Season of the Witch (7 page)

I nod: Cool, whatever.

Then, slapping my hand against my book bag, I say, “Look, Oliver, I’m here because I need a favor.”

He starts shifting from foot to foot. “What?”

“Chloe.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think we should talk about—”

Desperate, I say, “I’m not here to bash her. You just need to tell her to back off. Okay? That’s all I want.”

He frowns. “What do you mean ‘back off’?”

I feel a flash of annoyance: he doesn’t even know what Chloe’s been doing—or he doesn’t want to know.

“I get that she’s upset,” I say carefully. “But she’s been … letting me know she’s upset. In kind of nasty ways.”

What I want is shock, anger, an instant
I will deal with this, don’t worry
.

What I get is suspicion.

“How do you mean ‘nasty’?”

“Just … texts and phone calls. I mean, it’s silly, yeah, but …”

He shakes his head. “Why would she do that?”

“I have no idea. But she’s getting other people to do it too.”

“Maybe it’s her friends.…”

“Yes, them too. But also Chloe. They’ve been saying things about me. That are not true.”

He looks away.

“I know you know what people are saying, Oliver.”

“I don’t really …”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. I want to scream, What, Oliver? You don’t really
what
? Don’t know about it? Give me a break.

And then I get it. All this dirt about me has him thinking our nice little whatever was just my latest slutfest.

Planting my fists on my hips, I think, Okay, Oliver. You’re right. It was all me. Our little fling had nothing to do with the fact that you’re not so into your girlfriend but you are so into conflict avoidance you won’t actually dump her. No, it’s just that I’m a man-eating ho. So much easier for everyone if
that’s
the truth. Well, not better for me, but who cares about that?

In the coldest voice I can manage, I say, “Tell her to stop, Oliver. Tell Chloe that you love her and her alone and she can forget about me. Okay?”

He thinks about this for a long time.

“I just think that’d be really tough,” he admits. “I think it’d almost make it worse.”

“It’s not great now.”

“Yeah, but if I stick up for you with Chloe, it’s going to make her suspicious and pissed off.”

He is really not going to do anything, I think numbly.

“But what she’s doing is wrong,” I try. “Because—”

“I don’t think it’s her,” he interrupts. “People … talk. You know?”

Translation: When you slut around, people talk about you. This has nothing to do with Chloe, Toni. Nothing to do with me. It’s all
your
fault.

“Um, hm,” I say. “Okay. People talk. Guess what? I talk too. And here’s what I have to say: You, my friend, are a gutless loser.”

And I walk away.

I feel better for about five minutes.

Then the tears sting my eyes.

I hear people coming up the stairs. Loud chatter, the pounding of feet. Lunch is over. Everyone’s back.

As kids pour into the hall, I turn around, pretend to stare at the school bulletin board. Chorus tryouts. French club. Amnesty International. Bake sale. Already, a bake sale. All these people just going on as if this stuff is really what school’s all about. Happy, happy. Nothing’s wrong! Nobody’s mean! Here, have a brownie!

Who gives a shit, right?

The words are so clear, someone must have spoken. I spin around. But no one’s standing behind me. I search the churning crowd for a familiar face, don’t see one. But someone spoke to me, someone, like—read my mind.

Or something.

The crowd thins out. A few stray kids hang by the lockers, the water fountains. Only one stands by herself. Leaning against the wall in the exact spot I stood when I was waiting for Oliver.

Cassandra.

“HEY,” SHE SAYS AS I approach.

“Hi.”

I can’t help it. I glance at her hands. But the wrists are turned inward. If there are scars, I can’t see them. She’s standing by the window, the afternoon sun lighting her hair.

Now she says, “He totally blew you off, didn’t he?” Her voice is brisk, matter-of-fact.

I look back, wondering if she saw my talk with Oliver. She couldn’t have, I think. Nobody was here, I made sure.…

“I saw Oliver rushing down the stairs. Came here, saw you in tears. Not that hard to figure out.”

For some reason, I laugh. No magic. Just thinking.

“You’re Ella’s friend,” she says.

“Yup.”

“Men suck. You know that, right?”

I smile. “Kinda learning.”

“Not fun.”

“No.”

“Want to go somewhere?”

“Uh … sure.”

Near the Riverside Playground on Eighty-Third Street, there’s a rock pile. I used to climb on it all the time when I was a kid. The slope is vast and smooth. You look down on the playground; the children look tiny. Look down the other side and you see little benches, a gray path, the big stone wall that surrounds the park. When I was little, I would inch my sneakers up the gray stone of the rock, lift my arms, and pretend I was riding the back of a whale.

Now I’m sitting here with Cassandra Wolfe, of all people. My legs are pulled up, my arms locked around them. Cassandra sits cross-legged, her hair lifting off her forehead in the breeze.

She says, “So I hear you had a crazy summer too.”

Eamonn. For a moment, I think, Does my dad and Oliver and everything else add up to … that? Not really. Still, I say, “I guess we could write some pretty dire ‘What I Did on My Summer Vacation’ essays.”

“Whose horror story first?” she asks. “Yours or mine?”

“You already know mine.”

Cassandra tilts her head to one side, recites, “Girl dares to have actual fun. Then she has actual fun with someone who is supposedly ‘someone else’s’—whatever that means. Girlfriend suddenly realizes she wants him back, so back he goes.
They’re
all happy.
Other girl is branded slut by whole school for the sin of not being boring.”

I smile. Cassandra’s odd, theatrical way of talking is like a secret language; it makes me feel like we’re in a club of tough, clever people.

She says, “You don’t do the boyfriend thing, huh?”

“Not successfully.”

She shrugs. “Maybe you don’t want to. Maybe you don’t care. I’ve noticed: you kind of float around. This guy, that guy.” She raises an eyebrow. “I mean, really. What is that? Don’t you know that as a female in high school your sole mission is to permanently attach yourself to a male in order to receive oxygen, sustenance, and social significance?”

“Crap, I knew I was forgetting something.”

“You broke the rules,” she scolds. “What were you thinking?”

“That I wanted to have some fun?”

“Bitch.”

“I know, right?” I sigh. “So that’s my horror story. What’s yours?”

She rolls her eyes. But I notice she pulls her legs up, wraps her arms around them for protection. “I’m sure you’ve heard it.”

I shake my head. Because I’m not one hundred percent sure which horror story we’re talking about, boyfriend or brother.

“Hasn’t Ella told you? It’s one of her favorites.” She looks out at the Hudson River. “So much excitement. So much fun. When it’s not your pain.”

I almost say, Yeah, Ella does talk about you—because she’s worried about you. But Cassandra meets my eye, danger in her expression. This is not the time to defend Ella.

Then she shakes her head, as if annoyed with herself. “Zuh. Long story short: I fell madly, madly in love with a beautiful, dark-eyed lad who proved to be a lily-livered barstid. He dumped me, alas, alack. Having convinced myself that he was my own true love and read
Romeo and Juliet way
too many times, I tried to off myself.”

She holds up her wrists. Now I see the scars, faint tracings on her skin. I imagine them open, bleeding.

“Can you believe that?” she says, dropping her arms. “How lame was I?”

“I don’t think it’s lame,” I say truthfully. “It hurt. What’s so great about pretending it didn’t?”

“True,” she agrees. “But really? My aim was way off. I should have slashed
his
wrists. Or his face. He was such a pretty boy.” She sighs wistfully.

“Why didn’t you?” I joke.

“Blinded by hormones? I don’t know. No”—she gathers herself up—“I was a different person then.”

“How’d you manage that?” I ask.

“Ah, I—”

Then she stops. Wrinkling her nose slightly, she looks toward the river.

“You what?” I prompt.

“That’s a long story.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“No, it’s—” She waves her hands in agitation—the first time I’ve seen her rattled. Almost to herself, she says, “How much craziness can I show you and not have you flee screaming?”

“Tell me.”

She sits for a long moment, staring at my face.

“Not yet,” she says finally.

Then she stands up. “Come on.”

I get up. And follow.

Five blocks later I still have no idea where Cassandra and I are going. To Starbucks? The subway?

Cassandra, what is this?

She’s walking a little ahead of me. I can see her brown hair as it bounces, her battered leather bag, her dark purple sweater.

Suddenly, she turns. “Sorry, I should’ve said. My house is right near. That okay?”

“Yeah,” I say.

She stops. “I mean, if you want to talk about …”

“Yeah, I do.”

She smiles. “Okay.”

And now it hits me: I’m going to a place where a little boy died.

I stop. Cassandra says, “What?”

Uh, I can’t go to your house, your brother just died
.

Okay, how rude would that be?

“Nothing. Something I meant to tell my mom.” I wave my arm forward. “Let’s go.”

Cassandra hesitates, like she knows exactly what I was thinking. Then nods.

We keep walking.

Cassandra lives on Central Park West. There is a doorman in a long coat and hat. He nods to Cassandra. She says, “Hey, Walter.” I raise my hand, and Walter nods to me as if I’ve been coming here my whole life. I guess that’s what people like doormen are for, to make you feel important.

“Nice guy,” I say to Cassandra.

“Walter?” She smiles. “He knows all secrets.”

“O-kay.” I’m starting to figure out how to deal with Cassandra’s mysterious statements: match her joking tone.

The lobby is a long, ornate cavern, like a hallway in some Russian mansion. Low benches covered in dark red velvet. Frosted glass keeping the light out. Tall claw-foot lamps glowing weakly. Mirrors everywhere you look. Mirrors on the wall, on the ceiling. You look up and there’s your head floating in the air.

Laughter. A ripple of it, disappearing as suddenly as it came. I pause, not sure: did I hear that?

“What?” says Cassandra. A little impatient. I guess it’s not the first time I’ve stopped.

“Uh, no.” I shake my head. “I thought I heard something.”

She takes me by the arm, pulls me toward the elevator. “Come on. You need tea.”

In the silent hum of the elevator, I pull the sound from my memory. I did hear it. High, immediate laughter. Bright but thin. The sound comes from a skinny body, a young body …

A little boy’s body.

We come out of the elevator onto the twelfth floor. Cassandra fishes in her pocket, pulls out a ring of keys, and opens the door.

What I’m most scared of? That one of her parents will be home and I’ll have to say something.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “My parents are at work.”

I don’t know what I expected: The whole place draped in black? Organ music and wailing family members? But Cassandra’s apartment is completely ordinary. Short hallway with a coat closet. Dining room table just as you come in. The galley kitchen beyond that. A sunken living room, that’s the big thing you notice. And a lot of books lining the walls.

“Wow,” I say. “Sunken living room. My mom would kill.”

“It’s a pain,” she says. “You always trip. I’ll make tea.”

I’m about to say, Actually, I’m not a big tea person, but then I shut up. I don’t have to drink, I can just sip.

Opposite the dining table there’s a low, dark bureau. On top are family photos. My eye avoids, then finds Cassandra, then Eamonn.

He’s skinny. With a big, cute-ugly clown grin. Curly hair.

“That’s Eamonn.” I jump, turn to see Cassandra behind me. “Well, obviously.”

“He’s cute,” I say, to say something

“You think?” She sits down. “I guess. He’s a little kid. What’s not cute?”

She’s brought out spoons for the tea. She taps one on the place mat. It makes a small, dull thud.

Trying to give her a chance to talk about it, I ask, “Does the place seem empty without him?”

There’s a long pause. Cassandra stares hard at the table. “Honestly? It seems quiet. Did I mention I like quiet?”

The kettle shrieks. Cassandra goes into the kitchen and pours
the boiling water into two cups. “You think that’s sucky of me, right?” she says, bringing in the mugs. “To say I like quiet?”

“No.” I take the mug. “Death seems way too complicated to have only appropriate feelings about.”

“Yeah.” She nods, but her face is closed. She sips her tea. I sip mine. Surprisingly, I like it.