Remember Me (6 page)

I hated Amanda right then for telling me I had been right all along.

"What were they doing?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Nothing."

"What?" I insisted.

"They were kissing."

"And she had her top off?"

" Yes . "

"How could you be sure?"

"I could see, Shari. There was enough light." Amanda shook her head again. "I shouldn't have told you." She started to get up. I grabbed her arm.

"What else were they doing? Was he fondling her?"

Amanda broke free of my hold and retreated to the end of the bed, where she stood and looked down on me. "I'm sorry," she said.

I laughed out loud for a second. "What are you sorry about? She wasn't kissing Jimmy—if you would even care.

You know he was home when you came over? You could have said hi. I know how much you love him. Anyway, I don't care. Dan can do what he wants. You can do what you want. I ain't going to stop you, sister. The whole world can go to hell for all I care."

Amanda left. And I cried, alone and to myself.

The party should have ended when Dan and Beth returned. I should have openly accused them, ignored their pleas of denial and forgiveness, and then stormed off into the night with Jo chasing after me to make sure I was OK. The problem was that when Dan and Beth finally did come through the door together, I was too heartsick to speak, and Jo was still busy entertaining Jeff on the couch. It struck me then that my best friend might actually find reason to celebrate the news of Dan and Beth's passionate public petting.

The party would have ended if Jo hadn't insisted we talk to the universe after everyone finished dressing. She pulled out her magnet.

"I read about this technique in a book on Taoism," Jo said, holding up the magnet so that we could all see that it had a brass cap over one end. "It was originally used thousands of years ago to diagnose health problems. It allows you to question the body directly about what's wrong with it."

"Is it like a Ouija board?" Beth asked wearily. Even I could sympathize with her. Beth was afraid that Jo was going to get out her Ouija board, as she had done at so many parties before. This is not to say that Jo insisted others share her fascination with the occult or that she couldn't sometimes liven up a dead party by invoking a few dead people. It simply meant that Jo never knew when it was getting late.

"It's similar but different," Jo said.

"Oh," I said.

Jo cast me a look that said she knew I wanted to leave but that she also thought we should let the magnet decide when to call it a night. ' 'Why don't I demonstrate it rather than talk about it?" she said.

"What do you need?" Jeff asked, seemingly interested.

He had put away his cigarettes and didn't look nearly so fierce in the light as he had in the dark. There were six of us in the room right then—Amanda, Dan, Beth, Jo, Jeff, and myself—all arranged in a rough circle in the cluttered living room. Sad six, one short of lucky seven.

Jo smiled at Jeff. "A body."

"I have one," Beth volunteered, raising her hand, showing more enthusiasm now that her official boyfriend had made the whole matter respectable with his question. Daniel looked at her and smiled, the bastard.

"We know," I said, sitting on the floor against a wall.

They ignored me. They wanted to talk to the universe.

Only Amanda appeared uninterested. Or else afraid. She continued to hang back in her corner chair. She might have been afraid of what I was going to say. Or else what the universe might know. I suppose we all have our secrets.

But Dan and Beth weren't afraid of anything. They gathered around as Jo slid onto the floor. "What's the heel like on those shoes you're wearing?" Jo asked Beth.

"They're all right," Beth said, not having the foggiest idea what Jo was asking.

Jo leaned over and gave Beth's sneakers a brief inspection.

"They'll work," Jo said. "Lie down flat on your back."

"What are you going to do?" Beth asked, now a tad nervous.

"I'm going to put this magnet on the floor at the back of your head," Jo said, doing precisely that as she spoke. "And then I'm going to take your ankles in my hands and ask your body questions. When your body wants to answer yes, one of your legs will get longer than the other."

"Why don't you use her nose?" I asked, thinking of Pinocchio and telling lies and that sort of thing. No one seemed to care. They continued to ignore me.

"Are you serious?" Dan asked.

"You'll see," Jo said. "One leg will actually get longer than the other."

"How does that happen?" Jeff asked.

"Her hip must rotate," Jo said, cradling Bern's shoes in her palms. Beth had closed her eyes and appeared to be concentrating hard on something unknown to the rest of us.

"No, how does her body know to respond?" Jeff said.

"No one knows," Jo said. "Somehow the magnet triggers an answering reflex in the body."

"Why did you cap one pole of the magnet?" Jeff asked.

"The book said to do it," Jo said. "It doesn't work otherwise." She turned her attention to Beth. "How do you feel?"

"Different," Beth whispered.

"Should she feel different?" Daniel asked.

"No," Jo said, looking down and pressing Beth's heels together. "Your body must be in good alignment. Your legs are exactly the same length."

"Thank you," Beth said.

"She probably has her hips worked on regularly," I said.

One person in the room didn't ignore me mis time. Daniel caught my eye and stared. I stared back in such a manner that I made it clear I knew what had happened in the Jacuzzi. And somehow I knew he was thinking of the comment Jo had made in the car on the way to the party, about how fast he always was—thinking about what an untrustworthy bitch I was. There was something unhealthy in the way we looked at each other right then.

"Is today Beth's birthday?" Jo asked aloud, simultaneously raising Beth's heels off the floor. Jo then nodded for Jeff to check Beth's leg lengths.

"They haven't changed," Jeff said.

"It's not working?" Beth asked, obviously worried that her body might not be connected to the universe. Jo was unconcerned.

"Think for a moment," she said. "It is after twelve.

Today is the day after your birthday."

"Ask an affirmative question," Jeff said.

"Is Beth a girl?" Jo asked, again raising Bern's feet up. I was too far away to tell, but apparently there was a shift in the length of one of her legs. Jeff leaned forward from his place on the edge of the couch and nodded his head.

"There is a slight difference, yeah," he said.

"It's not that slight," Jo said, continuing to keep Bern's heels tightly pressed together.

"The right leg is now an inch longer than the left."

"And this is her body's way of saying yes?" Jeff asked.

"Yes," Jo said.

"You can only ask yes-or-no questions?" Jeff said.

"You'd be surprised how much information you can get," Jo said. "Now, I know what you're going to say, but go ahead and say it anyway."

Jeff shrugged. "Beth heard you ask the question. She knows she's a girl. Her body's response could have been subconscious."

Jo smiled. "What if I told you it doesn't matter if I say the question aloud or if I just think it?"

"You want me to think about being a girl?" Beth asked, frowning, her eyes still closed.

"The legs will still shift?" Jeff asked.

Jo let go of Beth's ankles, climbing to her knees and scooting toward Jeff. "I'll whisper three questions in your ear that we already know the answers to," she said. "Then we'll see if her body responds correctly each time."

They had a brief huddle, and then Jo got back to Beth's ankles. Since the rest of us didn't know the questions, the demonstration was not exactly overwhelming. When it was done, however, and Jeff had finished comparing Beth's leg lengths, he nodded his approval.

"You did them in the same order you told me?" he asked Jo.

"Yes," Jo said.

"What did you ask?" Daniel asked.

"First I asked if Beth was pregnant," Jo said. "And the answer was no. Her heels didn't shift."

"Thank God," Beth said, smiling. It struck me then how cool Beth was playing it for someone who had only a few minutes earlier been sinning in a hot tub with a guy who didn't belong to her.

"Then I asked if Beth was alive," Jo continued. "And as I raised her feet off the floor, her right leg got an inch longer.

Right, Jeff?"

"It did, yeah," he said thoughtfully. I suspected that if he knew about Beth's unfaithfulness, he would have cared less.

But he did seem to be totally absorbed in what Jo was doing.

And she knew it. Her cheeks were flushed with pleasure.

"My third question was if it was Saturday morning," Jo said. "And once again, Beth's legs moved." Jo glanced down at Beth. "Are you comfortable? Can we keep using you to ask our questions?"

Beth squinted her eyes without opening them. "Yeah, but turn off that lamp.

The light's bothering me."

Jo gestured to Daniel to turn the light off, although it was clear Jo still did not understand why Beth should feel any different. The rest of us pulled in a little closer, including Amanda, who finally came and sat on the floor beside me.

The door to the balcony in the kitchen lay wide open. I could feel the night air on my bare feet; it seemed to hug the carpet like a cool sheet. I wanted to go home. My headache refused to go away.

"What should we ask?" Daniel asked.

"Anything," Jo said, a glint in her eyes. She again took hold of Beth's sneakers.

"Anything at all."

"Ask if there's going to be another war," Daniel said.

Jo asked the question out loud, raising Beth's heels a foot or so off the floor and then checking for a shift in leg length.

Now that I was close enough to see, I realized the shift was genuine. It was clear-cut.

"Yes," Jo said.

"Oh, no," Daniel said, distressed. The poor baby, I thought. The bombs would probably catch him in bed with his neighbor's wife. God, how I wanted to grab that magnet and glue it to the back of his head so that every time he lied his left leg would get shorter and he would trip and fall on his face.

"Of course there's going to be another war," I said.

"There are small wars going on all the time all over the world. Ask if there is going to be another world war in the next twenty years."

I noticed that Beth's heels returned to an even keel the moment Jo set Beth's feet back on the floor. At the back of my mind, I wondered if Jo was tugging on Beth's ankle whenever she wanted a yes answer.

Jo asked about another world war. Beth's legs shifted a tiny bit.

"What does that mean?" Jeff asked.

"That there might be," Jo said, obviously taken off guard.

"Did it say in the book you read that a slight movement means maybe?" Jeff asked, obviously not trusting Jo a hundred percent on this point.

"Yes," Jo said quickly.

"Ask if I'm going to be rich," Daniel said.

Jo asked. Beth's right leg didn't budge.

Jo laughed. "You're going to be a poor can of Spam, Dan."

Daniel frowned. "Ask if I'm going to live to an old age."

"Yes," Jo said a moment later.

Daniel perked up. "Am I going to be happy?"

"No," Jo said. Beth's heels had not moved. Daniel sat back, discouraged.

"I don't know how a magnet can know my future," he said.

"It's not the magnet," Jo said. "It's only the trigger. It's Beth's body that's answering our questions."

"Her body might have some effect on your future," I muttered.

That time my comment did not go unnoticed. The room became filled with tension. Yet no one said anything. What was there to say when we had God to talk to? Jo wasn't going to let my bad mood spoil the festivities. She nodded to Amanda.

"Anything you want to know, Bliss?" she asked.

Amanda got up slowly and crawled over beside Jo. "Can I do it myself?" she asked.

Jo smiled. "It takes a little practice. Why don't you just let me ask for you?"

Amanda gestured to Beth's feet. "But you just ask the questions and lift her heels up. I can do that."

"But why not let me ask?" Jo asked.

"She wants to ask something private," Jeff said.

Amanda nodded. "Please?"

"All right," Jo said reluctantly, moving away. "But be sure to have your question clearly in mind, or it won't work."

The magnet did work for Amanda. Sometimes Beth's right leg would get longer when Amanda thought her question and raised Beth's feet, and sometimes Beth's legs would stay the same. It was eerie watching Amanda go through the routine silently. Amanda asked many questions.

Or else she asked one question a number of times. I didn't know why I got that impression—that she was hung up on one point. When she was done, she stared off into empty space for a few seconds.

"Are you satisfied?" Jo asked.

"One question," Amanda said. "Is this thing always right?"

"I've found it to be," Jo said carefully.

Amanda looked at her. "But I just asked it if it was always right, and do you know what it said?"

"What?" Jo asked.

"Maybe," Amanda said.

Jo motioned for Amanda to scoot aside and took hold of Beth's feet. "Does the leg-length reflex in Beth's body always respond correctly to our questions?" Jo asked.

Beth's right leg got more than an inch longer.

"Yes," Jo said.

"That's not the answer I got," Amanda said. Because she was so often solemn, it was difficult to tell if the magnet had upset her. But she certainly didn't appear to be bursting with joy.

"You must have done it wrong," Jo said.

Amanda thought a moment. "Maybe."

Jo let Jeff ask his questions next. He questioned her out loud, not worried about what we thought. He let Jo handle Beth's feet.

"Is everything in our lives predestined?" he asked.

Jo frowned down at Beth's shoes. "Her heel budged slightly."

"Is there a yes-or-no answer to my previous question?" Jeff asked.

"No," Jo said.