I stood up suddenly. “I’m full.”
Cord shoved another bite of Jell-O into his mouth and rose with his tray to follow me.
“Or what if Henry done something to Katerina?” he asked.
“He wouldn’t,” I said. But I’d seen inside his heart. He would. So why the heck did I help him? I didn’t look at Cord when I responded. “And anyway, I don’t know if we should involve the cops.”
Selfish. I was so selfish. I stopped my search for Katerina. Instead, I’d gotten swept into the Henry thing, using my psychic abilities for my own purposes. Why did I do that? “I’ll swing by Katerina’s. Poke around,” I said.
“Maybe—”
“We haven’t even tried to find her like psychics do for police,” I interrupted. No more of his theories to make my stomach twist another inch. “Yeah, maybe I’ll do that. Try to look for her like a psychic.”
“Charley, you’re the psychic.”
“Yeah.” I shrugged and looked at my cupcake again.
“You been looking for her for days, right?” He held his gaze on me a moment too long.
“Yeah. Every day.” I was such a liar.
Cord murmured agreement and we stood in silence for a few seconds.
After the pause, honesty came from me. “You would think for being psychic and all, we’d know where Katerina went.” I paused. “And … that we’d know what happened to Julia’s aunt, and why Samuel left early. But we don’t. Why is that?”
“I get all confused by this paranormal stuff. I wish I got total mind control, and wish I knew everything, could change everything. Everybody’d be calling us superheroes.”
Or villains.
35
Julia
I couldn’t focus. I sat in the sunshine on the bench, reading a book by poet Maya Angelou. The sun dropped in the sky and the sound of chainsaws ceased. The air smelled fresh, like rose blossoms, and the nutty drill of a woodpecker pierced the silence. But soon enough, my mind drifted to what Grandfather’s pilot, Jensen, would think of me requesting to go to North Dakota, and what I’d find when I got there. I would ask him to stay there to ensure that I made it back with Aunt Sabrina.
I imagined what her reentry into life would be like after being gone for a decade, if she’d even want to live on the compound anymore. Maybe I’d throw a big party for her.
A slideshow of memories flipped in my mind. One day I snuck into Mother’s bedroom, with her silk bedding and four-poster bed. When I heard her footsteps and voice approaching, I knew she would give me a tongue-lashing for sure. But Aunt Sabrina saw me first and turned Mother’s attention away from me, giving me a quick wink when it was time to escape on my tiptoes.
She was warm like butter. Grandfather had frowned upon that part of her. Victoria and I had also heard our mothers griping about being embarrassed by the fact she worked in the kitchen of the homeless shelter and snuck Cavanaugh money to people in the food line. They preferred their high-brow dressy teas and bridge-club fundraisers for new tennis rackets at the club.
In my peripheral vision, Dr. Carrillo’s teeter-tottering shadow spread across the grass.
“Julia.” I knew she was there, yet her voice still startled me. She swayed by my side, and I ignored her.
“I need you to complete the session.”
“Sorry, no,” I mumbled. The words in my book became black blurry lines.
“I called your Grandfather yesterday and told him that it was important that you stay.”
I turned to her, taken aback. “What? But you wouldn’t even let me participate three days ago.”
“That was before I saw you do that,” she said, nodding her head across the lawn. The yellow police tape still fluttered in the breeze around the parking lot.
“Oh,” I said, and then immediately retreated. “I didn’t do that.”
“Julia, dear,” she said with her hands on her hips. “I know you’re gifted—perhaps the most of anyone here. I won’t let you leave without seeing what you can truly do.”
“You can’t make me do anything.”
“I know, of course,” she said. “But you’ll be advancing science. Instead of just damaging property.” She motioned to the ripped-up grass. “I’d hate for your family to end up with a bill for this, not to mention bad PR for the Cavanaugh name.”
I levelled her with a gaze. She was no better than any of the other people there. “There’s no way to prove I caused the damage. There are earthquakes here all the time.”
She nodded. “Hopefully, you’ll decide to finally tap into your own power for good.” She hobbled away.
I thought about my aunt, about North Dakota, and the party I’d throw for her at home when she was finally back with me. I was using my power for good.
36
Charley
A door slammed, and for half a second, I thought I was back at home, at the beginning of another blowup by Dad. It took me a minute to get oriented in the inky dark. I flipped on the light. The hands on the clock said a quarter after five.
Curious, I tiptoed down the hall to the stairwell and found Cord standing there, leaning over the rail.
“Julia!” He yelled down the stairs and then turned to look at me. “We can’t let her go.”
I caught a glimpse in the dim light of Julia’s dark hair bouncing below.
“Wait, don’t go!” Cord said again.
She stopped and looked up. Fully dressed, with coiffed hair, she held a suitcase. “What are you doing up so early?”
“You shouldn’t go,” he said, breathless, leaning over the rail.
“It’s too late. The plane’s coming in just a few hours.” She pointed at her watch. “I’m heading to the bus stop.”
Silent, I watched a tug-of-war between them. “I… You’ll get in trouble. Treason. It’d be a big deal.”
Treason? The soldier inside him pounded and banged to get out.
Julia took another three steps down the stairs. “I don’t have time for this, Cord.”
“You can’t go!” His voice echoed on the walls.
He looked at me, and his eyes pleaded. “It’s dangerous. She don’t even see how stupid it is. She’ll get herself killed.”
“She’s not going to get killed and she’s not committing treason.”
He leaned over the rail. “Julia!”
I touched his arm and tried to reason with him. “She’s getting her aunt home. For ten years, no one did anything. No one looked for her aunt like this. And she found her. She did that! Now you want her to just abandon this whole thing? She’s so close.”
“She don’t know what she’s doing.”
Maybe he was right. But she had purpose, and she’d finally crept out of her shell. She was stretching her legs and her freedom. I couldn’t shut that down because of his conspiracy theories.
I reached out to touch his arm. Electricity swarmed my nerve endings. I wanted to throw myself into everything he was: conviction and loyalty, stability and truth. Seeing him so upset shined a spotlight on that.
The door slammed below, and Cord looked defeated. When he turned to look at me again, he wore a conflicted expression, oscillating between emotions.
“Trust me. She’ll be fine.”
“Trust you?” he asked, suddenly incredulous. After a long moment he shook his head. “I don’t trust nobody no more.”
Why? I thought. But I kept the question to myself.
“I know you was with Henry,” he said.
“So.” You’re not my boyfriend.
“I tell you, that guy’s bad news.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. He’s right.
He looked at the floor, searching for words, and when he looked up at me, he squinted. “Don’t nobody tell the truth no more?” My cheeks lit on fire. “’Cuz I got a feeling that you lie, too. Just like everybody does.”
I faltered, and he seized on it.
He shook his head. “You ain’t like I thought you was.”
“And what exac
tly did you think I was?” I straightened.
His gaze extended beyond me. “At first, I think… Charley acts so smart, she’s so pretty, so nice.”
I rolled my eyes. Typical boy flattery.
“No,” he said. “But really. I think, you look like this lightning storm.”
“A lightning storm.” Great. Just what I wanted to hear.
I sighed.
“I think, Hey, I got to California, and I finally see the horizon. You looked so pretty—out of this world, really—nothing like nobody in the world.”
My heart swelled, and for a half a second, I couldn’t breathe. No one had ever talked to me like that before. Boys might say that I had a nice ass, or that I was pretty good at uncovering secrets with a touch of a hand. But nothing sincere like this.
I couldn’t swallow.
He buttoned his eyes shut and put a hand on the door. “Never mind. Stupid.”
“No,” I said, putting my hand on his to keep him from leaving. “Finish.”
He paused considering his words. “Then I get closer and get this feeling, you know? A dark one. I … I think maybe it ain’t so safe.”
I watched him, frowning, and he hesitated before continuing. “That maybe that pretty lightning ain’t really what it looks like from far away. Maybe, it gots to be.…”
“Full of lies?”
He stopped, gazing at me. “Yeah. Lies.”
I strained to swallow, suppressing my self-doubt, guilt, and regret. He was truth, and his feet were firmly on the ground—unlike mine, which floated wherever the wind took me. His eyebrows scrunched together, and his jaw twisted. I hated seeing him so angry.
I looked directly at him in silence, feeling my lip quiver. I blinked back tears. I wasn’t going to cry. After a moment, his angry expression faded like a cloud of smoke. He pushed a strand of hair away from my eyelash.
I looked at his mouth. Truthful. Honest. Perfect, really, symmetrical lips. His mouth pulled me a step closer…
I didn’t have to be destined for the wrong track. Not anymore. I could be different.
I inched closer to him. He did something to me no one else had done before. I couldn’t even say what it was.
Then I leaned in. I could feel him ache to breathe my breath.
I didn’t deserve Cord. I knew that. After everything I’d done. He’d been betrayed so many times, and all he wanted was to find an honest word. To find someone, something real. I wanted so badly to be that for him, for me.
Finally, our lips met.
I kissed him so hard it took my breath away. And, based on his reaction, it took away his breath too.
I pulled away and wiped the tear that fell on my cheek.
I could feel the swell of emotion escape him. It singed the air, electric and pounding. He stood there holding my fingertips in his, both of us breathless. His eyes met mine. A golden and brown pinwheel.
“You can trust me,” I whispered.
He wouldn’t believe me, but I needed him to anyway—despite what I had done. My whole heart twisted in pieces thinking of him being lied to again.
I had to figure out the truth behind SRI, behind what Henry was doing, Julia’s aunt, everything. This time, I had to be on the right side of things.
37
Julia
In typical Cavanaugh fashion, Grandfather’s plane was swanky: a renovated United Airlines Boeing 720 passenger jet he bought after purchasing the Oklahoma oil well. He’d spent a quarter of a million dollars to upgrade it with shag carpeting, a bar, a prototype Sony U-matic videocassette player and TV, and a bedroom in back. I’d once heard Grandfather say it was even better than President Nixon’s Air Force One. I believed it.
I climbed the staircase to the plane, and a gust of wind blew my hair into my mouth. I wiped away the strands and stepped inside the airplane.
A familiar sweet scent hit my face and nausea squeezed my gut.
There he was. Grandfather, in a swivel chair before me. Pipe in mouth, he let loose a puff of charcoal-colored smoke before speaking. “Julia, my dear, it looks like you wanted to borrow my plane for a little vacation.”
We rarely saw Grandfather. He was like a king who showed up now and then, mostly sending his minions to deliver his decrees. You knew you really were in trouble when he actually took the time to meet you in person.
The sight of him was a boulder shot from a catapult. It slammed into my stomach, and I nearly folded in half.
He gazed at me, head tilted, curious. I steadied myself by focusing on the lines that framed his mouth, parentheses from his nose to his chin. The crisp bow tie. The baggy skin around his jaw. His white brows wiry behind the square black eyeglasses. Had I ever seen him smile?
“Hello, Grandfather.” My voice sounded weak. My armpits grew damp despite the air conditioning tickling my neck. “I’m simply trying to help someone.”
“Hmmmm. I was told the plane was for Victoria’s use.” He paused. A billow of sweet-smelling smoke swirled around his head. “And now, funny, here you are.” He nodded slowly, frowning as he took in my bell-bottom jeans, white peasant top, leather jacket.
His brows cinched together as he gazed at my feet. Ridiculous, but I suddenly felt ashamed of my rainbow canvas sneakers. I thought of Victoria’s famous saying, it’s not the Cavanaugh way.
I waited, knowing another long pause couldn’t be good. Victoria would be shipped away to boarding school for this. And me? I had no idea. But it would be far worse.
Grandfather puffed on his pipe for another few enormously painful moments, sizing me up. The sickeningly sweet smell made me queasy.
“I’m afraid you can’t take the plane for a spin.”
My heart sank into my gut.
“I need you to stay here at SRI.”
I couldn’t speak.
“You caused quite the commotion the other day, I hear.” He stirred the air with his hand, a motion for me to take a seat.
Cautiously, I perched on the front edge of a leather swivel seat.
“So tell me, why do you want to leave, exactly?”
I decided to be honest. I would be punished either way.
“Aunt Sabrina. I found her. She’s alive, and in North Dakota.”
He flinched and his face looked like stone for about a second, but then his chest bounced up and down, and I realized he was chuckling.
“Oh, is that so?”
“Yes,” I said. Big jagged stones tore up my throat and kept down the volume of my voice. I explained how I was able to remote view Mandaree and that I’d seen her there.
He stood up slowly, his bones and joints creaking. He lifted my arm until I rose, too. “I’m afraid you’re not going anywhere, my dear.” He stood so close that the scent of his pipe enveloped me.
“And this whole assertion of seeing your aunt—my daughter—is extraordinary.”
The word extraordinary and the disdain that dripped from his shriveled mouth ripped something inside my mind like a page from a forgotten book. A memory came flooding back to me, one that was hidden deep inside the recesses of my skull.
The night of the fire, I had snuck into Sabrina’s house to read her books while she worked in the garden. Most of her books were too mature for me at that age—just nine—but I liked to pretend I could be as sophisticated as her. I remember that night, I tucked her Jane Austen book Emma under my arm. Years later when I actually read it, the story spoke to me, because it was about strong, opinionated women and about staying true to yourself. A heroine I wished I could be.
That night, I’d hid in the kitchen the moment I heard Grandfather enter the house: a slam of the door, heavy footsteps followed by Aunt Sabrina’s pattering feet. Through the crack in the door, I watched him pace in her living room, beneath massive oil paintings of gardens and Cavanaugh relatives.
“Sabrina, it appears you’ve officially joined a Satanic cult,” Grandfather’s voice boomed.
“Father, it is not a cult. It’s an art school.”
H
e scoffed.
“We’ll document how gender bias has influenced our history.” Looking back, she had sounded so progressive for 1961. So not my family.
He laughed. “My, what extraordinary lies you tell yourself about who you are.”
She’d ignored his cutting remark, but it seared into my brain. “I’d like to take a year away from the compound, Father. Use my bank account to live in the city. Just for a while.”
“And do ‘art’?”
“Art. Feminism. It’s all so much more than what I’d do here—”
“This is where you belong.”
“What? Knitting and socializing like Wendy and Gwendolyn?”
“I have a better place for you. Somewhere you won’t embarrass me or the family. You’ll be a resource for the family business and your so-called socialism.”
“It’s not socialism.” Her chest opened up, as if it were a shield defending her values, herself. Her voice was soft and it quaked. It sounded so much like my own.
“You’re thinking a little too big of yourself, Sabrina.” The familiar sound of bourbon poured into a glass. “You’re just a woman with a spooky ability—nothing more.” He paused, probably taking a sip. “In another generation, in another country, you’d see your worth.”
I remember how I’d peeked around the corner and watched as he had placed his pipe into his mouth and inhaled.
“You are not going anywhere, my dear, unless I say.”
“I’m … twenty!” She had shaken with rage. “You can’t control me!”
What happened next? I ran through the pages of my mind.
Grandfather had laughed at her. Just like he always did. A belittling, condescending laugh that made Aunt Sabrina's face contort. Electricity hummed, and the hair on my arms stood on end. With a crack, fire leapt in the air. Orange and yellow flames sprung from the walls and popped.
Extraordinary Lies Page 23
