Drawn

  What would he say when I told him? Would he get even more torqued up? Call me a freak? Or worse, like Jimmy, evil?

  Words abandoned me again.

  “This happened before?”

  I shook my head. “Not exactly. Not like knowing something I shouldn’t know, or seeing something I’ve never seen.”

  “Then what?”

  After a few deep breaths, I started from the beginning and told him everything. About the picture of his Einstein shirt and the airplanes. The moss on the steps. Amica’s fall. All of it.

  “That’s why you were so horked at Pam’s party when Mark kissed her.”

  “Mark would never, ever, want to kiss Pam.”

  “He was kind of drunk.”

  “Still.”

  He zipped his jacket and wrapped his elbows around his knees. “So everything you draw comes true?”

  “No.” I shook my head and looked up into the stars. “That’s the thing. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. And I can’t figure out why.”

  I told him about Pam’s tape recorder, and all the tapes I’d made over the last couple of weeks, saying different stuff while I drew. But so far nothing else had happened. Till this tree picture, anyway.

  “But you think it’s something you say when you draw?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just a hunch.”

  “Words have power.”

  “You’ve said that before.” I looked at him. “But I didn’t even say anything when I did your picture. I was in study hall.”

  “And that one wasn’t actually prophetic. It was post-phetic.”

  “I don’t think that’s actually a word.”

  He knocked his knuckles together and looked at me. For a long time. “You believe in God, right?”

  “Yeah, I do.” I shrugged. “I mean, I’m Christian.”

  “God made everything with words.”

  “Okay.”

  “That’s what the Bible says.”

  I chewed on my lip until it hurt, then decided to just ask. “You still believe in God? Even after your mom died?”

  He rolled his eyes and nodded. “If I had any questions about that, I don’t think I do anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because a couple of months ago Adam and I were talking about the flood. We each picked one thing we wish we could have back out of all the stuff we lost. I picked that picture.”

  * * * * *

  We stayed at the lake a long, long time, till neither of us could talk without yawning and I could barely sit up anymore but I knew if I lay down I’d fall asleep. I rode the too-short trip home wrapped against Damon’s back as the motorcycle rumbled beneath me like my own personal dragon-chariot.

  “Looks like all the cars are there,” he called back to me.

  “Okay, stop here,” I said, and he swerved to the edge of the road and cut the engine.

  “Why don’t your folks park in the garage?”

  “There’s too much junk in it.”

  Damon put down the kickstand. “No lights on in the house.”

  “Yeah. That’s good.” I climbed off and smoothed the bunches out of my jeans. “You go. I’ll walk from here and try to get in without waking anybody up.”

  “You going in the door, or up the roof?”

  “The roof. I left my window open.”

  “I’ll wait here, and make sure you get in okay.”

  I did not want him to watch me scramble up those shingles. Graceful didn’t describe my technique. “That’s okay. I’ve done it a million times.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  I sighed. “You’re very chivalrous.”

  “My mother taught me that.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me.”

  With him on the bike and me standing up, it crossed my mind that I could seize the moment and kiss him if I wanted to. But even with as many times as I’d practiced on my hand, I suspected the real thing would be much different. And what if he didn’t want to kiss me, anyway?

  “I do,” he said.

  My heart thrummed like a hummingbird’s wings. “What?”

  “I do. Worry about you.”

  “Oh.” I blinked and shook my head.

  “You okay?”

  “Good-night, Damon.”

  He smiled. “Good-night, Julie.”

  I felt his eyes on me the whole walk up to the house, and I tried to look less like Spiderman and more like a dazzling, sequined circus acrobat as I scaled the roof. When I got the window pried open and slid inside I flipped the lamp switch a couple of times. Out of the murkiness beyond the road a single headlight blinked twice. His engine rumbled to life and the light moved toward me, then turned away. His brake light flashed once, then vanished into the dark.

  I leaned against the window casing and looked up at the stars.

  Now I lay me down to sleep.

  I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

  And if I die before I wake,

  Just let me come back long enough to get kissed by Damon Sheppard, at least once.

  Okay, God?

  Please?

  CHAPTER 23

  Hirsch had T-shirts for the team, but he wanted us all to wear black pants. The guys got him to agree we could wear black jeans. I didn’t have either one. So when Tammy asked if I wanted to go shopping on Friday, I jumped at the chance.

  “Thanks for the ride, Officer Barrett.”

  Tammy and I climbed out of the back of the squad car and stepped onto the curb. Jingling music and flashing colored lights came over the roof from the other side of the mall, where a midway had set up for the weekend.

  Tammy’s dad leaned over to look at us through the open passenger window. He handed her a twenty-dollar bill. “I’ll be back to pick you girls up at seven thirty. Sharp.”

  “Okay, Dad.”

  “Right here.” He pointed at us. “Stay together. Go to the restroom together. Do not leave this building with anyone but me.”

  “Yes, Dad.” Tammy rolled her eyes.

  “If anyone bothers you, follows you, or makes you feel uncomfortable in any way, you go straight to an employee and report it. Then call me.”

  “Dad, come on.”

  His radio squawked and he picked it up. “Got to go. Seven thirty. And no midway.”

  He pulled away and we grinned at each other.

  “Can we get the pants first?” I asked Tammy. “I have to have them for tomorrow.”

  We headed for Dillon’s.

  “Wow,” Tammy exclaimed, as we walked down one bright, mostly empty hall after another. “It’s totally dead in here.”

  “Everyone’s outside.”

  “Let’s get our stuff and go ride some rides!”

  “What will your dad say?”

  “As long as we’re at the curb on time, he won’t know.”

  Tammy needed something to wear for her cousin’s wedding, and Dillon’s had dresses right across the aisle from the separates. Normally we would have spent at least an hour just looking around and trying on, but we both wanted to get outside. Tammy found three dresses, and I grabbed four pairs of pants. We tried them all on, picked what we wanted, and headed for the counter.

  I only had eighteen dollars and seventy-four cents, but I’d found a pair of pants on clearance for twelve. Tammy handed the cashier her twenty.

  “Would you girls like to have a makeover while you’re here?” the cashier asked. She looked about in her mid-twenties, as polished and gorgeous as any movie star.

  Tammy looked at me and shrugged.

  “I don’t think we can afford to buy anything else,” I admitted.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m supposed to do at least eight makeovers a day. You’d be helping me out.”

  So Tammy and I sat down on shiny metal swivel stools and Monica got to work on us. She finished Tammy first and handed her a mirror.

  “You look like you’re nineteen,” Monica told Tammy.

  She wasn’t kidding. She’d given Tamm
y navy eye shadow and deep black mascara that made her already thick lashes look like they weren’t even real. Hot pink lipstick with a dab of silver gloss in the middle of her lower lip gave her this magazine-centerfold shine.

  “If we put your hair up, you’d look even older.” Monica opened a drawer behind the counter and pulled out a rubber band. “Turn around.” She reached over the counter and gathered Tammy’s long, straight hair into a high ponytail. Then she separated a section of it, twisted it, and wrapped it around the rubber band. She tucked the ends into the band and fluffed it all out.

  “That is so cool,” I said.

  “Ready?” she asked me.

  I nodded and tried to look natural as Monica worked on me. When she finished and handed me the mirror, I hardly recognized myself.

  “Wow,” Tammy exclaimed. “Maybe Damon will be at the midway.”

  I blushed, but you couldn’t tell through all the makeup.

  “Who’s Damon?” Monica asked as she feathered a fat brush over my cheeks.

  “Her boyfriend,” Tammy sang.

  More color rose up my neck. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  Monica put her makeup vials away and looked at us. “How old are you girls?”

  Tammy answered, “Almost fourteen.”

  “I had the hugest crush on a boy when I was fourteen.” Monica opened the back of the counter and reached inside to a stack of red and white zippered bags. “Alex Tubbs. I don’t think I’ve ever felt the same about anyone else as I did him.”

  “What happened?” Tammy asked.

  Monica fished through the bags, checking the labels, till she found the two she wanted. “I’m supposed to give these to customers who spend more than thirty dollars. But who’s counting?” She winked and handed us each a bag.

  “What is it?” I put the mirror back on the counter.

  “Some makeup and skin care samples.”

  Tammy and I fished through the bags. “Ooh! This is the same color lipstick you put on me,” Tammy cried.

  My bag contained a little tube of foundation, eye shadow, two lipsticks in different shades of pink and a few other samples.

  We thanked Monica, grabbed our shopping bags and hopped down from the stools.

  “Girls, can I give you some advice you didn’t ask for?”

  “Yeah, sure.” I leaned against the counter.

  She tapped her nails on the glass and her shiny red lips pressed into a grim line. “If I could tell my fourteen-year-old self just one thing, it would be to not be in such a hurry. The faster you go, the faster it goes.”

  “What do you mean? What’s ‘it’?” Tammy asked.

  “Life. Love.” She pressed her palms against the counter. “If it’s right, everything will happen in its own time.” Then she looked at me, “Don’t rush it, and don’t let him rush you.”

  Across the room at the entrance to the mall. Ginger and another girl walked into Dillon’s.

  “Hey, Juliet! Look at you!” Ginger hugged me. “Wow.”

  “We got makeovers.” I framed my hands around my face and posed like a model. “This is my friend, Tammy.”

  She introduced her sister, Kelli.

  “Yeah. You look alike.”

  “We’re going out to the midway,” Tammy said.

  “Us, too,” said Kelli.

  “You’re not going with Mark?” I asked.

  Ginger shook her head. “He’s helping Joe work on his car tonight. We might go tomorrow.”

  We stepped outdoors and my mouth watered at the smells. Spongy corndogs slathered with mustard and ketchup. Brittle elephant ears dusted with cinnamon and sugar. Deep-fried onion rings and lemon shake-ups.

  The game booths lined the right side of the parking lot and the barkers challenged people to try their hands and win a prize, a prize every time, every quarter wins a prize! To the left stood the ticket booths and food vendors, and straight ahead the rides spun and jerked up and around, in the air and across the asphalt.

  Hundreds, thousands of colored bulbs flashed against the waning sunlight. People flooded into the midway and climbed up perforated metal steps into painted cars and boxes, where they plunged and screamed and laughed, then got off and circled around to do it again.

  “Let’s get some tickets,” Ginger suggested.

  “Oh, purty girls like you don’t need to buy no tickets.”

  A tall, greasy-haired and greasy-fingered man in oil-stained denim overalls leaned out of the operator’s booth of a nearby ride and dangled a fistful of ticket strips over Ginger’s head. “For you and your sweet friends.”

  Ginger shrank back.

  “Won’t cost you nothin’, ‘cept maybe a kiss.”

  “Not a chance,” Kelli told him.

  Ginger backed away and shook her head.

  “I’m here all night. N’case you change your mind.” He stuffed them back in his front pocket.

  Kelli gave him a dirty look, then she and Ginger turned toward the ticket booth, and Tammy and I followed. I looked back over my shoulder. The man leered at us, shook his head and licked his front teeth. He elbowed another carney who stood by the booth. That one smiled too, not in a friendly way, and started toward us.

  “Holy supermodels, Batman!” Erik Athaca and Drew Barony stepped away from the ticket window.

  I could have kissed both of them. I sped around Ginger and Kelli to stand next to Erik. The guy who followed us looked at Erik, then turned aside and melted into the crowd.

  Thank you, Erik, for being so crazy gigantic.

  Drew looked me up and down, the way Drew does. “Love the new look.”

  Ginger and Kelli got in the long line with some people they knew. Erik and Drew each had five strips of ten tickets and treated us to rides so we wouldn’t have to wait. Tammy didn’t know the guys as well as I did, and I doubted she could really handle Drew, so I mostly rode with him and let Tammy hang with Erik.

  Then Erik and Tammy wanted to ride an upside-down one, and I didn’t, so we split up and said we’d meet at the Ferris wheel in twenty minutes.

  “Want an elephant ear?” Drew asked.

  “Sure.”

  After spinning and screaming on the rides, I started to cool down as we walked. The light faded, and red and gold leaves gusted through the parking lot on the autumn wind. We made our way over to the vendor and I reached for my purse.

  Drew shook his head. “No way. My treat.”

  “How come?”

  “Just ‘cuz.” He winked at me.

  I shrugged, thanked him, and took the elephant ear while he paid.

  We walked over to lean against the fence at the edge of the midway, and tore off jagged strips of fried pastry till it was all gone. Then Drew took the sugary wax paper and crumpled it up in a tight ball. Before I could stop him he pulled out the neck of my shirt and dropped it in.

  “Drew!”

  “Oh, sorry,” he said. “Let me get that for you.”

  I knocked his hand away. “Not funny.” I pulled the waist of my shirt out and the wad dropped to the ground.

  As I adjusted my top, Drew inched closer.

  “What are you doing?”

  He stared into my face like he’d never seen me before. “You are so freakin’ pretty.”

  He did stuff like that, said stuff, but it never meant anything. He just liked to tease. That was Drew.

  Right?

  “It’s the makeup,” I said, my voice strangely hoarse.

  “No, it isn’t.”

  I felt kind of dizzy. The noise and the smells and the people and the lights took me out of myself, out of my head, and everything seemed unreal, untethered.

  Drew leaned toward me.

  He smelled nice. Kind of spicy and airy. The warmth of his body broke the chill around mine and blocked out everything else as he got closer.

  Did I want this? Want Drew?

  I put my hand on his chest to slow him down so I could sort out my jumbled thoughts.

  He covered my hand with his
, pulled it aside and circled my wrist with his thumb and middle finger. His first finger curled across my knuckles. He kept moving closer.

  “Drew.”

  His heavy-lidded eyes locked onto mine and he breathed my name. “Julie.”

  Julie?

  Huh-uh. I’m Julie to Damon.

  I put my other hand between us. “Stop it.”

  He froze, his face inches from mine. “Why?” he whispered.

  “Because I want you to.”

  He jerked away. “Geez. What is your problem?”

  A slap in the face, a bucket of ice water to my naked skin, couldn’t have hurt more. “Drew, we’re friends.”

  “I’ve been paying your way all night. All I wanted was a freakin’ kiss.”

  I looked away. My eyeballs scalded like balls of dough dropped in hot oil.

  “Here,” I said, and opened my purse. I pulled out the five-dollar bill and dug around till I’d gotten as much change as I could. I grabbed his hand and dumped the money in. “Sorry to have wasted your time.”

  “Forget it,” he said and tried to hand it back, but I walked away.

  I had to find Tammy, get back out to the other side of the mall and wait for her dad. I needed to get out of here, get away, get home.

  The Ferris wheel spun slowly around and couples snuggled together in the miniature carriages that dangled from delicate spokes. I looked around and didn’t see Tammy anywhere, but Ginger and Kelli stepped off a nearby ride.

  Ginger glanced upward, jerked to a halt, and the color drained from her face.

  Kelli’s turned crimson.

  I turned around and looked up.

  Mark and some girl in a low-cut, skin-tight tank top had just crested the top of the Ferris wheel and were on their way down.

  They were making out.

  CHAPTER 24

  “What time should we pick them up?” my mom asked Hirsch and Mrs. Teele.

  “We’ll be back about seven o’clock.”

  Lucas leaned against Hirsch’s car. “Are we staying the whole time, even if we don’t make it to the championship?”

  “We will make it to the championship.” Hirsch pointed his first two fingers at Lucas. “But yes, even if we don’t, we’re going to be good sports and stay till the end.”

  I walked around to the other side of the car and stood with Mia, Lucas and Kim. Erik and Damon hadn’t arrived yet.

  “This is going to be such a blast,” Kim said.

  “Pool party. Midnight.” Lucas grinned at Kim.

  I frowned. “Are you sure the pool’s open that late?”

  “You chicken?” He flapped his elbows and squawked at me.

  “No.”

  “Then be there or be square.”