by Stacey Kade
“You’re saying you would have gone out with him if you didn’t have a boyfriend?”
I shuddered. “Of course not. He is so not my type.”
“Why, because he sits at the wrong cafeteria table?” Killian sneered.
“No, because he dresses up as a storm trooper on the weekend,” I snapped. “He invited me to some kind of sci-fi convention thing.”
Killian looked startled.
“The point is,” I continued, “it doesn’t matter. He asked me out, knowing I had a boyfriend, and hoping he could count on guilt or pity to force me into going. I said no, that’s it.”
He shook his head. “You are a piece of work.”
Now I was getting angry. What was this, Beat Up on Alona Day? Someone should have told my mother she’d created a new holiday. “Oh yeah, how is your good friend Joey doing now?”
“What do you mean?”
“He goes to St. Viator, right? In town?”
Killian shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t know.”
“I do.” I sounded smug, and I didn’t care. “I saw him at a basketball game a few months ago when we played their team. His skin was clear, and he had his arms around a cute little nerdette, very early Jennifer Garner, as a matter of fact.”
“You take credit for that, I see.”
“Of course not. I was just honest with him and said no. The world is cruel, Killian, and you should know that better than anyone. People don’t get jobs if they show up looking sloppy. Having physical flaws doesn’t mean you should rely on pity for dates. Just because your life doesn’t automatically work out the way you want it doesn’t mean you get to give up and expect the rest of the world to work around you. You have to play within the system to win.”
“Says the girl with the perfect face, the perfect body, the perfect life …” he intoned.
I should have been pleased that he’d bought into my image; I’d spent years cultivating it and countless, exhausting hours refining and tweaking it, buying just the right clothes, planning just the right thing to say, making it look effortless. But instead, I felt this wave of fury building in my chest. He was going to judge me? Like all this so-called perfection just fell in my lap and I should have been more grateful or something?
“Let’s go,” I snapped. “Drive.” It was still early. My mother would probably still be passed out. The empty vodka bottles I’d painstakingly arranged yesterday into the word STOP on the floor would still be in place. Let him get a good whiff of my perfect life.
He gave me a confused look. “Drive where? We’re already here. And”—he checked his cell phone with a grimace—“ten minutes late. Brewster’s going to kill me.”
I reached over and yanked the gearshift down one notch into reverse, and metal on metal shrieked.
Alarmed, he jammed his foot onto the brake. “Alona! The transmission is not—”
“You want perfect?” I said in flat voice I barely recognized as my own. “I’ll show you perfect.”
I’d never seen this side of Alona Dare, and to be honest, it was kind of freaking me out. She’d been silent—other than giving me directions on where to turn—and still, except for her foot jouncing against the floorboards, since we’d left the school parking lot. I’d never realized how much of her was movement, energy, and life—even after death—until seeing her this way.
I turned into a cul-de-sac lined with sprawling brick houses and huge yards. Ben Rogers lived somewhere over here. We weren’t far from where Lily had … had her accident. This was definitely not my side of town.
“Now what?” I asked. I let the car roll forward slowly, hoping it looked like we were lost and checking addresses.
Probably wouldn’t take much for people in this neighborhood to call the cops. One shabby-looking car doing an extended drive-by might be enough.
Alona’s foot increased its frantic rhythm and then stopped suddenly. “Nothing,” she said after a long moment. “Never mind.” But her gaze was fixed on one house in particular. It looked pretty much like all the others. Except all the curtains were pulled tight, a piece of weathered-looking plywood covered one of the upstairs windows, the bushes by the front door and under the huge picture windows were scraggly and overgrown, and the trash cans were tipped over at the foot of the driveway, spilling out little black microwave meal trays and lots of glass bottles. Looking closer, I could see two deep parallel lines, tread marks, in the front lawn, like someone had badly miscalculated the driveway’s location.
“This was a bad idea,” she said shortly. “Let’s just go back to school.”
I hit the brakes and stared at her. “You dragged me all the way over here, which is going to make me really late and only piss off Brewster even more, just to look at some random house—”
“Not some random house,” she snapped. “My house. Home sweet home.”
I froze. Her house? I’d had no clue where she was leading me when we’d started our little road trip, but this was the last thing I would have expected. The base of a broken vodka bottle rolled back and forth in the gutter, capturing my attention like a pocket watch in an old-fashioned hypnotist’s routine.
She couldn’t have lived here. I mean, yeah, I could picture it. Nice neighborhood, a clearly expensive house, but something was obviously wrong on the inside. This did not match the Alona Dare I knew. And that, I realized, had been her point.
“Nice, right?” she asked with no small amount of bitterness. “We’re aiming for the whole white-trash-meets-skid-row look. I mean, it could use some sprucing up. Clearly, we’re missing an opportunity with the car in the garage instead of on blocks in the yard.”
As if she’d commanded it, the dented-up garage door on the house rose. Alona stiffened.
A barefoot blond woman in a barely tied, pink silky robe stumbled out, one hand raised against the light, the other dragging a plastic garbage bag, its contents clanking. The resemblance between the woman and the girl sitting next to me was unmistakable. But it was like looking at old Elvis and young Elvis. You could still see the framework of the beautiful woman she’d once been, beneath the puffiness of extra weight, the rays of wrinkles around her eyes, and the general air of being beaten down by life.
“What are you staring at?” the woman shouted at us. Rather, at me, as I was the only one she could see.
She tottered down the driveway toward us, faster now. The bag dragged behind her, seemingly forgotten in her hand. The broken glass from the trash can gleamed brightly on the ground at the foot of the drive, but it didn’t look like it was going to stop her. “Stop staring at me!”
“Um, Alona—”
“Just shut up and get us out of here,” she said, her voice tight.
I pulled the steering wheel hard to the left, and the Dodge’s tires protested a bit at the sudden change in course. “Do you want to talk about—”
“No.”
“You want to go back?” I asked.
“No.”
I hesitated. “You know, if there’s something holding you here, it might be—”
“I said no!”
I held my hands up. “Okay, okay. Back to school, then.” I turned out onto the main street in her former subdivision.
She forced a laugh. “Now you can go back and tell all your little friends about how fucked up Alona Dare really is … was. I’m sure it’ll be the thrill of their pathetic lives.” She turned away from me, flipping her hair over her shoulder, but not before I caught a glimpse of her eyes, shinier than normal.
I cleared my throat. “Unfortunately, everyone I know, myself included, has a pretty fucked-up life, so I doubt they’d be interested.”
“You can say that again,” she said, but her tone lacked its usual venom. She stayed quiet the rest of the way back to school.
* * *
By the time we reached the parking lot again, I was forty-five minutes late for first hour. In other words, right on time for the start of second hour. Brewster might already be outside looking for peo
ple skipping. I was running out of time.
I pulled into my same parking space in the last row. “You doing okay?” I asked Alona.
She turned suddenly, her eyes narrowed. “Why are you being nice to me?” she asked. “Do you feel sorry for me?” Her voice held a dangerous note.
Like that would be such a horrible thing? But even I knew better than to say that out loud.
“Just because you know … stuff about me now, that doesn’t make us friends,” she added.
“I never thought it would,” I said, trying not to grit my teeth. How did she do it? Make me want to comfort her one minute and dump her out of the car in the next.
She eyed me carefully. “Then what do you want?”
This is it, Killian. Make it count. “Look, we … I only have a few weeks of school left. With Miller out of the way, I might have a shot at finishing. I just need to graduate and get out of here.”
She frowned. “And go where?”
“Some place less crowded. Fewer people means fewer gho … spirits.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“You got the other gho … spirits to back off yesterday, to leave me alone.”
“Until that thing … showed up.” She shuddered. Then she glanced at me. “Sorry.”
I lifted a shoulder. “Like I said, everybody’s got their problems.”
“So …” She cocked her head to one side. “You want me to be, like, your bodyguard.”
I grimaced. “A humiliating but accurate description.”
“Uh-huh. What do I get in return?”
“I teach you everything I know about this place and how it works.”
“You can make the light come for me?”
“No, I told you, it doesn’t work like that. That’s all you and your … issues,” I said, avoiding her gaze. “But I think I can teach you how to stop disappearing before—”
“I’m gone for good?” she asked. “No bright light, no nonvirgin mojitos, no shoe stores,” she murmured softly.
“What?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.” She shoved her hair back, tucking it behind her ears, and turned toward me in her seat. “Let’s say I believe you. How does it work?”
And here it was, the worst part. Who said God did not have a sense of humor? “You have to be nice.”
She made a face. “Right.”
“I’m serious.” Distantly, I heard the bell ring, signaling the end of first hour. I couldn’t wait any longer, not without jeopardizing what my mother had done to get me back into school. I got out of the car, my keys and cell phone in hand, and started across the parking lot for school, hoping Alona would follow.
She scrambled out of the car after me. “Be nice?” she hissed. “You said this had nothing to do with heaven or hell or sin or—”
“No, I said I don’t explain it in those terms. Too many pitfalls, too many shades of gray when you look at all the religions.”
“But,‘Be nice’?” She threw her hands up in the air. “That’s totally the whole ‘Do unto others’ thing.”
“Yeah, but it’s also a basic scientific principle,” I pointed out. “Ask any of the science club kids, they’ll tell you. While you’re here, you’re primarily a form of energy. Being positive allows more energy to flow through you, helping you stay here. Negative energy, like when you say all those clever and nasty things about people, drains you, eating away at your ability to be here. In simple terms, it’s like a battery. Being nice helps you recharge.”
She stopped abruptly.
Looking back over my shoulder, I found her standing there, her arms folded across her chest. “I’m a battery?”
“I said, in simple terms … but, yeah.”
Defiance flashed in her eyes. “I’m not going to say I love it when it rains, that ugly people are beautiful, or that I like your T-shirt.”
“What’s wrong with my shirt?” I demanded.
She ignored me. “I just won’t. I’ve spent too many years lying already.” Her expression held a darkness I’d never seen before … until today.
I recalled the way she’d frozen when her mother had appeared outside and felt my anger soften. “Look, you don’t have to lie. In fact, you can’t. It has to be genuine, remember?”
She jerked her head in a nod.
“Now, you said something not nice about my shirt. So say something nice instead.”
She arched her eyebrow. “About that shirt? Impossible.”
I sighed. “Fine. It’s your fate. If you want to spend the rest of your time—”
“You have nice teeth,” she blurted out.
I stared at her.
She lifted a shoulder. “What, I have a thing for white, even teeth, okay? It’s not a big deal,” she said, shifting her arms across her chest.
“Nice teeth,” I repeated slowly.
“I would have said you had a nice smile, if I’d ever seen it to know,” she snapped, and I couldn’t help it, I started to laugh.
“It’s not that funny,” she muttered when I doubled over, my sides aching. She was right. It wasn’t that funny, but it was that last bit of ridiculousness that broke through the tension I’d been carrying around inside of me since yesterday.
“Straight and white teeth are a sign of good health,” she persisted. “They can be a very attractive feature.” Her mouth started to curve into a reluctant smile.
“Ask you to say something nice,” I gasped, “and you picked the smallest, most insignificant—”
“It’s not insignificant to me.” She strode forward and gave me a gentle push on the shoulder, but she was smiling at least. “Dental hygiene is very important. Who wants to kiss a mouth full of yucky yellow teeth?” She shuddered.
It took a second for her words to sink in. “Who said anything about kissing?” I tried to sound casual while my heart thundered in my chest. Like I said, every guy has his fantasy, and for better or worse, since the sixth grade, mine had always centered on Alona Dare.
She rolled her eyes. “Please. I meant it metaphorically. Besides, how are you going to kiss me?”
Stung, I stiffened my shoulders. “I’ve never had any complaints. I’m a good—”
She kept talking like I hadn’t said anything at all. “You’d look like a loon. Your head all tilted, tongue sticking out.” She threw her hands up in the air, like she was holding on to someone’s neck, closed her eyes, tilted her head dramatically, and waggled her tongue around outside her mouth.
I snorted. She looked ridiculous, and she had a point.
She stopped and opened her eyes. “So you do have a sense of humor. Never would have guessed that.” Her gaze shifted to something behind me. She cocked her head sideways. “You’re going to need it, too. Trouble at ten o’clock.”
I turned to my left about a quarter turn and saw nothing but the football field.
“No,” she said impatiently. “Ten. Ten o’clock.” She pulled my shoulders and yanked me around to the right.
“That’s two o’clock.”
“For you, yeah! I meant ten o’clock … whatever. Just look.” She raked her hand through her hair impatiently.
“Time passes clockwise here in this universe....” I trailed off, seeing Principal Brewster approaching, his shiny shoes crunching in the gravel and raising clouds of dust. “Oh, crap.”
“Now, just listen to me,” Alona said.
“I’m not going to suck up to him,” I snapped.
She put her hands on her hips. “Who said anything about sucking up? I’m protecting my own interests here. So just listen.” She took a deep breath. “He wants you to say something stupid. Just like the cops want to catch you speeding.”
“Hey, I have an uncle who’s a cop,” I protested.
“It doesn’t matter. You know what I mean. They have quotas they have to meet. Brewster has a reputation to maintain as a hard-ass. If you give him the opportunity, he’ll use you to do it. So just”—she shrugged—“don’t give in.”
“That’s your advice?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“No,” she smirked. “This is. Be nice.”
I stared at her. “What?”
“Be nice.”
“Oh, no.”
“What? It works for me but not for you?” she demanded.
“It’s not the same, at all.”
“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “You don’t have a lot of choices here. Just try it.” She folded her arms over her chest and stepped back as Brewster approached.
“Good morning, Principal Brewster,” I said through gritted teeth.
He stopped short, his dress shoes sliding in the gravel, and stared at me. Probably because it was the first time I’d ever voluntarily spoken to him. “Mr. Killian. What are you doing out here?”
“No sarcasm,” she whispered urgently in my ear, “and say ‘sir.’ He totally gets off on that.”
I turned away from Brewster and faked a loud cough to cover my words to Alona. “Why would I want to do that?”
“Because he’d get even more pleasure from kicking you out,” she pointed out.
I took a deep breath and turned back to face him. “Sorry, sir. I overslept, and then I had to finish a phone call.” I gave him my best sunny smile and held up my cell phone.
“Not a bad start,” Alona said. “Now don’t blow it.”
A flicker of uncertainty crossed Brewster’s face. He couldn’t tell whether I was being serious or not. “No loitering. Classes started forty-five minutes ago. You’re either in or you’re out.”
“I do apologize for my tardiness,” I said, with a little more edge than I intended. I couldn’t help it, the guy just set me off.
“Careful,” Alona murmured near my ear. She was so close I could feel her T-shirt brushing my arm. Not an unpleasant experience.
I pulled a folded-up square of paper from my pocket. “Here’s a note from my mom, excusing my absence yesterday.”
Brewster snapped the paper from my hand, his brows furrowing. “Surprise, surprise. A mama’s note for a mama’s boy.”
I stepped toward him, my hands clenching into fists.
“Uh-uh,” Alona said, placing one cool hand on my upper arm. “See what he’s doing? He’s pushing a button he knows you’ll react to. Look at his eyes.”
