Night Sky

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Calvin was standing on his own two feet in front of me, without any assistance from his wheelchair. He wasn’t even hanging on to anything.

  I was speechless.

  But, once again, Milo didn’t look all that surprised.

  “Calvin!” I whispered, reaching out a hand to touch him, as if what I was seeing wasn’t actually real.

  “Ho-ly shee-it,” he said again. And, for a moment, I thought he was actually going to cry.

  Instead, he whooped. It was the sound of someone overcome with pure, unadulterated joy. “Oooooh-hoooooo!” he cried out, and those little underused legs of his marched in place. “This is…”

  “Awesome!” I finished for him, my voice low with a mixture of disbelief and excitement. Dana was doing this. Dana had the telekinetic power to make Calvin stand up and walk around.

  She kicked open the passenger door to Calvin’s car and stepped out onto the blacktop, dropping the f-bomb under her breath like she was keeping the beat to a song. Bullets of sweat popped off her. I could see the sheen across her forehead, even from several feet away.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her. She was doing this, but from the look of things, it wasn’t easy.

  She grimaced and slammed the car door shut behind her. She trudged toward us, all her movements slow and labored, as if she were wading through mud.

  “I’m ’kay,” Dana verified.

  As if to prove just how okay she was, she made Cal do a jumping jack.

  And then she marched him back and forth in front of us. He swung his arms by his sides, as if attempting to create a more natural-looking stride. It made him look even more absurd. I didn’t say anything, though, because he was grinning his ass off.

  “Let me see if I can…” Dana said, and marched Calvin over to a nearby bench. She frowned as she moved him. His lower body pivoted before his knees and hips bent, the movements jerky and almost militaristic. Calvin being Calvin, he snapped off a sharp salute right before Dana sat him down.

  She immediately relaxed, all the air leaving her in one long sigh.

  It was amazing, the kind of control she must’ve had to be able to maneuver him that way. “Have you done that before?” I asked “How long did you practice before you…”

  “I didn’t,” Dana snarled. “Practice. This was my first try.”

  “Wow,” I said, even as Calvin chimed in with a “Ho shit!”

  “Ho shit is right,” Dana replied. “It’s a little harder than I’d anticipated.”

  “Do you want me to try to help?” I asked her.

  “No!” Both Dana and Calvin exclaimed at the same time.

  “I mean,” Cal continued, “that’s nice of you and all, but it’s not like you’ve had a lot of experience with this stuff. I think maybe you should practice a little bit more on inanimate objects before you start pulling the full-on Jesus moves. Please. I love you, but no, thank you.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. “Are you going to be okay?” I asked Dana.

  “I’ll be fine,” Dana insisted. “It’s gonna be a workout, but I’ve got this.” She looked at Calvin. “Just, don’t be offended if I sit you down at the bar every once in a while.”

  Calvin grinned up at her. “You are my queen. Do whatever you want with me, Your Majesty.”

  —

  We walked right into the club. All four of us. No problem.

  We all flashed our IDs as Dana leaned close to the bouncers who stood behind a maroon-colored velvet rope.

  Their necks were as thick as my waist and their arms were crossed across their chests, noses pointed to the air. I could practically see their blood pumping through the bulging veins in their Popeye-esque forearms. And whatever Dana said to them, they didn’t blink. But their heads tilted slightly to the side as they waved us in.

  Calvin turned around to grin at me as he walked through the narrow entryway of the club and into the main room. He mouthed the words Jesus moves to me.

  Or maybe he said it, and I just couldn’t hear him over the relentlessly loud throbbing of music that wasn’t particularly interesting. Again, like at Garrett’s, it would be impossible to speak and be heard in here, and as Dana turned to look back at me, I gave her an unenthusiastic fist pump.

  No sewage smell here. Not yet anyway.

  Overhead, chandeliers dangled and twinkled against the dim light of the dance floor. The place was packed. Everywhere I looked, people danced and moved, the patterns of their skimpy outfits gleaming against tanned, hard muscles.

  I felt rude at first, pushing against strangers as I attempted to find a space with some elbow room. But I quickly realized that attempting to apologize or say “excuse me” every time I nudged someone was both tedious and unnecessary.

  No one cared.

  I breathed more deeply, and beneath the gallons of perfume and cologne, I got garlic and peppers and some kind of cloyingly sweet smell—and of course that relentless, ever-present fish. I hated—hated—that smell, and come to think of it, I hated just about my entire birthday so far.

  And then I smelled vanilla.

  I turned, and sure enough, Milo was right behind me. Unlike Dana, his eyes didn’t hold that same-old question. He probably figured that if I smelled something nasty, I’d be barfing, and since I wasn’t… He smiled reassuringly and mouthed the words Want something to drink?

  I shook my head, because I was already well on my way to needing to pee. And I turned away fast, because I found myself wanting, with a sudden fierce desire, to close my eyes and make a wish and turn myself into a far more normal seventeen-year-old who’d gotten a fake ID to come to this club to dance, not sniff people for traces of evil, like some kind of glorified rescue dog.

  And as long as I was wishing for the impossible, I wished that Milo was here with me, and not just in a Milo, you get to babysit Sky way.

  I wished he would dance with me.

  Of course, right at that moment someone bumped into me. I stumbled slightly, and Milo reached out to steady me, his hand electric against my waist.

  Our connection clicked on, and ohmygodohmygod, everything I was thinking was right there, front and center for him to see, hear, feel, know—and I tried to shut it all down. But I knew there was no way I could make my mind go completely blank, so I grabbed at that last thought, and I aimed it at an almost impossibly handsome dark-haired man—boy, really, because he wasn’t that much older than me—who was dancing with a bored-looking girl in a red minidress. And I focused on his mocha-colored skin and midnight brown eyes so that Milo would interpret my previous thought as I wished he would dance with me.

  Come to think of it, he looked kind of like Tom Diaz, of super-romantic-kiss fame, although he couldn’t possibly be. Tom was back in California and…I suddenly found myself missing Tom with an intensity that rolled through me like a surging high tide—and Milo took his hand from my waist as if he’d been burned.

  Which was a good thing. Although, in all honesty, it was the idea of Tom that I truly longed for—the idea of having someone in the same way that Dana and Milo had each other.

  Because if I had someone like Tom, I wouldn’t be standing here in this noisy, crowded, smelly room jonesing for Dana’s boyfriend.

  Misery filled my throat, and I glanced back at him. He said something to me, which of course I couldn’t hear.

  He said it again, and again I shook my head, and, with frustration on his usually patient face, he held out his hand for me to take.

  So I did.

  I really hate it here too, he told me. I’m sorry you’re having such a crappy birthday, Sky, I really am. Why don’t we just find someplace to sit and wait for Dana? Unless…I know you want to dance. And I know I’m not Tom, I mean, I didn’t even realize you had a boyfriend—

  He’s not my boyfriend, I admitted, but then added, I mean, yeah, I wanted him to be. He was really n
ice. I met him at a party about a year ago and… You know how you meet somebody and everything just clicks?

  He did know. He didn’t say as much, but I could feel it.

  And then—amazingly—they’re equally into you? I continued.

  Yeah, I guess. Milo’s smile was rueful as he pulled me to the side of the room where there was a café table—one of those high ones—with a single empty stool. Sit. Before I could form the What about you? thought into words, he added, I’ll stand. I’m good.

  So I climbed up onto that chair as he thought, So Tom moved to California? He held my hand atop the table, loosely caught between both of his as he gazed out at the dance floor, as if standing guard.

  No, he was only in Connecticut visiting his cousin, I told him. He went home. He wanted us to do some kind of crazy, long-distance thing, thinking we could see each other on vacations, but when we looked at our calendars, we didn’t both have the same week free for the next two years, so…we just kinda let it go.

  I’m sorry, Milo said, and I knew that he meant it.

  Still, I shrugged. I’m glad I met him. And you know, I was only sixteen. It’s not like I’m not going to have another chance to meet someone equally great who’s equally into me, right? Although, to be honest, I’ve met a lot of guys, and the first thing I usually think is, “Well, he’s no Tom Diaz.”

  Milo glanced at me with those eyes. Maybe you should plan to go to California after you graduate. Does he live in L.A.?

  Sonoma, I told him. His family owns a…restaurant, I think it was.

  It’s beautiful out there. Dana and I spent a coupla months in San Francisco, which is not that far from Tom-Diaz-land.

  You’ve been with her—Dana—for a long time. It wasn’t really a question, and I didn’t wait for him to answer it. I just plunged on. I really like her. Dana. I value her as a teacher, as a mentor, and a…a role model. And a friend. I think of her as a very close friend. She’s very important to me.

  He blinked at me. That’s…good. I’m sure she’ll appreciate knowing that.

  And you are too, I added. It was a little heavy-handed, but I wanted to reassure him that, in case he picked up even just the smallest whiff of my crush on him, he’d understand that I had priorities and a well-developed sense of right and wrong—please God, don’t let that change. As long as my G-T-ness didn’t turn me into a sociopathic monster of selfishness, I would never, ever jeopardize my friendship with Dana.

  Important to me, I added. I’m really glad that you’re my friend too, Milo.

  He pulled his hand away to get his pack of gum from his pocket and to unwrap a piece. Part of the paper had glued itself onto the piece, and he frowned at it, glancing up to roll his eyes and smile at me. He leaned close to my ear to say, “I’m honored that you think of me as a friend.”

  I touched his arm. Where is Dana? I asked, but then said, Never mind, and took my hand back, as I saw her over by the bar. She was talking, heads close together, to a stunningly handsome but undeniably dangerous-looking man.

  Milo touched my shoulder, his hand warm against my bare skin. I looked up at him as he pulled his hand away fast. “Sorry,” he said. “I should probably just…” He reached out again to touch me with a single finger against my elbow. Look out on the floor.

  I turned and looked out where the crowd was thickest. At first I could only see a mass of moving limbs, but when I looked more closely, I noticed that Calvin was in the center of it all, doing the infamous robot, undeniably in the spotlight.

  As if my thoughts had cued it, a literal spotlight came out and focused its beam on Calvin.

  The crowd went crazy, and I laughed out loud. Milo was grinning too.

  But the weird thing was Calvin didn’t look like he was having a good time. In fact, he seemed to be waving his robot-like arms to catch Dana’s attention. As I watched, he tried to leave the dance floor, but then Dana turned to glare at him, and he spun on his heel before doing a half split on the floor and then jumping into the air.

  The crowd whistled and clapped.

  I reached for Milo’s hand. Oh, man, I told him, still giggling. I’m glad he couldn’t feel that, ’cause it looked like it would have hurt.

  But then I stopped laughing because Dana had left the bar and was heading for us, the gorgeous man just a few steps behind her.

  I pulled my hand free from Milo’s, because that would’ve been just a little too weird—my sitting there like that in full view—but Dana didn’t slow down as she approached. She did touch her nose and widen her eyes at me as she breezed past us, so I knew enough to take a deep breath when her new friend followed after her.

  But he was sewage-smell free, and I broadcast that by fist-pumping into the air. “Whoo!” I said. “Whoo!”

  Out on the dance floor, as if it was a call-and-response, Calvin gave an answering “Whoo-whoo!” and then pulled a Saturday Night Fever move, followed by a backflip and then something that looked like an extremely manic fox-trot. Of course, that was really Dana who’d choreographed that.

  “Girl, please!” I could see Calvin’s lips move as he implored Dana, his eyes indignant as his feet moved beneath him.

  But she ignored him, even as her new friend introduced her to a group of equally gorgeous women. Destiny users, all of them. Had to be.

  Out on the dance floor, Calvin was laboriously performing something I’d previously seen mastered only by Russian men in fur hats. He squatted down, jumped up, and then lifted his knees. Then, without warning, he switched to an extremely elaborate Riverdance rendition.

  I looked from Calvin to Dana, who was sitting with her new friends, plural now, at a table over by the dimly lit hall that led to the bathrooms. And then I looked at Milo. I held out my hand, and as our connection clicked on, I asked, Ready for a field trip?

  He smiled. Always.

  He helped me down off the stool—not that I needed help.

  I know. But I don’t want you to fall.

  Thanks, I thought back at him. We went past the table where Dana was now sitting, and I took several deep, deep breaths. Nothing. As I fist-pumped, my frustration inspired a jumble of thoughts containing words that would have made a sailor blush. I never would have said any of that aloud, except—oh great—Milo’s hand was on my elbow. He’d had access to all of it, and now he was laughing.

  I felt myself flush. Shit, I mean shoot! I keep forgetting that everything I think is now public.

  Not public, he told me. Not really. And don’t worry. I can keep a secret.

  He took my hand again, weaving our fingers together this time, as he led me into that narrow hallway—where the line to the ladies’ room was epic.

  “Whoa,” I said. “Wow, I forgot to pack my sleeping bag and trail mix.”

  Milo glanced at me. Do you really have to…? My yes must’ve been obvious, because he immediately added, I don’t mind. We can wait.

  You don’t have to wait with me, I told him, even as the woman standing right in front of us smiled to reveal drug-blackened teeth.

  “Want a third?” she asked, shouting over music that was loud even back here.

  “A third of what?” I started to ask, but Milo cut me off with a very definite sounding, “Nope. Not into that.”

  “Wanna buy some—”

  “Not into that, either,” he said, even as he started, hesitantly and tactfully, to try to explain to me, She, um, thinks we’re in line to, uh, go into the bathroom together. The two of us. To, you know. Get jiggy. And she was offering to, um—

  Ew! I got it, and I was immediately embarrassed—more for not knowing what she’d meant. I mean, not you and me ew, but ew at the thought of… And oh my God, you must think I’m so stupid. Although he had just used the Mom-tastic phrase “get jiggy,” but that was probably just to make me laugh.

  I think you’re sweet, Milo told me. And funny. And defini
tely not stupid. But I also think I’m not leaving you alone on this line or anywhere else in this club.

  I nodded, grateful for his presence. Thanks.

  Who was that girl in your vision? She was in your dream too. Milo immediately cut himself off. Sorry. I really didn’t mean to ask that. It’s not my business. But this you’re-in-my-head thing makes it hard to… I mean, I was wondering it, and even though I wouldn’t have said it out loud if we were, you know, talking, it just kind of escaped because I was thinking it—

  It’s okay, I reassured him, unable to keep from laughing. Usually taciturn Milo was practically babbling. Really. It’s not a secret.

  It kind of is, he countered. I don’t really know how I know this, but I do know that you haven’t even told Calvin about her. Her name’s Nicole, right?

  He was watching me with those eyes, his dimples nowhere in sight.

  But then he smiled and touched his face with the hand that wasn’t holding mine. I think they make me look kind of goofy.

  I laughed. Goofy. Right. Because random drug-abusing women in clubs always want to have anonymous bathroom sex with the goofiest-looking guys in the room.

  Milo laughed too, but then his smile faded. It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me. I don’t mean to overstep any bounds.

  You’re not. And I kinda do. Want to tell you. Her name was Nicole—it still is, I quickly added. She’s not dead. Thank God.

  That’s good, I felt him think as he tucked his hair behind his ear. The muscles in his forearm rippled as he moved and I tried not to stare. I was afraid…

  She was my best friend, back when I lived in Connecticut. She was really smart but she was also really popular—which is harder to deal with than most people think. She started to get into drinking and drugs and…it got so that all she really wanted to do was party. She made some pretty big messes, and I was always there to clean them up.

  And wow, I’m making it sound so crappy, but it wasn’t. Not always. When she wasn’t drinking, we had a lot of fun. She made me laugh. Anyway, it was a house party. A lot like the one at Garrett’s. A lot of stupid high school kids doing things we wouldn’t have been able to do if Mike’s parents had been home that night. Mike Rizzulo. He was Nicole’s boyfriend. That month. He was a total douche. I realized that even though my words were being sent to Milo through my thoughts, the voice I was using to communicate with him was wavering with emotion. Sorry.