Spiritdell Book 1 (3 page)

I turn to catch Raye-Anne glaring our way. She quickly looks away, sipping her margarita.

Austin walks past me, leaving my photo booth, leaving me. “Find me when things wind down.”

As I watch her walk away, I notice her hair is surprisingly long—almost down to her waist, and neither straight nor curly.
I love her
, says the idiot voice in my head. How ridiculous! I just met her. I guess I'd like to love her. That's more accurate and reasonable. I wish the party were over, but it's barely ten.

Julie puts a glass of margarita in my hand. “Check this out. Salted rim, and spiked with a bit of tequila. Dad let us have a small bottle, and I'm stretching it out. Taste. Not bad whatsoever, huh?”

She's shoving the glass at my mouth, and since the best way to deal with Julie is to do as she commands, I take a sip. It's salty and sweet, bitter and cold. The chilly liquid draws a line down my throat and into my stomach. “Wow.”

Her eyes are big with delight. “I know, right?”

She steps a little closer, and I back away. I say, “You'd better take that pitcher around before it melts.”

She bites her lip, then walks away.

Some guys from the photography club start poking through my equipment and I don't even care if they get fingerprints on the lenses. Austin said I could
walk her home
. Unless I'm overreacting, I may be falling in love. I bet it feels just like this.

* * *

I've taken a hundred more photos, and when James comes over, I confess I've got a new crush.

“You have to go in blind,” James says, fixing me with his gaze. “No magic, no poking in the belly button,” he says. “No poking except the mutual kind.”

“Hey now, it's always mutual.”

“You know what I mean,” he says. “You have to stop looking for flaws, or you'll always find them. Nobody is perfect.”

James grabs the empty chip bowl and disappears up the stairs, presumably to get more.

I check the time on my phone. More people have arrived, the music is louder, and this party may never end. This party might continue, day and night, through the whole summer, and I'll never get to walk Austin home.

Some more girls and a few guys have lined up to get their photos taken. It takes me a moment to remember what I'm supposed to be doing. Usually, when I have a photo booth set up, it's my primary focus, and I don't even stop long enough to eat. Tonight my head's all muddled.

I take a more few photos, then bend over my equipment bag to pack up.

Two little blue shoes appear in my line of sight, coming to a halt with one pointing in to the other one. I look up at Austin, her face framed by wispy hair. “It's almost midnight,” she says.

The zipper finally lets go, and I fall on my butt in a graceless manner. I continue the roll with a somersault, then jump up quickly. “Just practicing my Olympic routine,” I say. “It has more impact with the ribbons.”

She laughs, and I want to wrap myself in her laugh and wear it as a scarf.

“I should leave before midnight,” she says.

“What happens at midnight? Do you turn into a pumpkin?”

“Even better, a werewolf.”

“But it's not a full moon,” I say, which is a total bluff, because how would I know what cycle the moon is in?

“I don't want to tear you away from your photography,” she says.

“Nah, I'm done. Come on,” I say nodding toward the stairs, and without even being asked, Austin picks up two light stands.

“I'm stronger than I look,” she says.

“We don't have to lug these far, I'm just going to chuck them in James' closet. I'll warn you, though, his room smells like hummus.”

“It'll make the night air all the sweeter when we get outside,” she says.

I gesture for Austin to go up ahead of me on the stairs. It's the chivalrous thing to do, plus I can look at her nice legs. I glance back down to say goodbye to the hosts, but all I see is Raye-Anne, with her little mouth scrunched into a thorny ring of hate.

We're out in the cool night air, and Austin's right—it does smell sweet. I point to the moon. “See, I was right. Not a werewolf night after all.”

Back inside, the party is still throbbing with bass notes.

Austin gazes up at the sky, her face soft with moonlight.

“What's that strange noise?” she asks.

I listen. The sound goes, “Arp-arp. Arp-arp.”

“Is that a hurt animal?” she asks. “Should we do something? It's coming from the other side of this fence.”

“He's fine. It's a he, and he's a Rottweiler, but super friendly. He had a growth removed and his bark isn't so scary now.”

“Cancer?” she asks.

“I guess.”

She shivers and looks around while rubbing her arms. I take off my jacket and hand it to her. Our hands nearly touch, but don't. She smiles, letting me know I'm doing well so far.

We walk north for five blocks in silence. Absolute silence. I don't think I've ever known a girl who could walk five blocks in silence.

My arms are all covered in goosebumps, and I can't tell if it's the cold or my nerves. I've read that goosebumps are a defensive trait. All mammals in uncomfortable situations get them, and on the furry ones, it makes them look bigger—like my cat Mibs, when the vacuum cleaner turns on. 

Finally, as we're waiting for the light to change so we can cross one of the busier streets, she says, “You know, I don't live anywhere near here.” She laughs, which makes me want to kiss her so bad.

“Oh no, where do you live?”

“Tonight's such a lovely chance for a walk,” she says. “A night like this shouldn't be wasted.”

“I've got some cash for a cab, though. Oh no. You didn't think I had a car, did you?”

“Where do you live?” she counters. The light changes and she looks both ways before stepping out on the crosswalk. I follow.

“Five blocks east of here,” I say. “I was on autopilot when we left the party. I've known James for years, and I know this route like the back of my hand.”

We're across the street when she abruptly stops in front of me, turns around, and grabs both my hands. “Don't look,” she says.

I close my eyes. “Don't look at what? Are you mugging me?” I joke. “Witnesses saw us leave the party together. You'll never get away with it.”

She squeezes my hands, causing the traffic noise and everything else in the world to fade away. “Quick, think of what the backs of your hands look like,” she says. “Everybody says that expression,
like the back of my hand
, but would you really know? Would you be able to pick your hands out of a police lineup?”

“What would my hands be doing in a police lineup? Have they wandered off and committed some sort of crime?”

“Describe,” she says. “You can open your eyes, but no peeking at your hands.”

We walk along the sidewalk with her holding both my hands across us, promenade-style, as though we're square dancing.

My hands. The backs of them. Think.
I take my time so she won't let go. One of my fingernails is still black from an accidental door slam ages ago. I've got a mole on the right hand, from which a very large, wiry hair grows. She checks and confirms they're my hands and I can have them back. I reluctantly accept them into my pockets just as we reach my house.

I stop and unlatch the front gate, which is attached to a wood trellis, upon which Gran's wisteria grows but refuses to flower. Pink and white roses grow along the front edge of the lawn.

“Looks like a perfect house,” she says. “You just need a picket fence, and it'd be like a scene off a jigsaw puzzle.”

“Do you want to come in?” I ask.

“Do you want me to come in?” she asks.

“Of course I do.”

“You're not just taking pity on me?”

“No, why would I?”

She smells the rose again and looks at me sideways. “The lights are all off. Wouldn't your parents mind if we woke them up?”

“Nobody home but me. Besides, I don't have any parents.” Before she can make the face everyone does when they hear this, I tell her that the circumstances by which I became an orphan happened a long time ago and I'm quite happy living with my grandmother, who is presently on a cruise, enjoying the company of a man who smells like pepperoni and laughs at dirty jokes but doesn't make them.

Austin follows me into the house.

“Your grandmother must be a lovely woman, to have such a nice house and a nice grandson,” she says as I go around turning on lamps.

“Her name is Flora,” I say, and Austin nods knowingly, as though that explains the floral decor, and I guess, in a way, it does. We have roses on the wallpaper, peonies on the curtains, and daisies on the sofa. Flora likes floral.

The wall clock gongs with the single sound it makes on the half hour, and Austin jumps in alarm.

“I'm sorry,” I say. “I don't even hear those gongs. Pretty awful sound, though, really.”

She holds her hand over her heart and laughs. “I nearly jumped up into your arms, like some girl in a black and white movie, when a mouse runs across the floor.”

“We have no mice. Mibs would catch them if we did.”

At the mention of his name, the fluffy mound on the sofa flicks his tail. Austin goes straight to the brown tabby, petting him gently and whispering things I can't hear. Mibs rolls back, revealing his white tummy patch.

“It's a trap, don't touch his tummy,” I say.

“No kidding. Those claws are sharp.” She says something else, in a low voice. Mibs yawns and settles back into a ball, watching her with one eye and looking very much like a dragon on a pile of gold.

“The kitchen's through here,” I say, leading the way. The kitchen.
Of course.
That's the most natural place to go when a beautiful girl—an older
woman
who's not even in high school—is in your home. She follows me in and looks around. I see the kitchen through her eyes: old cupboards hanging crookedly from exhausted hinges, and outdated appliances, all showing years of wear and tear.

“I love it in here,” she says. “So cozy. A perfect kitchen.” With those words, everything brightens a little.

“So, the party was good. James and Julie's parents are pretty cool to let us hang out there.”

“I loved the mood. So chill. Did you try the hummus?”

“No,” I say, so thankful I didn't put the garlic-laced dip in my mouth.

“Good to know. Me neither.”

I offer her orange juice and she accepts, sipping slowly and looking shyly over the top of the cup. Usually I drink juice or milk right out of the carton, especially when Gran isn't around. I actually had a big drink just before I went to the party, and I have this compulsion to confess to her—to divulge that my saliva germs are now likely in her mouth. I do not say any of this.

She blushes and says, “What?”

Then I say, “What?” and we both repeat the word back and forth, on the verge of giggling.

She looks at the photos on the fridge—my school photos dating back to elementary school. “That's quite the cowlick you have.”

I instinctively pat down the top of my head, but she means in the photos. “It's much better now. I think my scalp stretched out when I grew three inches in one year.”

“I had braces.” She displays her teeth, which are not perfectly straight. “I didn't wear my retainer, though, and they went all woogly-boogly.”

“You have pretty teeth,” I say. She wipes at her cheek, and suddenly my cheek itches, so I rub it. Then she rubs her cheek, and the cycle begins again. This goes on for a minute, evolving into what would look like madness to a casual observer, with both of us laughing self-consciously, but neither of us wanting to be the first to stop.

Finally, she grabs both of my hands and leans in. I know this is my cue to kiss her. She may as well have turned on a neon sign over her head—like the Applause sign in studio audiences—but instead of kissing her, I savor the moment and pretend I don't know.

She lets go of my hands and pretends to itch her lower lip. I itch mine.

“Kiss me,” she says.

I reach out to the top of her head and run my hand down her long, pale hair. It flows through my fingers easily, all the way down to her waist, where I rest my hand. I run my other hand down the other side, the exact same way, as though I've done this gesture a million times.

She tilts her head up. If it weren't for my hands on her waist, I'm afraid I might float away. I can't feel my body at all.

Kiss me
, she says with her sparkling eyes, so I do.

I'm sad it's the morning, because I don't want the night to end. Austin hasn't said anything about leaving, and I don't dare ask, but I'm sure she has somewhere to be.

She gets up from my bed, throws open the curtains, then climbs back in next to me. She traces her finger along my stomach and around my belly button. I tense up and push her hand away.

“Ticklish?” she asks.

“Long story.”

“I don't have to work until two,” she says, moving her hand back in before I swat it away.

“It's not so much a long story as it is embarrassing and incredibly hard to believe.” Holding one hand over my belly button, I look away from her beautiful eyes, up at the ceiling. “I mean, do you believe in psychic powers?”

She doesn't answer right away, and I hesitate to look at her. The ceiling has a swirly pattern in the stucco, and some plastic glow-in-the-dark stars from when I was younger. The stars are pale green and cheap-looking in the morning light.

“Try me,” she says.

It's only going to sound crazier the longer I delay, so I let it out. The whole
poking
confession. I have some sort of weird power, and when a girl puts her finger in my belly button, I can see into her future, which doesn't seem so bad, but I always find something unappealing.

“It's not great for dating,” I conclude.

“So you're picky,” she says with a laugh. “You're young, so what. Nobody's getting married at your age anyways.”

“You don't understand. It's, like,
magic
.” I turn to face her reaction.

She laughs into her hand. “Zan, you're not a wizard. You don't have to make up some outlandish excuse. We met and we had a rather unexpected but pleasant evening together.”