To me, now, the houses seem huge and ostentatious, like giant stucco boxes with identically trimmed lawns and squeaky-clean cars parked in front. It’s dusk, so they look even more identical than usual. Of course, there’s our house. Mom painted a huge rock in our front yard with our house number in bizarre colors. You can’t miss it. She had a huge fight with the neighborhood association about it, but she didn’t back down, and, as usual, somehow she got her way.
“This is you, huh?” Mikaela looks at the place appraisingly but doesn’t say anything. I know she must be thinking about what a homogenous McNeighborhood I live in. Maybe she even thinks I’m spoiled. But I’m glad she doesn’t say it.
“Nice rock.”
“Uh, yeah. My mom did that,” I mumble as we carry our haul up the front walk.
“Cool. My mom just knits crap.” Mikaela follows me through the front door. Clinging to my shopping bags like a shield, I introduce her to my parents.
Dad actually manages to act pretty normal, considering he wasn’t too pleased about me putting dibs on the car at the last minute. He asks her how our shopping went, what we bought, and whether she thinks a film professor like him needs to make a dramatic fashion statement. I should have guessed that Mom would fawn all over Mikaela, and she does, exclaiming over her “adorable little braids” and offering her every nonalcoholic beverage under the sun. Mikaela seems to be okay with it. I’m surprised. I’d have expected her to be—I don’t know. Uncomfortable, or disdainful. Instead, she grins at my mom and sits down at the kitchen table like she’s been here a million times.
I drop into a chair next to her, letting Mom’s chatter wash over me. My breathing slows a little and I start to relax. At the same time, I feel something open in my mind, like a sliding door, or like a television turning on, and I realize this is the first time I’ve known beforehand that my underhearing is about to happen.
What I hear almost makes me drop my bottle of orange soda. This time, it’s not my mom. It’s Mikaela.
—this THIS is what we deserve mom I wish we could
have this a house a new life something better
because we should have it and it wasn’t right of
dad to take it away but I guess we have to deal—
but—still—I want this—
for us—
The words—barely coherent—are accompanied by a wave of profound sadness tinged with a whole array of other emotions. Regret, frustration, anger, determination. And, shockingly, nervousness. My own stomach does a slow somersault in response; my forehead breaks out in angry sweat.
It’s dizzying, and I put a hand to my head involuntarily.
Mikaela glances at me. My face gets hot.
I shouldn’t have heard that. It’s not something I should ever know, unless she chooses to tell me. But I do know.
I shift uncomfortably in my chair and force a smile. She smiles back wryly, as if nothing strange happened. As far as she knows, nothing did. As the lingering emotions subside, I steal another glance at her. She isn’t showing any of what she feels on the outside.
Dinner goes quickly. Mom and Dad serve spinach lasagna, salad, and garlic bread, and Mikaela tells them how great everything is and thanks them for having her over, just like my parents are always reminding me to do, so I know they’ll be pleased. They’re all smiles, actually. They don’t even blink when Mikaela asks if she can stay for another hour or two.
After dinner, we go upstairs to my room. She looks app-raisingly at my posters of the Olympic swim team and the sun and moon pillows that I got for my thirteenth birthday, but she doesn’t say anything about them.
“Ready to go brown again?” she asks, shaking the bag with the hair dye in it.
“Yeah, I think I am,” I say. “It’s been a while.” I try to remember the last time my hair was its natural color. Probably freshman year, like Mikaela. “It’s going to feel weird.”
“Are you kidding? Your natural hair color is gorgeous.” She rips open the cardboard container and pulls out the plastic squeeze bottle of dye. “It’s just sad that we have to approximate it with this crap.”
Funny; I never thought my hair was that exciting. And Cassie never really had any suggestions other than to highlight it. I assumed that meant it was hopeless.
It takes us about half an hour to work the dye through my hair. Once it’s finished and goopy with brownish crud, we stuff it into a shower cap and go into my room to wait for the dye to set. I debate whether to turn on some music, and if so, what kind of music Mikaela would want to listen to.
“This is cool,” Mikaela exclaims, picking up an incense burner sitting on my bookshelf. It’s a small brass cone burner in the shape of a genie lamp that my grandparents brought back from Pakistan.
“Yeah, I guess so,” I say. “But the incense kind of makes me sneeze.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. Hey, we should light this candle.” She points at my black-cherry meditation candle. She pulls a plastic cigarette lighter out of her purse and sets the wick alight. “Smells good. Where’d you get this?”
“I found it at the drugstore.” I avoid meeting her eyes. “I, uh, use it when I’m trying to meditate.”
“You meditate?” She sounds genuinely interested. “Is it hard?”
“I don’t think I’m very good at it,” I admit, sitting on the floor next to the bed. Mikaela sits down next to me, leaning back and staring at the ceiling.
“I wish I could meditate,” she says. “I heard you can really reach a different state of mind.”
I let out a sigh. “I don’t think I’m there yet. I just spend the whole time obsessing about lame stuff.”
“It can’t hurt,” she points out. “Trying is better than nothing. More than I’m doing, anyway,” she adds under her breath, like an afterthought.
I’m not sure what to say to this, so I just sit there and let the hair-dye fumes and the cherry-candle smoke have a little war in my nostrils. It’s making me lightheaded.
“Why do you meditate?” she asks suddenly. “If you don’t mind me asking.” She still looks curious.
I hesitate. “I started after my cousin … died. My mom suggested it. I guess it’s helping with the—with being depressed.” I stumble over my words awkwardly, my stomach increasingly queasy. I feel so stupid. “I mean, I’m not that depressed, not like my cousin was—she was on medication and … but it’s been so hard, I … ” I suck in a breath, but I can’t seem to stop babbling. “I haven’t had anyone to really talk to and I’m tired of holding it all in, and tired of these stupid thoughts in my head and of being scared all the time.” I look down at my lap, my breath trembling in and out.
“Whoa, wait—what do you mean, you’re scared all the time?” Mikaela’s voice is gentle and soothing. She’s been so nice to me, and I desperately want to trust her, and I must be loopy from the hair-dye fumes because my mouth opens and I start to tell her. Everything.
“Okay, this is going to sound crazy,” I begin, my voice shaky, “but after my cousin killed herself, I started being able to—” I swallow, repeatedly, and continue. “To hear other people’s thoughts. Not all the time,” I add hastily. “But every once in a while.” I stare at my bare feet, my long toes with dark-red polish peeling off the nails. It sounds so ludicrous. But just having told someone makes me feel so much better, lighter, that I’m not sure I even care if she believes it. And maybe, if I tell her about this, it’ll make up for the fact that I know something about her—something I really shouldn’t know.
She’s staring at me open-mouthed; I can see it out of the corner of my eye.
“No way ! Are you sure?”
“Um, pretty sure. I thought I was going crazy for a while. But … ” I pause for a minute, trying to choose my words carefully. “Some things happened that convinced me it was real.” I pick at the nail polish on my big toe, scraping it off in little flakes that settle on the beige rug.
Mikaela goggles at me, like she’s not sure what to believe. There’s
a long silence where I can hear my uneven breathing and the tiny skritch of my fingernail against my toenail polish. Then, finally, Mikaela takes a sharp breath and seems to come to some kind of decision.
“Are you—I mean—can you really hear what people are thinking?” Her voice is almost a whisper. “Like, could you hear what I’m thinking right now?”
“No, it’s not all the time. Not even that often. I can’t really control it. It just happens.” I explain how it started, during the swim meet; how I heard my mom’s voice at dinner but her mouth wasn’t moving; and all the other times. Except what I heard tonight, from Mikaela herself. I’m not ready to tell her that.
The timer goes off for my hair. We walk to the bathroom in silence. As we rinse the dye out under the bathtub faucet, I tell her about how I’ve been trying to meditate so I can get some kind of control over it. And I tell her how it scares me to death and makes me want to vomit at the same time, and that I never asked for this. That I keep wondering, why me?
I wrap my wet hair in a towel and we leave the bathroom, stopping in the hallway outside my room.
She looks at me gravely. “Have you thought about what it means? Do you think it’s, like, a gift? You could probably really help people.” One corner of her mouth turns up, wickedly. “Or annoy the hell out of them.”
I go into my room, wait until she follows me in, and shut the door.
“Help people?” I say miserably. “How can this help anybody? And it’s not a gift. I didn’t ask for it. I don’t even know how to control it. I don’t even want it! I’m scared,” I say in a hoarse whisper, my nails digging into my palms.
Mikaela doesn’t say anything. I’m still not sure she believes me, but at least she’s sympathetic.
“You’ll figure out what to do,” she says finally, and she gives me a quick, hard hug. “You’ve survived a lot. You can survive this.”
nine
The next morning I stay in bed, in my pajamas, reading, until Mom walks in, opens the curtains, and blinds me with daylight.
“Pretty hair,” she says. She gives me a pointed smile and waves a can of cleanser at me before taking it into the bathroom.
I get the hint and drag myself up to scrub the brown dye splotches out of the tub. The light glooming in through the bathroom window is grayish and the sky is overcast. Only two more weeks until winter break.
I scrub briskly at a dark-brown stain on one of the turquoise shower tiles. Since spilling my guts to Mikaela, I’ve had second thoughts, over and over, wondering if I can expect her to be my friend after what I’ve told her. If it were me, I’d definitely think I was nuts. And she hasn’t even met my extended family.
My family. I sit back on my heels, the sponge in my hand dripping sudsy brownish water into the tub. When I think about the upcoming dinner, I’m filled with a cold queasy dread. What if I hear Uncle Randall’s thoughts again? What if I can’t act normal? I’m not even sure I’ll be able to look him in the eye, let alone allow him to hug me.
If I shrink away when he touches me, I wonder if anyone will notice.
When the time comes to get ready, I flip through hangers in my closet, lingering on the new clothes I bought with Mikaela yesterday. It’s not like anybody at the dinner will care about what I’m wearing. But I pull on my long dark-blue skirt from the vintage store anyway, along with a brown V-neck sweater and sandals.
I’m staring critically at my pores in the mirror on the back of my closet door when my phone rings, a vibrating rattle against my nightstand. I grab for it distractedly.
“Hello?”
“Sun, it’s Mikaela.” She sounds fuzzy and far away, like it’s a bad connection.
“Hey,” I say. “I was just putting on my new skirt.”
“Cool,” she says absently. There’s a long pause. “I just wanted to make sure you were feeling okay after … you know, last night. You seemed kind of upset.”
“No, it was okay.” I swallow nervously. “It felt good to talk to someone.”
“Yeah, but then I was worried I might have said something wrong after you told me about, uh … your power thing. But I wanted to say I had a good time shopping and everything.”
“I had a good time too,” I reassure her. After a pause, I say, “Sorry if I was a bummer. Or if I, you know, freaked you out.”
“Chica, it takes a lot to freak me out.” She laughs, but it sounds a little stiff to me. “But like I told Becca, I like living dangerously.”
“Becca?” I repeat, confused. A suspicion starts gnawing at me. “You didn’t tell her about my underhearing?”
“What? No, of course not. What kind of jerk do you think I am?”
“I don’t. I’m sorry. You guys are friends. I thought maybe—
it sounded like—” I clench one hand around the phone, knot the other into a fist.
“Nah. Believe me, I wouldn’t tell Becca about that,” she says with a cynical chuckle. “I can’t tell Becca anything. You know she can’t keep her mouth shut.”
My hands relax. “Okay.” I pause awkwardly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to jump down your throat. I’m just stressed about this dinner at my aunt and uncle’s house.”
“Oh!” Mikaela says, her tone changing to disgust. “The ones you told me about?”
“Yeah. Uncle Randall and Auntie Mina. My parents are making me go.” I glance out in the hallway to make sure they’re not listening. “I told you about what happened the last time we had dinner with them. God, it makes me nauseated just thinking about it.”
“Well, if you get nauseated enough to puke, make sure you use his bathroom. Or his closet. Ooh, or his shoes.” That brings a small smile to my face.
We say goodbye and hang up. On impulse, I take one of the anime shoelaces we bought yesterday and tie it in a floppy bow around my ponytail. Kind of like a good luck charm. Tonight, I could use a little boost from luck, God, karma, or whatever else regulates the universe.
Uncle Randall ushers Mom, Dad, and me through the tacky white-painted cement columns flanking the front door. Compared to our house, their place is huge, and it feels too quiet. The heels of my sandals click alarmingly loudly on the gray marble tile of the front hallway. My mother fills the silence with some small talk about how nice their yard looks, and Uncle Randall praises their landscaping service. He seems tense and distracted. I manage to avoid his one-armed hug.
As we pass the entryway to the living room, I try not to look at the formal family photo hanging above the fireplace, but my eyes wander over to it anyway. Shiri is thirteen and smirking. Randall Junior is haggard, in his last year of medical school. Auntie Mina is glamorous in a flowing burgundy dress. Uncle Randall stands behind her, smiling proudly, one hand on her shoulder.
I used to think he was dashing, and that they lived in a palace. When I’d spend the night with Shiri when we were kids, I’d pretend I lived here too. I thought she had everything.
It was only recently that I found out I was wrong. Of course she didn’t have everything. And some of the things she had, nobody in their right mind would want.
The oak table in their formal dining room is already set, but we pass it by and go into the den. Or, as Shiri called it, her dad’s man-cave. The décor is all dark wood and forest-green leather with mounted fish on plaques on the wall. Dad eyes the fish but doesn’t make his usual whispered joke to Mom about how they probably came out of an overpriced catalog. Instead, he jams his hands into his pockets and quietly whistles the first few notes from “Under the Sea.” Mom shushes him, but one side of her mouth is twitching. I stare at my feet, terrified that Uncle Randall’s going to notice and figure out the joke. Say something snide, even nasty. But he doesn’t seem to pick up on it.
“Have a seat, guys. Ali, Debby, can I mix you a drink?” Uncle Randall strides to the bar at one end of the room, where Auntie Mina is setting out bowls of nuts. With an unnecessary flourish, he pulls out a shiny metal tumbler and lid, and a matching ice bucket and shot glass. Show-off.
; I try not to think about the fact that as a kid, I used to love watching him do that.
“Sunshine? I could mix you a Shirley Temple.”
I nod. I’m mortified, but I’m not sure whether it’s because Uncle Randall just called me by my full name, which I hate, or because I’ve just been offered a beverage suitable for a five-year-old.
Mom and I sit on two of the chair-backed stools next to the bar, and Dad stands behind Mom. I take a token sip of my cloyingly sweet Shirley Temple, remembering how Shiri and I used to pour them into martini glasses, sipping at them theatrically and pretending we were rich people at a fancy party. We’d spin around on the barstools until we were dizzy, but we only did that when Uncle Randall wasn’t there.
Everywhere in this house is choked with memories.
Suddenly I realize the room has gone silent. When I look up, everyone’s still—staring at their drinks, the floor, everywhere but each other. The tension feels almost tangible, like fog filling the air.
Auntie Mina is crying. She’s holding the scrapbook we gave her, the one I should have helped with more, and tears are flowing down her cheeks and staining her green blouse. I clench my jaw, not wanting to watch but unable to turn away. Mom’s sniffling a little herself, helping Auntie Mina flip through the decorated pages of photos and handwritten memories. Uncle Randall peers over the bar for a closer look. I don’t want to see his reaction, so I get up, walk toward the nearest wall, and pretend to be very interested in a freeze-dried marlin. I try to focus on the fish, staring into its reflective, laminated surface.
I do a little meditation breathing, in and out, deeply and evenly, until for just one moment—a perfect moment—I’m not really there in the room, but simply a body and mind existing in space. Just me.
In that silent moment I hear someone, and it’s Auntie Mina this time.
oh, Shiri, my baby—
With the words comes a burst of incoherent emotion. Anguish, like a scab accidentally ripped open. Pain that makes my heart race in sympathy. And, for some reason that I don’t want to think about, can’t think about—fear.
Underneath Page 9
