Endure (31 page)

“You would not believe what happened to me today,” she says. Her dark hair lifts up off of her face with the wind. She shakes her head like the memory is too much.

“What?” I hold our tandem kayak steady as she slides into the front compartment.

“It is so super horrible,” she says, leaning forward to hang on to the dock while I get in the back of the kayak. “Seriously. Like it’s horrible on the level of women’s magazine ‘true life horror stories.’ ”

We grab our paddles and push sideways, scooting across the top of the water. I try not to think about Courtney’s dad being dead or my mom being dead, either. At least we knew where she died—right here. Those are bad thoughts. I push them out of my head.

“Tell me what happened,” I beg and smile. It’s so good to see Courtney acting like her old self, not too sad, talking again.

“Okay. So, Justin Willis needed a pen in Honors Bio, and I pulled out a pen from my purse, right?” Our kayak slices through the water as she talks, a steady up and down rhythm.

“Right,” I say, because she has paused for acknowledgment.

“So, I take the pen out and hold it up and he’s still like, ‘I need a pen. Anyone got a pen?’ And I’m like, ‘Dude, here!’ And I’m waving my pen in front of his face now, because I’m super annoyed that he’s ignoring me, and I’m thinking,
What? Is my pen not good enough for you, Justin Willis?
”

“Of course it is!” I’m getting all off ended on Courtney’s behalf.

“No. No. Wait for it . . .” She stops paddling and starts laughing, twisting around so I can see her face as she tells the rest of the story. She squeezes her eyes shut like it’s just too much. “So then I actually look at the pen in my hand, and it’s not a pen.”

“It’s not a pen?” I ask into the silence. Courtney is really good at telling stories. She should be a comedian, I swear.

“It’s not a pen! It’s a tampon! I’m waving a
tampon
in Justin Willis’s face!” Her head tilts back and she laughs so hard the kayak wiggles. Or maybe that’s because I’m laughing, too.

“That’s soooo terrible!” I say.

“I know! I know!”

We both give up on paddling and just float there for a minute, because life is way too funny sometimes.

“I love you, Court,” I tell her. “You are the biggest goofball in the world and I love you.”

“Ha!” she laughs. “I know!”

A cloud passes over the sun, making shadows on the river. We’re too close to the bay where her dad died, and she says, her voice all full of sadness again, “Let’s go back toward town, okay?”

My grandfather and Benji come back just a couple of minutes after Courtney leaves. I’m browsing through the fridge for food when they burst in. The moment they both step inside, a potato from the far end of the kitchen counter plops off the marble and bangs onto the floor. It rolls and rolls. I grab it. Potatoes smell so earthy, just like dirt, and normally I like that smell, but this time it makes me shudder. I don’t know why. It’s moments like these when I kind of doubt that I’m sane at all.

Gramps kisses me on the forehead. “How was soccer?”

“Good,” I say. “How was Cub Scouts?”

“Boring,” Benji says as he throws his wet swim stuff on the floor. It lands in a heap of squishiness, the wet making the blue of his swimsuit dark, almost like a seal head poking up out of the ocean water. For a second I shift into this weird zone that always happens when I get my vision things. I see a seal—a real seal. She stares at me. Her eyes are full of loss and . . . something  else. Warning? I shake my head, make it go away.

“Pick that up, Benji. It will mold. Scouts was fine. We swam at the Y,” Gramps says. His forehead crinkles. “Pick it up
now
, Benji.”

Benji trots back and picks up his wet stuff. “Gramps was flirting again.”

“Really?” I grab an apple off the counter and bite into it. “Gramps never flirts.”

“No, I don’t,” he says, but his eyes get a wicked-old-man twinkle.

“Never. The least flirty man I know,” I tease, moving away.

“Where you going?” Gramps asks me, then yells down toward the laundry room, “Put those wet things in the washer, not the hamper, Benji!”

“What ever,” Benji yells back.

Gramps raises his eyebrows into his grandfather-not-pleased look. He plucks his own apple from the bowl. “He’s getting an attitude.”

“I’m going upstairs to paint,” I tell him.

Gramps likes to know what we’re doing. It makes him feel like he’s competent and in control. The perfect surrogate mom. “I’m in charge of dinner tonight. Steaks sound good?”

“Yep.” I’ve started up the stairs but stop to ask, “Is Dad coming home?”

“Late meeting with the physicians.”

“Again?”

He sighs. “Again. How is Courtney doing?”

“She seemed a bit better today.” Sadness settles over me. “But she thinks her dad might still be—”

“Alive?” Gramps shakes his head. “Maine water is too cold for anyone to last long, even those men. It’s best to accept the facts.”

“I know.” I swallow hard, trying not to remember the vision where the men in the water were reaching up, trying to find something to hold on to, but finding only fog.

Gramps is suddenly next to me, grabbing my arm. “Steady there, camper.”

“Sorry. It’s just so . . . it’s so sad.”

“I know.
Life
is sad sometimes.”

“Her cousin came today,” I say, “and her aunt. They’re from somewhere in the Midwest, I think. They’re going to try to help them keep the house.”

Gramps lets me go. “Good. God knows they need all the help they can get.”

Just an hour later I’m through my homework and painting when Gramps starts yelling our names up the stairs. “Aimee! Benji! Dinner!”

Benji rushes out of his room, sticks his tongue out at me, and thunders down the staircase. I follow him, yelling, “I’m going to beat you. You are sooooo slow!”

This is a total lie, because I’m not even trying.

“Winner!” He slams down at the table and announces, “I love steak!”

“Dead cow. Yummy,” I say, sitting down. I imagine the poor cow’s life, stuck at the factory farm, diseased, lonely. I can see it perfectly. I try to reassign my thoughts because this isn’t mentally healthy and I check out my grandfather. He looks a bit tired. He does so much around here because my dad has sixty-hour workweeks. “I would have set the table, Gramps.”

“I know, but you  were busy. Plus, an old man needs to feel useful.” He forks a steak onto my plate. “Did I tell you about the little venture Benji and I have got going?” he asks.

I shake my head and cut my meat. “Nope.”

“Benji.” Gramps points toward the fridge.

Benji puts his fork down, pops up and rushes over to the counter, vaults on top of it, reaches to the top of the fridge, and grabs something in a Ziploc bag, then leaps off the counter and waves the bag in my face. I inspect the orange contents.

“It’s a Cheeto?”

“Not just any Cheeto, right, Gramps?” Benji says.

Gramps rubs his hands together. “That’s for sure.”

I examine the processed-food orangeness and try to figure out what to say. “Okay. It’s, um, it’s . . .”

“Marilyn Monroe!” Benji announces.

“What?” I look to Gramps for help.

“Marilyn Monroe. She was one of the big-time movie stars back in the day. She had blond hair and—”

“Massive hooters!” Benji interrupts.

“Benji!” I yell at him.

He plops down in his seat, giggling. Gramps is chuckling.

“Men suck,” I say.

“We do not say ‘suck’ in this family,” Gramps says sternly.

I point my fork at him. Some steak falls off. “No, but we say ‘hooters.’ That’s fair. Anyway, I know who Marilyn Monroe is. I just don’t understand what she has to do with the Cheeto.”

Benji rolls his eyes. “She
is
the Cheeto.”

“Reincarnated?” I stab a piece of steak.

“No.” Gramps swipes the bag from Benji and puts it in front of my face again. “Look closely. Doesn’t it look like Marilyn?”

I chew this over. “Um. Well, there are some bumps there.”

Benji points at the top of the Cheeto. “See, that’s her hair. You can see it, can’t you, Aimee? It looks just like her.”

He is all eager cuteness. There’s a big thump upstairs, which makes us jump. I drop my fork. It clanks against the dish.

“Just a book falling down,” Gramps says, which doesn’t get rid of my goose bumps. “Do you see her in the Cheeto?”

“Sure,” I say, picking up my fork. “I see it.”

“
Her,
”
he corrects.

“Her. I see her. Wow.” I nod really big. “That’s super cool. What are you going to do with your Marilyn Monroe Cheeto?”

Benji jumps up and down, excited. “Sell her on eBay.”

I choke and manage to somehow say, “eBay?”

“It’s an Internet auction site,” Gramps explains. “Benji, eat your dinner.”

“I know what eBay is.” I put my fork down on purpose this time and say it again just to make sure I understand. “You’re selling her on eBay.”

“Yep!” Benji says. “People are already bidding.”

“Does Dad know about this?” I ask.

“He would if he ever actually came home,” Benji says. His smile is gone. He stuffs more potato into his face. His teeth slam together and he swallows. “I bet we could get a thousand dollars.”

My heart hurts for him.

“What do you think, Aim? How much could we get?” Gramps asks.

“Oh,” I lie, “probably at least two thousand dollars.”

Benji’s eyes light up.

I lay it on harder, like another layer of paint, making it thicker. “Maybe more.”

After dinner I’m in the upstairs bathroom wiping the paint thinner off  my size 2 fan brush. There are still tiny flecks of yellow on the handle, but I’m okay with that. It makes it look well used. There’s the faintest sound of footsteps, like Benji’s slipping around or something.

Slowly, I put the brush down and peek out the open bathroom door into the hallway, clutching my paint scraper. There’s nothing there, of course.

My mom taught me a prayer when I was little. She made me swear to say it every night.

“It won’t get rid of the dreams, not completely, but it will help make them better,” she said. “It’s worked for others.”

O God, who made the heav’n and earth,

From dreams this night protect me.

Destroy each succubus at birth,

No incubus infect me.

I say it in bed, but it doesn’t keep the dreams from coming. In them, I’m trapped below water and something evil and bad is sucking my life away. It’s dark. The water weighs on me, heavier and heavier, and in the distance is a wicked, ghostly laugh and a wail that’s me screaming, screaming, screaming. Something reaches for me, lifting me up. At first it’s scary and furry and strong, all muscles and claws and it looks like a cougar, but then it changes into a guy, a huge guy. His dark eyes stare into mine, dark and frightened and wet, but strong somehow, too, determined.

“We have to save her,” he says.

“Who?” I ask him. “Who?”

He goes cougar again and snarls. He is all teeth and noise. I wake up cranky and scared because I know that someone is in danger, but I don’t know who or how to save them, just that I have to find out before it’s too late. Wow, I hate dreams.

A conversation with Carrie Jones

Rumor has it you had a creepy, Zara-like incident that inspired you to write
Need
. Tell us about it.

I was at the Common Ground Fair, which is this huge, cool fair in Maine that’s sponsored by Maine Organic Farmers and Growers Association (MOFGA). To get to the main part of the fair you have to walk through this trail that curves through these tall spruce trees. Right in front of me while I was walking was this guy. He had a weird vibe. He was wearing all corduroy. And sticking out from his blazer was this long tail-like appendage that was wrapped in different colored earth-toned cloth. I guess he could tell I was checking him out because he turned his head and looked at me. His eyes were this startling silver color. So startling that I actually gasped and got creeped out. Then, when we were in line to pay, we made eye contact again and his eyes were brown. I know! I know I probably imagined the silver eye color but that was one of the main things that got me started.

Why pixies and weres?

I kind of have a thing for werewolves. A-hem. The pixies are because of the incident I just explained but also because unlike fairies or vampires or even werewolves, they were much less explored. Historically, the myths around them are also less solid. That gave me a lot of freedom to play. I think that by using pixies it allows readers to create their own reality around the characters in a way they might not be able to if it was about vampires or fairies. In that way, they become poets, filling in holes, creating their own truths about the story. I like that.