“Sorry, went to bed early,” I heard myself reply.
Just as fast as the dizzying sensation had come, it was gone.
“Eel, you okay?” asked Mandy, stopping abruptly and grabbing hold of my shoulder.
“Tripped over my own feet,” I mumbled, mustering an embarrassed laugh.
I spied Devon standing with a group of girls from the lacrosse team and led Mandy in her direction. Devon turned the moment I joined her side.
“Thanks for returning my calls,” she said.
“Sorry, went to bed early,” I mumbled automatically. Hadn’t this just happened? I shook my head to clear the remaining fog.
“You okay?” Devon asked, the flicker of irritation morphing to concern.
“Why does everyone keep asking that?” I groaned.
“Because you look like death warmed over,” Devon said. Then her eyes went wide and her mouth formed a small “o.” “I didn’t mean that,” she amended. “I just meant―,”
I didn’t let her finish whatever lame excuse she was going to make. “It’s fine. I’m fine,” I told her. “I didn’t sleep well is all.”
Devon smiled, not buying the lie.
Mandy stood on the periphery of the group, uncomfortable and out of place as usual.
I nudged her with my shoulder. “When do you want to hit up the mall?” I asked.
“Whenever.” She glanced behind me to where Kevin stood talking to a junior named Bryan Grouper, the two of them laughing about something that probably wasn’t nearly as funny as they made it seem.
“Let’s go Thursday, after I’m done with practice,” I said, trying to draw her focus from Kevin. I’d hoped that meeting Matthew Horcowitz would erase any lingering attraction to Rick’s jerky best friend.
“Sure,” Mandy replied, her gaze never leaving Kevin’s face.
I leaned closer to Mandy so my next words wouldn’t be overheard. “He’s not worth it,” I mumbled in her ear.
Just like before, dizziness clouded my mind and I gripped Mandy’s shoulder to keep upright.
“Easy for you to say; everyone loves you,” Mandy’s voice rang in my head, accompanied by an image of her face scrunched with an uncharacteristic anger.
“Easy for you to say; everyone loves you.” This time her voice wasn’t in my head. And when my vision cleared, I saw the same spiteful expression on her face. Mandy shrugged my hand off of her shoulder and stalked off through the throng of students.
“What’s up her butt?” Cooper Byrd asked, coming over and slinging an arm across my shoulders.
“She had a bad weekend,” I said, quick to defend Mandy. I knew she hadn’t meant anything by her comment; she was really hurt over the way Kevin was treating her.
Letting Cooper guide me away from our friends, I caught Devon’s eye and she waved goodbye. Cooper was in my homeroom, and he kept his arm around me as we made our way to the classroom. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have minded his touch, but today I was particularly grateful for it. I was still a little unsteady and leaned on him like a crutch.
The morning was uneventful. I attended all of my classes, ate lunch with Devon and our other friends, and managed to only think about Kannon and our planned meeting every other minute.
****
“Are you going to talk to the old guy while you’re at the diner?” Devon whispered, taking a seat next to me at our usual lunch table.
I glanced around the table, but no one was paying attention to us. Everyone else seemed engrossed in their own conversations and the questionable pizza the cafeteria was serving.
“I’ll try,” I said. “But I don’t want to talk to him in front of Kannon.”
We had spent calculus passing notes back and forth. During our exchanges, I filled her in on my conversation with Kannon and our plans to have dinner together that night. She was almost as anxious as I was to hear what he had to say.
“I totally wish I could be a fly on the Moonlight’s wall,” she said wistfully. “You have to call me as soon as you are done.”
I shushed her. “I don’t want to talk about this here. Someone might hear you.”
“So?”
“I don’t want to advertise my dating life on a billboard.”
“So it’s a date?” Devon asked, with a grin rivaling a jack-o-lantern’s.
“Who has a date?” Elizabeth chimed in, instantly breaking off from the conversation she was having with Cynthia Zeleski.
“No one,” I said at the same time Devon said, “Eel.”
“Kannon?” Elizabeth guessed.
“The same,” Devon answered for me.
“I knew it,” Elizabeth squealed.
“Is he in college?” Cynthia asked, her dark eyes gleaming with excitement. Cynthia was a notorious gossip. By the time lunch was over, the electronic ticker in the lobby that usually ran the latest school sports news would probably read something like, “Endora Lee Andrews finally gets a date!!!!!!!”
“He goes to St. Paul’s,” Elizabeth supplied.
“Who goes to St. Paul’s?” Cooper asked, joining in the conversation.
I groaned. Why couldn’t I have envisioned this conversation and found a way to prevent it from happening?
“I am going to kill you,” I muttered to Devon as I stood to dump the half-eaten piece of pizza in the garbage. Then I left the cafeteria and headed to my sixth period Spanish class before anyone could ask any more questions about Kannon.
Despite my concerns about Cynthia spilling the news about my sort-of date, I made it through Spanish and Advanced Lit without anyone congratulating me. My last class of the day was Greek mythology, and I had failed to do the reading. The teacher, Mrs. Randolf, had an annoying habit of cold-calling on people for answers, so I sank low in my chair and tried not to call attention to myself. Somewhere between talk of Hades and the underworld and ferrymen, my mind started to wander to Kannon and my father.
A paper ball landed on the desk in front of me, startling me out of my musings. I unfolded the sheet and smoothed the creases. No sleeping in class, Eel, it read. I recognized Cooper’s handwriting immediately. Turning around full in my chair, I glared at him.
“Ms. Andrews, perhaps you could enlighten us. Who is Hermes?”
My muscles tensed as I slowly rotated to face forward. Mrs. Randolf’s laser pointer was directed at an image projected against a white screen. I opened my mouth to apologize for neglecting the homework assignment and therefore having no idea who Hermes was, but when I saw the black and white slide of the Greek god, I recognized him. Only in my mind, he was flesh and bone. I saw a young man, naked to the waist with a full head of curly blonde hair. His facial features were sharp and angular, his skin a deep bronze.
An odd feeling settled over me. It was like the one I’d come to associate with the déjà vu or whatever, except not quite. I knew him. I’d met him. I just didn’t know when or where or why.
“Ms. Andrews?” Mrs. Randolf said pointedly.
“He’s the god of transitions and boundaries. He’s a messenger and he conducts souls into the afterlife.” I didn’t know how I knew that was correct, but there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that it was.
“Very good,” Mrs. Randolf said. “And how does Hermes deliver messages from the gods to mortals?”
“In their dreams,” I said automatically.
“Right again, Ms. Andrews.” Mrs. Randolf beamed, but I felt no pleasure at her praise. My pulse was off the charts. The hands gripping the edges of Cooper’s note were shaking, and the paper tore clean in two within seconds. I dropped the pieces onto the desk, jumping to my feet in the process.
“Ms. Andrews, is there something else that you would like to add?” Mrs. Randolf asked me.
Frantically, I searched the other students’ faces, as if I would find an excuse there for my erratic behavior. I was met with blank stares.
“Bathroom,” I choked out. “I don’t feel well.”
Mrs. Randolf scrutinized me, agitation quickly giving way to conc
ern. “Take the pass.” She nodded to the giant carved rooster she used as a bathroom pass.
I wound through the desks, knocking Nelly Grant’s notebook to the floor in my haste. I didn’t stop to apologize. Then I grabbed the rooster and practically ran from the room.
The first floor girls’ room was, mercifully, empty. I bent to check for feet under each stall door just to be safe. I turned on the water in the sink and cupped my hands under the faucet. The cold liquid felt like a slap of reality.
I stared at my reflection in the cracked mirror over the sink basin. “Get it together,” I ordered myself. “You have never met a Greek god, in your dreams or otherwise. He isn’t even real. He is a myth. A myth,” I repeated it over and over again. Hermes is a myth. No matter how many times I told myself that, I couldn’t rid my mind of the persistent feeling that we knew each other. And while I couldn’t recall when or why, I now knew the how. I’d met Hermes in my dreams.
****
That afternoon, I sat on the bench in the girls’ locker room before practice, debating whether to call Kannon. What would I say? Have you met any gods in your sleep lately? Kannon claimed we’d first met in his dreams, so maybe the idea wasn’t so farfetched. I was real, though, and Hermes wasn’t. I wasn’t sure if that made the notion more or less absurd.
In the end, I decided to wait until I saw him later to spring this new development on him. I hated to admit it even to myself, but at least that way I’d get to see Kannon in the flesh one more time before he’d have the chance to declare me legally nuts.
The cell buzzed in my hand before I had the chance to put it away. I glanced down, half expecting it to be Kannon. It was Jamieson’s home number, again. I moved to send her to voice mail again, but decided against it. I wanted to answer the phone and get this conversation over with, or at least round one in the prize fight for a boy I barely knew.
“What do you want, Jamieson?” I demanded. “In case you weren’t aware, all these phone calls are verging on harassment and my mother is a State’s Attorney.”
A deep voice chuckled in my ear. “I always knew you were your mother’s daughter and your go-with-the-flow attitude was just a façade.”
I froze. All the blood drained from my head, making it spin and causing me to fall against the lockers. “Mr. Wentworth?” I asked in a small voice.
I was such an idiot. Why had it never occurred to me that if Jamieson were harassing me she would have used her cell phone instead of calling from her house phone? And, of course, Jamieson wouldn’t be calling me from home at 2:55 p.m. on a school day. She was at lacrosse practice, exactly where I needed to be in five minutes.
“How are you, Endora?” Jamieson’s father asked.
“Doing well, sir,” I replied.
“Not too well if my Jamie is giving you a hard time,” he said pointedly. “Want me to talk to her?”
I blanched at the reminder of how I had answered the phone with the harassment accusation.
“No, sir. It’s nothing, just high school girl drama,” I told him, feeling more stupid by the second.
“If there is anything I can do to help you girls patch up your friendship, let me know and I will. Jamie could use a friend like you.”
Jamieson could use a broom and pointy hat and maybe a house to land on top of her, I thought, but kept my sentiments to myself.
“Anyhow, have not been harassing you with phone calls in the hope of discussing my daughter’s social life,” Mr. Wentworth continued. “You turned eighteen last week.” It wasn’t a question. “Have you spoken with your father?”
I was too surprised to respond right away. Mr. Wentworth and my father used to be good friends, but I sort of assumed they’d lost touch after the divorce. Until recently, I’d also thought my father had moved to another state.
“I did,” I said slowly, unsure where the conversation was headed.
“Oh, good.” Mr. Wentworth sounded relieved.
“We were supposed to meet last Wednesday, but Dad never showed up,” I continued.
Jamieson’s father sighed heavily, and the worry that something more serious than a flat tire had kept my father from our meeting intensified.
“Then I have something for you,” Mr. Wentworth told me, and he didn’t seem happy about the admission.
“What is it?” I asked suspiciously.
“A birthday present of sorts. From Mark. Do you think you would be able to meet me this evening? I would prefer we meet somewhere besides your house.” I could read between the lines. Whatever Mr. Wentworth had to give me wasn’t for my mother’s eyes.
“I have plans tonight. How about tomorrow?” I prayed my mother would be busy to the point of distraction all week, since my clandestine meetings were racking up.
“Tomorrow should be fine. Do you know the Moonlight Diner?” Mr. Wentworth asked.
The Moonlight Diner? I was starting to think Mr. Haverty should rename the place The Shady Dealings Diner.
“I know it,” I confirmed, swallowing the million questions fighting their way to my mouth.
“I will meet you there. Say eight o’clock?”
“Sure,” I agreed.
“And Endora?”
“Yeah?”
“Promise me you will keep your eyes open and stay away from strangers.”
Stay away from strangers? As if my mother’s constant paranoia wasn’t enough, now both Mr. Wentworth and my father had issued warnings. I was eighteen, not five. I knew better than to get in a white windowless van because some man sporting too much facial hair offered me a lollipop.
“I promise, Mr. Wentworth,” I said awkwardly.
“Good. See you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” I echoed.
Chapter Twelve
After a practice where I dropped every pass, failed to mark an opponent, and succeeded in staining my knees green with grass, I did something I never do. I took a shower in the girls’ locker room. Something about bathing in a space that requires you to wear shoes wasn’t right, so I usually avoided it like the plague. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to swing by my house, shower, change, and get to the Moonlight. There was also the off chance my mother would be home, and I had no desire for a face-to-face conversation.
On the way to the Moonlight, I called Mom on her cell and explained that I was having dinner out and would be home afterwards. Mom didn’t miss the deliberate omission of my dinner companion’s name.
“With whom are you eating?” she asked as though it were an innocent question.
Here came the make or break point. I had two options: I could lie, say Devon and pray Mom believed me; or tell the truth, say Kannon and risk interrogation. Figuring I would need to lie for the meeting with Mr. Wentworth the following evening, I decided not to press my luck today and went with option one. Now the question was: How much do I divulge?
“Endora Lee,” my mother said sternly.
Great, I’d waited too long. Her interest was piqued. “This boy I met at Elizabeth’s after the Mt. St. Mary’s game.” Half-truth.
“What is his name?”
Bring on the twenty questions.
“Kannon Stevens. He is a senior at St. Paul’s. He is eighteen.” I knew the drill.
“May I have his phone number in case I need to get in touch with you and you do not answer your cell?” Mom phrased it like it was a question and I had an option. I knew better, though. If I wanted to go, she had to have the number.
I rattled off ten digits that I was ashamed to have memorized. Mom repeated the numbers back to me for confirmation.
“Where are you meeting this boy? Is he coming to pick you up? I would prefer he did not since I am at work,” she said.
There was a myriad of reasons why I didn’t want to tell her where we were having dinner, the least of which was that the Moonlight’s normal clientele favored leather over silk blends and two-wheeled modes of transportation over the more conventional four-wheeled ones. The Moonlight Diner was dad’s place. Tellin
g my mother about it felt like a betrayal. Maybe it was stupid, but I couldn’t help it.
“We’re meeting at the diner.” Another half-truth. The Moonlight was a diner. But when I said “the diner,” I knew mom would think Plum Crazy since she knew Devon and I went there all the time. Mr. Wentworth was right. I was becoming my mother’s daughter. Nobody was better than Evelyn Andrews at laying just enough cards on the table to let her opponent think he knew her hand.
“What time will you be home?” Mom followed up.
“Um, by nine,” I told her. I didn’t exactly have a curfew, but nine o’clock was likely the latest she’d agree to, given that it was a school night. Particularly since I’d be out with someone she had never met.
“That will be fine. Before your next date I would like to meet this boy, though,” she replied.
I almost told her it wasn’t a date, but decided it was better to let her think that it was. Her suspicion meter would go berserk otherwise.
“You got it,” I said. Outright lie. If I hung out with Kannon again, he would definitely not be meeting my mother beforehand.
My mother’s third degree had taken nearly the entire drive to the Moonlight. I was thankful for the distraction. It had prevented me spending the entire twenty-five minutes panicking over the talk with Kannon. Instead, I frantically tried to cram twenty-five minutes of worrying into five.
On the one hand, I was eager to learn whatever Kannon knew about our condition. On the other, I doubted the pizza sauce stain on the hem of my white sweater would impress him. I still hadn’t decided whether to tell him about what had happened in Greek mythology. The further removed from the situation I became, the more ridiculous I felt for thinking I’d met a Greek god in my dreams.
Kannon’s black Jeep was parked in front of the Moonlight when I pulled into the lot. Even without the St. Paul’s School for Boys sticker, I would have known it was his. The five other vehicles in the lot were all made in a Harley-Davidson plant, and preppy Kannon didn’t really strike me as the hog-riding type.
“Endora Lee,” Mr. Haverty greeted me, holding the door open. “Nice to see you back so soon. Your friend is already here.”