Confessions of a Teenage Psychic

by Pamela Woods-Jackson

  I’m gawking as I stumble out of the car, dragging my old backpack. I follow Annabeth in the back door to the kitchen which is bigger than our entire apartment. The house must have over 10,000 square feet, and every inch is decorated luxuriously.

  “How many people live here?” I ask, trying to keep my jaw from dropping.

  “Just the three of us right now. My brother’s away at college back East.”

  A house this huge for four people. It boggles my mind. “Wow,” is all I can think to say.

  “Come on, let’s put your stuff in my room.” Annabeth leads me down a hallway, through a dining room that could seat a dozen or more, past a couple of living rooms, and finally to a winding staircase that goes up to the bedrooms. At the top of the stairs there’s another well-appointed hallway with thick plush carpeting and so many closed doors I lose count. Annabeth finally opens one of the doors and as I look into her bedroom, I nearly burst out laughing.

  “Did the maid forget to clean in here?”

  She has a canopy bed with a black-and-white toile top, a painted-white antiqued dresser and armoire, a matching desk with a laptop computer on it, and a cushioned window seat under a large picture window. But every square inch of the room is covered with clothes, shoes, tennis equipment, schoolbooks, papers, crumpled bath towels, makeup, hair styling equipment, and stuffed animals. Suddenly I don’t feel so out of place.

  Annabeth shrugs. “I don’t let her in my room. She just messes up my stuff trying to straighten up and then I can never find anything.”

  We both giggle and I toss my backpack on the cluttered bed.

  “I’ve got a surprise for you,” Annabeth says, waggling her eyebrows at me.

  “I thought the car was the surprise.”

  “You weren’t surprised by the car,” Annabeth reminds me.

  “Sure I was.” I widen my eyes, trying to look convincing, but Annabeth isn’t buying it.

  “Anyway, your mom says you can’t predict stuff in your own life, so this is going to be so cool!”

  Mom is in on this mysterious surprise? I wrack my brain trying to figure out what the two of them have cooked up, but I can’t do it.

  I blow out a breath. “Okay, I guess you got me this time. So when do I find out?”

  Annabeth does that thing where she pretends to lock her lips and throw away the key.

  “Come on, I’m starved,” is all she says, pushing me toward the door.

  We go downstairs to the kitchen and she rummages through the food pantry and refrigerator pulling out soda, potato chips, chocolate chip cookies, and pretzels.

  “Annabeth, that’s too much junk food,” says an attractive woman in her forties who is wearing a black, floor-length sheath with ropes of pearls around her neck. “The maid prepared some veggies and dip and put them in the refrigerator. I’d prefer you eat that.”

  “But Mom,” Annabeth says, waving her hand toward the loaded countertop. “What’s the fun of a sleepover without junk food?”

  “Eat the healthy stuff first,” her mother admonishes with a twinkling smile in my direction. “You can have some frozen yogurt later.”

  Annabeth groans, but pulls out the prepared veggie platter from the fridge and exchanges the sodas for bottled water.

  “Caryn, this is my mom,” she says, sliding the tray onto the counter. “I guess you never really met at church last Christmas.”

  I smile and try not to stare too obviously at the pearls around her neck. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Walton. Thanks for having me.”

  “You’re more than welcome, Caryn,” she says smiling again.

  I instantly like Mrs. Walton as much as I instantly liked Annabeth.

  “Your dad and I have that charity auction at the country club tonight, remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “My dad volunteers for the Humane Society too,” I say, reaching for a carrot stick and forgetting yet again to let people tell me stuff instead of blurting it out.

  Annabeth covers her mouth and stifles a giggle when she sees the look of surprise on her mother’s face.

  “Well, yes. Did Annabeth already mention that?”

  Annabeth just winks at me. “Have fun, Mom. We’re gonna take our food and go watch TV in Dad’s study.”

  Annabeth grabs the veggie tray, hands me the bottled waters, and leads me down another hallway. We go past what appears to be a game room with a bar, a black leather sofa to one side, and a pool table right smack in the middle of the room. I crane my neck to see more.

  “Come on, Caryn, no gawking. We’re on a schedule here,” Annabeth says, hustling me down the hallway.

  “Why?” I ask, but her sly smile is her only answer. I follow her into what must be her dad’s private study, but looks more like an office in some luxury high rise.

  “Wow!” I need a new vocabulary, but there just isn’t any other way to describe the opulence in this house.

  She puts the food down on the dark wood desk and says, “Okay, ready for your surprise?”

  “This is driving me nuts, Annabeth,” I say, depositing the water bottles on the desk, hoping they won’t harm the polished surface. “What’s going on?”

  “You’ll see,” she says in a singsong voice.

  She sits down in the large, leather armchair, pulls the TV remote from a desk drawer, and flips on the widescreen television that’s roughly the width of our apartment’s living room. There’s a baseball game on and it’s really loud, so Annabeth mutes the sound. Then she boots up the laptop on the desk which has one of those extra-wide monitors.

  “You know how you can predict phone calls?” Annabeth is fiddling with the mouse pad.

  I nod, trying to peek around the computer to see what she’s doing.

  “Well, now it’s my turn,” Annabeth says, a grin spreading across her face. “In about five minutes, this phone’s gonna ring.”

  “That phone?” I point to the multi-line phone on the desk. “Isn’t that your dad’s business line?”

  “Well, yeah. It’s not… Oh, never mind. Make yourself comfortable.” She pushes away from the laptop and turns up the sound on the TV.

  What IS going on?

  I sit down on the leather loveseat she indicates but I can’t relax. My fingers are cold and I tuck them under my legs, trying to pay attention to the game.

  “Great base hit!” Annabeth swivels a complete 180 in the desk chair.

  I roll my eyes. “Is this what you’re being so mysterious about? Baseball?”

  She doesn’t answer me. We sit there in silence for several minutes watching the game while I tap my toe on the ground, not sure why there are tingles chasing each other up and down my spine. And then the phone really does ring.

  “Hello?” Annabeth says, snatching it up on the first ring. “Yeah, we’re all set.” She clicks a few keys on the laptop then waves at the screen.

  “Hi, honey! It’s so good to see you!” A familiar voice is coming from the laptop.

  I jump up and run over to the monitor and that’s when I notice the webcam on top of it.

  “Dad!”

  Yes, it’s him, sitting next to Michael in what looks like their favorite Internet cafe in downtown Houston.

  “Dad!” I exclaim again, feeling tears stinging my eyes.

  “You don’t have to shout. It’s just like a regular phone, except with video,” he smiles at me.

  It’s so good to see his face. He looks a little thinner than when I saw him last September, but other than that, Dad is the picture of health.

  “How did you… ” Seeing him after all these months brings a tightness to my throat and chokes off my voice.

  “Your mom called me and told me how sad you were that you couldn’t come visit during spring break, so we figured out a way for us to see each other anyhow, with your friend’s help,” he says, smiling, although his voice wavers a little bit, as if he’s choked up too. “What do you think? Your old dad’s pretty clever, huh?”

  “I love yo
u, Dad,” I say, trying to choke back sobs.

  Annabeth tiptoes out of the room once she’s sure we’re all set, waving as she pulls the door closed behind her. Dad and I talk for about an hour. I tell him all about school, Mom’s shop, my encounters with Uncle Omar, and my crush on Quince. Dad and Michael tell me some of the plans they have for our summer vacation once school lets out in June and I can fly to Houston.

  After Dad and I finally hang up, Annabeth peeks in the door with a huge grin on her face. “Well… ?”

  I’m overcome with emotion. “You’re a great friend!” I give her a big hug.

  I’ll bet no kid at school had a better spring break than I did.

  Chapter 12

  Full Circle

  So now it’s mid-April and everything at school is a mess, mostly thanks to Megan. I haven’t seen her since her mother pulled her out of Love of Lit class this morning.

  Megan’s book bag is still in the classroom, so I pick it up when the bell rings and head off toward her locker, which is right next to mine. I stand there hoping she’ll show, juggling both her bag and mine as I search up and down the hall for her. Finally she comes around the corner with an exasperated look on her face.

  “What’d your mom say?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Stuff about my sister’s wedding.”

  “Megan, seriously, you don’t expect me to believe that, do you?”

  “See you at lunch,” she says, taking her book bag from me and hurrying off down the hall.

  Rumors about the dress code have gone from bad to worse since we got back to school after spring break. Warm weather is here to stay and I’ll be the first to rejoice about that, but honestly, the way some of these kids come dressed for school, it’s enough to make a stripper blush.

  Take Kensi, for instance. Today she’s wearing a midriff-baring blouse with a jeans skirt that someone could mistake for a large belt. The boys all have their tongues hanging out of their mouths, and even though she and Quince broke up in March, I’m scared it’s not going to stick. He could take one look at her half-naked body and forget she was cheating on him all winter.

  Not to mention how it makes the rest of us feel. Especially me, in my consignment store jeans, faded T-shirt, and off-brand tennis shoes. I’m beginning to see the wisdom in Principal MacGregor’s strict dress code idea. At least if kids weren’t allowed to come to school dressed like Kensi is, I’d have a fighting chance at getting Quince’s attention.

  I’m bored out of my mind in English class today as we review for a grammar test. I keep thinking about seeing Quince in the hall before school this morning. He smiled and winked at me, but hurried to his locker before we could have a conversation.

  The lunch bell rings, jarring me out of my latest daydream, one where I imagine Quince is admiring my fashion sense and is turned off by Kensi’s suggestive clothing. But my stomach is growling so I head to the cafeteria, wondering what fresh mischief Megan has gotten into since first period.

  I get my tray and find I’m the first to arrive at our regular table, so I sit down and open my bottle of juice. Naturally it squirts out and I end up with orange juice all over the front of my Houston Astros T-shirt. As I’m wiping it off, Megan plops down in the chair beside me.

  “You’re supposed to drink that stuff, not wear it,” she says, smirking at me.

  I throw the sopping paper napkin down and reach for a fresh one. “Gee, I didn’t know.”

  Megan laughs, and starts eating as if her mother hadn’t just dragged her to the principal’s office for stirring up trouble.

  Emma soon joins us at the table, looking glum. “Caryn, why didn’t you tell me I was going to flunk that algebra test this morning? You said… ”

  “I wished you good luck, like you asked,” I say, shaking my finger. “But I knew you weren’t going to pass it.”

  “Then why didn’t you say so?” Emma thrusts her test paper in my face, showing me a big, fat F circled in red at the top.

  I brush it aside. “Because you didn’t ask me. It’s not my fault you were texting Kevin last night instead of studying.”

  Emma turns to face me and her mouth drops open. “How did you… ? Never mind.” She shoves a bite of sandwich into her mouth. “And where did your mom drag you off to?” she asks Megan.

  Megan rolls her eyes but instead of answering, makes a big show of biting into her chocolate chip cookie.

  I try again. “So exactly what did your mom say to you this morning, Megan? And don’t tell me wedding plans, because I know that’s not what she wanted to talk about.”

  “You’re so psychic, you tell me,” Megan says with her mouth full of chocolate chip cookie.

  “Megan, I can’t read your mind!”

  She swallows the last of the cookie and shrugs. “Okay. Mom says the principal is on her case because I’m still keeping all the kids stirred up about the dress code.”

  Which I know she is. I’ve seen her huddled with kids in the halls, whispering and glancing around over her shoulder, and the rumors are running wild throughout the building. Janae has been on the case too. Every time she sees Megan with a group of kids, she shoves her way into the conversation and then tells everybody what she heard.

  “So are you?” Emma says, pointing her milk straw at Megan. “Keeping kids stirred up, I mean?”

  “No comment,” Megan says, stuffing potato chips in her mouth.

  That uneasy feeling about how this will turn out is nagging at me again. “Megan— ”

  “I’m not talking about it anymore.” She takes a big gulp of chocolate milk. “But come over to my house Friday after supper.”

  “Huh? Friday? What about going to your dad’s?” Megan hardly ever spends time at her dad’s house, so I’d think she wouldn’t want to miss out on an opportunity.

  “Now I’m not going till Saturday morning,” Megan says impatiently. “Dad and Sharlene— ”

  “Who’s Sharlene?” Emma asks.

  Megan gives an exaggerated sigh. “My step-monster. They have some social thing to go to Friday night.”

  “So then Friday— what’s going on at your house?” I don’t like the feeling in my gut one bit and Megan won’t look me in the face, which I take as a bad sign.

  “Just a little get-together.”

  “And where’s your mom gonna be?” I ask, trying to get a read on the situation.

  “Out with Patrick.” Megan pauses in her junk-food fest and grins. “Mom’s got a serious boyfriend, if you can believe.”

  I can tell she likes this guy, Patrick, but it must be weird that her mother is going out on dates like she’s some schoolgirl.

  I force myself to refocus. “So, Megan, you’re telling me that something’s going on at your house Friday night and your mom won’t even be there? That’s not cool.”

  “My sister Allie will be there,” Megan says, still not making eye contact with me.

  “No, she won’t. She’s going to a concert.” Megan frowns at me so I know I’m right.

  “She’ll be home— eventually,” Megan argues. “Besides, we’ll all be in the backyard, not in the house. Come on, Caryn, we need your help.”

  “Help with what?” Why can’t I “see” what she’s planning? “And who’s ‘we’?”

  Megan smiles at me. “Just be there.”

  “I don’t know… ” I have serious misgivings about all her covert activities, and from what little she’s telling me, this backyard thing could be worse than the petition drive.

  Before I can say anything else, the dismissal bell sounds. Darn that lunch bell. It always seems to ring just when things are getting interesting.

  Well, after wrestling with my conscience all week, I decide not to miss whatever is going on at Megan’s house. So this morning before school, I tell Mom I have to leave the store early to get ready for a party at a friend’s house. Okay, it’s a bit of a white lie, but I figure it’s better to stretch the truth than to tell Mom that Megan is stirring up a revolution.

&
nbsp; Mom seems not to notice my fib, though, and readily gives me permission. Honestly, I think there’s something else on her mind lately.

  The day turns into the kind of spring evening that makes me want to be outside anyway, so I don’t mind the mile or so walk from my apartment to Megan’s house. Flowers are starting to bloom and the fragrance is divine. The air is cool with just a hint of warmth— enough to need a light jacket, but not enough to give me shivers. The days are getting longer too, so I don’t have to worry about walking in the dark.

  “Hey, Caryn!”

  I whip my head around looking for whoever is calling me, but no one’s there. I shudder but keep walking, this time a little faster.

  “Hey, Caryn,” the voice says again. “You need to get on board with what’s goin’ down.”

  Okay, only one person I “know” would use such dated slang. “Uncle Omar, I’m not talking to you if I can’t see you.” I keep walking.

  “Okay, have it your way.”

  And there he is, standing in front of me on the sidewalk, hands on his hips, a big smile on his face.

  Maybe I should’ve thought that through, because now I’m talking to a man no one else can see, and there are plenty of people out tonight in Rosslyn Village, walking on this very sidewalk. There’s a mom pushing a baby in a stroller right behind me, two joggers who each go around me like I’m a light pole, a group of guys in their twenties dressed for a night on the town, an elderly Asian couple strolling arm-in-arm. You know, just a regular Friday evening with lots of people out-and-about enjoying the spring weather. They must think I’m a freak— or worse, insane— since it looks like I’m talking to myself.

  “Say what you have to say and go, because people are staring,” I say, trying to move my lips as little as possible as I talk.

  “Just doing what you told me— in your face,” he teases, waving his hand in front of my eyes.

  “What do you want?” I repeat a little too loudly. The Asian couple is staring at me, shaking their heads with pity as if I’m some kind of mental case.