The Possible

by Tara Altebrando

  “Not yet.” I stepped farther into the room and felt like I’d stepped into a movie I was miscast in.

  “What do you think you can or can’t say?” He sounded annoyed about it. I was, too, but didn’t want to let on.

  I spotted Liana, finally, near a large, ornate mirror hanging in a hall big enough to be its own room. She was wearing a black dress and had obviously had her hair blown-out—it was beyond straight—but she still looked out of place, somehow. Like her dress was from Target and not some SoHo boutique.

  “Who are these people?” Aiden asked, reading my mind. “And how do I get to be one of them?”

  Liana came over and grabbed my elbow. “A word?”

  “Liana, this is Aiden. Aiden, Liana.”

  “Oh yes, hi, nice to meet you,” she said quickly. “A word?” She started guiding me away. “We’ll only be a minute.”

  “You’re actually hurting me,” I said, and she released my arm. I rubbed it.

  “Sorry.” She shook her shoulders, like trying to force them to loosen up. “I guess I’m more stressed out than I realized.” She shook her head and her hair flipped to smack her mouth once, then again the other way. “So! Listen. I want you and your boyfriend to—”

  “Friend,” I said. “He’s a friend.”

  “Sure, if you say so. You guys should have fun. But I may introduce you to a few people. A film director who’s interested in the podcast. In me, actually. And also in you.”

  “Why would—”

  “Just be friendly and don’t say anything about the actual content of the podcast, like whether you have powers or anything, or whether you believe Crystal does or whatever. We want to keep people guessing going into this thing. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  A tray appeared with food on it. I couldn’t be sure what it was. The server held out a stack of tiny napkins but Liana took whatever the food was and popped it in her mouth.

  “I should’ve eaten before I came,” she said.

  “Did you know that Crystal was coming up for parole?” I asked, shaking my head at the server, not feeling like I could eat yet.

  Another server appeared with a tray of bubbling champagne flutes. Liana took one, downed it, and put the empty on a marble table.

  “Of course,” she said. “But don’t worry. She’ll never get it.”

  •••

  Why would I worry?

  Was Crystal pissed at me?

  •••

  No one was that interested in talking to a couple of teenagers. Aiden and I ended up out on the terrace, sitting in cool-to-the-touch chairs. I should’ve brought a sweater. It was chilly. I shivered, rubbed my arms. Aiden offered his jacket, but I couldn’t bring myself to take it.

  He stood and went to the wall. “This view is incredible.”

  I went to his side. The city was lit up mostly in white, but with a blue swath on that building, a red spotlight on that one. Another glowed lime green and seemed to pulse. The white noise of traffic carried sirens and horns along with it.

  Aiden turned to me. “You going to tell me why I’m here on such short notice?”

  I stared out at the city, wondering whether I could see far enough to spot the air over my house. “Bennett was supposed to come but he’s sick.”

  “Ah.”

  “But you already guessed that.”

  “Maybe.” He looked out at the city, too. It was handy to have a skyline right there when you were having an awkward conversation.

  “What were these plans you had to cancel?” I asked.

  “Movies.”

  “With?” I couldn’t seem to stop myself from prying.

  “People.”

  “Female people?” Why did I care?

  “Does it matter?”

  I suddenly wasn’t sure.

  •••

  “There you are!” Liana’s voice rose above the city. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  Aiden and I both turned. She had two men with her, and her arm was linked into one of theirs. “This,” she said, presenting the other one, “is Bill from FPR. He’s been a huge supporter of The Possible from the very beginning.”

  Everyone shook hands.

  “And this is my husband, also a huge supporter, but in a different way.” She smiled. “This is Kaylee, and her friend . . . Ian was it?”

  “Aiden,” Aiden said.

  Bill said, “And you’re Crystal’s daughter.”

  I nodded. “For better or worse!” It was supposed to be funny but it didn’t feel that way.

  “This must all be very exciting for a girl of your age,” he said.

  “Yes, that is for sure,” I said. Why did I sound so dumb?

  “Liana tells me you’re hoping to get approved to visit the prison,” he said.

  “Yes, I’m waiting on paperwork.”

  “Well, that would certainly kick things up a notch.” He turned to Liana. “You’re going to tape that conversation, right?” He turned back to me. “Right?”

  “No phones or recording devices allowed,” she said.

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” Bill said, shaking his head. Then he pulled a wallet out from his inside jacket pocket and slid a business card out and handed it to me. “You need anything, let me know. And good luck.” He shook my hand, nodded at Aiden. The three of them walked off.

  “Good luck?” I said to Aiden. He put his hands in his pants pockets and shrugged.

  “Come inside,” Liana called back to us. “They’re about to start.”

  “Start?” I said.

  “The spoon bending?” she said like we were idiots.

  She waved us on impatiently and we followed.

  “Is she drunk?” Aiden asked in a whisper.

  •••

  Everyone gathered in the library, where the lights had been dimmed. A woman with a basket was going around handing out spoons. Liana went to the front of the room and called everyone to attention.

  “I want to thank you all for coming tonight, and for your support of me and of The Possible. This season is shaping up to be more incredible than last. I couldn’t be more excited to have you all along for the ride. Oh, and your money, too.”

  People laughed. The basket was presented to me and to Aiden. I took a spoon. He didn’t.

  “Are you sure?” the woman asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m good.”

  •••

  Liana introduced the person leading the spoon-bending exercise; I recognized his name from a YouTube wormhole I’d gone down. He was older, like some kind of hippie, and I’d skipped past his videos pretty quickly. Soon the whole room was staring at their spoons and chanting, “Bend, bend, bend. Bend, bend, bend.”

  I stared at my spoon, studied my warped reflection in its silver-gold surface. I willed it to soften.

  Bend.

  I tried to communicate with the spoon.

  Bend.

  I tried to be the spoon.

  Bend.

  “Oh my god!” A voice from across the room, above the chanting.

  A woman held up her spoon; it was bent over on itself.

  I turned to look for Aiden but he was gone.

  •••

  Will Hannity came up to me afterward, when conversational chatter had kicked in again. “Hi, Kaylee,” he said.

  “Hi, again,” I said.

  “You look nice,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I sort of laughed. “You, too.”

  He was wearing a dark-gray suit with no tie, holding a golden liquor. “So, did you have an open adoption?”

  “Yeah, I guess. I mean, my parents knew who my birth mother was if that’s what you mean.”

  “Did they ever meet her?”

  “I think so, but I don’t know. Why are you asking about this?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” he said, and laughed. “Just making conversation, maybe? I have to say. Knowing who you are and knowing Crystal back then. Well, don’t take th
is the wrong way, but you make me a little nervous.”

  I stared at him for a second, half wondering if he was flirting, even though that would be gross, then I said, “Sure is nice weather we’re having.”

  He got the joke. He said, “Read any good books lately?” I looked around the room and said, “I’m going to go find my boyfriend.”

  •••

  I found Aiden back out on the terrace, alone with the skyline.

  “Well . . . ?” he said when I went to his side.

  “One woman did it.”

  “Give me a break, Kaylee.” He shook his head.

  “Would it have killed you to try it?” I said, too loudly. “Can you just, like, go with the flow tonight? For me?”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “It’s not just about showing up.”

  “It is, actually. I’m here, and he’s . . .” He shook his head. “Never mind.”

  “I wouldn’t have asked you if I thought you’d be all weird and mad and judge-y the whole time.”

  “I just think—”

  “Tell me, Aiden. What do you think?”

  “I think you like all this. I think you like that people are talking about you maybe having powers and that you could be doing more to shut it all down but you’re not.”

  “I haven’t even told you everything. I haven’t told you about all the things that have happened to me.”

  “And I’m not interested. Because it’s ridiculous.”

  Liana was back. “Kaylee, you can’t hide all night.”

  “I’m not,” I said weakly.

  “Come on, I want to introduce you to someone.”

  I went to follow her, leaving Aiden behind.

  •••

  I’d imagined the ride home from the party a few times that week. I’d pictured me and Bennett, sitting close on the train, kissing the whole way, making discoveries about each other and ourselves.

  Instead, there I was with Aiden. Barely speaking. Him half-asleep with his eyes closed and head against the window.

  I took a picture of him and sent it to Chiara, then composed a text.

  •••

  •••

  “This is our stop,” I said, when it was, and Aiden stirred and I drove him home.

  I WAS SERIOUSLY DRAGGING AT practice on Saturday. If Aiden wanted me to do more to prove that I didn’t have any strange powers, my play on the field that morning would have proved it beyond a reasonable doubt. I could barely throw a ball over the plate and was useless at hitting. I was off-kilter for some reason, too scatterbrained to focus.

  “Kaylee,” Coach Stacey said. “What gives?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, and took a breather. Literally stopped to breathe a bunch of times. “Just having an off morning.”

  •••

  That afternoon, lifeguarding set a new record for boring. I itched to have my phone in my hands so I could . . . I didn’t even know what. I wanted distraction. I wanted a Hermione Time-Turner.

  I wanted it to be Monday already.

  I wanted the podcast to go live.

  I had to yell at the Miller twins again about playing chicken. I was maybe too loud. People must have complained. Mr. Griffin came over and told me to watch my tone, take it down a notch.

  When my shift was over, I checked my phone.

  •••

  •••

  I read the text again and double-checked who it was from.

  WTF?

  I wrote back and Liana and I texted back and forth furiously . . .

  •••

  •••

  •••

  That night, I stared at walls.

  •••

  I ate poorly. (Moroccan stew again? Already?)

  •••

  I got my period.

  •••

  Why would Liana be asking about Aubrey?

  •••

  On Sunday, I dragged myself to the lifeguarding chair again, careful to keep my toes in the shade. I’d painted them Red Cross red.

  The Miller twins were in the pool but they weren’t bothering me, so whatever.

  I twirled my whistle.

  I counted down the hours to the podcast launch.

  I studied Aiden from across the pool. Had he been working out?

  Then a loud yell came from the deep end.

  Freaking Miller twins.

  Actually only one Miller twin.

  Aiden was already in the water heading for a dark mass at the bottom of the deep end.

  “Oh shit.” I stood and pulled my cover-up off and dove in, too.

  But Aiden had already gone deep and was on his way up, dragging the other Miller twin.

  “What happened?” I said, arriving with water up my nose.

  “His bathing-suit tie was stuck in the drain. I was able to pull it free.”

  The Miller kid was coughing as we lifted him up to hand him off to two other lifeguards who’d rushed over with a soft stretcher.

  “She did it,” he said, glaring at me as someone put a towel around him. “She’s like a witch or something. And she hates me.”

  I expected everyone, or just someone, to say something like “Stop talking nonsense,” but no one did.

  Aiden climbed up out of the pool and helped the others carry the Miller boy to the first-aid building to get checked out.

  His brother stood at the pool’s edge staring at me like some soul-dead kid out of a horror movie.

  “What are you looking at?” I said, and he took off running.

  •••

  I swam laps when my shift was over, then lay in the sun to dry off, eyes closed. I pictured the drops of water on my body disappearing into the air and winding their way up to the sky, into clouds, blowing away to become part of some far-off storm and eventually—maybe come hurricane season—circling back to me as part of a system with my name.

  I heard Bennett’s voice and opened my eyes and found him. I got up and walked over.

  “So you’re better.”

  “Yeah,” he said, and the guy he was talking to sort of drifted away. “Sorry I dropped off the face of the earth there.”

  “You must have been pretty sick,” I said, hearing irritation and doubt in my own voice and wishing it wasn’t there, wishing I didn’t care.

  He looked desperately uncomfortable and I wanted it all to be different. I said, “You want to, like, go somewhere?”

  •••

  “So it’s like yours unless she decides to move in?” he said, looking around the granny pod.

  “Pretty much,” I said. “I’ll be so bummed out if she ever actually does that.”

  “Seriously,” he said. “I mean, it’s awesome. It’s like you have your own place.”

  “So what do you feel like doing?” I asked.

  “I have a few ideas,” he said, and he came closer, slid his hands around my waist.

  •••

  Lips.

  Hands.

  Tongues.

  Hips.

  Bones.

  •••

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” I said.

  He groaned.

  •••

  I threw water on my face and stared at myself in the mirror, wanting things to slow down and not wanting to have to work so hard at everything all the time.

  This was what I’d wanted. I’d invited him over.

  So what was the problem?

  When I went back out, Bennett was looking at the snow globes. He took one down and put it on the table. We waited until the snow settled over Paris and I said, “I’m not even sure it ever snows in Paris.”

  He half smiled and I said, “I don’t have an LA snow globe. Do they make those?”

  “My guess would be yes, but with glitter. Like some of these.” He picked up the Disney one and looked at it closely. “Why do you collect these?”

  “I don’t know. My parents started it when I was little and I haven’t st
opped.”

  “I guess it’s the kind of thing you’ll grow out of.”

  “I guess,” I said, though I didn’t see why I ever would.

  I said, “Do you have any idea why the podcast producer was asking me about Aubrey’s tree accident?”

  He tilted his head. “None whatsoever.” Then he nodded at the snow globe. “You ever try with these? Like trying to get the snowflakes to move?”

  •••

  I focused all my attention on Paris and historic blizzards and whirling winds, even Elsa and her ice powers, and wished I knew the French word for snow.

  I imagined being light as air, imagined floating, imagined letting it go.

  I remembered an old record we’d had, years ago. A creepy recording of “The Snow Queen.” I peered into the globe and tried to isolate a single fake flake and get it to rise up to pretend to buzz around like a snow bee. I pictured light reflecting off the troll mirror and the broken fragment that got in the boy Kay’s eye. His name had been Kay, right? Or was I imagining that?

  A blob of water appeared from under the globe.

  I gasped.

  “I’m trying really hard not to be freaked out,” Bennett said.

  I picked up the globe with a shaky hand and the snow in it responded by swirling up into a cyclone.

  “Me, too,” I said, and he kissed me and it felt romantic—like Paris romantic—and also terrifying and I saw us strolling down the Champs-Elysées and drinking wine in sidewalk cafés and staying in some adorable hotel that had views of the Eiffel Tower and feeling grown-up and powerful.

  •••

  I forced myself to do my homework when he was gone. He’d left a bit abruptly, I thought, when I’d realized that sure didn’t actually mean yes. I’d said “We should slow down” when I stopped his hand from going where he—we? I? maybe?—wanted it to go.

  I shook up all the snow globes and sat and watched and waited.

  I swore I could hear the faintest sound of the glitter over Vegas and feel the weight of fake snow piling up in Montreal.

  The AC clicked on.

  •••

  When I finished my homework, I got the dice out.

  I decided to roll a pair of sixes.

  And did.

  •••

  I wanted to text or call Aiden but also didn’t want to.