“Or your dad could be calling you ‘Wuss,’” Wes says. “And signing you up for Girl Scouts. Did I mention he had a troop leader call my house to ask if I wanted to sell cookies?”
“Bottom line,” Kimmie says, “you need to talk to Ben again. You need to tell him about the voices you’ve been hearing.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m done with Ben. I’m going to give him his space.”
“Don’t you think he’d want to know if something funky was going on with you?”
I shrug, not quite sure of the answer.
“Did you happen to notice graffiti on any of the other houses in your neighborhood?” Wes asks. “People usually tag in sprees.”
“Oh, do they now?” Kimmie raises an eyebrow. “Are we suddenly an authority on defamation?”
“I’m an authority on a lot of things.” He licks his spoon clean.
“I need to do more research on psychometry,” I say.
“Exactly.” Wes nods. “You need to learn all you can so you can start putting this touch talent to good use.”
“Which does not include trying to score you a date with someone who doesn’t charge an hourly fee,” Kimmie says to him.
“Ha-ha.” He fakes a laugh.
“You realize that at this point, you have to tell your parents,” Kimmie says. “I mean, it’s not like they’re not going to find out on their own anyway.”
“I almost told them this morning.”
“But?” she asks.
“But it’s complicated,” I say, thinking about Aunt Alexia.
“Well, I, for one, am not going to have this hanging over my head,” she says. “Either you tell them, or I will. How’s that for uncomplicated?”
“I’m all out of money,” Nate says, returning to the table.
“And I’m all out of ice cream.” Wes pillages from my peanut butter barrel. “What do you say we swing by your place to put an end to the whole paint versus marker mystery?”
“I’m game,” Kimmie says. “God knows, checking out deathly stalker messages is a whole lot more fun than being at home.”
34
Wes parks down the street from my house, saying that he doesn’t want any parental interference while he investigates the bulkhead. Before getting out of the car, he opens up his glove compartment and pulls forth a magnifying glass, a pair of rubber gloves, and a bottle of nail polish remover.
“Should I be concerned?” Kimmie asks him.
“Just basic staples,” he says with an evil grin, “if you want to do things right.”
“I do,” I assure him.
“Then let’s get to work.” He pulls the rubber gloves on with a snap.
I lead them down the street, toward my house. Both my parents’ cars are parked in the driveway, so I know they’re still home. We sneak around the side, by the garage, and scurry through the gate that leads us to the back.
“I’m scared,” Nate whispers to Kimmie, trying to keep up.
“Relax,” she tells him. “It’s broad daylight, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Which is why we’re not wearing black,” Wes explains. “Best to skulk in street clothes during the day.”
“Like you could ever blend in in a get-up like that.” She gestures to his bright yellow parka and army-green snow boots.
Once in the backyard, I peer up toward the kitchen window—it looks right out over the back patio—wondering where my parents are.
“Over here,” Kimmie shouts, moving toward the bulkhead doors.
“Shh . . .” Wes scolds her. “You want a party out here?”
Still, I hang back for a bit, feeling my adrenaline peak, not quite ready to see the message again.
“Holy shit!” Wes shouts, standing with Kimmie right in front of the bulkhead now. “You seriously have to check this out.” He scoots down to examine the metal doors with his magnifying glass. “It’s even worse than you said. I mean, this isn’t just scary—”
“It’s scarce,” Kimmie says.
Wes goes in for a closer look, his magnifying glass practically welded to his eye.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, sensing their sarcasm.
But instead of answering, Wes unscrews the cap off his bottle of nail polish remover, spills some out onto a rag, and then wipes the door’s surface. “Just as I expected,” he says, showing Kimmie the result on the rag.
Kimmie shakes her head. “Okay, so now I really am worried.”
“Well, she does claim to hear voices.” He snickers.
She folds her arms, tapping the toe of her wedge-heeled boot against the frozen ground. “Diagnosis?”
“Schizophrenic,” he says. “With a tendency toward hallucinations.”
“What are you guys talking about?” I finally join them at the bulkhead to look.
The message is gone. Vanished. As if it was never there.
“Wait, what’s going on?” I ask, as if they have the answers. As if they’re the ones responsible.
“Nothing’s going on,” Wes says. “That’s the problem.” He flashes me the empty rag. “Not even a speck of residual color.”
“It was here,” I insist, grabbing at the sudden ache in my head. “You have to believe me.”
“We do believe you,” Kimmie says, resting a hand on my shoulder.
“But you’re obviously really stressed,” Wes continues.
“This has nothing to do with me being stressed. That message was there. It said ‘You’re Dead.’”
“What’s up with a message like that, anyway?” Wes asks. “I mean, you’re not dead. You’re clearly alive.”
“She could be a ghost.” Nate laughs.
Wes tilts his head in thought, as if considering the idea.
“Make fun if you want, but I have proof.” I show them my thumb, still red from the smear of writing.
“Um . . . okay,” Wes says, giving Kimmie a look like I’m full-on crazy.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Only that you work in a ceramics studio,” he says.
“Where they have lots of paint,” Kimmie continues, “and where you’re bound to get said paint on your fingers.”
“You don’t understand,” I explain. “I wet my finger in the snow. That’s how I rubbed some of the writing off the bulkhead.”
“Definitely not a Sharpie, then,” Wes says. “That stuff doesn’t wash off so easily.” He douses his rag with more of the nail polish remover and wipes the entire bulkhead area. “Nothing,” he says, showing us the clean rag. “I don’t see anything under the magnifying lens either.”
“Maybe your dad washed it,” Kimmie says. “Maybe I washed what?” Dad peeps over the fence, then unlocks the gate and grabs a couple logs of firewood.
I open my mouth, trying to think of a clever way to ask him, but then I just say it: “Were you out here earlier?”
“That depends . . . earlier as in ten minutes ago?”
“More like an hour?”
“Then, no,” he says, moving closer to study my face. “Why, is there something wrong?” He looks toward the bulkhead, curious as to why we’re all standing around it.
“I was just wondering if you saw us come back here.” “I didn’t even know you were home.” He smiles. “I thought you went for a walk. You kids want a snack? I’ve got a secret stash of Cheetos inside.”
“No thanks,” Wes says. “I should probably get going. My dad wants me to see some wrestling thing on TV with him later. Apparently watching sweaty fat men pulverize each other is what normal guys do.”
“Well, if you’re going, then we’re getting a ride,” Kimmie says, motioning for Nate to join them. “Camelia, call me later, okay?”
I nod and watch them leave.
“Are you coming inside?” Dad asks, once we’re alone.
“In a couple minutes,” I say, giving him some sorry excuse about how I’m feeling slightly sun deprived and would like to stay out for a little bit longer.
He glances once mor
e at the bulkhead, clearly not buying my BS, but luckily he doesn’t probe any deeper.
I wait until he goes back inside before continuing to check out the bulkhead. I scour the doors from different angles, still able to picture the message in my mind’s eye. But, like Wes, I honestly can’t find even a single speck of evidence that the writing was ever here.
35
April 9, 1984
Dear Diary,
It’s getting harder and harder atschool. Today Morgan McCarthy and her group of lemmings were talking about me in art class. They kept staring at me and then laughing really loud when I looked. Toward the end of class, Jamie Freeman, Morgan’s on-again-off-again boyfriend, walked by and tried to sneak a peek at what I was painting.
But my canvas was blank. After what happened to my mother with her fall and stitches, I’m almost too afraid to do anything artistic. I feel like there’s something very wrong with me. Everyone knows it, too. Nobody in school talks tome. I eat alone. I do labs by myself. I sitin the corner of almost every class.
The teachers don’t know what to do with me. The guidance counselor doesn’t either. She brought me in to her office to talk, but it was almost as if she was afraid of me too. She could barely even look at me, kept fidgeting with the crucifix around her neck, like maybe in some way I was evil and she was trying to ward me off.
I asked her if I could get out of art class, saying how the kids were giving me trouble. Instead of trying to resolve the problem, as I assumed she would have, she barely even blinked an eye before switching me into study hall for the remainder of the year.
It’s like everyone around here jumps through hoops for me. I can part the sea of people just by walking down the hallway. But if I’m supposedly so important, how come nobody ever asks me how I’m feeling?
Love,
Alexia
36
In my room, I grab a notebook and sit at the computer, determined to find some answers. I type the word “psychometry” into at least five different search engines, but they all end up bringing me to sites I’ve already seen. And so I refine my search, pairing the word “psychometry” with the words “hearing voices” in an effort to find some connection.
I end up coming across a blog entitled “Psychometrically Suzy.” In it, the woman, Suzy, writes about how one day a few months ago, when she was cleaning out her hallway closet, she came across her father’s old hat. She says that when she ran her fingers along the brim, she was able to hear her father’s voice, even though he’d been dead for over fourteen years.
At first she thought the voice was coming from somewhere inside her house. She also wondered if maybe it was a neighbor or a passerby outside her window, and the similarity of the voice was just a mere coincidence. But somewhere deep inside her, she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was her dad. That it was his voice, with its familiar raspy quality and the endearing way he’d called her by her full name, Suzanne, rather than Suzy, like everyone else.
Apparently, the voice kept calling out to her, leading her into the living room. It wasn’t long before she realized that the voice was coming from inside her head, because aside from herself, the house was empty. And no one was outside.
As soon as she reached the living room mantel, and a photo sitting on top of it, the voice finally stopped. The photo was a snapshot of her with her dad. “It was as if he wanted me to see us together again,” Suzy wrote. “And in that moment, though he had long since passed away, we were together again.”
Suzy goes on to write about other instances involving touch—episodes where she’d get a picture in her head or a vague feeling of doom—but nothing as strong as actually hearing a voice like that day with her dad.
I sink back in my seat, wondering if maybe that’s why I’ve had only two instances of hearing voices but yet several episodes where I’ve sculpted bits from my future. Maybe hearing voices only occurs when something really important is happening, like with the message on the bulkhead.
Part of me is tempted to google the word “psychometry,” along with the words “seeing things” or “having visions.” But I know I didn’t just imagine that message. I know it was there. I touched the letters. I felt the cold, hard chill of the bulkhead doors as droplets of icy water dripped over the words. I stare down at my thumb, confident that, aside from some clay residue, my fingers were clean before I touched the writing. I haven’t used glaze in well over a week, and even then it was an oatmeal color. There’s no other way around it: someone must have erased the message.
I write the words “Be careful” at the top of my notebook page, wondering what the voice in my head was warning me about, and why it was followed by laughter.
A second later, the phone rings, startling me. “Hello?” I answer.
“Hey,” Ben says. “I hope I’m not bothering you. Is it okay that I’m calling?”
“No,” I say, completely flustered. The tip of my pencil snaps under pressure. “I mean, yes. It’s okay.”
“I just thought I’d check in.”
“Is there something wrong?”
“No.”
“Then why are you calling?” I ask, realizing how abrasive that sounds, but also knowing that it needs to be said. How else am I supposed to get over him?
“It’s just that when I was cleaning my room today, I came across something of yours . . . your sweatshirt. The blue one, from the other night.
“The other night?”
“Yeah,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “When I came to your room . . . . I think I must have thought it was mine. I dashed out of there pretty quick. I didn’t want you to get in trouble.”
“Right,” I say, trying to breathe through the pummeling sensation inside my chest.
“I could bring it by,” he says.
I’m tempted to say yes, but instead I tell him to leave it on one of the coat hooks in my homeroom. “I’ll find it there, no problem.”
“Okay,” he says. “That’s probably the easiest.”
But it actually couldn’t be harder.
“Are you okay?” he asks, noticing maybe how distant I sound.
“Yeah,” I lie, keeping a firm grip on the phone as if it can bring me stability.
“It’s just so weird, isn’t it?” he says. “Seeing each other in school, but not really talking?”
I nod even though he can’t see me, wanting so badly to open up, to invite him in by saying something really great, but instead I remain silent.
“So, how are things going?” he ventures, still looking to talk.
I gaze at the computer. Suzy’s blog is still up on the screen. “I had one of those weird sculpture episodes again.”
“You sculpted something and then saw it later?”
“Not exactly,” I say, hesitant to tell him about the voice.
“Then what?”
“Maybe I should go.”
“Wait, Camelia, no. Does this have anything to do with that guy you’re seeing? Adam’s his name, right?”
“Why would it have something to do with him?”
“Just curious,” he says. “So then, it’s true. You are seeing him?”
“I have to go,” I say, frustrated by his lame attempt to get information when he no longer has the right to ask.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he says. “Just try not to overanalyze things. With your sculpture episodes, I mean. Sometimes it’s best to just go with the flow. To see where impulse takes you.”
“Is that the real reason you called?” I ask, wondering if he’s going with his impulses too.
“I’ll leave your sweatshirt in your homeroom,” he says, ignoring the question.
We hang up shortly after, and my heart keeps pounding. A few moments later, the phone rings again. This time it’s Kimmie.
“How are you doing?” she asks.
“You don’t seriously think I’m schizo, do you?”
“Honestly?” She pauses for drama. “No. Did you talk to your dad?”
&n
bsp; “Negative.”
“Okay, you really are nuts. Why do you think I left in such a rush? I thought maybe you could talk to him then.”
“I’m just afraid if I tell my parents that I’m hearing voices and seeing things, they’ll start comparing me to Aunt Alexia.”
“Calling you suicidal?”
“More like mentally unstable, which can lead to suicide attempts as evidenced by my aunt. My parents will have me brain scanned and evaluated by a shrink before you can say straitjacket.”
“You can’t honestly tell me that’s why you’re not saying anything to them.”
“My mom’s going through a tough time again,” I explain. “Plus, I trust what Ben said. He didn’t sense any danger when he touched me.”
“Or so he says.”
“He wouldn’t lie about something that important. He called me, by the way.”
“You’re certainly one for withholding information. Dish, please.”
“There actually isn’t too much dish. He accidentally took my sweatshirt from my bedroom the other night.”
“Wait, are you kidding me? Touch Boy doesn’t just take anything by accident.”
“How do you know?”
“He doesn’t like to touch things, remember? I mean, Holy HOLY! Do you honestly realize how romantic that is? He took your sweatshirt . . . something you had on your body. It carried your vibe. And he kept it without saying anything for, like, one whole week.”
“Maybe you’re reading too much into it.”
“And maybe you should get your head checked. That boy is scorching for you big time.”
“Well, I don’t know if I’d go that far.”
“So, what do you think he was doing with your sweatshirt all this time?” she asks; I can hear the wicked grin on her face. “Trying to get information about Adam, perhaps? Or just sleeping with it under his pillow, picturing you lying next to him?”
“Be serious.”
“And now he’s willing to give it back,” she continues, “because, let’s face it; he’s probably pawed the thing so much that all your vibe has worn off. Not to mention that returning it gives him the perfect opportunity to see you again.”