Teen Spirit Read online

  Clark walked me home in the lavender-tinged, dinner-scented air and right to my front door, but I didn’t ask him in.

  I wish I had.

  Luke was in the kitchen, heating up a bowl of beans in the microwave.

  “Hello,” he said calmly. “Julie. How are you?”

  I stared at him in the harsh light that showed off the faded acne scars on his cheeks; he looked as relaxed in my kitchen as if he lived with us. I couldn’t believe that he was in there at all without my mother. How long had they been seeing each other, five minutes?

  “You don’t look okay,” he said, and I felt my back bristle like a cat’s. How did he know what was okay for me or not?

  “Where’s my mom?” I clutched the dress closer to me.

  “Your mother wasn’t feeling well.” Luke took the beans out of the microwave. The smell made me gag. “She asked me to come over and make her something to eat.”

  I headed toward her bedroom and he called me back. “She’s sleeping. Let her sleep. She’s had a hard week.”

  So have I.

  But I didn’t go to her room.

  I lay down on my bed in my clothes, thinking about my mother and this stranger in her room together. The walls in the apartment were thin; I might hear something I really didn’t want to.

  So I put on my headphones and blasted the CD Clark made me, trying to chase any thoughts out of my head. “Ready to Start” was so loud and encompassing with its driving beat and urgent vocals that I didn’t hear my phone ring, but I felt it vibrate; it was Clark.

  “Hey,” he said. “I was just checking up on you.”

  Through the walls I could hear my mom and Luke listening to heavy metal.

  Metal, really? My mom was suddenly a metal fan?

  “Luke’s here,” I said.

  “The creepy boyfriend?”

  “Yeah. I don’t get why my mom’s dating him. She must be having some kind of midlife crisis.” I wasn’t the type to think about being rescued by a boy—it wasn’t my thing—but all of a sudden I wanted Clark to ask me how he could help.

  “You should come by,” I said.

  “It’s late, and I have a report due Monday,” said Clark, and I was surprised that I felt disappointment, and a little irritated with him for not coming anyway. This didn’t really make sense; it wasn’t like I had a crush on him or anything.

  “But maybe Wednesday,” he added after my disappointed, irritated pause. “Right after school? We can walk home and do some Halloween stuff if you want. I’ll wear a hat.”

  “Of course you will,” I said, softening, smiling into the receiver. “But come around four thirty. I need time to get ready.”

  IN THE MORNING, AFTER Luke left, I went into my mom’s bedroom, holding the lace dress. I’d decided to ask her about it. Maybe she had given it away for some reason.

  “Can I talk to you?”

  “Sure, sweetie.”

  I sat at the end of the bed, not wanting to get too close to her; I could still feel Luke’s presence in the room. It was dark except for a sliver of light through the blinds, so I put on the lamp and she shielded her eyes and gasped.

  “I found this in a secondhand store,” I said, ignoring her reaction.

  She sat up and blinked at the dress in my hands. “Oh, it’s lovely.”

  “Do you recognize it?”

  She shook her head.

  “It was Grandma’s.”

  “I don’t think so, Julie,” my mom said. “We kept all of her clothes. That’s why your closet is such a mess. It must be a look-alike.”

  “No, it’s not in there.” I had checked the night before.

  “I really don’t know then. But I need to get some more sleep. Can we talk about this later?”

  I was pretty sure that wouldn’t happen but it didn’t matter. At least I had the dress.

  And a job at the store where I’d found it. Mrs. Carol hired me at Treasure Hunt and set me to work doing displays on the first day. I loved being around all the old dresses although I worried that I’d spend my paychecks on them. Before I left that night, I asked Mrs. Carol about the lace dress again, if she remembered how she got it, but she only said, “Some dresses are like people, Julie. They feel very familiar right away, not because you’ve had them in your life before but because you are supposed to have them in your life.”

  Wow, I thought, she’s a master salesperson.

  “Kind of like that young man you were with,” Mrs. Carol added, busying herself with the cash register and not looking at me. “I bet you felt like you knew him when you met.”

  Clark? No, not really.

  She must have read my expression. “He’s special. You’ll see it eventually even if you don’t now. Why is it that girls have to grow up to appreciate the really good ones?”

  LATE AUTUMN LIGHT FELL in through the windows, cold-white radiance, reminding me of winter. My mother slept in her room and she hadn’t gotten up all day; I wondered if she was going back to the pre-Luke behavior. It was Halloween, and the air smelled vaguely of smoke and sounded like the crunch of dried leaves. I had carved a small pumpkin and bought a bag of candy bars, but I knew no trick-or-treaters would come upstairs to our apartment. The manager made us keep the lobby door locked and refused to put up any welcoming decorations.

  When I buzzed Clark in and opened the door, he blushed and smiled like he was going to say something complimentary about my lilac lace dress, but then just tipped the top hat he’d worn to school that day (“the only day of the year I can dress like myself and not seem weird”) and I was surprised to realize I was a little disappointed. I didn’t think I cared that much about what he thought.

  We didn’t talk a lot, just went into my room to eat some candy and watch the Buffy Halloween episodes.

  But then, before we’d even started, I heard a clatter from my closet.

  I popped up and opened the closet door.

  The Ouija board fell out.

  Again?

  “It’s Halloween, too,” Clark said, tugging at the pink-and-black tie he’d purchased at the thrift store. “That’s pretty weird.”

  I fingered the slightly rough lace skirt of my dress. “Everything’s been so weird. It seems like a sign or something.”

  Clark held his chin in his hand, digging his fingers so hard I wondered if it hurt. “What kind of sign?”

  “From my grandmother?” I was immediately embarrassed and added, “I don’t know.”

  “You want to use it to reach her?”

  I didn’t have to respond; he could probably see my answer written in the air between us, in ornate Ouija board lettering.

  “Okay,” he said. “If you need to.”

  “You don’t sound so sure.”

  “I want to help you, Julie.”

  I had an impulse to hug him but instead I said, “We need more chocolate for this,” and handed him a miniature candy bar, then taking one for myself.

  He blushed as if he’d read my mind about the hug, or maybe it was the way I’d smiled when I gave him the chocolate.

  I picked up the box, took the Ouija board out, and brought it over to where he sat on the floor.

  We faced each other, knee to knee, the board between us, our fingers very close on the marker. He kept his cramped up like spiders so they could fit, as if he was afraid to touch me.

  “I know this is weird,” I said. “I hope it doesn’t freak you out too much. I know you told me . . .”

  His eyes were darting around the room but he said, “It’s okay.”

  “I really miss her.” The sudden tears made my eyes sting with makeup and I wondered if my mascara would run, then realized that Clark wouldn’t care about something like that. Even though I wished he had complimented my dress, it was nice not having to worry about impressing him.

  He nodded. “I understand. Believe me.”

  The relief at this response expanded like a breath in my chest and I wanted to tell him more. “I’ve thought about going after h
er,” I said.

  I expected him to look confused or shocked if he got what I meant, but instead he said, “That makes sense to me.”

  We both looked down at the marker. There was a breathlessness in the room, in the air.

  I forced my lungs to take in more oxygen; there never felt like quite enough in that apartment, and it was more true than ever that night. “This is stupid.” I wanted him to tell me it wasn’t.

  As if on cue he said, “No it’s not. Let’s try.”

  The sun was sinking and the room grew darker. “Miriam?” I said. “Grandma?”

  And then the marker was moving and I wanted to take my hands away because suddenly they were shaking, but I kept them there.

  “Are you here?” I asked, and the marker sped to YES.

  My heart had legs; it was running away. “Are you Miriam?”

  NO.

  “Who are you?”

  The marker went to the letter G.

  Grandma, I thought.

  R

  A

  N

  But then Clark let go, so it slid back across the board to me.

  He un-crumpled his long, gray corduroy legs awkwardly, like a foal learning to stand.

  “I have to go,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “I just do, okay? I’ll see you later.”

  And then Clark ran, he literally ran, out of my apartment. I watched him through the window, holding his hat, taking off down the street of jack-o’-lanterns and plastic skeletons and little, screaming, bloody ghouls with pillowcase sacks, his legs flailing, almost stumbling, like he was trying to escape something or someone.

  I picked up the Ouija board and tried by myself, but nothing happened. I was so mad at Clark for leaving at that moment, when my grandmother was about to come. G-R-A-N . . . Damn. I tried to call him but he didn’t answer. So I ate the whole bag of candy, took off my grandmother’s dress (it was too tight anyway; the zipper left a mark), and got into bed. Outside I could hear the cries of children and I remembered trick-or-treating with my mother and grandmother in the old neighborhood when I was a kid, wearing the elaborate costumes they had made for me, walking through hills that smelled of trees and bonfires, and coming home to sit on the floor and sort through my candy while the fire blazed in the hearth. My grandmother always prepared a big dinner of roast chicken and pumpkin soup and potatoes and green beans and salad before we went out, so I wouldn’t get sick on sugar, she said.

  But without her and her dinners and her love, my candy-belly hurt and I lay facedown on the sheets, thinking about my skittish friend, my absent or sleeping mother, my grandmother who had been so close and now was as gone as she had ever been.

  I lay there with my grandmother’s urn and photo album, under the dream catcher she had given me when I was a child, wishing I could just pass out. Wishing that I could join my grandma wherever she was.

  SHE SHOULD HAVE BEEN in my dream. I was in our old house, except that it was sitting on a body of water that reflected it on all sides. Reeds grew out of the water, and the air was foggy. I was walking from room to room, looking for my grandma. The rooms were empty and my voice echoed off the blank walls. My footsteps rang on the wooden floors. Where was she?

  Something was tattooed on my arm in red ink, words I couldn’t understand. When did I get a tattoo? I kept trying to read the words, but they looked upside down or backward or maybe in another language.

  Then I was caught in a flashing red light that came through the window, and an alarm sounded and I was running, running, and then sinking into water, trying to get away from whomever it was that was going—on no uncertain terms, and with vile intent—to harm the shit out of me.

  3. GRANT

  At school the next day, Clark wasn’t in health class, but I found him at lunch, in the quad, on what had become “our bench.” His head was down and he didn’t have his kicharee with him.

  “What happened? Where’d you go?”

  He glanced up at me and shrugged.

  “She was so close, Clark. Why’d you leave when she was so close?” I tried to keep the resentment out of my voice but it didn’t work. My nerves were frayed like the jeans Clark wore.

  He ripped a piece of paper out of a notebook and began tearing it into small shreds and balling them up. “Look, Julie, I tried, but I’m not comfortable with that supernatural stuff, unless it’s just entertainment, okay? I told you. I’m just not into it.”

  “Whatever. Okay, sorry. But you didn’t have to leave like that. And not call me back. And then you weren’t in class. . . .”

  “I had a headache, okay?” He tossed one of the balled-up papers into a trash can; it missed. “Fuck,” he said softly, and pulled the beret off his head, crushing it in his hand. “I can’t even make a basket in a trash can?” He looked like he was about to cry.

  My anger paled like a ghost next to his vivid frustration and, even though I still didn’t really understand, I said, “It’s okay, Clark. Forget about it. We don’t have to use the Ouija board anymore.” I took out some leftover Halloween candy and we stuffed our faces, not talking for the rest of the lunch period.

  LATER THAT NIGHT I was trying to sleep, still amped on Halloween sugar and restless with anxiety from my dream the night before, when I heard a tapping at my window. I jumped up and then I just froze, standing there in the middle of my room in my mom’s vintage Stooges T-shirt, unable to move or speak. Someone was calling from down below, “Julie!”

  I crept over to the window and looked out. A boy was standing in the alleyway next to my house. He was tall and lanky with dark hair. The red streetlight shone, reflected in a pool of water at his feet so that he seemed to glow with its color. I didn’t recognize him at first without a hat on and because he wasn’t posed in his usual slump.

  “Clark?”

  “Hi,” he said. The streetlamps made a buzzing sound.

  “Can I come up?”

  I wriggled into the plaid skinny jeans that lay on the floor by the bed; for a second I almost stopped to put on a bra but I decided not to. It was just Clark. He probably wouldn’t even notice.

  He wasn’t wearing his glasses and his hair was slicked back away from his face, showing off high cheekbones that had always been hidden before. He still wasn’t smiling and looked completely different without the sloppy grin.

  “How’s it going?” he asked, standing in the doorway with his hands in his hoodie pockets.

  “What’d you do, get a haircut or something?”

  He didn’t answer, but his eyes never left my face. They were big and dark, pupils dilated. “Can I come in?”

  I locked the lobby door behind us and he followed me inside and up the stairs. His feet were so soundless that for a moment I had to look back to make sure he was still there.

  We snuck into the apartment. My mom was on the couch—she’d fallen asleep there and we had to tiptoe past her into my room. I sat on the bed. Clark lowered himself onto the floor, still watching my face.

  “What’s up?” I asked him. “Are you okay?”

  “Julie?”

  “Yeah? What’s wrong? You’re freaking me out here.” I hugged my arms around my chest, suddenly wishing I’d put the bra on.

  “Relax.” He was still just staring at me, not smiling.

  Clark would never say “Relax.”

  “Who are you?” I was only half joking. “What have you done with my friend?”

  He cleared his throat and smoothed his hair down. It was a gesture I’d never seen Clark make. I felt a little sick.

  “Okay,” I said, extending the last syllable. “What’s going on here?”

  “Don’t freak. I’m Clark’s twin brother, Grant.”

  A brother had never been mentioned. I felt like I was in a Buffy episode. “What the hell? Stop messing with me!”

  His eyes flickered for a moment down to my breasts; I had uncrossed my arms and I covered myself again. My heart was beating like I’d been running.

  �
�Clark’s told me a lot about you. He felt bad about leaving like that. He said you were really sad about your grandma.”

  I shook my head back and forth to clear it. “A twin? Why didn’t he tell me about you?” The more I stared at him, the more it seemed like he was telling the truth; they looked alike but not exactly. And their voices were different—Grant’s was richer, deeper—and the way Grant’s eyes almost glowed when they touched my body. . . . I should have known right away.

  “Clark doesn’t like to talk about me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Sibling rivalry?” He smiled for the first time. Then he bent down and picked up the Ouija board box, rapping on it with his knuckles. “Is this how you tried to reach her?”

  “What?”

  “Your grandma. Is this how?”

  I took the box away from him. “I still don’t get why Clark didn’t mention you,” I said, exasperated.

  “I was away for a while. I just got back. I guess I kind of hurt him. I didn’t mean to. He’s kind of shut down about the whole thing.”

  “Really shut down. He never said anything at all about a brother.”

  “It’s a long story.” There was something feline about the way he moved, leaning back on his elbows and crossing his long legs.

  “Prove it,” I said, surprising myself with the words.

  “Prove what?”

  “That you’re not Clark. How do I know you’re not messing with me?”

  He got up from the floor and shook out his legs. He ran his fingers over his hair. It was like electric sparks were coming off him. He picked up the mix CD from Clark, turned it over in his hand, and then set it down again. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Tell me something about Clark. That he wouldn’t tell me himself.”

  “I can’t betray the kid like that.” Grant sucked in his cheeks, making the bones appear more prominent. “Although I guess I’m his best secret. In the flesh.” There was the smile again, slow and symmetrical. Not Clark’s grin.

  “Why did you come here?” I asked.