Serena tossed the wet towels in the trash, then came back to the table. “So do you want to watch some TV, or go down to Ed Debevic’s and watch them dance on the counter? I love their hot fudge sundaes.”
Serena was talking too quickly. What was she afraid of ? Surely she would tell her if she thought she was in danger.
“You didn’t tell me what you saw in the last card,” Vanessa said. “The one that frightened you.”
“Oh, that.” Serena tried to laugh but it came out sounding fake. “I would have told you all the usual stuff that everyone thinks fortune-tellers make up anyway, about a happy life and all that.”
But Vanessa knew she was hiding something. “Are you sure there wasn’t more?”
Serena seemed nervous. “No, I’d tell you if there was more,” she said. “Come on, let’s go to Ed Debevic’s. It’ll be fun.”
“I can’t tonight. I promised Mom I’d be home early.” Vanessa pulled a twenty-dollar bill from her jeans pocket. She handed it to Serena.
Serena started to take the money, then stopped. “I can’t charge a friend. Just don’t tell anyone else I didn’t charge you. Telling fortunes is a cool way to make extra cash.”
“Thanks.” Vanessa tucked the money back in her pocket. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” Serena walked her to the back door.
Vanessa hurried down the drive to the front of the house, then stopped and looked back.
“Freaky,” she whispered. She knew Serena was holding something back, but why would she? Was it something about Michael? Or Morgan? She felt heartsick.
She turned and bumped into a girl with long black hair. The girl gasped and took a step backward. She looked like a gangbanger, in black cargo pants and sport tank. Homemade tattoos covered her back and arm. She was thin with large brown eyes that seemed afraid of something she saw in Vanessa’s face.
“What?” Vanessa said.
“Ten cuidado,” the girl whispered. “Be careful.”
That made Vanessa more uneasy than if she had snarled.
“Sure,” Vanessa muttered uncertainly and began the long walk home. She decided that she shouldn’t see Michael anymore. Her heart twisted at the thought. But that took care of one problem, at least. Then she could concentrate on finding out who was following her and why.
CHAPTER TEN
MONDAY MORNING Michael was standing on the concrete steps at school when Vanessa and Catty arrived. He wore khakis and Birkenstocks. His tumble of black hair curled against a white T-shirt. He waved, and adrenaline shot through Vanessa with a sweet pleasant tingle. What was it about his smile that made her body turn traitor to her mind and crave his touch?
“Come on.” Vanessa pulled Catty back the way they had come.
Catty looked up. “Maybe he’s looking for you.”
“I’m done with him.”
The look in Catty’s eyes told her that she didn’t believe her.
“I’m too embarrassed to see him,” she begrudgingly admitted. “Besides, I can’t have a boyfriend. There’s no way it can work out. I can’t even kiss him without going invisible.”
Catty glanced back at the cement steps. “If he were my boyfriend, I’d find a way.”
By noon, heat, smog, and automobile exhaust had settled over the city. Security guards stood at the front gate checking off-campus passes, but kids loitered on campus. The air was too hot and sultry to walk up to Okie Dog or Pink’s or sit at Kokomo’s in Farmers’ Market. Morgan lounged under a tree, fanning herself with an algebra test and sipping a Big Gulp through a straw. Vanessa and Catty joined her.
“Won’t this day ever end?” Morgan said. “It feels like it’s been going on forever.”
Morgan motioned with her chin at something behind them. “Why is Serena following you?”
Serena gravitated toward them and sat in a shady spot near the building.
“She’s not following us. She wants to get out of the sun like everyone else.” Vanessa opened her bottle of carrot juice.
Serena wore jeans hemmed with red feathers. FLOWER POWER was written on the front of her green tank top. Pointy rhinestone glasses kept sliding down her nose, and her hair was curled in tight ringlets.
“She’d be pretty hard to miss,” Catty said. “We would have noticed her.”
The hot day had made everyone restless and kids were starting to squirt each other with bottles of water. Steam rose from the puddles.
“I saw her.” Morgan wrapped her hair on top of her head. “She’s been hanging behind you all day. Weird little goat. You should say something to her.”
“Leave her alone,” Vanessa snapped.
“Oh, please,” Morgan bit back with a spark of anger. “Since when does she need you to protect her?”
“Morgan,” Vanessa started, but stopped. It wasn’t worth arguing.
“Maybe she’s the one who’s been following you,” Catty whispered, and unwrapped a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that had melted through the bread. She wrapped it back up and wadded it into a ball for the trash. “It’s too hot to eat.”
“So how was the big date?” Morgan said. She took a piece of ice from her Big Gulp and held it against the back of her neck.
Vanessa didn’t answer.
“I warned you about Michael.” Morgan shook her head. “You’re not sexperienced. I won’t hold it against you. But you shouldn’t dive in over your head.”
“Why do you keep saying that? I thought the sexual revolution was about choice,” Catty said. “How can you hold that against anyone?”
“Give it up.” Morgan tossed the ice cube away.
“Well, it does seem like you want to make Michael sound bad,” Vanessa accused her. “He was really nice.”
Morgan gave her a bitter look. “Whatever.” She stood suddenly. “This day is dragging. I’m going to the nurse’s office so I can go home. Heat exhaustion.” She walked off.
“What’s her deal?” Catty said.
“I don’t know.” Vanessa wondered if Morgan was still upset about Michael.
“Why are you still friends with her, anyway?”
“We used to have really good times together, don’t you remember?”
“No. She never liked me, and now she’s got to bust an attitude on everyone.”
“Catty—” Vanessa had something else she wanted to talk about. Something important.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“I’ve made a decision,” Vanessa said. “Mom doesn’t work tomorrow. I’m going to stay home and tell her about . . . you know. Maybe she can help me.”
Catty frowned. “Are you sure?”
“I don’t know what else to do. Besides, I’d rather she hear it from me than see me go invisible on the nightly news.”
“All right,” Catty agreed, but her voice was dry with anxiety.
A noise startled them. Serena gathered her books and ran across the hot blacktop. She slipped past the guards at the front gate, and didn’t stop when the guards yelled after her for her pass. Kids standing against the chain-link fence applauded her audacity.
“Cool,” Catty said.
“Why didn’t she get a pass?” Vanessa wondered.
“Must’ve been in a hurry.” Catty shrugged. “Let’s go see if a classroom is open where we can cool off.”
The day stretched on forever. Morgan was right. It felt like someone had bent reality and made classes twice as long. By the end of the day Vanessa was worn out. She trudged across the empty basketball courts, her sweater tied around her waist and shirt open to the third button, when someone called her name.
“Hey, Vanessa.” Michael ran up to her, his face flushed. “I’ve been trying to catch you all day.” He touched her arm. A drop of sweat trickled down his cheek.
She tried to pull her breath in slow even draws. She didn’t want him to see her nervousness. She almost made an excuse to flee, but the sweetness of his smile closed her mouth and made her stay.
“I’m sorry about w
hat happened at the Bowl.” His eyes drifted to the third button on her shirt, then pulled away. “I was pretty rude after.”
She thought he’d be angry about the way she had acted. But he thought he had ruined the night. She wanted to cheer. “I had a great time,” she said.
“Yeah?”
She cleared her throat. “I loved the music.”
He shifted his books and put an arm around her. When his hand touched her waist, new heat rose inside her, a fire for something forbidden.
“Stanton pushes my buttons,” he said as they walked across the basketball courts. “It’s like . . . do you think someone can be evil?”
“What do you mean?”
He seemed a little embarrassed. “It sounds crazy, but the guy creeps me out.”
“Like how?” she asked. But she couldn’t pay attention. Her mind drifted to thoughts about his hand on her waist. What would it have felt like if his hand had brushed over her at the Bowl, and it hadn’t been an accident, but invited?
“He pushes me, like he wants to make me mad. Usually he can’t get to me, but when I saw the way he looked at you right in front of me, something happened inside me. At first I thought he liked you, too, but then I knew he was flirting with you because he’d heard how much I like you.”
“Me?” Her stomach fluttered.
He smiled, and his eyes said you. “The last time I really liked someone, he tried to take her away from me. I figured he was the one who was spying on us. I was so furious that all I wanted to do was drop you off and go back to have it out with him.”
“You went back?”
“I started to, then I realized . . .”
“What?”
“That’s exactly what he wanted. So I didn’t.” He guided her away from the bus stop toward the students’ parking lot.
“You think he was following us?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Michael said. “So I acted like an ass. Forgive me?”
“Yes.” She smiled. And then they were at his van.
“Can I give you a ride home?”
“Okay,” she said. Her heart beat wildly. Was this another chance for a kiss?
He smiled and opened the van door. She untied her sweater and rolled it into a ball on top of her books, then climbed in. The air was tight and hot inside. The plastic seat burned her back through her blouse.
Michael got in and started the van. She rolled down her window and let the velvet breeze cool her face. He babbled on about school, his guitar, and surfing. She sank lower in the seat, listening to the song of his voice. Sweet melody, don’t stop.
The van parked and her eyes opened. They were in front of her house already.
“Don’t get out yet,” he said.
She paused.
“I really like you, you know, because you’re so different.”
Her heart flipped. If he only knew how different.
“You’re so mysterious.” His eyes smiled slyly. “I like a mystery to unravel.” Then he leaned over. He stopped when he was close enough to kiss her and waited, as if he were asking for permission. She closed her eyes. His lips, warm from the heat, rested on hers, and then he pulled away.
She didn’t want him to stop.
“I really like you, Vanessa,” he said, his face still close to hers, his breath caressing her cheek, and then he kissed her again. Soft, gentle, sweet. His hand touched her knee. Her body tingled, longing for more. The tip of his tongue traced over her lips. His other hand slipped lazily to the back of her head. His fingers traced through her hair. Her body was spinning. The molecules stirred. She shouldn’t let him kiss her again. She did.
His mouth pressed harder. She knew what was happening, but she continued to kiss him anyway. At the last possible second she jerked back and hoped her face wasn’t drifting into a whirl of golden light. She glanced in the side mirror. A face stared back at her, gratefully whole and complete.
“You haven’t been kissed before, have you?”
“Of course I have,” she said defensively. She felt embarrassed; her first kiss had been with him at the Bowl. “Lots.”
He only smiled. But she didn’t see it. She was too focused on looking at feet that were no longer there, only flecks of gold whirling on the floor mats. She threw her sweater over her legs. The sleeve snapped his eye.
“Ouch.” He bent down and held his eye.
“Sorry.” She felt like an idiot. “I must be coming down with a cold. I feel so chilled suddenly. I better go.” She propelled what remained of her body out of the van. Her sudden movement left him unbalanced. He fell forward.
“Vanessa,” he called out.
She turned back for one last quick look.
“I don’t care if you’ve never been kissed before,” he said, still holding his eye. She didn’t answer because she wasn’t sure she could speak. Her throat tickled, and sometimes as she became invisible she didn’t have all the abilities she had when she was solid. She dropped a pencil and didn’t stop to pick it up. Her hand was missing. She ran as fast as she could, hoping he didn’t see the way her body was unraveling into a trail of dust. She darted behind the olive tree in the front yard, then sprinted through the lilies and onto the porch. She flung open the front door. Her arms vanished. Her books crashed to the floor and scattered.
She whirled to the front window and floated there, no more than a sinuous vapor. Anyone looking in the window from the outside would see only dust motes caught in a bar of sunlight. She looked back at Michael, afraid he had seen too much.
He started the van and drove slowly away.
“Good-bye, Michael.” The words came out like a sigh of wind. A boyfriend would never be part of her life. Even a kiss was too complicated. She looked down at her hands. They were starting to come into focus now. Gradually, the heaviness of gravity began to pull her back into form.
She was going to spend the rest of the afternoon feeling sorry for herself. Why shouldn’t she? There was no way she could continue to see Michael. If only there was a guidebook she could purchase to explain the laws of invisibility. Did such laws exist?
Tears started to form in her eyes when someone grabbed her from behind. Her molecules snapped together with a jolt of pain.
She shrieked, mouth open, until air had drained from her lungs.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHEN DID YOU become a screamer?” Catty asked. “It’s such a girlie-girl thing. I think you broke my eardrums.” Catty hit the side of her head like a swimmer trying to dislodge water.
“You shouldn’t sneak up on me, not with everything you know has been going on,” Vanessa snapped.
“Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Vanessa said, regretting her anger. “I started to go invisible when Michael kissed me.”
“So you’re not totally done with him?” Catty teased with a smug smile.
“It’s over. How can it not be?”
“Do you want it to be?”
“No.” Vanessa’s emotions were a knot of confusion in her stomach. “But what would he do if he opened his eyes and saw a ghost hanging on his lips? He’d probably die right in front of me.”
Catty laughed, then bit her lip to stop. “Sorry,” she said. “But if you think about it, it does sound funny.”
“Nothing’s funny about his kisses,” Vanessa said. She felt herself go fuzzy thinking about the dreamy way he made her feel. “What am I going to do?”
“Kiss him in a really dark room?”
“You’re no help.”
“Maybe I am,” Catty insisted. “If we travel back to Saturday night, I know I can make a pinpoint landing so we won’t fall down the canyon wall. I’ve been practicing all day, skipping back an hour at a time, then forward a little, then back. My landings are perfect now. I landed inside your house at the exact time you got home.”
“That’s why the day seemed so incredibly long,” Vanessa said, and sprawled on the living room couch. “How many skips did you make?”
“I don’t know, twenty.” Catty grinned and slumped beside her. “All right, thirty-two, but I wanted to get it right . . . the landings, I mean.”
“Next time practice in the night when the rest of us are sleeping. Do you know what it feels like to spend thirty-two hours in classes on a hot day?”
“But you don’t have a memory of it.”
“No,” Vanessa argued, “but that explains why everyone was so dragged out by the end of the day.”
“No doubt,” Catty sniggered. “Next time I’ll make sure you’re with me.”
Vanessa shook her head. She didn’t think she had the energy for that either.
“So let’s go back to Saturday night.”
“But now it’s too far in the past.” Vanessa raked her hands through her drooping hair. She needed a shower and a nap.
“I figured that out, too.”
Vanessa was doubtful.
“I’ll leapfrog,” Catty spoke rapidly. Her hands made semicircles to demonstrate the leaps.
“I’ll go back twenty-four hours, then another twenty-four hours, until we’re there.”
“It must consume a lot of energy.”
“I’ll rest tonight. We’ll do it tomorrow.”
Vanessa chewed the side of her lip. Her real worry was the tunnel. She hated its rank musty smells and the dizzy feeling it gave her. “Your mom said there was probably a good reason why you couldn’t go back more than twenty-four hours.”
“What does she know?” Catty shrugged. “She’s never time-traveled.”
“Her explanation made sense to me.” Kendra thought there was some natural law that stopped Catty from going too far into the past because the farther she went into the past, the more likely something small and seemingly insignificant could change the future in big ways.
Catty shook her head. “I’ve thought about it. Everyone thinks time is like a river. But I don’t think so. I think time occurs all at once. We just experience it like a river because that’s the way we’ve been taught to think about it. Really, it’s more like a huge lake, all time existing at once. And my skips back and forth, that’s all part of it, too. So I’ll never do anything to change what has happened because if I were going to, I already would have, so I’m not.” Catty thought a moment. “It’s safe to go back.”