pieces of garbage ever. I saw CeeCee’s aunt Pru and my own homeroom teacher Mr. Walden both bidding against each other for an extremely hideous lamp. Aunt Pru finally won it—for 175 bucks— then walked over to Mr. Walden, apparently to gloat. Except that a few minutes later, I saw them having lemonade together and overheard them laughing about sharing custody of the lamp, like it was a kid in a divorce settlement. Shannon, observing this, went, “Aw, isn’t that cute?”
Except that it totally wasn’t. It totally isn’t cute when your best friend’s weird aunt and your homeroom teacher make a love connection, and you yourself can’t get the guy you like to call you, because, oh guess what, he’s a ghost and doesn’t have a phone.
Not that if Jesse’d call, I’d have had anything much to say to him. What was I going to do, be all “Oh, yeah, by the way, Paul wants to travel through time and make it so you never died. But I plan on stopping him. Because I want you to roam around in the netherworld for a hundred and fifty years so you and I can make out in my mom’s car. Okay? Buh-bye.”
Besides, it wasn’t like it was going to happen. Paul going back through time, I mean. Because he didn’t have that anchor thing his grandpa had been talking about. The thing to anchor him to the night Jesse died.
Or that’s what I was telling myself—reassuring myself—right up until Andy held up the silver belt buckle Brad had found while he’d been cleaning out the attic. When he’d found it—wedged between the floorboards beneath the attic window—it had been this tarnished, crusty old thing I’d barely glanced at twice. Andy had thrown it into the box marked MISSION AUCTION, and I hadn’t really thought about it again.
When he held it up now, I saw it
winking in the afternoon sunlight. Someone had washed and polished it. And now Andy was going on about how it was an artifact from when our house had been the area’s only hotel—a fancy way of saying what it had really been a boardinghouse— and that the Carmel Historical Society had put its age at close to 150 years.
About as long, actually, as my boyfriend had been dead.
“What’ll I get for this sterling silver buckle?” Andy wanted to know. “A real piece of old-fashioned craftsmanship. Look at the detail in the ornate D carved into it.”
Shannon, sitting beside me, suddenly went, “Does your brother ever talk about me? Dave, I mean.”
I was idly watching my stepfather. The sun was beating down on us kind of hard, and it was difficult to think about anything except how much I wished I were at the beach.
“I don’t know,” I said. I could understand Shannon’s pain, of course. She had a crush on a guy. All she wanted to know was whether or not she was wasting her time.
As the sister of the object of her affections, however, all I could think was… ew. Also, that David is way too young to have a girlfriend.
“One of the members of the historical society—don’t think I don’t see you there, Bob,” Andy went on laughingly, “even ventured that this belt buckle might have belonged to someone in the Diego clan, a very old, very respected family that settled in this area nearly two hundred years ago.”
Respected, my butt. The Diegos—or at least, the ghosts of the two members of the family I had had the misfortune to meet—had all been thieves and murderers.
“I believe that for that reason and not just because of its intricate beauty,” Andy continued, “this piece is going to be highly sought after by collectors someday… and, who knows, maybe even today!”
“David doesn’t really talk about girls at home all that much,” I said to Shannon. “At least, not to me.”