Teen Spirit Page 9

  But my mom wasn’t concerned about leaving me alone. She simply said, “I know you’ll be in good hands with Clark and his family.”

  On Wednesday evening, she was packed and waiting for Luke in the living room. She had on her usual tight jeans and heels, a sprinkling of glitter on her cheeks this time. It was getting into the creases around her eyes and made her look older.

  “Is that my glitter powder?”

  She touched her face. “Oh, yes. I thought it would be okay. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not okay,” I said. “And it looks like you’re trying to be seventeen or something.”

  My mom bit her lip and blinked her eyes and her whole body stiffened. I could tell I’d hurt her feelings, but I reminded myself that she was the one who was leaving me alone on Thanksgiving.

  “You don’t have to speak to me like that. And besides, I bought you that glitter, if I recall,” she said.

  “When you had a job! When you had a life, instead of hanging out with this aging rocker freak.”

  “Stop it, just stop it, Julie.”

  I turned away and went to my room.

  I heard Luke’s truck in the street. My mom didn’t even bother to say good-bye when she left. And she didn’t call me all that night or even the next day.

  THANKSGIVING NIGHT, STILL NOT having heard from her, I dragged myself out of bed, where I’d been reading, and into the shower, then put on a light-blue cashmere beaded cardigan sweater that had belonged to my grandma, a black skirt, blue-and-gray argyle slouchy socks, and black ankle strap shoes, added my grandmother’s black satin bow-shaped purse, and walked over to Clark’s house with a bottle of sparkling apple cider. I hadn’t really felt like leaving my room, let alone the apartment, but I made myself; the idea of being alone was the only thing worse than having to get dressed and go out.

  Clark answered the door in his usual jeans and Chucks but also wearing a white dress shirt, green tie, and the argyle sweater he’d bought at Treasure Hunt. He looked like a little old man, except young and tall. I guess he felt the tie made up for the lack of hat.

  “You look nice, dude,” I said, trying to sound cheerful.

  He blushed along his jawline. “You too.”

  The house smelled like a holiday, the way our house used to smell this time of year. Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, vanilla, a turkey baking in the oven. Clark’s living room felt warm and cozy with soft sofas and a fire in the fireplace. I looked for pictures of Clark and a boy who looked just like him, but more handsome, no glasses, slightly more muscular build, maybe some of him posed in his basketball jersey, with his team. Maybe some sports trophies.

  There wasn’t anything.

  Clark’s mom came in wearing a vintage cotton apron printed with large colorful fruits.

  “Hi, I’m Lisa.”

  “Hi,” I said. “Nice apron.”

  “Oh, thank you.” She was tall and thin like her boys, with sad eyes. I wondered if her eyes and Clark’s had been sad before Grant died. When Grant came, his eyes never looked sad—just hungry. I shook my head to knock the thought of him out of the way.

  “Clark’s said a lot of nice things about you.”

  I wanted to return the compliment, but I realized that he never really mentioned his family. I assumed that it was because he was afraid it might lead to Grant.

  Awkward. “Thanks,” I managed.

  “Can we help you with dinner?” Clark asked her.

  The kitchen was small and brightly lit, with blue ceramic pots that I recognized; they matched the one Clark carried around in his backpack. “So this is where you learned to cook,” I said to him, watching his mother baste the bird. “Your son’s a really good chef.”

  She laughed. “A little healthier than I am, I’m afraid.”

  “Where’d you get so into all the healthy stuff anyway, Clark?” I asked him as I tossed the salad.

  He shook his head and spooned vegan pumpkin-pie filling into a coconut-and-almond-meal piecrust he had made. “Just another example of my neurosis.”

  “In that case, never get over it.”

  His dad came in, also tall and thin, balding, and wearing glasses. He greeted me with a quick handshake. I decided the sad eyes weren’t genetic but had come upon all of them in the last couple of years.

  “Hello, I’m Hal. Nice to meet you.”

  “You too,” I said. “You have really great sons.” How had I made that slip? Damn. “Son. A really great son.”

  He didn’t show that it had bothered him, but I was sure it did by the way the air suddenly felt stormy—heavy and electric.

  “Well, I’m going to catch some football.” He excused himself, and Clark watched him go. I knew what he was thinking. If Grant were there, Grant would be invited in to watch the game, not Clark, the less favored, less athletic son. The son who cooked. And thinking like that only brought on guilt and remorse. Why wasn’t I the one who died?

  Maybe I’m wrong, I told myself. I can’t read Clark’s mind.

  We drowned our worries for a while with food. There was green salad with persimmons, pumpkin soup, turkey, cranberry-orange sauce, buttered-green-bean-and-almond casserole, homemade bread with butter, and Clark’s extreme vegan pie that even his parents had to admit was surprisingly delicious. I was so full afterward that I could hardly move. Clark asked if I wanted to go up to his room after we’d helped with the dishes, but I could tell the idea made him nervous and he was only being polite, so I asked if he’d drive me home instead. I knew he wasn’t big on driving, but I figured it wasn’t that far and it wouldn’t hurt him to get used to it, especially if he ever wanted a semblance of a social life.

  The night was cold and quiet; everyone was away on their fancy vacations. I thought of my mom and Luke in bed in a room with quaint wallpaper and cuckoo clocks on the walls. I could see his bare, white feet sticking out from under the patchwork quilt.

  I was grateful to be with Clark, to be with the living brother. When we pulled up in front of my apartment, I fished around in my purse for my keys, and my fingers caught in the torn silk lining, grazing a small card. I pulled it out and read:

  black jade herbs and acupuncture

  And in smaller letters:

  DAIYU KAUFMAN

  WE SPECIALIZE IN CONTACTING SPIRIT WORLD, SPIRIT POSSESSION.

  It was the card the woman at the occult store had given me, but it felt as if it had found my fingers in the purse, rather than the other way around. The address was in Chinatown. I tucked the card into a zippered pocket of the purse for safekeeping.

  Clark and I said a hurried good night and I didn’t invite him in.

  I WOKE LATER TO a banging sound that practically lifted me off my mattress. What the hell? The digital clock read 12:03. For some reason this in itself bothered me, but I didn’t know why.

  I froze, staring at the phone across the room, unable to move toward it.

  The bang again. A shuddering bang. Coming from the kitchen. The door of my room opened and I shot out of bed.

  “Honey?” The light flipped on. My mom was standing in my room in a black silk slip I hadn’t seen before. “Are you okay?”

  “You scared the shit out of me. When did you get here? What was that?”

  “Luke’s going to see.”

  He came in behind her, shirtless in his black jeans. I looked away and covered my chest with the blanket.

  “It’s just the refrigerator,” Luke said. “It’s a piece of crap. You should tell your landlord.”

  I didn’t think the refrigerator was broken. It had never done that before. The sound was angry, as if it was trying to tell me something. Vague thoughts scratched in the back of my mind, like rats, bits of information that I couldn’t quite trap.

  Luke put his arm around my mom and drew her toward him.

  “I’ll be right in,” she said, pushing gently on his chest, and he left my room.

  Then she came and sat on my bed. She looked fragile, as though she’d rattle if you shook her. “
Are you okay?” she asked again.

  I glared at her. “When did you get back?”

  “A few hours ago. I felt badly leaving you and about our fight. I’m so sorry. Did you have fun at Clark’s?”

  I could smell Luke’s odor on her. “Don’t let him in my room,” I said, turning my back and throwing myself down onto the sagging mattress.

  She stayed there for a few more minutes, then sighed and left. I would have preferred the bang of the refrigerator all night over the sound of Luke’s band’s CD or, even worse, the sound of their voices through the wall.

  THE NEXT DAY I rested and tried to numb myself with reality TV and the leftovers Clark’s mom had sent home with me, avoiding my mom and Luke until I went to sleep around ten that night.

  I dreamed I was with Grant in the sepia ancestor world again. He was holding my hand, leading me somewhere through misty rooms with potted palms and wicker chairs. A large china doll with glass eyes sat on a velvet love seat, watching me. I was cold, so cold, and I couldn’t get warm.

  “Where are we?” I asked Grant.

  A woman was sitting at a table covered with a cloth. For some reason it disturbed me that I could not see the legs of the table. There was a large crystal ball in front of her, and a fox with glass eyes was draped around her neck.

  I heard Grant’s voice: “You wanted to know what it was like. This is what it is like.”

  “What what’s like?”

  The table at which the woman sat was skidding slowly across the floor.

  “Be with me and all this can be yours,” Grant said, sweeping his hand across the cold, brown-paper landscape, a painted mural of a garden, populated by stern, sad, one-dimensional beings with the eyes of mystics.

  I looked down at my arm. The red tattoo from the other dream was there again. I could make out the letters this time.

  E

  V

  I

  L

  The pounding of my own heart woke me like a knock at the door. My covers had fallen off, the window had blown open, and the night air bit. I shivered as if I was still inside the dream. What did it mean? What was evil? Who was evil? Was it a message from Grant?

  Or about him?

  I knew I needed to find out and the only clue I had was the card in my purse: BLACK JADE.

  The next morning I called Clark and told him that I wanted to go to Chinatown the following Saturday and try to learn more about the strange things that were happening to us.

  2. BLACK JADE

  I attempted to make the week pass as quickly as possible by staying busy at work and, when I was home, studying, reading, or looking through the clothing and purses and jewelry and photos that had belonged to my grandmother as if I were going to find some new clue that would bring her closer to me and help us deal with Grant. Nothing.

  I realized how isolated I had become; I had no interest in seeing anyone besides Mrs. Carol and Clark, and he and I had decided it was better not to be alone together for a while, until we had a better plan. It was hard to imagine that I’d wanted to attend Ally Kellogg’s north-of-Wilshire party a month ago.

  And now, the refrigerator had begun to bang every night, and I found I reacted more fearfully than seemed appropriate, startling as if a bomb had gone off and then wondering why it frightened me so much. I wished Clark was there to defend me from the evil fridge, but I wasn’t sure he could defend me from anything.

  When I finally stepped outside into the bright December light that Saturday, wearing a red Chinese silk dress and black Doc Martens, and my hair secured into a bun with chopsticks, I cowered a little, wanting to go back inside and hide in spite of the possibility that Luke might be coming to visit.

  Clark drove his mom’s car but anxiously, leaning forward over the steering wheel and braking suddenly like an old person.

  “You okay?” I asked him.

  “Yeah. I really don’t like to drive that much.”

  “I know. That’s what I meant.” I put my hand on his arm and then drew it away quickly, worried I would stimulate Grant that way. Clark’s skin was warm and smooth; I could almost feel the blood moving through his veins.

  We arrived in Chinatown, parked, and walked through the plaza. It was unseasonably hot and sticky, and we tried to stay in the shade of the buildings.

  “What’s up with this heat?” I said.

  Clark frowned and ripped at a cuticle with his teeth. “Global warming? Remember what I said about cold weather making people more friendly? One day the world will be so hot no one will ever even want to speak to each other again.”

  The hot, antagonistic air danced with red paper lanterns, and dragons were inlaid into the pavement under our feet. Clark and I saw jade Buddhas, and rose-quartz Quan Yins, table fountains that lit up in neon, bonsai trees, and bamboo in dragon-shaped planters.

  I remembered coming to Chinatown once with my grandmother; she had bought me a little purse of pink Chinese silk and a gold silk lipstick case with red cherry blossoms on it and a tiny rectangular mirror inside. Then we’d eaten steamed dumplings. I could see her face, smiling at me in the small, fragrant, dimly lit restaurant as she taught me to use the chopsticks that she’d tied together with a ribbon to make it easier.

  Clark bought a Chinese straw hat, of course, and he got me a purple paper parasol with a fake jade pendant on the handle; he thought I might be getting too much sun, and I couldn’t bring myself to wear a hat when I was around him—overkill.

  Black Jade, the Chinese herb store, had large glass canisters full of candy in front and shelves of cosmetics enhanced with ground pearls. It was hard to get through the narrow, crowded aisles to the section in the back.

  We parted the piece of silk that hung across the door. The room was practically closet sized, filled with statues and large glass jars of dried and gnarled roots. I breathed in sweet incense and acrid herbs. The woman behind the counter scowled at us.

  “Do you need something?”

  “Are you Daiyu?”

  She leaned forward, scrutinizing me. Her hair was spiked with gel, and her nose was pierced. She smelled like the white jasmine flowers that grew over the back wall of our old house, and biting black tea that made your heart beat faster in the morning. A faint silver light was coming off her, and I thought again of my grandmother’s lavender color, my mother’s gray, the green I’d seen when I first met Clark. I hadn’t noticed anything like this for a while and it still made me feel strange, almost like I was in someone else’s body. Finally the woman nodded and we introduced ourselves.

  “I’m trying to reach my grandmother,” I told her.

  “There’s not just a grandmother,” she said, eyeing Clark.

  He and I exchanged looks but didn’t say anything.

  Daiyu nodded. “It’s an angry ghost.”

  Clark was glaring now. “I can’t believe these people,” he muttered. “Bad spirits. Angry ghosts. Good way to make a buck.”

  I elbowed him.

  “This isn’t simple,” she said.

  “Is there something we can do?” I asked her.

  “Not much you can do for a despairing ghost. Devastation and emptiness. You can try Matawhero Magic rose, Iris Gee rose, Arethusa rose. To help combat unwanted entities.”

  I saw Clark out of the corner of my eye, flexing his hands.

  “That’s all?” I asked.

  “You use mugwort. I sell that one. Just don’t eat it or let it touch your skin for too long; it’s toxic.”

  “Like Hogwarts?” Clark said, and I heard the s whistle. “Uh, get it? Harry Potter?”

  Thankfully Daiyu ignored his joke. “You’ll also need Salvia dorrii. Light white candles. Sometimes more is required.” She shrugged. “It’s all about overcoming your fear and grief. Letting go. Nothing really works until then.”

  “What’s Salvia . . . ?” I asked.

  “A less common breed of desert sagebrush.” Daiyu frowned at us—Clark with his straw hat, me with my parasol, like silly tourists, sta
nding there in the smoky room, facing her. It was so dark and cool in the store, hard to imagine that the sun shone hot outside.

  “I’m not sure I’m going to sell it to you, actually.” She ran her hand over the spikes of hair on top of her head. Her arms were thin, but their muscles looked surprisingly strong.

  “Why not?” It suddenly seemed urgent. Devastation and emptiness. I thought of Grant in my dream. Was he the ghost of despair? A dead boy who wanted what he could never have?

  “How do I know you’re serious? Let alone able?”

  “We’re serious,” I promised her, meeting her gaze without flinching, though I wanted to. I wasn’t sure about the able part.

  “We’ll see.” She paused, scrutinizing us some more, looking past—I hoped—the hat and parasol. “You want acupuncture treatments? For free for you both. I can read your energy and decide if I want to sell you the herbs.”

  We exchanged a quick glance. This lady was tough. I wondered (a little contemptuously, I realized) if Clark was afraid of needles.

  “Sure, why not?” I said, and we followed her into an even smaller, darker room, where I sat on a table, and Clark took the chair. Incense burned to ash, and small stone statues on a shelf watched me serenely. Daiyu checked my tongue and pressed two fingers into my wrist to feel my pulse.

  “Have you had a treatment before?”

  I shook my head.

  “Been here before?”

  “Once. To Chinatown.” Suddenly it felt as though salt water was simmering inside me, pinching at my sinuses and tear ducts.

  “You’re thinking of your grandmother, right?”

  I nodded, afraid to open my mouth for fear of sobbing.

  “You miss her?”

  I nodded again. Couldn’t speak.

  “She’s here with you. You just have to keep open to her.”

  “But she won’t come,” I said. “I tried. That’s how all this started.” I waited, tensing my legs so hard that my calves cramped. Maybe Daiyu had the answer.

  But all she said was, “You try too hard. Let go. Relax and allow the energy to shift and open in your body.” She briskly pierced me with the tiny needles, but so quickly and lightly, with such a steady hand, that I hardly flinched; they were less sharp than her eyes.