—
Every time I walk into Common Grounds, even though I’ve worked here for so long, it feels both familiar and foreign, as if things have shifted ever so slightly since the last time I was here. My house feels this way sometimes, too. Everywhere does.
Martha is behind the counter. She showed up a couple of weeks ago, and Cranky Andy let me know on the sly that she is the owner’s sister and not to be trifled with. Her hair is like steel wool and she wears sweatshirts with cats on them. She looks soft and grandmotherly but underneath she is hard, like a pillow with an anvil hidden inside. I’ve seen her lift fifty-pound bags of coffee beans as if they were sleeping babies.
Cranky Andy is clearly afraid of her. I sort of want to be her.
I wait in line while Mel looks for seats. She is far better at finding the right people to intimidate into leaving. She stands next to their table, staring at them relentlessly until they become annoyed or unnerved enough to get up. Her method never fails. But this time she abandons her post to show me a flyer she ripped off the notice board.
“Check it out!” she crows, waving the goldenrod page over her head like a flag. “The supernatural has finally made it to Molton!”
Everyone, of course, turns to look. Which is Mel’s general purpose in life.
I grab the paper. “Go find a table, would you?”
She hangs her head and whimpers, a scolded puppy. As she slinks away, still whimpering, I read the scratchy print on the flyer. It looks like it was written with a Sharpie, all caps, in a hurry. It must have been put up this morning, because it wasn’t there when we closed last night.
SÉANCE
SUNDAY
8 P.M.
THE ELBOW ROOM
BRING $10 AND AN OPEN MIND
There’s a poorly reproduced picture of a pair of hands at the bottom, open palms holding nothing.
This must be a joke, I think.
“Hello,” Martha says brightly. Her smile is a blank line and she shows no signs of familiarity, as if we’ve never met before. As if I wasn’t the one who trained her on the register. “What can I get you?” Then she lowers her voice and leans in a bit. “You know you’re not supposed to take things off the bulletin board.”
“I’ll put it back, I promise.” I cross my heart with my index finger.
Martha looks skeptical.
I order our lattes and wait patiently while she searches for the right button on the cash register. “It’s that one,” I offer, and start to reach around to show her, but she stops me in my tracks with a glare that would freeze the coffee I just ordered.
When Cranky Andy pushes the finished drinks toward me, I raise an eyebrow in what I hope is a nonaggressive, casual way and ask, “How’s she doing?”
He hunches down a bit. “Fine,” he says. Then, almost in the same breath, he adds, “She’s taking over the day shift.”
“Every day?”
He nods, intently focused on the milk frother.
Before I can ask what this means for my own schedule, Mel’s voice rockets across the room.
“Are we going to the séance!”
It isn’t even a question, the way she’s shouting it. It’s a declaration that happens to be in the form of a question. The way the answers on Jeopardy! are only technically questions. They’re never said that way. The contestants’ voices lack the proper inflection. That has always bothered me.
“Hold on!” I whisper-shout back.
Andy already has his back to me, working on the next round of orders, so I figure I’ll talk to him about my schedule another time. I hustle our lattes over to the table and sit quickly, hunching over as if that will somehow deflect the number of eyes looking my way. I can feel them on me like spiders.
“Could you please?” I say.
“Sorry, sorry.” Mel waves her hand over her coffee, diffusing the smell of the cinnamon that sits on top of the foam like fertilizer. “So, what do you say? Shall we attend this mysterious gathering?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
Mel rolls her eyes. “Why wouldn’t you?”
Sometimes we dance around the subject, Mel and I. I won’t ever say that I wish I could talk to my brother again, and she won’t ever say that she understands what I wish for. Saying either of those things would put us uncomfortably close to sharing our feelings.
While I’m considering the question, Mel raises her phone between us and I hear the virtual click of the camera. She likes to take pictures of me at random moments, and I let her as long as she doesn’t (a) show them to me or (b) use them in some depraved art installation.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I think those things are creepy.” I say creepy, but I mean sad. I used to watch this show where a psychic picked people out of the audience and gave them messages from lost loved ones. And you could tell they were so happy to hear something, anything, about that person who wasn’t there anymore. But I always imagined the moment right after the show was over, when the cameras shut off and the psychic pulled off his microphone, and whatever connection had been there between the living and the dead just…died all over again.
“True,” Mel agrees, “but I seriously doubt the Elbow Room is capable of getting actually scary. It’s probably like one of those haunted houses we went to in elementary school. I used to laugh my ass off in those things.”
Mel is not afraid of anything. She is that kind of girl, a girl who dyes the tips of her curly hair black and wears costumes to school on days that aren’t Halloween and does taxidermy in her spare time. Last Christmas she installed a roadkill Nativity scene in front of her house that got her in trouble with every church for fifty miles around. Casting a dead squirrel as the baby Jesus was too much for just about everyone, but Mel cited freedom of speech and eventually the protesters moved on. I think it was an added bonus that her mother refused to speak to her for more than a week.
I do not tell her—I can’t—that I was terrified of those haunted houses. Goblins and skeletons leaping out from half-opened doors, hands grabbing for me in the darkness, the echoing voices, the stale air. The sense that I might never find my way out. But I don’t say any of this.
What I say is “Pick me up at seven-thirty.”
My parents and I have our usual pizza-and-silence dinner, followed by Dad retreating to his study to watch home-improvement videos online. Our home does not need much improvement (structurally, at least) but Dad likes to be prepared in case of a spackling or drywall emergency. So he spends hours watching other dads discuss the proper tools for every possible job, watching them demonstrate various techniques for cutting tile, installing bathroom fans, and grouting.
I know this is what he does because I check his browser history on a regular basis. I also read the journal that my mother’s therapist told her to start writing in. Just because my parents and I don’t talk doesn’t mean I don’t care what they’re up to.
This is also how I know that my dad wants us to move. Pages and pages of realty and location searches. Plus, I eavesdrop. Dad has been trying to talk Mom into moving and so far she hasn’t let him pierce her bubble of solitude, but if he keeps wearing away at her, she’ll probably change her mind. Before the accident, Mom was very opinionated and did not make any decisions without copious research and a town-wide opinion poll. Now…well, she seems to just want someone else to figure everything out.
Do I have my doubts about staying here? Of course.
But maybe that boy who looks like my brother is right. Remembering is vital. This is where we lost him, and this is where we should be. Maybe if I can make contact tonight, I can get N—my brother to help me.
Once Dad is safely ensconced in the study and Mom is occupied with some work-related matter upstairs, I write a quick note: Going out with Mel—back by 10. It’s partly a test, to see whether they’ll accept so little explanation. They wouldn’t have last spring.
Before.
I open the kitchen door as quietly as I can. Opened too quickly, the
door will squeak. My parents might come looking for me, spin out of their orbits. They can’t totally shake that sense of obligation. Leaving a note and sneaking out is much less awkward. For all of us.
The air is crisp and the lack of streetlights makes the night denser, the stars more garish. A crescent moon hangs in the sky like the ghost of a banana. I stand at the end of the driveway and listen to my own breathing. I trace my favorite scar, the one that crosses my left hand like a fledgling river.
I am immensely relieved when I see Mel’s car turn the corner and head my way.
“Hey.” I say it out loud, even though she is still a few houses away, to warm up my voice a little. It is amazing how quickly you forget the sound of your own voice if you don’t use it enough. I sound really weird to myself. I make a mental note to talk to myself more when I am home alone. Maybe start reading Mom’s journal out loud. Although there’s nothing very interesting in it yet.
Mel pulls up fast and hits the brakes so her car jolts to a stop with the passenger door directly in front of me. “Nice,” I tell her as I get in. “You’re getting better at that.” She usually overshoots and has—once or twice—come dangerously close to running down our mailbox.
“I know, right?” she says. “It drives my mother crazy, but I think it’s important to challenge one’s depth perception now and then.”
“Where did you tell her we were going?” I ask as we pull away from the curb.
“Library.”
“At eight o’clock on a Sunday? Is the library even open on Sunday night?”
Mel shrugs. “Who knows? She didn’t ask for further details.”
This is something Mel and I have in common: parents who don’t want to know. Mel’s mother is a bank manager, a job that suits her perfectly because it enables her to find out how much money everyone else has compared to her. Mel’s dad has one of those financial jobs with a hollow title and frequent travel to countries I couldn’t identify on a map. All of which means Mel has as much freedom as I do, with a much bigger allowance.
With Molton being about the size of a Monopoly board, it doesn’t take us long to get to the Elbow Room, about a song and a half. My brother measured trips that way, by song length, and made playlists that fit our family road trips perfectly. When we drove cross-country three summers ago, he managed to find a whole bunch of songs that mentioned cities by name and he put them in geographical order: “Via Chicago,” “Wichita Skyline,” “Leaving Las Vegas.” He made a customized playlist for every one of his college visits. They’re still on his MP3 player.
A song and a half does not a road trip make. But it’s enough to get a decent distance from home. The same moon hangs above us and the same cold air presses on the windows, but I feel calmer. Until I remember why we’re here.
Mel has to park at the far end of the lot because all the good spaces are taken. She laments her lack of a handicapped sign to hang from her rearview mirror, and I refrain from pointing out that the Elbow Room doesn’t even have handicapped parking. It’s a New Age bookstore that used to be a dive bar. The original owner died a few years ago and left the place to his son Steve. Steve quickly decided he didn’t want to keep a possum’s hours and the Elbow Room was reinvented. Only Steve didn’t have much of a budget for renovations, so the place looks exactly the same as it did before. And he still serves drinks. And doesn’t card. Which makes the Elbow Room one of Mel’s favorite places.
However, neither Mel nor I want to mix alcohol and the supernatural. We pay our ten-dollar cover charge and order sodas and stake out a couple of barstools so we can check out the scene. It isn’t difficult to tell which customers are here for the séance—they look a little nervous, and they thumb through esoteric books that they would likely never buy. One woman, older than my mother and draped in a number of multicolored scarves, glances furtively from side to side every minute or so, as if there might be ghosts strolling around the store, waiting like we are for the séance to begin. I am wondering if there is a specific ghost she is looking for when Mel elbows me and clears her throat. I follow her eyes to a far corner of the room, where one of Steve’s ancient, too-soft couches is nearly swallowing someone.
A boy.
Dark curly hair.
Long piano-player fingers combing through it.
He doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands now that he’s not holding his Houdini biography. They flutter around a bit before he sticks them into the pockets of his jacket. And he looks straight at us, and he smiles crookedly.
“Not that I doubt my own allure,” Mel says, “but I think that kid is looking at you.”
I hear myself suck in my breath and then try to sound casual as I say, “He might be.”
“Friend of yours?” she asks.
“Not really.”
Mel cackles softly. “You need to work on your subtlety, my dear.”
I force myself to look back to Scarf Lady and mumble, “Forget it.”
“I’m just messing with you,” Mel says. “He’s in my calculus class.”
I’m surprised to hear this. I know I’ve been in a fog at school, but new kids are usually high-profile, since most of us have known each other since our diaper days.
“His name is…like…It’s a verb. Trot or Sprint or…”
“Chase,” I tell her. “It’s Chase.”
“He looks like your brother, doesn’t he?”
The answer, as she already knows, is yes. He does. Although not as much as he did when I first saw him. I can see even more clearly now the ways in which Chase and my brother are different. My brother’s jaw was stronger, and his hair was really dark, almost black. Chase’s is melted brown with strands of gold.
I am just about to articulate this when a mustachioed man in a cape emerges from the Self-Help and Actualization section and announces, “I am Absalom!”
“Good lord,” Mel replies.
Absalom is undeterred by her tone. “Come, sisters and brothers! Let us form a circle of truth!”
The two of us and Scarf Lady and a few other sheepish folks approach Absalom as one might approach a land mine. Chase quietly does the same—we step forward in unison, in time with the same silent music. Just a regular guy, running into a perfectly normal girl. At a séance.
“Join hands!” Absalom crows. “We will be united in our call to the other side!”
Mel mutters, “Like anyone wants to be united with this lunatic.” Sure enough, the other séance attendees have all bunched to one side of the circle, to avoid having to hold either of Absalom’s oddly tiny hands. Finally, Chase takes pity on him and steps to Absalom’s left side, putting himself just a few people away from me.
I keep my eyes to myself, though I can feel him looking in my direction. I feel something like an electric current traveling from hand to hand, trying to get my attention. We already had what could be considered a playful conversation at Common Grounds. Attending the same séance could be mistaken for a whole new level of connection.
Lucky for me, Absalom continues to bellow platitudes, encouraging us to “visualize the lost souls” and “call forth our heart mates.” The circle of us shuffles uneasily, unable to stand still in the midst of so much that is strange. I am more accustomed than most people to this kind of discomfort, but somehow this circle seems to magnify every nervous movement. Finally, Absalom stops talking and begins to sway from side to side, dragging Chase and Scarf Lady—who has wedged her purse between her feet, in case the Elbow Room is invaded by marauding thieves—with him.
“Dear departed,” Absalom calls out, “bring us word from the other side!”
Mel can’t help herself. “What’s the weather like over there?”
Absalom stops swaying and glares at her. “Unbelievers may exit out the back.”
Mel smiles sweetly. “I would never leave my friend here alone. I am here to support her in her time of need.”
Now Absalom looks torn. He turns his beady gaze my way. “Is there someone you would like to
speak with? Someone to whom I can reach out on your behalf?”
Words choke me, as usual. I am suddenly mortified that I let Mel talk me into this, ashamed to be here with this motley crew of desperate people when I could be safely encased in the quiet denial of my family. This is my limbo, trapped between wanting to escape the house and wanting to never leave it again. I cough.
“Her brother,” Mel says.
Don’t say his name.
“What’s his name?” Absalom asks.
Don’t say his name.
I can feel the panic mounting like a science-class baking-soda volcano in my gut. I shake my head, hop on the balls of my feet, try to break it down. Then Chase saves the day.
“My turn!” he yells, suddenly animated, as if someone flipped a switch in his back. “I was here first!”
Absalom glances sideways. “This isn’t the deli counter,” he remarks. “There aren’t any numbers.”
“I was here first,” Chase says again.
Absalom rolls his eyes. “Fine. Who do you want to contact?”
“Harry Houdini.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Harry Houdini,” Chase announces. “He was my great-great-grandfather.”
“That seems unlikely,” Absalom tells him, “since Houdini never had children.”
“Ha!” Mel shouts. “He’s got you there. Now what?”
The other members of the circle, most of whom have stopped holding hands, are noticeably unhappy. “Excuse me,” says Scarf Lady, her feet still clutching her purse as if it might run away. “But are the rest of us going to get a turn?”
Absalom points to the entrance. “Not until the unbelievers have left us.”
“I thought you said unbelievers had to go out the back way,” Mel says.
“You can leave any way you like,” Absalom tells her.
“How very democratic. Do I get my ten dollars back?”
“No refunds,” Absalom barks.
Mel grabs my hand again and tugs me toward the door. My feet feel strangely flat, like after you’ve been roller-skating and then go back to regular walking. But I follow her.
Some of the Parts Page 3
